roads would lead back to her, my own hands kept clean. Our online discussions were secure, but I kept meticulous paper records of every contact, every decision, making the judicious decision to visit Missouri’s house after she left for the airport in order to leave the file in her study.
I’m not the first to have a fall guy, and I certainly won’t be the last. We see them everywhere, from the corporate world to the political sphere, and we watch them crash and burn when their time is up. Around them, CEOs walk away unscathed to invest in new ventures; political führers pledge allegiance to a new puppet. The true leaders aren’t on the stage; they’re pulling the strings.
The others respected Missouri—or rather, they respected what they thought she was. They listened to the words I put in her mouth and the plan I allowed her to present as her own. I’m not good with words, I told her. It’ll sound better from you. People listen to you. You’re a natural leader.
People see what they want to see. Believe what they want to believe. Missouri was used to traveling the world, commanding high fees to speak about injustice. She was used to people hanging on her every word. Her ego hung her and kept me hidden.
Forty years, though.
Would I have done the same again, had I known we would fail? That the prison doors would slam, trapping so many futures inside?
The number of major natural disasters has increased threefold in my own lifetime. Island nations are disappearing under rising sea levels. Bees—those humble pollinators to which we owe so much—are vanishing. A terrifying two thousand species are under threat of extinction because of climate change. The world is dying.
So would I do the same again?
In a heartbeat.
And I will.
Because I wasn’t stupid enough to let myself get caught.
There were times when I was worried, of course. Times when I—momentarily—lost control and risked exposing myself as the real mastermind behind the plan. As I knelt by the body of the young flight attendant, my hands pressed around the wound in her neck, my pulse soared. I waited for the hand on my shoulder, the accusation, the truth. Killing her had been reckless—any one of those passengers could have seen my hand around the corkscrew—but their eyes were focused on Missouri. By the time they settled on me, I was trying to save the girl’s life. A hero, not a threat.
The investigation was extensive—the backgrounds of all passengers were looked into—and I felt the hot breath of counterterrorism on my neck. But it came to nothing; I had covered my tracks with an expertise I have honed over the years. Rowan Fraser has been a model citizen.
It wasn’t the ending I wanted, of course. I wanted us to plunge dramatically into the Opera House. I wanted footage of our actions—the most important political statement ever made—to be replayed for decades, across every continent, in every house, every school, every institution. I wanted “breaking news” headlines, a spotlight on climate change so bright, no one could avoid it. Missouri wanted it too. She was tired of fighting for justice for her brother—also an environmental activist. She was tired of trying to make people listen to the same message that had gotten him killed more than two decades ago. One final act, she said. For him.
It amused me to see the passengers shrink back from Missouri’s rudimentary piece of fancy dress. We have the jihadists to thank, I suppose, for creating such hysteria around a glimpse of wire and plastic. Her “bomb” was nothing but socks in dog-waste bags, strapped to an elastic luggage strap, the colored wires ripped from earphones. Each item innocently passed through the X-ray machine at security and assembled in the bathroom of the plane.
Perhaps if Lena had never known the explosives were fake, it might have been enough to keep the crew at bay… Hindsight is a wonderful thing, is it not?
I did my best to keep Mina from storming the flight deck. I hadn’t counted on her ridiculous desire to “make good” the events of the preceding hours. I could have neutralized her. Even, perhaps, Mina and Cesca. But Mina, Cesca, and Derek? When it became apparent that they were committed to their entirely unplanned rescue mission, I realized that joining in with them, getting into the flight deck with them, was my last chance to make the headlines we needed.
I confess, I had rather expected Mina to