25 Bad To Worse
A thick silence descended in the room.
What could be heard only was the deep heavy breathing coming from both the two males in the room, and the third male on the other side of the phone. It lasted for a full minute.
“Two billion dollars? That would create significant damage to the company. Sandro finally spoke.
Ewan was too rippled with shock and anger at the turn of events.
Suarez concurred. “I told them, Mr. Sandro, but they threatened to hack into our storage unit if
we don’t comply.”
Ewan inhaled sharply. Things were going from bad to worse. The only way to turn the tides was to convince the hackers.
“Can you patch the call to me? Can I speak with them?”
“Hold on, sir.”
A shuffling of network and feet.
“Here sir, you are patched in.”
Ewan took his lips in, and centered his mind. He was talking to his attackers.
“Hello, I’m Ewan Giacometti, CEO of the Giacometti company. Can you state your name, and why you are attacking my company?”
No response greeted him, except static.
Ewan looked at Sandro. His assistant and friend shrugged his shoulders.
“Were you hired by Athena Caddell and Zane Patterson?”
Silence greeted him again.
Ewan was angry now. “Why did you agree to the transfer of call when you won’t speak!”
Static greeted him still.
He decided to wait it out. He didn’t have to wait long.
“You are a bad man, and you will pay for your crimes.”
He heard some struggling in the background, even cusses, before the line went dead.
But that wasn’t what stopped Ewan cold.
What made him immobile for a minute was the voice he had heard. It was a child’s voice.
Was that a tactic of the hacker to disarm him?
“Ewan, I think you should call Zane’s father. Let’s hear what he would say. These people are bent on toying with us
Ewan nodded soberly to Sandro’s advice. He was still hung up on the voice that was familiar, yet his mind was too full to remember where he had heard it.
25 Bad To Worse
Howbeit, he grabbed his phone and dialed a number.
Zane’s father answered immediately. “I just wanted to call you now, Ewan. Come to my house as soon as possible!”
26 An Advice
Ewan watched absentmindedly as the butler kept a tray of cookies and tea on the table.
Opposite him was Zane’s father, Herbert, reading a newspaper.
Ewan didn’t bother to ask how the older man had gotten his hands on today’s paper, when it was barely six a.m. The man had his ways.
What grasped his attention however, was the headlines of the first page.
“Ewan Giacometti at the brink of deterioration?”
Ewan balled his fists. If the news was already on papers, then everyone in the city would see it soon, everyone would know of his incompetence.
His fists flexed and then relaxed. At this rate he won’t be surprised if his heart gave up on him.
He let himself inhale and exhale softly. This too shall pass away.
Then he continued checking out the paper. It was in the process that he discovered the owners of the paper. It was the KN press!
Why has he never seen the paper before? He wondered, taking note of the special effects of the pages and the quality of its paper.
It was unlike whatever paper he had seen and read. How come he has never seen it, not to mention read it, before?
“How did you get this paper, Uncle Herbert?”
Herbert peered at Ewan from the apex of the paper.
He held Ewan’s gaze for a while, and then shook his head. “Ewan, you really have to undo whatever wrong you did”
Ewan stifled his response. He hadn’t done anything wrong!
Herbert closed the papers and kept it close to him. “The papers are rarely available. But whenever it is, they are distributed to the company’s subscribers.”
Ewan couldn’t help the widening of his eyes. “Subscribers? What does that mean?”
He has never heard of subscribing to a newspaper. Blog, yes! But not newspapers! How’s that
even created?
“It means that some slots are
teated every month for whoever wants to join the subscription- for people who are not satisfied with their online website. Those, whose requests are accepted, are sent copies in the morning, whenever there’s a release?
Ewan wondered if he had been under a rock all this while. How could he not have known about this opportunity?
Did Sandro know about this? He didn’t think so. But he would have to ask.
26 An Advien
“Who delivers the papers? Isn’t it too early?
Herbert bent forward and took a cookie from the plate, also collecting a cup of sweetened tea. “No one knows. We just see the paper at our doorstep.
Ewan’s hand suspended in the air–he had been about to collect a cookie from the plate. He hated too much mystery. “And no one has dared to stay on the watch?”
Herbert bit into his cookie. “No one knows when they are coming. They are very secretive. But I heard a gossip once, of a certain rich man who had studied their arrival patterns, and had set up watches for them for an entire week…”
Herbert paused, and took a sip from his cup.
“And then?” Ewan asked, when Herbert showed no sign of continuing the story.
“He did see them, the delivery agents, but he never spoke about it, not after his company went under. No one else bothered to do the same after that. We just renew our subscriptions and collect our papers whenever they come.”
That was the full confirmation Ewan needed. The company was surely working hand in hand with the hackers.
Ewan ate a biscuit, but it won’t go down. He drank tea, to help the swallow process. He was restless. This situation was perilous.
“So, you don’t know them? You don’t have much information on them?”
Herbert shook his head. “As I said, they are mysterious.”
“How much is their subscription? What’s their website? Can you send the address to me?”
Herbert nodded, picked his phone, and immediately sent a text, so he wouldn’t forget. “Their subscription is twenty thousand dollars a month. I’m not sure they would accept you though, seeing as they have a vendetta with you.”
Ewan’s hand hovered over his screen as he struggled to process the name he was seeing on the screen, and the amount Herbert had just called for him.
In the end, the latter won. “Twenty thousand dollars for a monthly subscription? Where’s that done?! Are they reporting the end of the world?!”
Herbert broke out in boisterous laughter. “Calm down, Ewan. You will understand why when you read their papers?
Ewan furrowed his eyebrows and stared at the finely decorated and orderly paper.
Sure, the paper’s design might cost a lot, but was the news in there worth that amount in a
month?
“Can I have yours?”
Herbert hesitated.
Ewan honed the older male wouldn’i uurinu u noliev af nat
24
26 An Advice
“Well boy, hurry up and pick it. This might be your chance to save yourself and your company. I’ll tell the butler to prepare you a proper breakfast. You might be needing it.”
