The Term Sheet: A Startup Thriller Novel

by Lucas Carlson

  Shawn pulled up to the spot where the Secret Service tent had been. He parked his car and sat there silently. After a few long minutes, he got out of the car and stepped onto the freshly paved street. You could still smell the asphalt and the rain made the new ground feel tacky.

  “The president’s driver is awaiting our signal.” He could hear Abigail’s voice like she was right in front of him.

  “Tell the driver to proceed,” he remembered saying as the ground around the operations tent began to shake. Most of the dead had been accounted for, but they never found the remains of Abigail Onassis. The train had come in full force through Shawn’s tent and had proceeded to run into another building before coming to a halt.

  Shawn’s phone rang loudly in his pocket.

  “Boss, where are you?” Brandon sounded concerned.

  “I’ll be right in. Have you heard anything new yet?”

  “Yes, I just tracked down a rumor about the ashcat, Jared Wilson Farthing. Jared’s an ex-con and apparently their inside man. He broke the neck of the conductor minutes after the train left the station and then installed a remote override mechanism that disabled the safety mechanisms in place, before jumping off the train.”

  “So where is he now?”

  “In the wind. The FBI has put him on the ten most wanted list, but he skipped town before we knew to stop him.”

  “I want to know everything there is to know about Jared Farthing. Have a file on my desk when I get there.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  Shawn put the phone back in his pocket and got back in the car.

  * * *

  As he came out of the elevator, the briskness of the cold air cleared Shawn’s mind. He spotted Brandon down the hall carrying papers in one hand and a brace in the other. Brandon had been out of the way of the train, but a computer-turned-projectile had shattered his left arm when the train came through the tent.

  “Brandon, is the profile done?”

  “Oh.” He turned to see Shawn. “Yes, boss. Jared Wilson Farthing. Twenty-five-year-old orphan who was in and out of foster homes until he found his way to Columbia Heights and joined the MS-13 gang when he was thirteen. He was in jail for armed robbery when he was sixteen and was released two years ago. Only one living relative, a great aunt living in California, but he has been in DC all of his life. Think this is gang related?”

  “Absolutely not. This was a carefully planned and well-executed attack. Who are his known associates?”

  “All I could find were gangbangers. Another man was spotted limping away from the train around the time of the hijacking, but nobody stopped him and we only have a vague description.”

  “Okay, well check hospitals for all recent leg injuries. And let’s start following the money. Look into Jared’s bank records. How’s your arm?”

  “It’s okay, mostly just hurts at night and during storms. Thanks for asking. How are you? Where were you this morning?”

  “I’m fine. Go pull the financials on Jared and his aunt.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  Shawn sat at his desk, opened the file and began paging through the papers like Ebenezer Scrooge counting his money. Lost in his own world, Shawn didn’t notice as Senior Director Richard Curtis walked up to his desk. Richard was a tall and stocky man with deep-set wrinkles and a smooth bald head.

  Richard knocked on Shawn’s desk. “Shawn, how are you?”

  “Sir, I didn’t know you were here today.” Shawn stood up at his desk and started pulling his papers together, trying to neaten up his desk. Though technically Shawn’s boss, Richard was so busy and traveled so much that Shawn only saw him a few times a year in person. Usually at formal events. Never in the office. Richard could usually be found on or near Air Force One.

  “Yes, the president wanted me to check on you. How is the concussion healing?”

  “I’m fine, sir. You didn’t need to come by just to check on me.”

  “I also came to give you some advice. Don’t meddle in the investigation that the joint task force is running. This is the largest terrorist attack since 9/11 and the president is in a very precarious position with public opinion right now. We need this investigation to run its course. Can you play ball?”

  “With all due respect, this attack goes much deeper than the president’s polling numbers. People were hurt. My own people died. And this could have been prevented if others had listened to me in the first place.”

  “We did listen to you, Shawn. Maybe not enough, but that’s water under the bridge now. It’s out of our hands. I need you to step away. This needs to be a clean investigation.”

  Richard’s presence grew more and more imposing.

  “The FBI has no idea what they’re doing. I have been onto this guy for a year now. Do you know how many times they’ve asked me to help in the investigation? Zero. None. One measly Senate interview. Not a single investigator has come to ask me about my research into the ashcat or the email trail.”

  “Shawn, they have all your reports and transcripts. I assure you they’re going over every lead. They will interview you soon if and when they need to. I just need your word that you won’t meddle. You can’t run your own investigation. I need you coordinating travel. Can you do that for me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. I’ll send the president your regards.”

  Richard turned away and started walking, but Shawn called over.

  “Sir, one more question. Can I ask what the FBI has found so far?”

  “You know I can’t tell you that.”

  “Do they have any leads though?”

  Richard shrugged. I knew it, said Shawn to himself under his breath.

  “What’s that?”

  “Safe travels, sir.”

  Richard continued to walk away. When he turned the corner, Shawn’s fists slammed on the desk, pushing all the papers to the floor. Brandon came over and started to pick up the papers.

  “Who was that?” Brandon asked.

  “My boss.”

  “No wonder you don’t like me calling you sir.”

  Chapter 12

  “Big day, huh?” said Belinda. She rolled lazily to her side so she could see Heather lying across the room. The nurses hadn’t come around to help Belinda get dressed yet. Heather could dress herself, but never liked to do it until Belinda was dressed first. Lately, though, Heather didn’t mind the extra minutes in bed.

  “Yeah. I haven’t seen my brother in a while. I bet his beard has grown a lot.”

  “He has a beard now?” asked Belinda. “Yuck. I don’t understand why guys grow beards. Doesn’t stuff get stuck in there when they eat?”

  “I know, right?” said Heather.

  “I bet he still looks hot though. I’d still do him.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You excited?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” said Heather. “I mean yes, but seeing people is such a hassle lately.”

  “Hey, I’d be happy if I just had as many visitors as you. What’s up with you? You don’t sound like your Happy Heather self.”

  “You’re right, I should be happy. I just don’t want to be a burden on anyone.”

  “I’ll give you my copy of I, Zombie. I’ve already read it like three times. It really gives you perspective on life. At least you’re not eating people. Hell, you’re not even in a wheelchair like me yet. You worrying about money again?”

  Heather blushed and turned away.

  “How do you afford a place like this, anyhow? Your folks rich?”

  Heather was silent.

  “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “My mom.”

  “Rich?” asked Belinda.

  “Died.”

  “I’m sorry, Heather.”

  “It’s okay, it was a few years ago. She had a life insurance policy though. But it’s running out now.”

  “Can’t you just move in with your brother?”

  “He doesn’t know the money is almost out. And I want t
o keep it that way, okay? Don’t tell him anything. I’ll tell him when I’m ready. Promise?”

  “Fine, but I don’t see what the big deal is.”

  Nurse Haley walked in. “Rise and shine. Ready for the day, Belinda?”

  “You know it.”

  “Heather, I think your brother’s here. Did he grow a beard lately? It looks great. Very mountain man.”

  Heather blushed again and pulled herself out of bed. She slowly and carefully got dressed before David walked in.

  “Hey sis, you look great.” David came up and gave her a big hug. “I’ve missed you. I’m so sorry it’s been a bit since I’ve been by.”

  “Six months, by my count,” said Belinda.

  “Hi, Belinda.”

  “Hi, sex kitten.”

  Heather hardly recognized her brother. He seemed different. Older than she remembered, but not just because of the beard.

  * * *

  At the pancake house, David brought a tray full of food to a small booth. Heather had only ordered a small bowl of fruit, but David ordered the works. He sat down and poured a slop of ketchup next to his giant omelet and mountain of hash browns. Breakfast at the Original Hotcake House was a tradition their dad had started before he left, but for some reason David still loved the place. It was an old pancake house that was busiest between two and four a.m. after the bars closed in Portland. The plates were huge and the food was even bigger.

  The omelet must have used a dozen eggs and filled half the plate. But next to the hash browns, the eggs looked small. The hotcakes came on a separate plate because there was no room with the eggs and hash browns. An intimidating inch thick, the hotcakes didn’t have any reason to taste good, but they were always a little bit of heaven.

  David stuffed his mouth with a big bite of hotcake.

  “So how’s the halfway house?”

  “You know I hate it when you call it that, David. It’s nice. They treat me great. But I don’t know why they insist on keeping me there. I’ve been fine for over a year now.”

  “I’m sure they have their reasons.” David smiled as he asked: “You got any boyfriends yet?”

  “Well, there’s this male nurse who keeps bringing me tea, but I’m not that into his crumpets.”

  They both laughed as David cut out another slab of hotcake.

  “Still think of Mom?” said David.

  “All the time. You?”

  “Yeah.”

  Heather and David looked down at their food to avoid eye contact. Neither wanted the other to see the sadness the question brought them.

  Heather broke the silence. “Tell me about work, how’s startup life treating you?”

  “Well, the jellyfish blog is picking up traction, finally. I’ve been putting out posts pretty regularly. At first, it didn’t seem to make any difference, but my last post got fifty-four views. But Megan and Andrew keep nagging me to work on an encrypted chat idea I came up with. I don’t know if I should walk away from the investment I already made to try something new or not.”

  Heather looked at her big brother with gentle, loving eyes.

  “David, are you happy?”

  “Yeah. Sure. I guess. What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I’ve known you since you were feeding me Gerber peas. You’ve never been into jellyfish. Not as a kid. I know you think it’ll make you easy money, but none of what you explain sounds easy. In many ways, you seem busier than ever. Do you even really care about jellyfish?”

  “That’s not the point. Life doesn’t always pay you for your passions.”

  “Yes, that’s fair. But I think Megan and Andrew see a spark in your eye. Even now when you said encrypted thingy, you lit up. When’s the last time you honestly got excited about jellyfish?”

  “But what about the time and money I’ve invested in it already? It’s my life savings we're talking about.”

  “What about changing the world for the better?”

  David went from stunned to embarrassed in a nanosecond. He quickly chewed and swallowed his mouthful of eggs and ketchup and hot sauce.

  “When did you get so grown up?”

  Heather smiled and pushed aside her bowl of fruit. Heather felt weak, but David didn’t ask about it and she preferred it that way.

  “Heather, you okay?”

  “I’m fine, just a little light-headed.”

  David continued eating. She could see his mind was somewhere else—lost in thought. Heather didn’t mind though, she could use a break from all the talk. She took a sip of water from a clear plastic cup like the ones they had in high school.

  “So you think I should try the encrypted chat startup?”

  Heather smiled. “Yes, David. Go for it.”

  Chapter 13

  “Shit,” said Gabriel. “What happened?”

  “I’m fine,” said the man in the suit. “Just a stumble. Everything else went as well as we could have hoped, so I have nothing to complain about.”

  A small man with a blue doctor’s mask stood over a larger man sitting on a metal desk. The man’s left leg was bound in bloody bandages. The small man didn’t look like a doctor. He was wearing overalls and worker boots. The larger man was wearing a tattered blue suit. The small man began unwrapping the bandage.

  The leg was a mess. The wound stretched from the kneecap to the top of the hip. Although someone had apparently tried to stitch it back together, the stitches were loose and messy.

  “He should really go to a hospital. This isn’t healing like it should,” said the man cleaning the wound.

  “No hospitals,” said the man at the table. “It’s still too soon and this injury is too conspicuous. I’ll be fine.” The man winced as the cleaning continued. “If you hadn’t made that stupid suggestion of using an anonymous email group, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. We need to be more careful next time. You had to mention the ashcat, didn’t you?” He looked scornfully at the man in the dark black trench coat.

  The guy playing nurse pulled away from the table and yelled: “You guys talked about us in public? Did you use my name? What is this? Amateur hour? I am definitely not getting paid enough for this bullshit.”

  “Calm down,” barked the man in the trench coat. “No names. Just code names.”

  “We’re going to need to figure out how to organize things better next time.”

  The man in the suit reached over and grabbed a needle and a spool of black thread sitting next to him. He pulled a long piece of thread off the spool and pushed the needle through his skin as he began to re-stitch some of the loose flaps of flesh.

  Chapter 14

  Andrew opened the door to David’s apartment as if he lived there. David was alone at the dining table typing with one hand and eating a ham sandwich with the other. Though most people would get alarmed to have their front door opened out of the blue, David just kept typing. A gust of air blew in as Andrew closed the door.

  “Dude, promise you won’t hate me,” Andrew said with glee. He walked over to the kitchen to help himself to a cup of coffee.

  David interrupted: “Before you tell me about your latest nefarious plan, I need to apologize. You were right.”

  “Hold on.” Andrew looked stunned. “What? Did you just say that out loud?”

  Andrew reached into his pocket and grabbed his iPhone. “Wait a second, I need to record this. Say that again.”

  “You were right,” said David. “What do I care about jellyfish? I think we should figure out if the encrypted email thing has legs.”

  “Well, I’m glad you say that because when you were throwing your hissy fit at Palio the other day, I borrowed your laptop. I published the landing page and put a link on Hacker News. Your idea must have hit a nerve. It’s been on the homepage for the last twenty-four hours. As of this morning, you officially have 4,953 people signed up for Cryptobit.”

  David stopped typing and dropped his sandwich.

  “You did what?”

  “Oh shit, if you don�
��t like that part, you are definitely not going to like this next part.”

  David stood up and walked over to Andrew.

  “What did you do?”

  “Well, last night I was watching TV when Pitch Deck came on.”

  “I don’t have a TV. What’s Pitch Deck?”

  “Have you been living under a rock? You ever heard of Tom Lewis and Atlas Vanguard? They, and other multi-millionaires, have people pitch them business ideas and if they like the pitch, they fund the idea. Usually the people pitching are half-wits with no talent selling brownies or bacon beer. So I sent them an email that explained Cryptobit and the progress we’ve made with it so far.”

  “Andrew, I haven’t written any code for it. It’s just an idea.”

  “Details, David, details. Anyhow, I got a reply this morning. They want us to make a video explaining it. Tom Lewis does a ton of high-tech investments and loves the encryption startup space ever since the Edward Snowden revelations. Atlas Vanguard founded a high-tech background checks company. They’ve been looking for high-tech encryption businesses like ours. At least that’s what the producer told me.”

  David’s throat went dry.

  “What do you mean, businesses like ours? This isn’t a business…”

  “It is now. And potentially a profitable one, if you can write the code, that is.”

  His palms were drenched in sweat. David had put so much work into his passive income idea for a year, constantly struggling to get attention. Now in just a day everything was happening so fast. David was confused and excited all at once. He didn’t know whether to slap Andrew in the face or give him a hug.

  “Oh, I can code the hell out of it. But what exactly do you mean by ‘we’? And when did I ever agree to call this Cryptobit? That’s gotta change.”

  “You’re the brains, I am the brawn. You build it, I’ll do all the rest. Fifty-fifty.”

  “David poured himself another cup of coffee and picked up the last bite of his sandwich. “Fine, but I’m CEO.”