The Term Sheet: A Startup Thriller Novel

by Lucas Carlson

  David set his empty cup on the counter. The first piping hot swigs of coffee were always so satisfying, but only if he drank them as hot as he could stand. It would warm him from the inside out.

  David picked up the phone and dialed his best friend.

  “Andrew, do you happen to know anyone who works for Oprah by chance?”

  “No, why?” Even through the phone, David could hear Andrew silently realizing the answer to his question. “You didn’t. Please tell me you didn’t.”

  “I did. I got it for a steal too.”

  “You can’t keep doing this to yourself, David. Every time you say the same things: financial independence, work for yourself, hate your boss, save your sister. When are you going to grow up? People have to work for a living. There’s no way around it. Your parents worked for a living, my parents worked for a living. You have to work for a living too. Even if you move to Portland like every other millennial, you’d still have to do something. Drive a pedicab for tips. Play trumpet on the corner. Come to think of it, you are a tall, dark, good-looking guy. Good cheekbones. You even pull off that trendy hobo beard look. I’m sure you can get good tips from the women.”

  “You’re one to talk. How long have you tried to make it as an investment banker in New York?”

  “Not fair. Just because the banking system went to shit does not mean I go spend twenty grand on fish.”

  “They’re not fish. They’re jellies. And it was thirty thousand, not twenty.”

  “Jesus David, do you have no dignity? You don’t have thirty thousand dollars. Have you told Megan yet?”

  “She knows about it.”

  “Knows you bought it?”

  “I’m going to tell her. This thing will pay for itself, you’ll see. You will all see.”

  Chapter 3

  Shawn Douglas woke quietly. He lay on his back, his eyes still closed. Even as a young child, he was able to catch himself in the process of waking up. Instead of jumping out of bed and slamming his alarm clock like most kids, he would use the first few minutes of every morning to think. As a kid, he thought about how to deal with bullies or teachers he didn’t like. Now as an old man, he thought more about back pain and the logistics of everyday life in an office. Somewhere along the way, he also learned how to wake up at a specific time. He could time it to the minute.

  Shawn was a man of routine. He woke at 4:30 a.m. and was out of bed by 4:45 a.m. His small one-bedroom apartment was as immaculate as his routine. It looked like an Ikea showroom. At 5:00 a.m. he ate a bowl of buttered grits. He then took a three-minute cold shower. Weekday or weekend made no difference to him; he would always dress in a navy suit with a white shirt and black tie.

  He made his bed and cleaned his gun, a stubby jet-black .357 Sig Sauer. Then came his cup of Folgers, jet black as well with an extra scoop of coffee bits. Out of habit, he touched a picture frame with an old faded photo of his wife. It was a gentle touch, more of a graze, but he never looked at it. He didn’t need to. His hand would grab the keys on the nightstand next to the photo and then he would make his way to his black 1993 Jaguar.

  He kept his Jaguar clean, like everything else in his life, taking it through the same car wash every Sunday at 7:00 a.m. The car didn’t look a day older than when he had driven it off the lot. He bought one tank of gas on the same day every week (fill it, regular), no matter how much of the tank he had used the week before. The commute to work was just five minutes long and there was never any traffic. This wasn’t an accident. He had chosen the apartment to minimize his commute. He parked behind a large unmarked building with dark glass windows all around. He would always park in the furthest parking spot from the entrance, a spot nobody else wanted. He liked to know that his area would always be available, even on busy days like holidays or elections.

  Shawn walked slowly and deliberately to the front of the building, no matter if it was showering or scalding hot, and in Washington DC, he experienced both in equal measure.

  He worked on the fourth floor of the square glass building. However, inside it was so dim that you might think it was a basement. The office was sterile, like an operating room, filled with cold stainless steel furniture and low-set cubicles. The building’s air-conditioning was always set on high, even when it was cold outside.

  On his desk was a leather desk pad with a worn-down green velvet surface, a few Bic pens, a lamp, a stack of note-pads (always neatly ordered), a telephone, and a nineteen-inch beige screen connected to an old IBM workstation. He took out his wallet and keys and placed them carefully, but without paying attention, on the desk pad and began work.

  Shawn had worked for the Secret Service for most of his life. His career spanned eight presidents, twenty assassination attempts, forty-three terrorist plots and two bullets (one in the left shoulder and one in the right leg). He’d served presidents, presidential wives, presidential children, vice presidents, and occasionally even a few presidential pets.

  Shawn was promoted through the years and was now the Senior Director of Transportation, one of the most prestigious desk jobs in the Secret Service. Of course he relied on his team to manage much of the day-to-day activities, but this was a welcome change of pace for a lifetime of service. His team handled the small and mundane events like visiting local schools without his intervention. However, he still personally oversaw high-profile events like inaugurations and international summits.

  Shawn’s phone rang.

  “Hello, this is Shawn Douglas. How can I help you?”

  “Mr. Douglas.” It was a young lady’s voice. “Head Director Stephenson is on the line. I’ll put you through now.”

  There was a pop on the line.

  “Shawn, how are you?”

  “I am doing very well, Mr. Stephenson. How can I help you today?”

  “Can you please take care of Marnie this weekend?”

  “Mr. Stephenson, with all due respect, I am in the middle of tracking leads on a potential threat for next month’s Election Day events. Can’t I have one of my men take care of it?”

  “Shawn, this is a direct request from the president. He doesn’t trust Marnie with just anyone, you know that. Her usual caretaker is on vacation and we're going to Martha’s Vineyard this weekend. She needs to stay because she is pregnant and due any day now. I know you’re mainly behind the desk these days, but it would mean the world to the First Lady.”

  “But I’m working on something big right now.”

  “Richard told me your hunch. Frankly, based on what little you’re going off, it sounds like a wild goose to me. He has already agreed to letting you watch Marnie.”

  Shawn was getting angry, but this wasn’t the kind of man you lose your temper with. “I have a hunch there’s something bad going on.”

  “You’re out on a limb by yourself on this one, Shawn.”

  Shawn slammed his fist on his desk. A coworker at a nearby desk looked over with a puzzled and disapproving look.

  The Secret Service used to be part of the Treasury, but had moved to the Department of Homeland Security a year earlier. This gave the Secret Service a huge new treasure trove of tools and information. They were now working with databases from the FBI, CIA and NSA. Most of the people in the Secret Service were luddites, but Shawn had spent extra time every day learning the new systems. About four months earlier, he found his first abnormal activity. But when colleagues reviewed the data, they unanimously, and conclusively wrote it off as unimportant. Shawn’s gut told him not to let go.

  “Mr. Stephenson, forgive me, but I think forty-one years buys me some leeway on a hunch. How long ago did you appoint Richard? Three and a half years? He’s so new that he still counts his time in half years.”

  “Shawn, you will not speak that way about your boss and you will take care of Marnie. You will call me if she gives birth and I’ll hold you personally responsible if anything happens to her.”

  “Yes, sir.” He bent a Bic pen in half and threw it in the trash. Shawn had found the
anomaly by flagging some keywords. The government tools constantly scanned public sites like Twitter, Facebook, Google and Bing. When the terms popped up, as much information as possible was gathered about the person who used the keyword for review by Shawn. Even if that person was using the websites without logging in, it would still leave traces. Sometimes an email address in one service, a browser plugin in another service, and an IP address in yet another. Shawn rightly considered IP addresses as the fingerprints of a computer on the Internet. The fingerprints didn’t inherently tell anybody your personal information, but if you could gather that fingerprint from enough places, you could start putting a dossier together around it.

  About six months ago, Shawn got a hit on a keyword that had been dormant since he’d originally set up the search. His team had been investigating this hit for the last week.

  * * *

  “What’s an ashcat again?” whispered Brandon. Wherever he went, he always took a black moleskin notepad and a chrome pen, holding them up high near his face like a security blanket.

  “Assistant railroad operator,” said Abigail with a hiss. Brandon scribbled it in his pad.

  “That’s right, I knew that. Hey,” said Brandon, already blushing. “Are you free this weekend? Maybe we could go to the arcade?”

  Abigail laughed and Brandon turned even more crimson. “No, Brandon, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh. It’s just…the arcade? Really? How about coffee instead?”

  “Oh! Hi, sir,” said Brandon. Shawn had returned to his office and was standing over him.

  “Cut it out with that sir bullshit. You know I can’t stand it when people talk like that. We are here to do a job, not act all hoity-toity. If you have to call me something, just call me boss. And Abigail, you are not to go out with this guy, you can do better.” Shawn crossed his arms to underscore the declaration as his salt and pepper eyebrows ruffled and scrunched, a sure sign of his impatience. “I have just found an IP address I need you to cross-check.”

  Shawn handed Brandon a piece of paper with numbers scribbled on it.

  “Sure boss, I can do that. All you have is this IP?”

  “Yes. Cross-reference it with the MeHartChina@gmail.com email address. I want to know everything you can uncover. I want to know what they eat for breakfast and what time they sit on the can.”

  “Yes, sir.” Shawn turned to Brandon with a cold glance of disappointment and frustration.

  “What are you waiting for? Get out of here.”

  Shawn sat down at his desk. The leather felt warm and familiar. He sighed, recalling a conversation with his wife Norah from years ago, before she became ill.

  “Don’t wind yourself up all the time,” she used to say. “You aren’t the only good guy out there, and the bad guys will always be there tomorrow.”

  Norah, you’re right, you were always right. I wish I had told you that, at least once.

  Shawn held an empty stare, gazing aimlessly through the tinted glass window. He picked up his mouse and shoved it the way he wanted to shove Brandon sometimes, then opened the email that started this whole mess. Though he had read it many times already, trying to interpret and reinterpret the simple words, he read it once again.

  Germany,

  I have procured the plans and identified our ashcat, I think we have everything that we need. Let’s move forward, now is the time.

  -China

  He read it for the hundredth time. One hundred thirty characters, twenty-four words, it could fit in a tweet. Instead it was in an abandoned Google Group mailing list with a few other cryptic messages that seemed to say nothing, and yet something. Some of the people in the mailing list referred to each other as countries. China seemed to be the leader. France and Russia never got along. They all leaned on Germany as the rock of the group.

  Shawn was sure they were up to something, and it had to do with trains. To run a large steam engine, you need two people: an engineer and a fireman—an ashcat. Although there were only seven mainline steam locomotives still running, one of them was used occasionally by congressmen because of its grand entrance effect for large events. Like the election day next month.

  The emails in the mailing list made no direct reference to anything overtly nefarious, which was why everyone thought Shawn was crazy, but he had been doing this long enough and had a hunch. The emails had stopped a week before the system alerted him of the activity.

  Shawn picked up his keys and wallet from the desk. He dropped the cold keys into his loose khaki slacks where they rubbed ever so annoyingly on his leg. He turned off his desk lamp and turned around, staring out the dark window into the darkness behind it. Everyone had left except for Abigail and a young janitor, who was singing along to “Lucky Man” by ELP. Shawn shot the boy an annoyed glance as he walked away from his desk.

  “Goodnight Abigail, get some rest.”

  “Yes boss,” she said with a smile. “Will do just as soon as the IP trace comes back.”

  Shawn smiled back. Though new to the team, Abigail Onassis was already his favorite. She had been recruited right out of college, a double major in computer science and psychology at Colombia who graduated at the top of her class. No small feat.

  It had been another too-long day and he felt restless, like he still wanted to work but didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know if he was hungry or tired, lonely or empty. He shuffled to his car and sat in the empty parking lot for a few minutes without turning on the ignition. The night air didn’t smell the same. It had lost its novelty and briskness and he was left with a melancholy that he wished would pass. Slowly, he turned the keys and drove home. He ate a bologna sandwich, drank a glass of tap water, brushed his teeth, changed into his underwear, crawled into bed, lay on his back, and stared quietly at his ceiling.

  Ashcat.

  He fell asleep the same way he awoke. Quietly.

  Chapter 4

  “Sophia, I don’t know what you want me to do. You don’t know how hard it is to get a job out there, you have no idea. You will though, oh boy will you ever. You’ll see. You will all see.”

  These words were ingrained in David’s memory, chiseled as if on a tombstone. They were the last words his dad—Richard Alexander (his friends called him Dick)—said before walking out on his family. Dick was a car mechanic who spent more time at the horse track than he did with his family.

  David grew up in Springwood, a small mobile home park outside of Beaverton, one of Portland’s biggest suburbs. It was a clean place to live with an odd mix of old hippies, cat ladies and disabled veterans. Richard and Sophia were the only family with young children.

  “Davie, don’t worry, we’ll figure it out. We always do. We always will.”

  When Dick left, Sophia hadn’t had a full-time job in nearly twelve years. She had done a little subbing on and off at Highland Park Middle School, but the pay was pocket change. She used to spend it all on carnival rides for the kids at Oaks Park. David never knew that rent was past due or where the food came from. Sophia got a job cleaning hotel rooms at the Embassy Suites and within a few years, she was able to move the family into a small apartment a few miles from school.

  At thirteen, David became the man of the house. The day he turned fifteen, he got his driver’s permit. Even though he wasn’t legally allowed to drive without an adult yet, he often drove Heather to school and occasionally to the doctor too.

  “Aren’t you a little young to be here without your mom?” said the receptionist.

  David’s heart skipped a beat and then sped up to try to make up for it. His stomach cramped.

  “Of course. Mom’s just downstairs at the OB-GYN. What’s an OB-GYN anyways?” asked David. He knew the question would shut down the line of inquiry fast, but he still didn’t know the answer.

  Lying to adults made him feel big inside. When he drove past a police car, the thrill was nearly unbearable. He would stare in the rearview mirror waiting to see if the lights would turn on. But under all the excitement was an empty fee
ling. And as driving became more like a chore than a rebellious act, the thin veil of thrill disappeared.

  “Hey Davie.” Sophia had just come home from working a double shift. “How was school?” It was dark outside and David was finishing his math homework at the kitchen table. Heather was asleep. David didn’t look up from his work.

  “Okay.”

  “What do you mean okay? You might be big enough to drive, but you’re still my little boy.”

  “Yeah, love you too,” he said absently.

  From the corner of his eye, he could see his mom’s sadness. But he had a big test the next day that he wasn’t ready for and it was cram time. Sophia slipped off her shoes and put on her kitchen gloves. She began washing a full sink of dishes quietly. When she finished, David still had his nose in his book.

  “Davie.”

  He looked up from his book with an annoyed frown.

  “I know you do a lot for us. More than any kid your age should have to. But promise me you will always take care of your sister. She thinks she is stronger than she is. I worry about her. I worry she is going to get in trouble and I won’t be around to take care of her.”

  “Sure.”

  “No, I need you to swear to me you will always be there for your sister.”

  “Okay fine, I swear. Can I get back to studying now?”

  “Yes. I do love you.”

  David bowed his head and closed his eyes, as if he were about to pray. His mother came in and gently kissed him on the forehead. The warmth David felt inside grew, and he knew beyond a shadow of doubt that everything would be okay.

  Sophia died the year David turned nineteen. Heather was only seventeen. Sophia had gone to the hospital three days after her stomach started hurting. The doctors successfully removed her appendix, but she got an infection. For the first time in his life, David did not have a plan.