THE EXECUTIVES

At exactly that moment, in the cabin of a Lear Jet, thousands of miles away from their school, events were happening that would change all of their lives.

Actually, it may not have been at the exact same moment, what with international time zones and everything, but it sounds better that way.

Mr Bingham Elderoy Statham the Third – although he never used the ‘Third’ except on official stationery, because he thought it made him sound like a fraction – was quite comfortably seated in the soft leather lounge chair in the pleasantly appointed cabin of the jet.

It was a company jet. The company that he worked for – and had a substantial share-holding in – was one of the largest companies in the world, so it could afford a company jet, or two, or three. In fact it had a small fleet. The company that Bingham (Bing to his friends) Statham worked for had branches in almost every country of the world. It only sold a few products, but its flagship product was as American as Mickey Mouse or the Statue of Liberty.

Bingham Statham worked for The Coca-Cola Company, and he was quite worried that afternoon (it was afternoon where he was in the world, which happened to be Los Angeles) about two separate things. The first thing was that his ferret had died. He had two pet ferrets, named Olivia and Candy, after his first two wives (which annoyed Margie, his third wife, to distraction). Only now Candy had died, of unknown causes, and he was worried about Olivia. Worried that she might contract the same illness, and worried that she would be pining for her friend. Ferrets are very social creatures, and he felt she would miss Candy terribly.

The second reason he was worried was that the jet seemed to be flying in the wrong direction. Candy – the second wife, not the ferret – always said he had a good sense of direction. But that sense of direction said he was going the wrong way.

He was supposed to be flying to New Jersey for an important meeting with Maxim Portugale of Stepan Co., the people who imported the specially treated coca leaves that were used to produce the secret Coca-Cola formula.

Ralph Alderney Winkler (the First) was flying to the same meeting.

Both he and Bingham were flying from LA, where they had been at a conference of Important American Business Leaders (IABL), at roughly the same time, and there were three spare lounge chairs, plus a small soft sofa, on the Lear Jet. Yet Ralph Alderney Winkler was not flying with Bingham. He was on a commercial flight. First class of course, but still a step down for Mr Winkler, who was accustomed to only the utmost luxury at all times. A bit like Olivia (the wife not the ferret).

The reason was that Bingham and Ralph were two of only three people in the world who knew the secret formula to the world’s most popular soft drink: Coca-Cola. There was a scientist living in Okinawa off the coast of Japan who claimed he’d worked it out, but The Coca-Cola Company denied this, and the scientist had no way of proving his formula was correct.

The Coca-Cola Company has its own laws, commandments you could call them, and one of them is this: the three people who know the recipe at any one time are never allowed to travel together, whether it is by limousine, boat, helicopter, fast camel or Lear Jet. The reason is obvious. If some terrible accident occurred and all three were lost, then the secret formula of Coca-Cola, and countless millions of dollars of company profits, would be lost with them.

There was another Lear Jet that was supposed to have taken Ralph Winkler, but a fault had developed with one of its engines, so it had to go for a maintenance check and was unavailable for the flight.

Which was why Ralph Alderney Winkler was sitting in a first class seat, on a Boeing 727, probably no more than a few kilometres from Bingham Statham in his soft leather lounge chair in the cabin of the Lear.

The third person with knowledge of the recipe was Ms Clara Fogsworth, an elderly spinsterish lady with gold-rimmed glasses and a heart to match, who was currently fly-fishing in the Bahamas.

Spinsterish she may have been, but a spinster she was not. She had buried one husband and still led a very active and exciting life despite her advancing years.

But back to Bingham, Bing, we should call him because we know him so well by now that we are almost friends.

He alternated worrying about Olivia, the surviving ferret, with worrying about why the plane was heading sou’west, instead of sou’east.

The pilot had been in to see him before take-off, as was considered polite, and he seemed a nice enough young man. Not one of the pilots that Bing recognised, but then there were a lot of them, and they changed quite regularly, so he didn’t know all of them by sight, not by any means.

After a while, though, the worry about the plane started to take over from the worry about the ferret, and he unbuckled his seat belt and wandered carefully forward to the closed cockpit door. It was locked, which was a little unusual, so he knocked.

There was no answer, so he rapped a little louder. Still no response. So he called out, ‘Hello. Excuse me, pilot.’

Still nothing. As he made his way back to his seat, the thought slowly crossed his mind that maybe he had been kidnapped.

Ms Clara Fogsworth knew she had been kidnapped. There was no doubt in her mind. Either that or she was on her way to a very unusual surprise birthday party. However, it wasn’t her birthday, and, even if it was, she doubted she would have been roughed up to the degree that she had been by the two thugs who had greeted her as she walked off the boat.

‘Roughed up’ is a relative term, which means different things to different people.

To Clara Fogsworth, the stern hand on her upper arm that had steered her firmly, but courteously, towards a waiting black van, had been the roughest treatment she had experienced in her life. Unforgivable, she thought. How could they?

How could he?!! she thought, with a double exclamation mark.

He being Mr Joseph Sturdee, a handsome, athletic man she had been dating for about three months. He was young too, only fifty-five, with the most devilish grin which made her go quite weak at the knees. Of his involvement in the kidnapping she had no doubt: he had led her straight into the hands, the rough hands, of the thugs.

That raised the horrible possibility of the whole three-month long romance being nothing but a set up. Ms Clara Fogsworth didn’t like to think about that too much though, because the whole affair had been quite a boost to her ego. He was, after all, a tall, handsome and younger man.

But, nevertheless, here she was, with her hands now tied in front of her with one of those dreadful, cheap plastic ties they use to tie up plants, sitting in the back of a black van with no windows, speeding to some unknown place somewhere in the Bahamas.

Rough treatment indeed!

In New Jersey, not all that much later, Ralph Winkler eased himself into the back of a long, black limousine. Not as comfortable as usual he thought, looking with disdain at the plain cloth upholstery. After having to endure first class service on the flight from LA, he really felt he should at least have had suede or leather seating in the limousine.

‘You’re from Stepan Co.?’ he asked the large man who squeezed in beside him, intending to complain.

The man nodded, but he can’t have been, or he wouldn’t have pulled that canvas bag down over Ralph Alderney Winkler’s head.