The Paper Factory (Michael Berg Book 1) Read online

The door opened. Sharp emerged and, one hand holding the phone to his ear, motioned silently for Bryant to join him outside. Ten minutes later Sharp reappeared, Bryant following close behind, and sat down heavily opposite Michael. Sharp propped his chin on his hands before he raised his head to speak.

  “Bad news. For you. Looks like someone else has made me a better offer. The deal as of this moment is off the table.”

  “You’re bullshitting me.” Michael raised his voice, “Been there before, Lawrence, you’re just trying to up the ante. It won’t work.”

  “Listen, Michael. I’ve given the details of the offer to Rees. He’ll brief you. I’m leaving. Flight to Frankfurt at seven. We’re pretty far down the line but it’ll take some time to finalize. You have until my flight leaves to match their offer. No call, the deal’s off. Permanently.” Sharp’s face gave nothing away as he stood, grey eyes holding Michael’s, abruptly turned and strode from the room.

  Chapter 5

  Jay Rivello stepped through the Bristol’s entrance into the chilled autumnal air. He strolled across Krakowskie Boulevard and into the old town. It was late. The cafés that surrounded the square were emptying, some already closed. It would come within the hour. The call. Berg probably had the sense to walk away. That wouldn’t save him though. Rivello had done his homework. One of Berg’s investors needed this deal. Needed it badly.

  Berg was right. The counter offer didn’t exist. However, as smart as the man undoubtedly was, he would never have guessed the full implications of what was soon to happen. Michael Berg would soon discover how sharp Lawrence was. Rivello smiled at the irony of the pseudonym that he’d chosen for himself.

  He felt no guilt over what he was about to do to Berg, or his precious company. Or his life. Business was a game. A game to be won at any cost. To the winner went the spoils. Money. Money bought power, and power was everything to Rivello. Power over the lives of others, power to influence, to manipulate, to build up and to tear down. The quest for power, a desire for challenge and the scent of the kill were what drove him onwards. Also, he admitted to himself, sometimes the need for revenge.

  Rivello placed his phone on the table.

  Chapter 6

  The door swung closed behind Lawrence Sharp. Michael shifted his gaze, glaring at Rees Bryant.

  “This other offer that’s supposed to exist. What is it?”

  Bryant appeared not to be rattled.

  “Same deal but with a forty percent deposit. That’s eighty million up front.”

  “I can calculate forty percent of two hundred forty million euros, Rees. But you and your boss are dreaming if you think I’m going to hand over eighty-four million euros without going through full due diligence.”

  Michael turned to the window, for the first time noticing that it had turned dark outside. His wrist swiveled as he glanced at his watch. It was close to eleven.

  “It’s time that you and your colleagues left. We need to do some thinking. If I decide to make a counter proposition you may tell Lawrence that I’ll call him in the next hour. If not, you can assume that BOS has no interest in further discussion. Good night.”

  Michael’s attempt at regaining some control over the situation did not fool anyone and he knew it.

  “John …?” he said leaning forwards toward his CFO.

  “I don’t like the guy, I don’t like his modus operandi and I think he’s bluffing. There will be other opportunities. If you blow Sharp away, I think he’ll come crawling back within twenty-four hours to try and reignite the deal. Then you can squeeze him even more for screwing us around.” Burnham sat back and relaxed, having made his point.

  Michael was comfortable with making quick decisions under pressure. He paced the room while he reduced the complexities of the deal to its basic components. The ones that really mattered. When it came down to it, there were only two.

  If BOS did not grow quickly, they would be crushed by larger players. Equally, to put more than eighty million euros down before fully checking out the company was potentially suicidal.

  He came to a halt on the opposite side of the table from Aaron and John, made a half turn, pressed both hands face down on the table, looked directly into their eyes.

  “I’ve made my decision. Let’s kill the deal. I’ll tell our friend Lawrence that our bid stands as it is. If the other buyer pulls out we can step back in. Whoever the other buyer is must be either desperate, stupid or probably both. But I need to clear it with Alan first.” The latter he said as he slid his phone from the table. He dialed the UK number.

  “Alan, we’ve hit a problem with the CEE Outsourcing deal.” Michael explained the situation. He was surprised by the response.

  “Do this deal at all costs. There’s a lot riding on it.”

  “Eighty-four is madness. If anything goes wrong and we’re not able to secure the additional financing required from investors, the cash hole will bring BOS to its knees.”

  “Look, Michael, I appreciate your opinion, I really do. I value it greatly. There are always risks. But if we don’t scale up and do this deal, we’ll get squeezed out of the market.”

  “Listen to me, I won’t …”

  Alan cut him short. “InnoVest is the majority owner of the company. You need to get this deal done. If not, I’ll have you removed as CEO. As far as I’m concerned, the conversation is over. Give my regards to Lawrence when you see him.” The line went dead.

  Michael slammed his hand hard on the table and slumped into the chair. The two other men had picked up on what had happened. “There’s nothing I can do. If I refuse to increase the offer, they’ll remove me and do the deal themselves. I don’t have a choice.”

  Burnham’s jaw tightened, in anger and exasperation. “Idiots, can’t they see they’re putting the whole business in jeopardy?”

  Michael straightened himself in the chair, left hand massaging tired eyes. “InnoVest are raising a new fund. A big one. Over a billion euros. To do it they need a good story from one of their existing investments. We’re the story. The only one. Their other investments are washed up.”

  Aaron interrupted. “Why take the risk? Won’t they make a fortune when they sell BOS?”

  “Yes, and no,” Michael said. “The money InnoVest make when they exit BOS will go back to the fund’s investors. The partners won’t see a penny because the rest of the portfolio’s way under water. As soon as the ink’s dry on the new fund, Alan and the other InnoVest partners will rake in twenty-five million a year in management fees. Without the new fund, InnoVest are finished. As I said, we’re the story. The deal dies and they’re finished.”

  The three men sat in silence for a moment. None looked directly at the other. Each knew there was nowhere else to turn.

  Michael dialed Sharp’s number.

  ---

  The double doors to the boardroom opened from the inside and the two negotiating teams trooped out at twelve noon after a further three hours of drafting, redrafting and finalizing the contract. Michael had a cramp in his right hand after initialing each one of six copies of the one-hundred-forty-page contract and an additional hundred pages of appendices.

  The lawyers looked relieved and were already thinking of where their next billable hours were going to come from.

  “Michael, a pleasure to do business with you,” said Sharp, offering his hand.

  “I’m sure it has been, Lawrence,” said Michael, making no attempt to hide the sarcasm in his tone. “John and Aaron need to fly back to London. They’ll be back in three days. I want to drive down to Katowice tomorrow afternoon after I’ve taken care of some business here in Warsaw.”

  “Of course, Michael. Rees and I are leaving for Katowice shortly. You will have our undivided attention whenever you need us.”

  “Until then,” said Michael, as the elevator doors slid smoothly shut on the man Michael knew as Lawrence Sharp.

  Chapter 7

  Michael flung his bag onto the bed. The Katowice Metropole was only ten minutes fro
m his new office. He followed the bag onto the bed. Usually the exhilaration of executing a deal would be flowing through him long after the event. Those who said that the buzz of buying a company was better than sex were wrong. The buzz was the same, but the high you got from doing a deal lasted longer, much longer. This time it felt different. The buzz wasn’t there. A dark, heavy feeling had settled in its place.

  ---

  It was eight thirty the following morning. He studied the building’s entrance from the rear of the Audi, windows open to let in some air. The tension of the last few weeks had left him. Eight hours of solid sleep had stopped the adrenalin flow in its tracks.

  Cars pulled in off the slip-road to fill the adjacent companies’ car parking slots. It was eight forty-five. No one had walked through CEE Outsourcing’s entrance. The buses that were used to ship in the majority of the call center staff from the center of Katowice had not yet turned up. He glanced at the building. Something was missing. He couldn’t nail it down, and so pushed it aside.

  What kind of sloppy operation have I bought? It’s nine a.m. and no one’s shown up yet. Eastern European working practices were not necessarily what Michael was used to in London, but this was worse than he’d been led to believe. He jumped out of the car and strode over to the building’s entrance.

  Michael approached the sizeable glass security doors that guarded the building. Expecting them to slide open as he approached, he narrowly missed slamming into them, the doors remaining firmly shut. He cupped his hands above his eyes and gazed into the building.

  No tall, attractive receptionists. No five meter long, polished steel reception desk. No security guard. No flat-screen televisions gracing the walls or immaculately arranged furniture. He turned away from the door, glancing upwards, certain that he’d gotten the wrong building.

  It was then that he noticed it. The something that was missing. The wiring that held the flamboyant CEE Outsourcing logo above the entrance. It dangled haphazardly, like disjointed pipe cleaners, from above the door.

  The glass was strong. Not even a tremor as Michael smashed into the door with his fists. His mind didn’t register pain, the anger inside him overwhelming any instincts of self-control.

  “BASTARD. You FUCKING BASTARD. BASTARD, BASTARD, BASTARD.”

  He hammered on the glass until his throat was raw, fists bloodied. Blood mingled with dust, smearing the surface in a ruddy brown film.

  As the urge to tear Lawrence Sharp apart evaporated, the fury that Michael had unleashed, he turned upon himself. As much as it depleted his strength, it sapped his will more. Michael sank to his knees, sloped forward, forehead thudding against the glass. A penitent man.

  Chapter 8

  The room buzzed like a giant slot machine parlor in a Vegas casino. The static murmur of hundreds of simultaneous phone conversations, from the trading floor, completely blocked out by inch-thick soundproofed glass. He stood facing away from the luxurious office suite he inhabited, marveling at the degree to which the investment banking world had changed in only thirty years. Now the world of finance revolved on electronic impulses whizzing round the world at the speed of light.

  “Augustus,” the voice, sharp and authoritative, came from the comfortable brown leather couch right angled behind him, “if I may interrupt your musings for a moment, we really need to agree on the format for the next meeting.”

  “Of course, Sir James, forgive me. I was just thinking things through.”

  “Kennedy will be nominated on September the fifteenth. Our members would find it most enlightening to become aware of her views before her confirmation by the Senate,” said Sir James.

  Augustus resisted the urge to bite at his thumbnail. As the European chairman of one of the world’s leading investment banks, it was usually he who made other’s squirm as though they were under a microscope. Sir James Hardcastle, past Beirsdorf chairman, largest individual shareholder, and a former British Foreign Secretary, had been Augustus’s late father’s oldest and dearest friend. Augustus knew what was coming.

  “Listen, you great blubbering fool.” Attaining his seventy-eighth year had blunted none of Hardcastle’s tyrannical nature. “You need to snap to it. Our credibility’s on the line.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Augustus, “I’ll approach Mrs. Kennedy immediately through Washington. I’m sure she will make herself available.”

  “Not even Clinton was able to say no to us. Just get it done.”

  “Of course. Don’t let me detain you any longer,” said Augustus, desperately trying to get the man out of his office.

  Augustus watched the door close and once alone, despite his rather corpulent size, swiftly maneuvered himself behind his desk and accessed the Group’s secure and encrypted intranet system.

  He sourced the appropriate contact details and dialed the number in Langley, Washington, DC.

  “Douglas Speak,” the voice answered at the other end of the line. Augustus suppressed the schoolboy temptation to shout, “But my name’s not Douglas.” The deputy director of the CIA was not known for his sense of humor.

  “Douglas, it’s Augustus. Sir James would like Elisabeth Kennedy to be at the September meeting. She’ll be making the keynote speech. Please take care of the invitation in whatever way you deem most appropriate and let me know as soon as you have confirmation.”

  “Okay, Augustus, I’ll get back to you.” The line went dead.

  Never one for small talk, Douglas. As he replaced the receiver in its cradle, his mobile rang.

  “So what happened?”

  “Oh, it’s you. How do you know anything has … happened?”

  “My people saw Hardcastle leave. He looked pleased with himself, which is probably a first. So will Kennedy be there or not?” Rivello said.

  “Well, we’ve invited her. It would be very unusual and certainly unwise for anyone to turn us down,” Augustus said defensively.

  “Listen, Augustus, this is far too important to be left to chance. Deliver Kennedy. If you don’t get to meet her and to build some kind of rapport with her, then everything I’ve planned for will have been a complete waste of time. I guarantee you that I’ll not be the only one left with a bad taste in my mouth. Got that?”

  Not for the first time during the evening, Augustus was left with a churning feeling in his gut.

  “I’ll do what needs to be done.”

  “Okay, and no more of this soft soap upper class British bullshit. You need to be straight with me, Augustus. We’ve been here before, remember?” The line went dead.

  Augustus, his quite significant bulk sinking into the back of his Chesterfield armchair, was perspiring profusely. Yes indeed, he did remember. Despite his utmost desire to forget that he had ever heard of Jay Rivello.

  More than two years before. It had been Agnello’s. Sitting alone on the narrow terrace adjacent to the pavement. He found himself sitting opposite an unexpected guest.

  The casually dressed man sat facing him, hair cropped, perhaps around forty-five, a few years younger than Augustus. The hair had been allowed to grey and framed features that were striking more for their angularity than for their looks. A thin mouth and stilted, unnatural smile sat on his face. A pale complexion did nothing to complement the overall picture.

  “Excuse me. There are plenty of other free tables here. Would you mind moving on?” Augustus said with unmistakable impatience in his tone.

  “How are you doing, Augustus, old chap?” said the man with an edge of sarcasm, whilst resting a rather expensive-looking digital camera on the circular tabletop.

  Augustus scoured his memory but could not come up with a name to fit the face.

  “I suspect that when we have finished this conversation your tone may have lost its edge,” he spoke again.

  “What on earth are you talking about,” Augustus said, his arm swiftly rising to summon the waitress. “If you don’t move on immediately, I will ask the waitress to call the police.”

  “Take your head
out of your ass, Augustus, and take a look at this,” the man said, proffering the camera facedown so that Augustus could see the viewing screen. The steely grin had gone.

  Augustus, startled by the stranger’s air of menace, had to squeeze his paunch under the table as he leant forward to see whatever was on the viewing screen. It took him half a minute before the coughing fit lifted and he was able to breathe deeply again, although tears smarted in his eyes.

  “There’s another five loaded up. Press this lever to flick through them and try not to cough yourself to death before I’ve had a chance to tell you what I want from you.”

  Augustus limply flicked through the images. Depicted in each image were one, sometimes two girls, clearly borderline age of consent, bound and gagged and either tied with restraints to a rack affixed to a wall or hanging by their wrists from a rope suspended from the ceiling. Needless to say, they weren’t wearing much in the way of clothing. The raw red welts on their thighs, abdomen and breasts and the excruciating pain etched on each face dispelled any doubt that this was merely soft S&M play. In one he could just make out a familiar fuzzy Cyrillic script at the bottom right hand corner of the wall.

  Although the images would have been enough to make most people gag, Augustus’s choking fit had instead been triggered by the sight of his own rather puffy, white and ungainly figure, completely naked, riding crop in hand taking center stage in the foreground of each picture.

  “How …” was about all he could muster before the other man talked over him.

  “The wonders of modern technology. No more A4 prints clumsily stuffed into grubby brown envelopes. You’ll find the video even more compelling. Augustus, even I, who have a reputation as something of a ladies’ man, found some of the things you were doing to those girls repulsive. The one in the last picture barely made it out alive. I would imagine that if my video collection ever saw the light of day, they would lock you up and throw away the key.”