Armchair Safari (A Cybercrime Technothriller)

by Jonathan Paul Isaacs

  Derek had picked up a pen from his desk and was fidgeting with it. “Is there something in particular that worries you about what we’re going to do here?”

  Lucy let out a huff. She could tell Derek was ready to argue point-by-point anything that she might bring up as if it were the next Presidential Debate. She didn’t want to have to nitpick particulars this late at night. She was tired and she still had work to do before she could go home. She had already gone far deeper into a security discussion than she had intended.

  “Let’s just say I know the type of attention Safari attracts,” she said finally, after some consideration. “You don’t see hardly any of it. We’re under attack every day. You’re opening us up to a lot more liability if something goes wrong.”

  Derek nodded sympathetically. “Look, I understand. You did a great job of scaring the bejeezus out of me. That said, the whole point of a business is to make money. You want to do it ethically, and you want to do it sustainably, but making money is what gives you options. That’s all this idea is about—having our membership pay us instead making everything a pass through to the bank. We can double our operating income almost overnight. We make more money, we can grow faster, we can reinvest our profit. We can invest it in things like security, if that’s what bothers you. Or, we can divest the earnings. But we have to do it.”

  It was close to 11:30 p.m. now on the wall clock behind Derek. Lucy looked him over. Derek’s body language was confident, relaxed, like he was ready to work all night. She, on the other hand, was more tired by the minute. When she had spied Derek’s light on, she had decided on a lark to come over and test him a bit. It was clearly going to take more than one sitting to talk sense into him.

  Regardless, she wasn’t going to let him marginalize her or risk the well-being of her company. Netertainment was her family.

  Lucy stood up to leave. “We’ll see,” was all she said, trying to sound ominous.

  “I suppose so.”

  As she started to walk out, Lucy felt an overwhelming impulse to take a last parting shot at the overeducated, closed-minded consultant who had been gifted his way to their inner circle.

  “By the way, that Dutch hacker I just told you about?” Lucy said as nonchalantly as she could.

  “The one who stole all those people’s credit card numbers?”

  “Yes. He was very young. Twenty years old.”

  “Wow.”

  “That’s right,” Lucy continued. “You don’t need a degree from Harvard to be smart.”

  Derek blinked like he had just had water flicked into his face.

  Good, Lucy thought, and she walked out of the office.

  12

  It was time for a party, and Jim Palmisano’s home was amazing.

  Nestled on a steep hillside hidden from the main road, the two-story home had a beautiful limestone exterior, Tuscan-styled shutters, and a red tile roof. Derek parked amongst the dozens of cars in the drive and was greeted by Maria Palmisano at the door. He gave her a peck on the cheek as she invited him in.

  He walked into the great room, filled with art deco furniture and a large marble fireplace flanked by built-in bookshelves at one end. At the other end was the breakfast area, where several caterers in white jackets flitted back and forth into the kitchen beyond. There were guests everywhere in sporty, casual dress, each absorbed in small talk or snippets of business. Derek barely noticed the noise of conversation as he walked toward the tremendous picture windows in the back. All he could focus on was the view. A shimmering Lake Travis stretched out for miles far below the back deck, and sailboats trying to beat the sunset hurried to get back to dock. Off in the distance he could see other homes on opposing hillsides comfortably separated from unwelcome interaction with each other.

  “I’ve always found it’s nice to live near water,” Jim said as he strode over to Derek. He had a drink in his hand.

  “Great backyard you have here.”

  “Yeah, I like it. Beats looking at traffic. Maria let me know you were here. Glad you could make it.”

  Jim waved over a passing caterer. The next thing Derek knew, he was holding a mojito and listening to his boss go on about the local history of the lake in front of them. Apparently, Lake Travis was really a flood control reservoir created by damming up the nearby river as part of a project to provide electricity to the hill country. Derek listened appreciatively as he gazed at the blue-gray water. The Palmisanos had lived here for two years since moving from southern California. Only gradually did Derek notice that Jim had stopped talking and was looking out at the water with him.

  “I guess you and Maria did all right when you sold out of the L.A. market.”

  “You could say that. A couple million here gets you more than a 70’s bungalow in SoCal, huh? You know, there are some houses for sale out here, if you really like the view.”

  “I could use a new house,” Derek said, smiling. He looked around and the relative opulence of his boss’s home. “Something smaller.”

  Jim polished off the last of his whiskey sour. “Come with me, I want you to meet somebody.”

  The two men made their way through the crowd, and it was a crowd. Every manager and executive of Netertainment seemed to be there along with wives, husbands, or a date for the evening. Eventually Jim found the person he was looking for.

  “Hi, Derek. Bill Tyson,” a tall man in a blue blazer said as they shook hands. He was perhaps fifty years old and had graying blond hair. “Jim has told me a lot about you.”

  “Were there expletives involved?”

  “No, no,” laughed Bill. “It was all good, I promise.”

  Jim gestured between the two men. “Bill is one of the partners at Hepburn, Coffin and Smith, our lead venture capitalist. They have an office here in Austin but ironically, Bill lives in Palo Alto. It worked out that he was able to make it to this little event, though.”

  “Glad to, of course,” said Bill. “Netertainment is one of the more interesting companies we have in our portfolio.”

  The three men chitchatted for a few minutes. Derek made sure to get a second mojito from the caterer’s waiter—a waiterer?—and quickly found that despite the geographic distance between their offices, Bill was almost frighteningly current on what was happening at their company.

  “I understand that the implementation of the new banking strategy is already underway, is that right?” Bill asked, switching his full attention to Derek. “How is that going?”

  The VC’s manner was still polite, but Derek sensed a hard business edge just underneath. “It’s in place and running—about two weeks now. So far, everything is running great.” Derek took a sip of his drink and studied Bill, who was busy studying him.

  “Any issues with setting it up?”

  “No, it was pretty straightforward,” Derek said. “We did have to change the end-user license agreement. Before, a player would essentially deposit his or her money directly with Bermuda Bank of Commerce and authorize us to act as an approved financial agent. That way we could deposit or withdraw from the account depending on the direction of game play. What we have now is that the players pay directly to Netertainment. We put the funds on our balance sheet instead of treating it as a pass-through. That lets us handle the money differently—invest a portion of it, capture the interest, treat it as ours. For the most part the change is completely transparent to the players. Interestingly, we’re still using Bermuda Bank of Commerce, so they’re happy that they still have all those assets. But we’ve hired our own financial manager to help in spreading the money into different investment horizons and manage our interest earnings.”

  “And Lucy’s been great at hammering out the technology changes,” added Jim.

  Huh? Derek looked hard at his boss. Lucy’s participation had been begrudging at best. And that was being generous.

  “Well,” said Bill, “this sounds like a great move for us, then. I’m looking forward to seeing it pay off.”

  “As are we, indee
d,” added Jim, still ignoring Derek.

  “Excellent. Now, if you’ll excuse me... could you point me to the restroom?”

  Jim escorted the venture capitalist off through the crowd, leaving Derek standing by himself with an empty glass for company. The whole ending to the conversation was very strange.

  He picked at some barbecue meatballs while he visited with people he recognized. Most people had come with spouses or dates, and Derek had to explain that his wife was still back in Boston with their son when asked about his family. After the fourth time, Derek wandered off to the kitchen to grab another mojito. He didn’t want to talk about family. He wanted to think about other things. Juliana made him angry. Robby made him feel a sense of loss. Dwelling on it was not going to help right now.

  Derek knew how his body reacted when he was feeling stressed. Not well.

  The sunset treated the guests to a magnificent display of color across the western sky. Derek decided to explore the house a little more. The sophisticated accents and modern décor invited close inspection, and nosing around eventually took Derek down a set of stairs and into a very comfortable, and huge, den. Plush leather couches framed an ornate pool table that had feet carved into the talons of some great mythological beast. Two middle-aged men who had obviously left their wives somewhere else in the house were watching baseball on TV. Derek noted that it wasn’t a Sox game and quickly dismissed its relevance to the universe. Instead, Derek poured himself a glass of whisky from the wet bar and told himself to ask for permission later.

  A group of people sat in the middle of the wide deck just outside the massive picture windows. Derek spied Roger deeply engaged in conversation. Roger had turned out to be what Derek was beginning to think of as his closest friend in Austin—he was sarcastic and profane, but also exceptionally genuine and earnest. Derek desperately needed those things, living in a city alone and with immense responsibility placed on his shoulders as the company’s financial steward. He smiled and stepped outside to the deck.

  “Ho-ho-ho, here he is,” said Roger enthusiastically as Derek approached. He stood up and shook Derek’s hand. “I was wondering when you were going to show up. Did you see the sunset? Wasn’t it great?”

  “Yes, awesome. Have you been here this whole time?”

  “Actually, got here early, so my socializing was done in no time. Now I can focus more on the drinking. Is your wife here?”

  Derek sighed. “No, I’m here stag.”

  “Ah, too bad—Carol is upstairs, I know she would have wanted to meet her. What’s your wife’s name? Julie, was it?”

  “Julianna, yes. Maybe next time.”

  “Well, here, come have a seat with us.”

  Derek took Roger’s seat on a wicker loveseat and shuffled next to Manmeet and his wife, a short but pretty Indian girl dressed in a mint green sari. She smiled said her name was Parvati. Next to them was Lucy. Her hair was pulled back and she wore a purple sleeveless dress that only came halfway down her thighs. Derek thought she looked great, but just as they made eye contact she turned and started whispering into the ear of her date Steve, a big, burly guy with a clean-shaven head and his hand on her knee. Steve glanced over at Derek from underneath a heavy brow line and seemed to nod at something, but otherwise remained silent.

  Nice to meet you too, pal, thought Derek.

  Next to Superman was Dave Streib, who despite having his own date seemed thoroughly miserable in watching Lucy pay attention to another guy. Roger introduced Dave’s date for him. Her name was Eve and she sat silently, her arms folded and her body language screaming resentment.

  “How are you finding the party?” said Roger.

  “It’s been interesting.” Derek told them about meeting the venture capitalist.

  “I’ve only met Bill once, and I didn’t really interact much with him,” said Roger.

  “He was nice, but pretty intense. I felt like I was being studied inside a glass cage.”

  “Maybe you were,” shot Lucy unexpectedly.

  Derek looked at her.

  “After all,” she continued, “it’s their money that’s at risk. They’ll want to know who’s making the decisions about what will happen to it.”

  The challenge to Derek’s decision was unmistakable and an uncomfortable silence quickly descended upon the group. Roger ultimately cleared his throat to dispel it. “Come on you guys. Everyone knows that Jim is just sucking up to the VC because he wants a nicer house.”

  The absurdity of the comment was just enough. Everyone laughed, and conversation shifted to the potential windfall of working for a startup trying to go public. They began with Jim’s house. The group decided that the property around them was probably worth somewhere in the $3 million range—it had a magnificent view, private access to the lake, a very upscale design. That meant that in Jim’s dictionary, nicer meant ten million, possibly on the coast, definitely on a bigger hill. Then there was some talk about whether Jim really needed not one, not two, but three houses, so that he could spread his time across different climates and topographies. That way he could get in boating, skiing, and raising horses. Then the conversation veered back to Austin, and how it was the perfect combination of business climate and access to talent to start up a company like Netertainment and position it for success.

  But the whole time, Derek had to fight the urge to argue with Lucy. He felt like he was back in high school and competing to see who ran with the cooler clique. There was just this strange way she had of pushing his buttons—something about her mannerisms, the tone of her voice and the narrowed eyes when she spoke to him. Derek was confident in his professional judgment—ideas that improved the bottom line would drive up the value of Netertainment. Yet he kept having this feeling that Lucy wanted him to fail.

  Derek started to participate less in the discussion and instead stewed in the thoughts floating around his head. From time to time he would watch Lucy. She seemed to be ignoring him again, but occasionally he thought he saw her steal a furtive glance in his direction. The huge chip on her shoulder remained.

  The conversation was now steering away from housing and toward travel. Dave was explaining what he would do if he ever received a large influx of cash. “I’ve always wanted to see the world, ever since I was a little kid. I always liked hiking and camping. So, that’s what I would do—I’d buy a really nice road bike and cycle through Europe. I’d tour through the French countryside, through the Alps and along the Italian coast, up through Germany, just living day-to-day and taking it all in.”

  Roger was beaming. “You know, that isn’t a half bad idea. You mention Italy—I think the most amazing place I’ve ever been to was Sorrento, on the west coast there. It’s this beautiful medieval town built alongside these cliffs that plunge down into the sea. Carol and I spent a week there once, before children, and it was this amazingly romantic getaway. We’d just stroll through the cobblestone streets in the evening, going past the different shops, stopping for a drink at a café, and looking out over the water at Mt. Vesuvius, which you can see from the town.”

  “I’d go back to Australia,” said Lucy. “I was there for a couple weeks on the Gold Coast a few years ago. We stayed in this little shack and practically lived on the beach. I went surfing every morning. Hmm—surfing. That’s something I miss from when I was growing up.” She added in a distant voice, “Maybe the only thing.”

  Manmeet cleared his throat and spoke next. “I think I’d just like to stay here in the States.”

  The group laughed. The obsession that Manmeet had for American culture was well-known.

  “Manmeet’s going to be a cowboy out on the range,” quipped Dave.

  The small man immediately began defending his views. “No, seriously! You guys don’t realize how good you have it over here. This is the only country in the world that is truly a melting pot of cultures and people. There’s a blended mix that exists only here.”

  Dave made another comment about how Manmeet’s accent caused the wor
d blended to sound like bland-ed, which caused another laugh, but Manmeet continued, undeterred. “Why would anyone want to go somewhere else? You have it all in one place. The coast, the frontier, the big cities. I’m going to stay here forever.”

  “Manmeet, you live here, though,” Lucy pointed out. “If you love to travel, and money is no object, wouldn’t you want to go somewhere else? Like, Thailand or something?”

  “Been there. I’m from India. I’ve been all over the Pacific Rim. So for me, I guess exotic is defined by the other side of the world, or in my case, the United States.”

  Everyone was looking at him like he was crazy.

  “Look, I’ve been to some amazing places over here. I’ve gone fishing off the Florida Keys. I’ve gone skiing up in Vail. I’ve been on a three day hike in the Grand Canyon. For my next vacation, I’m planning a motorcycle trip through New England in the Fall, so I can see all the trees turning colors and finish up in Boston on Halloween.”

  “You can stay at my house,” Derek offered sourly. “I’m trying to get away from Boston.” He took a last swig of his whisky.

  “Really?” Manmeet said, lighting up. “Oh—I see, never mind. You’re just teasing me. In any event, my point is that America is a vast place that you guys take for granted over here. You should really open your eyes and enjoy how diverse this country is.”

  Roger tossed his head back with another chuckle. “What about you, Mister CFO? What’s the most exotic place that you’ve been to?”

  Derek looked around at the group. Roger and Dave were watching, waiting for an answer. Parvati was looking at her feet. Eve had her head cocked and was waiting for Derek to speak as well, though he couldn’t tell if she was really interested or just being polite. Lucy was again whispering into her date’s ear and Derek got the impression that whatever she was saying was something negative about him.

  “The most exotic?” Derek mused. He stared at the ice clinking in his glass. He suddenly felt very tired, and with the eyes of the group on him, he no longer was up for more conversation. He sighed deeply.