It was one of those days that I wished that I was blessed with the power of divination, of foresight. We are all blessed with the power of hindsight, of being able to look back at the past, and to recognise that moment when the decision that we made would have devastating consequences. Sometime in the future I would recognise that this was to be one of those days. Instead of ignoring the insistent clamour of my alarm clock and going back to sleep, I dragged my sorry arse out of bed and staggered into the day and my future.
What did I have to look forward to today? A job that I disliked with a passion, with a company that I hated even more, a job that had no future for advancement, and no recognition of the effort that I put into it. And do you know why I should think this? It wasn't so much that I hated the job, as jobs go it wasn't bad. It wasn't so much that I hated the company, as companies go it was reasonably successful and my fellow workers were a pleasant enough bunch. It was my boss, who just happened to be my brother, and who, in that supercilious, condescending manner that I had come to despise, never let me forget that it was his sense of familial duty that forced him to offer it to me, to save me from the wreckage of my life at the time. "You should be grateful for this job, in your state of mind at the time no-one else would have hired you." Was a common enough phrase that was inserted into our conversations on a regular basis.
Brother Henry was the smart one in the family, at least that's what I was always told. Okay, so I wasn't the genius of the family, I'll give him that much, but then, I wasn't an imbecile either. I got by at school, doing just enough to pass my subjects because I didn't see the point in making the supreme effort to get higher grades. Henry made the effort, he studied all the time and got good grades, something he made the point of pointing out to our parents. So, of course he went to university to study Business Administration so that he could take over the running of the family business when Father retired. I was sent off to work in the building industry as a tradesman. Because of the limitations and the fluctuations in the building industry, I decided that I should get into a part of the trade that I could rely on for a steady, but not spectacular income. I did courses to become a Building Inspector.
While I was studying I worked my way up to a supervisory role in the company for which I worked. The business was steady and the money was good, so I sat on my qualifications as something to fall back on if there was a down-turn in the industry.
I had an active social life, and this included an active sexual life. This came to a screeching halt when my lady de jour announced that, despite my taking precautions on top of her being on the pill, she was pregnant. I would have liked to have met the little sperm that had managed to squirm through the walls of a condom and survive the chemical intricacies of the pill, he was some amazing sperm.
Anyway, we, Robyn and I, got married and some months later I was presented with a son, Julian. Then, a respectable time later a daughter, Phoebe. Life wasn't spectacularly happy, but it was good most of the time. The exception was at family gatherings where my imperfections were trotted out, by brother of course, for the world to see. I hated them, and I hated my brother.
Life drifted on for years before I noticed something creeping into the increasing number of the disagreements that Robyn and I were having. "Why can't you be more like your brother?"
"For fuck's sake, I don't want to be like him. I would not like to hate myself as much as I hate him."
It all came to a head when the company that I worked for went belly up due to that major financial melt-down that dragged the construction industry with it.
I had been out of work for a month and the prospects were disappearing as fast as an ice block in the desert. "Why can't you be more like Henry?" Robyn said one morning after I'd folded the newspaper employment pages. "His company isn't affected by this down-turn."
"His company might not be, but the contractors that he employs are. By using contractors rather than having his own tradesmen, he has cut his overheads down dramatically. His company is nothing more than a project management company. He wouldn't know what is involved in actually building something."
"You of course know it all, but if no-one can afford to build, this does you no good at all."
"If you think that Henry is so wonderful, then maybe you should have married him instead of me."
In hindsight that wasn't a very smart thing to say, because a week later she announced that she was leaving me to shack up with Henry, who was 'between wives' at the time.
How is it then that I find myself working for him? Financially I had no option. With no possibility of finding another job in the foreseeable future, I took his offer of a job. Maybe he was feeling a little guilty because of Robyn and the kids, but I don't think so, guilt would presuppose that he was capable of some sort of emotion. So for the past year I have swallowed my pride and gone to work every day and carried out my duties to the best of my ability.
My job is to conduct on-site audits of the works in progress. We have a couple of large government contracts that have kept us quarantined from the GFC, and its contraction of the building industry. Now normally such contracts are looked upon as 'cash cows' and could be relied on to bolster our finances. In the past it had been a common practise for contractors to drip-price contracts with variations and extras not accounted for in the original pricing. But, with the new level of transparency in these government projects, builders cannot afford to cut costs and use materials that do not comply with the engineer's specifications. Part of my job is to take all product supply invoices and check them against specifications. Another part is to carry out on-site inspections to ensure that work carried out is within acceptable tolerances and to specifications. I get my job wrong, and Henry will lose any chance of future contracts from the government.
When I go on-site I take my Personal Assistant with me. I found that the old method used, before my time, was both time consuming and impractical. To make notes while on-site and then have to explain it all to my PA was so inefficient I was surprised that it had gone on for so long. Sasha had a quick eye for discrepancies in invoices that left me free to concentrate more on the hands-on side of things. She was also handy in that, being very easy on the eye, she was looked on by site personnel as light weight, and inconsequential eye candy. Nothing could be further from the truth, she was worth her salary just in the things that she had picked up. Apart from being easy on the eye she was a very pleasant work companion, and we are contemplating on, when we can work out how to do this without the world at large noticing, her moving in with me. Yes we are lovers and have been for the past month.
Sasha smiled at me as I walked into my office. "His holiness wishes to see you ASAP."
"Any ideas?"
"There's a new project due to start in a couple of weeks, that's possibly it."
I rested my hand on her shoulder and she placed hers on mine. "Wish me luck." She squeezed my hand. With reluctance I withdrew my hand and headed for the halls of power.
"He'll see you in a minute." Janice, his PA told me when I walked in to the outer sanctum. This was his usual practise, keeping me waiting while he did nothing but keep me waiting. I sat and waited, and waited. "Robert, come in." His seemingly disembodied head said from around the door. Again the usual practise, he was standing, I was seated, he was higher than me and therefore the superior one.
"We have a new project due to start in two weeks. Now," Here it comes, he's going to tell me that he had to come in low with his estimate due to interstate contractors wanting to move into our turf, just to keep their workforce occupied. "We have priced low on this job because we need this contract. If we can bring this in on time and within budget it could lead to more contracts from this source. This is your department, and I don't need to tell you that there is a lot riding on this. Don't let me down, is that understood."
"When have I ever let you down." A reasonable enough statement, given my track record to date.
He had this thing where he raised one eyebrow, it was his way of questioning my statement without actually coming out with it. The result was the same, it confirmed my loathing towards him. I left with as much dignity as I could muster.
"You were right, as usual." I said to Sasha as I sat behind my desk. "We have a new project and he has quoted low and wants me to bail him out."
"These just arrived." She had the plans and specs for the new project in her hand.
"Spread them out and let's see what miracles we'll have to perform this time."
"Jesus Christ." When Sasha begins a statement in this manner it doesn't bode well. "He's priced this using last year's cost schedule and hasn't inserted a price increase clause. We're behind the eight ball before we start. It can't be done, and when we fail he has the perfect scapegoat for that failure. What can we do about it?"
"I'm asking myself, why the fuck is he doing this? There has to be a reason."
"The reason would have to be financial, although I can't see why he would want the company to be devalued if he's going to sell it off. You would think that a healthy profit sheet would be more important."
"Unless . . . ." I was thinking that not even he would be that much of a bastard. "Unless he's going to pull a fiddle to cut his exposure to his upcoming divorce settlement from his soon to be ex."
"How would that work?"
"Well, if the company is showing a predicted heavy loss at the time of the settlement her share would be worth peanuts. He could sell it to a consortium that he forms in someone else's name and after the divorce goes through he buys it back for an agreed amount, making a profit into the bargain."
"But, if the company is predicted to make a loss, how is he going to make it profitable?"
"What if, the price that he has given us, based on last year's numbers, isn't the actual quote price, but the real one is a kite price." Note: Kite prices refers to the practise of 'flying kites'. That is issuing a statement with a price much higher than the real price. When there is opposition to this quoted price, it is revisited and the price is adjusted to one that is slightly higher than the break-even price, one that the market will bear, and one that still provides a respectable profit margin is released. The opponents of the original, or kite, price think that they have had a win, when in fact they have not. If you can, in some way get the company or department to accept this kite price you stand to make millions. "As the project progresses and we fall further behind the quote price he has someone to blame, me. After the settlement, he can fire me and bring someone else in who can magically turn around the company's fortunes and make a profit. In the mean time he has bought the company back."
"Do you think that he would do something like that?"
"Of course he would. He has two other ex-wives that must be costing him a fortune, add this one to the mix and he would have to turn a healthy profit just to break even. This is not something that he would be used to."
"So, if this is the case, how can we counter it, and would it be possible to turn it to our advantage?"
"I think so. Can you get me the company's balance sheets for the past year, and then get me a list of the suppliers, I want to talk with them, and while you're at it, I need costings on all of the materials on that schedule, last year's and this year's, I need to compare them."
We spent the rest of the day huddled in my office, and gradually a plan began to form. I made several phone calls and arranged several meetings for the following day. Sasha would have to hold the fort for the day.
"Rob," Sasha had a worried look on her face. "I need to talk." Now I had a worried look, whenever she needed to talk it meant that she was worried about something important.
Hours later we were seated in a restaurant with a meal in front of us. I took another mouthful of succulent steak and spoke around it. "What's bothering you?"
"When I was put in the position as your PA, I was working under instructions from Henry."
"Say no more, he asked you to keep an eye on me and make sure that somewhere down the line I made a ginormous stuff-up. He probably wanted me to get comfortable in your efficiency and accept your figures as gospel, and base what I did around them. And when I was totally accepting of your work, you were to slip in a set of false figures, and I would be blamed. He would then fire me and be able to tell Robyn that I was useless as an employee, just as I was useless as a husband."
"Something like that, how did you guess?"
"I know my brother, he's a past master at this sort of sleaze."
"So what do I do? He is after all my big boss."
"You behave as normal. Don't worry, everything is under control." I didn't know whether I could trust her with the knowledge of the results of my meetings today, not yet at least, I had one more test for her before I knew that I could fully trust her. What I hoped would happen was for her to stop reporting to Henry. I told her that, as things stood, we could, with a little creativity, squeak in under budget, but let any one thing go wrong and then we wouldn't manage it. If she reported this to Henry, then he would make sure that something went wrong, she would be ordered to sabotage my efforts. I would watch everything that she did for any sign that she was following Henry's orders and not working with me on this.
We held meetings with the guy who would site manage the project, making it clear to him that he would have to keep a tight rein on the contractors, and at the first sign of any problems, he was to contact me. I had worked with him before on projects, and was confident that he would run a tight ship.
As usual Henry held a press conference to announce the start of the new project. There was the ceremonial turning of the first sod, by our state Premier, with a gold spade, and a speech about how this project was an important part of the state's infrastructure, and predicting with confidence that it would be finished on time and within budget. "I have my best team on this project, so I don't anticipate any problems." He enthused for the cameras. Standing in the background, talking to Robyn, was the CEO of an interstate construction consortium. Interesting, very interesting.
Sasha and I partook of the celebratory cucumber sandwich and glass of cheap bubbly before returning to the office. "Well, It's all go from here." I said to her as we sat at my desk attempting to wash the taste of the cheap bubbly from our mouths. 'We have the construction time line here, what I want to do is to meet with the contractors before they come on stream, we need to clarify our position to them."
"I'll get onto them straight away." She left to call them, and arrange a meeting for tomorrow.
"What is the big secret?" She asked me. "You haven't told me anything about your meetings with the suppliers the other day."
"You will know soon enough."
"Don't you trust me?" She was concerned.
"Yes, I trust you, implicitly, but I have put a proposal to the suppliers and I'm waiting for them to get back to me with their compliance." What I haven't told her is that I am waiting to see if Henry contacts them to see what the arrangements are. If he does, then I know not to trust her. "As soon as that happens, I will tell you." If she tells Henry that I have some arrangement with the suppliers, and that she is unable to find out what it is, he will contact them directly to find out for himself, if he doesn't, she's in the clear. I'll know within a couple of days.
"Thank you all for coming in this morning." I addressed the contractors. "This project is going to be different from those that you have been involved in earlier, in that we have selected the suppliers that you will use for your materials. The reason for this is that we have given each of them a copy of the time line and the Quantity Surveyor's materials list. We have also given them a delivery requirement window so that they can ensure that all of the materials are in stock and ready for delivery at the times needed. They have also agreed to a fixed price for the materials, there will be no price increases over the construction time. These suppliers have guaranteed delivery as required, there are penalties involved in any failure to honour that guarantee. Any questions?"
"Yes, what if we have already made arrangements with other suppliers, will we be forced to change and use your recommended suppliers?"
"I think that you'll find that the suppliers that we have chosen for each of you will be the ones that you already use. We've just come to an arrangement that will benefit both you and them." That seemed to pacify them. The contracts that you have signed have time penalties built into them. We have been generous with our time windows, so if you fall behind you had better have a fucking good excuse, because you will not only hold up your phase of the project, but there will be a follow-on effect with the whole project. I need to remind you that the contract has a finish date that is set in concrete and if we don't bring it in on time it will cost us a shit load of money, and if it costs us, those costs will be passed on the the offending contractor."
I took Sasha out to dinner to celebrate the start of the new project, and, although she wasn't to know this, because I was now certain that I could trust her. After dinner I took her home and she invited me in for a nightcap. And yes we made love, several times, I surprised myself with my stamina almost as much as I surprised her.
"Wow, what brought that on?" She asked as I withdrew from her.
"I don't know, just me feeling good about us, that's all, and the fact that I love you."
"I love you too." She kissed me. "Are you staying the night or are you going to crawl off like a thief in the night?"
"No-one can ever accuse me of being a thief."
"I take it from that, that you're staying then?"
I kissed her and held her tightly for several minutes. "Does that answer your question?"
"Mmmm, yes. Goodnight Darling."
We toured the site as soon as the site office had been set up and the tower crane bedded down. The site works were in progress, earthmoving equipment was scurrying back and forth across the site, surveyors were placing datum pegs around for each of the buildings, trucks were spreading the road base that would be compacted, and form the base for the concrete rafts on which the buildings will sit.
"Everything set up here?" I asked George the site Manager.
"Yes, we have power, we have IT cabling in place and computers set up, and we have lift-off."
"We also have a problem." I had noticed Henry standing on the far side of the site talking to a man. "We can expect problems with the unions." I pointed across the site.
"We have already spoken to the unions and assured them of 100% membership."
"I still think that I need to have a polite chat to him." Henry had left and the organizer was striding purposefully across the site. He didn't notice me as he came through the door without knocking. He was just about to launch into his demands when I cut him short. "Hamish, I might have known that you'd be here first thing."
"Robert, I didn't see you there." His voice carried with it faint traces of a north of England accent that he inherited from his father, a well known union organizer of the past.
"Would you mind stepping outside for a few minutes?" I didn't wait for his answer. "Now before you say anything, let me tell you how this site will work. I am responsible for the over-all running of this project, not Henry, so you can forget about any arrangements you have with him. If you have any problems on site, you will raise them with George in the first instance. He will sort the matter out if possible, if not he will report to me. Years ago my ex-wife asked me why I was doing all of those stupid courses, and I told her that there would be moments when they would come in handy. This happens to be one such moment. As you are aware I am a qualified Building Inspector, and my job here is to ensure that all matters relating to the specifications are adhered to. I am also a qualified Occ. Health and Safety Inspector, and as such I have to ensure that all issues concerned with OH&S are complied with. If you have any problems with any of the individual contractors on this site, you are to bring them, firstly to George's notice and, if they cannot be resolved at that level, to me. When this project is completed, if it is brought in ahead of schedule, there will be production bonuses all round, including you. If, however, there are any malicious industrial actions brought by you, or any other union organiser, you can not only kiss those bonuses good-bye, but punitive legal action will be brought against the union concerned. If you're unsure what that means, it is a claim against the union concerned to recover all lost time and, if that involves the implementation of time penalties on the contract, the cost of those as well. Do I make myself clear?" I gave him no time to answer. "We will run this site in a completely professional manner, and bring this project in ahead of schedule. As a result we'll all be happy little vegemites. Any problems, and life will become very miserable for the culprit. I look forward to working closely with you."
For once in his life Hamish was at a loss for words, for fully thirty seconds. "I didn't know that you would be running this project."
"I find that hard to believe since I saw you talking to my wonderful brother over the other side of the site. Now, you should go back to him and inform him that your hands are tied on this site." He left.
"You came in hot and strong with him, I've never seen him so meek and mild." George said.
"I believe in being up-front with guys like him. He now knows where we both stand, and there will be no surprises down the track, I hope."
"How are we going to pay bonuses?" Sasha asked as we drove from the site and headed back to the office.
"I have a rabbit up my sleeve. I'll explain when we get back to the office."
"Okay, what have you got planned?" She was sitting on my desk, her beautiful thighs enticingly close to my hand.
"You know how I went to see the suppliers the other day?" My hand had found her thigh, not that it was hiding from it. I cast a quick look around to see if anyone was interested in us, the other staff couldn't care less.
"Yes." Her thighs opened just a little.
"Well, I cut a deal with them. They were all caught out when the industry crashed and were left with a huge inventory that they couldn't shift in a hurry, and their creditors calling out for payment. So I agreed to buy all the gear that we'd need at a premium. They get rid of the stuff that they couldn't shift, and the banks off their backs, and I got it cheaper than last years prices, much cheaper." I was finding it extremely difficult to keep my mind on what I was saying.
"And here I was thinking that Henry had the brains in the family." Her eyes were closed as my fingers brushed her panties, her moist panties.
"Not a word of this to anyone. When the invoices begin to come in you'll notice that they will be for this year's prices. I want him to think that I am rapidly getting deeper into the red with no chance of saving the day. What will happen is that there will be separate accounts for this project, Henry's and ours. Ours will be kept in a safe place where he can't find them. I want to see his face when he realises that he has been shafted big time. Christ Sasha, it is getting increasingly difficult to keep my hands off you."
"I'm having a hard time stopping myself from ravishing you tight here on your desk. I think that we should give ourselves an early mark and go home to your place, it's closer than mine."
"We'd better leave separately, we don't want people talking now, do we?"
"Heaven forbid that a rumour should start concerning us." She saw the look on my face. "Oh alright, I'll go first, I'll take some files with me to make it look as if I'm taking work home with me." She grabbed a copy of the engineers specs and left.
I waited a respectable time before leaving myself. "If anyone should call looking for me, take a message and I'll contact them in the morning." I told the receptionist. "I have an appointment at . . ." I looked at my watch. "Shit, in ten minutes. Gotta scramble, see you."
I wasn't lying, I did have an appointment, one with a beautiful, sexy, and very sensual young woman called Sasha, who had just enough time to change into something that made her look even more sensual before I arrived home. I silently thanked myself for giving her a key. It was a little black see-through number that, even if I couldn't see through it, wouldn't have hidden anything, The sheer black panties were just as ineffective as a cover-up, but very effective in other ways. She chuckled to herself, in that deep throaty way that I found so sexy, as I swept her off her feet and carried her to our bed.
Minutes, or was it hours later, we paused long enough to replenish our energy stocks. "You are a wicked woman." I whispered to her after the resumption of our lovemaking. "I mean that in a positive way, You have the power to take my mind completely off the misery that has been my life to date, and to focus on what I have to do to make you happy for the next hundred years."
"In a hundred years all that we'll be able to do is to sit in our rocking chairs and think back to moments like this and wish that we had the stamina to still do it."
"Yeah, but being able to think about it will be enough to make us smile. We can be happy with our memories."
"Which dress?" She stood in the doorway as I worked on breakfast, a dress in each hand, two of the several that took up some space in my closet. I pointed the butter knife at the one in her left hand. "Okay." She slipped it on. "Do me up." I wiped my hands and pulled the zip up and she went back to the bedroom to finish dressing. Seeing her next to naked when I got home last night was a turn-on, but her appearance as she walked into the kitchen ran a close run second. It was no wonder that site personnel creamed their jeans whenever we visited a site.
"You look almost indecent, you know that, don't you?"
"For you I'm indecent, for anyone else I'm out of reach." She kissed me to reinforce that statement.
"We'd better stop this or we'll never get to work on time. I'm expecting an order to appear before our lord and master as soon as we get in."
"Why would he do that?"
"Hamish would have gone back to him yesterday and told him that I had left them no wriggle room for industrial turmoil. Henry is counting on it."
"You are going to have to sit down with me and tell me what you know about Henry and his devious methods, and I'll tell you what I know."
"While I'm in with him this morning, could you clear the decks for the rest of the morning and we'll compare notes about him."
"This morning might not be long enough."
We only just managed to get to work on time and I had no sooner sat down when the phone rang. "Guess what?"
"The man has requested my immediate presence in his office. Tell Janice that I'm on my way."
"It isn't her on the line, it's him. Please don't get angry with him."
"I'm beyond angry, don't worry, I won't deck him or yell at him. Deep breath, keep calm, deep breath, keep calm."
"Go. Get out of here and find out what he wants." I went.
Henry was waiting for me, no keeping me waiting this morning. "What the hell are you trying to pull here?"
"I am just doing the job for which you pay me, nothing more, nothing less. You have asked me to bring this job in on schedule and under budget, and I am giving it my best shot, which, considering I have my hands tied behind my back is near as damn it to impossible."
"What do you mean?"
"The contract that you negotiated is like a millstone around my neck. Because we are locked in to last year's price schedule for materials, we are between five and ten percent behind the eight ball before we even start. There have been no allowances for any holdups, no allowances for inclement weather, or industrial actions. My job here is that close to impossible that I get the feeling that you want me to fail. If I didn't know better I would say that this is your attempt to prove to Robyn that you really are better than me. She isn't having doubts, is she?" His expression confirmed it. The one thing that I have known about him for some time now, is his inability to maintain that initial good impression he makes. His bullshit wears off over time, hence the two and a half ex-wives, and the lover losing interest. Stiff shit I say, my life is suddenly looking good in comparison. I left him still thinking about what I'd said, and before he remembered what he was going to say to me.
An idea was galloping through my head as I walked back to my office. Sasha handed me a coffee as I walked past her and followed me in. "Well, how did it go?"
"First things first. The contract for this project that he has given me, I don't think that it is the real one. I think this is one that he has cobbled together to scuttle me, and when I go down he will lose it and produce the real one, the one that is priced at today's prices and has allowances for inclement weather and industrial disputes. It will also have a contract price considerably higher than that shown on this one, one big enough to cover the kick-backs that he has promised the Department Head who has approved this. He has a clause in it that allows him contingency funding to cover industrial disputes as long as he can show that he was in no way responsible for them. The contractors will of course be responsible, and he will step in and broker a settlement and come out of it as some sort of hero. Can you find me the original contract documents?"
"I can try. What has started this line of thought?"
"I remember that when he first took over this company, Father had told him that the one thing that he should ensure was to maintain the status of 'Designated Contractor' for government contracts. 'This is a license to print money' he was told, 'lose that and you'll struggle. Paying off the right people is essential, but it has to be hidden, this is your priority, the contracts will take care of themselves.' I had forgotten about that conversation until now. It seems as if my talk with Hamish yesterday may have thrown a cat amongst the pigeons, by offering him a bonus if the project came in on time I had effectively cut off his access to kickbacks from Henry."
"But how can we do anything about it without hurting the company and ourselves?"
"I don't know, I'll need to think this through. First off, if we can get a copy of that contract it will give us an idea of what we're dealing with."
"I'll get right on it." She went back to her desk and picked up the phone. While she talked she cranked up her computer, and whoever she was talking to was leading her through a menu that saw her accessing files that I had never seen before, I have never dealt with PDF files before. With a smile on her face she came back in with several sheets that she had taken from her printer, the original contract documents, signed, sealed and delivered by Henry and James Robinson, the CEO of the department that controlled Public Works. The bottom line was stratospheric compared to figures that I had been given to work with, the contingency budget was almost as big as I had been given. Someone, more than some one was getting very rich from all of this, and my decision was whether or not to try and stop it. If I was successful it would be the demise of the company. If I didn't, could I still work for Henry knowing what he was doing and costing the tax-payer? The short answer to that is 'no'. So, whatever I may do, it will almost surely mean me being out of a job yet again.
Sasha saw me deflate before her very eyes. "What is it?"
"How would you feel, being out of a job?"
"That bad huh?"
"Yes, it's that bad, it doesn't matter which way I jump, I'll end up in a pile of shit."
"What can I do to help?"
"I need to find a way to kill off Henry's cash cow without involving the company. Any bright ideas?"
"Firstly, I don't care much what you do, if it means that you and I are without a job because of this, then I would rather be out of work with you than in work without you, so whatever you are going to do, I am in it with you. The next thing is to see if there is some way that we can find out if this is a corporate fraud or one of Henry's own personal fiddles, and I think I know how I can manage that, It will mean bringing someone in on this, someone that I know that I can trust not to spill his guts, but who, with the proper inducements, and I don't mean money, will be willing to do things that might not be legal, in fact I know that they're not."
"Who is this person?"
"My IT friend who gained me access to Henry's personal computer."
"Let's do what we have to. Once we get the information we can then make an decision as to how we react."
"You know Rob, darling Rob, I have this enormous sense of relief. As time went by I was becoming more and more depressed at having to report back to Henry on what you were doing so that he could undermine you. In the beginning I was loyal to him because he told me that he thought that you were working against him. because your wife had left you for him and you were blaming him for it. He told me that you were entirely to blame for her leaving you, but couldn't see it, and that he only gave you this job out of a sense of loyalty. I have come to realise that he has some weird concept of loyalty. I feel like the rat that left the sinking ship. I'm standing on the pier, not giving a shit about the captain of the ship but feeling some remorse for the passengers. Enough of this deep and meaningful crap, we have work to do."
"Okay, we need to get access to his banking records to see if we can establish a link between him and the Department head who makes the project decisions. I have a feeling that the money won't be going into his normal account, so we have to look for a hidden account, he may even be using Robyn to channel his funds into payments to the Departmental head, Hamish, and probably an offshore tax haven."
"If he has transferred funds electronically we could try to find a link between funds going in and out of his accounts, and deposits into the other accounts."
"Do you think that your friend can come up with that information?"
"If he can't then no-one can."
"We can't do this here, all computer traffic goes through the company's server. Our computers are hooked up to the company's network, so he could quite easily check up on what we are doing." I said. "I think that we should buy us a laptop that is separate from this network and work from home."
"When you say home, do you mean your place or mine?"
"How would you feel about it being mine?"
"How would I feel?" She came to me and put her arms around my neck and pulled my face to hers. The kiss lasted until there was a knock on my door. She took her lips away and we turned to face Janice.
"I hate to break up this tender moment, but Henry wants to see you Sasha. I tried buzzing you but you didn't answer, and now I can see why."
"What does he want, do you have any idea?" Sasha asked.
"No, but it doesn't sound good."
Sasha followed Janice to Henry's office. "What the fuck do you think that you're doing?" Henry was angry.
"What do you mean?"
"Don't come the innocent with me young lady, you are supposed to be feeding him wrong information so that he fucks up, but what are you doing? I haven't heard from you in over a week and now he's gone and screwed up my arrangement with the unions."
"What arrangement? If I'm to be effective I need to know what you are doing so that I can either steer him away from interfering or arrange for him to do something to exacerbate the situation. I'm not a mind reader, I don't know what your plans are other than to make him look bad. Give me something to work with here, or get someone else." She was going out on a limb here, but by taking the initiative she has lessened the chances of Henry replacing her, she hoped.
"I've noticed you getting a little friendly with him, what's the story there? You are fucking him, aren't you?"
"Yes. I felt that I should not repulse his advances if and when he made them, it would look strange if I did, so I'm going with the flow and getting closer to him, and winning his confidence, so that he will never suspect me when the shit hits the fan." Henry was not used to women talking like this to him and he didn't know how to handle it, if he pushed too hard she could have him up for harassment.
"I can't tell you everything that is going down. What I can tell you is that I have arranged it so that he fucks up big time on this project. I need you to keep an eye on him so that he doesn't twig to it."
"But if he fucks up, won't that affect the company?"
"No, and this is the clever bit, I have someone on stand-by ready to jump in and save the day, at the same time laying the blame for the fuck up solely at his feet. He will never worm out of having to carry the responsibility, and he'll never be able to work in this industry ever again. Then let's see his wife want to go back to him."
"So that's what this is all about? His wife is thinking of ditching you and going back to him."
"The bitch keeps telling me that she should never have left him."
"Then why doesn't she just leave?"
"I can't have that, I have ways of stopping her and she knows that. She can never leave me, but she can suffer for wanting to."
"Remind me never to get on your wrong side."
"You would do well to remember that, now get back to work and I want results."
"What did he want?" I asked her when she returned.
"If you hadn't told me what you thought he was going to do I would have said that you wouldn't believe me if I told you. You know your brother very well, and yes, he wants you to fuck up, and he has someone on stand-by to save the day and the company, and do you know why he's doing this? Knowing you I think that you've already worked that out, but let me see if you have."
"Robyn is giving him a hard time and telling him that she should never have left me and now he's jealous as hell of me and wants to crucify me so that he can hang on to her."
"Close with cigar. You did however leave out the bit about him needing her for some reason, and I think that you were also close to the mark when you suggested that he was using her to transfer funds."
"So, how can we prove it?"
"I'll talk to my mate eBola and see what he can come up with."
"eBola? Obviously a pseudonym, but how did he come up with that?"
"The 'E' part refers to electronic, and he was rather taken by the 'Plague' name given to the computer hacker in the Millennium trilogy, you know, 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' etc., so he took the name of a real virus and turn it into an E virus. Thankfully he has a little better hygiene than that character."
"So, where do we start?"
"I think with Robyn. I'll get him to hack into her bank accounts and look for large unexplained payments going in and out. If he can decode the electronic account details we should be able to find the origins and destination of those transactions."
"Let's do it. Make the call, and then we go computer shopping."
An hour later we both stood and watched as 'eBola' set up our new computer and routed all internet and email traffic through his server. There was an impressive level of security including a random rolling password set up so that if Henry, or anyone he hired for the occasion, hacked our password and tried to remotely access our computer, it would shut it down and lock onto the remote computer used. We would not lose any data and eBola would be able to identify who it was that was trying to get into our system.
We called into the construction site on the way back to the office to establish our reason for being out of the office all morning.
"I don't know what you said to Hamish the other day, but I have never seen him so co-operative. We are already a day ahead of schedule, and we're still in the first week."
"I'm impressed. I noticed that all of the under floor services conduits are in place, when can we expect you begin the concrete pour?"
"Monday. We will also make a start on the external service connections to the sewer and stormwater drains and power to each of the buildings. As soon as the slab has cured and we are ready for the columns for the next level, there will be a power board in place for each building. The same applies for each level."
"Good. Now all that we have to do is to prevent Henry from interfering."
"Why would he want to interfere? It is his company after all."
"It's a long and involved story. The why doesn't concern you, just the how. Keep your eyes open at all times for little things like changes to parking restriction on surrounding roads that will catch the workers out and cost them shit loads of money. If you notice anything like that, let me know immediately so that I can take care of it."
"Will do. I'm glad that you're in charge of this site, and not some of the other Project Managers."
"If you don't mind me asking," Sasha said as we drove off-site. "But what made you think of that thing about the parking restrictions?"
"Past experience. I had a party years ago, and I didn't feel like asking him, so he got his revenge by applying to the council and getting them to whack parking restrictions in the vicinity of my place. Every guest got, not one but, several parking tickets, they were at the party for five hours and every half hour the Inspectors would do the rounds, booking them for overstaying the half hour parking restrictions."
"Ouch, that must have cost them."
"No, it cost me. Even though I was ignorant of the changes, I felt responsible, so I reimbursed them all for the fines."
"More and more I love this man." At the next red light she leaned over and kissed me. Her hand rested on my thigh, and even though she wasn't touching my cock, he was heading in her general direction. We parked in my designated space and we both concentrated on the notes that we had made, not because we needed to do anything with them, but so that I didn't have a raging boner when we walked inside. That would be too much information for the staff to handle.
"Where have you been?" Henry was waiting for our return.
"On site checking on progress and making sure that it was running on schedule."
"Did that take all morning?"
"No. I had to go home and collect a few things that I needed. Sasha came with me because it seemed pointless me going home and having to come back here to pick her up. Did I do something wrong?"
"No, but I would like to know where you are at all times."
"Henry, I am not a kid anymore, I am a responsible adult doing a responsible job. You do not need to be hanging over my shoulder all of the time."
He looked from one of us to the other. "I know why you went home. You two are fucking, aren't you?"
"If we are, and that is a big if, neither of us would think of doing it in work time, and what we do in our own time is of no business of yours."
He was getting just a little angry. "I'll trouble you to remember who it is that you are talking to. I am your boss and I demand that you treat me with the respect that that position deserves."
"Is that all? We have work to do, and we can't do it and talk to you at the same time."
Henry turned on his heels and stormed out of my office.
"I have never seen you this forceful with him, please, don't overdo it."
"I won't, the time for overdoing it will come soon enough."
"This is how I've imagined it to be." Sasha had just finished helping me cook us a meal. This would be the first time that we spent the entire night doing the husband and wife thing, and not just the making love. I have to admit that this meal was so much better than my solo efforts, or Robyn's solo efforts. She would not let me help.
After we had finished, we adjourned to my study to see what eBola had found out. He had been a busy little beaver, and the stuff that he had sent us was going to take some time to dissect and itemise for easy reading.
He had no trouble getting into Robyn's banking records, despite the supposed fool-proof encryption that the bank had in place. There had been several large amounts of undisclosed cash entering her accounts over the last eighteen months. So she and Henry had been colluding since before she had left me, another thing to punish him for. A couple of days after these funds had gone into the account, they had left, into three different accounts. "That one's Henry's private account, it's the one he used to pay me for spying on you." Sasha said.
"And I would hazard a guess that the other two belong to Hamish and James Robinson. I tell you what, these guys are doing very nicely out of this scam."
"So what are we going to do about it?" She asked.
"We wait for confirmation of the other two accounts and we take this to ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) and see what they'll do about it."
"I don't think that they can do anything about it."
"Why not?" It was my turn to ask a question.
"Because the evidence that we give them has been illegally obtained."
"I would hope that they use it to carry out their own investigation."
"But as soon as they start to sniff around, Henry and his mates will probably transfer their money to Rarotonga or somewhere like that so that the local authorities can't touch them."
"So what do we do?"
Sasha looked at me with this wicked smile on her face, the one that meant that we would soon be involved in some serious love-making. "We can't do anything about it tonight, how do you suggest that we fill in our time?" Her voice was husky and her chuckle at the end of it was filled with so much sensuality that I made no attempt to fight off the inevitable. I stood up and drew her up after me. We met chest to chest, face to face and groin to groin. Her tongue enticed its way into my mouth, her nipples pressed into my chest and my cock made his hardened presence felt.
"Oh god, is it going to be like this every night?"
"You'd better believe it. Is that going to be a problem?"
"I wasn't complaining, in fact it's what I've dreamed of for ages." She reinforced this by grabbing him in a strangle hold and leading me, un-resisting, to our bed.
The morning brought with it some more information from eBola. He had traced the other two accounts, and it came as no surprise that they belonged to Hamish and James.
"We've got to go to ICAC with this. Henry is breaking the law, as are the other two, and we can't let them get away with it." Sasha said as we gathered the information together and placed it in a lockable file case. We would contact ICAC and arrange an appointment as soon as we got to work.
We arranged a lunch appointment with Rod MacPherson, an investigator from ICAC, at a 3 star (if it was lucky), out of the way Bistro. There was little likelihood of us being discovered, the ambience was atrocious, but the food made up for it. "So, what have you got for me?"
"Evidence of corruption on a massive scale, involving the company that we both work for, a government department and a Union Organiser. It involves millions of tax -payer dollars ending up in their bank accounts, some here and some, the larger 'some', off-shore."
"And you have proof of all of this?"
"Yes, but there is a slight problem with this evidence."
"And that is?"
"It was illegally obtained, only because we had no way of obtaining it legally, and without it you would have had no starting point for any investigation that you mount."
"We shall see. Show me what you have."
Sasha took the file case from her attaché case and handed it over. Rob skimmed through the first couple of pages. "Fuck. Pardon the French, but this is dynamite stuff you have here, and I'm not even going to ask you how you managed to obtain this. Leave this with me, I'll get a team onto it straight away. I'll keep you in the loop and hopefully we will be able to move forward on this in three or four weeks. In the mean time, tell no-one. Is that understood?"
"Yes, understood." We got up and left him studying the papers.
We had only been back in the office for thirty minutes when Sasha's phone rang. "Who? Okay send her in." She got up and came straight into my office. "You'll never guess who's on her way in."
"Robyn."
"How did you know? She's standing right behind me, isn't she?" She turned around. "Hi Robyn, it is Robyn, isn't it?"
"Yes it is. I would like to have a word with my husband, if that's all right with you."
"Sure, I'll leave you two to it."
She turned to leave. "No, stay." I looked at the surprised Robyn, this would be the first time that I went against her wishes. "Sasha stays, she's as much involved in anything that we have to say as we are."
"So Henry was right, you two are lovers."
"Yes we are."
"I guess that is to be expected, after all I did leave you, and she is a very pretty girl." (Meow, she can be really catty when she wants to be.)
"What is it that you want to say to me?"
"I have this feeling that what I want to say is redundant. I was going to ask you if there was any possibility of you taking me and the kids back."
"The short answer to that is no. But this is not because I have no feelings for you, because I do, just not enough to want to live with you again. I have been led to believe that Henry has something on you that is stopping you from leaving him, so what has changed?"
"My desire to leave has become greater than my fear of him and what he has on me. As well as that I have something on him that I can use to bargain my way out of what he has."
"That something wouldn't have anything to do with the scam that he's working with a couple of guys, would it?"
"You know about this, how?"
"We sort of stumbled onto it because of the project that we have just begun, so we found someone that could get us the evidence that we need to do something about it."
"Are you going to do anything?"
Now wasn't the time to tell her that we already have. "No, you see the evidence that we have will not be admissible in court. If you must know, we got it illegally."
"You keep saying 'we', does that mean that you and, what is your name? That you and she are more than just lovers?"
I looked at Sasha and she gave me an almost imperceptible nod in response. "Yes, it does mean that, in fact Sasha is in the process of moving in with me."
"Oh. Don't get me wrong, I wish the both of you all the best. I have no right to be so disappointed that you're no longer available. I can see that you two have every right to be together, and I suppose that this digging up of evidence has brought you closer together." She stopped talking for several seconds, it was as if she was making up her mind as to what to do next. "Robert, Rob, the other reason that I came to see you was to ask your advice. I know that Henry is involved in a scam, and I have evidence of that. I will give that to you."
"But aren't you cutting off your nose to spite your face? If Henry goes down you will be left with nothing."
"No. I am about to do something illegal, and I'll probably end up in gaol for it and I want you to look after the kids, they'll like Sasha, not because she's close to their age, I think that you'll get along fine and the kids deserve better than what they have at the moment. I'm sorry, I'm rambling. But I have a favour to ask."
"What is it?"
"There's a final payment due in a week on one of your projects."
"Yes, the country hospital."
"Well, when the payments are made, there's a large sum of money deposited into my bank account. It stays there for only a few days before it is divided up and transferred to other accounts. What I planned to do was to take that money out of my account and transfer it to another, unrelated, account that I plan to open. No sooner is it deposited in that account than it is transferred into another account. Several steps later it has virtually disappeared off the face of the earth."
"How did you work this out?"
"You've forgotten that before I married you I worked in a bank, in the International Transfer section, so I know how to organise this. What I'm asking you is to give me time to arrange this before you go to whoever you have to go to."
"How soon can you get us your evidence?"
She rummaged in the large bag that she carried and took out a large bundle of papers. "Is now soon enough?"
I looked at what she had given me. They were similar account balances to those that eBola had given us, the major difference was that these were legally obtained. Robyn had every right to print off her own account balance sheets.
"These are great! They're actually the same as the ones that we already have, this just confirms it. Okay, we'' sit on this until after you've done your fiddle with the money. Let us know as soon as that happens, will you?"
"I will. About the kids?"
"If anything happens to you, I'll look after them."
"We'll look after them." Sasha said grabbing my hand.
"You were taking a chance coming here, weren't you?"
"Not really, I knew that he would be out of the office all afternoon."
"What about Janice, if she sees you here she'll tell Henry."
"No she won't. I spoke with her earlier today and told her that I wanted to speak to you about a matter that concerned you and the kids, I wasn't lying, this does concern you, and that Henry would get jealous if he saw me with you. She was fine with that. I'll see myself out."
We both looked after her as she left. It had taken a lot for her to come to us. She obviously knew about me and Sasha, I'm sure that Henry would have told her that to hurt her ambitions to come back to me.
"What do we do now? Do we ring Rod and tell him that we have legal confirmation for the illegal evidence that we provided to him, or do we sit on it until after Robyn has done her thing?" Sasha asked.
"We sit on it. I want him to suffer knowing that the way that he treated her made her angry enough to screw him big time. If we go now she'll lose everything."
"But, how will he react, he's not known for his balanced temper."
"He can't go to the police because that will expose him and his mates, can you imagine it? 'Tell me Mister Blakely, where did this money come from?'
'I can't say.'
'You can't or you won't?'
'Both.'
'So, someone steals money that had been deposited into your, what is she, girlfriend, partner, her account. Money that you won't tell us where it came from, so we could assume that it was illegal. What was it, drug money? You had a huge win at the casino? What are we to believe, Mister Blakely?'
'It's not drug money, that much I can tell you.' "Can you imagine Henry going through that? I don't think so."
What Henry did, a week later after Robyn had taken the money and run, dropping the kids off to me at work on her way out, was to chuck a huge hissy fit.
"What do you know about this?" He hurled the question at me.
"About what?" I answered quietly.
"About your fucking wife taking money belonging to me and leaving me, that's what!" He shouted, everyone heard him.
"Robyn and I can barely exchange a civil word, so what makes you think that I know what she's doing?"
"Well her kids are here, what are they doing here?"
"They asked to come and see me so she dropped them off this morning. I assumed that she was going shopping to spend your money. I don't know when she's coming to pick them up."
"Fuck, what am I going to do? I owe these guys money and if they don't get it by tomorrow there'll be hell to pay." Henry stormed out of my office, this was getting to be a habit.
"That's your problem. If you don't mind I have a project to run and work to do."
"You guys know what's happening here, don't you?"
"Yeah, Mum filled us in on everything. You know that she was hoping that you would take her back, don't you?" Jason asked.
"She mentioned something about that the last time that we spoke."
"Then she told us that you had another woman in your life and we would only be staying until she found somewhere else to live." Phoebe said. "I kinda hope that she doesn't find anything straight away, I like Sasha, you've done well for yourself there Dad."
"I think so." I looked up as Sasha arrived back from the local café loaded down with coffees and cakes for all of us.
"Okay kids, dig in before your father gets his sticky fingers on it." She handed me my coffee and made a show of denying me my favourite cake. "Has Henry finished his hissy fit yet?"
"For now at least, but I wouldn't turn my back on him, especially as you failed to mention anything of this in your last report."
"Bastard, you know damn well that my last report happened long before the shit hit the fan."
"What was this about the shit hitting the fan?" Jason asked.
"Nothing, just business talk." I told him.
"Credit me with some sense Dad, things haven't been quiet on the home front lately, and Mum hasn't helped by telling Henry that she wished that she hadn't left you. That was really pissing him off I can tell you."
"Do you mind going and sitting with Sasha, I have an important call to make."
"No I don't mind, she's great Dad, she's gorgeous and funny, and smart, and did I mention gorgeous?"
"Go!" He went.
Rod answered the phone. "Hi Rob, before you ask, we're getting there, it's a slow process, but we will get there, this is too big to let go."
"I have something for you, something that you'll like."
"Tell me more."
"We have obtained, by strictly legal methods, bank account records that confirm everything that we have provided illegally."
"And this stuff is squeaky clean?"
"So clean you could eat off it, on second thoughts, that wouldn't be a good idea, it would make the paper soggy."
"Originals or copies?"
"Originals."
"Email them to me, better still, I'll come and get them. I'll be there in ten minutes." He was good to his word, arriving exactly ten minutes later. After reading through the papers he picked up his phone and dialled a number. The message was succinct. "Come and get him."
Minutes later a squad of plain clothed police walked in and through to Henry's office. His previous hissy fit had nothing on this one. He had to be restrained and was led, yelling and screaming from the building. Within minutes we were inundated by the media. "Mister Blakely, can you tell us what the charges are that your brother is facing?"
"No, it's something to do with a corruption inquiry being carried out by ICAC, anything more than that I can't say. We are waiting for news from the courts, and until then, it's business as usual."
This appeased them for about an hour. That was how long it took for the charges to be heard. The three of them faced the ICAC hearing together. Our board got together and decided that I should be the one to face the media, after all, they couldn't afford to be involved in this scandal which was a matter that didn't directly involve them.
I called a press conference. Sasha sat beside me as I looked at the forest of microphones in front of me. "Ladies and gentlemen, as you are aware, our CEO has been arrested and charged, along with two others, with corruption. I need to point out to you that this is a matter that involves the three of them and has nothing whatever to do with the day to day running of this company, that's my side of the business, I do not get involved in the financial side of the business apart from trying to keep to budget. Finances was Henry's forté, I left it right alone, I have enough on my plate, just making sure that the building side of the business works as it should."
"Mister Blakely, who will take over the running of this business?"
"That's for our board to decide, not me."
"But, surely, you being a member of the founding family, would be the right person for the job."
"Like I said, it's a matter for the board to decide."
"Sasha, what was your role in all of this?"
"Rob and I were the first to discover that there was something amiss in the relationship between the three men involved. We did what any normal person would under the circumstances, we went to ICAC with our evidence. This was not sufficient in itself, to warrant arrests at that time, but additional evidence has been obtained that confirmed ours, so ICAC moved quickly. That we did will raise eyebrows and questions. Why did we do it knowing that it could have a detrimental effect on our company and business. We considered that, but the over-riding principle here is that they broke the law, and that was our primary concern. That we can salvage something from this wreckage is something for us to strive to achieve, and achieve it we will."
"That wasn't the question, what was your role in this?"
"My role initially, was, acting on instructions from Henry Blakely, to keep an eye on Robert Blakely because, Henry believed, he would attempt to sabotage the company because, he said, Robert was furious that his wife had left him for Henry. As time went by I came to realise that Robert Blakely was an honourable, hard working and dedicated employee, who was doing the best that he could. It was he that first noticed that there were anomalies in the contract for the recently commenced project. While working closely together to get to the bottom of all of this, we came to realise that we were both in love."
"You have his children living with you at present, how have they taken this news?"
"Very well under the circumstances. It is early days in Robert and my relationship, but Jason and Phoebe both seem to be comfortable with it, and Robyn has accepted us being together. As to my living with him, let's just say that this is a work in progress. Last night was our first together."
"I think that is enough for now, we seem to be drifting off the path, and while it might be more interesting as a bit of salacious gossip, that isn't the point of this press conference, which was to give you information about an important corruption investigation."
We had no sooner arrived home and were sitting down to takeaway Chinese, when there was a knock on the door. It was Robyn. "Can I come in?"
"Sure, have you eaten? We're having Chinese and I'm sure that there's more than enough for you."
"That would be fine, thank you." She sat at the table with the rest of us and helped herself to a decent sized serve of food. "What I really came to see you about is, where do I start, I know that I gave you a hard time during our marriage because you frustrated me. Here was Henry, a successful businessman, running his own company, while you were drifting along in that construction job. You never seemed motivated to get ahead, while Henry was driven to succeed. Then I came to realise that for all of his wealth and success, he never seemed happy, and you, you were not wealthy in the conventional sense of the term, but you were happy most of the time, except when I was comparing you to your brother. Another thing that I noticed about the two of you was that you were never jealous of Henry's success, but Henry, especially over the past three or four months, grew more and more jealous of you."
"Henry was the smart one in the family, at least that's what I was told, but he wasn't in fact the most intelligent of the two. When we were at High School we sat IQ tests, and I rated a good ten points higher. Mother and Father knew about this but told Henry that he was the smartest, because his fragile ego would never cope with that knowledge. I was sent off to learn a trade, not because I was dumb, but because they reasoned that I would be able to make my way on my own. Henry was groomed for stardom, to take over the family company, because he had the drive to succeed in that position. And he did, for a while, but the economic downturn saw a falling off of business and construction companies having to cut back, and Henry couldn't afford for that to happen, Any more than that I can't tell you at this time because it is the subject of this ICAC investigation, and I do not want to jeopardise that process."
"If you were smarter, why didn't you take over the business instead of Henry?"
"Because I wasn't the motivated one in the family, I was quite happy with comfortable, while Henry had to have it all, the fast cars and the trophy wives, his wants were very expensive and he had to find a better income stream, which led him to this mess."
Robyn decided not to stay the night, but Jason and Phoebe both asked if they could, so we had to make up the spare beds. Robyn left to return to the hotel that she had checked into, and it all became quiet, even our lovemaking.
We woke to Phoebe cooking breakfast for us. "I know that you're having to go into work today, so I thought that I'd make it easier and cook breakfast for you. Don't worry, it'll be your turn on Saturday, I intend to sleep in," She adopted a dramatic pose, "I need my beauty sleep."
"Hadn't you better get ready for school? We can drop you off on our way."
"Hadn't you better write me a note so I don't have to go, after all this is a highly stressful situation, the breakdown of Mother's relationship and finding out that Uncle Henry is a bad guy. I couldn't possibly concentrate on my classes."
"What's this about getting out of school?"
"Don't you start, this is and important year for you. You do want to get into Uni don't you?"
"I've been thinking about that. You seem to be doing alright for someone without a university degree."
"I don't know that I'm the best role model for you. That's for you to decide after careful consideration of a variety of factors. We will discuss this this evening, but for today, school."
"It was worth a try."
There was a sombre mood hanging over the office when we arrived. At first I thought it to be a reaction to yesterday's news, but nothing prepared me for the news that awaited us. It was Rod from ICAC who was seated at my desk, that broke it to us. "Your brother Henry has attempted to take his own life. He left a suicide note telling the world that he was not the instigator of this scam, that it was already in existence when he took over the company, and all that he did was to maintain the status quo. He said that his father had been forced into colluding with the other parties in order to increase their financial well-being. He also stated that after the first ICAC hearing he came to realise that he was being made the scapegoat in all of this. The police are suspicious of both the suicide note and the attempt to take his own life."
"Why would you suspect it?"
"Because the doctors have told us that he took just as many pills to make him very ill, but not enough to be lethal. His mental health is being assessed at this time and a report will be prepared before the next hearing. Is there anything that you can tell us about his moods over the past month or so?"
"I think that my ex would be the best placed to give you that information, after all she was living with him. She did tell us last night that he had been getting increasingly more jealous of me lately. Knowing my brother the way that I do, I wouldn't be at all surprised if, when you go through his papers, you don't find something that is his attempt to implicate me in all of this."
"Why would you say that?"
"Because, at the beginning of this current project, I cut a deal with Hamish, the union boss, that would see the project progress without being stopped by industrial action. This deal is different from the one that he had with Henry in that it guaranteed a bonus schedule that included all of the workers as well as himself, if we had no industrial action. On my side of the deal I promised that all work carried out on site would use union labour and would comply with all OH&S regulations. He accepted the deal, but Henry was angry because industrial action was a part of the contingency claim system that they had in place,"
"You were right about his trying to implicate you. Where the attempt fell apart was that we interviewed your Site Manager, George, as well as Hamish, and they both told us the same thing, that you had cut a deal with the unions and that both of them preferred to work with you than with Henry. The phrase 'Rob is a man of his word, but Henry can't be trusted' came into both their evidence. From that I gathered that whatever you have done has been both legal and in the best interests of all parties."
"Thanks for that. Now we have a board meeting to try and sort out where we go from here, so if there's nothing else, we have to get going."
"No, that's all I have right now, but I promise to keep you informed of progress, and thank you for your efforts up to now, we wouldn't be where we are without your help."
The general chatter stopped the instant that Sasha and I entered the board room. The gaze of all the members were on us as we sat down.
"Robert," Gerald Paynter, the Chairman addressed me. "What is the latest news? All we have had to go on is what has appeared in the media and you know how far they can be trusted to get it right."
"I have just been speaking to ICAC. Henry has made an attempt to take his own life." This brought shocked gasps from them all. "I can tell you that this attempt was unsuccessful. He is however, in the Psychiatric ward where his mental health is being assessed. The police are of the opinion that his suicide attempt was never meant to succeed.. As for the fallout of this corruption enquiry, this company has not been implicated in it so it's steady as she goes with current and future projects. The government is holding its own enquiry into this mess to establish if this scandal has been restricted to the one person, or is endemic to the whole contract process. We can only hope that this company is not tarred with the same brush."
"Now, the question of the day is this, who do we get to run this company until another CEO can be appointed? I am of the opinion that you would be the ideal man to take over, in the short term at least, while we assess whether you would be the right man in the long term. What are your thoughts on this?"
"I am prepared to run it for the time being. What I have to assess is the affect that this change in circumstances will have on my family, and whether I actually want the job. For the first part of that assessment I have to defer to the person who would be most affected by this change, Sasha, what do you think?" This brought another astonished look on the faces of the board members.
"Rob, I feel that I know you probably better than you know yourself, and I can tell you that I think that you will be the ideal person to run this company in the long term. I know that you don't want the responsibility of the CEO position, but I also know that you are smart enough to surround yourself with the right people who can, and will, insure that the best interests of this company are maintained. As for the second part of the question, yes, you want the job, not for personal recognition, but for the reason that you want this company to survive this mess and rise above it. This company is your life."
"No, this job is not my life, it is a part of my life, a small part, you and my family are the bigger part, but you know me, probably too well. Yes I can do the job, and yes I will surround myself with people who can lighten the burden of the job for me. Can I have some time to think this through?"
"Yes, we can give you a week to make up your mind." Gerald closed the meeting and headed off to front the media with the announcement. He must have been confident that I would accept the long term role.
"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming this morning. I have a couple of announcements to make. The first is that our CEO, last night, made a thankfully unsuccessful attempt to take his own life. We are waiting on a medical report, but I can say that he has been suspended while the current investigation into the corruption scandal is carried out. What his actual role in all of this is, is not clear at this point in time. The second announcement is that his brother Robert, who has been working for us over the past year as our Project Director, will step into Henry's shoes while the ramifications of this are assessed. That will be all for now."
Back in my office I turned to Sasha. "Not all that long ago it was al that I could do toget out of bed in the morning. Two things happened on that day, the first was the thought of coming in and being with you, and the second was this weird feeling that something was going to happen, a decision that I was about to make that would have devestating consequences. I thought that the devestation would be something that would affect me, and in a way it did, a positive way. It was Henry that would be devestated by my decision."
Sasha sat on my desk, her thigh disturbingly close to my hand. "I'm glad that you did get out of bed that morning, because I, for one, am pleased with your decision making."
"You do realise the effect that your thigh is having on me, don't you?"
"I should bloody well hope so." She moved it so that my fingers were touching it. "What are you going to do about it?"
"I am going to make my first executive decision. Sasha, will you divert all calls back to the switchboard and close the blinds, and then will you bring your absolutely gorgeous body back here so that I can, we can, partake of some serious love-making."
"Yes boss, darling." That she obeyed me wasn't so much a demonstration of her subservience to me, but her desire to be loved by me.
