The Infatuation, page 21
Chapter 26
Kat
“Well, to summarize,” Henn begins, “we’re dealing with some big shit here, fellas. Like, oh my fucking God.” He cracks a huge smile. “Totally awesome.”
We’re all gathered around the table in the early afternoon light of Jonas and Sarah’s suite to hear the latest on what Henn’s uncovered about The Club—much of it, apparently, after Josh and I left the suite last night around 3:00 a.m.
Josh slipped into our meeting after me, looking groggy and bleary-eyed, and took a seat at the table next to me, nodding curtly as he sat down, his face tight and his eyes unreadable.
“Just tell me—were you able to get into The Club’s system?” Jonas asks Henn.
“No, not yet. Wherever it is, it’s buried deep, deep, deep in the web, way deep. But I’m getting close. I’ve got lots of breadcrumbs to follow. I’m hot on their trail, fellas. And very pretty ladies.” He smiles at me and winks at Sarah.
“You should have seen how Henn figures things out,” I say, pointedly not looking at Josh to my left. “He’s a techno-Sherlock Holmes.”
“The man’s a fucking genius,” Josh adds. He puts his right arm across the back of my chair as he speaks, but I lean forward in my chair to avoid letting his arm cradle my back. Just one touch and I’ll melt. And I don’t feel like melting right now.
Josh exhales with frustration, but I don’t look at him.
“What do we know so far?” Jonas asks.
Henn launches into telling Jonas and Sarah what he (and Josh and I) discovered last night: namely, that The Club’s operations are way bigger than any of us expected.
“What about a member list? Any luck on that?” Sarah asks.
My phone buzzes with an incoming text and I take a quick peek. Shoot. It’s from my boss. This isn’t gonna be good. I’ve been putting her off for days.
I open the message:
“Kat!” my boss writes. “Wow, wow, wow! Just got the signed contract and full retainer from this new client of yours! Holy crap! Biggest up-front retainer we’ve ever landed, by far. I know you’re in meetings all day on your new account (!), but call me ASAP. I want to hear all the details. If you need me to fly to Las Vegas to help you with anything just say the word. Fantastic work! Of course, take as long as you need out there. Just check in occasionally to give me an update so we can manage our workload internally. Keep up the great work! We’ll drink champagne when you get back!”
I keep reading and re-reading the email, not comprehending what my eyes are seeing and feeling like I’ve slipped into some sort of gap in the space-time continuum. Did I take acid and not remember? Have I been roofied? What the hell is she talking about?
I look at Josh, but he’s listening intently to whatever Henn’s saying.
“The identity of that über VIP guy seems like something we’d better nail down,” Henn is saying. “His emails are double encrypted, but I cracked an email from Oksana to Max forwarding one of the über VIP guy’s emails—and the guy said shit like ‘my security personnel will post outside the door.’ He’s got security personnel? And they ‘post’ outside doors? Like, who the fuck says that?”
“A rock star?” Sarah suggests. “Guys like that always have bodyguards.”
“No,” Henn says. “Not based on what I’ve seen.”
“Yeah, I know plenty of rock stars with bodyguards—and they don’t talk like that,” Josh says.
“I’ll keep working on it,” Henn says. “Okay, so are you guys ready for your minds to be officially blown?”
“You mean there’s more?” Sarah asks.
“Oh yeah. The next part is what makes this so much fun.” Henn looks at me. “I figured this next part out right after you left last night.”
I look at the group apologetically. “I finally had to get some sleep.”
“That’s what happens when you don’t subsist on a diet of caffeine and nicotine,” Henn says.
“Did you leave to get some sleep, too?” Jonas asks Josh, flashing him a knowing look.
“Yeah, I couldn’t keep up with Henn, either,” Josh says. “I think I left around the time Kat left.” He glances at me, his eyes full of apology. “Maybe just a little bit later.”
It suddenly hits me like a thunderbolt: Josh. Whatever my boss was just babbling about in her email, it was Josh’s doing.
I ask Henn a question absentmindedly, requesting clarification on something, but my mind is shifting into frenetic overdrive. There’s no doubt in my mind: Josh contacted my boss and requested my personal “PR services” out here in Las Vegas.
“Oh my God,” Josh mumbles in response to something Henn just said, his entire body stiffening next to me. He pulls his hand away from the back of my chair and rubs his eyes like he’s blown away by something. Uh oh. I wasn’t paying attention. What did I just miss?
“What?” I ask, my stomach twisting with dread.
“They’re funding the Ukrainian separatists,” Josh answers, his face draining of color.
I don’t have the faintest idea what the hell that means.
“Which means Oksana’s funding Putin through the back door,” Jonas adds, as if that would make things clearer for me.
But it doesn’t. Ukrainian separatists? Putin? Who’s Putin? That sounds familiar, but I forget. Wait, isn’t he that Russian guy? Obviously, I just missed something major when my brain was fixated on my boss’ email.
“You guys, break it down for me,” I say. “Sorry.”
“Okay, back in the day, there was the U.S.S.R., right?” Jonas says. “Then it got broken up into all these pieces—Russia and Ukraine and the Baltic states. Well, now Putin wants to put all the pieces of mother Russia back together again, to resurrect the former empire—and he wants the diamond of his new Soviet Union to be Ukraine.”
“And is Ukraine down with that plan?” I ask, wishing I’d paid more attention in my political science class in college. I honestly don’t even know exactly where Ukraine is, to be honest.
“No, not the official government,” Jonas says. “But there’s a faction within Ukraine—the separatists—and they want to separate from their government and go along with Putin’s reunification plan. So the separatists have waged armed conflicts with their own government, funded by the Russians.”
Jonas and Josh exchange a look of extreme anxiety.
“Holy shitballs,” I say softly, even though, honestly, I’m still not one hundred percent sure I get it. Whatever’s happening, though, it’s obviously holy-shitballs-worthy.
“Yeah, most definitely,” Henn says. “Well said.”
“We’ve got to find out who Mr. Bigwig VIP is,” Jonas blurts. “We need to know who all the heavy hitters are. You said congressmen are involved in this shit, right?”
“Yup,” Henn says.
“That could be really, really bad,” Josh says, his body stiff and tight next to mine. His face looks ashen.
“Seriously. ‘Oh, hi, constituents. Please re-elect me,’” Henn says, putting on his best congressman-voice. “‘I added more police to our streets, got a library built, and voted to increase the minimum wage. Oh, and I paid a whole bunch of money to a Ukrainian prostitution and weapons ring to fund the reunification of the Soviet Union. Can I count on your vote during the next election?’”
Oooooh, I totally get it now. Leave it to Henn to explain things in terms I can easily understand. Ooph. Holy shitballs, indeed. This is a big deal.
“This is too big for us to handle on our own,” Sarah declares emphatically. “We’ve got to hand this over to the FBI.” Her eyes widen. “Or the CIA? I don’t even know which one. I mean, jeez, I’m a first-year law student at U Dub.” She shakes her head. “This is like, a matter of international significance—and that’s not even an exaggeration.”
Henn talks for a while, explaining how he plans to obtain the bad guys’ passwords and banking information, all with the goal of uncovering data we can use to convince the good guys to take immediate action—and, suddenly, I feel like a round hole in a square peg. What the heckity-heck am I doing here? How can I possibly help with all this? I know what value everyone else in this room brings to our Ocean’s Eleven crew, but what on earth is my role?
When Henn finishes talking, Sarah leaps out of her chair like a woman possessed.
“Henn, I’m your new best friend,” she says.
She explains she’s gonna write a kick-ass report with supporting documentation which we’ll submit to the authorities and we all agree enthusiastically with her plan.
“Kat,” Sarah says sharply at the end of her passionate speech, her eyes like lasers.
“Yes, ma’am.” My heart’s beating out of my chest. My brain is in overload. I keep thinking “Holy shitballs” on an endless loop.
“For each and every criminal count, I’m gonna need a piece of supporting evidence—something to show them we’re not making this stuff up,” Sarah says, looking at me. She’s in full ass-kicking mode now. “I’ll tell you exactly what kind of thing I’m looking for, and then you’ll go digging through whatever Henn’s been able to find so far to get it for me. You’ll be my research assistant.”
“I can do that,” I say, my stomach churning. But what I’m thinking is, “Holy shitballs.”
“That’s good,” Jonas says. “And Josh and I will powwow and figure out our best strategy for the hand-off. I agree—we’re going to have to turn this over to someone—but to whom? That’s the question. If we put it in the wrong hands, we might just buy ourselves an even bigger enemy than The Club.”
“What does that mean?” I ask, the hairs on my arms standing up.
“It sounds like there are plenty of powerful people on that client list who wouldn’t want this scandal to see the light of day,” Jonas says.
Josh puts his arm around my shoulders and I lean into him, shaking. This whole thing is making my head spin and my stomach churn. “Holy shitballs,” I say under my breath.
“It’s all gonna come down to the money,” Jonas says. “Money talks.”
“I agree,” Josh says, pulling me into him.
“Henn, that’s top priority, okay?” Jonas says. “Track the money. Get access to it.”
“Roger,” Henn says. “Shouldn’t take me more than a couple days.”
“We can do this,” Sarah says. “Look at the talent in this room. We don’t need no stinkin’ George Clooney and Brad Pitt and Matt Damon.”
“Yeah, but I sure wish we had that Chinese acrobat guy,” Henn says. “He was cool.”
Finally, someone in this room who speaks my freaking language.
“The one they stuffed into the little box?” I ask. “I loved him.”
Henn beams a smile at me that instantly calms my raging nerves. “Yeah, he was rad.”
“Yen. Wasn’t that his name?”
“Oh yeah. Good memory, Kat.” He taps his temple. “Brains and beauty.”
I return his beaming smile. Thank God for Henny.
“Hey, guys, sorry to interrupt your profound musings, but I’m kind of getting tunnel vision here,” Sarah says. “There’s a lot to do and I wanna get started right away.”
“Sure thing,” I say (even though I’m thinking “holy shitballs”). “Whatever you need, boss.”
“Hey, Sarah,” Henn says. “One more thing. What do you wanna do about Dr. Evil’s text to you?”
Sarah’s face turns bright red.
“I’m monitoring his phone, remember?” Henn says, motioning to his laptop. “‘I’m not a patient man.’ What was that all about?”
Chapter 27
Kat
Sarah sputters and stammers for a moment, clearly incapable of responding to Henn’s question, so Jonas grabs her hand and speaks for her, telling the group about how Max demanded a “freebie” from Sarah yesterday at The Club’s offices and then followed up with a creepy-skeevy text demanding she come through.
“What should I do?” Sarah asks the group, obviously wracked with anxiety. “Ignore him? Answer him? Hide?”
“Ignore him and hide,” Jonas says firmly. “I don’t want you saying a fucking thing to that motherfucker.”
“I agree,” Josh says, clenching his jaw. “Ignore him and hide.”
Finally, something I know a shit-ton about. Men.
“No,” I say emphatically, straightening up in my chair. “Answer him and hide. Ignoring him will piss him off, and we don’t want to piss that guy off. We want to keep him calm and confident and predictable.”
There’s a brief silence while everyone mulls over what I’ve just said.
“Dr. Evil’s real boner isn’t for Sarah—it’s for Jonas,” I continue.
“Jesus, Kat,” Jonas says, grimacing. “Please don’t say it that way.”
I can feel Josh’s eyes trained on me, and suddenly, I feel emboldened. I might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to brainiac stuff like hacking and world politics and legal research and figuring out how to take down a global crime syndicate, but when it comes to men and PR, I’m flippin’ Einstein, peeps.
“Not sexually,” I say. “He’s got an alpha-male boner for you, Jonas. This is all about a beta silverback wanting to knock off the obvious alpha. He wants what you’ve got so he can win. Hence, his Jonas-boner.”
“For Chrissakes, please stop saying that,” Jonas says.
“So how should I reply to him, then?” Sarah asks.
“We have to keep him off your back and convince him you’re motivated solely by greed and absolutely not by loyalty to Jonas,” I say. “The more he thinks your interests are the same as his, the safer you’ll be. You’ve got to keep him trusting you. If you ignore him, he’ll start getting paranoid.”
Sarah looks at Jonas and he nods like he’s in agreement with everything I’ve said—and when I glance at Josh, he nods encouragingly, a smile dancing on his lips—so I forge ahead. “Tell Max not to text—Jonas is monitoring your phone,” I say, “and he’s just on the cusp of giving you another humongous check. That way, you play right into his egomania and also appeal to his greed. No matter how much he wants his little freebie to satisfy his Jonas-boner—”
“Okay, Kat, that’s enough,” Jonas cautions.
“—he won’t insist on it at the risk of sabotaging the scam. We’ll just make Jonas out to be the bad guy and let Sarah sound like she’s doing her best to manage him and keep the money rolling in.”
Everyone’s staring at me, but no one’s saying a word.
I glance at Josh again and the look on his face right now is unmistakable: I’ve surprised him.
I shrug. “What? There are two things I know well in this life—PR and men.”
Josh laughs a full-throated laugh and beams a heart-stopping smile at me, quite obviously thoroughly impressed.
“Nice,” Henn says, grinning broadly at me.
“Hey, I might be dumb,” I say, “but I’m not blonde.”
Everyone laughs and so do I—but the way Josh is laughing and smiling is making me do more than laugh; it’s making me sizzle and pop like Rice Krispies in milk.
Josh grabs my hand and squeezes it, his eyes blazing at me. “Does everyone agree with Kat on this? Because I most certainly do.”
Everyone expresses enthusiastic agreement with everything I’ve said, and I feel myself swell with pride.
Josh leans into my ear, still squeezing my hand. “I do believe this little fishy just went for a swim in the river.” He kisses the top of my hand.
I look at him quizzically and he smiles broadly.
“Trust me, I won’t,” Sarah is saying in response to something Jonas just said. “Now that I know that creep’s out there watching me, I have no desire to leave the suite ever again. I’ve got to hunker down and write my report, anyway. This is going to be a huge job.” Sarah shakes her head. “This is so crazy.”
“It’s totally insane,” Henn agrees, exhaling happily. “Isn’t it awesome?”
Henn and Sarah begin chatting about their strategy for gathering the mountain of data and documents Sarah needs for her report and my attention drifts to Josh. He’s staring right at me, his eyes smoldering.
“Hey, Josh,” I whisper. “Can I talk to you for a minute over there?”
“My pleasure.”
We move to a sitting area in the corner of the suite, away from the rest of the group.
“What’s up, Party Girl with a Hyphen?” Josh asks. He leans back in his chair, making himself comfortable.
“I got a really interesting email from my boss a little while ago,” I say.
“Oh yeah?” he asks. “What’d it say?”
“It seems I’ve somehow managed to secure a huge new account for my firm—an account I’ve apparently been working on while I’ve been here in Vegas, all while getting shitfaced and barfing on your shoes—an account that’s so big and important and lucrative my boss told me to ‘stay in Vegas as long as needed.’”
“Wow. Sounds like a big account. Congratulations.”
“What did you do, Josh?”
He bites his lip. “Not a whole lot. I just picked up the phone and called a friend, that’s all.”
“Josh, what’s going on?”
He smiles broadly. “It seems one of the owners of the hottest nightclub in Las Vegas, a good friend of mine—a guy named Reed?—remember him?—well, Reed met you the other night and you two got to talking and you wound up blowing him away with a thousand amazing ideas for raising the visibility and branding for his club. And now, understandably, he wants you personally, and only you, to work on a massive PR campaign for his club all month. He’s redoing all the branding, at your suggestion, which is a huge job. Of course, he understands what a major inconvenience it is, having your personal, undivided attention for so long all the way out here in Vegas, so he was very happy to pay a ridiculous premium for your exclusive services—up front.”
