The cinematic antics of this man and his James Bond introduction amused Sam enough to want to play along.
“That’s very kind of you, sir. And to whom do I owe my gratitude?”
“Adly Sarhan, from Egypt.” He slipped him a thick, gold-embossed card. When he leaned closer, Sam noticed the man was wearing kohl around his eyes. His thick eyebrows were neatly plucked. Sarhan’s full head of liquorish-black hair, slicked back with powerful product, glistened under the Southern California sun. He was fair-skinned for an Egyptian, so probably may have had Turkish or Greek blood.
“I represent the Aswan Group, an international real estate conglomerate. We’re interested in your services. More precisely, sir, we are interested in you.”
“Thank you.” Sam smiled politely.
“Let me cut to the chase. What would it take to fly you out to New York tomorrow to discuss a project of the utmost confidentiality? I can have you back in Los Angeles immediately after.”
“I am flattered, Mr. Sarhan—”
“Please, call me Adly.”
Sam nodded. “Adly, in order to fly out to New York tomorrow, I’d have to cancel two important business meetings. Not to mention my daughter’s school recital and date night with my wife.”
“The meetings can be rescheduled. Your daughter’s recital and the dinner with Mrs. Morgan, on the other hand, would be unforgivable.”
“I gather you’re married, too,” Sam said with a wink.
Sarhan chuckled a lot louder than Sam’s remark deserved.
“I am indeed a family man myself and never missed an important event in my children’s lives. How about the day after tomorrow?”
Adly paused as their waiter placed a chilled silver bucket near the table and popped open a Blanc de Blancs bottle. He placed two long-stemmed flutes in front of them. Holding the bottle at a forty-five-degree angle to calm the initial rush of foam, the waiter then poured small amounts into each flute. When the froth had subsided, he topped up each glass and walked away.
Sam lifted his glass and toasted his host, thanking him for the drink.
“You are a persistent man and I have to admit I admire that. But there is another problem.”
“What might that be?”
“Clearly, you’ve done some research on our company. We specialize in show business and have no experience whatsoever in real estate. Entertainment Sciences isn’t exactly your most suitable match.”
The Egyptian looked out to sea, his head bobbing gently, and his fingers stroking his chin.
“I can make some excellent recommendations of fine software houses on the East Coast. Local firms we know and trust who can take good care of you.”
Adly didn’t respond to him immediately, and kept gazing at the Pacific. The silence suggested he was either processing what Sam had said, or, more likely, quietly ignoring it.
“Oh, Mr. Morgan,” he finally said, but still his head turned away. “You are totally missing the point here.”
When his eyes finally turned back to focus on Sam, they had a different glean to them.
He smiled at the Egyptian. “Please call me Sam. I am all ears and open to being directed to the point if there is one, and if I indeed missed it.”
Adly smiled back, the intensity Sam had seen in his eyes all but gone. “The product we want to build is very simple in terms of its core functions. My fifteen-year-old grandson can probably build it.”
“Then why do you need us?”
“Because it requires certain—let’s say unique—security features that only a gifted developer like you can design.”
Adly stopped and sipped on his drink before continuing.
“More importantly, we need to work with someone we can trust. All roads lead back to you, sir, in that department.”
Sam shook his head in mock defeat. He couldn’t help but enjoy Adly’s persistence. Secretly flattered and his intellectual curiosity tickled. Something about Adly wasn’t quite trustworthy and Sam knew he had to be wary. But he had also stoked a nascent hunger in him to take risks. Adly hadn’t created this desire, but he had somehow focused a strong light on it, so it was the only thing Sam could think of.
“So what is it?” Judging by their short interaction, Sam knew he was probably not going to get a straight answer.
Adly’s eyes glimmered. “We call it—Leviathan.”
“Like the sea monster?”
“Come to New York, hear me out, then make up your mind. You have nothing to lose.”
“This week is terrible for me, Adly. Even if I could come out for a day, it wouldn’t be for at least two weeks.”
Adly looked out to the ocean again. Sam was beginning to sense this was one of his tells. Whenever he wanted to mask his frustration, or that mad look in his eyes, he looked away. When he turned back to face Sam, a huge smile of satisfaction was pasted on his lips as if he had solved a particularly vexing problem in his mind.
He took out a piece of paper and a pen and placed it on the table.
“Write a figure on this paper, Sam.”
“Sorry, what?”
“How much it would cost us to retain your services for a year.”
“Are you serious?”
“Come to New York for a little chat. If you are still not interested, I’ll cut you a check for that amount and we can part ways.”
“And if I am?”
“I will give you another piece of paper and ask you once again to write a figure.”
“What figure?”
“Whatever amount of money you require to build Leviathan for us. Consider it an intellectual diversion from your usual work. One with hugely attractive rewards. So you better think big and don’t undersell yourself.”
“You are not being serious here, now are you?”
“Tell me Sam, and don’t lie, how many of your existing clients would ever propose something like this?”
For the first time since Adly had sat at the table, Sam no longer felt he was in charge of the narrative or how this would play out. What was being offered went beyond an obscene amount of money. This smelled like one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities you hear about in the lives of successful people. The stuff of lore or movies. One contract to forever change the game for him and turbo-boost his trajectory to everything he wanted to achieve in life.
“None of my clients would ever say that, because it’s insane. You won’t budge until I say yes, right?”
“Now you are getting the point, young man.”
“Fine, Adly. I’ll come to New York the day after tomorrow.” Sam handed Adly a business card. “Have your office call my assistant Cindy with all the details.”
“No need to trouble Cindy, she’s already overwhelmed with her ailing mother.”
“How did you know that?”
Adly ignored him and pulled out a thick envelope from the inside pocket of his linen jacket and gave it to Sam.
“What’s this?”
“First-class return tickets to New York, flying the day after tomorrow and returning two days later. Details of your hotel reservations at the Four Seasons. And ,of course, five thousand dollars for your travel expenses and pleasure. I like to get things done fast.”
Sam’s eyes widened, not only at the generous perks or the money.
“It’s one thing to know about Cindy, but another to know I was going to agree to fly out that day. What if I had said yes for tomorrow?”
Adly winked at him and got up to leave. “See you in New York, Sam. I’ll make it worth your while.”
Sam had never questioned why an international real estate company would want to build such a powerful shield to archive and cloak its assets. Not that he lacked the curiosity to wander there, but because a part of him didn’t want to know the answer.
It was only a matter of time before he
figured out who Adly worked for. The clues weren’t all that subtle. Pictures of Egyptian President Mubarak hanging in the master office. Familiar names Adly would utter when he was on the phone speaking in Arabic or giving Suzie instructions. And the sheer power and influence Adly’s boss seemed to wield. Not to mention the insane money being thrown around.
Even after he had figured out the connection, it only imparted a sense of legitimacy to what he was doing. After all, Egypt was an ally of the United States and a respectable regional player. This wasn’t Iran or North Korea. Working for the Aswan Group, a company connected to the ruling family of that country, was hardly scandalous. These weren’t mobsters or terrorists. There was nothing ostensibly illegal about what he was doing. It was work for hire.
Yet as hard as he tried to justify things in a neat, tight moral box, Sam kept his wife in the dark about what this new project really entailed, for the first time hiding things from her since he and Angela had launched the company. He provided only scant details and blamed the need for secrecy on the thick nondisclosure agreement that Adly’s lawyers had made him sign. Never mind that NDAs had never before stopped him from sharing in the past. No matter how much he tried to brush it aside, he knew what the problem was. Even if he wasn’t knowingly doing anything illegal, the less-than-kosher nature of Adly and his universe would cause Angela to worry and ultimately put pressure on him to turn down the gig. That was the last thing Sam wanted to do.
Whichever way he approached the matter, there was no ignoring the disproportionate money he would earn from this job. Money that would bring untold benefits to his personal life and the future of his company. Sam had calculated that what he would earn from Leviathan would catapult him at least six years into the future.
Leviathan was not that complex for Sam to design, by any stretch of the imagination. Once he started building it, he found himself enjoying getting back to bare-bones programming. A welcome diversion from the mind-numbing tasks of managing a growing, medium-sized company.
Sitting across from Adly as he prepared to hand over the final working version of Leviathan, Sam couldn’t help but think of the profound changes to his life this transaction would herald.
He pulled out a military-grade metallic hard drive you will never find on Amazon from his laptop bag and handed it over to the Egyptian. “As you requested, I have removed the master password reset feature. Leviathan is ready for action. I need to remind you of three critical things, though.”
Adly put out his cigar and focused on him. “You have my full attention.”
Sam launched into a technical brief about the nuts and bolts of operating Leviathan. To initialize it, Adly needed to enter the exact addresses of the first five properties purchased by the Aswan Group in exactly the same sequence they were programmed in the system. Doing so would activate the security functions of the software. After that, these five addresses would serve as Leviathan’s password. Three failed attempts to access Leviathan would result in the software self-destructing for good.
“Please don’t write these five addresses on a post-it and stick it on your computer monitor.”
“What do you recommend, then?” Adly asked earnestly, which troubled Sam. All the money these people had spent, and the thought of writing the passcodes on a post-it had actually crossed Adly’s mind. Either that, or Adly was testing him. He always did that.
“Whoever will manage Leviathan on a day-to-day basis doesn’t need the passwords to enter data. However, if someone needs to retrieve information, that’s when the passwords will be required. My recommendation is to learn them by heart. Then, print out two hard copies and store them somewhere secure, at two separate locations. If you lose the passwords, not even I will be able to retrieve the data stored in Leviathan.”
Adly involuntarily glanced to his right, where Sam knew a secret safe was camouflaged by a bookshelf. He had seen him opening it once through a tiny crack in the door while he waited outside in the reception chatting to Suzie.
“And the second thing?”
“There’s a built-in export function that will download all of the data in Leviathan as an open database file. If for any reason you decide to terminate Leviathan and want to extract the data, this is the function to use. But the catch is, you can only do it once. Which means, if you ever have to use it, remember that doing so will also terminate Leviathan.”
“And the final thing?”
“You can back up Leviathan as many times as you need. But at any given time, only two versions can function concurrently. That’s it.”
Adly got up and circled around his desk to embrace him. “Wonderful, Sam, simply wonderful! You did it.”
“Well—we did it, Adly.”
“ I can sleep at night now. As for you, the final installment of your fee will be transferred to your Wells Fargo account later this afternoon.”
Sam analyzed these words carefully. The excessive fee he had made on this project and what it suggested about his clients left him hollow, now that it was all done.
The real cost of building something like this for a regular client in the open market would be a mere fraction. Then again, this wasn’t the open market. And Adly and his employers weren’t regular clients. Their world and their rules were alien to Sam.
He turned his thoughts to celebration instead of guilt. Sam had done a damn fine job giving them what they asked for, and more. Ahead of him was a bright future he needed to plan for.
Adly tapped him on the shoulders. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, young man.”
“All mine, Adly. We’ve had a hell of a ride.”
“Aren’t you glad I was persistent that day in Santa Monica?”
“Definitely.” Sam smiled broadly and strapped his laptop bag to his shoulders, ready to leave.
Adly sat down on the chair across from Sam, motioning for him to do the same.
“Sit down, Sam. We need to talk about the future. What’s on the horizon for you?” Adly tinkered with his lips.
“Before anything, a long holiday. If only Angela and I can agree where to go.”
“I see. I want to throw another suggestion in the mix.”
“Sure.”
“Have you ever been to the Red Sea town of Sharm El Sheikh?”
Sam remembered what Suzie had said about Adly having something in store for him.
“I traveled extensively across Egypt with my parents when I was a teenager, but never to the Sinai. I know it’s spectacular, but try getting my wife to think outside the box.”
“I have been thinking quite a bit about a suitable gift for you and your family as a token of our appreciation for your outstanding work, Sam.”
“You’ve already paid me a senseless amount of money, so no gifts required. Please.”
Adly relit his cigar and puffed a few circles in the air.
“On the contrary, you’ve gone beyond the call of duty to make Leviathan even more secure and powerful than we had envisaged. I have an idea.”
Sam unstrapped his bag and nodded obediently.
“Of course.”
“My employers are connected to a luxury resort in Sharm El Sheikh called the Spring Roy. Familiar with the brand?”
Sam drifted in his mind to more exotic places. “Of course. A small but exquisite chain. I’ve stayed at the Spring Roy in Dubai and Bangkok.”
“You and your family will be our guests at the Spring Roy Sharm El Sheikh for as long as you want. You will stay in the fabulous presidential suite with unobstructed views of the sea. An architectural marvel, Sam, with its own child-friendly infinity pool. You will have a chef, a nanny for your kids, a private car with a driver and a speed boat docked at the marina.”
“I’m speechless. This is extremely generous, but I repeat, unnecessary.”
“Suzie just checked, and the suite is booked by a Saudi Princess until t
he nineteenth of July. You can move in on the twentieth and stay there for as long as you want. All expenses courtesy of the Aswan Group. Your first-class flights to get there are on us as well. Your kids will love it, your wife will love you for it and I guarantee you will have the time of your life as well.”
“Adly, this is way too much. I don’t want to sound in the least bit ungrateful, but I’ll need to run this by Angela.”
“We’ll fly you through Europe and you can stay a couple of days in her favorite city. London, Paris or Rome. She can shop to her heart’s content.”
“I really don’t know what to say, Adly. On my part, I graciously accept this unbelievably generous gift and I am sure Angela will be very grateful. Let me check with her and let you know.”
Adly’s chilling gaze reminded Sam of when he had first met him.
“Don’t check with her, Sam. Just tell her it’s been decided. You are the man in the family, right? Or does Angela call the shots and you trail behind?”
He let out a high-pitched cackle from the depth of his belly that took Sam by surprise.
“You are all going to spend the summer of your lives in the crown jewel of the Red Sea. Just remember, I never take no for an answer.”
THIRTY
Thursday, November 29, 2012—7:25 p.m.
London, UK
He buttoned his gray coat tight, adjusted his hat, and emerged from the Sloane Square underground station to trudge back to his Chelsea apartment. Yet another day in London with nothing but his bleak future weighing heavily on his mind.
A gush of cold air penetrated his bones and made him curse the weather under his breath in Arabic, “Yakhi kos om da gaw khara!” He preferred warmer climates, but these days choices were a rare commodity for him.
Only his British citizenship and his relative insignificance in the larger scheme of things had so far prevented his adopted country from extraditing him back to Egypt. Britain was the safest place for him while the Egyptians fried the bigger fish.
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