TUNA LIFE (34 page)

And he was there for different reason anyway; he was there to make a scene.

He glanced up at the camera, strategically placed above his head, raised his glass and lipped demonstratively: “Na zdorovie.” He had heard the phrase in an American movie once, when some Russian guy made a toast.

He would have preferred to say fuck off in Russian, but he didn’t have the vocabulary. It didn’t matter though. He knew Roman would get the message: the pestering journalist had returned.

Scott Davis had been unsuccessful in securing an interview with Roman, the guy preferred to stay in the background, to lurk in the shadows. If the man didn’t want to be interviewed when his company, Tuna Life, was the bright shining star on the tech-sky, what chance would Scott have to see him now when the once-shining star was about to fizzle out? The question was how big the star had been. Small stars turned into white dwarfs when they died. Relatively harmless. Big stars however, turned into black holes. Black holes that would swallow everything around them. Nothing escaped. Not even light.

Scott believed he was about to witness the beginning of the death of a big star when he heard about the problems at Tuna Life. And he hoped the fall of Tuna Life would pull down the rest of Roman Bezhrev’s empire, crush it until there was nothing left.

And when that happened, Scott would be there, raising a full glass of red wine, saying:
na zdorovie
, motherfucker.

“Can I help you?” one of the Crazy Kangaroo bouncers asked, sitting down next to Scott.

“No thanks, I’m fine,” Scott replied. The bouncer had a neck any bull would have envied, and the blood vessels on his over-dimensioned biceps looked like they were threatening to burst any second. The bouncer placed a hand on Scott’s knee. “I think you’ve had enough, friend. It’s time to call it a night.” He gently squeezed his hand around Scott’s knee.

Scott Davis turned to face the bouncer; and without any warning, he head-butted him in the face. Even though the music was quite loud, Scott could clearly hear the sound of the bouncer’s nose breaking. Scott rose, and finished his beer in one drink. On the floor, the big Russian bouncer was squirming, his hands frantically attempting to stop the flood of blood pumping from his nose.

“Tell Roman I’ll be at the Southport Workers Club tomorrow at noon.” Then Scott simply walked out of Crazy Kangaroo. It was the last time they would ever see him there, he thought as he saw the bartender with the eagle tattoo rush past him to get to the injured bouncer. She shot Scott a horrified look as she passed him.

Scott figured Roman would show up at the Southport Workers Club. Russians were big on honour, and he had just humiliated one of Roman’s men. Probably just an unimportant minion, but still.

If Roman didn’t show up, Scott would have to come up with a different plan. But he had made his point.

Roman was going down.

72

“Frank, where have you been?” Andrew asked.

“Not important. We need to talk. Can you meet me in Byron Bay in two hours?”

“Yes, of course,” Andrew replied, before quickly checking his watch. He assessed he would have sufficient time to stop by the apartment. Someone had used the Tuna Life app to access one of the missing girls’ mobiles, the girl who was presumed dead after her arm and foot had washed ashore at the Spit. That very same person had also accessed the mobile to the reporter Scott Davis, the colleague of the reporter who had made the outrageous claim that there was a possible serial killer on the Gold Coast. If Frank was responsible for the Tuna Life virus, if Frank was the one who had checked those persons’ devices, then Andrew needed to be extremely careful.

Perhaps Frank had an explanation for what he had done, for why he had done it. But for now, Andrew had to keep open the possibility that Frank could have something to do with the missing girls. It wasn’t that big of a stretch. Frank was after all a wanted fugitive, a criminal hacker on the run from Interpol. Everything he had told Andrew so far had been lies.

Andrew had to be prepared for the possibility that Frank was a very dangerous man.

But what did he have to lose?

Andrew had lost his job, he was in debt to Roman, and would most likely lose all his shares in Tuna Life. Andrew’s life was ruined. He would have to take the chance that Frank wasn’t a serial killer.

Two and a half hours later they stood in front of Frank’s house in Nimbin, a two-story house with mountain views. The house lay sheltered from the road, and none of the neighbours had any views of the main house, which was situated on a five-acre property.

“After you,” Frank said, holding the door open for Andrew.

Andrew had been asking around in Nimbin, asking if anyone had seen Frank. He had believed Frank travelled to Nimbin to purchase marijuana. He had been an idiot. Of course Frank hadn’t been buying his stash in Nimbin – the man spent two hours making French fries – the quality of what was offered in Nimbin was of course not up to his standard. The man grew his own shit.

Andrew also understood what question he should have been asking when looking for Frank. He should just have asked who was using up all the broadband capacity in the area. The guy was a geek through and through.

“Do you want something to drink?” Frank asked, as they entered the kitchen. Andrew nodded. “Wouldn’t mind a beer.”

They hadn’t been able to talk much, during the half an hour the drive from Byron had taken. Frank had explained there had been a reason for him being at that conference for start-up companies at the Hilton Hotel. He hadn’t been there to find any partners for his unfinished product; he had been there to observe Roman Bezhrev. Roman had however been a no-show. When Frank noticed Andrew and Ken mulling in the corner of the room, an idea had struck him. If he started a company, and got Roman to invest in it, then he would be able to get very close to Roman. And that was his only goal: To get as close to Roman as humanly possible. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer, as Sun Tzu so wisely had written.

“So Ken and I were only accidental idiots? We were chosen because we happened to be in the same room as you?”

Frank shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry. I’m sorry if I’ve used you Andrew, and I understand if you feel anger towards me.”

“Anger?” asked Andrew. “Who gave you the right to play with my life like this? I’m ruined, finished. My life is over. I’ve become the laughingstock of Australia: The accountant who suddenly was worth a hundred million, only to lose it all. The accountant who fooled everyone, who lied about everything.” Andrew took a big drink of his beer. “I can’t even go to the grocery store anymore. I can hear them laughing behind my back, making fun of me.”

“I’m sorry, Andrew. But I’m not the one you should be angry at. I didn’t force you out of the company, I didn’t lend you money and then freeze all your shares.”

“No, you didn’t. But if you hadn’t tricked me into starting a company with you, then nothing of this would have happened. I wouldn’t have known how it was to be worth a hundred million, just to lose it all. I wouldn’t have known how it was to be respected and admired, just to have it all taken away. You are the reason it all happened. You are the one who set the wheels in motion.”

Frank nodded. “I’ll give you that. And that is also the reason I contacted you, Andrew. I’ll give you a second chance. A second chance to get filthy rich, or a second chance to get back at Roman. You can’t have both though. You have to choose what is most important to you. Money or revenge.”

“What have you been planning?” Andrew asked.

“Before I tell you what I’ve planned, I need to explain to you why I’m doing this. You need to understand my motives. That’s important to me,” Frank said.

“I think I already know.”

“Oh?” Frank said, unconvinced. “Please enlighten me.”

“I believe Roman took something from you a long time ago, something much more important than money, something that enabled you to not care about losing almost a hundred million when Roman forced you out of Tuna Life. I believe Roman is the reason you got convicted to thirty years in prison for hacking the CIA. I believe Roman stole thirty years of your life.”

“Almost,” Frank said. “Almost. But not entirely correct. It wasn’t my life Roman stole, it was my daughter’s.”

“Your daughter?”

“My daughter Heidi. She disappeared from the Gold Coast back in 2008.”

“And you believe Roman is responsible, that he somehow was involved in the disappearance of your daughter?” Andrew was sceptical. He had discovered that Frank had hidden a virus inside the source code of the Tuna Life app, and that the virus had been used to access the mobiles of Marissa Soo, one of the missing girls, and Scott Davis, the colleague of the reporter writing about the case. Had Frank somehow managed to figure out what Andrew knew? Had he figured out that Andrew suspected he could be a serial killer?

“I don’t believe. I know,” Frank replied. “Heidi went backpacking in 2008. In just five months she managed to visit most of Asia. She was a tough girl. Headstrong. She worked in bars and restaurants to make money for her excursions. She stayed at the most run-down hostels, and ate all the local cuisine.” Frank laughed, before continuing. “It wasn’t easy to be her dad, you know, to always stay in the shadows. Everything just because I did something stupid when I was young.”

Andrew considered the statement. Frank had tried to be a father to his daughter, while being on the run from Interpol. What a destiny, to always be hiding, to not see his daughter grow up. That was why he had accessed Marissa Soo’s and Scott Davis’ mobiles. He had been searching for a link to Roman.

“Did you have much contact with your daughter, when she grew up?” Andrew asked.

Frank stared at the floor tiles. “She was the apple of my eye. I never could visit her in the Netherlands. It was too dangerous. But sometimes Heidi’s mum would take her to see me, wherever I was hiding at the time. It didn’t happen very often. More in the later years. I spent a whole month with her in Thailand back in 2008. Just before she travelled to Australia. It was the last I ever saw of her.”

Frank Geitner wiped a tear away from his left cheek, and looked straight into Andrew’s eyes. “When she left, I offered to give her money, but she refused. She enjoyed making her own money. She enjoyed the experience. ‘A five-star hotel is the same wherever you are in the world, dad,’ she said. She wanted to experience the real world. To sponge up experiences that would last her a lifetime.”

Andrew nodded. He knew where she was coming from.

“I worried sick when Heidi travelled around by herself. She had lost her mum to cancer six months prior, and was still struggling with the grief. She only had me left. And I was too big of a coward to go to Australia with her. I was afraid of getting caught. I was afraid of the strict border controls.”

Frank wiped another tear away. “I thought she would be safe here. Australia, a wealthy country, one of the safest places in the world.”

He shook his head.

“What happened?”

“She just disappeared. After having travelled up and down the Queensland coast for a month, she decided to make the Gold Coast her base. It was limited what sort of work she could get on her tourist visa, but she managed to do everything from harvesting bananas to trawling for prawns. She also got some gigs at bars and clubs. The money she earned she used on excursions. Then one day, she just disappeared. No warning. Nothing. It was as if she just vanished into thin air.” Frank had to pull himself together to be able to finish the story. It looked like he was on the brink of collapsing.

“In the beginning it was worst not to know, not to know whether she was dead or alive. It also took me a substantial amount of time to enter Australia. Australia is an island, a civilised island. And they don’t make it easy to get in.”

“Why are you so certain your daughter is dead?” Andrew asked.

“I’ve been studying Roman for years, Andrew. Wherever he goes he leaves a trail of death and destruction. I don’t believe Heidi is still alive. I know she is dead.”

“I’m sorry, but I still don’t understand how you can be so certain that Roman is responsible for your daughter’s disappearance.”

“Heidi had just started working for one of his nightclubs when she disappeared. When I started my investigation I was met with a wall of silence. Nobody dared talk. But I soon understood that not everything was as it should be with Roman’s nightclubs.”

“Continue,” Andrew said.

“The nightclubs are only a front. Roman has no interest in running nightclubs – he is interested in the clientele they can offer. Roman is the largest distributor of drugs in Queensland. More drugs are being sold at his clubs than all the other venues combined. Roman controls the drug traffic on the coast.”

Andrew didn’t know what to believe. Was Roman a drug kingpin? Was Tuna Life’s biggest shareholder a drug dealer?

“Why on Earth would Roman be dealing drugs? Why risk everything he has built, why risk all the wealth he has accumulated in the mobile app industry by dealing drugs?”

“I believe Tuna Life’s success came as a surprise to Roman. None of the other companies he has funded has succeeded in a similar fashion. They were mere instruments for money laundering, vehicles he could use to shift money between himself and his Russian drug partners.”

“So we were only a front? Tuna Life was only a front for a drug dealer?”
Frank nodded. “And then we suddenly became an overnight success. And when we became a success, every other company Roman had put money into was suddenly seen as a new potential Tuna Life. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. None of the companies made any money, but no one would risk not investing in the next rocket.”

“So you believe your daughter discovered something. That she saw something she wasn’t supposed to see at one of Roman’s nightclubs. That she was killed because of what she saw?”

“Yes,” Frank answered. “There is no doubt. This reporter from the Gold Coast Times, Mark Moss I believe his name is, he discovered the same as I, and he is now in a coma at the hospital. It isn’t accidental that all these girls have disappeared from the coast over the last five years. It isn’t accidental that it all started shortly after Roman moved to the Gold Coast. There is only one thing that reporter is wrong about. Roman isn’t any normal serial killer. I don’t believe he kills for lust. I believe he kills for money.”