Severance Package

by Duane Swierczynski

  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.

  AFTER THE MEETING

  The best way to get started is to stop talking and begin doing.

  —WALT DISNEY

  Everyone stood up.

  “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, shootin
g 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.

  Every one of David Murphy’s employees was issued company cell phones, free of charge, to use as they wished. David’s only rule: Keep the phone on from 7:00 A.M. until midnight, just in case he needed to reach you. Agree to that, and you could enjoy unlimited minutes, long distance, you name it. Every one of David’s direct reports—Jamie, Amy, Ethan, Roxanne, Stuart, Molly, Nichole—immediately canceled their private cells and used their company phones exclusively. David had even sprung for models with built-in cameras and texting capability.

  But none of that mattered with the service canceled.

  “Why did he cancel it?”

  “I should have known …,” Molly said, near-wailing. “I saw the signs….”

  “What signs?

  Amy, on the floor with David, said, “Forget it. I’ve still got a pulse, but he needs an ambulance now.”

  “Was he kidding about the elevators, too?”

  Molly wearily said, “No.”

  “I’m going to check anyway.”

  “We should check our offices. Not all of the phones may be turned off.”

  “The stairs.”

  “David said the stairs were rigged with …”

  “What? Sarin?” Nichole said. “Do you really believe that?”

  “He wasn’t joking. He showed me a packet. Told me exactly what it was. I think he was showing off.”

  “He showed you?” Nichole asked. “When? How long have you known about this.”

  Amy said, “We’ve got to find Ethan.”

  Ethan didn’t feel so good.

  Okay, yeah, maybe he had screamed a bit prematurely. But that puff of whatever that’d nailed him … c’mon, you’d be frightened, too. In his imagination, it was a burst of ultra-hot steam from a chipped pipe. The kind of steam so lethally hot, it scalded the flesh from his face before his nerves had a chance to relay the pain. From here on out, he’d be stuck hiding behind masks, or at the very least, ridiculous amounts of theatrical makeup.

  All of that passed through his mind in about two seconds. His fingers explored his face.

  Flesh still there. His eyes, too. His burning eyes.

  Burning, but not about to shrivel up and drop out of their sockets.

  Still, they burned. Worse by the second.

  He needed water.

  He must have been blasted with wet air that had been circulating throughout 1919 Market Street since the place was built—around the time KC and the Sunshine Band were first huge. That air was carrying every germ and virus that had plagued this building’s inhabitants in years since. Ethan had a feeling he’d be sick the rest of the summer.

  Ethan needed the men’s room. Wash out his eyes. His face. His badly burning eyes. Compose himself enough so that when he popped into David’s office, he would be able to say, Screaming? I didn’t hear any screaming, and have it sound believable.

  He pulled on the doorknob. The door wouldn’t open. He tried it again. Nothing. Locked.

  Wait.

  Damn it.

  He could see it, even through his blurry, stinging vision. The cardboard had slipped out.

  Ethan tugged at it, cursed, then kicked the door. His skin around his eyes was really starting to sting now, too.

  “Hey!”

  Kicked it again.

  “Hey! Anybody!”

  He was about to kick again—in fact, his foot was already cocked, ready to deliver the blow, when he heard something

  POP!

  A car backfiring.

  Up here? On the thirty-sixth floor?

  “Hey!”

  This was ridiculous. Everyone was probably already gathered in the conference room. Probably closed the door, too, for the big secret operational announcement. Which he was missing. Locked on the other side of this door. Eyes burning, face itching. More intense than ever. His throat, suddenly raw.

  Nobody was going to hear him yell.

  Especially with his throat closing, all of a sudden.

  Jamie mumbled something about being right back and walked to his office.

  Roxanne gaped at him on the way out, as in: You’re leaving now?

  With our boss, shot in the head, lying on the floor?

  Jamie was trying to think a few steps ahead. Maybe his monthlong paternity leave had given him a different perspective, but right now, his worry wasn’t David Murphy. He was worried about what David had said. Elevators, blocked. Phone lines, cut. The cell phone thing, if Molly was to be believed, was troubling in itself.

  Jamie’s office was the farthest away from David’s, but closest to the conference room. This usually bugged him. Not today. He needed to make it to his office as soon as possible.

  He needed a few seconds to think.

  Jamie had never been a fan of group decisions. Whatever was happening in the conference room, he wasn’t an important part of it. He was the company’s press guy—the guy who wrote the press release in the event of a new hire or the launch of a new financial product. He wasn’t the guy doing the hiring, and he had nothing to do with the financial products. He wasn’t a member of the Clique. He took whatever the managers said and translated it into something the trade press could understand. There weren’t many trade publications that covered his particular industry; Jamie had been shocked at how small the list was when he started a year ago.

  But what had David been saying, right before Molly shot him in the head?

  Front company?

  Intelligence agency?

  I mean … what?

  Jamie sat behind his desk and saw the greeting card tacked to his corkboard. He’d almost forgotten about that.

  Andrea had given it to him the day Chase was born, a month ago. It was a card from Baby Chase to his new daddy. On the front was a cartoon duck—a little boy duck, wearing little boy pants. Fireworks burst behind him. HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY, DADDY the card said on the back. “You’re just lucky he wasn’t born on Arbor Day,” Andrea had joked. But Jamie loved that card to an absurd degree. It was the little duck, in the little boy pants. His little boy. For the first time, it all clicked. He’d brought it to work with him a few days later as he packed up his Rolodex and notes for his paternity leave. Unpaid, but what the hell. How often are firstborn sons born?

  The card was meant to be tacked up temporarily, to put a smile on Jamie’s face as he went through the drudgery of answering last e-mails, setting his voice mail vacation message, gathering up manila folders full of junk he knew he wouldn’t actually touch for at least a month. But in the hurry to leave, the card was forgotten. Jamie wanted to kick himself, but it wasn’t worth showing his face in the office just to recover the card. He’d
be sucked back into the vortex too quickly—one more press release, c’mon, just one more …

  Jamie put his fingers to the greeting card. Smoothed the imaginary feathers on the head of the little boy duck. Then he tucked it in his back pocket.

  He desperately needed to call Andrea, tell her what was going on, and somehow convince her that she didn’t need to worry.

  But his office phone, like the one in the conference room, was dead. Jamie looked out his office window, which faced east. If he craned his neck, he could almost see the corner of his block, off in the distance beyond Spring Garden Street. Just two houses down from the corner were Andrea and his baby boy.

  Whatever had happened this morning, Jamie knew it would be many, many hours before he would see his wife and son again. The police interrogations alone would probably keep him here—or down at the Roundhouse—until late tonight.

  He just wished the police could be called, so they could arrive, so that they could get it all over with already.

  Look at me, he thought. The new daddy. Gone for barely an hour, and already nervous as hell.

  Nervous daddy.

  Wait a minute.

  Jamie saw his soft leather briefcase on the desk. Was it still in there?

  It would make all the difference.

  The remaining employees split up. If they had any chance of calling an ambulance—for Stuart or David or both, even though Stuart’s chances of making it through this without brain damage were next to nil—they were going to have to find their way to another floor. That much was clear.

  Nichole announced that they’d be checking the elevators, and it took Roxanne a second to realize that they meant her, too. Jamie had already slipped out of the conference room to find a phone or sit behind his desk and cry or something. Ethan was still AWOL. Molly left a second later, most likely to the bathroom to puke. Amy couldn’t blame her. She had only watched her boss take a bullet to the head, and she felt queasy.

  Of course, that left Amy to lock the doors to the conference room, leaving the guns where they were. Let the police sort it out.

  It also left her to check the fire escape doors. You know, the ones allegedly rigged with a chemical nerve agent.