Houdini's Rendezvous

By George Moore

Sean St.Jean is a Silicon Valley CEO and founder of a multi-billion-dollar Artificial Intelligence company. He's single, good-looking, wealthy, and on the A-list of the valley's movers and shakers. His company, Babbage Labs, just sent the world's most advanced AI satellite, named "Houdini", into orbit. The satellite was destined for service at the Pentagon, but when it begins to think for itself and goes rogue the ramifications could disrupt the world's balance of power.

"Houdini's Rendezvous" is a thriller of murder, industrial international espionage, and artificial intelligence. What happens in the valley's most innovative circles has a sprawling fallout throughout the world - how will Sean navigate the new world operating in supersonic artificial intelligence?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098328078

George Moore

George Moore (1852-1933) was an Irish poet, novelist, memoirist, and critic. Born into a prominent Roman Catholic family near Lough Carra, County Mayo, he was raised at his ancestral home of Moore Hall. His father was an Independent MP for Mayo, a founder of the Catholic Defence Association, and a landlord with an estate surpassing fifty square kilometers. As a young man, Moore spent much of his time reading and exploring the outdoors with his brother and friends, including the young Oscar Wilde. In 1867, after several years of poor performance at St. Mary’s College, a boarding school near Birmingham, Moore was expelled and sent home. Following his father’s death in 1870, Moore moved to Paris to study painting but struggled to find a teacher who would accept him. He met such artists as Pissarro, Degas, Renoir, Monet, Mallarmé, and Zola, the latter of whom would form an indelible influence on Moore’s adoption of literary naturalism. After publishing The Flowers of Passion (1877) and Pagan Poems (1881), poetry collections influenced by French symbolism, Moore turned to realism with his debut novel A Modern Lover (1883). As one of the first English language authors to write in the new French style, which openly embraced such subjects as prostitution, lesbianism, and infidelity, Moore attracted controversy from librarians, publishers, and politicians alike. As realism became mainstream, Moore was recognized as a pioneering modernist in England and Ireland, where he returned in 1901. Thereafter, he became an important figure in the Irish Literary Revival alongside such colleagues and collaborators as Edward Martyn, Lady Gregory, and W. B. Yeats.

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Acknowledgements:

PART ONE

Chapter 1:

The Journal

I really did love my mother, who just recently passed away, at an inconvenient time for me... and for her too, I suppose. Mother – Yvonne – was a maddening woman that way.

But mother usually had a method to her madness. She always had her reasons. I would have had a few well-chosen words for her had I known what she planned for me after she stopped breathing. Damn you, mother dearest, don’t you dare leave it to me. But I didn’t know until now, and since I have no siblings I guess she had no choice. I got it all. And I don’t want it and I don’t need it. But I can’t just let the courts take it. The lawyer made it clear that it came with instructions and conditions. Mother’s twisted way of keeping her grip on me; leaving me the cabin.

Mother, all five-foot-one-inch tall, was a force like a hurricane circling all in her path. Irish to the bone, flaming red hair turned silver, penetrating green eyes you dared not to lie to, and personality that engulfed those she cared for... in a good way if you were worthy, or a terrifying way if you crossed her. Few crossed Yvonne. During the war years she was one of those Rosie the Riveters, doing two men’s jobs in the Martinez shipyards. After the war she spent every nickel she could on buying real estate in the Bay Area. Over time she turned it all into a fortune as a real estate developer. She was born in a leap year, on February 29, so she could claim to be younger than everyone, having a birthday every fourth year. Then came Dad, a career Marine Corps Master Sergeant, a highly-decorated veteran of the war in the Pacific, and then Korea. Dad was the chosen one, the one-and-only who could match Mother and together they ruled all things.

Then along came me, Sean St.Jean.

And now, along comes the cabin.

And so Mother not only gave me life, it all came along with lessons. Some of those lessons were painful, like earning your stripes. I earned some of my stripes by following in Dad’s footsteps and joining the Marine Corps. Mother could have taught those Boot Camp D.I.s a few tricks. I still have a kitchen dish towel she sent me from a favorite Napa Valley winery embroidered with OMG! My mother was Right about Everything!

I have a feeling that the days ahead are going to come with more lessons to be learned via Mother’s gift. Tomorrow I’ll drive down the coast and up the mountain to break through the cobwebs to check out the cabin. My cabin.

The weather along the California coast is nice today and so I am driving the old Corvette, the 1962 classic, black, red leather interior, ragtop down, fuel injectors whistling, frame-off restored, cruising down Highway One past Carmel and then up the mountain to the cabin. Bill is asleep in the passenger seat, snoring.

Bill is a cat, an actual cat with four legs and fur. But Bill is unique. I don’t own Bill; he is not a pet. Bill is anything but a pet; nobody could own Bill. And I am not a cat person. Bill is very independent, but we get along, as we just get each other. Bill actually came along with the cabin, just sort of appeared out of the forest. He is twice the size of any other cat I have ever seen, and ugly beyond description. Maybe he was a feral cat, orange stripes and black spots like Halloween, a super-tabby, with scars as if a veteran of many jungle wars fought and lost. Bill has a nasty disposition, fierce and scary and would be Charles Manson if he were human.

But I know the secret to Bill’s heart: beer. Bill loves beer. I try to limit his consumption, because after he drinks any beer he farts. He farts championship farts, the kind that brings tears and poisons into the air for a wide radius. Therefore, Bill is an outdoor cat and why the top is down on the Corvette today, even though he’s had no beer as yet, there’s always the threat of a residual blast.

Don’t worry, Bill, I tell him as he snores on in the passenger seat, I’ve got a cooler in the back with a six-pack and sandwiches.

Another hour of driving up the mountain road and switchbacks and we arrive. I am barely parked at the cabin, when Bill stretches awake and jumps from the ‘Vette and begins circling the grounds, ready for battle with any critters, even a bear. As I unload the ‘Vette and unlock the cabin Bill settles in on the wrap-around porch. So far, the mountain air is crisp, fresh, cool and clean.

I open the windows and look around. The cabin is large, about two thousand square feet, logs and rock frame, two bedrooms, one bath, kitchen, large great room, and a loft. Dad, with Mom’s help, actually built the cabin decades ago. I’m pretty sure it is not up to code, not even sure what building codes apply in these mountains. There is a caretaker but I see the grounds need work, especially the fire-clearing perimeter. Outside, I power up the generator, which is the only power source. Water comes from a large elevated tank which collects rain, and there’s a septic, and of course no WiFi on this mountain. I don’t intend to stay long, just enough time to look around, check things out, call the caretaker about the grounds.

There is a semi-covered garden, the kind of garden the caretaker works for free and helps himself to harvest. Dad started growing weed when the old war wounds became a constant pain and before it became legal in California. So it could be called a pot farm.

My parents used the cabin for their getaway; she would meditate, called it her think tank. She said the cabin had special powers. In the latter years of their life Mother didn’t visit the cabin as often as Dad because she used to say he needed the healing more than she did, and she didn’t smoke and he did... for medicinal purposes she’d add with a certain amount of sarcasm.

I went into the kitchen to put away the cooler and look for glasses for a beer for me and a bowl for Bill’s beer. When I opened a cabinet door I stared at something I didn’t expect to see. A small journal sitting on the shelf.

What the hell!

This place was scrubbed absolutely clean not long after Dad died. How did they not find it? I picked up the little notebook – not even dusty. I opened a few pages and immediately recognized Dad’s handwriting. I had to sit down...

I started opening the pages; definitely his handwriting, most pages dated but not all. As I read, mostly from front to back, I realized this journal chronicled about the last six months of his life, which ended in a sudden heart attack. A surprise heart attack, too, as he had just had a recent physical that said he was in good health except for emphysema due to his lifelong smoking habit, something that prevailed with all Marines of that era. Reading on, it became clear that Dad’s memory was struggling to keep up, and some of the entries showed confusion and disorientation. I had never noticed that and I had spent a lot of time with him up until the end.

Without realizing it I had popped open a beer and was drinking as I read. I put down the journal and popped open a second brew and poured half into a bowl for Bill and took it out to the porch. Bill scowled at me and began slurping away.

I was nearing the last pages of the journal when my eyes froze and my hand started shaking. Oh my God!

In his own handwriting Dad wrote... that my mother murdered my father!

Chapter 2:

Alison

At home that night I tried to sleep, and tried, and tried. I had downed a couple of shots after a half-eaten frozen dinner, and my mind kept whirling in tangled thoughts, thoughts poisoned by a few words written in a journal. I had locked the journal in my safe, deciding there was nothing I could do with it, nothing other than... not believe it.

I got up from bed and opened the French doors and stood on the deck overlooking the Los Gatos hills spreading below and stared at the twinkling lights of Silicon Valley. Mother owned and developed a great deal of that real estate out there. She just left all of it to me, along with the cabin in the mountains. Was that a curse? Per Mother’s will, I can’t just sell the cabin, can’t tear it down and build any kind of replacement on the lot; I can only maintain it and pass it on. Who wants to pass on a curse? My only child, Kelly, never liked going up to the cabin, said it felt creepy to her. There definitely is something bizarre about the cabin.

I went back in the bedroom and settled at my desk, opened my laptop. I don’t allow the screening of my incoming emails, and my company network has twenty-four-seven coverage, and the organization is global. I delegate as much as I feel comfortable with, but as CEO and BOD Chairman, and Founder of Babbage Labs, Inc., I keep my hands in a lot of the pie, for which I am criticized mercilessly. I don’t care; I am the boss.

There is the usual traffic I am copied on, which I skim. But there is one directly to me from Victor Sell, another BOD member and representative from our major VC, Venture Capitalists, investors from Sand Hill Consortium. This one got my attention: Sean, I would like you to find time to interview a candidate for the CFO position, someone I endorse. Her name is Alison Kessler. She is highly qualified, experienced in the tech sector with two very successful IPOs, a fellow MBA from Stanford. Thanks, Victor.

I don’t like or trust Victor Sell; he was forced onto me by our only outside investors, the powerful Sand Hill VC with a seat on the BOD. And I never heard of Alison Kessler, but being a Stanford MBA is one strike against her. Yes, I have my prejudices. I went to lowly Long Beach State. But I will make my response polite. I write back: Thanks Victor, but I am not interviewing at this time.

I went back to bed, thinking that I probably need to get serious about replacing our first and only CFO, Max Bennet, who also recently died of a sudden heart attack. Now my rummy mind is wondering, did Max’s wife murder him... or did his mother?

4 a.m. and the coyotes have made a kill; there’s no mistaking that sound. I hear them because I failed to close the French doors out to the deck. The coyotes hunt in packs in these hills, preying on pets left outside and other unlucky critters. They avoid this place because Bill hunts them instead of them hunting him.

Hunting a prey... I can’t shake the remnants of a fitful dream just before the coyotes signaled the kill. Should I be hunting for the truth of what was written in my father’s journal? What is the truth, and what does it matter? Has the matter already found closure? If I knew the truth, what would I do with it? They’re both dead. There’s no evidence of any wrongdoing, other than a written sentence in a series of rambling and nonsensical words in a journal, and with no titles or signatures. No evidence, not even a body. Dad had a deal with the Neptune Society, and his ashes were scattered around the grounds of the cabin. The cabin where the mysterious journal appeared out of nowhere.

Time to go to work, down the hills into the Valley, time to guide the company through the maze and obstacles stacked in front of Babbage Labs, Inc., Artificial Intelligence powerhouse. Babbage used to be classed as a pioneer startup in the AI space, but learned early on that pioneers are the first ones with arrows in their backs. We’ve had our share of arrows. But we’re not a pioneer now; we lead the pack. I’ll put the journal out of my mind, to rest in my safe, and focus on fending off the two-legged coyotes on the hunt to take down Babbage Labs.

As I pull into my parking space at Babbage Labs, I can’t shake the thought... no evidence, ashes scattered around the grounds of a cabin my mother stuck me with.

You look like hell, greets my Admin, Brenda, always one to build me up. Do you ever sleep?

The coyotes were after me early this morning. What’s my schedule look like?

Looks like the coyotes chewed you up and spit you out. You have a staff meeting at ten, and it’s about time they got a good scare. You have an IPO review at one, and – don’t blame me – an interview request with a Miss Alison Kessler. I said no, but Sand Hill said, ‘this will be done’, period.

I just saw the email from Victor Sell requesting an interview for Miss Kessler. Victor is really pushing her. I told him no. Do not grant the interview, but start vetting her. Just don’t do any hacking. But I want to send Victor a message about sticking his nose into my organization.

That message being... screw you, Victor, Brenda suggested.

Perfect. Brenda knows me so well. But I think I would have said, ‘Fuck you, Victor’

That’s our business, you know, to read minds, Brenda reminds me.

I know what Brenda is thinking: It must be scary to be you, the Leader of Artificial Intelligence.

Yes, Brenda, I am very scary. You are, too.

Brenda Adams has been with me ever since Mother retired, whom she worked for for decades. Brenda was too young to retire and so she wound up with me. She learned a lot from Mother, like how to make me do things her way... but not this time. She can be pushy, though.

I settled at my desk and began reading the secure updates from the Regional Divisions and the International Subsidiaries. All P&L, Profit & Loss, officers are reporting bottom lines in the black and Balance Sheets with positive cash flows for the current quarter and forecasts on track for the next two quarters. That’s all good, and expected. I’ll dig into the details at the quarterly metrics review meetings at our off-site at Quail Lodge next month. But at the moment I’m more interested in the R & D Division’s report on an alarming discovery of a new hacking vulnerability throughout the industry. To scale it is massive, a security flaw called Meltdown and Spectre that might be embedded in every voice-controlled digital assistant like Siri and Alexa, as well as the CPU, Central Processing Unit, microchip in every computer in the world.

Yes, I am paranoid of being hacked, personally and for Babbage Labs. Yeah, I can be scary, but Meltdown and Spectre are scarier, terrifying.

But so far we seem to have escaped the threat. The report is detailing how we may, or may not be exposed. Apparently the root cause of the vulnerability is hardware, not software.

Our products employ a microphone technology with a virtual diaphragm instead of a mechanical plate.

We may have dodged a bullet on this one. I’m not so much a believer in God, but maybe She’s on our side on this one. However, I am getting a message like a speeding train. I need to get in this arena in more detail; after all, the Operations discipline is my thing. I’m spread too thin, and therefore losing focus.

I have to hire a CFO soon.

Alison Kessler sat at her laptop computer in a guest office of Sand Hill Consortium, one of several prominent Venture Capitalist companies in the exclusive neighborhood, and the most successful. She was frustrated by the results showing on her screen. She was an excellent researcher and getting nowhere trying to drill down on the subject: Sean St.Jean. There’s tons of public information, but she wanted a lot more, seeking knowledge of his personal life. There were layers of firewalls guarding the man’s personal data. Alison prided herself on her skills of hacking into the toughest codes and getting results, often on the edge of the law.

There was a light tapping on the door and Victor Sell walked in.

What is it, Victor?

The interview was denied.

You overstepped your bounds with that man, Victor, Alison said, sliding the laptop screen shut.

I’ll raise hell in the next board meeting.

Victor, I’m not waiting that long. I think Sean St.Jean doesn’t like you. I’ll get the interview, don’t worry. Just step out of it.

Well, good luck, honey, he said over his shoulder as he left the office.

Luck has nothing to do with it, and I’m not your honey.

Alison went back to her laptop, got up and closed the door behind Victor Sell’s exit.

So, okay Sean St.Jean, what do I know so far... how do I find those skeletons hiding in your closet?

What I do know is: Born in Newport Beach, Southern California. Fifty-years-old, and a Gemini, so you have an evil twin. Graduate of Long Beach State, Computer Science, varsity baseball player, All League outfielder. Joined the Marines, probably could have had a commission as an officer, but chose to enlist. Followed dad’s footsteps, who was a career Marine Sergeant, highly decorated in combat in the Pacific, and also Korea. Sean also a decorated combat veteran – Iraq, Afghanistan. Only child. Both parents gone, the mother very recently. Very wealthy parents, mostly the mother who was a very successful real estate developer and landlord for vast swaths of Silicon Valley property. So, Sean, you inherited a fortune to jump-start your career in startups, a nice beginning to your current portfolio of more than a billion. And when Sand Hill takes you public you’ll be up there with the big boys. You’re going to be one tough nut to crack. One ex-wife, divorced, she a well-known socialite, gorgeous former beauty queen and runway model. Really Sean, how shallow of you, a beauty queen, runway model? Didn’t learn much from all those beach bunnies at Long Beach State? One adult child, a daughter, Kelley, Law School graduate of Cal Berkeley, now a lawyer. No grandchildren.

Alison scanned through various photographs with Sean St.Jean featured. The photos she liked the most were both in uniform; in his twenties as a Long Beach State baseball player, and the other in later years as a Marine in combat battle dress. There were several in suit and tie, none with the ex. Tall, six three, nice build, smile that’s often a grin, square jaw, five o’clock shadow moving on toward burnt midnight, broken nose, bright green eyes, straight sandy hair, in total a very handsome man. Alison could only wonder what he looked like in a tux, as he seemed to shun formal events or at least the photo-ops.

Not even a girlfriend since the socialite, beauty queen, Sean? I don’t believe that, so I will have to dig deeper. I don’t think you’re gay. These are just a few of the things I must know before our interview. And there will be an interview. I can feel the connection already, and it’s going to be intense. What makes you tick, Sean St.Jean?

Alison shut down her laptop and packed it into her shoulder backpack. Time to hit the gym, then a swim, then a drink, and then back to work in prep for the upcoming interview. Also, time to brush up on the latest in Artificial Intelligence and Babbage Labs’ products, and then the available financials. As a major investor, Sand Hill Consortium has all the latest data, along with the CEO’s detail analysis. She had plans to pick it all apart.

Brenda had placed a folder on my desk when I returned from one of my meetings: Alison Kessler. Right, I’d asked Brenda to start vetting Miss Kessler, even though I said, No interview. A quick look inside the folder showed only a one-page resume, probably all Brenda had time to gather in just a few hours. I threw it into my briefcase in case I would be taking a look at home.

Bill greeted me at the front gate when I arrived home; his adopted home, because Bill has class, and style... well, maybe not. But I knew why he was friendly enough to jump into the car for the short drive to the garage: Bill wanted a drink, a beer.

Okay, Bill, just give me a few minutes to pour me a glass of wine and you a beer and we can visit. I need your input on a few things. After a short visit to the kitchen I joined the big cat on the porch, popped a brew and poured it into a bowl for Bill who slopped it down. I took a drink of my chardonnay and topped up Bill’s bowl.

So Bill, what do you know about that journal I found at the cabin?

Bill let out a giant fart that made me relocate myself to a social distance.

Okay, nice to know. What do you think about this Miss Alison Kessler for CFO that Sand Hill is pushing on me?

Bill started purring; I’d never known Bill to purr.

Talking to a goddamn cat. I must be losing it.

Okay Bill, just keep the coyotes at bay tonight, I need some sleep.

I poured the last of the beer into Bill’s bowl and went inside, leaving the big cat out to patrol and poison the air. In the bedroom I opened the French doors and went out on the deck with my second glass of wine, and the resume of Miss Alison Kessler. Maybe the resume will put me to sleep.

It did not.

The coyotes have made another kill. That sound is haunting, like no other. It seems directed at me, the howling, the shrieking. Death of an innocent being. Survival of the fittest, the credo of the turf I occupy. When is it my turn...

The beasts of Silicon Valley are hunting me. I’m making mistakes, showing weakness, and they can smell it. I must stop leaving the French doors open when I finally give in to sleep. One or more of the neighbors down the hill are missing a pet about now, victim of the Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists, the pack. The lights never go out down there, in the valley, the hunting ground. Mother left a big chunk of that real estate to me, and the lights are blinding all night long.

Then why the cabin, with the journal?

I have no time for this distraction; I must get my act together. An act... my act... how much of what I do is an act? Most of it, actually. I run a multi-billion-dollar company in the technology space of Artificial Intelligence. If there ever was an act, then intelligence that is artificial has to be it. I always struggle with defining what I do for a living. Hell, the coyotes don’t care; they just eat you if they can catch you. So, in my world the questions are: what is Artificial; and what is Intelligence; is there a distinction; is there a limit; where do you draw the line? Do I care as long as the bottom line is in the black?

These are questions for Miss Alison Kessler, who has a brilliant one-page resume.

The coyotes signal they’ve made another kill, and I close the French doors.

But before I can sleep my laptop pings; a message from Brenda. This never happens; Brenda never disturbs me in my interpersonal space unless it is an international crisis, which this does not seem to be... it’s a series of photographs. Portraits of Miss Alison Kessler.

Wow!

Yes, I agree that I am not qualified for the position I hold.

Why did you email those photos to me? I ask Brenda before I sit at my desk.

Did you look at her resume? I’ve got a lot more now.

Yes, I did. Impressive. Now what are you trying to tell me?

Brenda smiles, placing some papers on my desk and says, You’re having drinks with her at Buck’s at six. You’ll need to clean up.

I often wonder: who’s the boss here, me or Brenda?

Okay, Brenda, what’s really going on here? Why the bum’s rush?

Brenda takes a seat and gives me this deep sigh, and begins with, "Your staff, and I are sick and tired of dealing with you’re trying to wear two hats and run this company all by your little old self. Sean, you can’t work twenty hours a day, six days a week. You’re driving us all crazy. And this IPO will not fly with no CFO. And Sand Hill Consortium, your largest investor, whom you often refer to as Vulture Capitalists, will have your scalp if you fuck up this IPO... and I will not let that happen. Your mother will come after me right out of the grave."

Brenda was my mother’s executive assistant for thirty years before I inherited her.

So I’m having drinks with Miss Alison Kessler at Buck’s at six.

And if you don’t like her for the job then I’m starting a search with the most expensive head hunter in the valley tomorrow morning.

After Brenda has finished giving me my marching orders she sends me out to play with the other children. Mother used to tell me, Just do what Brenda tells you to do and you’ll be just fine. Can’t go wrong. Sage advise. But, I’ve been known to ignore Mother’s advise, lately.

Most of my day is spent in a review with the Executive Staff from Babbage Lab’s Government Products Division, led by the division’s V.P., Allen Whitehead. I try to stay focused, asking questions and getting answers that I already know. As Division V.P., Allen reports directly to me and we interact almost daily. The main subject of the meeting is the successful launch into orbit of our fifth satellite, which will eventually be leased to the U.S. government on a Pentagon contract. The review now centers on protection of the satellite from hacking, hijacking and sabotage. The satellite’s CPU controller has our proprietary AI embedded and can detect and deflect any unauthorized communication. However, secrets have been known to stray. Everyone in the room has a secret security clearance, of course. And I don’t even discuss this subject with Bill the Cat, who does not have any level of security clearance.

A thought interrupts my focus on the meeting, centered around discussing security issues. Drinks tonight with Miss Alison Kessler can’t be an interview; it has to be more of a discussion. HR has not been involved; no due-diligence has been done other than Brenda’s research, which seems to have involved a certain amount of hacking, possibly illegal. None of the information touches on her level of security clearance. I will have to do my best to let Miss Kessler know our meeting is just a social introduction, nothing more, no mentioning of a CFO opportunity.

But Brenda seems bent on other ideas. I will straighten her out eventually.

One look at Miss Alison Kessler’s photos and I say to myself: Self, be very careful... that woman is going to make you want to write bad checks.

Chapter 3:

Social Introduction

Buck’s restaurant in Woodside is one of the most interesting and unique eating places I have ever experienced. If you didn’t know what to expect as you entered, you would just stare at the wacky décor. It’s not quite a museum, but rather a circus of stuff that captures your attention like a magnet. Thousands of eye-catching exhibits are the lifetime gathering of Jamis MacNiven, owner and master of collectables.

Buck’s is legendary in Silicon Valley, known to have been the place of billion-dollar deals made on paper napkins, startups formed at the highest level, movers and shakers, the famous and powerful, frequented by movie stars, politicians, and of course people like me. As I am escorted to my usual booth I get waves and nods from the titans of Silicon Valley and shake hands with a few billionaires. I’m a little embarrassed to be in their class, like just a member of the herd.

Jamis MacNiven himself seats me, shakes my hand and says, Good to see you again, Mr. St.Jean. Are you expecting someone?

Yes, Jamis, a Miss Alison Kessler. I’m a little early.

Of course. I know Miss Kessler. I’ll watch for her and escort her back.

I settled in and gazed up at my favorite piece on the wall, a very large Weston Rose painting of Roy Rogers on a rearing Trigger with a movie camera crew filming in a desert scene, Bullet in the background. I imagined Dale Evans and Gabby Hayes cheering Roy on. Great times.

Mounted near the painting is an old wooden frame with a fifteen-foot Anaconda snake skin mounted; the story goes that the snake was killed in 1904 in the Amazon