Business Doctors - Management Consulting Gone Wild (20 page)

“We gotta wrap this up before the weekend. So we don’t have much time.”

“Oh! That’s really tight. You are making me really sweat it out for that commission.” Blizzard thought for a while more. “I’ll have to sneak in my cute little bot into a few large banking systems, and then sit back with our fingers crossed. Though there are standard bots ready to be unleashed, banks have defenses against them. Once a bot is unleashed, it works for a while, till it is terminated or erased. Every bot lives a short life, and dies a quick death. That’s because there is a multi-billion dollar industry that earns its bread by designing defenses to bots and worms that a few of us create. I’ll first need to select a bot that is suitable for the banks we will be
breaking
into, and then I will need to work on tweaking the code, to find a new
exploit
, and test it out on one of my Linux boxes. That’ll take up a whole day at the least. So that leaves us with three days for the bot to spread, and run.”

That was all too much for Joe. He silently mouthed an obscenity, and said, “I gotta go for a smoke,” and excused himself after all that mental exertion. Schneider’s appreciation, and to a certain extent, respect for Blizzard’s unique skills, increased. He managed a faint smile, and a light nod.

* * *

Earlier in the morning, the WFB interns had managed to secure another feather in their cap. Stevie McMohan, owner of the McM chain of casinos and hotels, had stepped out of the Los Angeles Convention Center after a business meeting. His clean shaven head glistened with drops of sweat in the heat and his well rounded yet sharp face exuded the fact that he was a king in his own right. Dressed in an immaculate black suite, he waited near the edge of the street for his car to arrive. His bodyguard, Bruno, in plain clothes, waited beside him. Bruno had been with Stevie for several years and accompanied him on all his personal and business trips. Before Stevie’s BMW could arrive, an SUV drove in and screeched to a halt near him. It had Alex at the steering, wearing a fishnet stocking over his face. Stevie had a known reputation in the underworld circles and the rookie interns could not risk being on his wrong side when the time came. The door opened and before his bodyguard could respond, a masked man pulled Stevie into the vehicle and slammed the door shut. The SUV accelerated and pulled away from the street. Bruno looked around to see if the BMW was anywhere in sight and when he could not see it, ran towards the SUV. He pulled out his gun and fired several rounds at the SUV, and missed. The SUV disappeared into connecting streets and merged with the rest of the traffic.

Just then another vehicle stopped beside Bruno and dragged him into the car. He struggled to break free and would have succeeded had one of the masked men not rendered him unconscious with a chloroform soaked cloth. None of the WFB interns would have had the muscle to bring him down without medical aid.

“That completes our buy-one-get-one-free offer,” said Gabriel, in a similar fishnet stocking, at the wheel of the second car.

Inside the first vehicle, Stevie was getting his hands cuffed behind his back and his mouth taped shut. Alex dialed Gabriel’s number and made a quick one-word announcement – “Done”.

Alex and Gabriel both drove towards the deserted area behind The Tribe, a pub on the outskirts of the city.

* * *

Alex, still wearing his mask, picked up a bottle of water and drank half of it. He emptied the rest on Stevie’s head and waited for him to regain consciousness. “Welcome back, Mr. McMohan,” Alex said his face a few inches away from Stevie’s.

With the sun in his face, Stevie squinted his eyes and attempted to focus. He looked around. There was just barren land around. He looked up at Alex. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Hah! Down but not out. I like the attitude. But Mr. McMohan, we don’t have time for pleasantries now. We are running on a tight schedule and we need your help.”

Stevie looked around and saw a gagged Bruno inside the second car looking helplessly at him.

Alex looked at Bruno and back at Stevie, “Yeah, we thought you’d feel more comfortable with your bodyguard around. Everything’s become so unpredictable nowadays.”

“We did a little research on you and found out that you were very keen on getting into the movie industry when you were young,” Alex went on. “As a kid you rehearsed your scripts and practiced them in front of your mirror. Destiny had other plans for you, though. Sad! Your parents never believed in you or your acting potential. They said you couldn’t act to save your life. However, we’ll give you a chance to prove them wrong. You can use those skills now to do exactly that. Act, and save your life.”

Alex turned to Gabriel, “Can I have the script please?” Gabriel handed over two sheets of paper.

“Mr. McMohan, the first one has the script that we’d like you to put your heart and soul into. The second one has a list of names that you might find familiar along with their phone numbers. All we need you to do is call up each person in the list and perform the role that we’ve painstakingly crafted for you. You don’t need to try too hard to get into character. You’ll be playing yourself. We’d need you to ad-lib a bit. What you are basically going to do is call up each of the names on this list and tell them you need some cash urgently to take care of a personal emergency. You’ll tell them you need the money at a specific time over the next three hours. We have a different time for each person. You will also tell them you are sending across two of your bodyguards – Bruno, most of your friends will already know him and your new recruit here, Dave,” he pointed at Gabriel, “These two will collect the money from their home, office or any other location that’s listed on the same sheet. If you cooperate with us, we let you go in four hours flat. If not…well, ya know. We skipped the pleasantries, so let’s skip the un-pleasantaries too. So you think you wanna help us?”

Stevie realized there was little he could do in that situation. He nodded his head while pledging to take the bastards out the moment they let him walk free, if at all.

* * *

Over the next few days, all sub-teams went about their business as planned. True to his nature, Woody had remained coolly oblivious to this entire exercise. Despite all that had happened, and was happening, he continued to rely on his favorite management tool - delegation. Schneider had tried to reach him several times on the phone and in person by visiting Woodyvilla. He learnt from Angie that he was in New York on ‘business’. Instead of waiting indefinitely for his client to return, Schneider kept Angie fully informed hoping that she will keep the don updated too.

Chapter 1
8

The interns got together on Saturday to recapitulate the activities of the week and get an update on the latest status. Over the last few days, Schneider had been in touch with the individual teams on a daily, and on several occasions on an hourly, basis. But each sub-team had been functioning independently. He felt that a common meeting with everyone in one room was a good way to wrap up an intense action-packed week.

Kenny Krannert limped in on crutches with his right arm severely bruised and his left foot in a plaster. Schneider came up to him, “Ooh, that looks bad. Looks like you bailed yourself out along with your chum off that van. When does it come off?”

“The doc says it’s gotta stay for several weeks,” Kenny replied. “I should have stayed in the truck as it plunged into the water rather than jumping out. I could’ve swum out after it hit the water. But my first instinct was to get out of the truck. So I have to nurse my broken bones now and pay for trying to be a hero.”

Not wanting to leave much to chance, the team had planned for mishaps like these. A WFB truck had been tailgating Kenny since the first pickup and was at the sight of crash within minutes after the van plunged into the water.

“Don’t worry,” Schneider said. “You’ll be fine. You were probably better off jumping out. You never know. If you had stayed in, it could’ve been worse. You could’ve been trapped in. Or hit your head against the dashboard and passed out inside the water. Good thing we had our guys following you. So we could pull you out with the cash, before the cops did. Speaking of which - what about the cash?”

“It’s still being dried. The scuba guys could pull out all the bags. Some of the notes are torn. But most of it can still be used.”

“Good. Were you able to finish counting?”

“Yup. It’s about eight hundred grand.”

“That’s it?” Bullet seemed disappointed. “After eight fuckin’ stops, all you got is
eight hundred grand? Don’t you pull a fast one on us! Where’d you shove the rest of it?”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Schneider stepped in before it could get ugly. “Let’s not start pointing fingers now. That’s not what we are here for. This whole thing is running on trust. We’ve got to keep that going. It’s the glue that has kept us together so far. Let’s not start suspecting each other. And besides, don’t forget that our guys were there the minute they plunged into the water.”

He placed his hand on Kenny’s shoulders. “Not a bad start, Kenny. I guess our expectations from this gig were higher. We were probably expecting too much, but that’s good to begin with. Let’s see how the others have fared.”

Schneider looked at Hendrik, “You and your guys have been pretty busy over the last few days. You got anything that’ll cheer up this group?”

Hendrik moved in to take center stage, “We hit a few places, some good, some not so good. Residential areas, shops, museums. Seems like the concept of cash has gone out of fashion long ago. We could get about eighty grand,” he looked at Bullet expecting comments. There were none. “And we also managed to get a small gift.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small velvet cloth tied with a red thread. He twirled the contents around the thread and rolled the contents on the table. Several small diamonds rolled out glittering in the light.

“Sweeeeet!” yelled out Emiliano. “Now we are talkin’. Must be worth a small fortune.”

“Yeah, I guess the street value of these babies would be close to a million. Probably more depending on the buyer. We were lucky.” Hendrik said. His voice did not reflect the enthusiasm and the sense of awe that was around him.

“Where’d you manage to get those?” asked Alex.

“
Filthy rich guys
, remember. Wasn’t that your suggestion? A little help from Jason and his network. He’s tuned into what’s going on and where. Who has what. He’s got his little database updated. Thanks, man for all that information.”

“You are welcome, bro. Thank the invisible angel up there for showering blessings on us.”Jason looked up at the ceiling and then at Schneider. “Always gotta be grateful to the supreme powers. Right, Mr. Schneider?”

“Right you are, buddy,” Schneider said to Jason. He was pleased to see that he now had a handy guy in the team who could deliver the goods.

While Blizzard was building the list of potential recruits, Schneider had asked her to find someone who was young enough to be groomed, and mature enough to have a deep network and connections. Based on these vague instructions, Blizzard had come up with only one name. But
from the recent experience, Schneider’s apprehensions were laid to rest. He was happy to see that his gamble paid off and Blizzard had managed to find the right person for the job.

“Alex, Gabriel, I believe you guys tapped into Jason’s network and wisdom too?” Schneider asked.

“Yes,” said Alex. “We explained our plan to Jason and asked him if he could come up with any names for our assignment. He was the one who suggested Stevie McMohan’s name. On hindsight, it was a terrific recommendation indeed. Right, Gabriel?”

“You bet,” said Gabriel. “The list that we generated was too long for us to cover in a few hours. I was really hoping we could hold Stevie back for at least a day more. That would’ve given us a chance to squeeze him dry.”

“Gabriel, tell 'em what happened when you went around meeting Stevie’s contacts,” Alex suggested.

“It was totally whacked out, dude,” Gabriel excitedly played out his experience. “When we left Stevie and Alex back there, I was absolutely sure Bruno…his bodyguard, would try to raise a shit-storm the minute we were out of sight. He had all the opportunity in the world to knock the daylights outta me and split. He could’ve left his boss, the town, and moved on. The dude was too loyal, or maybe too scared of what might’ve happened if he did run away. So surprisingly and thankfully none of that happened. He followed, actually led, me like a sweet little puppy. When we met Stevie’s contacts to collect the money, I introduced myself as Stevie’s new bodyguard. Some of them wanted to know why I didn’t look like one. Standing next to Bruno the Bulldog wasn’t helping either. I said I’m an
undercover
bodyguard and took the lead only for special assignments such as this. From the looks on their faces, I don’t think anyone really bought into that story. But hearing Stevie’s voice on the phone earlier and seeing friendly ol’ Bruno at their doorstep possibly did the trick.”

“Good story, Gabriel. Now the million dollar question, or six million rather, how much did we get?”

“A cool 2.3 mil,” a beaming Gabriel announced proudly.

“Way to go, guys!” Schneider seemed pleased with the way this was going. “So that’s eight hundred grand from Kenny, eighty grand from Hendrik and an additional one million for the diamonds. That’s 1.88 million. With Alex and Gabriel’s contribution of 2.3 mil, we are now at 4.18 million dollars.”

“We were aiming for six, weren’t we?” Jamal wasn’t sure why Schneider was getting so happy. “We’ve covered everyone in the team and we are still about two mil below target.”

“Correction. There’s one more to go. She was expected to be here. She’s always on time. I’ll try her number.”

Schneider dialed Blizzard’s number a few times. “No response. I’ll try to contact her some time later. I guess we can wrap up this meeting. You guys have done good work. We’ll have a party in the evening.”

* * *

An hour later, Schneider got a call on his phone and his face lit up, partially due to the light from the phone shining directly on him.

“Hello, Blizzard! Where have you been?”

The responding voice seemed unfamiliar and a bit young for Blizzard, “Hello sir, my name is Cynthia. I’m calling from the UCLA Medical Center using a patient’s phone. There was no ID on her. I saw a few missed calls from your number and thought I should contact you to find out more about the patient.”

“Why, what happened to her?”

“Someone brought her into the hospital in the morning. She was lying on the street in a pool of blood. Apparently, a hit-and-run case. She was trying to cross the street when she got hit by a speeding car. She’s in the ICU.”

“Oh my God! Can you give me the address of the hospital? I’ll come over right now.”

* * *

“Hello dear,” a smiling Blizzard welcomed Schneider when he walked into the room. Her voice sounded very feeble and she could barely keep her eyes open. Several wires and feeder pipes were connected to her. The monitor by her side
was trending rhythmic graphs that were flickering up and down continuously. “I have to apologize for not being able to attend the meeting today.”

“I always thought you were the cautious one. What happened?” Schneider sat close to the bed. His voice was almost a whisper.

“The cautious one…” Blizzard repeated and smiled, “I try to be. Unfortunately the rest of the world isn’t as cautious,” she continued to smile as she spoke, but her eyes were now closed. “How much did the team raise?”

“That’s not important right now. Just get some rest. We’ll discuss it when you are out of here.”

“I don’t think I will, Michael. The doctor was saying I’ve lost too much blood. Now you realize why I was trying to build up my medical expense kitty.”

“Don’t say that. We’ll get you out of here soon.”

“Let’s accept the inevitable. No point in kidding myself. And besides, I have a strange feeling that my maker is finally ready to meet with me. Since he does not divulge his plans, and since he likes surprises, let’s do this now. So, how much are you at?”

“About four.”

“That’s not too shabby, huh? Less than a week for a bunch of new guys to achieve something like that.”

“Yes.”

“Hmmm…so you’d need two more million to call the project successful. You look so glum right now. Let me try to cheer you up a bit. We found quite a few slices of Salamis, or shall we say pennies lying around. What if I told you the lowly truncation logic gave us 3.6 million dollars?”

“You’re kidding!”

“Look at me carefully, Michael. Do you think the ambience in here and my current condition allows me to be funny? I’m not kidding. Now to put the icing on the cake, you also save the three percent of that amount that you owe me. I don’t think
he
accepts cash to gain entry to either of the two places – in heaven…or hell…or wherever else I might be destined for.”

Blizzard took a deep breath. Her voice became fainter. “As the account is outside the country, routing the money in might take a few days.”

Schneider placed his hand over Blizzard’s. “You’ll be ok. All you need is rest. I’ll come back to see you in the evening.”

* * *

Back at the office, Martin heard Schneider’s story and exclaimed. “Do you think she is serious about this? 3.6 million dollars in three days sounds too bizarre to be true.”

“Could be. It’s all in the digital world. The magnitude of seemingly minor actions can achieve a scale and form that’s very difficult to estimate. When you are planning something like this, it’s next to impossible to estimate exactly how much you’d end up with. The only way to verify it is to check the amount in the account number that’s listed here.

Schneider’s phone rang. “Gimme a sec,” he said to Martin. “Hello! Hi Cynthia…” Schneider did not utter any more words after that. He kept on listening, the usual glow of his face dimming each second. After a few seconds, he disconnected the call, got up from his desk, walked towards the huge glass window and stared out.

“Blizzard? Is she…,” Martin did not complete his question.

Schneider nodded and kept looking out.

“I have to meet Woody and let him know where we stand,” Schneider finally broke his silence. “I’m going over to Woodyvilla. I won’t come back to the office. I’ll talk to you if there’s anything important.” Schneider picked up his car keys, put on his suit jacket and walked out of the office.

An hour later he was sitting across Woody in his spacious hall.

“Tell me we are there, Schneider,” Woody said, lighting a cigar.

Woody had jumped straight to the point that was causing him sleepless nights.

“Yes sir, we are,” Schneider answered the question. “We were targeting six million and we ended up raising over seven and a half.”

“Fantastic!” Woody hollered. “I knew I could trust you on this. Let me see it.”

“Mr. Woody, er, I don’t have it here with me.”

“Sure sure, security risk. I understand. Where is it then? Let’s go pick it up right now. I’ll get my guards along.”

“It’s not that straight-forward, Mr. Woody. We don’t have all of it here with us right now. Some of it is outside the country in a bank account. The rest is with us…currency notes and diamonds.”

“What? I don’t understand. I thought you said you had seven and a half freakin’ big ones ready and waiting. I have
to go tomorrow with a big bag with six million in cash and hand it over. I can’t get into these details of money being in the country or outside. Dammit!” Woody banged his fist on the table and caused the ash-tray and the wine glasses on it to bounce. He was visibly upset.

“Can you not meet up tomorrow and ask for some more time? We have it all with us. It’s just a matter of pulling in our money from the overseas account.”