by I C Cosmos
But Bobby hadn’t set a foot wrong since accepting the CEO job. No shady deals. No cocaine. Nothing the Consortium could use to blackmail him.
Not that the Consortium wasn’t trying. Frank was aware of the procession of drug dealers Santini had sent Bobby’s way. But Bobby seemed determined to stay clean. Or maybe his work kept him high without sniffing his once-favorite powder.
Whatever it was, the phenomenal job Bobby was doing wasn’t going to save him. When the Consortium wanted him out, he’d be out. If they didn’t get any real dirt on Bobby, they’d manufacture it.
Doing the right thing didn’t pay.
Disgusted, Frank went back to his room. Andreas used the Consortium like a lethal weapon. The old dog behaved as if he owned the world. Playing on everyone’s fears.
Andreas seemed unstoppable. Unless…
A spark of hope cheered Frank up. Maybe there was a way out. He wasn’t entirely powerless. He could build a case using the president’s orders, his own contemporaneous notes of the phone calls with Andreas, the material Collin Frey provided, the information from Bobby and from China…
Feeling better than he had in months, Frank poured himself two fingers of an eighteen-year-old single malt.
It was about time to stop the charade.
Monte Carlo
Bobby Bullock stood by the window of his hotel suite, looking absentmindedly across the harbor beneath him. Barefoot, a satin tuxedo bow tie hanging limply around his neck, a glass of champagne in one hand, and a half-empty bottle in the other, he zoomed in on the obscenely huge yacht of Harald Merkelbach. Harald was this season’s richest man in Monaco, and Bobby should be on his yacht rubbing shoulders with the newest oligarchs.
And their Russian whores, Bobby thought irritably. If not on the yacht, he should be in the casino, losing the money he won yesterday. But Bobby wasn’t interested. A line or two of the finest Colombian would probably put him in the mood, but he was not interested in that either.
Tall, movie-star handsome with his dark hair and blue eyes, Bobby had luck on his side. He had launched his first software company by the age of twenty and sold it on his twenty-first birthday for a profit of several million, which he immediately invested in his next enterprise. Two years later he traded that company in for two new ones. A pattern emerged. Bobby bought and sold one IT company after another with passion and remarkable success.
Bobby had a keen eye for rare opportunities and took what some called reckless risks. At times he juggled several companies at once, cutting bureaucracy and creating unique synergies that astonished his friends and infuriated his enemies. In between all the wheeling and dealing, he developed a taste for fast cars, contemporary architecture, boutique Californian wines, and stunning women.
Yet his reputation as a playboy belied his strong work ethic. He didn’t mind putting in the hours whenever needed. Bobby thrived on challenge and loved to create opportunities where others saw only problems.
From as far back as he remembered, Bobby wanted to become rich and famous. But now, when he had become a household name and was on the verge of making his first billion, he was sick and tired of the whole scene. The fun was gone. And there was something seriously wrong with Total Protection.
Startups are never a walk through a rose garden, but TP was the worst. Bobby had production problems in China, personnel problems in California, protest groups sprouting all over North America bashing his products, and, as if he did not have enough problems already, his latest promotion project had crashed.
Literally crashed, when his brand-new Formula 1 race car smashed into the railing during a charity race and nearly went up in flames. The only good news was that Harry Sellinger, a world champion whom Bobby convinced to come back from retirement and race for TP, managed to maneuver the almost uncontrollable car to a place where nobody got hurt.
Bobby frowned, refilled his champagne glass, and absentmindedly turned on his laptop. The next course of action would be crucial. He couldn’t afford any mistakes. Deep in thought, Bobby entered his password, clicked on his brainstorming icon, entered another password, and froze.
Above his latest ideas was a message he hadn’t put there.
Monte Carlo
Bobby blinked and reread the message.
>> Do you know that you are enabling a monster operation? TP illegally took control of people’s computers and their social media accounts. And that’s just the beginning, Bobby.
If you want to learn more, leave your questions above this line. You are safe here. This is the only private space in your computer. And in your life, for that matter. Everything else you do is monitored. 24/7.
Pal
Bobby reread the message a second time. He felt fury rise to his forehead and pushed the champagne away.
This was the third message he had received from Pal. The first one had been a simple email message Bobby had ignored.
>> Bobby, do you have any idea what Total Protection is really all about? Pal
Thinking the message was from one of his disgruntled employees, Bobby had deleted it and forgot all about it. The second message had come in this morning, just when he was leaving for the charity car race.
>> Check your products, Bobby. They are not what you think. Or are they? Pal
Bobby had been taken aback at first because it was a text message on his private phone. Not many people had his number. But phone numbers had a tendency to leak, so he had dismissed the whole thing again and deleted the text.
The message in his brainstorming file represented a serious security breach. He had installed state-of-the-art protection on all his computer systems, including his laptop. There had never been a breach before. And now Pal sailed around several passwords and firewalls to drop his message in Bobby’s most private and most protected file. To tell Bobby that he does not know squat about his products. The chutzpah.
Bobby caught himself wanting to meet this person. Maybe he is a pal after all…
But pals didn’t hack into your computer. Bobby’s fury came back. He stood up and went to the window. The yachts sparkled in the harbor, parties going on everywhere. Stupid, meaningless parties. Bobby shook his head, thinking about the workers in his factory in China who barely made ends meet. He wanted to pay them more, but the board didn’t approve it.
Bobby rubbed his chin. What if Pal was right? What if he was indeed enabling a monster operation? Bobby flinched. That couldn’t be true.
But the genie was already out of the bottle. The doubts that had been lurking in the shady outreaches of Bobby’s conscience since he closed the deal with DEI were out in the open. Regardless of what Pal was saying, there were too many things that did not add up. It was high time to get to the bottom of this business.
Brutally honest with himself, Bobby went back to the very beginning. The vague unease he had felt when the deal came on the table. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but his intuition had been telling him not to get involved. But the deal was too attractive. Bobby was so obsessed with merging 7’Heaven and DEI, he couldn’t concentrate on anything else. He would hate himself forever if he let such an opportunity slip through his fingers. It was a giant win-win for everyone involved.
Still, why wouldn’t Frank meet with him in person? They had scheduled a lunch several times, but Frank always canceled at the last moment. Or sent his lawyer instead.
“Hey, Bobby, something came up and Frank couldn’t make it.”
Just the thought of the guy’s watery, cold eyes and his slippery, weak handshake gave Bobby the shivers. He felt as if a stone landed in the pit of his stomach every time the lawyer showed up. Frank sounded OK at first, but Bobby dreaded their phone calls lately. Because Frank’s take on the business didn’t make any sense. And Frank only gave orders, unwilling to discuss anything. Demanding more revenue in Europe and Asia, although they were breaking records already.
Bobby sat down and put his head in his hands. In the last months, he was doing his best job ever but was perpe
tually unhappy. It didn’t make sense. Bobby jumped up and looked at the yachts again. Nothing made sense anymore. He had to regain control. No two ways about it.
Bobby returned to his laptop, scrolled to the middle of Pal’s message, and typed.
>> Tell me more.
He looked at the message and added please before hitting return. He watched the screen, breathing heavily, not knowing what to expect.
>> Give me a minute or two
Bobby rubbed his chin, fascinated by the hack Pal used. What was it? He hoped like hell that it was as safe as Pal promised. Then he remembered the remark about being monitored 24/7, took his laptop off the table, and sat on the floor, leaning against the sliding glass door to his balcony, making sure his screen was not visible from anywhere in the room.
>> Create a TP account not traceable to you. Take several quizzes. Then check out sptfr3 on the device where the account runs and follow it around. If you don’t like what you see, get back here and let me know - in the middle of this message.
Bobby wasn’t a stranger to anonymous accounts, so it didn’t take him long to run the experiment. He took several quizzes and checked out sptfr3. Livid, he pushed the laptop away and jumped to his feet. His heart was trying to break out of his chest. This can’t be right. Bobby slumped down on the floor, tears streaming uncontrollably on his shirt.
This is not what the deal was all about. He had created 7’Heaven for fun, not for politics. And Total Protection was supposed to protect people, not exploit them.
Bobby leaned against the glass door, motionless. Then he created a new TP account and ran the same experiment using different quizzes. Sptfr3 churned out political messages as if it were on fire.
>> I don’t like what I see.
Bobby typed, making sure he was in the middle of the previous message. He’d be damned if he let this scam go on.
>> K. I have a patch for you. It will stop sending the political BS. But whoever is behind this will still get stats as if their scam were working. OK?
>> How can I be sure that this will work and not cause any other trouble?
>> Because I designed the original program. It was never meant to exploit innocent people.
>> What was it for?
>> Terrorism Prevention. TP!
Bobby gasped. But he felt more alive than ever. A wide smile filled his face when he replied.
>> Let’s put your program back where it belongs. You’ve got yourself a pal, Pal :-)
>> :-) JasonC just sent you a text. Reply to it if you need to chat and I’ll reconnect with you here.
Bobby was in business.
Nice, France
One day later
She spotted three of them competing for innocuous space behind her, doing their best to look like tourists. She strolled past a few more shops, then turned around sharply and walked back, struggling to keep her face straight as they scrambled, trying to avoid contact with her.
It was a beautiful day, and Helen decided to extend her walk and study her entourage somewhat more. She recognized the guy closest to her. A short, skinny man who had followed Nic and her in Nice last year. Or maybe he had followed Santini, who had followed them. Number two looked rough, in spite of his designer clothes and sunglasses. Belonging to team Santini? The tattoo sleeves covering his forearms made it quite likely. Number three was the most believable one, looking like a businessman who had a day off in a foreign country. But his task was undoubtedly to follow Helen or one of the two guys who followed her.
Helen strolled through the shopping streets, occasionally checking her apps, which showed no activity. The three men followed like loyal dogs. What’s their game? Helen knew they were following her, and they knew she knew. With company like this, I have nothing to fear on this assignment, Helen chuckled to herself.
Unless one of them is the designated assassin… She shrugged, suddenly eager to get back to the hotel. Whatever the guys’ game was, it was deadly serious. And she had work to do.
None of the followers ventured into the Negresco. Helen scanned her suite and set up shop on the terrace, refreshed by the sea air.
The TP account was her first priority. She took a quiz and checked the sptfr3 program. Bobby had done his job. The propaganda spam was gone. The next step would be to follow the sptfr3 stats to their ultimate recipient. Which would take hours of delicate work. Helen let her eyes rest on the Mediterranean, deciding what to attack next.
Who first? The hacker she had discovered in Bobby’s laptop, or Frank Crawford?
Nice
Hotel Negresco
Helen bit her lip. Bobby’s hacker used government programs, which was remarkable, but not as intriguing as Crawford. Frank was it.
Feeling like a thief avoiding laser scanners protecting treasures in a museum, Helen fired up one of the inactive rogue units and carefully entered Frank’s email account. Connecting with Bobby was relatively easy. Albeit expensive, his laptop security wasn’t a match for Helen’s bots. Frank was a whole other story. Entering a counterterrorism czar’s computer without permission wasn’t without risks. Helen felt fairly secure using the rogue device, but she worked as carefully as if her life depended on it.
Frank and Bobby were communicating almost daily. Amazing, considering Bobby was CEO of TP, a commercial company. TP’s parent, DEI, was a government contractor, but why was a hotshot like Frank Crawford involved in TP’s daily operations? This wasn’t business as usual.
Helen scrolled through the emails, looking for patterns. As expected, Frank received hundreds of emails per day. Most of them were handled by his assistant. Another batch received a one-word answer accompanied by an exclamation point. Agree! Do! OK! Phone! Only a few email senders got longer answers. Bobby Bullock was one of them. Another one was collin.frey. Frank and Collin emailed several times per day.
Two things struck Helen. One, Collin didn’t email Frank, Frank emailed Collin and demanded answers. Fast. Two, their emails frequently mentioned her. They referred to her as H, but there was no doubt they meant her and her whereabouts. They also discussed B and S. Bullock and Santini?
Currently collin.frey reported that H was in Nice, strolling around like a movie star, dragging the guys through the shopping streets. Helen laughed. What did you expect, boys? Next time I’ll drag your butts up the Castle Hill.
The next part of the report was even more entertaining. B was in Monte Carlo, working his ass off, not a whore or a line of coke in sight. Oh my… S was still in Monte Carlo, but his people were in Nice already.
Helen sat back. That explained the guys following her around Nice and possibly also the government spy programs in Bobby’s laptop.
But who ran this show?
The answer wasn’t in Frank’s emails. It wasn’t in his texts either. Helen closed her eyes. From the beginning, she received her orders from the Consortium, which was either Andreas in person or the messages on one of her devices. She reported back by depositing her reports into a digital dead drop. Helen smiled.
Things don’t change much, do they? In the old days, they used a hole in a tree or a loose brick in a wall to pass information. Now it was a digital location where one person dropped the goods and another one retrieved them.
Helen assumed the Consortium ran the Project, but Frank was heavily involved too. Nic had said that Frank had “sold” the Project to the Consortium and then “went after money and power.” It made sense now, knowing that Frank was involved with TP, a commercial operation. And TP got hold of her programs and used them for a political campaign. Money and power. Helen sighed.
Did Frank give TP her programs? If so, he was way out of line. A counterterrorism czar deploying classified programs developed to fight terrorists to interfere in domestic political fights… Helen felt fury coiling up.
What was Bobby’s role in this? He seemed genuinely shocked about the political promo and took it down.
Besides, it was Frank who had her and Bobby under 24/7 surveillance. Was he using them t
o cover up his tracks? Was he building a case against them to blame them if he got into hot water?
Helen could be easily put on the scene of attempted crimes on Flores and Elba, and she and Bobby could be linked to the TP fraud. After all, it was Bobby’s company and her AI…
But why go to so much trouble? Nic had been accused of placing the bombs without any evidence…
Helen bit her lip. Was there another explanation? She stood up, her head buzzing. She opened the bottle of mineral water she’d gotten on her walk through Nice and went back to the terrace.
Where was the Consortium in all of this? Was Frank in contact with them? If so, how? Not via email. She had to find out. In any event, if Frank collected intel on her and Bobby, she’d collect intel on him and make it look like the rogues did it. Gathering and storing evidence was her strongest defense.
But first she was going to find out who was collin.frey. She scrolled through Frank’s emails looking for clues. No one would question it if Frank’s assistant searched for information on Collin, so borrowing her identity was a safe way to proceed. Familiar with the system from her embassy days, Helen went to work. It took her only a few minutes to pull Collin’s file. She clicked on it and gasped.
Collin Frey received a law degree and a PhD in cybersecurity from Georgetown, a few years ahead of Helen. He was currently head of a special investigative unit in Dallas, Texas. But it was his headshot that made Helen’s heart skip a beat.
For Collin Frey was her tall friend from the Noordermarkt in Amsterdam.
Monte Carlo, Monaco
The next day
