The King (4 page)

Chapter 12

Social Services is one of the most overworked and underserved branches of the government, so making them believe that he’d reformed his obsessive ways was a fairly simple task for Russell Scott. After a few, in-home visits, some talks with the nanny, and a final chat with the psychologist, Russell was left alone to be with his daughter as he pleased.

But he still had to work. There was just no getting around it. He didn’t try to grow his business, didn’t try to get new clients, and he did the bare minimum for his existing ones, but more work kept rolling in. He decided to make the jump to working from home. He closed down his office and moved everything into his house. He remodeled a room downstairs for client meetings and just like that, he could spend his days with London. The nanny was there during business hours, but just knowing that she was in the other room was enough to calm his ever-present anxiety about her safety.

And then she started school. For the first few weeks he couldn’t stop himself from sitting in his car, watching the school from across the street to make sure she was okay. He only stopped because a concerned parent reported him to the police, followed by another round of explanations, trips to the psychologist and visits from social services. 

The threat of her being taken away because of his obsession was enough to convince him to do a better job of hiding it, but in the end it was London herself who finally got him to back off. One day after school when he was trying to play with her, she looked up at him with her mother’s, bright green eyes and said, “Daddy...go away!”

“What?” He struggled to keep the smile on his face from faltering.

“I want to play by myself!”

There was no maliciousness behind the statement: just a child stating what was on her mind, but it reminded Russell so much of Amber, who’d sometimes said the same thing – when she wanted to let her free spirit fly, she’d said. In that moment of recognition, he remembered what the psychologist had told him in one of his sessions. You have to let go. You have to let kids be, on their own. They need to have that feeling of independence. They need that freedom to let their imaginations run free. Kids need the space to be kids. Suddenly, it made sense.

It was the shock he needed to back off, to let London have some room. His anxiety over her safety never completely went away, but he managed to get into a mindset that allowed him to let her be a kid, to let her have some fun. He still tried to be constantly available, to give her everything she wanted, to answer any questions she had, to read to her – when she wanted him to – and watch cartoons with her. But he backed up far enough to give her a little freedom.

Chapter 13

The FBI Swat Team had the house surrounded and they were waiting for word to break down the door, but looking at it, Stevens was having a hard time deciding why they were there. Yes, the IP trail connected to the Craigslist ad for the handyman and the escort service had led them to this address in the Georgetown suburbs, but the building in front of him looked abandoned. Outside, it looked cared for: the lawn cut, the windows washed...someone had been taking in the advertisements and picking up the mail, but other than that it looked dead, like the man who supposedly owned it.

Everything that came back on Don Fellows was wrong. There was a death certificate on file, but his bank and brokerage accounts were still open. His bills were all current. His taxes were paid for. But he’d been dead for over a year. Evidence said that someone else was in the house. That Stone could be captive in the basement. But Stevens knew something was wrong, and even as he gave the signal to hit the door he knew that they weren’t going to find anything – least of all Stone.

The Swat team moved forward, Stevens following close behind. They lined up next to the windows and doors of the small house. Stevens looked in the window next to the door – no furniture, no television – nothing, other than the curtains on the windows. Stevens looked at the Swat commander, held up three fingers, then two, then one, and the battering rams smashed through the front and back doors at the same moment, and men streamed into the house.

Stevens pushed through with the wave of men in black. The Swat team was swinging guns from left to right in front of them, moving from empty room to empty room, clearing the house until they found the doorway down to the basement. Stevens gave them the okay to hit that door and they slammed through it and went down the stairs single file, Stevens following closely behind.

The house was empty except for a single chair, sitting in front of a foldout card table with a laptop on top of it that had a cable modem for internet access. The table was in the back corner of the basement, in a place where it could be accessed away from prying eyes. Emily Sarah, who had followed along behind Stevens, immediately dropped down at the computer and started working her way through various screens, the sound of her tapping fingers muted by rubber gloves.

“This is it,” she said, after a few minutes.

“What can you tell me?”

“It’s a ghost.”

“Meaning?”

She shook her head as she worked the keys. “It means that this is the contact computer – the messages were sent from here – but someone was using it remotely.”

“Were there any encryption programs? Security measures in place to keep you out of that computer?”

She shook her head. “Nope, it was like this was supposed to be found.”

Stevens looked over at Emory Thompson, watching them from the stairs, and then down at his watch; it had been just over four hours since Billy Stone had been taken. “This computer, this house – this trail – were all left here for us.”

Emory came down the stairs and stood next to them. “But why?”

“To kill time,” Stevens said. “To kill our time.”

“Damn it,” Emory said.

“The question is,” Stevens said, “what’s been happening, while we’ve been chasing our tails.”

Sarah stopped tapping on the keyboard and looked up at him. “What do you think he’s doing?” she said.

“Something bad.” Stevens headed for the stairs.

“What’s next?” Emory said.

Stevens paused, and nodded at the computer. “I’m not going to be led around by that thing – hell, you guys don’t need me to follow that trail.” He headed up the stairs. “It’s time to start making some people uncomfortable,” he said. “It’s time to get some answers.” 

Chapter 14

Tom Francis had laid out his goals for Billy that day. “I am going to change you,” he’d said, “from the enigmatic, mysterious genius behind PushThrough to a proud, confident Internet King who rules over all he surveys!”

Billy hadn’t been able to picture it, but Francis had just looked down at him with an evil grin.

Had Billy known what would go into the transformation Francis envisioned, he would have run back to his darkened office. He would have continued to write code and blown off the entire IPO. But Francis didn’t tell him what he was going to do. Francis masked his approach by starting with simple questions that grew more complex and personal. What do you like, flowed into what do you hate? And then what scares you? And finally what do you dream about?  Before Billy knew it, Francis had wormed his way into his head.

Francis tore down Billy’s defenses – got past the workaholic, genius programmer to the broken, scared child underneath. Francis’ questions revealed a man who resented his parents for being poor, and not recognizing his genius, a man who’s basic desire to compete against his contemporaries drove his every achievement, a man who thought he was smarter than everyone else and a man who at his core, deeply desired women he felt he could never talk to. A hidden man who was nothing more than an arrested adolescent, a man who was completely alone.

That was a hard place for Billy to go. It was like ripping the scab off of an infected wound, to see the puss-covered horror that lay beneath. The sight of it left Billy feeling, like he’d been laid bare, naked, and broken before the world. The barriers that he’d built up to protect himself were shattered and his vulnerabilities exposed. He was beyond broken when Francis finally decided it was time to rebuild.

By then, Billy was feeling overwhelmed and defeated. He asked Francis how they could begin – what that even meant – and the man from The Agency put his hand on Billy’s shoulder.

“We use what’s already in there,” he said, “and manipulate it to meet our needs.”

Billy shook his head. “What’s in there hasn’t worked so far,” he said.

“Hasn’t it?” Francis looked at him through narrowed eyes. “You couldn’t be more wrong!”

Francis sat down in front of Billy and looked into his eyes. “Your success has always been about belief in yourself as much as belief in the product that you were promoting.”

“Really? Do you think so?”

“If the Venture Capitalists didn’t think that you were the key component behind PushThrough, they would have bought the technology and left you at Stanford.”

Billy understood that PushThrough wouldn’t be the company it was without him – he took pride in that – and Francis fed that pride. First, he had taken everything that Billy was and torn it apart. Next he would use compliments, and positive reinforcement, to build Billy back up in the image that he had crafted.

“What do we do now?” Billy said, feeling like a drowning man.

Francis pointed at his face. “I’ll teach you how to act the part.”

Francis had an image in his head, almost a caricature of what a corporate executive should be. But he knew that was what would sell investors on PushThrough’s IPO. The goal as stated by the board was to make Billy presentable to investors, but Francis wanted to take that one step further. He wanted Billy to be his crowning achievement – the ultimate makeover: from computer geek to Internet King, from scared little rabbit hiding in his hole to bloodthirsty shark, laying waste to whatever was in his way.

It was as Francis tore Billy apart that he realized that Billy was virtually a blank slate. Without the burden of preconceived notions about how to act or bad habits built up over years, Francis was free to remold Billy to his will.

Francis’ first move was to isolate Billy at his Napa Ranch. Francis had set up his Ranch as a place to hide clients when their images needed to be reformed after certain “incidents.” He had everything there that any of his clients might want or need during their stay: a gym, a salon, a spa, a riding course, an indoor theatre, and a track, to start with.

Francis started in the salon, where his girls gave Billy a complete makeover. They cut and styled his hair, taught him how to take care of his appearance so that women would be attracted to him, all the while cooing and whispering how handsome he was. Then Francis brought in another one of his clients who worked for GQ, who brought with him his favorite tailor, and set about building an impressive, eye catching, wardrobe.

To heighten Billy’s view of himself, Francis had his personal trainer help Billy start working out, which was one of the most tortuous things Billy had ever done. The trainer worked muscles Billy never even knew he had, and made him so sore he could barely move, but Francis wouldn’t let him quit, and after a few weeks, Billy started swelling up with muscles as well as with confidence.

Billy spent time in the sun bed, browning his pale skin. He got driving lessons and got his driver’s license. He took etiquette lessons, so he would know how to eat and order in fine restaurants. He learned wine tasting, and how to appreciate art. He was taught why he should pay attention to current events, instead of spending all his time alone, coding.

Through every moment of Billy’s physical transformation, Francis was there, whispering into his ear, planting thoughts, molding behavior, and sculpting him into the man he wanted Billy to be. He took Billy’s innocence, Billy’s shyness, and Billy’s conscience. Francis drilled it into Billy that he needed to be confident, he needed to be bold, and he didn’t have to care about anybody but himself. Francis made Billy believe that he was above everyone else, that he lived in rarefied air that others couldn’t breathe. He made him think that he was part of the new American Royalty of Technical Pioneers. Francis made Billy believe that he was The Internet King.

When Billy embodied his new persona, Francis took him on the IPO road-show, where Billy walked into rooms filled with potential investors and shined like the star he had become.

The final demonstration of Francis’ effect on Billy – his ultimate triumph – came on the day of the IPO, where Billy’s performances during the rollout caused three major things to occur: first, Billy realized that he loved being The Internet King. Second, the IPO of PushThrough became the biggest IPO in American history, and third, Billy became one of the top five richest men in the world.

The performance bonus paid to Tom Francis and The Agency ended up being the largest ever paid to a publicity firm in U.S. history.

Chapter 15

Russell Scott had become a CPA because his mind embraced the idea of numbers and mathematics. To Russell, the absolutes of 2 + 2 = 4, or 4 - 2 = 2, made sense. There was a uniformity to taking a complex set of numbers and driving them down to a final solution that made him feel a sense of accomplishment, and peace.

Unfortunately, there was no exact equation that Russell could come up with that could help him raise London to be the person he wanted her to be. In his head, he always saw her as a confident, intelligent, healthy, beautiful woman. But there was no exact formula he could follow to get her there. He tried to come up with a combination of activities: daily exercise, healthy meals, school, homework, reading, teaching her to use the computer, dressing her in the best clothes, taking her to salons to get makeovers, and constantly telling her that she was beautiful, that she was cared for, that she was smart, and that she was loved.

The combination of his activities, his encouragement, and his love initially brought out the best in her. She was the top student in every class she was in. She was athletic, she was healthy, and she was beautiful. She had the confidence to try new things, and succeeded in anything she put her mind to, whether it was a science project, writing for the school newspaper, or trying out for cheerleading. London succeeded at everything she tried because Russell was there to support her, always. She was everything to him, and he was everything to her... until she turned sixteen, got her driver’s license, and he bought her a car.

He should have seen it coming. He’d read and re-read every book and magazine article he could get his hands on that described how to raise a child, but he’d ignored the Chapters and articles that talked about the hell that the teen years of a girl can become. No matter how much love and support you give them, there is nothing that can counteract the onslaught of hormones, the inherent bitchiness of other teenage girls, and the built-in need to be desired by the opposite sex.

It might have been building up for years and he just hadn’t seen the signs, but when she got the car, she seemed to embrace a new level of freedom and she started to rebel, which in Russell’s eyes was her starting to take after her free-spirited mother. Russell had loved the part of Amber that was free and wild. Those qualities complemented him, it had made their relationship whole: in London, those qualities scared the hell out of him.

And then the thing that he hoped he could avoid for years happened: she came home one day and told him that she was going on her first date.

There was no question – she didn’t ask if she could start dating – she told him she was going and that was that. When she told him, London had sounded and acted exactly like her mother, coming into his office and making a pronouncement about a trip they would take, or a change they would make to the house. Amber had never asked if something was okay, she never discussed, she’d just told him to pack his bags and get ready to go, and every time she had, he’d felt a thrill of love for her.

Russell’s experience with Amber had taught him that it was useless to try and argue, but London was his daughter – his pride and joy – and he didn’t know if he’d ever be ready for her to date, let alone at sixteen, just a few weeks after getting her license. But he’d raised her to be a confident, healthy, intelligent girl – and she was beautiful - and there was no way to avoid the fact that those qualities made her very attractive to boys, and they were going to ask her out. In the end, after every dreadful thought had run through his head, he responded as best he could, by telling her that it was...great...and that she should...tell him about it, all the time with a fake smile plastered onto his face, and a silent prayer that she couldn’t sense the terror he was feeling.

She proceeded to give him a detailed description of Tommy Healy, the quarterback for the football team that she cheered for. All the girls wanted to go out with him but he had asked her.  She told him how good that made her feel, and how they were going to dinner and a movie, and that she would be home by curfew, and how great it was that Russell was being so cool about it. All of which helped alleviate the terror that he had first felt at the pronouncement.

But then the date happened, and things went very wrong...

Tommy Healy was used to going out with girls who threw themselves at him and let him do what he wanted, when he wanted because he was the shining star, the quarterback everyone loved. But London wasn’t like that. Russell had raised her to be confident and intelligent and she had great respect for herself. So after dinner, before they even went to the movies – in the car behind the restaurant when Tommy decided he wanted to take her, she said no. Tommy didn’t believe her, he was used to getting his way. He tried to push past her upheld hands, and grab her breast, and she punched him in the face and broke his nose, just as she had been trained to do in the karate classes she’d taken with Russell as she was growing up.

Tommy was furious and on the edge of hitting her back, but instead he just pushed her out of his car and drove away. When she called Russell, he went into a blind rage. He picked up his daughter and took her home, and then went straight to Tommy’s house. When Drake Healy, Tommy’s father, answered the door, Russell pulled back and threw a fist that broke Drake’s nose and cheek bone

“You better get a fucking handle on that son of yours,” Russell snarled, “because if he ever comes near my daughter again I’ll be coming after you!”

As he drove back home, the rage started to fall away and he realized that he’d just committed an assault that could land him in very deep trouble, especially with his record of obsessive behavior. But as he walked through the door and found London still crying on the couch, he didn’t care: he’d protected his daughter, and whatever they threw at him was fine – it was worth it.

The police never showed up. Drake didn’t want anyone to know what his son had done, so the whole mess just faded away... mostly. The fact that Tommy and Drake suffered broken noses at the hands of London and Russell made its way through the school, and made other boys scared to death of going anywhere near her. By then, she didn’t mind. The incident with Tommy had soured her on dating, something that Russell was secretly happy about.

Until she went to college…