The Presidents Sister

THE MARK

Her name was Natalia Veselnitskya and to say she was beautiful is like calling the Mona Lisa “folk art”, she was beyond beautiful and I fell, instantly in love.

That said I have been known for my compulsive behaviour and occasionally it has taken me to undesirable places but nothing, I mean nothing could have prepared me for the months that were to follow. You see she was the Presidents sister and she held that manner that the high born adopt as a sort of shield to stop anyone “ordinary” from approaching. And I am as ordinary as they come, in fact so ordinary that I have socially inept across my forehead for all to read.

And that’s why she chose me. There was nothing subtle about it, one moment I was awkwardly viewing some painting from an artist I had never heard of, who’s ideas of art looked like he had just squatted on the canvas, signed it, then waited for it to dry.

“Takes your breath away doesn’t it” I turned to the voice and stared, I was in love, “I prefer his earlier works, more….how do you say it, visceral”. I wasn’t sure how you could get “more visceral” but nothing but a dumb silence fell from my open mouth.

“I gather he is not to your taste” the perfect mouth with the perfect lips and teeth said.

“I was given an invite because my friend couldn’t make it” I managed to cough out, a small bit of Silva popping out for punctuation, “ I prefer art that looks less like a bodily function”.

If her lips were perfect then her laugh was an angel choir, “Don’t hold back” but her eyes flashed a hint of mockery, as though just to keep me in my place, “your not drinking?” less of a question this time more of a command, “let me get one for you”.

And that was how it began, that and the drinks that always seemed to appear just as my last was finished. I have a tendency to exaggerate once I have had a couple of drinks, which is why I didn’t have one in my hand when she approached me. But I also have an inability to say no , which is why I drank what ever she got me and by the end of the evening I had told her I was a socially awkward self-made millionaire from a tech start up that I had just sold.

THE STORY

Natalia’s story seemed all so probable, a life I had no experience or understanding of, one of wealth and privilege and endless parties. One where private and public are kept at arms length and should never intersect and where the truth is just part of the story, but even then only if it is convenient.

Not that she hadn’t suffered her own pain, like the loss of her mother and brother in what she described as “suspicious circumstances” as well as the sexual abuse at the hands of a “friend of daddy’s”. But it was her description of the isolation and loneliness that struck me the most, and at that moment we had a bond that needed no words.

Did I mention the sex, no? well what can I say. I have never been a ladies man so I don’t have much experience to go on, but I have never been made to feel more of a man than when I was with her. I felt like a god and indeed once I got a taste I was like a man possessed, all those years to make up for I suppose.

It was Natalia who introduced me to Cocaine and other drugs whose names I have forgotten, it was Natalia who introduced me to the rich and famous. And if I had just stopped and asked myself ”why, why me?” then maybe I could have got off that crazy roundabout. But truth be know the sex and the drugs and the parties, were a life I craved and so I just hung on.

The trouble with telling a lie is that once you are challenged you can do one of two things, you can own up or tell another one. Now I have a medical disorder who’s side effects often results in the person being a pathological liar, combine that medical condition and alcohol and drugs and a sense of the grandiose steps in.

My real trouble was I had run out of savings and I knew it was all about to come crashing down, when an opportunity presented itself as if by a miracle.

I had told Natalia that the reason I was running out of money was because the lawyers had only recently agreed to the terms of the sale of my business and I was still at least a couple of months away from getting the cash. She told me of this “friend of her brothers” who was looking to put together an advisory group and needed someone from the tech sector who could give advice, was I interested.

Adviser to the President, was she kidding. I didn’t hesitate, “yes” I blurted out “yes I would love to” and right then at that moment it was as though I had taken on the spirit of Walter Mitty, I was in…way in.

THE BOARD

The room was a nondescript room on the 27 floor of a nondescript building downtown. To be honest I hadn’t really paid any attention as to how I got there, I had just had a line of coke and I was rearing to go. I paid the driver and got out.

They were almost like caricatures of what a powerful group of advisers would be like , you know all power handshakes and back slapping and swirling and sniffing whisky in expensive lead crystal glasses.

As we sat round the table we introduced ourselves, when it got to be me I don’t know what happened, maybe the combination of the coke and whisky I don’t know it just came out by itself.

“Hi I am Albert Fisher and I am a 47 year old tech entrepreneur and I have just sold my business for $1.2 billion. The room stopped, I mean it just stopped then this guy opposite me said “so whats the name of your company?”.

Who would have thought such a normal question could cause such fear? fuck I hadn’t even thought about that no one had ever asked me before. Like bullets dropping into the chamber, the next lie popped out.

“Unfortunately Google has a strict policy on discussing buyouts and it chooses both the time and place when to announce them, I am under very strict legal rules as to what I can discuss, actually they have tied me up in so much red tape I basically have to ask them if its ok to shit”.

Ah the ice breaker, they just fell about the place. Laughing and back slapping and more whisky until I actually began to believe it myself.

Do you know what that size lie brings you, it brings you everything, I mean everything. My money worries just vanished on the spot, pay for something, I don’t think so. From that moment everyone wanted to be my friend as if some of my business luck would rub off on them and all they had to do was pay my tab.

I went from being on the board to chairman of the board without passing go and my new best friends, were eager to listen.

THE DEAL

It started off as a simple discussion, you know “is it possible to hack into foreign companies, governments, individuals, bank accounts, emails, personal photos etc. Just simple stuff that you could buy of the dark web, but then didn’t that leave a trace as well?, what about if you want to have someone killed?

I started to realise that this group weren’t your normal group of businessmen this was a group of people with some very unsavory conversations and they had appointed me as the chair, I was running the show.

Only one thing for it, the next lie dropped into the chamber “so here’s the deal, I did some work for the NSA a few years back”. “Nothing too creepy, you know data analysis, key word search, patterns of communication, the usual stuff”. “ But here was the weird thing, once they had all this information they didn’t know what to do with it, I mean there was so much of it they had to build a new data warehouse to keep it in”.

“And you know what, they got me to build it for them, that’s why Google bought my company, that’s why I can’t talk about the deal”.

The perfect circle eh, I would love to tell you but then I would have to kill you, I instantly felt safe no more tricky questions and a big reputation to boot.

But I wasn’t here to talk about me I was here to tell you about her.

THE MARK

I guess it took me a month or so before I began to realise that all the parties we attended all the openings and gala events every one we went to the people were always different. Now I know from my limited experience that eventually you run back into the same people, maybe not like the tech world where everyone ends up knowing everyone its just a matter of levels.

No I mean we never meet anyone we had seen at another event, I guess my first mistake was to ask her.

“What do you mean don’t I have any friends, I have lots I just don’t socialise with them at events, they are private, remember we keep them apart when you are the President’s sister you have to be very careful”.

“So why don’t you have secret service people with you every minute of the day?”

Bang it seemed I was unloading her lie gun just as I was filling mine, “They are there you don’t notice them they are very discrete”. And right at that moment I knew I had crossed the line, I had lost her.

Oh we hung on for a while, but she stopped taking me out to events and the sex just stopped, I mean turned off like a tap until she turned up one morning and emptied out her wardrobe, took her tooth brush and underwear and was gone.

THE FINALE

The board had started to get involved in the international donor business and even I had begun to question what advice we were actually giving verses what opportunities we were creating. I began to see a familiar pattern, advice to governments with very bad human rights track records, then mass arrests and disappearances.

But if I thought this I never expressed it and I was being hailed as the go to guy. And to be honest I loved the new respect I had, also the trappings and networks. But I had begun to rely a little more on the drugs and alcohol to keep up the energy.

The phone call came one night as I was just about to go to bed, it was the President, it had been drawn to his attention the great work I had been doing and he wanted to thank me personally, oh and he just had a small favour if it wasn’t to much trouble.

Usually the diplomatic courier travels above the radar, its kind of a game where anything of real value has long since got through. The papers I was carrying were just plans for a hydro dam, admittedly the water traveling through one country could be restricted, some say held for ransom, by the countries down stream.

But what I didn’t know was I was carrying was a list of informants and activists and a kilo of coke, the moment I got off the plane there was the rubber glove. Welcome to our country sir do you have anything to declare.

I got fifteen years hard labour and at least two hundred people lost their lives, were imprisoned or simply disappeared and a large American conglomerate got a contract a very big contract.

And it should have ended there after all my lying had meant it was impossible for me to prove who I really was, I hadn’t sold my company to Google, hell I didn’t even own a company and I had never worked for the NSA let alone set up a data warehouse.

But what I had done was make some friends, some friends in high places, introduced to me by the Presidents sister and one of them pulled some strings, some very big strings. And I was free.

EPILOGUE

No one actually knew who she was, in fact the only person who knew she was the Presidents sister was me, that’s right not even the President knew.

And as for me I have moved on to bigger and brighter opportunities, as I told the NSA in the interview, I was the chair of the Presidents think tank giving advice on international business espionage, domestic surveillance and manipulating international currency markets  .

Click another lie dropped into the chamber