Anastasia Borkin bustled into the meeting late, leaving the featureless security guard to close the door behind her.
That, in itself, was cause for some consternation among the other Vice-Presidents, as Borkin had never been late for a meeting before, or, in fact, for anything else in her life.
The lateness was deliberate, however, and she allowed herself the tiniest of smiles as she settled in her plush, leather, executive-quality boardroom chair. She had waited in a cubicle in the ladies toilets until five minutes after the meeting had started. The unexpected lateness, she knew, would add credibility to what she was going to say, and credibility was going to be paramount. If the targets of her charade believed her, she would have them hooked. If they suspected she was lying, they’d shut down everything, and she might never find out who they were.
Worse, if they panicked, then their accomplices, who were holding the three missing executives, might also panic, and clean up all loose ends. Which would include Clara Fogsworth, Bingham Statham, and Ralph Winkler. Assuming, that was, they were still alive in the first place. They had to be alive, she reassured herself. Anything else was unthinkable!
So, it was a risk she was taking, but a calculated one.
Keelan had stopped talking when she walked in. He had been in the middle of a sentence but paused, waiting for her to sit.
She didn’t let him finish.
‘We have the recipe, the original recipe!’ she exclaimed, her eyes rapidly scanning the reactions of those around the table. Surprise, uncertainty, hope. All understandable. No obvious shock, or panic. If the spy was at this table, as she believed, then he or she was a very good actor.
‘How?’ ‘Where?’ ‘Who?’ The questions came from all directions.
‘A copy was kept, illegally of course, during the New Coke episode of the eighties, by an employee who thought that it would become a collector’s item one day, never dreaming that we would switch back to the old recipe within a few months.’ It sounded so plausible that Borkin almost believed it herself. She continued. ‘I have guaranteed him immunity from any legal action, and he has agreed to send the recipe by immediate FedEx. It should be here this afternoon.’
That caused a commotion and it was a few minutes before she was able to answer Ricardo’s first question.
‘Why FedEx it? Why not fax it through?’
Borkin had thought of that. ‘It’s scribbled on the side of a cardboard box, an old Coke carton. It can’t be faxed. Maybe he could have transcribed it, but I was afraid he could make an error, so I asked him to send the original.’
‘Are you sure it’s the correct recipe?’ Keelan asked.
Actually she knew it was not. It was 733-23-A with a few changes in case anyone recognised it. She had copied it on to the box herself, then spent an hour rubbing the box on the carpet, standing on it, doing all she could to age it, before posting it to an old school friend in Ontario.
‘Yes, I’m sure. The employee is adamant about it.’
‘Who is it?’
‘I can’t reveal that. It’s part of the agreement.’
Reginald said, ‘I can’t believe you entrusted this to FedEx! Do you have any idea how important this is? Why not send one of our people?’
‘It’s coming from Waterloo, Ontario,’ Borkin said. ‘We don’t have anyone there. FedEx will be fast and safe, and in any case, it’s already on its way.’
Still no panic or guilty reactions from anyone. Was she right? Why was she so sure it was one of the Vice-Presidents? At least ten other people in the company, technicians mainly, must have known the results of the taste tests.
Reginald nodded. ‘All right. Let me know when it arrives. I want our top people to review it immediately and give an opinion on its authenticity.
‘Absolutely,’ Borkin said.
The airport terminal was bigger than they expected. Sydney seemed on a different scale altogether to LAX, which they had flown into and out of, on their way to Atlanta. Tupai said it was because LAX was made up of several smaller terminals, whereas Sydney was just a single big building.
Fizzer had no idea whether Tupai was telling the truth or talking through a hole in his head. But it seemed plausible. Surely LA would have a bigger International Airport than Sydney?
Sharron had said goodbye and, in her most professional manner, had offered to shake Tupai’s hand as they had disembarked. He’d taken her hand, but then, on impulse, those big arms had reached out and hugged her. Fizzer did the same, and he thought he’d seen a tear in her eye as they’d walked up the airbridge.
They were the first ones out and through Passport Control in record time. That turned out to be good luck in more ways than one because if they’d arrived at Baggage Claim just five minutes later they would never have run into Dennis.
‘Fizzer! Tupai!’ he called from across the other side of the luggage conveyor, startling an elderly Japanese couple.
‘Sensei!’
That drew an intrigued look from the couple.
After some vigorous hand shaking, Dennis asked, ‘Something’s wrong. Are you two in trouble?’
Fizzer looked at Tupai, who nodded, before launching into an explanation of the disaster that had occurred and the clue they’d found on board the plane.
Dennis was a good head taller than Fizzer and another half taller than Tupai. He looked down at them and said, ‘What can I do to help?’
The boys didn’t take much persuading, and neither did the airline, which happily delayed his return flight to New Zealand.
Harry Truman made some carefully worded phone calls to a couple of people he felt he could trust beyond question. First he’d had to kick his sons off the Internet, where they’d been in a heavy-metal chat room, so that he could use the telephone.
Then he logged on to the Internet himself, and transferred a substantial amount of money to a friend of his in Sydney. He transferred it from his own personal account, as he had no access to company accounts and, anyway, would need two signatures on a form, which could not happen until the next business day, and which might raise some eyebrows he didn’t want raised.
If all went well, he thought, he’d put an extraordinary expenses claim in to Huia in accounts. She’d bite his head off, but that was just one of the risks you took. If it all went bad, then he’d write off the money as ‘the least he could do to help.’ His sons waited impatiently for him to finish so they could resume their argument with someone in Finland over whether Metallica or Iron Maiden was the greatest heavy metal band of all time. Harry sighed as he logged off. It was the least he could do to help.
One of the people he had rung worked for Coca-Cola Amatil in Australia. He felt she could be trusted completely. The other was Mohammad Sarrafzadeh, an acquaintance of his, also in Sydney, who had nothing to do with The Coca-Cola Company, or the soft drink business in general. Mohammad’s occupation was listed on his driver’s licence as ‘Research Consultant’, which didn’t really describe very well the work he did investigating fraud in large corporations.
Harry had thought very carefully about who he could ring, who he could trust. Fizzer had made it quite clear that if the wrong people learned what they were doing, they’d have to stop looking for three missing persons and start looking for three graves.