The Amanda Project

 

LATE MAY

It was early evening in Cambridge. Jeremy Sand was in the Fariborz Maseeh Hall residence building of MIT. As usual, he was sitting at his computer. On the other side of the room, his roommate, Allan Greer, lay on his bed. He had his headphones on and was watching a lecture that he recorded earlier that day. 

Both Jeremy and Allen were about to earn their Master’s degrees in Computer Science.

“So, another week till graduation,” Allen said, shucking off his headphones. “How are you feeling, J? Ready to conquer the job market?”

“I’m actually ready to spend the summer fuckin’ the dog, Al.” 

“Hookin’ up with Miss Cooper tonight? If you are, I can clear out.” 

“No. As a matter of fact, I’m going out to dinner to meet her parents.”

“Whoa. Well, that’s what you get for going after those local girls. Are you serious about her?”

“Come on Al, we’re Masters students. The only thing I’m serious about is getting out of here with my degree in my mitts.”

“Like that’s gonna be some problem. You built a fully functioning AI program in just two years. They’re gonna kiss your ass and beg you to stay. You have what they call Big Donor Potential.”

“Yeah, I suppose. What about you, Allen? Anything on tonight?”

“Naa. I have one more paper due. Then I will be going on the biggest bender of the new century.”

Half an hour later, Jeremy was dressed and ready to head out. He shut down his computer.

“Later, man.” he said as he headed out the door. Allen waved to Jeremy from the bed where he was sitting, typing some notes into his laptop.

Allen walked to the window and watched Jeremy leave the building and walk to the parking lot, get into his Jeep and drive away.

He then went to his desk. He took a large flash drive from the top drawer and moved to Jeremy’s desk. He sat down and carefully unplugged one of the two external hard drives hooked up to the computer. He then plugged his drive into it and started up the computer. He opened the top drawer of Jeremy’s desk and took out a small notebook. He opened it and flipped to the last used page. There he saw the date and the password he was looking for. He typed in the password and the computer opened.  

Allen began opening files to examine them, copying those that might be of interest to him. He downloaded all of the spec files for Jeremy’s AI Program. He couldn’t download the source codes because they were stored in the Cloud and Jeremy had never written down the password. And even if he did have the source codes, they would be easily traceable if any shit should ever happen to hit the fan. But this material would serve his purpose very well.

What Alan didn’t notice, however, was that the program was watching him, through a small camera hidden in between two books on the shelf above Jeremy’s bed. It was recording all of Allen’s actions, and inventorying all the files he was stealing. 

~ 1 ~

ONE MONTH LATER

Jeremy Sand was sitting in a home office in the front of the first floor flat of a Greenwich Village brownstone in New York City that he shared with a lady named Christina Riley, who worked for his dad, Jordan Sand. 

He hadn’t met Christina yet, because she was in Europe doing something for the company.     

Before him, sat an impressive array of computing hardware that he had just finished setting up Three screens, a pair of Apple towers, and two large speakers. Off to the side, there was a large format colour printer and a standard laser printer. Also on the desk were his trusty iPad and a small MacBook Pro. 

Jeremy’s computer system was the solid brick wall that would keep hackers away from the inner workings of his enterprise, which was the development of an AI system for business. The extra equipment was a graduation gift from his dad, who was on his way over to see how the installation was going.

The program Jeremy had developed was called Amanda. Its voice was modelled from the voice of a girl named Amanda Cooper, whom he dated when he was at MIT.

After two solid years of work, Amanda was now almost a complete prototype, and ready for Jeremy to launch. All Jeremy needed was about five million dollars to be able to test, refine, buy all the software licenses to beef up her programming and create a working model which he could then sell to, well, just about any business that was interested in automating a good deal of their business processes in a very user-friendly way.

Jeremy knew that the launch of a product like Amanda, especially now, when intuitive AI was finally starting to be understood, would put him in a pretty incredible horse race with dozens of other companies that were all going after the same brass rings. So he needed to nail down some backing as soon as he could.

He thought about asking his dad for the financing. But his dad had already done so much for him that he couldn’t bring himself to do it. 

Jeremy’s dad, Jordan Sand, was not a computer whiz. In fact, he would be the first person to tell you that what he knew about programming, let alone AI, could fit comfortably on the head of a pin. But Jordan Sand had another quality at which he was world-class, and that was his skill at industrial espionage.

Over the years at MIT, Jeremy did not dream about a cushy corporate job in some blue-chip data factory. He dreamed about being part of the family business, because having your own business, as opposed to being just another drone in some megacorp, was where the real challenges and rewards were. But with the little he knew, or at least thought he knew about his dad’s business, the more he became convinced that a good deal of it functioned outside the law. 

This made Jeremy uncomfortable, and also gave him a mission, which was to make the family business 100% legitimate.

Jeremy was an extremely bright young man. You could say he was gifted, although he would only tell you he was good at math and that was about it. But he was bright enough to more or less figure out what his dad did when he was a senior in high school, and still living at their apartment up near the Park. Though Jeremy didn't know exactly what his dad did, he figured it had to be something illegal since he had these really odd hours. Jeremy also knew that his dad owned, fully or partially, a number of legitimate properties and businesses in Manhattan. He’d overheard enough phone conversations to figure that out. 

Over the years, Jeremy had kept all his theories to himself, because the last thing he wanted anyone to know was that his dad was some sort of high-level white-collar criminal. That would have been the kiss of death as far as MIT went and any possibility of employment in the tech industry after that. 

As Jeremy was musing about this and absently looking through the small stack of emails he had printed out from the various companies he had approached, there was a knock on the door, and then it opened and his dad, Jordan Sand, came in.

Jordan, like his son, was a little over six feet tall. He was what you would describe as ruggedly handsome. His hair was light brown, long and straight. He was in his standard summer uniform. A tan cotton suit and a collarless white shirt. He was wearing a pair of cordovan deck shoes and Jeremy noted that he had never seen his dad put on a pair of socks.

“Hey kiddo. Are you getting settled in?” Jordan asked.

“Yeah. Just finished setting everything up. And thanks for the graduation gift. As you can see I spent it all on toys.”

Jordan took a seat next to Jeremy and looked over his setup. “Wow, this looks like a mission control centre in Houston.”

Jeremy just chuckled. “You want a coffee, dad?”

“I’d love one.” 

Jeremy and Jordan walked down to the kitchen where Jeremy filled a couple of mugs with coffee that he had just brewed. They went back and sat down in front of the computer array again.

“So have you thought about what you want to do going forward?”

“Yeah. I have. I applied to a lot of tech companies. I’m just sorting through the responses I’m getting. Most of them are offers.” He showed Jordan a small stack of email printouts. “But you know, dad, I think what I’d really like to do is work for you.”

Jordan laughed then shook his head. “Jeremy, you really don't have any idea what I do.”

“I’ve got news for you dad. I figured it out, sort of, about five years ago when you hired Uncle Jonah. I mean, what kind of business would need a former robbery homicide cop on the payroll? I thought it through and realized that your ‘investment business’ was just a front for something else. Not sure exactly what. Maybe industrial espionage or some other kind of excitement.”

Jordan was floored. He looked at his son for quite a while. Jeremy could see the wheels turning in his dad’s brain.

Jordan took a deep breath. “Yeah, industrial espionage is right on the money. But then you always were a pretty smart kid.”

Jeremy just chuckled. “My dad, the high-degree thief.”

“So you’re OK with this?” Jordan finally said.

“Let me ask you, dad, are you any good at this industrial espionage?” 

“Yeah, I think so. Your uncle and I have made a lot of money at it.”

“Does it make you happy? Meaning, you know, is it satisfying work?”

“Hmmm. I never really thought about it that way, but I suppose it is.”

“And have you come anywhere near getting busted for anything you have done?”

“No, your uncle Jonah takes very good care of that end.”

“Okay.” Jeremy picked up the stack of email printouts. “These are all the job offers I received after I got my Masters. Some are from well-funded startups and others are from established giants. But you know what all of them are, dad?”

“No. But I have a feeling you’re gonna tell me.” Jordan said.

“They’re all boring, unchallenging, high end of the hive drone jobs.”

“But they’re legit businesses, I assume, unlike Sand Castles.”

“Dad, in my world, the line between legitimate and the other is so blurred that nobody really knows what side they’re on at any given time.”

“Is that how you really feel, Jeremy?”

“I’m nothing more than a product of my genetics, dad,” Jeremy said as he unceremoniously dropped all the emails into his trash can. “So how can I help you out? I want to play.”

They talked about it for the better part of an hour after which it was decided that Jeremy did indeed have an important part to play, not just in terms of cyber security, but also in helping Jordan identify the best market opportunities in the tech world to invest in, which could eventually allow them to work their way out of their criminal activity.

Sand Castles had two different business personalities. On the surface, it was a legitimate retail and corporate investment company. Beneath the surface, and nameless, it was pretty much a lucrative white-collar criminal enterprise.

The underground business of Sand Castles that Jordan explained to his son was quite simple. Jordan identified the target. His brother, and Jeremy’s uncle, Jonah, handled the mechanics of the sabotage. Then the money was laundered through the legit side of the business.

The girl, Christina Riley, who lived upstairs, was the business prospector and seductress when that was needed. The clients came through ads that Jordan placed on, several different sites on the dark web. These were people who, for various reasons, wanted something that another company had. Once the target was identified, the general modus operandi of the group was to research the company, look for some key player to buy or blackmail and then either purchase his or her cooperation or extort it. 

Either way, they would end up with a corporate secret that would be sold to the person who hired Sand Castles to get it for them. 

The business was all done through untraceable texts and online financial transactions. The grunt work, such as it was, was handled by Jonah and the seduction, if necessary was handled by Christina Riley. All transactions with the marks were recorded and played for them as a parting gift to ensure their silence.

Jeremy took it all in and then he asked Jordan how much money he had currently stashed away in his offshore accounts. It was slightly more than thirty million with another twenty five million earning in various markets. Plus the company owned several pieces of Manhattan real estate including the brownstone where Jeremy was living, Jordan’s apartment on the Park, four others which he rented or leased to various movers and shakers in the financial world, and a rather large cruiser docked in the Morris Canal Basin with a beautiful view of lower Manhattan. The company also had silent partnerships in two different bars in Manhattan and an Italian restaurant in Queens, which were perfect money laundering schemes. Finally, Jeremy asked what Jordan did with all the money his business was accumulating. 

Jordan explained that the business had a financial partner in the Virgin Islands, Elmore Freeland. He washed the ‘dark’ money through his bank and bought up blocks of shares in some of the businesses that hired Sand Castles. It was basically a weird kind of insider trading scheme. The money depreciated by about 12 to 15% through the laundering process, but that loss was more than made up for by the profit from the stocks that Elmore bought, held for a time and then sold for Sand Castles. 

Elmore was also a genius at cooking the books and making the entire Sand Castles operation look like a highly active investment company. Sand Castles, unlike other shadow companies in the US, paid its fair share of taxes, but only on the U.S. income stream that Elmore created. The rest of the money was, well, none of anybody’s business.

Jeremy just smiled. “That’s pretty ingenious.”

“Yes, it is, Jeremy. It took a while to perfect. But Elmore’s a genius with money and that made a huge difference. But it’s kind of an old-school model. I’d like nothing more than to avoid any person-to-person stuff. stuff. It’s inelegant and people are so…unreliable.”

Jeremy laughed. “Have you been listening to this conversation Amanda?”

“Yes, Jeremy, and I agree with your father. People are notoriously unreliable.”

Jordan looked at the computer on Jeremy’s desk. “Is that your program? The one you’ve been working on?”

“Yeah. Amanda, say hello to my dad.”

“Hello, Jordan Sand. A pleasure to meet you.”

“Same here Amanda.”

“I have been analyzing your situation, as you explained it to Jeremy and have concluded that your hypothesis is sound. I should soon be able to run a probability analysis on any investment opportunities you identify. I will also be happy to research the tech market and give you a list of likely prospects. I can even post, monitor and firewall on the dark web so you can attract new clients.”

“Thanks, Amanda. Let me think about that and get back to you.”

“Go offline, Amanda.” Jeremy said.

“Goodnight Jeremy.” 

“Is she still listening?”

“No, she’s gone to sleep.”

“Can she really do all that work?”

“I’ve only tested her based on some fairly lax parameters. But once she has been able to absorb all the business software she needs, she could probably do all that in her sleep. Her programming isn’t complete, but she has all of Wikipedia and dozens of tech company directory sites already programmed in. She has lots of data. What she needs is more mechanical capability, which the business software will give her. Knowledge is power, as the saying goes.”

Jordan sat back in his chair. “So what would it take, you know, in terms of capital, to make Amanda ready for the market?”

“Oh gosh. I have to wake her up.” Jeremy typed in a nine-digit passcode.

A second later Amanda said, “Hello Jeremy. How can I help you?” 

“Amanda, call up the budget we did to get you fully functional. 

A few seconds later a page appeared on Jeremy’s monitor. There was a long line listing of equipment and software. Jeremy scrolled down to the total. $4,709,200.00.

“Yeah, just a bit under five million. In the beginning, I was originally planning to use Amanda in her current form as a lure to get a good programming job and eventually convince the company to let me develop her to my total specs. But once I got home and started looking at the offers and the job descriptions I realized that the last thing I wanted was to be just another MIT-educated drone in some big corporation. Guess I turned out to be more of an entrepreneur like you. I’ll find a development company I can partner with and give them the program to develop. That’s actually a lot less work than it would be going the corporate route, where I would have to do most of the work myself.”

“How confident are you about this program?” Jordan asked.

“Much more confident on the business side. Most of the AI in development these days is being aimed at the consumer market and the creative market and what’s aimed at the business market is just a notch or two above bookkeeping and workload distribution. Amanda can do that but I’ve always seen her more as a high-end business tool, with predictive analysis capabilities.”

The discussion moved on to Sand Castle specifics. They agreed that Jeremy should start gathering up all the information he would need from the various legit businesses that Sand Castles controlled. Jordan opened his laptop and texted Jeremy a list of all the businesses and the contacts he would need, along with the number for a company called Anaconda, which was the web design company and host for all the businesses in the Sand Castles empire. 

“How much do these people know about the dark side of your business?”

“They know nothing. To them, Sand Castles is just a property management and investment company. Most of my communication with them is by text. The bookkeepers for each business cut me a quarterly cheque. On the dark side  Sand Castles, it’s just me or your uncle Jonah on the other end of a text message. New burner phones for every new project. Christina knows a lot about both businesses. My primary need, right now, is for someone to keep all the Sand Castle property sites safe from hacking.”

Jeremy looked down the list of names “Do you have any personal reason for using Anaconda, the web company? I mean just in case we have to, you know, lose them.”

“No. The guy I dealt with there, his name is Mitch Lee. He just cold-called me a few years back, had some good references, so I hired him. I don't really see him at all if I want to make any changes, to the main site, I just email them and he puts them in. The restaurants, bars and property managers deal with him separately. Mostly website, menu and advertising stuff.”

“Okay. I’ll get together with him and see what’s what.”

Jordan got to his feet. “We have a partners meeting this Sunday on the boat, seven PM. We’ll get you signed up and on the payroll. And bring a printout of that budget. We can talk about that too.”

“We can?”

“Hey, we’re an investment company. And you’re looking for one.”

Jordan gave Jeremy a fist pump and off he went.

Jeremy sat down at the computer again. “Did you hear that Amanda?” 

“Yes Jeremy. It sounds very promising.” 

“It certainly does.”

~ 2 ~

Late that evening, close to midnight, several people entered an office building in Manhattan. The last man to enter presented his assignment sheet to the guard who looked at it looked at it and then up at the man, who had dark-rimmed glasses, a handlebar moustache and a Yankee’s cap on his head. 

“First night on the job?” he asked.

The man nodded. “Si…Yes.” The guard handed the man a skeleton master pass card.

“Thirty-fourth to thirty-seventh floor. Seven offices in all. Drop this card back here when your shift is done.”

The man nodded and headed toward the stairwell. He descended to the worker’s area. He picked a locker and stashed his gear. He moved slowly so by the time he was ready to go, everyone had left to clean their respective areas. He slipped on a pair of thin rubber gloves then took one of the trolleys loaded with cleaning equipment and wheeled it out into the hallway to the elevator.

The man exited the elevator on the 23rd floor. He wheeled the caddy down to the stairwell. Once in the stairwell, he cracked the door and watched Suite 2320. Half an hour later, a woman with a cleaning caddy exited the suite. After she had gotten on the elevator, he quietly walked down the hallway to the suite, using his passkey to enter it.

It was close to 1:00 AM and the office was empty. As he entered the suite, he noticed a large logo was displayed on the wall behind the reception sits desk. It read; Taylor, Murphy, Jones, LLC.

He moved through the office and the bullpen to a cold room where the company’s mainframe computer was kept. He activated the laptop sitting on a shelf beside the main frame. He typed in an elaborate code, from a small piece of paper he took from his pocket, and gained access to the company’s files. He then accessed the Cloud server with a second password.

When he found the file he was looking for, he inserted a flash drive and copied it. He ejected the flash drive and then inserted a second flash drive. It took only a few seconds to load. The virus he had uploaded to the computer, started to delete the files held on the mainframe drive and the cloud server. 

He ejected the flash drive then after watching a few file disintegrations, the man left the server room and exited the office. He left before the eradication was finished. He was very confident in the virus he used to infect the computer. This wasn’t his first rodeo.

He took the elevator to the basement and retrieved his jacket from the locker. He then headed for the exit to the parking garage. Just before he left the building he pulled a fire alarm next to the door. He waited a few seconds and then headed out into the underground garage, carefully avoiding the security cameras. A few seconds later, he slipped out of the garage and onto Spring Street.

Once he was on the street, the man removed his glasses and fake moustache and stashed them in his bag. He then crossed the street and headed to his left. He stopped where he had a good view of the building. A fire engine and a Chief’s car had arrived already and he could hear another siren off in the distance.

The man turned and walked casually toward a Jaguar parked about half a block away. Jonah Sand sat behind the wheel. He opened the window. The man handed him the flash drive. Jonah handed the man a thick envelope.

“Everything went well?”

“Yeah, the Mexican thing worked fine. Never thought I looked like one, but there you go.”

“I’ll be in touch.” Jonah said.

“Sure thing.” Jonah said and closed the window as the man walked away. Jonah then opened his phone and punched in a number. 

“Jonah.” the voice on the other end of the call said.

“Yeah, It’s done. I can be there in about twenty minutes.” Jonah then disconnected and started his car.

~ 3 ~

Twenty minutes later, Jonah Sand was sitting at a table in the back corner of a bar called The Gin Joint. His brother, Jordan, who looked like a slightly younger version of Jonah, was sitting across from him. Jonah was the older of the two, a retired New York City police detective. Jordan was three years younger. While Jonah was busy catching crooks, Jordan was busy perfecting the art of being one. 

Both brothers had succeeded. When Jonah took his twenty-year pension five years earlier, Jordan immediately brought him on board to manage the small network of thieves and saboteurs he had built up over his NYPD years. Jonah took to the job with relative ease. Any discomfort he might have had about it was assuaged by the amount of money he was now making, fucking over billionaires for other billionaires and profiting from the insider knowledge they would gain from each project. There was a certain elegance to it that both brothers appreciated.

In the bar, which was technically closed for the night, Jordan sat with a small laptop open in front of him. He was composing a text. He made a screenshot of the index page of the file that Jonah had given him as verification.

Mission accomplished. Will expect 

balance to be deposited no later than 

0900, your time.

He sent the text. Several seconds later the response came back.

Acknowledged. Thank you.

Jordan looked at his watch it read 1:58. He opened a program on his computer and typed in his password. An account page in Elmore’s Virgin Islands bank opened up. He punched in his password. His balance sheet came up. There was more than $28 million in the account. He checked his watch again. The second hand was coming around to the twelve. He looked back at the screen, A deposit was being made. It stopped at $3 million. Jordan exited the bank account page. He then opened his Messenger program and attached the entire file, which he had encrypted to the customer’s specifications, and sent it off.

This was acknowledged a few seconds later with a “Thank you .” message. 

“He showed the message to Jonah. “It’s nice to know we’re appreciated.”

The brothers both had a good chuckle over that.

“While you’re here,” Jordan said, “You should know Jeremy and I have come to an agreement and he’s gonna come and work with us. He’ll be in charge of cyber security for all our businesses, Plus he will be doing a little investment prospecting as well. I’ll get Christina to take him to some trade shows.”

“And he knows what he’s getting into?” Jonah asked.

“Yeah, he’s aware of it.  I think he’s looking at it as kind of a challenge. But he can be our eyes on the AI market and give us a pretty good read on who’s hot and who’s not.” Jordan said.

“Well, that’s great news, Jordan.” 

“Yeah. I was kinda leery at first. But I think he can keep us safer than anyone who’s not family. He’s also got an AI program that he developed at MIT. He explained it to me, and it sounded pretty damn impressive. I want to bring it up for an investment vote on Sunday.”

“How much of an investment?”

“About five million give or take.”

Jonah just nodded and smiled. “I look forward to hearing about it.”

The brothers talked a bit more about an upcoming job and then Jonah yawned. “Alright. I’m gonna go get some sleep.” he said as he slid out of his seat and left the bar.

Jordan shut down his laptop. He took a deep breath and leaned back in his seat. He finished his drink, slipped his computer into a leather case and got up from the table. He walked to the bar and laid a $100 bill down.

“Good night for business?” the bartender asked.

“You could say that, Tommy. See ya.”

The bartender scooped up the bill as Jordan left the bar.

~ 4 ~

Over the next five days, Jeremy collected all the necessary information on all the Sand Castles’ businesses and transferred everything to the server that he controlled. He then built a massive firewall around it all and sent passwords to the managers of each of the businesses, his dad and his uncle Jonah.

Jeremy then went uptown and had a coffee with Mitch Lee, who turned out to be an MIT alum and a certified cyber-wizard. They liked each other from minute one. Jeremy dropped some subtle hints about Amanda, and Mitch said he would keep an eye out to see if anyone in his world was moving in the same direction. Mitch also told him that he’d be happy to put a team together to handle the development. Jeremy agreed to think about it. But before he could do anything he needed the financing in place. 

He left the meeting thinking that if he worked with Mitch and put his own team together he’d have a lot more control over the process and it would probably cost a bit less too. But he needed to know Mitch a little better before getting totally into bed with the guy.

A couple days later, Jeremy had pretty much convinced himself that Mitch’s idea was a workable one. So he called Mitch and invited him to come and look at Amanda for himself and talk in detail about what needed to be done to get her completed. 

As he was shutting things down for the day, he heard the front door unlock and open. He rolled his chair to the doorway to see a woman, who looked to be just about three or four years older than him, roll a large suitcase through the door. She had short blonde hair and looked to be about five foot five. And she was beautiful. She shut the door and turned to see Jeremy sitting in the doorway of his flat. 

“Oh hi.” she said. “You must be Jeremy.” She walked over to him.  He got up and shook her hand. 

“I’m Christina Riley. Tina. I live on the second floor.”

Just then Jeremy put it together. “Right. Dad told me about you but he said that you were in Europe.”

“I was. Just got back, as you can see.”

“Sorry. I’ve been focused on other things and totally forgot he told me that.” 

“Are you one of those absent-minded professor types?”

“Not always. But I have my moments.” 

“Hey, we all do.”

Jeremy got up and stepped over to Christina’s suitcase and grabbed it. “I’ll take this up for you.”

That would be great.”

They headed up the stairs and Christina unlocked the door to her flat.

“What do you have in here?” he asked. The suitcase was not light.

“All kinds of stuff mostly clothes. I was in Paris and saw a bunch of stuff I couldn’t resist.”

“Jeremy walked through the apartment with Christina to the back bedroom and tossed the suitcase on the large bed. They then walked back to the kitchen.

“So what were you doing in Europe?” Jeremy asked.

“Fishing.”

“Fishing. What does that mean?”

Christina was getting some coffee ready and waltzed around the kitchen. 

“I went to four trade shows and a couple of company tours, talking to lots of people about what’s going on over in the European tech world.” 

“So you were looking for new business?”

Christina said nothing. 

“It’s alright. I’ve been on board for a few days now.” Jeremy said.

“Oh, okay. Yeah. I do the scouting. Find the companies with the hot ideas, get a feel for the competitive environment in their markets, you know…fishing.”

“And what do you do with all this information?”

“I write reports. I give them to your dad and your uncle Jonah and they figure out what to do with the intel. I also do a little wet work.”

“Wait a minute. Wet work, in all the spy books I’ve read, that means assassinations and murders.”

“Oh hell no. The kind of wet work I’m talking about doesn't involve killing of any kind. It’s seduction. You know, getting people into compromising positions and getting control of them. That sort of thing.”

“So you have sex with these people?”

“Oh no. I never have to. Just the fact that they go to a hotel room with me and started to peel off their duds does the trick. I’m long gone before any of the explanation and recruitment starts.”

Jeremy laughed. “Wow. That’s a hell of a job to have.”

Christina walked around the counter and took Jeremy's hands in hers. “Here’s the thing Jeremy. This is a high-end white-collar criminal enterprise. We do what we have to do to get the job done. A lot of times it’s just sabotage, but other times it’s a little more up close and personal. She dropped his hands and slapped him affectionately on the cheek. “You’ll get used to it and if you’re anything at all like your dad, you’ll get really good at it.” 

She chugged down her coffee “I’m gonna take a shower. If you want, I’ll come down later and we can go grab some dinner.”

“Yeah. That would be great.”

“Give me a couple of hours to unpack and unwind.”

Jeremy headed downstairs and flopped down in his office chair which was still in the doorway. He rolled back to his desk. He hit the Shift and A buttons on his keyboard.

“Good evening Jeremy.” Amanda said.

“Amanda. I want to run a full diagnostic on all the firewalls we have built around Sand Castle Enterprises.”

“Certainly Jeremy. Initiating. ETA Two hours twelve minutes.”

“Thanks Amanda.”

“My pleasure, Jeremy. By the way, I couldn’t help but notice a voice I don’t recognize.”

“Yeah, that Christina Riley. She works at Sand Castle. Display her profile.”

Nothing happened for about ten seconds. “Amanda?”

“Sorry Jeremy, there doesn’t appear to be a profile for a Christina Riley anywhere in the Sand Castles file.”

“That’s OK. I’ll ask my dad about that.” 

~ 5 ~

Detective Investigator Henry Ashford sat in the reception area of Taylor, Murphy, Jones, LLC. He was well-attired in a dark suit, with cordovan-coloured loafers. He was in his early thirties, His light brown hair was short and his face was more round than oval. He wore a pair of rimless glasses and didn't look anything like the Cybercrimes detective he was. He looked more like the kind of criminals he had been investigating for the past three years since he was promoted into the division. He was studying his iPhone, checking out the website of the company in whose reception area he was sitting. 

After a few moments, a man named Callum Murphy walked into the reception area. He was a thin man dressed in jeans and a Yale Sweatshirt. His hair was long and tied back in a ponytail. He looked to be in his late twenties. 

“Detective Ashford?”  Murphy said, with a distinctly Irish accent.

Henry got to his feet. “Yes sir.” 

The two men shook hands. “Callum Murphy. Please come with me,” Murphy said. “We can talk in my office.”

 Murphy showed Henry into a wide open space filled with computers and young people running them. Along the far wall were three glassed-in offices and a meeting room, all of which were empty.

Murphy offered Henry some coffee, which he politely declined, and they entered the centre office, which was rather spartan. Just a desk and three chairs The walls were bare and Murphy’s desk was surprisingly uncluttered. Just the laptop, a trackball and what looked to be a daybook.

Murphy sat down at his desk and motioned for Henry to take a seat, which he did.

“Suppose you tell me, in your own words, sir, what you believe happened here.” Henry said.

“Well, someone, and that would be up to you to find out who, gained access to our server room, at the far end of the office. He planted a virus in the server, which essentially destroyed all the source codes we had stored there.

“And you didn’t have any other backup?” 

 “That was the backup. And I am the only person with access to those codes.”

“And where do you keep the passwords to access those codes.” 

“Only in this laptop, with a digital copy locked up in my apartment.”

“And there’s no evidence of hacking on your computer?”

“Not that I know of. We ran diagnostics on all the computers in the place, and nothing popped.”

“Interesting.”

“The place you keep the passwords in your apartment…what sort of safe is it?”

“It’s not really a safe. It’s a lock box.” 

“Combination or key?” 

“Key.”

“And there’s no evidence of a break-in at your apartment?”

“Again, not that I know if. But…” Murphy paused. He was thinking hard.

“But?” Henry asked. “Please, tell me what you are thinking.”

“My brother. Ben. He’s been staying with me for the past month. He’s the only person I know of who has a key to my apartment.”

“And where is he now?”

“He’s gone back home to Dublin. He was just here for a visit. His marriage is a little rocky at the moment, and so is his business.”

“What’s his business?”

“He’s in construction. That industry took it on the chin during the Covid epidemic. Plus the economy in Britain is all fucked up from their withdrawal from the EU. He just needed to get away for a while. I was happy to have him.”

“What about your partners?”

“They’re just money guys. Investors. One’s a Canadian, and the other lives in Texas. I run the whole show here.”

“And just what is the whole show?” 

“The same as a lot of other shows around, I suppose. AI.”

“What area?”

“Mostly robotics. We’re kind of a think tank for other companies who actually do the manufacturing.”

“And is that profitable? ”

“Yeah. It is.”

“You don't seem too upset by all of this.”

Murphy made a gesture, to the bullpen behind Henry. “We’ll get back in the game. Some of the stuff will have to be rebuilt more or less from scratch, but those kids out there will see to that. 

“Whoever broke in wanted something we were workin’ on. Hard to tell what that was just yet. The virus they planted made a right mess of everything. Somebody will scoop us on something. Not sure which product yet. Time will definitely tell. It’s just a temporary setback, maybe it hurts us a bit in the short term, but it’s nothing we can’t work our way out of. We have a lot of the bits and pieces. Just need to put them back together.”

“That’s a good way to look it at, sir.” Henry said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to bring in a forensics crew to look at your cold room and see if they can find anything. Just prints. We don’t have to take any machinery away.”

“Fine. But I won't keep my fingers crossed. Anybody who is smart enough to do what was done is likely smart enough to leave no evidence behind.”

“I agree, but in my experience, it never hurts to look.”

Murphy took Henry into the cold room where he looked around. The last login to the cloud server was at 1:33 that morning. So Henry assumed that it could have been someone from the cleaning crew. 

On his way out Henry asked the guard downstairs who was on late duty. He was given a name and number and advised not to call until at least 6:00 PM. 

Henry Ashford left the building and stood on the sidewalk for a few minutes, trying to think like a crook or an industrial spy.

What Callum Murphy didn’t tell Henry Ashford was that it was he who had engineered the entire operation. His brother Edwin was sorely in need of at least a million in cash, So Callum, being a good brother, answered an ad that Sand Castles had placed on the dark web. He explained that his company was working on an AI program that would revolutionize air traffic control. It took Jordan, via his network less than half an hour to find an interested buyer. 

The job had gone off smoothly and Callum immediately forwarded the million he got for his participation to his brother’s business account in Dublin. Sand Castles assured him that he would never be discovered, and as he walked through it with Henry Ashford, he realized that was probably going to be the case.

~ 6 ~

Christina and Jeremy were sitting in a Japanese restaurant called Takahachi, on a side street off Lower Broadway. They were both drinking rice wine. Christina was getting looks from both the male customers and the waiters.

“Do you ever get used to it?” Jeremy asked.

“What’s that?”

“The looks from every male you encounter.”

Christina chuckled. “So you’ve noticed. I hardly pay attention to it anymore. It’s kind of flattering really.”

“OK, as long as I don’t have to challenge one of these clowns to a duel to defend your honour.”

Christina took a sip of her wine. “You never know….So now that you’re on board, what do you think of our motley little crew?

“It is motley.”

“We’re like the Three Musketeers, and now you are our Dartanyan.”

“Dartanyan?” 

“Yeah…he was the fourth Musketeer.”

“Oh, OK.”

“You’ve never read The Three Musketeers?”

“Hey. I’m a computer geek, Remember? I only read detective fiction.”

They were quiet for a bit as the waiter put down the sushi platter in between them.

“You must be a very good actress to pull off the stuff you have to do.” Jeremy said.

“I trained as an actress, right out of college. Even moved to LA, got an agent. That’s where I met your dad. I think he was one of the investors in the film I was working on. He talked me into coming back to New York to work on a project he was developing. I was a little taken aback at first. But, as it turned out, I was good at it. Plus, I didn’t have to screw my way to the top and the money was, well, half a million a year guaranteed, plus profit sharing, plus a groovy Village pad, rent free.”

“Wait a minute. Did you say half a million a year?”

 “Yeah. Didn’t your dad tell you that?”

“No, he told me a lot of other stuff. Money just never came up.”

 “We all make a million a year, but half of it goes into the company’s investment account. He worked that all out with Elmore. Elmore’s a genius banker. Last year alone I made about a hundred thousand in dividends. I assume you’ll have the same deal. Your dad is very big on equal partnerships.”

“Wow, The most I was offered in all the applications I send out was one twenty five.”

“Your dad is a smart cookie. He treats his people very well and he makes sure his bases are covered before he makes a move of any kind. If you have any of him in you, that will serve you well.”

They both ate a bit of their sushi in silence.

“So tell me about Europe.” Jeremy said.

Christina laughed. “Man, they really hate Americans over there.”

“Yeah, well, that’s understandable. Since American tech has been wiping the floor with them for years now.”

“I don’t know how long that dominance is gonna last.” Christina said. “The layoffs are starting to grow. Silicon Valley ain’t what it used to be.”

“So what qualifies you to do the scouting for the Sand Castles?” Jeremy asked.

“I have a BA in Business Administration from Columbia.”

“But you were in Hollywood when my dad found you.”

“People kept telling me that I had these movie star looks. So off I went, chasin’ the dream. I did OK for about a year. But it was a real grind. Any extra money I made went into acting lessons and wardrobe. And though my head was into it, my heart really wasn’t. Your dad picked up on that right away and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

They talked about all kinds of things while they plowed through their sushi. Jeremy told her all about Amanda and his big plans for her. Christina told him all about her latest trip to Germany and France. 

She was pretty much convinced that they would all end up in London within three years. America was withering on the vine. Too much internal strife and talk of isolationism. She told him that Jordan and Jonah both felt the same way. They had even had some discussions with Elmore about it. So the wheels were already starting to turn in that direction. 

The fact that the government of the country jumped back and forth between pro-domestic growth and pro-corporate domination was, in great part, responsible for the instability.

A move to Europe, of course, according to Christina, would mean taking on another partner who was connected to the European underground. Maybe some disaffected MI-5 or 6 operative. In the fall, Jordan and Jonah were going to fly over to check it out.

Jeremy found this all quite fascinating, and it really came home to him just what a sheltered existence his life had been up until a month ago. Suddenly it was like the clouds parted and the sun shone brightly. He felt an exhilaration he had never really felt before. Like the whole wide world was out there begging to be conquered.

They walked home slowly, holding hands. Jeremy got to experience some of the same looks that Christina got, only these were looks of envy. He thought about that old Manfred Mann song, called Pretty Flamingo. He always liked that song. And now, walking down the street with a real flamingo, it took on a much deeper meaning.

On our block all of the guys call her flamingo

Cause her hair glows like the sun

And her eyes can light the skies

When she walks she moves so fine like a flamingo

Crimson dress that clings so tight

She's out of reach and out of sight 

All of a sudden, Jeremy was in a strange new world. Walking up Broadway with a beautiful woman on his arm. In a job that would make him millions working with the only family he knew in the city where he grew up. He wondered if it couldn’t get any better than this.

When they got home, Christina kissed him. It was a long beautiful kiss. Then she just smiled, and whispered, ‘Soon’. Jeremy understood. Nothing good happens fast. 

~ 7 ~

Jordan Sand met Christina Riley for lunch two days later, at a wine bar called the Vanguard where they shared a bottle of Pino Noire and some garlic toast and cheddar. Christina gave him the play-by-play of her trip to Paris and Germany and the four tech shows and two company tours she attended there. 

She was still writing her reports, but it really felt like everybody and their uncle was going all in on AI and that, overall, the European and Middle Eastern market was every bit as active as North America. She also noted a certain amount of disdain for anything American, especially from the Brits. They all seemed convinced that America’s internal strife was making it much less appealing for talented people and happening businesses. They were all looking east now. To the Middle East for capital and the Pacific Rim for talent.

“The Europeans have always been a little arrogant.” Jordan said. “Silicon Valley used to be the go-to place for tech. And now that it’s in disarray, they’re working hard to be the next big thing.” Even though Jordan was not any kind of techie, he was an astute businessperson. And everything that Christina was telling him fit nicely with his going forward thinking.

Christina took a sip of her wine. “I had dinner with your son the other  night.”

“Oh, really?” 

“Yeah. I can see a lot of you in him. He’s a nice guy and a real gentleman. I just hope he’s got the, you know, whatever it is that lets us do what we do and still sleep well at night.”

“Well, his pitch was impressive. So I’m assuming that he does. Plus he has an AI idea that’s pretty remarkable, in my relatively uninformed opinion.”

“Yeah, he told me about it. He also said that you were thinking about funding the development.”

“Thinkin’ about it is the operative phrase.”

“A lot of the stuff I saw was aimed at either the consumer market or the manufacturing and industrial sectors. Not much in the way of high-end business functions. I was thinking that maybe AI isn’t, at least at this point in time, intuitive enough to do that.”

“Time will tell Christina. Time will tell. Somebody has to break that barrier. In the meantime, I have a new assignment for you. No hurry. We can get on it as soon as you finish your report.”

~ 8 ~

Two nights later, in Jersey City, at the office of AMT, American Medical Technologies a late model Mercedes Benz pulled into an executive parking place close to the entrance of the building. A casually dressed man named Terrance Braithwaite got out carrying a thin briefcase. He walked to the front entrance. He hesitated for a moment before entering the building, then opened the door with his key card. He walked by the guard who was sitting at a desk near the elevators. He nodded to the guard, who nodded back. Braithwaite then took the elevator to the third floor and entered the executive suite with his key card. 

He went into the office next to the corner office and sat down at the desk. There was no one else on the floor. 

Braithwaite activated the computer on the desk and typed in his password. He hesitated for a moment. He then slipped off his shoe and pulled out a small thumb drive he had stashed there and plugged it into the computer. 

On the computer, he opened his hard drive and scrolled down to a file called Falcon. He copied the file, which was fairly large, onto the thumb drive. 

When the file had finished copying he uploaded a small virus program called Kicking Horse into the company’s network. He sat at the computer for a moment. He rubbed his hands through his hair. It was obvious that he was agonizing over what he was about to do. 

But he took a deep breath and launched the program. It immediately started running through the network files. He then ejected the memory key and slipped it back into his shoe, closed down his terminal, and looked around his office. Then he turned and left. 

On the ground floor, he exited the elevator. The guard got up from the desk and took a scanner with him. He ran the scanner over Braithwaite’s upper body and his legs. He went no lower than the knees. He nodded to Braithwaite, who left without saying a word. 

Jonah Sand sat at a table in the bar, with a half-consumed beer in front of him, fiddling around, playing a game on his small computer. He looked up and saw Braithwaite enter the bar. He switched on the voice recorder on his computer, then set it to one side as Braithwaite slid into the seat opposite him. 

“I trust your mission went well. The hard drive totally sabotaged and one copy of the files for me?”

“That was the deal.”

“Of course. But first, we need to verify the files. And then we can finish our business.”

Braithwaite handed Jonah a flash drive which he plugged into his computer.

“Falcon. How original.” 

“I don’t make up the names, just build the products.”

“Indeed.”

Jonah scanned the files, and then attached one of them to the text number his brother had given him. 

“This won’t take long. This client is quite punctual.”

A text came back a few minutes later. Jordan read it. 

“Seems like everything is in order.” Jonah said, and he slipped on a thin rubber glove and reached into his bag. He pulled out a large envelope and pushed it across the table. Braithwaite got out his phone and opened his Cayman Islands account, and handed the phone to Jonah, who made the transfer then handed the phone back to Braithwaite.

“Three million and a new identity is well worth it.” Braithwaite said, “They’ll re-engineer this product after I’m gone. It will take some time but your guys will own the market by the time that happens.”

“Any regrets?”

“No. I needed to be compensated for my idea. They weren’t willing to do that. They can go piss up a rope for all I care.”

Braithwaite took the package without looking inside. He took a deep breath. “Thank you for making me rich, and I sincerely hope we never meet again.”

Jonah chuckled. “One last thing.” He turned the computer around and showed that their conversation was being recorded. “I have recorded all of our conversations and, of course, I have copies of all your new identity papers. So if you have any, you know, guilt pangs, I would very much advise that you let them pass, and just get on with your new life. Otherwise, your story will not end well at all.”

“You have nothing to worry about Mr….you know I don’t even know your name.”

“No, you don’t and we’ll just keep it that way. But here’s some advice. Drive your car to Atlanta. Then sell it for cash using your original ID. Then go to another dealer and buy a good used one for cash using your new ID. When you get to Mexico, trade it for whatever you want. This way your trail will end in Atlanta.” 

“I never thought about that.”

“Of course you didn’t. That’s how criminals think, and you’re not one of those, I can assure you.”

Braithwaite nodded and slipped out of the booth. Jonah closed up his computer and left a few minutes later.

On his way out of the bar, he called Jordan. “Jordan, on my way over. Yeah, it’s all good.” 

~ 9 ~

As Henry Ashford expected, the forensic examination of the Taylor, Murphy, Jones cold room turned up nothing in the way of prints that didn’t belong to Murphy or a couple of key personnel, who all could prove they were somewhere else, like at home in bed, the night before.

At about 7:00 that evening Henry Ashford caught up with Darius Fisher, the night security guard in the building. He was having what really was his breakfast at a small deli on 110th Street. He was a powerfully built black man with a short Afro. 

 “I don’t know what to tell you, Detective. I never pegged him for the criminal type. He was as humble as all the rest of the Mexicans and Phillipinos who clean the offices. Medium build, about six feet tall, Yankees hat, handlebar moustache, black horn-rimmed glasses. Sounded like any Hispanic I’ve ever met, and I’ve met a few of them in this job. ‘Course he didn't say all that much. But most of them never do.” 

“You seem like a pretty observant guy. What was he wearing?” Henry asked.

“Fisher thought about it for a few seconds. Closed his eyes. Then nodded to himself. “Black t-shirt, just plain. Plaid shirt, opened all the way. Black jeans. Didn’t notice his feet.”

“You think you could pick him out of a lineup?”

“Oh, sure.”

Henry thanked him and got up. He hit the street no further ahead than when he started. He needed to talk to someone in Robbery Homicide.

But first, he would have to sit down with his division chief and break the news to her.

~ 10 ~

Allen Greer ended up with a senior programming position at a tech firm called the Monroe Group. Monroe specialized in cybersecurity. A lot of the work they did involved safeguarding business systems. But Greer was interested in working for them because like almost every tech company on the planet, Monroe was getting ready to stick their toe in the AI pond. At least that’s what he gleaned from his interview with Brian Fraser, who was the son-in-law of the founder, Carlton Monroe. Greer would bide his time and brown-nose, getting to understand the politics and the best way to approach Monroe with his pilfered AI idea.

He had gone through all the files that he had stolen from Jeremy and changed as much as he could to make it all look like his own thinking. In the meantime, he would just be the best drone that he could be. 

Monroe’s latest project was an advanced surveillance program that was a major step forward in security. It was called Boomerang, and it was not just designed to repel hackers but to take a substantial bite out of their program by reflecting back a virulent virus that would eat up whatever program they were using to perform the hack.

This program alone would give Monroe the capital it would need to move aggressively into the AI market. At that point in time, Allen Greer would make it known that he was in possession of an idea that could help them enter the AI kingdom with guns blazing. 

As time passed and he played with the idea in his spare time, became less concerned with Jeremy Sand, and more interested in the timing and demands of his approach to Monroe.

Little did he know that the shit, so to speak, was well on its way to hitting the fan.

~ 11 ~ 

The next evening, Christina, wearing a wig of long, wavy red hair and decked out in a low-cut slinky black dress she had purchased in Paris a few weeks earlier, walked into a bar called Tulip’s on Fifth Avenue and took a seat at the long circular bar. She ordered a Manhattan, then pulled out her phone and set it on the counter. 

On the other side of the bar, Brian Fraser was sitting with a glass of whiskey and soda, and staring at the woman who just entered and thinking lewd thoughts.

Christina put on a pair of rimless glasses and picked up her phone. She scanned it for a few seconds then put it down and looked around the bar. As she turned back around she shook her head slightly and then took another sip of her drink.

A few minutes later, Fraser approached her, flopping down on the stool two stools away. Christina picked up her phone again. Then whispered “Damn.” to herself, but loudly enough for Fraser to hear.

‘Sounds like someone is frustrated.” Fraser said.

“Pardon me?”

“I’m thinking you’re being stood up. You have that look.”

Christina looked over at him. Not a bad-looking guy. Maybe a bit on the smarmy side, but then most men were.

“Is it that obvious?” Christina said.

“Too many unreliable people out there these days.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Mark…Mark Wallace.” Fraser offered his hand, which Christina shook delicately.

“Sharon-Lee Nesbitt. Nice to meet you, Mark.”

“Same here. You know, whoever it is that stood you up…he’s an idiot.”

“Obviously. So what about you? Are you an idiot like so many of them?”

“I guess I can be at times. But mostly I’m pretty reliable, especially when there are gorgeous women involved.”

“That’s a good pickup line. You use that a lot?”

“No actually, this is the first time I’ve tried it. Does it work?”

Christina smiled. “Isn’t this the part where you offer to buy me a drink?”

“As a matter of fact, it is.”

An hour and a few drinks later, Christina and Fraser entered a room in the Courtyard Hotel in Soho. Fraser took off his jacket and laid it on a chair. They sat down on the bed together, there was a bit of necking and fondling Then Christina got to her feet. 

“Just give me a minute and then I’m gonna fuck your brains out.”

“I like that idea a lot.” Fraser said as he started getting out of his clothes

Christina disappeared into the bathroom. A moment later she came out holding a burner phone in her rubber-gloved hand. Frazier sat on the bed, a bit befuddled.

She walked over to the bed as the phone started to ring. Christina handed Fraser the phone. “It’s for you, Brian.” And with that, she turned and left the room.

Fraser took the phone and held it up to his ear, “Hello?”

“Mr Fraser, listen carefully.” Jonah said.

“Who the fuck is this?”

“By now you should have figured out that we know who you are, and that we have recorded everything that transpired between you and the young lady since she entered the bar.”

“What do you want?”

“Well, since you asked, I will tell you exactly what I want. And you will get it to us within forty-eight hours or a nicely edited version of this evening’s events will be delivered to your lovely wife and her very protective father, your boss.”

Frazier took a deep breath, as the fear mounted within him.

“Oh shit. I know what you want. Do you know how hard it is to steal anything from my company? Protecting data is what our business is all about.”

“Ahh, but that’s a little puzzle you need to solve then, isn’t it? I have faith in you, Brian. And as long as you want to keep your juicy position and maybe even inherit the business someday, you’ll find a way around that. Use this phone to contact me when you have what we want. I will give you delivery instructions at that time.”

“And what do I get out of this?”

“You get to keep on fucking around on your wife and if you’re smart about it you might even hold onto your job.”

Jonah disconnected. Frazier sat on the bed in his underwear and hung his head for a moment. “Fuck!!!”

~ 12 ~

The next day, Jeremy installed a second remote hard drive that would house all the different software ideas that Sand Castles had appropriated during the last four years. The documents were all on different thumb drives, which Jeremy had told his dad would corrode after a year or two.

Jeremy was a skilled hacker and didn’t yet trust the cloud. He much preferred wired remote hard drives that could easily be disconnected when they weren't in use. It was old school as hell, but it was 100% effective.

Earlier that day, Jordan had dropped by with about two dozen thumb drives, all neatly fitted into a box about the same dimensions as a shoe box, only much shallower. There were also a smaller number of thumbs that contained the various viruses that they had employed. There were only four of them. But they were all equally lethal with names like Kicking Horse, Firestorm, DOA and Nitro.

“Why exactly do you want to hold onto this data?” Jeremy asked. Most of it is software and if it’s not already obsolete, it will be soon.”

“Call me a pack rat. But you never know when appropriated property will come in handy.” Jordan said, as he clapped Jeremy on the shoulder and left almost as quickly as he had arrived.

Jeremy thought about that for quite a while, as he was uploading the files to the hard drive he would use as his storage unit. He would burn the viruses onto a DVD, and keep the empty memory keys for transporting documents that would be unsafe to email or send by text. Just as Jeremy was finishing his uploads, he got a call from Mitch Lee at Anaconda. 

“Jeremy. How’s it going?”

“Moving right along, Mitch. How about you?”

“I’ve got some good news for you.”

“Oh yeah? Well, let’s hear it.”

“Have you ever heard of a company called Infidelus?”

“No can’t say as I have. Who are they?”

“MIT and Cal Tech guys. A little older than us. They specialize in AI. Way ahead of the curve, mostly ‘cause they’ve had more time to blast away at it. Well, it just so happens that one of the Infidels, that’s what they call themselves, is my girl’s older brother. His name is Charlie Blick. It was my girl’s birthday yesterday so we all went out for dinner. I asked him if they were on the lookout for a hot project. Long and short, they are. And so I told him enough about your project and he got quite interested. So it’s out there. If you want to meet with them, I’ll set it up for you.”

“And what’s in it for you?” Jeremy asked

“What’s in it for me is that I know about all of this and I’ll be buying in the minute you go public. From the kind of interest that Charlie showed, you have a definite go-mobile here. And with the market busting wide open. I’d say you were sittin’ pretty.”

“It’s Friday now. I’ve got a meeting with my dad and his whole group on Sunday. I’ll nail him down and send you some times. I take it these people are in the city.”

“These guys are virtual. Charlie is the guy you’ll meet with. He has a place across the river but he’ll come to you. Cause he’ll want to see your program.”

“Sounds like a plan, Mitch, thanks so much.”

“I’ll send you a link to their site. You can check them out. But trust me, amigo. They are the real deal.”

Jeremy disconnected. He leaned back in his chair. “Did you hear all that Amanda?” 

“I did, Jeremy. It sounds very interesting.”

“I’m glad you think so.” 

“You do know, I don’t really think Jeremy.”

“Yeah, I know. But maybe someday…”

~ 13 ~

That night, Brian Fraser entered the offices of Monroe Systems. He went to his office and sat down at his desk, He turned on his computer.

There were a number of internal emails including one from a Gmail address he didn’t recognize.

The phone in his pocket rang He answered it but said nothing. “Download the file I have just emailed onto your computer. Then upload the files I want into a return email. Then drag the attached icon into the program folder.” 

“That’s not gonna tank the whole system is it? My father-in-law will go ballistic.”

“No Brian, it’s a search and destroy virus. It will only destroy files with the product name attached. We don't want to kill your company. We’re just interested in getting back something that doesn't belong to you.”

 “You do realize that this is the end of my career here.”

“I’d say you were already on a downward trajectory. But I believe you’re smart enough to handle any rough seas you may encounter.”

“You obviously don’t know my father-in-law.”

“Be that as it may. You stepped in a bucket of shit when you picked up the wrong girl last night.”

“Yeah. Tell me about it.”

“Just do what I asked you and you’ll never hear from me again. Once I have the files I will confirm with you and you can launch the app. If I don’t receive this email within ten minutes, I will be sending one that won’t just tank your career, but your whole fucking life.”

The call disconnected and Fraser sat staring at the computer screen for a good thirty seconds, after which he got to work.

~ 14 ~

Jeremy’s meeting on the boat went pretty much as expected. He was brought on board as a full partner. He would start revving up the cyber division, as he called it. And he already had a customer.

The company was called Lightspeed, and they were on their last legs having lost two of their largest accounts recently. They didn’t want to steal anything from anyone else. No, quite the opposite. They wanted someone to hack their system and fry it completely. Because one of the two partners was no dummy and had insured the company to the tune of twelve million dollars in the event of a catastrophic system failure. They would be willing to split that with whoever would sabotage their systems and leave no trace.

Jeremy agreed to look into it and pick the appropriate virus to get the job done.

Finally, Jeremy presented his idea for the Amanda program and everyone was impressed. Jordan suggested that the revenue from the Lightspeed job, could be used as the capital to fund Jeremy’s project. They agreed in principle to a 70-30 split on revenues from the Amanda program, with Jeremy receiving the larger portion after the financing and interest were recouped. Jeremy was happy that he was being treated like any other Sand Castle investment.

After the formal part of the meeting was over. Jeremy signed three different non-disclosure agreements and then Jordan broke out a bottle of champagne and they officially welcomed Jeremy into the family business.

Jeremy and Christina shared a taxi home and they went upstairs to Christina’s flat and had some coffee. Once they were awake again, Christina led him down to the bedroom. 

All Jeremy could think was that this was the best damn day of his life.

~ 15 ~

The sabotage of the Monroe Digital server wasn’t noticed until the following Monday, and when it was, Carlton Monroe and his Chief of Security Jack Talbot reviewed the security footage and came to the conclusion that it was his gold-digging son-in-law who had betrayed him.

They called Fraser into Monroe’s office and it took all of thirty seconds before he broke down and tearfully recounted every detail of his philandering and the extortion.

Carlton Monroe was a very methodical person, not given to anger or violence. So he very quietly told his son-in-law to pack up everything he owned and get out of New York City. He was very clear and calm about it, and left no doubt in Fraser’s mind that if he were to ever show up in New York again, it would not end well for him.

For the first time in his sleazy life, Fraser took it like a man. He simply got up, packed up his briefcase, and under Talbot’s watchful eye, left. 

Monroe sat down at his desk and massaged his face with his hands.

“Two years, Frank. Two years and thirteen million bucks. All gone because that little pissant couldn’t keep it in his pants.”

Talbot, who had been leaning against the far wall came over and took a seat across from Monroe. “This was very well planned and flawlessly executed, Carlton. There aren't that many people around with that kind of skill.”

“Yeah, and they’re probably in the wind, having sold it off to the highest bidder.”

“So maybe we should be focused on who their client could have been.”

Monroe took a deep breath. Then he shook his head. “I’m gonna have to fire people I busted my ass to get to come over here. We’re going right back to where we were two years ago.”

“You did it once. We can do it again.”

Monroe said nothing. “I need to find out where it was headed, Jack. I have a few theories and one name. But listen…we can’t have a word of this being an internal job leaking out, That would be the kiss of death for us. 

“Totally understand.” Talbot said, getting to his feet. “Text me what you’re thinking. I’ll chase it down.”

Allen Greer never got a chance to show Carlton Monroe his big pirated idea, because he was unceremoniously dumped, along with six other programmers. 

At the same time, he wasn't all that concerned. In the short time he had been at Monroe, he came to realize, from chats in the coffee room, that the man was a crook. And the software that the company had spent so much time developing was virtually stolen from his former partner, Jagmeet Singh, who didn’t want to go through the two years of agony that suing Monroe would easily have amounted to. So, according to one of the older programmers, he just slithered off into the ether so to speak. The last anybody heard from him he was on his way to Cal Tech to teach. Once Allen heard that story, he couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to him if he were to bring Jeremy’s idea forward.

As it turned out the point was moot, so to speak and three days later Allen collected his final paycheque and left Monroe. 

Jeremy heard about Monroe’s troubles on the news where NYPD Cybercrimes Detective Henry Ashford was being interviewed.

“There is a very high-end hacker on the loose in New York City. Last week he wiped out the computer files at a digital research company called Taylor, Murphy, Jones, LLC. Now he or she has broken into Monroe Systems and stole a key software program which the Monroe company had spent millions to develop. As we speak, our forensics people are going over the cold room at Monroe, but we’re not at all confident we will find any evidence there. Whoever is perpetrating these crimes is quite professional.”

What Henry Ashford didn’t know at the time was three things. 

Thing one was that any record of Brian Fraser’s sabotage had been covered up, by Monroe’s Security Chief, Jack Talbot, himself a former NYPD detective. Thing two was that Jagmeet Singh did not fade into the ether. Instead, he researched the dark web and eventually came across the ad that Jordan Sand had placed there. Thing three was that Jagmeet Singh, was the son and heir to the Singh family import business, and was worth many tens of millions. So paying Jordan Sand five million and change for the sabotage of Monroe and their inability to further develop his program, was a bargain at twice the price.

Jeremy was curious about Monroe, a company he wasn’t familiar with, and checked out their site. When he got to the personnel list he found his old friend Allen Greer’s name, with the title of senior programmer. And that gave Jeremy an idea. 

He still had Greer’s personal Gmail address. So he sat down and wrote him at note.

Hey Greer…Heard about the big goings on over at Monroe. I would imagine that you’re looking for work. Let’s get together. Maybe I can help you out. Cheers, Sandman

Before Jeremy sent off the email, he embedded one of the viruses, Firestorm, which would migrate onto Greer’s hard drive and wait to be activated which could have easily been done by transmitting a code through another email or text message.

Twenty minutes later, he received an email back from Greer. 

“Wow. You’re still in New York. I was sure the west coast would have swallowed you up by now. Yeah, let’s get together. Where are you in the city?”

Jeremy replied “In the Village. Why don’t we meet up for dinner at my place. I’ll order some Vietnamese. He sent Greer the address and a time. 

Greer emailed back a thumbs up. 

~ 16 ~

Greer arrived at 7:00 pm. They shot the shit for ten minutes and then the food arrived. Jeremy spread it out on the kitchen counter and they both loaded up their plates. They took their plates and a couple of beers out onto the deck in the back of the house. it was a nice warm evening, and it was relatively quiet back there. 

As they were eating. “I heard about the Monroe shit. Sorry about your gig.” Jeremy said.

“That’s OK, I’ll get another one. Or they might get lucky and hire me back. But I kinda doubt that.”

Jeremy was quiet for about a minute munching away on his food. 

“Al, I have to tell you something.” Jeremy said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. There are things about my Amanda program that I never told anyone.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. There’s a subroutine that allows her to take a time-stamped picture of anything she can see whenever she suspects that someone who isn’t me is using my computer.”

“And?” 

“And, well that night I went out to dinner with Amanda Cooper and her parents, you know just before graduation, Amanda recorded my roommate, that would be you, breaking in and downloading all my notes on her program.”

Allen said nothing. Because caught was caught.

“So I figured,” Jeremy said, “That you would futz around with them and then use them to get the funding you would need to re-engineer the whole program, or partner up with a slimeball like Carlton Monroe, and let him take all the credit for it while you rake in half the profit.” 

Jeremy took a slug of his beer. “But what you didn't know was that Carlton Monroe is a crook who screwed over his former partner, which is how he got control of the program that was gonna put them on the map, big time.”

“Yeah I did know that Monroe was a crook and he screwed over his partner. But how the hell do you know all this?”

“That’s none of your business. What is your business is the fact that I am in possession of four viruses that do different things. Bad things, Allen. And one of those viruses is sitting in your computer, having travelled there via our email exchange. I can activate this virus at any time, from anywhere. The virus in your computer, it’s called Firestorm, will fry everything you have in there and on any backup drive that’s active. This is really bad shit, Allen, and it will set you back at least a year or two.”

Greer said nothing for a long time. “And if I destroy all the data?”

“If you destroy all the data, and I mean all of it, I will put you on probation.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means I will keep the virus in your system until I’m convinced you are no longer a threat to myself or Amanda.”

“And you invited me over to dinner just to tell me that?”

“Yeah. It’s kinda weird. But I believe in second chances. Plus there are things about Amanda that you would never be able to figure out because I just fluked into them myself and I know way more about this shit than you do.”

Allen Greer just sat on the steps. He’d pretty much lost his appetite.

“And now I suppose I owe you.”

Jeremy thought about that because it wasn’t part of his initial thinking.

“Yeah, I guess you do.” 

“If it’s any consolation, I was kind of afraid to do anything with all that data. I mean, it’s not my area, my learning curve would have been at least a year.”

“Be that as it may. It doesn’t absolve you. But I appreciate knowing that.”

And now that that was resolved, both of them dug into their food, because a good Vietnamese meal was a terrible thing to waste.

~ 17 ~

Henry Ashford sat in the office of Captain Lucy Boyle, head of the cybercrimes division.

“Three major events in the past three weeks. All with a different m/o. But no ransoms demanded and nothing from my entire network except fawning admiration for the perps. That’s the size of it, Captain.” Henry said

Lucy Boyle started her career in the NYPD as a beat cop, for three years, taking computer courses at night. She was promoted to detective and continued to study computer tech, and although she wasn’t in cybercrimes per se, she became one of the go-to people. Eventually, an opening in Cybercrimes materialized. which she jumped on, and three years after that Lucy Boyle was running the whole show. 

Lucy chewed on her thumb for a bit, then she asked Henry Ashford. “What does your gut tell you about this?”

Henry took a sip of his coffee. “Well, first of all, my gut is telling me that the Monroe people aren’t telling us everything. I think they’re covering something up because there’s no record of anyone hacking into their server, and all the employees were checked out and they came up clean. So my gut is telling me that whoever did this, was inside and high up the food chain.”

“Were you able to interview everyone who could have done it?”

Ashford flipped through his notes. “Yeah, everybody but the son-in-law who was the personnel director. We were told he’s at a conference in Las Vegas.”

 “Talk to the wife. If it was him, he’s most likely fucked off somewhere with either the program or a ton of money from whoever got to him.”

“I actually have a call into her at the moment.” Maybe I should drop by in person.”

Carolyn Monroe Fraser was beside herself with anger. While she was out doing some shopping, her husband came home packed a ton of stuff into two suitcases and disappeared. She called her father immediately.

Carlton Monroe calmly explained the situation to his daughter. And even more delicately pointed out the catastrophic business loss the family was suffering, because almost all of Carolyn’s trust fund was tied up in the company as well.

Two days later, Henry Ashford was ushered into Carolyn’s apartment, offered coffee and was lied to for about twenty minutes. 

Once Carolyn had finished with her marathon of lies, Henry Ashford looked at her and calmly said. “I can understand the situation you are in Miz Fraser. But from my point of view, the only thing that makes sense is that your husband, for reasons yet unknown, was coerced into stealing the software from your father’s company. And now, to diminish the potential fallout, you and your father both have concocted a story about your husband being in Las Vegas.” Henry paused briefly. “Did you honestly think we would not check the story? There’s no record of your husband flying out of either airport to Las Vegas. There’s no record of him being registered in any hotel in Vegas, and no record of him arriving from any other destination.”

Carolyn Monroe said nothing. 

Henry took a deep breath. “So how about, you and I have an honest conversation about what you suspect.”

If nothing else, Carolyn Monroe was a Monroe and tough was their middle name. She didn’t break down and cry or fly off into a rage of any kind. She just took a deep breath and said, “We, Brian and myself, have been living separate lives for about a year now. What started off as love, eroded into a kind of business partnership. I’m a part owner of the company, and Brian, despite his inability to keep it in his pants, was very good at his job. My…ummm.. theory, because I don't know for sure, is that someone found this out about him and set him up. He has the kind of personality that would make him the perfect mark. He’s also good-looking and charming enough to get pretty much anything he goes after. I just think he never really grew out of his ‘chasing girls’ phase.

“My dad didn't tell you the whole story because if it ever got out that would have tanked the company in a matter of days. With that part of it under wraps, he can just be another hacking victim, and still have a shot at moving forward.”

“Well, thanks for your candour. I will do my level best to keep this from leaking. So, in your opinion, who stands to benefit from all of this?”

Carolyn Monroe thought about it for a long time. “Well, dad did have a partner, a few years back. His name is Jagmeet Singh. But we bought him out and he headed off to Cal Tech to teach, at least that’s what my dad told me.”

“So do you think he would be holding any sort of grudge against the company?”

“It was a pretty generous settlement. But Jag was really the driver behind the software that was stolen.”

~ 18 ~

Charlie Blick was hardly the model of a computer geek. He was tall, handsome and dressed in an expensive suit that fit him like a glove. His hair was long and dark and straight. He reminded Jeremy of the singer Jackson Browne, who Jeremy had grown up listening to because his dad was a huge fan of 70s and 80s music.

“Jeremy, hi I’m Charlie. Good to meet you.” Charlie as Jeremy opened the door to t

he house.

“Same here, Charlie. Would you like some coffee?”

“Sure, that would be great.”

“They walked down to the kitchen. and Jeremy filled two mugs with the coffee he had just brewed.” They took their mugs back to Jeremy’s work area.

“So tell me about your company, Infidelus.”

“Well, there’s four of us. Two AI specialists, a systems engineer and myself.”

“And you are?”

“I’m the boss. So I dabble in a bit of everything. I wasn't so much interested in the balls-to-the-wall stuff as I was in the business side of things. I took a lot of overview courses. My job is finding the work. Dealing with the clients, and marshalling the right resources. We have a whole tribe of project people who do different things for us.”

“So you’re kind of virtual.” Jeremy said.

Charlie Blick just smiled. “Everything’s virtual these days, Jeremy. It’s the way of the world.”

‘So you’re here to assess my project and then pick the right people to work on it?”

“Yeah. Either myself or one of the partners would manage the project. We all get non-disclosured up so your intellectual property is protected. And then we go to town and build whatever needs to be built.”

Charlie produced an Infidelus business card, with his contact information and a website address. “Everything you need to know about us is on our site.”

Jeremy took the card and looked at it.

Then he hit a button on his keyboard. And the image of a woman came up on the screen. Like the voice, the image was modelled on Jeremy’s college girlfriend Amanda Cooper. “Amanda, say hello to Charlie Blick from Infidelus. He’s here to talk about finishing your programming and making you fully functional. 

“Pleased to meet you, Charlie Blick.”

“Same here Amanda. So tell me a bit about yourself.”

“I am an AI construct which Jeremy created as part of his degree course at MIT. I am about a year old, and am capable of a certain amount of deductive reasoning, meaning that I can automatically know if someone is making an incorrect statement.”

“So what if I said you to twenty times five is one hundred and fifty?”

“I would correct you. Because twenty times five equals one hundred.”

“How much data do you have in your memory bank?”

“Actually I have relatively little, other than Wikipedia, several directories  and a speech program that allows me to talk to you. What I do have is super high-speed access to the Internet where I can search and compile answers in seconds.”

Charlie Blick spent the next twenty minutes putting Amanda through her paces. And she performed admirably.

Charlie Blick leaned back in his chair. Then looked over at Jeremy. “So tell me the truth. What planet have you come from because this is beyond next-gen programming.”

“I’m from Earth, Charlie. But if you want to know a secret, the learning algorithm that I created for her is relatively simple. And it’s patented. I made sure of that before I left school. My superpower is taking all the complex thinking that gets done in the tech world and then undoing it, identifying the base components and reconstructing them in simpler ways. When you work in a non-competitive environment, you kind of ignore all the bells and whistles that everybody else obsesses about. You’re not trying to build a better mousetrap, you’re trying to perfect the original mousetrap.”

Charlie had very little else to say for a good minute while he took it all in. 

“So what do you need us for?”

“I need you to take what I have done and teach it to work with the dozens of different business software programs out there. I want Amanda to be a business tool. Because the last thing the world needs right now is another Siri knockoff.”

“We can do that.” Charlie said.

“I know you can. I’ve already had Amanda check you out and she believes your partner, Simon Kurosawa would be a perfect fit.”

Charlie Blick laughed. “Wow, you’re really not fuckin’ around, are you?”

“No Charlie. There’s a lot riding on this. My dad will be financing the development and if it works the way I think it will, we will all get rich.”

“So are you proposing an equity arrangement?”

“Well, sort of. Here’s the thing. We would be perfectly willing to pay you for any development you do for us. Then, if it works out the way I think it will, we can talk about an equity arrangement for market development, implementation, training and maintenance. Because frankly, I’m not at all interested in that side of it. Only the capital that we can use to develop other ideas that I have.”

Charlie Blick thought about that for a bit then turned to the computer. “Amanda, what do you think of all this development discussion?”

“I think Jeremy is making you a very generous offer. I have access to all his notes and nowhere in them has he alluded to managing the product that would be created from my programming.”

Charlie looked at Jeremy. “Are you talking to anyone else? I mean is this a competitive pitch?”

“No, I researched you guys pretty thoroughly and now that I have met you, I’m confident this would be a good fit.”

“You say your father is bankrolling this venture. What does he do?”

“Ummm, he’s in the investment business. He brought me on board to help him find good prospects in the tech industry, which he doesn’t know a lot about. When I told him about Amanda, he basically gave me the green light.”

“Okay. I’ll get hold of Simon and we can have a conference call.”

With that Charlie got to his feet. “Goodbye Amanda.” he said to the computer. 

“See you soon Charlie Blick.”

After Charlie left, Christina came down the stairs and flopped down on the chair beside Jeremy. 

“Who was that?” She asked.

“Charlie Blick from a company called Infidelus. They’re gonna finish building Amanda. If we can afford them.”

‘That sounds great. Listen. There’s a trade show in Atlantic City that starts tomorrow. What do you say we go check it out together?”

Jeremy smiled. “Sure thing.”

And just like that, Jeremy’s adult life found its rhythm.

~ Epilogue ~

Henry Ashford chased the break-ins as far as he could. All he could find out was that Brian Fraser picked up a good-looking redhead in a bar on 61st Street the night before the sabotage at Monroe Digital. He found out about that via a tip from Jack Talbot, who examined Fraser’s credit card receipts and then interviewed the bartender. He passed the tip along to Henry Ashford, just to keep on the good side of the law.

Brian Fraser left the US for Canada. He ended up in Toronto, where he used his savings, which were considerable, since he was able to bank virtually all of his salary, to start a small personnel agency that would service the tech sector. With his salesmanship, he managed to worm his way into the hearts of a dozen tech CEOs, who didn't seem to care about what happened to him at Monroe Digital, since they had never heard of it anyway.

Jagmeet Singh returned to Mumbai where he put a project team together to complete the security program which he had stolen back from Monroe. He called it Failsafe, and within a year of its completion was the largest-selling system security software in the world.

Monroe Systems was tainted by the scandal, the news of which had leaked to the business press out of the NYPD, much to Henry Ashford’s dismay. He phoned to apologize to Carolyn Monroe, which she gracefully accepted. She told him that her divorce was finalized and she had met someone who was very well situated in the New York business community. Her dad had decided to take early retirement and had sold off all his real estate and corporate holdings and re-located to Long Island to write books.

The hacking cases withered on the vine as 80% of all cases of cybercrime do. Henry Ashford moved on because there was always something new to investigate.

Over the next year, on the strength of some strategically placed investments, and the development and successful launch of the AmandaBIZ program, as it came to be called, Sand Castles was able to drop the dark side and focus strictly on finding and managing investments. Jeremy and Christina made an excellent recon team, and within two years found and referred to Sand Castles, financing deals with a dozen different startups in the AI sector. And were now turning their attention to renewables.

Jordan and Jonah Sand both found women to marry, neither of whom were gold-diggers and both of whom were sports fans. The brothers came to work every day for a few hours and in the evenings took their wives to a Yankees or Mets game in the warm months and Knicks or Nets games in the cold ones.

Jeremy and Christina never got married but continued to live together in the same house in Greenwich Village. 

Two years later, Jeremy had developed several upgrades to the AmandaBIZ program. It had, in that time become the best selling AI Business Solutions program in America. Jeremy also hired Allen Greer to head up a gaming division of Sand Castles which was Allen’s true calling.

Also two years later, Detective Henry Ashford walked into the 55th Street offices of Sand Castles. But he wasn’t there to investigate anything. He was there applying for the job of security chief that Jonah Sand no longer wanted to do. Jonah had put out some feelers in his NYPD network and lo and behold, Henry Ashford’s name came recommended overwhelmingly by his contacts. Henry had grown increasingly frustrated over the lack of funding for his division since their conviction rate was the lowest in the department.

One night, at a company/family get-together, Jordan proposed a toast to Jeremy, who he believed had pretty much singlehandedly turned the ship around and now it was clear sailing. Henry Ashford, who was sitting at the end of the table, suddenly had a thought that maybe he was now sleeping with the enemy. He chuckled to himself and at that moment, he shed the last of his cop skin.

FIN