Authors: Rick Soper
Chapter 16
The Agency had offices all over the country: Seattle, Hollywood, Miami, San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Washington DC. Wherever there were famous people who needed to have their images polished, The Agency was there. With one of their top clients, Billy Stone, going in front of congress to testify, Tom Francis – as the Agency’s CEO – was in the Washington DC office, ready to do damage control for whatever mess Billy got himself into.
Stevens hated the media in general, but a firm like The Agency that manipulated public opinion, he hated even more. Stevens blew through security with a push and a badge shoved in a guard’s face. He walked past the secretary without so much as a glance. Inside, Tom Francis sat behind his massive desk, talking on the phone. He barely acknowledged Stevens until the FBI agent yanked the phone out of his hand and slammed it into its cradle with a resounding thump.
Francis looked up at him. “Is there something I can do for you, Agent Stevens?”
If anything, Francis’ cool tone, only ratcheted up Stevens’ hatred of the man. “Good, Stevens said, “You know who I am–”
“Of course I know who you are,” Francis said, holding his eye. “It’s my job to know the famous, no matter what field they come from. So I would have to know one of the FBI’s most celebrated agents: the man who solved the X Spot Murders, caught The Casino Killer, brought The Central Valley Sniper to justice, and found The Bainbridge Killer before the local sheriff even knew there was a killer to be found.”
“Yeah, so you can read–”
“Yes, and I must say your surly reputation preceded you, and was confirmed by the rude way you burst in here. That said, if you ever want to make a whole lot of money on writing some books, I could manipulate that image to our–”
Stevens grabbed him by the front of his shirt, picked him up in the air, slammed him down onto his desk and jammed his face inches away from Francis’. “I’m not here to play your bullshit games,” he said. “I’m not one of your needy, damaged clients, and you’re not going to manipulate me!” He poked a meaty finger into Francis’ chest. “Do. You. Understand?”
“Y-y-yeah…” Francis stuttered out, his composure shattered.
Stevens picked him up again and threw him back into his chair, hard enough that it rolled across the floor and slammed into the back wall, the crash followed moments later by the sound of broken glass as an award fell off of a shelf above him and shattered on the floor. Stevens pointed a finger at Francis. “Now I want a list of the problems that you covered up for Billy Stone.”
“I... I can’t–”
Stevens lunged towards Francis. “Don’t give me that bullshit! If we don’t find Billy Stone fast you’re going to lose one of your largest clients!”
“You mean he didn’t just take off?” Though he was still cowering under the shelf, Stevens’ words seemed to wake him up – it looked as though it had never occurred to Francis that Billy could actually be in trouble
Stevens bent down and got close to Francis’ face. “Somebody got hold of him and is probably in the process of doing some very bad things to him, while you try to bullshit me.”
“Shit.” Francis said.
“Yeah...Shit...” Stevens drew himself up to his full six-foot-five inches. “Now cough up the list!”
Francis pulled the chair up to the desk, opened up the laptop and started tapping keys. “In most of these cases, and there aren’t that many, there was a mutual confidentiality agreement that was signed.”
“They don’t finger your boy as a creep, and he doesn’t publicly call them a slut.”
Francis looked up at him, shrugged and rolled his eyes. “That’s about right.” He pulled a sheaf of papers off of the printer by his desk and handed them to Stevens.
The papers revealed a small army of Stone’s women, each one ultimately bought off by Francis. Finally, Stevens looked up at him. “I see,” he said, barely controlling his urge to pick the man up and throw him into the desk, again. “You’re a complete asshole.”
Francis looked up at him. “I have to protect my clients.”
“No matter who you hurt?”
“It’s my job.”
Stevens lurched towards him, letting his hands curl into fists, liking the look of fear on Francis’ face as he cowered.
“Well, that’s a pretty fucked up job,” he said. Then he turned to the door, Francis all but forgotten. If someone had wanted to hurt Billy Stone, it was probably one of the names on that list.
Chapter 17
Upon the completion of the most successful IPO in stock market history, Billy decided to start enjoying his newfound wealth and public persona. Tom Francis had told him that women would come as an extension of his fame, but if he wanted to get the best ones, he would need to know how to treat them. Francis brought in a woman he called Mercedes, who first took care of Billy’s physical needs, and then taught him the intricacies of satisfying the needs of future partners – a portion of the lesson that Billy enjoyed immensely.
Once Billy had gotten a taste of what was to come, Francis and Mercedes taught how to attract the women he would want. In many ways, it was just as easy as putting on the persona that Francis had so carefully crafted for him – The Internet King. It was all about attitude, confidence, showing interest when necessary, and disinterest when appropriate. It was a game of reading subtle gestures, and responding with his own, back and forth like a dance, until the combination of all that he was putting out, all that she was returning culminated in him being able to enjoy the fruits of his labor.
When Francis thought he was ready, he let Billy loose on the world, starting with Fashion Week in New York. Models were by their very nature self-obsessed. The key to breaking them, according to Francis, was to know that most men were intimidated by them, and had a tendency to over-compliment, which bored them. What Billy needed to do was show the kind of confidence that made them, feel lucky to be around him. Once they were interested, he needed to point out something small that he noticed wrong with their looks, or their recent show...something to cause their own confidence to drop in relation to his, and make them want to impress him. Once that happened, Francis told him, he’d won.
Billy took his advice, and went a little crazy...
until his world collapsed...
Chapter 18
The first day, walking through the fresh, California sunshine on the campus of Stanford University, was for London like having the first taste of complete, total freedom. Up to that point she hadn’t had a bad life – on the contrary, her father had given her everything she could possibly want. He’d always been there for her in every possible way he could. But by the time she was a senior in high school, London knew she had to make a break from her friends, the town she grew up in, and especially her father. London had graduated near the top of her class in high school and she’d aced the SATs, which opened the door for applying to Stanford.
She’d chosen Stanford because it was about as far from her father as she could get and still go to a top-notch school. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her father dearly, she did. But she knew that if she’d been anywhere on the east coast, she would run to him at the slightest problem, and he’d find every reason he could to come visit. She knew she needed to cut that cord, to find out who she really was. She’d spent her entire life following his plan for who she should be. She was thankful for that plan. She knew that she had a solid base of learning, fitness, and health that would help her achieve in whatever field she wanted to try. But who she actually was and what she wanted out of life beyond her father’s plans for her was still a mystery – a mystery that she desperately wanted to solve.
As she continued to walk around the campus, she imagined that it was the kind of place where she could finally find the answers she was looking for. But she also saw indifferent faces, and girls who were much prettier than she was. She suddenly felt not nearly as smart as the average student there. Suddenly, in the midst of her newfound freedom, even as she reveled in no longer being the center of attention and her father’s world, she suddenly felt very alone and frightened.
Chapter 19
At the same time that London was walking across the Stanford campus, Russell was sitting in his home office with the lights off and a drink in his hand. The only light in the room came from the iMac computer screen in front of him, set up to run a slideshow of all of the pictures he had of the three of them: London, Amber, and himself. The pictures had been running on a loop since London had stepped on the plane to go away to school.
She’d sat down with him when she’d made the decision to go to Stanford. She’d told him that she loved him dearly, but needed to go to a school where they could have a little vacation from each other. She needed to know who she was without him. She told him that he would always be a huge part of her life, but there was a part of her that had her mother in her, a part that wanted to be set free, and go a little wild, so she could become the person she was going to be. They’d both cried, and hugged. He’d told her that he understood, and he’d told her that he always knew – hoped – that her mother would come out in her. He’d told her that was a good thing, because it reminded him of how much he’d loved her, and how proud she would have been of the woman that London had become.
It was everything that she wanted and needed to hear, but the reality was that from the second she’d set foot on the plane, he’d been lost. He had no idea who he was without her. Everything he’d been for so many years had been geared towards being her father, her friend, her mentor - towards being everything he could be for her. With her gone, his entire purpose had gone with her. Everything – the house, his job, and his life – felt hollow.
He took another drink, feeling more empty inside than he’d felt since the day Amber died. What was he going to do?
Chapter 20
Stevens met Emory Thomas in the lobby of the FBI building. “Okay,” he said. “What did you find?”
Emory shook his head. “The next computer Sarah was able to track down was set up in another house, owned by another dead guy. Another computer and another card table.”
“That’s what I figured.” The two of them walked into the open elevator and pushed the button to go down to their basement offices.
“What about you?”
Stevens held up the stack of papers that he’d gotten from Francis. “I got a list of girls who have a reason to be very pissed off with Billy Stone.”
Emory looked at Stevens’ face as he took the papers, seeing the anger there. “Where did they come from?”
Stevens gritted his teeth. “Tom Francis, CEO of The Agency.”
“He just gave them to you?”
Stevens smiled. “Let’s just say I convinced him it would be a good idea to share.”
Emory sighed as the elevator reached the bottom floor. “Looking at these,” he said, “Francis doesn’t look so good.”
“He looks like an asshole.”
“No argument, there. Any one of these girls could have– ”
Stevens took the papers from him, rushing ahead. “That’s why we need to get them to Sarah. We need a connection.”
Emory hurried behind him. “Do you have a guess on this?”
Stevens looked down at his watch, seven hours and counting. “My guess,” he said, “is that we’re running out of time.”
Chapter 21
The cracks in the Internet King’s domain started to show in the first quarter after the IPO, as PushThrough made its first earnings report amid the scandalous photos of Billy Stone, running off with model after model in paper after paper in the three months following the IPO. The earnings weren’t bad, in fact they were in line with expectations, but just meeting expectations wasn’t nearly good enough for the stock market. Combined with the articles detailing Billy’s antics, and a Wall Street Journal story that said that the competition had caught up to – and was surpassing – PushThrough, Billy saw his net worth, which he was now obsessively following since Francis pointed it out to him, fall by thirty five percent in just two days.
Tom Francis and The Agency stepped up and said that they needed to help Billy do some damage control. First and foremost, PushThrough needed to come out with something new, something innovative and eye catching that would distract Wall Street from the less than impressive earnings. Second, they needed to make a high profile donation that showed Billy giving back to the people, to soften his image.
But in trying to find the innovation for PushThrough, Billy hit a brick wall. Since he’d discovered the benefits of his newfound wealth and The King’s image, his focus had shifted to carnal pleasures. Shifting from pleasure back to work was proving to be difficult. Billy had spent the better part of his youth working on writing code, making computers do what he wanted. Now, that arrested adolescent had come back with a vengeance, and Billy was acting like a big kid with a new set of toys that he didn’t want to give up anytime soon.
Still, Francis pushed him to make a donation to Stanford, since it was the institution that launched his career. Billy agreed – after all, he had yet to try his hand at wooing coeds. Francis went with him, to make sure that everything he did on campus was scripted, and prevent him from doing anything that might be considered unsavory...until he gave a closed-door speech to the student body.
The script he was supposed to be reading from had all of the platitudes – everything that Francis thought would make him sound good. It was scrolled up and ready to go on the teleprompters, that surround the podium. At the last minute, though, Billy decided to kill two birds with one stone.
“Not very long ago,” he said, “I was sitting right where you are, looking up at the men that came to this stage and told me everything that they’d accomplished, thinking the same thing you guys are, that they were full of shit–” the audience screamed and applauded. “The truth of the matter is that I had a good idea, at the right time, and it took off. But as I sit up here making a big donation so you guys will have a new building, I find myself searching for that next idea that will help PushThrough move to the next level. I’ve always relied on my own ideas, but you get to a point where you’ve been stuck in your own corporation for too long and that can leave you out of touch. For me, coming to Stanford is like coming home.” He paused, listening to another round of applause, and then continued. “This is where my ideas came from, so I’m thinking to myself, why don’t I ask you young men and women what the next big thing for PushThrough should be?” The students cheered. Billy looked off stage at Francis, who shrugged back at him. “Now, I don’t want to ask you questions like this and have you hold back out of fear that I’ll steal them. Instead, I’ll make you a promise: if you have an idea that I think is good enough, I’ll hire you on the spot, and make sure that part of your contract includes ownership of your idea as it is implemented!” The students cheered, and a host of hands went up.
For the next thirty minutes, Billy listened as students shot out ideas that ranged from the stupid – different colors on the interface – to the brilliant – specific code changes that would speed up the interfaces ability to align Pushed Groups around specified topics and interests – to the just plain weird – was there a way to make pets part of the Pushed Groups? Billy listened to them all with mild enthusiasm, until an absolutely stunning girl stood up. When their eyes met, he felt the bottom of his stomach rise up into his throat.
“Why don’t you use smart phones,” she said, “to use the interests within Pushed Groups to send them towards each other...or specific advertising interests that might be close?”
There it was, the next step: ‘mobilization’ – and coming from the mouth of an angel. Billy didn’t know how to stop the questions, but he was dead sure that he wanted to talk to that girl, so he ensured that he would the only way he knew how.
“You’re hired,” he said, to thunderous applause.