Mr Wong Goes West (30 page)

J Oscar Jackson Jnr, charity foundation investigator, private envoy, spy and jailer, had taken his two prisoners into the main conference room, where they sat handcuffed to Herman Miller Aeron chairs. Manks and Drexler were being questioned in case they could add to the store of knowledge about the sabotage to the plane. Several other people had demanded to be allowed into the room, including McQuinnie, Sinha, Armstrong-Phillips and several staff members from Skyparc Airside Enterprises. Perhaps because of his size and generally authoritative demeanour, Jackson found himself in the situation of chief interrogator.

‘Mr Manks, what do you know about the situation on this plane?’

The public relations man was beside himself with anger. ‘Nothing. Nothing. How could I have anything to do with this? It’s ridiculous. I wouldn’t plant bombs on a plane and then get on the plane, would I? It would be suicide—literally. This is nothing to do with me.’

‘Mr Drexler?’

‘Same. Look, just think about it. You can accuse us of all sorts of things, but you cannot accuse us of being raving idiots. Which is what we would have to be if we put bombs in the aircraft and then climbed on board, knowing that the blasted things would go off halfway through our flight. Be reasonable.’

‘Why should we believe a word you say? You have lied and cheated and you were extremely cavalier with the lives of Mr Wong and Ms McQuinnie. They might have died had not Mr Armstrong-Phillips had the presence of mind to follow you and release them.’

‘Call us what you like,’ Manks said, ‘but we know nothing about the bombs, okay? We have no connection to the Earth Agents in any way—they’re our sworn enemies, if anything. Can’t you see that? I’ve spent years trying to wipe them out. This may be their revenge against me. Let me go—Her Majesty would not be happy at the way I am being treated.’

Jackson’s fists turned white as he squeezed them but he resisted the temptation to use them on the spluttering man.

‘We’re all going to die, aren’t we?’ It was a young woman’s voice. Everyone turned to see who had spoken. Kaitlyn MacKenzie was standing at the back of the room, her eyes filled with tears. ‘Why don’t you untie these guys? They may have done something bad, but it’s all meaningless now, isn’t it? What does it matter if people have done good things or bad things? What does anything matter? We’re all going to die together.’

Jackson said, ‘Ms MacKenzie, we are talking to these men in the hope of getting information that may help us save this aircraft and our lives.’

‘Manks is right—you’re behaving like an idiot. I’ve been in the aviation industry for years, too, you know. We’re going to die and we’d better face up to it. The sooner the better.’

‘She’s right. Let’s untie these men. If this is the end, we might as well all end our lives like civilised human beings,’ said Army.

Janet Moore, who was standing in the doorway, nodded. ‘The best thing to do is to confess our sins and pray for forgiveness. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”’

Silence flooded into the room. The grim understanding that death was imminent had been under the surface for some minutes; now it had been brought up, a hard, black diamond of horror, dazzling everyone, and making arguments superfluous.

The silence was broken by Drexler: ‘Can’t they ditch the plane in the sea?’

‘We could,’ said Sir Nicholas Handey. ‘If there was one around here. But there isn’t. We’re almost three thousand kilometres from the Pacific Ocean, and probably the same distance from the Mediterranean. Even the smaller seas, like the Caspian, are a long way away. The pilots are yet to identify one near us.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Jesus is right,’ said Jackson.

Manks started shaking. ‘If…if…if this plane is going to crash, you have to untie us, like the girl says. We’d have no chance of surviving if we’re handcuffed inside an aircraft burning on the ground or sinking into a lake. Come on. Please. Show an ounce of humanity for God’s sake. Let us die like men.’

Jackson stood up and walked over to the prisoners. ‘Maybe Ms MacKenzie is right. At least if we untie you, you can put your hands together and pray. That’s the only thing that’s going to help us now.’

While he unlocked the shackles, several of the people in the room burst into tears.

‘We should all confess our sins,’ advised Ms Moore. ‘Is there a priest on board?’

‘On an inaugural flight?’ Army said. ‘This is strictly business, ma’am. Well-connected rich people only.’

‘And it would take way more time than we got,’ Jackson said.

Manks rubbed his wrists. ‘I don’t know how we got into this situation,’ he said. ‘The only thing I have ever done is try to make the world a better place.’

Jackson gave a bitter laugh. ‘By cosying up to the royal family and using your connections to secretly do dirty work for the oil giants for big bucks? That is making the world a better place?’

‘I know it’s fashionable to sneer at the energy companies. But we all use electricity, we all use fossil fuel. I’m doing more to make the world a better place than all your do-goody activists put together.’

Joyce was outraged at this statement. ‘Excuse me! We don’t all go out of our way to make money at the expense of the world’s environment.’

Sinha raised his hand. ‘I wonder if I may ask a question or two? If we really do only have a few minutes left before we go to meet our maker, I’m curious to know the answers to a few questions: such as who placed bombs on this plane and who is ultimately responsible for our deaths? Although whether that question needs one answer or two answers, I can’t say.’

‘I reckon BM Dutch Petroleum is responsible for our deaths,’ said Joyce. ‘All that fake stuff about green fuels and so on—no wonder it made the activist groups furious. It’s no wonder the crazy people at Earth Agents decided to blow up the plane.’

‘That’s a fair argument,’ said Jackson. ‘The production of this plane and its accompanying fuel did raise the ante on the whole debate about fossil fuels and depletion of carbon. It made it a focus for the arguments.’

Sir Nicholas Handey raised a long, elegant finger. ‘If I may just defend my little project, here? We do, very genuinely, see this plane as an improvement on previous aircraft when it
comes to the effect on the environment. There are numerous environmental improvements on this plane—we have a whole booklet just on that topic.’

Army raised his hand. ‘Yeah, Sir Nicholas, I read that booklet. It’s all very nice, but it’s rearranging the deckchairs on the
Titanic
, isn’t it? So this plane is not quite as bad in destroying the environment compared to rival planes. So what? On the big scale of things, there’s hardly any difference. It farts out one smidgen less pollution than the previous ones—big deal.’

‘But that’s how change happens, Mr Armstong-Phillips. In incremental stages. We haven’t yet developed a plane that does no harm whatsoever to the environment, but if we do, this plane will be seen as having taken a major step in that direction.’

Several people started to speak at once, but Jackson raised his arm and bellowed: ‘Enough.’ The room became silent again. The big American let his gaze travel from face to face. ‘Somehow, I don’t feel that a debate on carbon emissions is the best way to spend our last minutes. I’m going to go away and write a letter. I suggest other people may wish to do the same.’

Several people nodded and picked up the note pads.

‘I’m going to write to my mother,’ said Army.

‘Of course, we don’t know if our letters will survive or not. If anyone in this room survives this, please tell anyone who asks that J Oscar Jackson Jnr spent his last minutes thinking about two little girls—Martha and Marianne.’

This unexpectedly personal note from Jackson caused the weepers in the room to start wailing.

Robbie Manks pointed an angry finger at Jackson. ‘Before this meeting ends, one thing I would like to say is that I am
not responsible for our deaths in any way. I have spent my life fighting against lunatic activists and I have not had the help and support I have deserved. I am a man of principle and honour and decency. The reason we are going to die is that some lunatic activists have bombed this plane. If people had helped me fight these people, get them locked up, instead of placing stumbling blocks in my path, we’d have rid the world of extremist greenies years ago.’

Kaitlyn MacKenzie pointed her finger at him in return. ‘Shut up, Robbie. You disgust me. How can you talk about having principles and being honourable? What a load of crap. You hired me to seduce Paul Barker and get him onto the plane on Wednesday. So you could frame him for a murder. You used hard cash and a promise of a fancy job in London to get me to do your bidding. You used me to frame a guy who really does devote himself to trying to stop the suits flushing the world down the toilet. Decency, my arse. And talking of my arse, you can’t keep your bloody hands off it, which totally disgusts me.’

This outburst left Manks speechless with fury. ‘That is pure slander,’ he said. ‘You cannot prove a word of it.’

‘Sue me.’

‘I am not responsible for the bombs on this plane, in any way, shape or form,’ growled Manks.

Joyce said: ‘How about you telling us what you are responsible for, creep?’

Manks breathed slowly and deeply, like a wounded bull. ‘You will no doubt see me as being responsible for the death of Mr Seferis, but the fact is, he was a turncoat. He was responsible for his own death. The energy firms had given him huge responsibility and he had become a traitor to the cause. He allied himself with the sort of people who want to
stop common, decent people from having electricity for their schools and hospitals, fuel for their ambulances, power for their kindergartens, for their maternity wards. I’m proud to be a member of Darkheart. We were set up to combat turncoats like Seferis and terrorists like the Earth Agents. People who have put bombs on this plane and are directly responsible for our deaths.’

Jackson sat on the table. ‘So tell us, Manks, how did you kill Seferis? Was Mr Wong’s theory right?’

‘I’m not owning up to anything,’ he responded. Then he sighed, and his eyes dropped. ‘When the leaders of Darkheart wanted “something done” about Seferis, I argued against having him, er, taken out completely. I suggested he just be sacked, so that he could run off and join the sickly do-gooders, where he belonged. But I was overruled by others. They wanted a, er, cleaner solution. They wanted to kill two birds with one stone—him and Pals of the Planet.’

Joyce said angrily: ‘So you framed Paul Barker.’

The public relations man gave her a cold smile. ‘It was not my idea.’

‘Whose was it?’

‘I’m not saying.’

Kaitlyn MacKenzie rose to her feet. ‘If these are the last minutes of our lives, I’m not going to spend them talking. There are much better things I can think of doing.’

She turned and pointed to Max. ‘You,’ she snapped. ‘Come with me. See the rest of you later. Or not, as the case may be.’

The sultry, black-suited young man looked shellshocked, but he obediently rose and followed her. Many of the men in the room watched Kaitlyn’s tight hips as she strode powerfully out of the room, the young man following child-like in her wake.

Joyce turned to Army and spoke quietly. ‘You know, for once, I think Kaitlyn has the right idea. Come on.’ She grabbed his hand.

Army Armstrong-Phillips turned a bright shade of crimson as Joyce dragged him out of the conference room.

Jackson sighed. ‘What it is to be young and carefree,’ he said.

‘Who needs to be young?’ said Ms Moore, giving him a strange, leering smile.

‘I gotta go see the pilots,’ Jackson said hurriedly. ‘See where we’re up to. They may need my help.’

Oscar Jackson found a quiet space in the front lounge and starting writing on a page in his notebook. He wanted to leave a letter for his children, who lived in New York with his estranged wife.

‘Dear Martha and Marianne,’ he wrote. ‘This is just a little note to say that your Daddy loves you. Perhaps you two will be the only thing that I have successfully achieved in my life. If that’s so, that’s fine: it will all have been worth it.

‘Your Daddy has learned that the purpose of a person’s life is to learn what it is to love someone, and learn what it is to be loved in return. You helped me learn those things, so I’m thankful to you. I love you both as much as a person can love another person. There’s no greater achievement a person can hope to achieve than that. Maybe you won’t really understand this letter until you are much older, but that doesn’t matter either. I just wrote it to say thank you. And to say I love you. And to say remember me, just occasionally, as you grow up and
learn about love and life. That’s all I ask. Your loving Daddy. PS. Look after your mom. She’s a great lady.’

He looked at the letter and wondered what to add to it. But he found his vision becoming blurry. Once he’d blinked his eyes clear enough to re-read what he had written, he realised that there wasn’t anything else to add.