Intentional Consequences

by Charles Harris

  Dan was silent for 30 seconds or so. Then he said, “I’m sure you’re right. I guess I didn’t understand. I’m sorry I bothered you. Could I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Were you aware David was videoing us when we were together?”

  “No, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d done that. He videoed us having sex all the time.”

  Chapter 61

  Andy was released from the hospital Tuesday morning. With Andy’s mother on her way back to New York, Eva picked Andy up in her Tesla. He was wearing shorts and a polo shirt. They stopped for lunch at Cooper’s Bar-B-Que on Congress Street.

  “Had to get you here before you left,” Eva said.

  “Smells great! Hard to get good barbeque in Boston. Feels good to be out of the hospital—especially good to be here with you.”

  After they ordered, Eva said, “I can’t believe you’re going to New York tomorrow.”

  Andy looked at her. She was wearing a white miniskirt with a yellow short-sleeved shirt tied at the waist over a white crochet halter top.

  “Yep. It’s been a crazy two weeks. I’m going to miss you.”

  She smiled. “I’m going to miss you, too.”

  Neither of them spoke. Finally, she broke his gaze and said, “Did you talk with your boss?”

  “Yeah. I’m going back to work on Monday. I’ll fly back to Boston from New York on Sunday. I’m getting sick days for the rest of this week. I told my boss about how much fun I’ve had during my vacation down here. You know, being chased, shot at, left to die under a house. Watching people die all around me. Fun activities like that. He knows about Bernbach’s death of course. We agreed to talk about what to do with the story when I get back.”

  “What about the FBI? Did you ever tell them you were targeting Bernbach?”

  “Not yet. My editor doesn’t want me to divulge sources or risk having the story leak before we can get it out. My gut is to give them the roadmap, but we’ll see.”

  After lunch, Eva drove Andy over to UT-Austin so he could say goodbye to Valerie. The three of them talked in Valerie’s office for 40 minutes. They looked at the social media feeds that had been used in the attacks on Valerie.

  “The traffic’s ebbing, Andy said. “Hardly anything at all today.” He promised to stay on it after he left.

  Valerie said, “I hope it’s dropping because of Bernbach’s death and not just because classes will be over at the end of this week.”

  ◆◆◆

  They stopped at Eva’s house on the way to the Jenkins’ so she could pick up a present for Andy. They walked through the house to her studio. Andy followed her into the room with her computers and the projection equipment. Stepping to the pinup board, she took down the black and white print of her topless New York picture and slipped it into a Tyvek envelope. Handing it to him with a wink, she said, “I wanted you to have something to remember me by.”

  Grinning and blushing, he said, “Uh, yeah, thank you.”

  They walked back to the pool. Eva said, “How about a beer or some iced tea before you go?”

  “Sure, iced tea would be great,” he said.

  She planted him in a chair under an umbrella by the pool and poured two glasses of tea in the kitchen.

  Handing him the tea, she said, “You know, you should spend a day or two here baking these bad memories out of your system before you go back north.”

  “Yeah, that would be nice. But it’s not gonna happen.” Then he smiled and added, “This trip anyway.”

  Eva sat with her long tan legs stretched out in front of her on a footstool. They talked about Andy’s college years, and how he became interested in journalism and politics.

  After a while, Eva stood and untied her shirt, tossing it on an adjacent chair. “Warm out here,” she said nonchalantly as she sat back in her chair. She watched as Andy’s eyes locked onto her low-cut halter top or, more accurately, what the open-weave crochet camouflaged but failed to conceal.

  They talked about Rakesh’s project to reunite America and what Andy could do to help launch it in the press and on social media. Eva stood facing Andy. “You could do a lot to help. If you can get your editor on board, maybe you could get an exclusive interview with Rakesh for the Sentinel Observer,” she said. She walked around the pool as they talked. Coming back to the table, she grasped Andy’s hand on his good side and pulled gently, coaxing him out of his chair. “We should probably get you going. I have some calls to make.”

  “Probably better to say goodbye here,” she said as she put her arms around Andy’s back and stepped against him. She felt what she had already noticed. He wrapped his good arm around her bare back. “Watch your shoulder,” she said. She pressed her lower body against his and held it tightly. Tossing her head back, she looked at him and smiled. “Thanks for coming into my life.” She kissed him gently on the lips and said, “Let’s go. I need to get you out of here. Don’t lose your picture.”

  She put her shirt on as they walked to her car.

  Chapter 62

  At 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday, Rakesh’s Embraer Legacy jet roared down the runway in Austin with two passengers on board. Four and a half hours later, he and Eva were shaking hands with Mike Hastings in his office at PaprW8 in Menlo Park. Rakesh had scheduled the meeting in a call with Hastings on Monday afternoon. Rakesh was dressed in slacks and a sport jacket over an open collar shirt. Eva was wearing a blue and white silk crepe wrap dress with a trendy high-low hemline.

  On the way, Rakesh said, “I should give you an update on Dan’s status with JPAC. I met with Dan at our corporate offices on Monday. He agreed to resign as CEO. I’m taking that position for now. It’s sad for Dan, but this will give his key leaders a chance to step up. Dan agreed to remain as an employee on an interim basis while we sort things out. He’ll primarily focus on launching my project. I’m doing some deep security audits to see whether any other information has been leaked or misused.”

  “We had another conversation yesterday morning. He was visibly distraught in both meetings. I tend to believe what he told me about what happened, but I’m not convinced he’s being honest with himself or anyone else about why it happened or whether anything else is out there.”

  Eva said, “Can you share any of that, at least as it relates to me?”

  Rakesh said, “Dan said there were three instances of infidelity with the woman, all when he was in Westport to see Bernbach. He believes Bernbach arranged the whole thing so he could blackmail him. Dan spoke with Hope this week. She told him she had been dating Bernbach and had no romantic interest in Dan. Dan swore he wasn’t involved with any other women.”

  “Lovely,” Eva said.

  Rakesh said, “Dan said he became infatuated with Bernbach’s wealth and lifestyle, his parties and his power. As Bernbach reeled him in, his morality and ethics broke down. Dan tried to use the audio file to show me he pushed back on Bernbach’s demands. I think it shows he had crossed the line repeatedly over some period before he finally had remorse and tried to pull the plug.”

  Eva said, “Of all the things in that recording, I’ll never forget his comment about marrying Hope.”

  Rakesh said, “He mentioned that. He said it was just a bluff.

  “Yeah,” Eva said. “Wonderful. Too bad she’s not interested. Bernbach was right on that one.”

  Rakesh said, “That’s enough for now. This is tough for both of us.”

  They spent the rest of the flight preparing for their discussion with Hastings. Eva gladly shifted her attention. “Pushing Hastings to terminate whatever they’re doing with the Chinese should be our first priority,” she said. “It’s probably the only thing he can do at this point to protect his company. I like the message it will send to the Chinese. They’ll worry about why PaprW8 wants out. Best of all, it will make them question where Susan Ward stands. They’ll wonder whether she knows enough to be dangerous to them.”

  “Do you think that could put her at risk?”


  “Could be, although I don’t think it’s a matter of putting her at risk. She put herself at risk. It’s more like increasing her risk. Given what she’s done, I don’t feel bad about that, whatever the consequences might be.”

  ◆◆◆

  At PaprW8, Hastings’ assistant met them in the lobby and took them to a conference room near his office. Hastings was already there, studying his iPad and eating one of the sandwiches that had been placed on the credenza. He was wearing khakis and a black polo shirt with the PaprW8 logo.

  Rakesh and Eva took some sandwiches, water and oatmeal raisin cookies. After the introductions, Rakesh said, “Mike, I appreciate your meeting with us on such short notice. Given the loose ends swirling around following David Bernbach’s tragic death, I thought it was important for us to meet in person. We’re in the process of deciding how to handle certain facts we’ve discovered over the past several days. As how we respond could affect PaprW8, I wanted to talk with you before we reach any decisions. While I’m sure you’ll want to discuss these matters with Susan Ward and other advisers, I appreciate your willingness to have this conversation in private. Our companies are not technically under NDA, but as should become clear shortly, we’ll all benefit from discretion.”

  Hastings said, “Rakesh, I’m not happy to be here, but I agreed to hear you out. You asked for the meeting. How do you want to proceed?”

  “I’d like Eva to explain the first point.”

  Eva said, “My company, Daneva Technologies, created some software we call VADS—V-A-D-S. It uses AI-based digital editing to alter photos and other images, including videos. The same algorithms can be applied in reverse to detect fakes. We believe it’s the most advanced tool of its kind anywhere. Because of some cyber intrusions earlier this year, we created a decoy version of the software and left it open to the intruders in our network. A few weeks ago, it was downloaded. The decoy version secretly encodes altered photos with data about when and where the edits were made and the software version that was used to create them. To get to the point, we recently came across altered photos created with our decoy on your campus here in Menlo Park. Based on other sources, we believe PaprW8 was given a copy of the decoy by the Chinese company CnEyeco Tech. We think CnEyeco downloaded the decoy from our server. We believe Susan Ward and David Bernbach were involved in this.”

  Hastings said, “That’s quite a fantastic story, particularly your allegations about Susan.”

  Eva said, “Yes, it is. By the way, the altered photos I mentioned appeared in some tweets and posts that were used to attack Rakesh’s wife, Valerie Williams, who is a respected political science professor at the University of Texas in Austin. Over the past few weeks, she’s been the victim of a foul social media campaign claiming her wealth creates bias in her professional articles and teaching.”

  Hastings said, “Have you ever met Susan Ward?”

  Eva said, “Yes. Several weeks ago, she came to the opening of an exhibition of my digital art at a gallery in San Francisco. We talked about this software. She was interested in learning more about it. She thought it might be valuable in helping PaprW8 deal with altered photos and videos in fake news.”

  Hastings said, “That’s a difficult problem for all of us in social media. Perhaps your software could help.”

  Rakesh said, “We can come back to each of these. Let me go on to the second item. I own 80% of JPAC, the political analytics company founded by Eva’s husband, Dan Johnson. Your investor, Mr. Bernbach, and various of his PACs and candidates have used JPAC’s services. Recently, we learned Mr. Bernbach may have been attempting to blackmail Mr. Johnson into providing proprietary JPAC software and algorithms to PaprW8 and to a Chinese company we believe may be CnEyeco Tech. We have an audio record of the conversation.

  “This item is related to a third matter. A newspaper reporter from the Sentinel Observer in Boston has been working on a story suggesting Mr. Bernbach was at the center of a political conspiracy involving the illegal use of technology and personal information to influence the 2020 American presidential election. The reporter believes this conspiracy includes PaprW8 and one or more Chinese companies as well as the Chinese government. He thinks PaprW8 is receiving both technology and access to hacked PII. He believes Miss Ward is involved in all this.”

  Hastings said, “What? Those are wild allegations! Who is this reporter?”

  Rakesh said, “Please. Let us finish. The reporter in question was released from an Austin hospital yesterday following the second attempt on his life in a matter of ten days. You may be interested to know four of the attackers in those two attempts are now dead. All four were shot by Eva Johnson here.”

  Hastings looked at Eva quizzically and said, “Eva, is that true?”

  Eva said, “Yes, it is. Mike, we didn’t ask to be in the middle of this, but we’re there and whether you know it or not, so are you. You may not have been shot at yet, but your investor Bernbach is dead. While the official cause of death is a heart attack, the reporter we mentioned is not so sure, and he’s been more right than wrong so far. The Chinese can be very harsh partners when things go badly.”

  Hastings said, “OK, you have my attention. Rakesh, what do you want me to do?”

  Rakesh said, “Before we talk about that, let me add some context for you. First, the FBI is investigating several aspects of this, including the cyber intrusions Eva mentioned earlier. Depending on how this plays out, you and Susan Ward may be on their interview lists, if you’re not already. As I’m sure you’ve seen, the FBI is good at indicting people the agency claims lied to their agents.

  “Second, PaprW8can’t afford to be dragged into a political conspiracy story, especially given the increasing Congressional focus on social media companies like yours. It would be bad politically, bad for customer relations and bad for your investors. Your stock’s already going to be under market pressure from the uncertainty and overhang of the position Bernbach’s fund accumulated.

  “Third, as Eva said, the Chinese can be quite harsh. Being exposed as part of a political conspiracy like this can’t be popular in Beijing. If our reporter’s theory is right, it may have gotten David Bernbach killed. But short of that, even being associated with rumors about a conspiracy like this can’t help your company regain access to the Chinese market.

  “Fourth, you have a problem with Susan Ward. She’s obviously very talented. The market views her as indispensable to your company. It’s natural for you to want to protect her. But from what we’ve seen, her fingerprints are on some things that could blow up in your face, and hers. It’s not up to us to tell you how to manage your team, but confronting this sooner may be much more productive than picking up the pieces later.”

  Hastings said, “Rakesh, stop trying to leverage me and tell me what you want me to do.”

  Rakesh said, “It’s not complicated. I’ll let Eva start.”

  Eva said, “Delete the copies of the decoy version of our VADS software and any derivatives or development your team may have created from what you got. Delete the altered photos created with it. Find out where the decoy came from and let us know when and how you got it. We don’t need to know who on your team was involved.”

  Hastings said, “Do you expect us to get the original of the decoy back from wherever it came from?”

  Eva said, “Nice idea, but probably impractical. So, no.”

  Hastings said, “Would you be willing to license VADS to PaprW8?”

  Eva said, “At the right price, possibly. If we did that, we’d want to limit its use to the detection of fakes.”

  Rakesh said, “That’s item one. As item two, we want you to remove the hateful content about my wife from your sites and cooperate with us as we work to correct her record.”

  Hastings said, “What else?”

  Rakesh said, “It may surprise you, but we want to build a closer relationship with PaprW8. Many of JPAC’s political clients already advertise with you. Your company wants to increase its revenue from
political marketing. We want to increase JPAC’s business. We have a lot of reasons to work together. Beyond JPAC, I have a lot of financial resources in my holding company that could be helpful as you take advantage of the coming antitrust attacks on your larger competitors.”

  Hastings said, “What’s the catch?”

  Rakesh said, “There’s no catch. If JPAC can succeed as you succeed, I have a reason to help you, and vice versa. Both of us can benefit if you can extract your company from the problems Eva and I outlined. If there’s a catch, that’s it. We can’t work with you or send our clients to you if you have disaster about to strike.”

  Hastings said, “Well, I can see why you wanted to meet.” He stood at the table, looking at them. “You’ve given me a lot to think about. You’ve also left me a little confused. You’ve made some ugly claims about my company and my COO, which, to be clear, I deny. At the same time, you’ve also suggested we work together.

  Eva said, “We didn’t have to come here, Mike. You’ve built a great company. You’re going through some tough times that will get a lot tougher if you don’t manage the issues we’ve talked about.”

  “Alright. I’ll be back to you as soon as I can.”

  ◆◆◆

  Less than an hour later, Eva and Rakesh were on their way back to Austin. They ate catered sandwiches and fruit salad for dinner and shared a bottle of Malbec.