Severance Package (5 page)

“David, stop this,” Amy said. “This isn’t funny at all.”

“I tried it myself a few nights ago. A very
micro
dose. It’s totally relaxing. I’ve never had a better night’s sleep.”

Stuart was still trying to play the good soldier. “You want us to have a drink with you, boss? We’ll drink with you.”

David ignored him. “If you choose not to have a drink, then I’ll be forced to shoot you in the head. I cannot guarantee that this second method will be pain-free. You may require a second bullet. It may be worse if you all decide to do something foolish like rush me. Make no mistake. If you do, all of you will be shot. My marksmanship is excellent. Any of you familiar with my operational background will know this to be true.”

Part of Jamie wanted to believe this was a charade, or a movie, or a bad dream, but all his senses relayed the truth:
This was real.
He also had the feeling that he was really the only one taking David seriously. Everyone else at the table looked like they were still waiting for the punch line, the moral. But Jamie realized: His boss wasn’t telling a joke or a parable. He was offering them a choice.

Drink poison champagne and die.

Or get shot in the head.

Jamie believed it as much as he believed he was sitting in that conference room chair. As much as he believed that outside the sweeping conference room windows, Philadelphia stewed in the humid air of early morning.

“You’re insane,” Jamie said.

David looked at him with pity. “I didn’t want to invite you in this morning, Jamie. Swear to God I didn’t. You’re our press guy. I even said to them, Why the press guy? You’re too good a press guy. You approached your job with zeal. But alas, you looked at some things you shouldn’t have seen.”

“What are you talking about? What things?”

“Your wife and newborn son will believe you died in an office fire,” David said. “They will be taken care of.”

“David,
please,”
Amy said. “What are you doing? Does anybody else know you’re doing this?”

“Yeah this is
so
not funny.”

“I’m going to find Ethan.”

The shuffling of chairs.

The nervous exhalation of air.

“I’m going with you.”

“SIT.”

David, commanding.

It worked.

Everyone froze.

“I’ve given you all a dignified way out,” he said. “I suggest you take it.”

No one said anything until Stuart, looking around with a goofy smile on his face, stood up.

“You got it, boss.”

Stuart knew what this was.

At a previous job—a few years before he was recruited to work here—the HR department decided it was worth the money to send some of the sales associates on an Outward Bound trip. Three days in the woods, learning to tie knots and trust each other.

The penultimate activity: backwards free fall. Go ahead, let yourself tilt back. Free yourself from doubt and worry. Your coworkers will catch you.

Stuart did it, but as he was falling, all he could think about were the times at the Applebee’s, when he would try to make conversational inroads, but everyone would look at him like he had a gushing head wound and they didn’t want to get blood on their suits. But he allowed himself to drop backwards anyway, allowed himself to trust.

As the Outward Bound leader—a gruff guy who looked like Oliver Stone—had promised, his coworkers had indeed caught
him. When he looked up, Stuart saw that nobody was looking down at him, the human being in their hands. Still, no matter; they had caught him. Stuart received a certificate and a small pin, and he noted the achievement on his résumé.

So that’s what this was. David’s weird version of a trust game. The gun was a prop—probably a flare gun. Maybe even one of those lighters you find at Spencer’s. The talk about elevators and windows was meant to simulate something … like a hostile environment, just like they’d encountered in Outward Bound. There’s no way out. You have nothing but trust. Trust in your coworkers. Trust in your boss.

This was a front company for the government, but it was still a company, and the more Stuart thought about it, the more he knew it was a test of trust. To see who was executive material and who wasn’t.

Stuart took the bottle of champagne and poured three fingers’ full into a clear plastic wineglass.

“Stu,” Jamie said. “Wait.”

Stuart waved his hand, as if he were batting away a fly. Jamie was just jealous he hadn’t taken the initiative.

“Very wise move, Stuart,” David said.

Stuart splashed in some of the Tropicana, and he couldn’t help himself. He was beaming. Passing the trust test. There was nothing to stir the champagne and orange juice—were you even supposed to stir mimosas? Whatever. Didn’t matter. Not for the purposes of the trust test.

“Cheers,” Stuart said, raising the cup in a mock toast.

“Thank you for your service,” David said, which gave Stuart the slightest bit of pause. What did that mean?

Jamie stood up now. “Stu,
no.
Don’t do it.”

Bite it, DeBroux.

Stuart sipped his mimosa, then looked at David.

But David didn’t say anything. Just stared at him. So did everyone else. Even Jamie, who sat back down.

And the weirdest thing was, Stuart felt like he was having an Outward Bound flashback. He had the overwhelming urge to drift backwards, in the hands of his coworkers. But this time, they’d all be looking at him admiringly. Because he’d won the Trust Game. None of them could say that. Could they?

Was he still holding the plastic wineglass? Stuart didn’t know.

He couldn’t feel his fingers.

Or his legs, as they gave out from under him.

Everyone watched Stuart collapse. The hand holding his plastic cup of mimosa hit the side of the conference table. The drink splashed everywhere. Roxanne, who had been sitting next to Stuart, hopped her chair to the side reflexively.

“Oh God.”

“Stuart,”
Amy said. “C’mon, Stuart. This isn’t funny!”

“One recommendation,” David said, holding up a bony finger. “Try to remain seated when you drink this stuff. You might even want to position yourself on the floor, leaning against a wall, so that you can fall asleep without hurting yourself.”

“Stuart?”

“Not that I think Stuart felt anything. The first thing the poison shuts down is your brain.”

Amy ran around the side of the table and knelt next to Stuart, whose eyes were still open. She pressed a finger to his carotid artery. Looked up at Roxanne.

“Double-check me. Feel his neck.”

“No. No way.”

Searching around Stuart’s neck, madly, looking for something that resembled a pulse. You can’t fake that. You can’t just stop your heartbeat voluntarily.

“Stuart!”

David shook his head. “He’s gone, Amy.”

Amy looked up over the table at her boss.

“Stuart chose the smart way out. I hope that the rest of you follow suit. We can drink together, if you like.”

Jamie said, “Oh, you’re going to kill yourself, too?”

“Yes, Jamie. They want us all gone.” David turned to his assistant. “Molly, will you do the honors?”

Molly, who had been silent for the duration of the meeting—including Stuart’s suicide toast—raised her head.

Then she reached into a white cardboard box and pulled out another gun. It looked smaller.

“Hey,” said David. “I meant mixing the drinks. Like we discussed?”

She aimed the gun at David.

He squinted. “Is that a Neo?” he asked.

Molly screamed—a howling geyser of rage that seemed like it had been building up under a mountain of composure.

“Hey, wait a second …
Molly!”

Then she squeezed the trigger.

BLAM!

Part of David’s scalp flipped up from his head, like a piece of toupee caught in a breeze.

David saw an explosion in front of his eyes, then a cold,
cold
sensation on the right side of his head.

As he was thrown backwards, someone pressed
PAUSE.

He could see the faces of his employees, frozen in perfect detail. Many of them were slack-jawed in surprise. The others seemed not to be processing it yet.

Then again, neither was he.

Molly.

They’d gone over this. A
lot.
Offer the mimosas. The easy way out. Not that he thought many people would go for it, but hey, you never know. Then if things got ugly, leave the shooting to David. Bow your head and pray for God’s blessings. Molly was religious. In every e-mail, she put “God bless” or “God willing” or “Faith in Jesus” before her name. Hearty Midwestern stock—made her perfect for this kind of work. Perfect for following instructions.

Except for this one little time.

My God.

Molly had just shot him in the head.

Molly!

David knew she wasn’t supposed to live through this. But
she
didn’t know that. He’d promised her a way out. New identity. New life. How had she found out the truth?

Granted, he didn’t have the nicest things in the world planned for her. First a shot to the leg that would drop her to the ground. Then, press the gun to her head, tell her to take off her shirt and bra if she wants to live. Check out her tits, kill her anyway.

How had she found out the truth?

David’s body hit the conference room floor.

“H-H-He was going to kill us all,” Molly said, her voice trembling.

Her hand, weighed down with the gun, dropped to the surface of the table with a hard thud. The barrel pointed at the space where David had been sitting. Smoke curled around it. Then, quieter now:

“He was going to kill us all.”

“I know, Molly. Give me the gun, sweetie.”

This was Amy Felton. Face compassionate yet determined.

In.

Control.

“The gun, Molly.”

Molly nodded but didn’t move.

“I had no choice. He told me he was going to kill Paul if I didn’t do what he wanted.”

Paul Lewis. Her husband.

“Sweetie,” Amy said, her expression softening. “I understand. I’m going to take the gun, okay?”

Amy was able to take the gun. Molly folded her arms on top of the table, then buried her face in them.

“Did somebody check David? Is he dead?”

“Oh, Molly, what did you do?”

“Shut up. Here, take this.”

Jamie looked down. Amy was handing him the murder weapon.

“I don’t want that.”

“I need to check David. Hold this.”

It all felt like another 9/11. The shock of it. Molly, shooting David. Amy, trying to hand him the gun she used. David, on the floor, bleeding out of a hole in his head.

The sense that nothing would be the same again. He wouldn’t be reporting to work on Monday. None of them would. Instantly, he thought of Chase.

“Jamie.”

Jamie took the gun—still warm—and watched Amy trot over to David. The blue-gray carpet around his head was soaked deep purple with blood. David’s lips were trembling.

“I think he’s still alive,” Amy said. “God, I don’t know.”

“Somebody call nine-one-one.”

Nichole made a beeline for the phone in the conference room. Grabbed the receiver. Put it to her ear. There was a confused look on her face. Her index finger stabbed at the hook switch.

“There’s no dial tone.”

“He wasn’t kidding about lockdown, was he?”

“What?”

“My cell’s in my bag,” Nichole said.

Roxanne said, “Mine’s here.” She was already dialing. “Wait …” She looked at the display more carefully. “No service?”

“David had it suspended as of eight thirty this morning,” Molly said, her face still buried in her hands.

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“It’s lockdown, remember?”

Which is why my cell wouldn’t work this morning, Jamie thought.