“Hi, I never heard back from you,” Scott said when Pradya answered his call.
“Have you checked your email?” Pradya asked.
Scott hadn’t. He had asked Pradya to send all the information directly to Scott’s personal Hotmail account. But he had forgotten to check it. He had been waiting for a phone call, a text, some quick message – mission completed, check your inbox. Instead Pradya had just sent him the email and considered himself done with the task. That was how young people dealt with things these days. They expected you to be online all the time, they expected you to check your email every twenty minutes. Scott thought back on that annoying founder who had been pestering him last month. It had started off innocently enough. The teenage founder of a new mobile app had sent Scott an email asking for an opportunity to be featured in the paper. The email had arrived at 8:15 on a Monday morning, just when Scott and the rest of the team had their meeting with Vesna. Half an hour later the first reminder email came. Half an hour after that, the next reminder popped up in his inbox. Scott Davis was speechless. He had deliberately avoided replying to the email after that. He wanted to test how long it took before this kid picked up the phone and actually made contact like a human being. He never got a phone call, but during that week he received sixty-three reminder emails. Come Friday afternoon he just added the sender to his junk folder, so that any future emails would go straight into the trash bin. It had been a wake-up call for Scott, one of many since he had started covering these new start-up companies. This generation X or Z, he wasn’t entirely sure how far in the alphabet they had come, expected everything to happen in an instant. They had no clue what was proper business etiquette or how to behave in order to achieve a favour or influence people. They were a bunch of autistic kids with a fucked-up view of work and money. Scott opened the Outlook app on his mobile. He had to scroll through a long list of
today’s offers
from Groupon and all its various clones before locating Pradya’s email.
It was simply a link to Facebook, followed by a username and a password. Scott scribbled down the password and username in his notepad, and placed it on Mark’s bed. He would find the nearest internet café, probably one of those gaming places, and log on there. After the News of the World hacking scandal, where one of Rupert Murdoch’s UK papers had been caught tapping everything from A-listers’ mobiles to the answering machine of a missing woman, it had become important to hide your tracks properly if you did something shady. But the world was what it was; sometimes you had to take chances to get results.
Scott continued flipping through his wife’s old notes. He realised now that he should have done this years ago, sifted through all her documents and notes. Looked for anything suspicious. But it had been too hard. When his wife committed suicide, Scott’s world had collapsed. For several days he had been unable to function, barely able to move. He had taken two weeks off work, and then returned to the paper. And he assumed it had been the paper that had saved him. It had given him something else to focus on, something to distract his mind. And so the years had passed. The home office had remained untouched. The cleaner who stopped by fortnightly had several times suggested that she could do a proper clean-out of the office. Scott didn’t create enough mess to keep her occupied for the fortnightly appointments anyway. But Scott had opposed the idea. He would do the clean-up himself, when the time was right.
He held up a picture of Sashi and him. Scott remembered he had taken it on a trip to Thailand. Both of them had so wide grins that their eyes had been watery. Scott had held the camera with his right hand, and with his left hand he had pulled Sashi close to his body. A selfie. Good times. The picture had been taken just a month before Sashi had committed suicide. She looked so happy. What could possibly have gone wrong in that short amount of time? What had happened when she returned to the Gold Coast? What had made her so sad that she had taken her own life? He simply couldn’t fathom it.
But maybe the answer was hidden in the pile of documents he was now going through? She had always taken on too much, never been able to leave work at the office.
Maybe her suicide had something to do with the missing girl, Heidi Voog?
The girl his wife had seen the day before she committed suicide.
75
A lone computer screen was situated in the centre of Frank’s basement. Andrew didn’t really know what to expect when Frank had suggested they should head down to the control room. Andrew had envisioned a dark and gloomy basement, filled with computers and weird stuff. The basement of Frank’s house on the Gold Coast had looked like a mix between a teenage activity club and a drug factory. This basement was very different. Minimalistic, elegantly decorated, matching colours, order, it was everything Frank was not. A basic computer screen was placed in the middle of the room. Or
basic
was probably not the correct word; a large black touchscreen from Samsung was placed in the middle of the room. It looked expensive.
“What’s this?” Andrew asked.
“This is where I live. The house on the coast was just an investment. Something closer to Roman. I thought you had understood that.”
“Understood what? That everything you’ve told me was made up, even your cat, Jazz?”
Frank laughed. “So you figured out that Jazz belongs to my neighbours. She used to come over to my garden all the time though. Loved my canned tuna. I didn’t have much time to come up with a product after our first meeting at the conference. I had told you and Ken that I had a product ready, that I just needed someone to start a business with. It was of course a lie. I wrote the original code for Tuna Life that very night. Got inspired when I saw Jazz in the garden. I’ve got to admit it was a stupid idea. Roman would never have invested, that’s for sure. But then you and Ken came up with the brilliant idea to use the software for a clothes-trying app. Sometimes you just need some luck.”
Andrew didn’t say anything. He felt tricked. Frank had used him the whole time.
“So what’s your plan?” Andrew finally asked.
“Think, Andrew. If you had access to more than sixty million computers, laptops and mobiles. Access to an audience of sixty million. And all you wanted to do was to ruin a person. What would you do?”
Andrew reflected on the question for a moment. Then he said: “I would have exposed him. I would have presented all the evidence I had collected. I would have shown the world the evidence, and then I would have waited for the police to arrest him.”
“The police,” sniffled Frank. “They haven’t lifted a finger the last four years. I have sent them anonymous tips for four consecutive years, but they haven’t even bothered to bring Roman in for questioning. No, to claim that Roman is a murderer is not enough. I need to do something much more spectacular.”
“What?” Andrew asked.
“What would you do, Andrew? What would you do, to really hurt him?” Frank repeated.
“I would take all his money, and then I would ruin his reputation. I would make him the laughingstock figure I am right now.”
Frank smiled. “I’ve had full access to Roman’s mobile and laptop for more than six months. I haven’t been able to film him doing anything outrageously incriminating, but I’ve got something much better. I’ve got him on film doing something very personal stuff.”
“You turned on the camera on Roman’s mobile phone?”
Frank nodded. “With a couple of keystrokes I can make all his money disappear, with another few I can upload a video of Roman masturbating in his bedroom, and it will instantly be accessible for all our sixty million Tuna Life users. I’m not just going to hurt Roman, Andrew. I’m going to humiliate him, I’m going to push him so hard down in the shit that he will never be able to get up again. I will destroy him.”
Andrew just stood staring at Frank. Roman was a Mafioso, a man who thrived on instilling fear in others, a man who craved wealth and demanded to be respected. If all his money were to disappear tomorrow, it would surely hurt, but he could always start over again. If he was publicly accused of being a serial killer it would probably ruin his chances of ever becoming a serious businessman; the accusations would always follow him, like a stain he couldn’t get rid of. But he would still be able to do his shady stuff. In Roman’s world notoriety was an asset. But if he was publicly humiliated, if he became the laughingstock for sixty million people, then he would be truly ruined, he would be finished.
“Do it,” Andrew said. “Destroy him.”
76
Ken Speis smiled to the ceiling, as he lay stretching his legs on the couch in the Tuna Life boardroom. He was able to relax there; it was one of the few places he really felt at home. He couldn’t understand why Andrew didn’t like the room. It was Ken’s absolute favourite. He peeked over at Richard Smith, who was going through a stack of CVs. They belonged to the shortlist of candidates to replace Andrew as CEO of Tuna Life. It was getting ridiculous. They had still not been able to find a replacement for Andrew. They hadn’t even been able to find a replacement for Frank’s CTO role. The hot Google executive had been offered a better package from some Seattle start-up – more money and more shares – and had walked away. Roman Bezhrev’s reluctance to let employees take part in the value creation had started to become a serious brake block for the company. For now, Ken had managed to maintain his stake in the company. But his dad had refused to lend him the eight hundred thousand, so he was still in debt to Roman. He was no longer in control, and he didn’t like the development. Both Frank and Andrew had been forced out of the company, and Roman had revealed his true nature. Ken had no doubt he was the next in line to be pushed out. Sharing was quite evidently not Roman’s biggest strength.
The difference was that Ken wasn’t either Frank or Andrew. Ken was a worthy adversary; he had resources. He came from a wealthy family. Even though his dad had refused to lend him the money, he had access to that sort of cash if push came to shove. Roman could never use the same cheap tactics on Ken. If he did, he would end up in court for years. And for now, Ken also seemed to get along quite well with Roman. It was as if Roman recognised something in him, as though he could see glimpses of himself in Ken.
Ken didn’t really care. He had been named acting CEO until Tuna Life could announce a permanent replacement for Andrew. He knew it was only temporary, but he loved it. He loved the power, the respect. Everybody viewed him in a different light now that he was the acting CEO. It was as if they all feared him.
Ken had never really harboured any great aspirations for power. He had been content staying at university – to be the student who flew just below the radar, the one who didn’t attract any attention. But he had learnt, in the very short time he had been acting CEO, that he enjoyed the power the position gave him, the indescribable feeling of ruling over others’ lives and destinies. And he had realised that this was what he had been craving his entire life – this feeling, this all-encompassing feeling of power. Now he just needed to ensure that Roman didn’t take it away from him.
“How are you doing?” he asked Richard, who looked stressed out and tired as he worked through the pile of CVs.
Richard lifted his gaze from the documents. He had never thought he would miss Andrew, but right now he did. Andrew had maybe not been the world’s best CEO, but at least he managed to get things done. Ken Speis was of a different sort. The company was still going well, growing like anything. But Ken had lost focus of what was important. He had hired a new guy and made him responsible for business competitions and media. All he did was to sign Tuna Life up to various competitions, and to send Richard Smith around on panel debates about the industry. Tuna Life had won a string of prizes since Andrew was kicked out; Best Start-up, Best New Business Model, Best Management Team. If you could name a prize, Tuna Life had most likely won it. But you didn’t get wealthy winning prizes. The money was still flowing out of Tuna Life, and at some stage they would have to start showing revenue and profits. Richard had seen something similar happen before. Companies and leaders who got so full of themselves that they forgot what really was the foundation of their business – their users. He needed to end this before it was too late.
“I think I’ve found him. I think I’ve finally found him,” Richard said.
In his hand he held a firm grip on his own CV. It was time to become something more than Roman’s well-paid personal slave.
77
“We’re in,” Frank said, his voice emotionless.
Andrew focused his eyes on the big computer screen. Frank had just logged into the Tuna Life servers, and taken control of the app. He might as well have been sitting in their Southport office; he had access to everything.
“Won’t someone realise that you have broken into the program, that you are accessing their servers?”
“One of the advantages of writing the software is that you can leave back doors open for later. No one in Tuna Life will have a clue that I’ve accessed their servers. There will be no out-of-the-ordinary activity on their screens or systems. As it is already late evening, they will most likely only have a skeleton staff on anyway, and they will be in for a big surprise.”
“Ok. Let’s do this. I can’t wait to see Roman’s face when he loses Tuna Life,” Andrew said. He truly hated Roman. Not just because he had forced him out of Tuna Life, and most likely would steal all his shares, but he hated Roman for building him up, for letting him experience the feeling of unlimited power and wealth, before taking it all away from him.
Andrew had always been more than averagely interested in money. It was perhaps natural given he had worked in an accounting firm, where everyone was measured by how much money they brought into the company’s coffers, and their customers’ success was measured by how much money was left on the bottom line. But he had never expected that money would become such a dominating element in his life, not before Tuna Life. Not before he had realised how easy it was to make money in the new economy, not before he’d had money and seen what he could do with it. It would have been easier to live on his meagre salary in Avensis Accounting, to never have experienced being a millionaire. The certainty that he once had been worth seventy-five million, the certainty that he had wasted almost two hundred thousand on the town and bad investments, those were certainties that hurt. He even missed his fake friends – celebrities who had been begging on their knees to be part of his circle, models who had pulled him into nightclub toilets and sucked him off. He missed the power. The power he had held over all those people.