by L. A. Larkin
Serena leaned back, wishing to get away from John’s severe stare and harsh tone. Yin and yang.
‘Go on,’ she said firmly.
‘Visit graveyards. Find a little girl buried there who was born around your birth year. You’ll need to take her identity.’
‘I see. Go on,’ she said, trying not to betray how uncomfortable she felt.
‘You’ll also need to find a girl whose mother or father is dead too—so you’ll check Births, Deaths and Marriages—because when you apply for a birth certificate, you need proof of a parent’s identity. I can fake that for you, as long as they’re dead.’
‘Is there any other way?’
He tilted back again. This time, she didn’t move. Without realising, she had clenched her hands into a tight ball.
‘Not that I know of.’ He waited.
She knew he was testing her, gauging how badly she wanted to go through with it. Serena let her eyes wander around the room for a moment as she wracked her brain for another idea. ‘What about the birth certificate of a dead friend? I mean, asking the mother if we can have it?’
They both leaned forward in sync, so that their faces were almost touching.
‘You mean Amber. Amber Crosby. She was, what, fifteen?’ said John.
‘Yes, Amber.’
Amber Crosby had been Serena’s best friend at school until she died in a car crash. Serena still visited Amber’s parents, who ran a popular hardware store, popping by whenever she was in town. Jill and Tim regarded Serena almost as an adopted daughter.
‘But why would her parents let us have her birth certificate?’ quizzed John.
‘They’ll do it for me. Amber and I were very close, and Jill and Tim trust me. I’ll tell them it’s for something important, something Amber would be proud of, but not to ask any questions, as what I’m doing isn’t legal.’
‘You’d risk telling them that?’
‘Yes I would. And Amber would be proud. She was always doing e-campaigning; you remember? Fighting some kind of injustice. I reckon she’d be cool about this.’
John grinned. ‘I think you could be right, and if you can get the certificate off Jill and Tim, that saves me a whole heap of effort.’
‘I’ll get it,’ she said, feeling less like a thief.
‘Good,’ said John, clapping his hands together in a loud smack and standing. ‘Once you have the birth certificate, I can help you with the driver’s licence. To get one, you’ll need two forms of identity. We’ll have the birth certificate but we’ll need one other and I suggest we go for a utility bill.’
‘And you’ll create the utility bill?’
He nodded. ‘They want it for the address. I’ll do an electricity one. The question is, what address we put on it?’
‘It can’t be this one. If I get caught, I don’t want you implicated.’
John laughed. ‘Nice thought, Seri, but they’ll work it out. I’m implicated either way.’
Seri stood, arms folded. ‘No, not this address. I noticed a vacant apartment near the bus stop. I’d prefer to use that.’
‘Suits me,’ shrugged John.
‘But won’t the RTA want proof of a driving test or something?’
‘That’s a bit tricky but your stint in the UK could help. You’ll either have to apply for a learner’s licence, which is a bit unusual at your age, and means keeping a driving log and all that crap, or you apply with a UK driver’s licence.’
‘Which I have!’ Serena replied excitedly. She had been permitted to drive in the UK on her Australian licence for the first year, but had then had to apply for a UK licence.
He clicked his tongue twice. ‘That you do. But it belongs to Serena Swift, so we’ll have to do a bit of work on it. Someone I know can change the name over to Amber’s and replace the photo of the good-looking blonde with one of a stunning redhead.’
She ignored the compliment, keen to learn the next step. ‘So, I have a UK driving licence in Amber’s name. Then what?’
‘You pass an eyesight test, you sit a written test and then a driving test. If you pass those, you go into an RTA branch, show them Amber’s UK licence, birth certificate and electricity bill, and you get yourself an Australian driver’s licence with your face on it. You will have become Amber Crosby,’ he announced in the manner of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
‘This is incredible,’ Serena said. ‘I didn’t think it would be this easy.’
‘Easy? Forging a UK driver’s licence isn’t easy. And the guy will want payback some time. It’s the payback I’m worried about.’
‘He’ll have a hold over you?’
John nodded.
‘But it’s for me, not you.’
‘No offence, but I’m the hacker, not you. I think he’ll be more interested in my skills.’
She sighed loudly. ‘That’s not good, John. I can’t let that happen—’
‘Serena, if you want to do this, I have no choice.’ His tone was a touch sharp and she noticed that he’d used her full name. ‘So, are we doing this or what?’
She stepped gracefully towards him in her black silk robe, resembling a geisha. She took both his hands and held them between hers. ‘Yes, John; we are doing this.’
He nodded silently for a while before he spoke. ‘Right, then. We’ve got to consider a few more things: the bank account and tax file number.’
He gently pulled his hands away, but stayed close to her. They stood in the centre of the room, totally engrossed in their conspiracy. ‘Once you have the Australian driver’s licence as well as the birth certificate, you have the hundred points you need to get a bank account.’
‘What about the TFN?’
‘That’s where I come in again. I’m going to have to hack the tax office and create a tax file number and all the tax return history you’d expect a working woman like Amber Crosby to have.’
‘Shit. The tax office?’
‘Yup.’
‘That’s serious shit.’
John nodded. ‘That’s jail time if we’re caught.’
Chapter 23
‘The kitchen’s on the left; help yourself to tea, coffee, energy drinks… and the ladies toilets are back down the corridor on the right.’
Serena peered down the corridor from behind her black-framed glasses. She had dressed as conservatively as possible, in a black skirt and an olive green top, but could do little to hide her curves and long legs. She smiled sweetly at her new colleague.
As Amber Crosby, she had just arrived for her first day at Gene-Asis Asia-Pacific’s head office, in the heart of the CBD. The fifty-five floors stretched up into the sky and, in its exterior design, resembled the Osaka World Trade Center, with a viewing and entertaining platform at the very top. In red letters, as tall as three storeys, the illuminated company name shone day and night over the city, except during Earth Hour. Serena had discovered that Gene-Asis made a big noise about its environmental sustainability program and was proud of this highly energy efficient building, complete with cogeneration and solar panelling on the roof. But she doubted that the company’s responsible stance was much more than a veneer.
Serena was following a heavily pregnant woman in flat pump shoes along the brightly lit corridor of the fifty-fifth floor. Liz was PA to Henry Peng Loh, the chief financial officer. She winced and paused for a second.
‘Are you okay? Do you need to sit down?’ asked Serena.
‘No, I’m fine, thanks. It’s my ankles. They swelled up even more over the weekend and my back’s killing me.’
‘When’s the baby due?’
‘In five weeks.’
Liz continued walking, one hand on her stomach.
‘Oh, before I forget, Amber, here’s your ID card back. It’s been cleared.’
‘Thanks,’ replied Serena, exhaling a little too loudly with relief.
Following Liz through thick frosted glass doors, she found herself inside the executive office area. Everywhere she walked, she’d spotted ‘
spy-eyes’: tiny cameras like eyeballs that were movement sensitive. There was one covering the entrance to the executive suite but, she was relieved to find, none inside.
A wall of flat screens was silently playing Gene-Asis’ TV commercials and news interviews. There were eight screens suspended randomly at varying heights on a maze of steel wires, each one showing a different image. With the Gene-Asis advertising budget in the billions every year, they could have run their own twenty-four-hour network if they’d wanted to, but buying advertising time gave them much more leverage with the media. To her left, were four glass-fronted private offices, and one huge suite at the very end, which, she guessed, belonged to the CEO.
In the middle were the PAs’ desks. Designed as one flowing workstation, the desks curled in and out like a wave, each pod set up with two computer screens suspended from a T-bar, a keyboard and a mouse that caught Serena’s attention. A red beam of light swung repeatedly from one side of it to the other. Embedded in the far wall were filing cabinets, which locked automatically when the drawers closed.
‘This is where you’ll sit. Your system has the foreign language software. We don’t. You’re fluent in Japanese and Cantonese, right?’
‘That’s right.’ Serena swallowed. Over the last ten days she’d done some intensive study. She’d recapped her business Japanese, which was pretty good, but her Cantonese was bare-bones level.
‘You can meet Al now. He’s been in since seven.’
Something in Serena’s stomach plunged, as if a rock had dropped into the muesli she’d eaten for breakfast. She felt her face flush.
‘Is that where … you know?’
‘Yes, but it’s okay. You’d never know.’
Following Liz’s swaying figure into Al’s enormous office, she found herself standing in front of the very man she believed held the key to Gene-Asis’ secrets.
Behind the desk hung a beautiful abstract oil painting in reds, indigos, creams, blacks and whites. She recognised the artist as Sean Scully. Tony Mancini had certainly been a man of taste. A soft cream carpet and cream leather chairs around a coffee table created an atmosphere of relaxation and warmth. But it was Bukowski’s office now, and his desk was neat and clear, save for his docked handheld. She could see a digital photo frame to the right, but not the image.
Bukowski looked up, clearly deep in thought. He glanced momentarily at Liz, and then focused on Serena. He struck her as a man who never rushed his movements; each one was deliberate and controlled. The eyes observing her were so dark that she couldn’t see where his pupils ended and his irises began.
‘You must be Amber. Welcome. Welcome.’
He stood up and walked around the wooden desk to shake her hand. Bukowski was shorter and of slighter build than she’d imagined, but his stature did nothing to diminish his charisma.
Last night she’d searched the Net for information on her new boss and there had been plenty to choose from. It appeared this man was not shy of publicity and the news media couldn’t get enough of him. She’d traced his family back to the 1920s, when his great-grandfather had drilled for oil in Cisco, Texas, which had established the family fortune. Bukowski’s grandfather and father had continued to grow the oil business into an empire but Bukowski had foreseen the demise of oil. At a young age, he’d correctly predicted that genetic engineering would be the powerhouse of the future, so he’d studied bioscience and business at Harvard. From what she could discern, Bukowski revered his father, a stern disciplinarian and genuine patriarch who had a paternal approach to his employees. Bukowski had joined Gene-Asis’ strategy and corporate development team straight out of university. He did a stint in Russia and India, and succeeded in converting the major farming belts of Eastern Europe, India and Pakistan to Gene-Asis’ seeds. He went on to tackle the Asia-Pacific region. His biggest coup was converting China, which he had done by negotiating directly with the Chinese Government; three hundred million Chinese farmers were directed to use Gene-Asis’ genetically engineered product lines. Developed so that the seeds could never be used more than once, the farmers were forced to buy seed from Gene-Asis every year. With this triumph under his belt, he returned to the United States as president of strategy and corporate development, supplanting his boss. Three years later, Bukowski was appointed global CEO.
In her four centimetre heels Serena looked straight into his eyes, which made him about 177 centimetres tall. As he smiled, his eyes became narrow slits edged with thick black eyelashes, which made it disconcertingly difficult to read their expression. His smile was very wide, creating dimples in each cheek, and she found herself transfixed by the whitest, most perfect teeth she had ever seen. Distracted, Serena failed to register that he held her hand just a fraction too long before he let it go.
‘I’m delighted you’re here. At this stage, I’m not sure how long you’ll be working for me. I’m hoping to appoint a new Asia-Pacific CEO shortly. Did HR explain this to you?’ He extended his ‘r’s with a Texan drawl.
‘Yes, Mr Bukowski. And it’s lovely to meet you.’ Serena returned his smile. She had to consciously stop herself from warming to him.
He sat on the edge of his desk in a relaxed manner but scanned her face with the intensity of a laser.
‘Why, thank you, Amber. Your language skills will prove invaluable. Now, has Liz given you the grand tour?’
‘Not yet, Al. I wanted to introduce her to you first and then we’ll go through her induction program,’ interjected Liz.
‘Good, good. Now, Amber, do you know what we do here?’
Was that a trick question? ‘Yes, genetically engineer plants and animals so they grow faster, resist disease and taste better.’
‘Yes, but we do so much more. We give hope to the starving in drought-stricken Africa; we give hope to flooded and low-lying countries like Bangladesh; we give hope to this country, where the desert is slowly creeping towards the coast, destroying your agricultural land. And how do we give them hope? By using the brilliant minds the Lord has seen fit to give us to improve on Creation, and by doing so, make people’s lives better. The drought-resistant, disease-resistant, flood-resistant crops we develop are all about helping people, Amber, and I’m real proud of that. It’s what we call the war on hunger.’ His voice rang out with evangelical fervour. ‘I’m proud we put food on people’s tables and I’m proud that in ten years’ time, over eighty per cent of the world’s crops will be genetically engineered. By my company.’
Serena had heard many companies bang their own drum before and the cynical advertising pitch director within her would normally have groaned at another ‘we serve the greater good’ speech. The reference to ‘the Lord’ didn’t surprise her: she’d read he was from a United Methodist family. But the conviction with which he spoke did surprise her and it took all her strength not to be moved by his words.
‘I’m proud to be here, Mr Bukowski.’
His tone changed as he moved on to practicalities. ‘You’ll find me pretty easy to handle. I like things done a certain way but Monica will explain all that. Monica is my PA in New York and you’ll need to work closely with her. I have two pet hates. The first is paper: it’s not necessary in this high-tech age. The second is sloppiness and that includes anything that undermines company security. Apart from that, I’m an easygoing kinda guy.’
He raised his hands, palms up, smiling; amused at the contradictions in his own statement.
‘No problem, Mr Bukowski.’
‘No, please, call me Al.’
He smelled of musk, citrus and pine trees, and it reminded her of the pungent, untamed forests of the Scottish Highlands she’d visited during her time in the UK.
Liz responded, ‘Thank you, Al. I guess we’d better take Amber down to Security.’
‘Of course. Now, Amber, I’d like you back here by eight-thirty so I can brief you for the day.’
Serena nodded.
‘If you’ll excuse me, I have a call I must take,’ he said. In the split second before
he moved away, his eyes dropped the length of her body, so subtly that Serena mightn’t have noticed. But she felt his gaze and it made her uncomfortable.
‘Thank you, Al,’ said Liz, leading Serena from the office.
‘Jane, my dear, how can I help?’ Serena heard Bukowski say into his earpiece. Was that Jane Mancini, the widow?
Serena glanced back and caught him watching her, still smiling. She smiled back shly and he nodded his head in acknowledgment. Serena had held her own with CEOs and senior executives all her working life, and Bukowski was the first to unsettle her. She reassured herself it was because of the role she was playing.
‘So, how is Karen doing? She must be very shaken up,’ Serena asked when they were safely out of hearing distance.
‘She’s not good. The company’s paid for an overseas holiday and counselling but it doesn’t help that she’s got to hide from the media.’ Liz paused. ‘She’s not coming back, by the way.’
‘How have people here responded to Mr Mancini’s death?’
‘Everyone’s very sad. Morale is pretty low.’
‘Forgive me for asking, but do you know why Mr Bukowski is staying here?’
‘To recruit Tony’s replacement.’
‘And how long will that take, do you think?’
‘I don’t know. Why?’ replied Liz, giving Serena a questioning look. Perhaps she had gone too far.
‘I just like to know who I’m working for, that’s all,’ she shrugged. ‘So, what’s Mr Bukowski like?’
Liz sat down at her desk, puffing with the exertion of walking, while Serena pulled up another chair.
‘Call him Al. Seriously. He sees the company as one big happy family and he hates formality with his people. You’re very lucky: he’s a genuinely nice boss. And he’s been so lovely to Tony’s widow. He’s paid for the funeral and giving Jane her husband’s salary for as long as she needs it.’
‘That’s very generous,’ said Serena, genuinely surprised at his kindness.