Point of Control (4 page)

“A rare earth metal in very short supply.”

“It has been all along, even before China’s embargo. So Nick had been working on it for years.” The CEO finally relaxed his arms and confided in her. “China’s control of the supply has always worried the technology industry, but no one expected them to completely shut down exports. It’s chaos here in the Valley. Employees are either being laid off or recruited at crazy salaries.”

“Already?”

“Five months is a lifetime in the tech industry. But our company is somewhat immune, because we produce a variety of specialty metals.”

“What about your competitors? What company would have the most to gain by appropriating or stopping Nick Bowman’s research?”

Seabert’s eyes narrowed. “Everyone in the digital device business could benefit. As well as companies that make hard drives and lasers.” He stroked his short beard. “But dysprosium is essential to cell phones, and startups with only one product line, such as Celltronics and ZoGo, will be the hardest hit. I heard Celltronics is facing bankruptcy.”

Bailey had dossiers on both. She’d only had time to glance through them, but she’d noted the name of ZoGo’s CEO: Shawn Crusher. A search of the databases had revealed his birth name as Shawn Ming Crutcher, but he’d changed it to Shawn Crusher at the age of twenty-two, when he’d left college to start his technology career. A smart move, even if it had been driven by a fragile ego. He’d gone to work for qPie, the search-engine giant, and had quickly been promoted up the ranks, his new moniker giving the news media easy wordplay shots at his propensity for
crushing
the competition. Then, just five years into his reign, he’d been fired. Speculators claimed it was over a cell phone he developed that didn’t make it through focus groups—after qPie had spent millions on it. Now he manufactured his own burner-style phones. Recent business reports called him “brilliant” and “prescient” for investing in low-end phones before the crisis began to render high-end electronics unaffordable for many consumers. The analysts also admired his marketing skills, claiming he possessed “a rare combination of technical and promotional savvy.” ZoGo was one of the few companies holding its own in the new shortage-driven market.

Mark Ziegler, Celltronics’ CEO, was nowhere near as flashy or high-profile. He was older and had started his company after a long career in software design. Celltronics made middle-of-the-road phones and marketed them to large employers who bought cell phones by the thousands.

While Bailey couldn’t rule out the big three—Apple, Samsung, and Nokia—it seemed highly unlikely that someone inside one of those reputable companies had suddenly gone rogue. Not that it couldn’t happen. People like her, with little or no conscience, could easily step outside social boundaries in their quest for power or money. But it made sense to start with the newcomers, who were vulnerable and fighting hard for their share of the pie.

C
HAPTER
7

Tuesday, March 17, 9:15 a.m., Mountain View, California

Shawn Crusher’s phone rang, interrupting his morning scan for market-share data. Annoyed, he glanced at the caller ID. No name appeared, but he recognized the number. This wouldn’t be good. He popped in a tiny earpiece and pushed the Answer button on his Tones, a new neck-wraparound wireless device. “Hello, Max.” It was the only name he had for his financier, and Shawn suspected it was phony.

“We have a couple of problems.”

Even though he’d known blowback was coming, the man’s cold, flat tone made his neck muscles tighten. The voice was enough to intimidate him, and he hated that. “Yeah? Like what?”

“What the hell happened with Nick Bowman?” Max had quickly switched to shouting.

How did he know? Had Bowman’s body surfaced already? “What do you mean?”

“Don’t bullshit me. Someone found the body. What the hell is going on?”

Shawn swallowed hard. Nick Bowman’s death was unfortunate. He’d never planned to harm the scientist. But Shawn had already tucked away his guilt and moved on. That’s how he survived. Besides, what he was trying to accomplish was far too important to let other people derail him.

“Bowman was totally uncooperative from the beginning,” Shawn explained. “When he caused a problem on the transfer flight, my crew had no choice but to deal with him.” He’d been a lot less complacent when Harlan and Rocky had reported the incident.

“There’s more.” Max resonated with controlled anger now. “My source in the bureau tells me someone made a connection between Thurgood and Bowman, and now they’ve sent an agent to investigate.”

Fuck!
Shawn had a dozen questions, but he knew his contact wouldn’t stay on the phone much longer. “Who is the agent and what do you know about him?”

“Andra Bailey. And I hear
she’s
brilliant.”

He already hated her. But she wasn’t smart enough to stop him. He’d been planning his takeover of the cell phone market for years. During an obligatory trip to China to visit his mother’s family, he’d set up a meeting with a rare earth metal analyst, hoping to cut out the middleman and save money on raw materials. After too many baijius, the man had slipped and hinted at the government’s plan to cut back on exports. A promise of cash had lubricated the analyst further, and he’d confirmed that it might even be a total shutdown. That moment had changed everything. Wild, ambitious thoughts had starting bouncing around in his brain, and within weeks, he’d starting looking at mining operations.

“Don’t worry,” Shawn said. “I’ll handle the agent.”

“No more bodies turning up! And get a replacement for Bowman ASAP. I recommend Dana Thorpe. Her synthetic is probably as advanced as Bowman’s, and she’s in Seattle, not far from the lab.” Max shifted gears. “My partners have changed their minds about encryption. They think it’s the key to getting consumers to shift to a new brand. So now they want the best of the best. They’ve heard there’s an unhackable version out there, but only a few coders know the key. Figure out who they are and bring one on board.”

“That wasn’t in our agreement.” He didn’t have time to develop a whole new software standard, and that wasn’t the kind of phone he was manufacturing. Feeling a familiar tightening at his temples, he grabbed his bottle of dextro and swallowed one. He’d been taking too much of it lately, but the ADHD medicine kept him focused.

Shawn cut off whatever Max was saying. “I have it handled. You know I have an encryption expert in-house, and she’s within days of finalizing an algorithm that’ll deliver exactly what you’re after.”
Maybe.
It was true that Jia, his wife, had been working on the problem for months, but so far her hacker-testers kept breaking through everything she tried. But telling people what they wanted to hear was often more advantageous than the truth. At least in the moment. He’d learned that at an early age from parents who expected perfection.

“Having your wife working on it isn’t good enough. We want the hacker-proof software that’s already out there, developed by the best in the business. Make it happen. We’ve invested too much in this project to fail at a key marketing objective.” Max was gone.

Shawn clenched his teeth, caught himself doing it, and sat back in his $2,000 office chair. He didn’t care about encryption, and neither had Max in their first conversation. What had changed? The big competitors, Apple and Samsung, were already embedding software that kept federal law enforcement from easily accessing phone data in their devices. Apparently, his financiers had decided that ZoGo cell phones needed to offer that level of security too, so consumers would buy them as replacements now that the name brands had become insanely expensive and nearly impossible to find. He disagreed. Once they dominated the market, consumers would buy whatever was available. That day was rapidly approaching.

Because he’d known the shortage was coming, Shawn had studied rare earth mining and researched every facility—operating or abandoned—that had the right potential. A West Coast location and the presence of bastnäsite were the two primary indicators. He’d found the perfect mine in central Washington. Because the facility had been shut down for years, he’d bought it relatively cheap, hoping to soon have the money to invest in state-of-the-art extraction technology. Still, the payments had been hefty and stressful while he waited to see if the analyst had been right. After six months, China had cut off rare earth exports and all hell had broken loose. Two weeks later, Max had approached him, wanting to invest in ZoGo and to help it gain control of the market.

When his private cell phone had rung, he hadn’t recognized the number and had almost rejected the call. But the southern area code intrigued him, and he finally picked up. “Shawn Crusher speaking.”

“This is Max. I’m an investor with an interest in your cell phone company. Can you meet me in an hour?”

Flustered and curious, Shawn asked the obvious. “Max who? What equity group are you with?”

“We’re private venture capitalists. We’ve been watching the metal shortage and the production slowdown, and we think it’s going to get ugly very quickly. A lot of companies won’t survive. Our pockets are exceptionally deep, and we’d like to invest in the winner.”

A shimmer of excitement rolled up Shawn’s back. He’d been planning for this paradigm shift for years. He’d laid the groundwork, leveraged himself to his eyeballs to find and gain control of a mine, only to end up staring at a brick wall. He didn’t have the capital to hire an extraction specialist and provide him with the necessary equipment. And now, a call out of the blue, offering the cash he needed? If it sounded too good to be true, it probably was. But he’d be a fool not to find out. “Sure. I’ll meet with you. It sounds like we have interests in common.”

“Eleven o’clock. In the middle of the food court in the SunView Mall.”

“What do you look like?”

“I prefer to remain anonymous, so I’ll find you.” The man hung up.

Shawn paced the office, trying to figure out who the investors were, then decided he didn’t care. They could be demons from hell as long as they provided the money to buy extraction equipment and recruit a top-notch specialist. He had an Australian in mind. He picked up his keys and left his office. Should he call Jia about the development? No, he’d wait and see how things went at the meeting.

A little later, at the food court, two teenagers vacated a table just as he arrived, and Shawn sat down, too keyed up to care about the mess they’d left. He was seven minutes early and waiting made him jumpy. He should have bought something to drink so he didn’t look out of place sitting there. He checked his watch ten times, counting each nervous glance. At two minutes after the hour, a voice behind him said, “I’m here, but don’t turn around.”

The clandestine nature of the meeting sent Shawn’s pulse up a notch. “I’ve never had a conversation like this before.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll do most of the talking.”

From behind, Max set a small duffle bag on the chair next to Shawn. “There’s a hundred thousand in cash in the bag for seed money. We’re prepared to invest considerably more through bank transfers. But you have to work within our timeline and agree to the software standards we impose.”

The big money made his throat dry, and he itched to open the bag. “What standards?”

“Mostly quality and security, but we’ll talk about that later.”

Shawn didn’t care much about security. He manufactured inexpensive, untraceable phones that people bought with cash and easily disposed of. But he wanted to be cooperative. “My wife is a coder with a specialty in encryption. I’ll get her working on it.”

“That’s not the big issue. Our main concern is timing. We want to capture the market while it’s in turmoil and before the government steps in.”

He’d been thinking the same thing. But he had to ask. “Why me?”

“We’re impressed with your foresight and ability to adapt. We think you’ve got a solid business model for the shortage-driven future.” Max made a soft chuckling sound. “And you bought the mine we had our eye on. Whoever controls the resources controls the market.”

Shawn was pleased with himself too, but how did Max know he’d purchased Palisades? He’d been careful to shield his ownership in case monopoly issues were ever raised. “How do you know I bought the mine?”

“We had our eye on it too, but you beat us to it. Now we need you to acquire the extraction equipment and get up to full production immediately. Plus bring in a rare earth extraction expert.” Max’s voice tightened. “Even that won’t be enough. Dysprosium is so rare and so hard to process that we need to find a replacement. Without it, our competitors won’t be able to produce microphones or speakers, and they’ll go out of business. Meanwhile, we’ll introduce a new generation of devices made with our own metals or synthetics.”

Max’s plan was similar to what he’d envisioned. Only more complex. Shawn hadn’t thought about replacement materials. But he did notice the use of “our” when Max mentioned the synthetic. “How much stake do you want in my company?”

“Fifty-one percent.”

Controlling interest. Could he live with that?

“You’ll make millions and millions in the first year,” Max assured him. “We have some promotional ideas that will exploit the shortage and increase our market share very quickly, and you’re the right person to employ them. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” Max paused. “We think you know that already.”

Shawn knew he would take the deal, but elements of it seemed daunting. “What about the dysprosium replacement material? I don’t know the industry or who to recruit.”

“This will be the most challenging aspect. I can give you the names of two metallurgists who are doing cutting-edge research, and you need to get one of them on board quickly, before another company recruits them. But we don’t need them long term, we won’t give them credit for their breakthroughs, and they’ll need to sign a secrecy agreement with tough enforcement clauses. All we can offer is a lucrative bonus. That will make recruitment very difficult.”

Why were those hurdles necessary?
Max represented some peculiar investors. “What if I can’t recruit anyone?”

“Be creative. Be ruthless. We don’t care how you do it as long as we’re kept anonymous.”

What was Max suggesting? “Do you mean bribe them with a duffle bag of cash?” Another idea came to him. “Or do you mean blackmail?”

“That’s too messy and not foolproof. If you can’t recruit one of the best, you may just have to grab one and use forced labor.” Max paused. “With a cash payment when they produce, of course.”

Holy shit!
This guy was talking about kidnapping scientists. “That sounds extreme and dangerous.”

“No one has to get hurt. Just inconvenienced a little, then extremely well paid after a month or so when you release them.”

No wonder Max wanted to keep his identity secret.

“Keep in mind,” Max said, “you’ll make more money than you can ever spend. And you’ll be Silicon Valley’s go-to guy, the one CEO who not only survived the meltdown, but profited.”

Shawn wanted that more than anything. Could he do this? More important, what if he said no? The investors would take their money to a competitor, and someone else would make the millions and rise to the top. By the time he could afford the extraction technology for the mine, another company would be making phones with synthetic metals. Freaked out and excited at the same time, he could barely sit still.

“Can you handle it?” Max asked.

This was the litmus test. If he wanted the payoff, he had to go all in. But he would do everything he could to recruit experts first. Shawn swallowed hard. “I may need help with the logistics.”

“I’ll send a guy to help with the dirty work. He’s also a pilot with his own plane, which will come in handy. And you can trust him.”

He had so many questions! “Where will the scientists work? I don’t have a lab for materials research.”

“Find a facility and we’ll fund the equipment. We can have the money in an account for you within twenty-four hours.”

It was happening so fast, it was surreal. He needed to test Max’s resources—and generosity. “I’ll need five hundred thousand for myself up front, just as a bonus.”

A pause. “I’ll give you half in cash in a few days, delivered to you. And the other half will go into your account after you’ve brought in an extraction specialist and geared up the mine. We expect timely results.”

Shawn heard a threat in his tone. What would they do if he failed? He wouldn’t fail. Even more than the millions, he wanted control of the market. He wanted to be the King of Silicon Valley and show the bastard who fired him years ago what a colossal mistake it had been. “I’m ready to sign.”

“There won’t be a contract. You keep your end of the deal, and we’ll keep the money flowing. But I want to reiterate that timing is critical.”

“Why?” He thought he knew, but he wanted to hear the investor’s reason.

“The electronics industry is collapsing, and consumers are getting unhappy very quickly. We’ve heard rumors that the White House is talking about nationalizing mines that have rare earth capabilities. We need to make our money before that happens.”