Chapter Nine
The next day, Clarity and the entourage of the Sheik got back to Heir Force One, in order to discuss the losses which had come out of using the robo advisor. Clarity poured some coca cola in her glass, sitting on a comfortable sofa of the luxurious plane, watching Merhab lead the morning routine of Hari, discussing the previous day losses brought by Hari's use of the robo advisor software.
"Hari, you've got to reflect on what happened."
The Sheik was seating on his throne, reflecting with his elbow on his leg and his hand supporting his chin.
"It's not easy to make money," said Hari.
Merhab pressed a button on the armrest of the chair he used to lead the coaching lessons of Hari, prompting a spring below the throne to catapult Hari in the air in a parabolic trajectory which landed him a few feet away from Clarity on the carpet floor of the plane.
"You gotta be ready for surprises Hari," said Merhab. The Sheik recovered, standing up, glaring at his coach. The emergency exit of the throne was a feature he would have gladly destroyed. He poured himself a glass of fresh water.
"The market turned against my positions," said Hari.
"The market is a given."
"The market doesn't give me anything."
"It shouldn't give you anything, it's simply a given." Hari changed the topic, because Merhab was not understanding he was the one making the losses.
"All right, what should I do to sharpen my thinking?" Hari did ask relevant questions at times.
"You're going to do some maintenance work on the plane." Hakeem nodded, pouring himself a gin tonic, knowing what was good for Hari. Merhab handed Hari a pair of overalls and a pad for him. He turned to Clarity, handing her a second pair of overalls.
"You go with him." Hari looked at the list of tasks written on the pad. It listed 'reviewing rivets' second after 'review of air pressure of tires'. The list continued with the task of 'general troubleshooting', 'reviewing parts in the brake, electrical and landing gear systems'. The list of instructions finished with the statement 'ensure all spare parts are available'.
Merhab handed Hari a drill to check rivets, and a maintenance trolley, labeled Louis Vuitton.
"Take care of this, it's the only drill and maintenance trolley one we have."
Hari walked out of the plane with Clarity and his trolley, and moved to the landing gear area. He loosened several screws a few feet away from the wheels of the plane, and a panel pivoted down towards him. The Sheik ducked and the panel moved past below him.
"Hold this."
He handed the drill to Clarity. The Sheik grabbed a pressure gauge from the maintenance trolley and placed it on one of the tires. Then, he pressed on a pump he’d found inside the trolley to fill the tire with some additional air. After checking the tire with his hand, he assessed that the tire was good, and reached for a platform inside the fuselage, leading to the electrical system of the plane, something completely unknown to Hari.
Clarity heard a creaking noise coming from unlubricated wheels near her. A stand looking similar to a hot dog stand approached the teleoperator at wing level. A thin, tall man in his sixties wearing worn out blue overalls was pushing the cart towards her.
"Weather reports, aircraft spare parts, confidential documents, hot dogs." Clarity walked towards the airport employee, named Arnold.
"Confidential documents?" Asked Clarity.
"It's what it says here, newspaper article, got the paper of today for you," said Arnold. Clarity grabbed a paper copy of Caribbean News Now and read the large news headline: Confidential documents found regarding the fortune of Sheik Haroun Al-Najib. Intrigued by the heading, Clarity paid a dollar to Arnold and began reading the article, which covered half a page. Correspondents from the Consortium of Informative Journalists spanning more than one hundred newspapers, have found new evidence of wealth, previously undeclared and not revealed by the family of Sheik Haroun Al-Najib. The information is believed to be the tip of the iceberg in a large space of corruption and lack of transparency, in what is currently being labeled as the Scrub Leaks affair.
A certificate of ownership from a British Virgin Islands company mentioning the Sheik, has revealed a mysterious part of the balance sheet of the Sheik main company, SRA-199, amounting to several billion dollars. The hidden part of the company is believed to be named Regina Holdings. The certificate has been issued by the offices of Panama law firm Augiers Urbina, which is under investigation by the Consortium. The family of the Sheik, known to reside in London, has declined to issue any comments, and is currently involved in a lawsuit with the wealth magazine Argyris, suing the magazine for damages as a result of leaking unverified information, which alters the position of the Sheik in the billionaire ranking issued by the magazine, and which has led to tax authority investigation for the missing assets of Hari Al-Najib.
The Sheik is currently believed to be spending some time off his usual work activities as supervisor of a wild boar reserve in Saudi Arabia, enjoying a holiday in the Scrub Island Resort in the British Virgin Islands. A team from the Consortium of Informative Journalists has been dispatched there, a slew of journalists, to verify whether all of this information, revealed by an email from the Sheik intercepted by several journalists, is true. The Consortium of Biased Journalists has declined to comment on the findings of their peers, because the findings of the Consortium of Informative Journalists, apparently, are not biased.
Clarity raised her head, looking at Arnold.
"A hot dog, please." She thought better, thinking of Hari. "Two."
"Anything out of the ordinary?" Asked Hari.
"No, everything's good." Clarity looked at Hari, who was buried inside the brake and electrical system of the plane. His voice reached her.
"Get a spare landing gear will you?"
"All right." Clarity walked towards the stand of Arnold, who opened a small trap door in the front of the stand.
"Take a look inside, we got a brand new gear from a dismantled 747 used by Virgin." Clarity peeked her head inside the trapdoor, finding herself looking at a mesh of wires and half a large tire previously used in an aircraft.
"I need a gear for a 757," said Clarity. Arnold understood customer service.
"I can order one for you."
"Please do that."
"It will be here tomorrow."
"Very good, we'll be here. Expect payment with paypal."
"Yeah, I got paypal, everyone's got paypal, in the British Virgin Islands, we have paypal." Arnold extended his hand to close the agreement, turning his lead nearly into a sale.
Clarity shook hands with Arnold and glanced across the tarmac near the area where buses took passengers to the planes. A large group of angry journalists holding a banner labeled Consortium of Informative Journalists, was making its way towards Heir Force One. A call from Hakeem told Hari and Clarity to return to the plane. A few minutes later, once on board with Hari, Clarity looked through one of the plane's windows, watching a group of twenty or thirty journalists making photos of the plane, trying to make their way into the cabin. Merhab was yelling from the top of the staircase leading to the plane, telling them to go away, while Siarhei Lubachko had walked down the stairs, and was placing his hand on the lens of a large SLR camera to curb the amount of photos being taken. Eight police constables, dressed in white uniform and black pants, coming back from six months of training at the Regional Police Training Center in Barbados, were preventing the journalists from moving up the staircase of the plane.
"What's happening?" Asked Hakeem.
"Something leaked, they know about the balance sheet of SRA-199."
Hakeem ordered everyone back inside the plane, leaving the journalists taking photos outside. Clarity watched Hari take a call from his father, Zahir, who was being assailed by journalists in London. The Sheik put the call on speakerphone, because he liked transparency in all of what he did.
"Hari, I am reducing your allowance to twelve dollars and thirty five cen
ts. It is the amount you will need to buy a subscription to Time magazine, to be informed. You need to be informed, you are too clueless for this family. Hakeem will get additional powers to supervise your account in BVI at Kuwait Capital. You will not touch that money at all until you retire, and someone else will decide how much you spend each day."
"I didn't know I had an account," said Hari.
"Your face is appearing in the tabloids in London. How did this happen? Have you spoken to anyone about our company, SRA-199 I mean?"
"No, simply been here in the Caribbean, because I know you don't want me in the Emirates."
"You managed to screw up from the Caribbean. The certificate from Augiers Urbina leaked beyond Argyris, the law firm and our assets are under investigation by several authorities and by more than two hundred journalists. Have you talked to any of them, to any of these people?"
"No. I'm going to need a certificate certifying this failure. Merhab will need that to send it to University of Oman."
"No, Merhab will not get anything. You are going to be a clerk the rest of your life Hari."
"That is my current rank, and my current job in the family."
Hari was one of the heirs of the family, but he was far and away in the list, ranking below the whole family. Even Melchior, his butler, was a man who ranked higher than him, and could potentially become a tutor for him. In the list of potential inheritors, he ranked slightly above his team of dwarves, who complained every month or so that they were smarter than Hari and deserved to rank above him.
"Yeah," said Zahir, "but now all of that is permanent, you have reached your level of incompetence, your ability does not provide any more room to you."
Hari was devastated by not being able to use more millions of dollars to invest in investment alternatives suggested by the robo advisor or his own risk making ability. His father took out access to all of his credit cards and put a corralito on his account, restricting withdrawls to eight dollars a day, to buy snacks. Hari began thinking his father wanted him out of the family, he was putting him in a Shexit condition, exit from Sheik status. His real situation dawned on him. He was a clerk with a plane, a large plane with a springy throne.
"What about the robo advisor?"
Hari's father nearly did a back flip with no hands as a result of his frustration.
"Don't touch it! Please! Hari, let Hakeem work with the robo advisor. We are going to figure out where to put you, so that there is no more media damage to the family."
Nora tapped on the shoulder of Hari as the speakerphone went off.
"I'm leaving, Hari."
Plum saw Hari remain speechless, mostly because he did not mind seeing Nora move away from him. He wasn't going to beg her to stay. The gambling videographer refrained from yelling yahoo out loud. With Nora out of the way, it was easier to get additional power within the entourage of the Sheik. Without anyone seeing her, she moved to the camera area of the plane. Used to filming video and gathering useful video information by watching a black and white screen for just a few minutes, she began to turn on the various cameras placed along the fuselage of the plane by Lubachko.
The cameras showed a large crowd gathering close to the plane. The original group of people trying to get inside Hari's second flying home, had become much larger, and amounted to nearly eighty now. It was time to keep a low profile and plan her permanent stay in BVI. Using her smartphone, she dialled the number of a phone banking service, and transferred the seventy thousand dollars received in exchange for the ring, from her account in Macau, to an offshore account in Road Town, at Litco, Linson Immediate Transfer Company, an alternative, shadow banking, and capital advisory services provider, which she'd found browsing the web.