Chapter 28 The Anonymous E-mail
The sky was an ominous dark blue black colour as the anvil shaped Cumulonimbus thunder clouds towered high over the countryside of Evangeline. A super cell was forming over the parishes of Allen, Rapides, Evangeline, Avoyelles and St Landry, mainly building over the center of Evangeline. The bright afternoon sunlight was replaced by an unnatural green hue, the air hung still and eerily silent. The first large oblate raindrops began to fall on Clive’s windshield as he pulled into a public car park on the western shore of Lake Cavelier. He switched on his wipers as he scanned the car park for Jeb’s car but nothing was to be seen. There was only a family hurriedly packing what looked like the remains of a picnic into the back of SUV visible to Clive so he drove on through the trees to the far end of the car park where he reversed into a parking bay turned off his engine, sat and waited. The large individual raindrops that spattered his windshield with large splashes here and there increased in intensity until the rain was hammering down on his windshield so hard that it was difficult to see one hundred yards in front of him. He turned the ignition on and switched the wipers to their fastest setting to swish the increasing volume of water away from his view. The noise of the rain was becoming deafening so he turned up the volume of his radio and tapped away to some indistinct tune as he waited. The first bright flash of lightening made Clive jump and was followed immediately by a sky shattering crash of thunder that exploded immediately overhead, its force vibrated through his car, into his body, unnerving him. The dark sky flashed again twice in quick succession each time followed within a split second by bone trembling crashes that dumbed the mind and froze the body.
He checked his watch, it was four thirty exactly, the time he had arranged to meet with Jeb but no Jeb, ‘that was strange’, he thought, as Jeb was a man known for his punctuality. Just as these thoughts were meandering through Clive’s mind what looked like Jeb’s car through the downpour, it entered the far end of the car park and drove towards where he was parked.
To his surprise, as it reversed alongside his car to his right he could see that there where four people inside, Jeb was obviously driving and he could see Aaron Gant sitting in the back behind him but he could not see who the other passengers were in the front or back. The rear door of Jeb’s car opened and Aaron motioned for him to get in along side him. Clive grabbed his suit jacket off of his back seat and tried to drape it over his head before getting out into the deluge. Within five seconds Clive had exited his car and jumped in alongside Aaron but in that brief time the summer rains had soaked his shoulders, his suit jacket had come off of his head as it snagged on his own car door so his head arms, chest and half his back were also soaked to the skin making his shirt cling tightly to his body. As he got into Jeb’s car and slammed the door firmly he looked up to see Benjamin sitting the other side of Aaron and Kendrick sitting up front with Jeb.
“Didn’t see you at first.”
Jeb said as he looked at Clive in his rear view mirror.
“Not surprised with all this rain.”
Clive responded as he toweled down his dripping arms and shoulders with his suit jacket. The lightening continued to flash every couple of seconds now with the thunder being a contain background crescendo of noise.
“Nothing to do with the rain,… we were all looking for a little turquoise faggot car.”
Jeb replied.
The four original occupants of the car chuckled at the jibe but Clive was not going to bite
“Oh yeah very funny, ha, ha, ha.”
He said sarcastically before quickly asking.
“And what’s with this big meeting, I thought we were not going to speak about the Akendo deal for a few more weeks yet or has something new come up?.”
“No nothing new…, Jeb said you were meeting anyway and the three of us thought it would be a good idea to have a general catch about Akendo, so we asked Jeb if we could come along.”
Lied Benjamin.
“Oh ok.”
Clive said satisfied with the response.
Jeb and Clive spent the next fifteen minutes discussing two new zoning applications that required highways consultative advice to get them passed, there was a thousand dollars in each application to be split two ways so a cool one thousand dollars for a quick fifteen minute chat and another half an hour or so later that week typing up two highways consultation papers to meet Jeb’s needs. The three others stared idly out of their windows trying to see through the rain, they wiped their respective windows four or five times each as the condensation in the car misted them up before Benjamin piped up.
“Hey Jeb turn the motor on and put the air-con on or we’ll all be steamed in here like crawfish.”
He said as another droplet of water ran down the inside of his window. The rain intensified so much that Jeb and Clive had to shout backwards and forwards to each other until they had finalized all of the details.
Next the five men moved on to discussing the alligator farm application in Lokchapi. This was turning out to be more bothersome than any of them had thought it would be only a week or so ago. Now there were fourteen local objectors who had all written in and one objector who had torn the application, the information it contained, Jeb’s zoning report and all of the consultative advice to shreds. They all acknowledged rather grudgingly that Mr. Kennedy had put forward more than enough logical zoning law and policy based arguments to stop the application in its tracks for good. The five of them all agreed again the detail of their individual advice that they had given and that they must all keep to their own advice and not be put off by Mr. Kennedy’s letter. They also agreed that as a group they must not deviate one inch from what they had already written and said about the application and as far as any of them were concerned the application should be approved. The zoning committee meeting was also discussed at length and they all agreed that when they all attended the up and coming zoning committee meeting it was important that they all lied through their teeth, ignored any difficult questioning and befuddled their audience with technical jargon, irrelevant information and false information. This was par for the course as they were all used to using false or inaccurate information and lying to all and everyone to achieve their own goals. This conversation took nearly an hour but everyone felt happier once it had all been agreed.
Once that was finished there was an uneasy pause and awkward silence before Clive spoke up, “Well what’s next the Akendo project , well I’ll start by saying that there has been no movement on my side, no requests for any more work, I‘ve completed by initial assessment and I am awaiting a response from Donald Chadwick.”
There was another pregnant pause and awkward silence before Jeb spoke up.
“Right,… ok the Akendo project…, just a quick question Clive has anyone been trying to contact you about the project this week?”
“No.”
“Really?”
“No, why?.”
“Well I had a call from Donald Chadwick and he says that he has been trying to contact you and you have been avoiding him.”
All eyes in the car turned and stared at Clive.
“Not that I know anything bout.”
Clive responded defensively
“Well apparently a certain Mrs. Angela Flores, a very senior member of the Interstate highways team has been allocated to solely manage the highways planning for the Akendo project and your services at a local level would not be required anymore.”
Kendrick Toup said matter of factly as his eyes bored through Clive’s skull.
“That’s all news to me.”
Clive said in a sullen schoolboy like voice as he fidgeted in his seat uncomfortably.
“Bullshit!, ……. Fuckin bullshit.”
Jeb shouted and turned around in his seat to stare directly into Clive’s face.
“What the fuck is goin on Clive,……….. you’ve read the e-mail from Chadwick haven’t you, ….hey haven’t you.”
“Yes I have , an what of it?”
“What of it!”
Exploded Aaron, in a display of anger that was not only completely out of character but also a side of his him that none of the others had ever seen before. Jeb continued.
“Listen closely Clive, as far as we are all concerned Chadwick received notification from the Interstate Highways team which had been agreed by The Federal Highways Administration that a certain Mrs. Angela Flores had been allocated to solely manage the highways planning for the Akendo project….., Chadwick said that this meant that your services at a local level would not be required, do you understand that Clive?….., You are not part of the team on this one anymore,…. And what has pissed us all off more than anything is that you knew and where trying to keep it secret,…. Do you think we are stupid or something?…….., Do you think you could have kept this silent for the next four years and got your cut still?”
Clive sat in the back seat of the car like a badly behaved child, he looked down into his lap and fiddled with the sore, pink gnawed skin around his horribly chewed fingernails.
“Well, What’s goin on Clive?”
Benjamin asked as his eyes bored into the side of Clive’s head. Clive fidgeted some more in his seat and looked up slowly at the four faces trained on him.
“It’s not that I wasn’t goin to say anythin or nothin, but it’s just been the amount of work I’ve been doin lately and I have just have not had time to catch up with myself…., you know on all my voice mails and e-mails and that,……honest,…..just been busy.”
“You my friend are talking a load of crap and you know it.”
Kendrick said with a look of disgust on his face.
“So now we split the money only four ways obviously with Herbert’s percentage.”
Aaron said with a distinct smile spreading across his face.
“Yeah but I’ll get a fifth of the first payment won’t I ?” Clive asked as he searched the faces for a sign of agreement.
“Like Fuck you will.”
Jeb said in an aggressive manner, he turned back around in his seat and looked out through the windshield and pouring rain as a car slowly drove past.
Looking in his rear view mirror at Clive Jeb continued in the same aggressive tone.
“You are out of this one Clive, its not us but Chadwick who is pulling the strings and that means there’s no cut of money for you I’m afraid, ….its just how things work out sometimes, …. You know.., you win some you loose some.”
Clive had been quietly fuming in his seat as he listened to the others. He had calculated that his cut from this project was probably in the region of fifty to seventy thousand dollars, it could possibly be more but by anyone’s reckoning there was a lot of money to be made for doing very little. Again a tense, uneasy atmosphere descended on the occupants of the car. There was nothing to be heard apart from the rain beating on the body work and windows for some time before Clive went completely ballistic. He punched the back of Jeb’s head rest as his mouth opened to loose off a tirade of abuse.
“You Fuckin grifting bastards, you’re doing a number on me aren’t you, you motherfuckers, an you can stop staring at me Toup or I’ll kick your butt.”
Aaron patted Clive on the thigh,
“Come now Clive its…..”
But was cut off mid sentence as Clive brushed Aaron’s hand away shouting.
“An you can get your slimy faggot hands of me Gant.”
Before flinging open his door and jumping out into the rain. With raindrops bouncing off of his shoulders and coursing through his hair sending rivulets of water cascading down across his face Clive leaned back down into the car.
“You can all go fuck yourselves you cock suckers.”
“Don’t you start badmouthin us Clive or you’ll be sorry.”
Jeb said over his shoulder, to which Clive responded by punching the back of Jeb’s headrest for a second time before slamming the car door hard and storming over to his car where he fumbled around in his pockets for his keys.
Jeb was tempted to shout some of his own abuse back at Clive, but thought better of it,. Firstly it was raining so hard against his side window that he didn’t want t get soaked by opening his window just to shout at Clive and secondly Clive was a very petulant person and he knew they all needed him in one way or another for other for the next scheme that came along. Maybe not for the Akendo project but more than likely for the next zoning application that came along or the next one after that. Jeb started his engine, selected drive and moved away from Clive’s car past the hunched figure of Clive beside his driver’s door, he was getting wetter and wetter by the second.
Jeb honked his horn as they pulled away and the four occupants of the car watched the drenched Clive checking all of his pockets as they drove past.
“Fuckin fuckers.”
Clive spluttered as Jeb’s car drove off along the car park to the entrance gate. After checking his pants pockets then all of his jacket pockets then his pants pockets again Clive started to come to the realization that he might have lost his car keys. He looked up through the rain just as the tail lights of Jeb’s car disappeared out of the gate at the end of the car park. Clive was soaked to the skin by now and stranded. As he tried his pants pockets for the fourth time something in his peripheral vision glinted momentarily. Clive’s eyes swiveled around and to his relief he saw his car keys laying in the gravel halfway between his car and where Jeb had parked.
Clive cursed, almost frothing at the mouth as he spat out a torrent of abuse while he slithered and slid his car around the narrow roads that skirted Lake Cavelier to the north. He headed for home, it was the end of a really shitty day and by the time he pulled onto his driveway he had wound himself up into such a state of rage and naked fury that his face was contorted into a snarl, his heart pumped hard in his chest and swear words tumbled out of his mouth in a never ending cascade of well honed insults. They all were pricks, fuckin exploitative bastards as far as Clive was concerned. In his warped mind he had been piecing together a conspiracy that was aimed at fleecing him of his share of the Akendo money, and that would have been tens of thousands of dollars. Clive threw open his front door, stormed in and slammed it shut behind, his dripping body soaked the floor, he kicked off his shoes and dropped his bag on the floor next to his shoes.
Wanda Meek ran down their hallway towards her father.
“Daddy…Daddy you’re home.”
She beamed as she ran towards him with her arms outstretched. Clive ignored his daughter’s welcome and brushed right past her, leaving her standing in the hallway looking after her dad with a confused expression on her face.
“Hi hun, had a good day?”
Called Mrs. Meek as she heard the front door slam shut.
Clive ignored this welcome as well as he dripped his way down the hallway and into the kitchen.
“Hi Hun.”
She repeated as Clive entered the kitchen, but again no verbal response, he flung a quick sideways glance towards his wife as he advanced on the refrigerator. Clive grabbed a six pack of cold beers and stormed back out of the kitchen, leaving a trail of rainwater as he went. He was still cursing his four colleagues as he slumped down into his armchair, he picked up the TV remote, pressed the on button then as the TV turned itself on he opened one of his six cold cans of beer then guzzled thirstily at its cooling amber contents. With a contented sigh he finished the first can and snapped open a second; idly channel surfing while his mind went over and over the events of late afternoon he finished his second then in a short space of time his third beer. By the time the fifth beer was started his mind had moved on from going through the events of the afternoon to leveling blame and seeking revenge. Initially he blamed Jeb and Aaron then he included Benjamin and then Kendrick and Herbert Mouton. Clive was sure that there was a conspiracy to cut him out of the deal and arrived at the conclusion that together Jeb, Aaron, Benjamin and Kendrick had approached Donald Chadwick and somehow persuaded him to remove him from the list of project consultees. ‘And what a dickhead Chadwick was’. Clive thought as he imagined them all meeting to get rid of him. After sitting for another half an hour slowly boiling in his own rage Clive finished his sixth can of beer and leaped up from his armchair.
“I’ll get you fuckers.”
He shouted out as he lurched out of the room back into the kitchen where Mrs. Meek and Wanda were eating their evening meal.
“I did call ya, Clive but y’didn’t answer so we is eatin.”
Mrs. Meek said as Clive opened the refrigerator and removed another six pack of beers. Without responding to his wife, Clive picked up the telephone from the side board and walked back out of the kitchen.
“Daddy’s quiet, mom.”
Wanda said as she watched her dad disappear back along the hallway.
“I know, he has had a busy day at work and is tired, that’s all.”
She lied to her daughter. Clive had got so wet in the afternoon’s downpour that wherever he went in his house he left a trail of water that dripped from his saturated socks, pants and jacket and in his state of angry introversion he hadn’t bothered to change. He picked up his work bag from besides the front door and went and slumped himself back down in front of the TV, he placed his six-pack on the floor besides his chair and opened up his workbag.
He retrieved his laptop and opened it up on n the low table in front of his knees; next he opened a beer and took thirsty gulps from the cooling liquid. Thirst quenched he put his beer back on the floor and pressed start. His laptop whirred into life and in no time it was ready to use. He opened his e-mail and started to furiously tap out a letter. As he approached mid point he sat back in his chair and took another swig from his beer. He thought about what he had written in his letter and what else he still had had to write, putting his nearly empty beer can back down he returned to finishing his letter. With the letter completed he then looked through his e-mail address book for a specific address, that of Mr. Kellar of Latham, Kellar and Bond, but could only find the Latham, Kellar and Bond corporate e-mail address which he had been given for use on the Akendo project. “Shit.” he cursed to himself, he wanted his letter to be e-mailed to Mr. J.C. Kellar himself and only Mr. Kellar, so the corporate address he had was of no use. He sat back in his chair and reached into the inner breast pocket of his soaked jacket and pulled out his cell phone.
After retrieving his cell phone he scanned the contacts list until his eyes fell upon the number that he was looking for. He pressed dial and waited while the call was connected, after two rings a voice answered.
“Good evening Latham, Kellar and Bond, Mr. Kellar’s office, can I help you”
Clive was a little taken aback as he was not expecting anyone to be in at the Latham, Kellar and Bond offices at that time in the evening, it was just a chance he took and it paid off.
“Oh,….umm, hello., can I?… I mean.., I am Mr. Herbert Mouton Chief zoning officer in Evangeline and I have some important Information for Mr. Kellar regarding the Akendo project.”
He lied.
“I am completing some work from home this evening but unfortunately I do not have Mr. Kellar’s e-mail address to hand, it’s on my computer in my office.”
He convincingly lied again.
“That is not a problem at all Mr. Mouton please wait one moment and I will locate it for you on our system.”
The voice replied in a calm soft manner. A couple of seconds later the calm soft voice came back onto the line.
“Mr. Mouton I have it now , do you have a pen ready?”
“I do ma’am.”
Clive responded politely and awaited the address to be read to him. As the voice read out the address Clive typed it straight into his e-mail address book and saved it.
“Thank you very much ma’am you have been most helpful and I can now complete my evenings work and e-mail this information to Mr. Kellar ready for him when he starts work in the morning.” He lied for the third time.
“Not a problem at all sir, have a good day and thank you for calling Latham, Kellar and Bond.” With that the line went dead and Clive closed his cell phone and placed it on the table besides his laptop.
By now the armchair Clive sat in was soaked and small pools of water had gathered around his soggy socks, but he was unaware, his mind focused entirely on its mission. He re-read his letter then selected Mr. Kellar’s e-mail address from his address book and was just about to press send when he froze. He had nearly made a fatal error, he quickly deleted Mr. Kellar’s address from the send to box in his e-mail application and copied his letter, he then opened MS Word and pasted it in there and saved it. ‘What a fool sending this letter via e-mail from his own e-mail address’, he thought to himself. The letter he was sending needed to be anonymous so he needed to open a false e-mail account and send it via that.
Before doing that Clive reached down for his beer which was emptied in one short swig so his hand reached down and opened yet another can. He sat back again for a few moments and took a few large gulps before placing the can back on the floor. He wiped his lips with the back of his right forearm, sat forward and opened a false e-mail account. Once this simple task had been completed Clive pasted his saved letter into a new e-mail and typed in Mr. Kellar’s e-mail address, with one last read through of his letter Clive clicked on the send button and in an instant the e-mail was sent. With a sigh Clive sat back in his chair and picked up his beer can finishing it in one go. As his anger started to subside and his mind return to the here and now he realised that he was soaked, his seat was soaked and looking down on the floor in front of his feet the floor was soaked. He reached over and picked up the remaining four cans of beer stood up and dripped his way back along the hallway, turned left and climbed the stairs to his bathroom where he dumped his soggy clothes on the floor before stepping into a cool shower.
The letter that Clive had written and sent anonymously was a letter of betrayal, one borne out of anger, frustration and a deep seated feeling of inadequacy and need for revenge.
The letter said,
‘Dear Mr. Kellar I have come into the possession of some very important information that I thought would be of interest to you, it is as follows;
The information I have is regarding the Akendo project and I have been involved with this project from its start. Seeing as your company is providing all of the legal services for the project then you as the CEO seemed like the best person to tell because you would understand the implications of the information.
The Akendo project is not a project of the Akendo Corporation or not originally anyway, The Akendo Corporation has only just taken over, originally this was and still is as far as I know an Anderson Langford corporation project, I met with Earl Langford and all of his team on site a while back, Just recently I have been informed that the Akendo project was nothing at all to do with the Anderson Langford corporation and I was told that I was not to mention any connection with the Anderson Langford corporation at all.
It was made clear to me that this information was completely confidential and I was tied by a non disclosure contract that I had been asked to sign. I was told that it was normal in a project of this type and size for a different Corporation to take over the delivery of the project which made sense to me, but alarm bells sounded when I was told about the confidentiality of this information and it was also made clear to me what would happen if I were to break the confidentiality.
Yours
Concerned Citizen’
As Clive toweled himself dry he laughed to himself as he pictured the chaos his e-mail would hopefully unleash. He laughed when he though of Jeb, Benjamin, Aaron, Herbert and that slimy Kendrick Toup all loosing out on the Akendo project as he had. He had rightly identified the secrecy around the tie up with the Anderson Langford Corporation and the Akendo project as a little suspicious but did not know why, all he knew was that if he was going to loose out financially then so would everyone. Dried and wearing a clean dry pair of boxer shorts he grabbed his four beers from the toilet cistern and raced downstairs in time to catch the a rerun of the Beverley Hill Billies on TV, it was one of his favorite early evening programs. He avoided sitting in his wet armchair and made himself comfortable on the sofa, opening his ninth can of beer since arriving home Clive picked up the remote and surfed until he came across the familiar voice of Elly May Clampett, he sat back and made himself comfortable before shouting to his wife with a semi drunken slur to his voice,
“Hey woman where’s my dinner I’m famished an while you’re ad it all my office wear is wet on the bathroom floor and is needin sorting out for the morning…. Do ya hear me? … Woman! Do you hear me……..”
He waited a few seconds and was about to shout the house down when little Wanda Meeks face appeared nervously around the door and said in a timid voice,
“Momma’s just bringing your dinner Daddy…., she’s just coming.”
Clive winked and blew Wanda a kiss, which lit up her face in a beaming smile. She blew a kiss back and turned and skipped back down the hallway to the kitchen where her mom was serving Clive’s dinner onto a plate.
Clive wallowed in his smugness, he hoped that the information in his e-mail would be news to Mr. Kellar and that it would cause so much trouble for the Akendo project that hopefully it would be stopped in its tracks, little did he know the train of events that his act of revenge had triggered.
JC Kellar arrived as normal in his office at seven thirty am on the dot, he sat down at his desk and turned on his computer. While his system loaded he made himself a strong cup of coffee, he drank Kopi Luwak an Indonesian coffee that was reputedly the most expensive coffee in the world, costing about six hundred dollars per pound. It had a distinctive taste, being coffee beans that had been eaten and partially digested by an animal called the Common Palm Civet, a small fury weasel type animal.
Once his coffee was made he sat back at his desk and typed his password into his computer. As usual the first action of the morning would be to review his e-mail inbox. His e-mail screen presented him with a long list of e-mails in his inbox. He scanned through mentally prioritizing them as he sipped his coffee before settling down to open and read them all before eight am.
One of the last e-mails he opened was from a name that meant nothing to him, before reading it he got up from his desk and made his second coffee of the morning then returned to his desk to read it. As he read this mysterious e-mail his face flushed and his fists clenched upon the desk in front of him. ‘Who had this information come from, how did they get this information, and was the information correct?’ JC. Kellar thought to himself, he looked again at the sent by box and read the name out aloud, ‘JasonBridge’. It meant nothing to him, one thing was for sure he smelled a rat. He read the e-mail for a second time then leaned forward and picked up his phone, he dialed a number, waited for the call to be answered before barking some instructions into the receiver then hanging up. He repeated this numerous times before asking his PA to make sure the boardroom was ready for a meeting at ten a.m. and to arrange for a buffet lunch for twelve to be brought in at one pm.
At ten o’clock on the dot J.C. Kellar opened the meeting and spoke directly to the eleven invited participants and both Preston Latham, Chief Financial Officer and Nancy Bond Chief Operations Officer (COO) of Latham, Kellar and Bond by video conference call.
He spoke calmly as his temper boiled just under the surface, but his anger was plain for all to see. His opening statement laid out the facts, he read out the e-mail he had received from the mysteriousJasonBridgethen sat silently while its contents sank in. All of the meeting’s attendees twiddled with their pens, looked down at the table in front of them or straightened up their note books, seemingly unsure as a collective what to say.
“We’ve been truly fucked over here.”
Nancyannounced via the video link.
“And some.”
AddedPrestonbefore continuing,
“J.C., do you think it’s true and if so what do you think they are up to?”
We’ll find out if it is true in due course and as for what they might be up to I have no idea, all I know is that I have never seen eye to eye with either of those swaggering Langford’s or that fuckwit Glen Anderson…. I know we have never done business with them and now behind some front company, if that is actually what the Akendo Corporation is they have retained us as their legal advisors.., something must be up…., I really don’t like this at all I’ve got an uneasy feeling, Nancy and I’ll catch the next flight this afternoon and meet you at about three thirty.”
“Sounds good, we need to get on top of this thing immediately.”
J.C. responded.
Thirty seconds passed as an uneasy silence descended on the meeting room before J.C. Kellar spoke again. This time he barked out orders to all in attendance at the meeting, in rapid succession he told each individual what he wanted them to do, by when and that he wanted an update report from each of them by three pm sharp.
I hope you enjoy your reading. It is available on Kindle and a free copy can be borrowed for download at https://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Blue-Heron-Howard-Moore-ebook/dp/B00KK6BWLK..
Howard Moore
