The Russian Crisis

by G. R. Daniels

  Jackson gave a slight nod in agreement. Fred looked mortified and stammered, “I… I’m so sorry, Carmen. I didn’t… uh … think…”

  “Okay,” Jackson asked quickly. “Why won’t Maxim take this seriously?”

  This started a conversation that quickly became a debate. On one side, Fred calmly delineated the reasons why CEO Blax should approve a number of steps to identify the thief, list everything taken, discover the way the source code had been stolen and determine who might be a final customer for the code, assuming it was stolen to be sold. “It couldn’t be used by the thief himself; what could he do with it? Of course, we would then know who it is.”

  Carmen took another view saying that Blax might not have all the information he needed to understand the situation. Once he did understand it, she offered, he would first have to confirm the theft occurred.

  So far, she said, Barry and Jean were certain the software had been downloaded in a shocking violation of the company’s policies and rules but that it may not have been ‘stolen’ to sell to an enemy. She suggested the taker - she refused to say ‘thief’ - could ransom the code. Perhaps, someone wanted only a part of the code; for instance, just the AI buried in it. She posed several scenarios which made some sense that Fred could not totally refute.

  Jackson acted as the moderator of the debate but finally called a halt. He told Carmen and Fred that they, along with Payne, Brownley, Barry, Jean and Jackson himself, should haul Maxim into the boardroom and give him all the facts. Then, they should recommend actions that Max could and should approve. For one thing, he said, Maxim would have to open the fiscal doors so the investigation and remedies could be properly funded.

  “As well,” Jackson added, “We are going to need money for Mariah Belo and public relations. We’re whistling in the wind if we think we can keep all this quiet.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Roman Petrenko had called his crew together, in the same parking garage where two of his thugs had murdered and disposed of their colleague who had played bumper car with Brownley’s Jeep.

  One of his men was the security guard for the garage and made it available after hours for Petrenko’s infrequent meets. Six men lolled against a dingy wall. Petrenko had found an old swivel chair to wheel to this area of the garage. He sat in it like a petty ruler in front of supplicants.

  There was one black man, two whites and three men with dark features. These three looked something like the common perception of a terrorist as someone with darker skin, black beard and furtive expression but, in reality, they were Canadian-born hoods who held down menial jobs in local car washes. The black guy was a cook at a Jamaican eatery while the two whites were unemployed, native-born Russian car thieves when they weren’t doing odd jobs, including three previous murders, for Petrenko and his Russian masters. The seventh member of the crew had been dumped into a deep grave in one of the many forested provincial parks north of Toronto. Traces of his blood likely remained in the parking garage but who would ever look or care?

  Petrenko pulled out paper files from a shabby briefcase. He held them out and called the names of four of the men for each to collect his particular file. The blue file folders contained two sheets of paper each. One sheet had several paragraphs of text giving basic details of JPI executives cribbed from LinkedIn and other public sources. The other sheet held photos of the executives ‘assigned’ to each crew member.

  “You two,” Petrenko pointed in turn to the Russians.

  The pair was in sad shape. Victor was leaning on an aluminum cane while Pavel had one hand encased in a white bandage with the other arm in a sling. Victor pushed himself away from the wall and groaned as his damaged knee protested. There were no files for them.

  “You stay low. Do not let this Jackson guy see you.” Petrenko was referring to the run-in between the duo and Phillips in the airport area parking lot. “Idiots,” Petrenko muttered under his breath. “Da.” he added in Russian, sneering at the men. “He knows you too well,”

  “You.” He pointed to the black man. “Clarence. I want you to keep watch on this man Brownley and the other guy, this Payne.”

  “I got to work, mon. I got the day shift,” the cook protested, holding up his file folder.

  “Then pick them up at night. One on one day. One on the next.”

  “When am I goin’ to sleep?”

  “Christ, Clarence. Just see where they go after work. We got to get to them if we have to. It’s not 24 hours…”

  “Okay, mon. I do dat,” Clarence said in an aggrieved voice. “But I got to get paid this time, you know dat, Roman.”

  “Yeah, yeah. And you three,” Petrenko waved his hand at the middle-eastern types. “You find out where the others live. The old guy, Jackson. That broad … what’s her name … Belo. Yeah, you’ll like that, won’t you? And the blackie. Fred something. Work out who does what. I already know where the others live. Blax and the two geeks, the older one, Jean, and that mousey guy Barry.”

  “And,” Petrenko’s tone was threatening, “… don’t do nothing else until I tell you.”

  Assignments made, Petrenko stood up and dusted off the seat of his suit trousers. He turned and left the crew still lounging against the concrete wall of the garage. Slowly, they broke up and went separate ways. One of the darker men, the garage security guard, sighed and pushed Petrenko’s chair ahead of him as he returned to his little hut at the exit ramp of the garage.

  Petrenko returned to his office. He took the thumb drive out of his desk and set it on top of the desk. He stared at it for a minute. Then he called his handler at the Russian consulate. After being passed through several receptionists, he heard the familiar voice.

  “Roman. How good of you to call.”

  Petrenko shivered. He knew what the facetious tone meant. “I’m sorry, sir. I have been very busy,” he said in Russian.

  “Ah, that Ukrainian accent. How I love it.” Petrenko shivered again.

  “I have news, sir.”

  “When you first told me of the offer of code, it was a major opportunity, wasn’t it, Roman?” The handler sounded friendly.

  “Now it is several days later and I haven’t heard a thing.” The tone grew sharper.

  “Not a damned thing,” The handler was angry. “Who do you think you are, you little worm? You think you can play us?”

  “No, sir. Not at all sir.” Sweat broke out on Petrenko’s brow. “I have something for you now. It just came to me. On a card, sir.”

  “Just came in, did it? You think we’re fools?”

  “I will bring it myself. Right now.”

  “Have you done anything with this card?”

  “What do you mean. I would not…”

  “So, you have viewed it.”

  “No…. Just a little… I will bring it sir. I don’t understand it.”

  The handler was quiet for a beat. “Bring it now. Or tell your friends to order flowers.”

  “Flowers? I don’t…”. Petrenko paled. The hand around the smartphone began to shake. “I do… right now.” He disconnected, grabbed the SD card and scurried to the door and down the hallway.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  After his meeting with Carmen and Fred, Jackson spent the rest of the day visiting staff members of the MLD&T division, picking their brains about the software but not mentioning the theft of source code to anyone. Some of the staffers refused to discuss anything technical with him because, after all, he was retired and not an active employee of the new JPI. Some were eager to tell Jackson of advances in the software he had inspired a year and more ago.

  At the end of the long afternoon, Jackson was looking forward to returning to his condo and resting. He was tired mentally and physically. His knees were aching from alternatively sitting and standing. He found himself forgetting some of the information he had just been told.

  Nothing was easy in Toronto traffic. Jackson vowed the next time he had to move around the city, he would do it using the much more effici
ent public transit system.

  Jackson arrived at his condo after 7 p.m. He made a ham and cheese sandwich in the small kitchen and ate it while sitting at the kitchen island. He drank some fizzy water and headed for the couch. He turned on the television with the remote and suffered through five minutes of meaningless commercials before falling asleep with his feet on the ottoman.

  The morning finally came with a sunrise that reflected from the windows on the CN Tower and on the golden panes of the Royal Bank headquarters in the downtown core. Jackson thought it would have looked spectacular on the bay from the giant windows of his cottage. He dressed quickly and made coffee. No sugar, just a dash of milk.

  Jackson grabbed his workout and garment bags and headed down to the exercise room in his building. An hour later, feeling better, he climbed off the StairMaster and went to the locker room for a shower and change.

  An hour after that, Jackson stepped down from the streetcar and crossed to the sidewalk in front of the JPI building. Ahead, he saw Maxim Blax being helped out of a limo by a man Jackson recognized as a company driver. He sped up and said hello to the driver as he passed the limo. That brought a large smile in return.

  “Hey Max… wait for me,” Jackson called after emerging from the revolving door into the office building. He saw Blax look behind him but the CEO didn’t slow.

  Jackson caught Blax just as the man was stepping into an elevator. The two entered together.

  “You avoiding me?” Jackson smiled disarmingly.

  “Just things to do,” Blax said in a tight voice.

  “Hopefully, one of those things has to do with the thing we discussed,” Jackson told his companion and the elevator rose to the executive floors with just the two men on board.

  “I have no intention of wasting time on that nonsense.”

  Jackson was stung by the comment. While he had not expected Blax to go down without a fight, he certainly hadn’t expected the CEO to ignore the theft of code completely. It was a theft that could send JPI down in flames.

  “Is the board aware of the problem?” Jackson spoke in sudden anger. “I’m sure they won’t dismiss this so lightly.” He avoided using the term ‘stolen’ or ‘theft’. One never knew who was listening over what device.

  “No. I am not going to waste their time either.”

  “Max. I hired you because you were the best man - or woman - to take over this company. I can’t believe I made that big a mistake.”

  “I am the best person,” Blax stepped on the last word. “I am doing this job better than anyone else could. And that,” he paused for effect. “That includes you, Jackson. You left this company because you were too old to do the job. I have saved this company and it’s about time…”

  “Shut up, Max.” Jackson was furious. The elevator slid to a gentle stop and the doors opened. “Get out; we’re taking this to your office.” Jackson grabbed Blax’s arm and steered him out of the elevator car and through the hallway.

  The two men hurried past a reception desk with Jackson propelling Blax forward. They entered the CEO’s office and the door slammed behind them. Several shocked faces looked in that direction, then turned quickly away.

  Jackson released Blax’s arm once inside the office. Blax began to walk to his desk but Jackson pointed to the conversation area. “Sit there.” The former brigadier general’s voice brooked no argument.

  The two sat in chairs. Blax seemed cowed.

  “Max,” Jackson was calm now, his voice gentle. “What is going on with you?” He leaned forward.

  Blax raised his head. His eyes glistened. “I don’t know, Jackson. I try so hard…” he dropped his head again.

  “Well, it can’t go on like this. JPI has a crisis on its hands. Someone has our source code and we have to deal with it.”

  “I hear what you’re saying,” Blax mumbled. “I just can’t deal with it. I have so much to do.”

  Jackson leaned back and studied the CEO. “What’s more important than the whole future of the company. If it gets out that our proprietary code is out there, we’re dead with a lot of important clients.”

  Blax’s head rose once more. His defiant manner returned. “I can’t believe this, Jackson. It looks to me as if you want to take back JPI. Don’t you like retirement?”

  The former CEO was disgusted by the sudden changes in the current head of JPI. “The last thing I wanted to do was to interfere with your leadership at JPI. I chose you, Maxim, but it’s obvious it was a horrible choice. I have no option but to take this to the board.”

  Blax changed yet again. This time, his eyes grew wide with fear and his upper lip began to tremble. “You can’t do that.” His voice quivered.

  Jackson pushed himself to his feet and looked down at the CEO. His look of anger and disgust became one of sad resignation. He turned on his heel and, moving quickly, he was out of Blax’s office and back on the elevator in a minute or two.

  He went to the executive boardroom and pulled out his smartphone. He began selecting the numbers of the members of the JPI board and calling each in order of seniority. In less than half an hour, he had arranged an emergency board meeting for the next morning.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Hungry. It was getting late in the morning and Jackson realized that he hadn’t eaten much over the past few days. Little wonder. He made his way out of the JPI building and turned toward a small eatery that he recalled from his CEO days. He could beat the lunch rush.

  As he walked along the sidewalk, Jackson kept an eye on windows that allowed him to see behind him. ‘Yep,’ the two men were still on his tail. They were total amateurs, he thought. Who would assign characters like this to follow a man with decades of experience in remaining alert to everything around him?

  It was easier to keep track of known stalkers than to re-acquire new ones, so Jackson gave the men no reason to think he knew of their presence. Easy to do with this bunch.

  He did, however, ask himself, ‘Who are they? Do they belong to the thief or to someone he was trying to sell the code to?’ Jackson dismissed other players. A competitor wouldn’t follow the retired CEO, nor would police or one of the security services that might be concerned with software thefts from tech companies. These outfits were far better than the two men on his coattails. He would find some way of identifying the two behind him - the Middle Eastern types.

  Toronto is one of the most diverse cities in the world. There are people from every one of the earth’s nations living in the 630 square kilometres covered by the city’s spread. More than 225,000 of these people are described as Arab. Not that every person from the middle-east is an Arab, of course, but Jackson thought of these two as ‘the Arabs.’

  It made Jackson more comfortable to think of the men in this way; he had worked with many Arabs and Arab-Canadians in the past. Most were solid citizens who were, in the majority, intelligent, well-spoken, extremely polite and fun-loving. He counted many among his friends. Thinking of them made him regret his self-imposed exile from the city in past months of retirement. It also gave him an idea.

  He made a mental note to contact some of his old friends. Maybe they would like to meet these two, chat them up and find out what the two characters thought they were doing.

  After lunch, Jackson returned to JPI and to the PR offices.

  “So, what’s the plan?” He and Mariah were in the local boardroom with cups of coffee in front of them.

  Mariah looked excited. She pushed her iPad across the table to Jackson. The screen contained a list. “The plan, sir…”

  An hour later, second cups of coffee cooling on the table, Jackson returned the iPad and leaned back into his chair.

  “Not much more I can say. With the tweaks we just made, I think this will do.” He smiled and reached for his cup.

  Mariah had begun, she explained, with the crisis communications plan Jackson and his team had implemented when he was CEO. She assumed the role as head of a crisis communication team consisting of just two other peo
ple, a senior tech manager named Al Stringer and an office manager named Jia Wong. Mariah described Al as a ‘genius and a communicator - a rare combination.’ To her, Jia Wong was ‘the greatest organizer imaginable.’

  The team had looked at every conceivable crisis that could erupt at JPI. Their work resulted in chart after chart of the actions that could be taken in each crisis with the expected results of the actions. No example matched the current problem exactly but several scenarios came close enough to make Jackson shudder.

  A theft of critical code or software prototypes would affect the company, its several thousand employees, JPI’s board, suppliers who entrusted their products to JPI, customers including a large number of armed forces units in a number of countries, and the public.

  Jackson let Mariah’s work seep into the crevices of his mind as he sipped his coffee. He put down the cup and looked at the young woman who was shutting down the device. “A hell of a lot of depressing stuff, Mariah.”

  She looked up in alarm. Jackson was smiling. “This is superb work. Thank your team for me.”

  “Unfortunately,” she said sadly, “… we haven’t done much for the past few months. Mr. Blax put a stop to this kind of work.” Jackson looked at her in dismay.

  She grinned. “Oh, the team still plods along. A few BBQs at Al’s place. He lives outside the city on a hobby farm. Long talks on lazy afternoons. But only on weekends.”

  Jackson didn’t smile. “Mr. Blax seems disengaged, to say the least.”

  “Yeah. He’s changed a lot since I came here about a year ago. In the beginning, he was great. On board with PR and the crisis audit. But, over the months…” She halted and looked grim.

  “I like your ideas to meet this kind of crisis head-on,” Jackson told her. “I’ll take them up with the board in our meeting tomorrow. See if I can get them approved for instant action and get funding.”