Chapter 9 - THE SETUP
I listened to the recording three times.
Then I asked the question nobody wanted to answer.
“Was Parker told to target me?”
Evelyn shook her head.
“Not explicitly.”
Tessa looked angry.
“Come on.”
“We have to be precise.”
She pointed at the computer.
“‘Give him a problem big enough that he never looks behind you.’ What do you call that?”
“A strong indication.”
“Sounds like an order to me.”
“It may be. But an investigator will decide.”
I appreciated Evelyn for that.
Facts mattered most when you were furious.
Especially then.
We listened to more recordings.
Martin told Parker my flight number.
My seat.
My departure time.
But nowhere did he tell Parker that I was the controlling shareholder.
That part had been withheld deliberately.
Parker had been sent toward me like a match toward gasoline.
But something still bothered me.
“What did Martin expect Parker to do?”
Denise answered.
“Be Parker.”
She looked ashamed saying it.
“He didn’t have to tell Steven to discriminate against you. He just had to put you in front of him.”
That was ugly.
And believable.
Martin knew Parker’s habits.
He knew my anonymous trip was designed to expose operational problems.
So he offered me an obvious one.
A captain behaving badly.
If I discovered Parker, I might fire Parker.
The board would call it accountability.
The media would call it reform.
And nobody would ask why employees had been warning management about him for years.
Parker was the scandal.
And the shield.
My phone rang.
This time it was Rachel Bennett.
The passenger who had filmed everything.
“Mr. Reed?”
“Yes.”
“I think someone from your company just tried to buy my video.”
I stood.
“What?”
“A guy called me.”
“Name?”
“He said Nathan Cole.”
Evelyn started typing.
“No executive by that name,” she whispered.
Rachel continued.
“He offered me fifty thousand dollars for exclusive ownership of the recording.”
“What did you say?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Then he offered a hundred.”
“Did you give him anything?”
“No.”
“Rachel, save the number and every message.”
“I already did.”
“Do not meet anyone.”
“I’m not stupid.”
“I know.”
She paused.
“Mr. Reed?”
“Yes?”
“I posted the full video.”
“How full?”
“Everything. From the moment Parker came out of the cockpit until they removed him.”
I closed my eyes.
“When?”
“Five minutes ago.”
Tessa checked her phone.
“Oh, wow.”
The video was spreading faster than anything before it.
But the part getting the most attention wasn’t Parker learning who I was.
It was Denise.
Her refusing to leave the aircraft.
People were calling her brave.
A hero.
Denise looked horrified.
“I’m not a hero.”
Tessa looked at her.
“You finally did what you wished you’d done eleven months ago.”
Denise swallowed hard.
“That doesn’t fix what happened to you.”
“No.”
Tessa took her hand.
“But it matters.”
For the first time that day, something in the room felt human instead of corporate.
Then Evelyn’s phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
And stood.
“What?”
She covered the microphone.
“That fake buyer who called Rachel?”
“Yes.”
“Security traced the number.”
“To who?”
She looked straight at me.
May you like
“The phone belongs to Andrew Mercer’s executive assistant.”
The CEO had just moved from covering up complaints to trying to buy a witness’s video.
