It ain't over until the fat lady sings, and Raissa didn't sing yesterday. Scarlett sang, but she isn't fat. She's voluptuous, and she's filled with frustration. Angry that all her hard work leads to nothing, she finally found the culprit: like many, many others, worldwide, Scarlett lost her job to a machine, to a Polish program with the name SecretAppy. She wants The Maker. She wants revenge.
Thanks to The Nerd, we have access to every agenda of everyone who uses SecretAppy, but first, we need to know «something» of our victim: hor real name or hor user name, hor address, hor phone number or hor birth date. We know nothing about The Maker of the SecretAppy app, not even if it's a man or a woman.
Scarlett is convinced that The Maker is a man. She calls him Steve Jobs, because that name reminds her of another Program Maker, and because of all the disappeared jobs.
Nowhere on the Internet can we find any information about The Maker. Anyone interested in SecretAppy can purchase the app in every web-shop or platform for phone applications. You can download the app for free, but it doesn't work until you transfer the required amount, with the ID of your phone or computer in the description. After receipt of the money, you'll get a message with the code to activate the account for the next month on the device you paid for. The bank account, the email address and the home page of SecretAppy all belong to SecretAppy Ltd, a company in the Caribbean, which capital consists of bearer-shares, with no registered name of the owner, like banknotes. No known associates, no employees, no office, nothing. The address is a P.O.-box in a city called Petionville. The Maker of SecretAppy is one big secret.
I try to convince Scarlett to stop this mission impossible: "That Steve Jobs of yours is a psychopath or a paranoid. If The Nerd can't find out who's behind an organization, nobody can. We'll have to give up. Some secrets are so well hidden that we don't even know where to dig."
Scarlett is more creative in finding solutions: "I've got an answer to each of your questions: it's money. SecretAppy costs 450 euros per month. There are about 1 million users of the app. What would you do if your bank account grew with 450 million euros per month, while your SecretAppy virtual secretary did all the work? If I had those millions, I would live in old Monte Carlo. That's where you should look: for a new billionaire who bathes in champagne and buys European football clubs. Start with the client list of the Private Yacht Clubs, most expensive yacht first, and match it with the list of Private Plane Owners International. Better: find out who ordered a new Space Shuttle. That's our man."
"What makes you so sure it's a man?"
"It's software. Men are better with software, mathematics and technology. Women are better with language and have better social skills. It has to be a man. Steve Jobs. And of course: women are warm, friendly and caring. We wouldn't even think of making others lose their job for our personal profit."
"Like Raissa. She's a woman."
"That was not financial profit; that was ambition. Too much power in one hand always leads to disasters. It wasn't her fault that people gave her so much power. But I don't want to discuss politics; I want to find Steve Jobs. Did you already analyse those lists?"
"We won't learn much by looking at a list of buyers of planes, trains and automobiles, but I admire your superb thinking: we should follow the money. How do company owners save income taxes? They order the company to pay for everything more expensive than a middle-class car. The company behind all this is SecretAppy Ltd., based in the Caribbean. We also have the number of the bank account of that company. We could ask The Nerd to check that account for big purchases. Perhaps, we might trace Steve Jobs when we see payments to a plane factory or a shipyard."
I prepare a message and send it to The Nerd. Then we wait. It will probably take a while to figure out some payments between 1 million monthly receipts of 450 euros.
A sudden beep wakes me up. It's a message from The Nerd, and hardly 1 minute after I send the request. For Scarlett, he makes even the most impossible mission possible.
Scarlett is also hopeful: "That's what I call backup. It must be quite a lot of data. Your friend has to be a genius."
I read the message aloud: «There are roughly 10 million payments per month, leaving that account. Do you think I'm crazy? If you want answers, start asking the right questions.»
"That's it. We're done. No more leads. Even our genius needs something to work with.", I conclude.
Scarlett and I, we've done what we could, but sometimes one has to look reality in the face and accept that you can't win them all.
Scarlett is not ready yet to face reality: "I can't believe it. We're so close. There has to be something we've overlooked."
"We've looked at everything. This man is smart. Don't forget, he developed this application all by himself. If it would have been easy, there would have been dozens of big companies now, trying to push him out of the market."
Scarlett is overjoyed: "He's the first one."
"There will be others soon, my dear. When big companies find out how he did it, they will copy his concept, improve it, and sell it for half the price. Competition is always a matter of the Survival of the Fittest. In the end, the richest always wins. Learn the lesson and accept there's nothing you can do."
Scarlett grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me like she wants to wake me up from a bad dream: "He's THE FIRST ONE! He's the first one who worked with SecretAppy. He can't make 10 million transfers each month without using the software himself! Steve designed SecretAppy to do everything others need office staff for. His Caribbean Ltd did not have any employees on the payroll because Steve uses SecretAppy. I'm sure he's client number one in the database-table Clients. He's The Maker. He's the first one, Red. We've found him."
Suddenly the light in Scarlett's eyes shines for me too: he's the first one, the first client of his own application, the client in the database-table Clients with ID = 1.
"You're a genius, Scarlett. Let's see if you're right."
Quickly, I send a message to The Nerd: «What's the user-name of the SecretAppy client-record with client-id = 1?»
Also quickly, I receive a reply: «Me.»
«How can you be the first user of SecretAppy? A week ago, you didn't even know it existed.»
«No, Dumbo. The username of client-id = 1 is «Me». All the other fields are empty.»
«Please check if that client does 10 million payments with his bank account per month. We suspect him to be The Maker of SecretAppy, the President of the Caribbean Ltd that owns the bank account I just sent you to check. Please confirm. If we're right, Scarlett will probably fly to Luxembourg and break into your secret dungeon to kiss you.»
«Account confirmed. Identity «Me» has password «screwthemall», all in lowercase. I prefer a kiss on my lips and not on my cheek, by the way.»
Scarlett wonders: "Screw the mall? Does he hate shopping?"
"Screw Them All. Your little Stevie hates society. He invented SecretAppy to destroy the world as we know it, a world in which people have the right to work for their money, their living and their future. He did all this on purpose. You're right with your revenge, Scarlett. Your Steve Jobs is probably the biggest criminal in the history of humanity. The secret Easter egg of his SecretAppy is an H-bomb that he laid under our global economy, to destroy it completely. But first, pay your debt to The Nerd. I'll put my spiPhone on video-mode and you have to kiss it, really sexy, lustful, like…"
I don't have to explain to Scarlett how to kiss. When I see how she winks at the little camera, how she purses her lips, how she generously throws her sweetest and sexiest looks and smiles to the phone… I turn away, afraid I'll regret for the rest of my life not being 47 years old, not having the age and the position to fall in love with this fantastic woman who can make every man mad whenever she wants. I don't envy The Nerd for getting this exclusive video. I pity him, in his secret dungeon, condemned to a life-sentence of work. Scarlett is out of reach forever. He'll have to live with the illusion that she might love him, if only his life would be different…
"Done. Send it to your friend, quickly, because we have a job to do. We'll have to make an appointment with Steve Jobs.", Scarlett says.
That's not as easy as it looks. Steve Jobs has protected the procedures. New users of the app always have to pick a username that consists of at least 6 characters. They need to register with an existing email address and a correct phone number for contact. The problem is… he will never call his own phone number or send himself an email. He didn't enter his Client-record via the registration form that every new client has to fill when she wants to download the app; he entered his «Me»-record directly into the database. There's no email address. There's no phone number. How do we make an appointment?
Once again, The Nerd helps us out: «SecretAppy Ltd works with a range of phone numbers, for all the automatic calls. They all start with the same 8 digits. The last 2 are different, but I don't see 00. The Maker might have reserved that 00-number for himself.»
I jot down the number and hand it over to Scarlett, who makes the call. When she puts down the phone, she says: "The number is connected to an answering machine. It says: «We are not available right now, not in the near future and not in the upcoming ten years. Please don't call us again.» Steve trained his personal secretary well."
"Let's try to access Steve Jobs' SecretAppy-account."
The log-in works, but we get the same shiploads of insignificant data as The Nerd found on the bank account: thousands of small deals, appointments and agreements. Millions of details. While the owner resides on the backside of the moon, SecretAppy runs the company. We have no idea where to look, or what to look for. A needle in a haystack would be a lot easier to find (with a strong magnet, for example).
Even Scarlett loses her optimism now: "This is how the elite makes sure it can stay where it is, on the top of its ivory tower. These tycoons have men who do the work, women to please them, systems of instructions so nobody can access them, they have their chain of supplies towards their made-up King-size bed in the Seventh Heaven, and they probably buy their drugs from unidentified little runners on little motorbikes who can not be traced when they get caught. I guess most of the payments The Nerd saw on the bank account are for local shops and handymen in the Caribbean. We were foolish to think we can find him here in Poland, or even in Krakow. Our Stephen Jobs probably bought his own island, where he lives from his royalties like a royalty. It would have been better to name him Stephen King, the Nightmare Creator."
Scarlett has an analytic mind. I admire how she thinks about everything, even about the simple fact that our man will probably do some shopping now and then. Everybody leaves an electronic trail. He might live safely in the Caribbean, but we can screw up his activities in Poland. That's something we can work with…
I do the rest of my thinking aloud, so Scarlett can add the missing info: "What's the most important bank for local independent enterprises, here in Krakow?"
"It's the same bank Treesome works with: the Malopolski Business Bank, the bank of our dear friend Mister Oglethorpe, who finances our current mission."
"That's good news. Do you know the first… eight characters of the IBAN of Treesome's bank account with the Malopolski? These characters are the same for every client of the office the bank belongs to. With that code, we can check SecretAppy's bank account. I'm curious to find out if they do business with local Krakow companies."
Scarlett writes the full number down and then crosses out the last ten characters: "This is the code. Why?"
I text the code to The Nerd with the request to email me the query of the outgoing payments of the last month, from the SecretAppy bank account to any bank accounts that start with this number.
I explain to Scarlett: "Imagine Mister Jobs lives on an island in the Caribbean, or near the Philippines, or that he has his own space station in an orbit around Earth? What are we going to do? We don't want to know where we can find him; we want to find him when he's close to where we are. We want to find out that he does his shopping at the supermarket down the street, or that he buys his petrol around the corner, or that he pays the rent of his flat to a local landlord. Perhaps, we find his mother or his friend. When we don't find any payments to local enterprises in and around Krakow, we give up. But when we do find payments…"
Scarlett's smile comes back again: "Smart thinking."
"You gave me the idea."
And The Nerd gives me the info: an email links to a spreadsheet with 32 lines. I read out the names of the receiving parties: "Friday, the 11th of August: Mrs Podolski and Glik Air Transport. Friday, the 18th of August: Mrs Podolski and Glik Air Transport. Friday, the 25th of August. Mrs Podolski and Glik Air Transport. Friday, the 1st of September: Mrs Podolski and Glik Air Transport. Now let's check if we find Mrs Podolski and Glik Air Transport in Steve's Me-account of SecretAppy."
We do. A few keystrokes later, we find weekly messages in code to Mrs Podolski, things like «butter, ham, carrots, apples, beer, but not that filthy English brand you bought last week.»
"It's a shopping list. We have our supply line. Once a week, Mrs Podolski does Steve's shopping. I bet Mr Glik delivers them."
Scarlett wonders: "And where do we find Mrs Podolski? There might be over one hundred Mrs's Podolski here in Krakow and surroundings."
"We don't care what Steve Jobs ordered Mrs Podolski to buy for him. We want to know where Mr Glik Air Transport delivered it; that's where we'll find Steve. Hopefully, we find Mr Glik at the Krakow Airfield. The best news is: the next delivery would be on Friday, the 8th of September. That's today. Let's ask Mr Glik if he can give us a lift."
* * *
The airfield, Krakow Airport John Paul II, lies 11 kilometres east of Krakow. With the shuttle train from the centre, we arrive there in 17 minutes. The airport is mainly for commercial flights to business cities and holiday destinations, but it's also the home of some companies that handle private flights or house the private planes of the elite. We enter the spectacular triangular glass-and-steel main building where, after a little asking around, a friendly desk clerk explains how we can find the office of Glik Air Transport in the cargo area.
That was the easy part.
The difficult part is persuading Mister Pawel Glik (the owner and only employee of the company, according to the desk clerk) to bring us to a man whose name we don't even know. Well… Everything is difficult when you don't have a plan. We have a plan. A simple plan. A plan that might work.
"Good afternoon. Are you Mister Pawel Glik? We're the passengers the client informed you about.", Scarlett says while she shakes hands with a strong, tall man in a blue uniform.
The friendly smile with the not-understanding surprise on Pawel's face is exactly as planned: "Passengers?"
"Shhh. Not so loud. You are Pawel Glik, aren't you?"
"Yes. And who are you, Miss?"
"No names, please. You know the drill. In certain… circles… it's best if we don't know each other. We fulfil certain… desires of the client. He pays well. There's something extra for you too. Didn't you see his message? He sent you a text message, telling you to wait for our arrival, so we can come on the same trip as the groceries. The password is: Mrs Podolski."
"Mrs Podolski? How do you know my sister-in-law? How do you know about the groceries?"
Scarlett loses her patience: "We don't know. We just do what we were told to do. When people want sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, they seldom glue their desires on airport billboards. They try to keep it quiet, only give minimal information on a need-to-know basis. We are the merchandise. You are the transport. The client does the payment. Is there anything else we should know? Check your messages."
Pawel takes his mobile phone out of his pocket and realises why he didn't read the message so far: "When I'm flying, I always switch the phone to the aeroplane-mode. I forgot to turn it back to normal after this morning's flight."
He finds the message we've sent him with SecretAppy half an hour ago, the one with the text «Two passengers, last minute, to be brought to me urgently. Double fee.»
Pawel doesn't understand: "But… I've already delivered the groceries this morning. The next trip is next week."
Scarlett takes his doubts away: "Did you check your bank account? Why is it that the double fee has arrived and we didn't?"
Pawel Glik does some more fingertipicallies on his phone, where he finds the receipt of both the fee for this morning's delivery and the second payment for the double amount, the one we ordered SecretAppy to do for us: "It looks like everything is fine. I will need fifteen to twenty minutes to prepare the plane. You can wait here or you can come aboard and wait there."
Scarlett knows how to spread her charms. She gives Pawel her awesome smile, moves the tips of her fingers slowly over his sturdy jaw, all the way to the top of his chin and asks: "Is there a tall and handsome purser on this airline who knows how to treat a pretty lady like me?"
Pawel turns red, stutters: "There is a mini-bar on board for self-service, ma'am."
"And no special treatments for VIPs? I love men in uniforms, pilots most of all…"
Pawel is now so confused that I worry if he'll be able to fly the plane: "I'm a married man, ma'am. If you like, I'll call you when one of my clients wants the service of a stewardess, but I'm not interested in the service of whores… I mean… I wouldn't dare to share the lady that my client wants for company. I want cheques, not sex."
Scarlett is having fun: "A whore? Me? The client doesn't want me for my body. My little friend over there provides oral pleasure and similar services. I supply the chemicals, for clients who prefer a less literal way of «getting high» than a pilot…" She opens the left part of her jacket and gives Pawel a sneak preview of the merchandise, from needles and pins to pills and powders. Then she closes her coat and returns to her business-like behaviour: "Okay. Prepare the plane. The mini-bar with self-service will do."
* * *
Twenty-five minutes later, we take off. We go up to 10.000 feet, roughly 3 kilometres, high enough to see the big picture and low enough to see the most important details. We fly south, over low mountains, lots of forest with a village, a river, and here and there a road.
"What are we looking for? A castle on a mountaintop? A monastery with barbed wire fences? An abandoned training camp for Internet terrorists?", Scarlett asks.
"My guess would be something mobile with luxury. If you have your breakfast delivered by plane because you're capable of destroying the international economy, you might like the possibility of living in some sort of hotel you can take with you. It might be a big camper or perhaps even a lorry with a trailer, adapted for living and working in it."
Scarlett says: "It looks like we're going to cross the border. Our man might feel safer in another country, but he doesn't speak the language well enough to do his shopping there, so he has it delivered by someone he understands."
The pilot interrupts our little chat: "That lake over there, that's Orava Lake, near the barrage of Námestovo. That's Slovakia, by the way, not Poland, so I hope you're not going to draw any attention to the police and cause an international scandal with all those drugs you're carrying. The client lives on one of those yachts down there."
I look down and see about twenty boats: "Which one?"
Pawel lifts his shoulders: "The white one."
"They're all white."
"I don't care. I just drop the load in a floatable container and return to the airport."
I look over my shoulder at Scarlett. She's struggling with a light-blue overall and throws me a smaller one in orange and yellow: "Put it on. It's cold outside."
"Outside?" Against all logic, I put the suit on.
"Did you think this plane will land on the lake? Have you seen an airfield around? We'll have to jump.", Scarlett explains.
I peek outside again. "Jump? I know, I wanted this job, and living on the edge isn't always a guarantee to grow old, but… Wouldn't it be better to find an airfield, land, and hire a boat to cross the lake?"
Scarlett gives me her irresistible smile: "Now we're so close, I don't want to risk our man's escape. Didn't parachute jumping form part of your training?"
"We learnt it on the day I visited the dentist with an emergency. I'm not really jumping with joy to do this, Scarlett. If we think it over, I'm sure we'll find a better way. And, also important: we don't know which yacht belongs to Steve Jobs. If we jump and land on the wrong boat, we won't get a second chance. Landing on an airfield and hiring a water taxi is much better."
Scarlett closes the zipper of the suit, clips on the parachute pack, and looks outside through the window. It takes her about five seconds to decide: "Do you see the second one on the right, on the left side of that big one with the orange flag? That's where our man lives."
"How do you know that?"
"How do you recognise a piece of shit, Red? There's a halo of flies around it."
I look again. Eight dots surround Scarlett's target, like a halo around The Creator's head (office). Eight hardly visible black points divide the perfect circle around the boat into eight different sections of electronic surveillance, on the surface and possibly also under water. Our Steve Jobs is a paranoid maniac. He's prepared against attacks by water taxi. He'll probably have armed guards on board too.
I have to stop Scarlett: "He'll probably have armed guards on board too."
Scarlett holds up the backpack with my parachute, puts my arms through the straps, and clicks the securities on their places: "That man is paranoid. Guards can be bought off, or they need a holiday, or they're on sick leave for 15 weeks because they want to have a baby. Our friend Stevie will not take the chance. Electronic brains run his company, and electronic devices protect his safety. He filled the lake with deadly sharks against divers, and for the rest, he depends on electronics; they always work as you program them. We can't attack him by boat, not even by submarine. His radar will locate us and his weapon system will blow us out of the water before we're close enough to read the name of the boat. There's only one way: we jump on his neck, from 10.000 feet high."
I hesitate: "I don't like this, Scarlett…"
Scarlett shows me her kindest smile and her strongest female intuition: "You're afraid…"
I look down; 10.000 feet of cold air and a hard ground below it. I've never jumped out of a flying aeroplane before. I'm not sure if I can operate a parachute. I'm not sure if I want to die like this: "Yes. I'm afraid."
"Fear is a useless emotion, Red. You should trust me. We can do this. Together, we can do anything. I'm the best partner any spy can wish for."
"You are, but…"
"But what? No but. Except for one big black butt, the one you promised to follow, wherever she goes. You've promised to help me, to protect me. Do you remember the moment we first met? You told me: «Fear is a useless emotion.» You told me to change, to overcome my fears, to trust you.
» You asked me if I wanted to become a whore and I said no, but I became Roxanne and seduced a gay banker. You asked me if I wanted to sell drugs. I said no, but I became Pearl $ Buck and sold a drugs distribution plan to a club of investors. You asked me if I wanted a gun to shoot people and rob their money. I said no, but I kidnapped Adam Kowalski, my former boss, and even tortured the Polish Minister of Social Affairs. Dressed up as a nurse, I stole an ambulance. I danced with the First Lady. I robbed the platinum credit card of a banker. A junkie's stiletto scratched my throat. Nothing stopped me. And now I'm here, standing in a hi-jacked plane, ready to jump down onto the deck and the neck of a notorious criminal, 10.000 feet below me. I want my revenge. That man stole my life and my future. You've made me do everything I've never dreamed of, and now we're so close… Do you want me to take this last step by myself? I will. I'm not afraid to do it. Fear is a useless emotion, Red…"
"Right now, fear makes my underwear wet, slides along my thigh, drips between my knees and sobs in my shoes, Scarlett. It doesn't smell right…"
"Do you remember that story you told me, Red? I was the chicken, and you were the sparrow. You promised to teach me how to fly. Well, here we are, ready to fly. Who's the chicken now?"
Scarlett's logic makes it all so easy, but somehow, jumping out of this plane doesn't seem easy or logical at all. There's no time to think about alternatives. The plane has turned and flies right above the group of yachts now. If we don't act now…
Scarlett acts. She opens the door, takes my hand and shouts: "If you don't want to come, I can go alone. Or I can hold your hand and we'll jump together."
I answer with a confident smile. I hope it's confident because I don't feel confident at all: "I wouldn't miss it for the world. You go first. I'll cover you."
Scarlett smiles back, takes one step back for speed, and dives through the open door: "Geronimooooo!"
I have no time to think. I have to jump. I have to follow her. She might get into trouble. Or… I might get into trouble, and then I'll need Scarlett to help me out.
I put the goggles on, take a deep breath, and jump forward.