The Curious Rise of Alex Lazarus

by Adam Leigh

  “Very thoughtful, Alice.” She was right, I could kill a man at ten paces after a double macchiato.

  “And can I give you one other tip, based on my deep love and respect for you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Avoid the temptation to overshare.”

  ***

  The interrogation lasted two and a half hours and I feel I acquitted myself pretty well. The subsequent media coverage and analysis was relatively positive, suggesting that while we had committed some big mistakes for which we were going to be heavily fined, the business had put in place the appropriate levels of checks and controls and, more importantly, shown its remorse and contrition.

  The session was intended to prove that ambitious tech businesses would do anything to hack growth but that in a climate of data manipulation for political ends, commercial success could not be at the expense of protecting individual privacy. Questioning focused on the dubious tactics that allowed us to use a supermarket loyalty scheme database and the appropriateness of our strategy, given that we were a brand that encouraged better parenting.

  We had worked on countering these arguments. I stressed that we were guilty of initial overenthusiasm, that is all. We had supported our chief technical officer (Dimitri) but were too distracted by start-up mayhem to have scrutinised him fully. It was well-intentioned naivety, nothing more. I made it very clear that Dimitri was no longer with the company and a new puritanical regime was firmly in place. I also made a rather elaborate speech on the accidental nature of success. I explained that in truth we had started out as a marketplace for sellers and become, by chance, a major publishing house. All because I had bumped into my drunken old school friend. I actually got a few laughs with the story of my chance encounter with Nigel.

  My point was that our elevation to a global digital platform resulted from events that were not part of our original business plan. This did not condone using data incorrectly, but should allow some tolerance for us as an organisation learning as we got bigger and putting in place the structures necessary to ensure the correct behaviour. ‘No start-up can anticipate all the implications of its slim chance of success.’

  Despite the rehearsal and the scenario-planning, I had one other point to make that I did not share in advance with anyone. Asked for a closing statement, I avoided the temptation for a rambling speech about the emotional journey we had undertaken and looked directly at the bank of colourless politicians, pausing with deliberate theatricality to make sure they were listening properly. They started to shuffle papers with irritation, which was not the response I was looking for.

  “I now run PrimaParent as sole CEO. My co-founder left some months ago. I want to assure you all that the integrity and standards of this business will never be compromised again.”

  I leant back in my chair, rather pleased with myself, and waited for the sound of applause.

  ***

  As the room cleared, I was overcome with a wave of exhaustion that seemed to be the product not just of the morning’s interrogation but of the exertions of months of turbulence. My limbs felt like heavy weights I couldn’t lift, and my head began to throb. Sarah and the bump gave me a congratulatory hug, while my parents hovered uncertainly next to her. My mother tried to lighten the mood by saying, “All things being equal, I think I enjoyed Judith meeting The Queen a bit more.”

  My father looked wistful. The debate had touched on many of the challenges of digital growth and social purpose on which he based most of his current writing. After what seemed like much deliberation, he crouched behind my chair and whispered, “Alex, you were brilliant today. You had principles. You said sorry. You were very strong.”

  Before I could revel in the praise, my phone, which I had turned back on, started to ping continuously like a demented heart monitor as messages came flooding in. They were complimentary and supportive, except for two.

  Nigel had sent me a message that simply read: Why would you tell Parliament I am a drunk? You’re an arsehole.

  And then there was a message from Julian, who had disappeared into a celebrity lifestyle since his exit. I opened it with some dread.

  Vengeance is Mine: I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; for their day of disaster is near, and their doom is coming quickly. Deuteronomy 32:35

  25. End

  The adrenaline that had sustained me for some weeks dried up and a few days later I took to bed with a very nasty bout of flu. Not some effete cough and runny nose, but a full-blooded roaring temperature and an inability to stay awake for very long. Hallucinating dreams and sweat-soaked tee shirts, I lay isolated in the spare bedroom. Even Sarah, fuelled by a GP’s disdain for petty illness, showed me some sympathy and occasionally brought me paracetamol.

  It took a week to recover, and when I returned to the office, I had an inexplicable sense of foreboding. Julian’s note had made me paranoid that he was planning for something nasty to happen when I left the building at lunchtime to pick up a tuna baguette and yogurt. There was little time for irrational fear, as a few days out of the business and the mountain of tasks I faced had become positively Himalayan.

  We were preparing the launch of Clyde Pilestone’s final ‘Reluctant Martian’ novel, End of Time, and there were many problems. Nigel kept rewriting the ending, which meant it was proving extremely difficult to put in place a global launch plan. At the same time, the crippling expectation made his behaviour increasingly venomous. He wanted to approve everything and didn’t want to be bothered by us continually trying to show him things. We had a team of hundreds of people around the world preparing for the event, unsure what to do to meet the complicated project timetables that had been constructed.

  By now, the only channel of communication with Nigel was through his wife and agent, Kate. She was immune to his increasingly difficult behaviour and this made her uncompromising in dealing with us. If he didn’t deliver, we would just have to think flexibly of a solution. If, however, we were perceived to have let them down, the vitriol and threats that came our way would reduce our organisation to collective tears. The most vicious language was normally reserved for me. Nigel would intermittently emerge from his creative exile to call me and shout a string of rarely connected obscenities, quasi-racial insults and consistent threats of physical violence.

  The business was growing every day. PrimaParent Learn had tapped into the global madness of ambitious parents pushing children relentlessly to greater academic accomplishment and was rolling out rapidly across twenty-two global offices. Our publishing empire was also flourishing. We were now a magnet for authors of children’s/teen literature and an entertainment brand in our own right. The original business of selling experiences and products was stable, but in hindsight would not have made us into anything nearly so remarkable.

  I had a punishing travel schedule planned, visiting key European markets, Singapore, Hong Kong and the US to prepare for the launch of Nigel’s concluding book. We had a board meeting and a global morale-raising summit for senior leaders, as well as an off-site for the leadership team to discuss the future. It was therefore extremely debilitating to have to deal with a series of random incidents that contributed to the unravelling of these carefully constructed plans.

  No sooner had I returned from my illness than I had to confront the accusation that I was lying about my complicity in the supermarket-data scandal. Sitting by my laptop reviewing my travel plans, my phone rang and, without looking properly, I took the call.

  “Hi Alex. This is James Connor.” James was the up-and-coming journalist who wrote the profile of Julian and myself for The Times that fomented the future conflict between me and my father. His career had taken off and he was a highly awarded writer, gleefully attacking the poor behaviour of corporations. He came straight to the point.

  “I have heard from reliable sources that despite your declaration that you were completely unaware of the use of illegal hacked data, you were complicit in the decision for its use. Would you care to commen
t?” Given that it was Dimitri, Julian and myself who had the initial conversation about whether we should use it, and it would take an act of generosity to call Dimitri ‘reliable’, the culprit for this ambush could only have been Julian.

  I wasn’t going to make this easy, so I simply said: “James, I have no comment and have made my position very clear in everything I’ve said to date.”

  There followed the pantomime-like back-and-forth questioning of an aggressive journalist asking the same thing in slightly different ways, with me finding non-committal but increasingly irritable ways of refusing to give a definitive answer. This, of course, brought momentary respite but did not dissipate the threat.

  The next day, The Times ran a relatively small story that cast just enough doubt about my position and suggested that there was more scandal to come. There followed a fair amount of media flak. My faux-loyal deputy, Clark, bombarded me with suggestions of how to deal with the renewed barrage of interest, supposedly worried for my well-being while maintaining the enthusiasm of someone sniffing personal opportunity.

  As much as I tried to focus on running the organisation, more unexpected crises arose. The Information Commissioner’s Office took an exceedingly dim view of the Times story and the need for a credible explanation intensified. Concurrently, the National Crime Agency reopened its investigation into whether criminal charges could be brought against me. They had discovered a former IT employee of the supermarket enjoying a disproportionately lavish lifestyle and wanted to chase the money trail, expecting it to lead to us.

  There was further turmoil within our business. The MDs of our offices in NYC and Paris announced their resignations and intention to set up a rival business. Unbeknown to me, Greg Simpson and Amélie Fournier had forged a personal and professional entente cordiale at a global get-together, which came as disappointing news to their respective spouses. With the support of a mysterious backer, they announced that they intended to launch a rival education and parental advice business.

  While not an existential threat, it was a major inconvenience. We needed to sort legal non-competes and restrictions to hinder their progress, which took time and effort. More irritatingly, we were losing two very strong operators for key markets at a crucial juncture. Still a youngish business, our succession planning was not really resolved across different offices to withstand such knocks. We had no one to replace them and as recruitment always takes time, I was going to have to get more involved in day-to-day operations than I wanted.

  An even greater pressure was our own corporate future. We were locked in discussions with various institutions to determine whether we should have an IPO to fund our growth or bring in additional private investment. Moshe wanted to get to a resolution that would suit him and, as our chairman, he drove a lot of the conversations, sometimes with collegiate openness and other times with the furtive secrecy of a Cold War spy.

  Nigel had made it clear that our ‘Resilient Martian’ money tap was going to be turned off as he focused his writing aspirations elsewhere. We knew we had to maximise the short-term uplift of the new book and then find some new ways to bring in the dosh. Being linked to scandal and intrigue was not helping and we were advised not to consider the IPO at this stage, because while our revenues and profitability were unusually impressive, our reliance on one primary source made the institutions question their sustainability.

  Moshe was intent on realising some value or grabbing further control. He would phone me one day and tell me he wanted to buy me out. The next call, as if oblivious to the previous conversation, he would declare he’d had enough of the business and was taking steps to get out. True, he owned less, but his influence was disproportionate and, more importantly, he seemed to have control of the other shareholders.

  George Dobson had gone missing in action. His Chinese business misfortunes meant that we never heard from him. Moshe made it clear that they had an informal agreement whereby he had George’s proxy, which I found hard to believe but even harder to disprove. Brooke and Cole seemed to be focusing efforts elsewhere and her motivational messages were drying up. Brooke was particularly cross with me when she found out that the reports of the coaching Julian and I had received were fabricated. You didn’t need Sherlock Holmes to pin the blame on Julian as the likely source once more.

  It was very lonely dealing with it all. Affable enthusiasm, my primary mode of existence, was not enough to buy me any support or friendship from the board. Alice, my loyal acolyte, did not think like a warrior/politician/serial killer, which was what I needed to anticipate Moshe’s next move. I felt extremely vulnerable.

  It was strange to feel such a lack of control over something you have built and love dearly. Imagine you become a parent. You try to be the best father or mother on the planet. Then said child reaches early adulthood and you become a helpless observer to what happens next. Looking back, I was beginning to grieve for the loss of PrimaParent before it actually happened. I had been so driven for success that I never anticipated it could cope without me.

  In the end, my own end was precipitated by spoiling someone else’s ending.

  ***

  Xargon 5 lay dying as the golden sun burnt an iridescent palette of yellow, gold and phosphorus white. The stars were dulled by impenetrable clouds of toxic gas released by the unstoppable implosion of the universe. Blackness, like a cosy blanket, began to engulf him, and as his spirit was released into the godless nothingness that now existed, his last thought was of his long-dead family. Loyal, kind and pure, they had been extinguished by the random cruelty of a civilisation lacking civility. As his eyes closed, his final sensation was the warmth of undiminished love. When we destroy everything, he realised, that is all that remains.

  Cheery stuff. Nigel was clearly feeling particularly nihilistic when he decided that his hero had to perish in an existential rant against a venomous and indifferent world. His fan base loved the cheerful and brave hero who had travelled the galaxy to find the love of his wife and children. Their commitment to his well-being demanded that he should be reunited with his family, not snuff it because the folly of man had caused the destruction of the entire universe. It hurt your brain to think about the finality of everything, as described by grumpy Clyde Pilestone.

  What made it far worse was that the final gloomy paragraph found itself posted on Facebook two weeks before the launch and was distributed with uncaring largesse through any social media channel or news outlet you could think of. Not a corner of the world (about to be destroyed in this book) was unaware of Xargon’s fate.

  One of the issues we had faced with Nigel was his refusal to tell us the ending. This was a pretty significant obstruction to developing a marketing strategy. He told us he was considering several options, ranging from a romcom resolution with snogging to a nuclear option of everyone dying because it was the end of the world. We suggested that the latter might not be good for business, as most people prefer a happy ending to Armageddon.

  Contrary as ever, this impelled Nigel to make it two shades darker than bleak. He shared it with a limited group of us in secrecy and despite our pleas to consider an alternative, the more we protested, the more obdurate he became. We kept warning him it was a monumental slap in the face to his devoted fans. This seemed to please him.

  I never discovered how it got out. Our systems were well protected (thanks to Moshe’s constant intervention) so it could only have been a leak from a limited number of people with access to the manuscript. Maybe thirty over the period of a month, across our office? There was no evidence of incriminating emails or other messaging. Someone must have gone old-school and written it up by hand and snuck it out. Even the source of the Facebook post was impossible to trace.

  When it posted, there was mayhem. ‘Is this true?’ was the first question that appeared in the media, and if so, how would it affect the sales of the book now that the ending was known? There was also much comment about the publishing ineptitude of everyone at PrimaParent to allow the ending
of its prize asset to be ruined. As for the fans, there were petitions and forums dedicated to their betrayal by the ending of a novel they had not read. You can’t kill Superman or Batman. Xargon 5 deserved similar immortality.

  ‘Incandescence’ would be a mild description of the emotion that came my way from Nigel. He peppered me with incessant text messages for several days but with a concentration of unpleasantness focused on the late night to obliterate any prospect of sleep. When I tried to speak to him, I was confronted by a tirade of angry and disconnected insults. Rather than simply apologise, I attempted to create a case for there being some positivity to be gleaned from the incident.

  “We may not have meant to start this debate, but I think we’ve created a disproportionate level of interest,” I boldly stated on one midnight call.

  “You are a moron. How many different ways can I say it? Of course it could be good for the book. But what we are debating is your incompetence and there is little ambiguity on that subject. You are a corporate pygmy. A Lilliputian digital dork. Need I go on?”

  “Oh, I’m sure you have a few more obscure insults that you’d like to take me through. Do you have an app that generates them?”

  “No, Lazarus. Your ineptitude stimulates my spontaneity.” And with that, he hung up.

  Kate was more measured in her anger. A barrage of letters arrived with the threat of imminent litigation and the severing of our relationship. Nothing could be done while the book was being launched, but legal jihad was very much in the offing. As it happened, the leak did not affect its critical reception. The question of whether franchised entertainment needed always to be upbeat swung in Nigel’s favour. They loved his decision to demonstrate that the fragility of existence could only be offset by the constancy of love. When the book was reviewed, it was almost universally revered as a brilliant conclusion to a thought-provoking series. Nigel was thrilled, I’m sure. If there was one thing he truly loved above any form of commercial success, it was praise.