After surviving a couple years of professional beatings in Europe, led mostly by an incompetent government-sponsored royal team, I find my way back to the United States. My hacker friend Brad picked me up from the Los Hellas airport and before I could get the airplane smell off my clothes we hacked back to Europe behind a water-facing Taco Bell, threw a burner phone into the ocean, and parted ways as I checked into my Silicon Valley hotel for the week. Not bad for only being back in America only a few hours.
The problem?
There was now a blue suit wearing American politician sitting in my hotel lobby asking essentially for kickbacks… or something?
A Political Welcome
I hadn’t even gotten my hotel room key yet nor had any clue where the hotel staff had taken my bags. Talk about being on a backfoot. For a moment I wondered if Brad had microdosed my tacos and the vision of this American politician staring at me in a hotel lobby was merely a hallucination?
Bogdan: Ms. Taylor, to what do we owe your presence?
Nevermind it doesn’t really matter why you’re here.
Nope. Very much real life right now, there’s an American politician talking to me and Bogdan goes on like he practiced this whole speech in his morning shower….
Bogdan: I’m going to make this short Ms. Taylor since I’m sure you have better things to do right now and are probably jet lagged; we’ve been awaiting your arrival or lack thereof.
I was recently voted into office and I already have my sights on a national platform. I’m originally from the east coast and could care less about this dreary coastal city filled with techie nerds. In fact, I think I can make a career of hating on the same nerds who voted me in. How clever is that?!
How this relates to you, my team has identified a couple ‘targets’ wait no, that sounds a bit harsh. We have identified ‘useful persons’ to which my campaign and fundraising efforts could be focused. See the thing is, you are the perfect scapegoat. You are from here and yet galavanting around the world which is both good and bad for our narrative. You are outspoken and have an online reach, which works both ways…
Bogdan winks at me as if he just discovered the internet and knows how many followers I have online. This is fun for him.
The orphan of terrorists, Bogdan spent his childhood visiting his rich parents in prison since they made several bombs and killed people decades ago. Everyone in Bogdan’s family would get book deals and somehow he was recently slipped into a political role that he was wildly under-qualified to hold.
Flexing his white privilege and relishing any minute of terror he could bring to others, he fidgeted with his Rolex watch while explaining to me how I fit into his demonic goals. His focus was on me and yet somehow I knew I was only a small piece to his larger puzzle and he could ultimately care less about me or any human being.
There was zero emotion in this man.
Bogdan: Hear me out, national campaigns are expensive. You are going to donate money to my campaign and if you don’t I’m going to have you arrested. For what I’m not sure but I can figure out something— a parking ticket from 2010, maybe you jaywalked in 2012… don’t know but I will find SOMETHING and have you arrested.
And as soon as I do you can kiss your whole innocent-female-in-tech-branding you have been ‘rocking’ so carefree… goodbye. There’s nothing more people hate than a “ladyboss” who doesn’t pay her dues.
He sounded like a teenager in some Disney movie plotting revenge over a summer camp canoe. I stared at the gap-toothed cracker looking politician because he reminded me of playing grownups with my cousins as kids. He was like a fake politician or a character in a movie, definitely not smart enough to make it at the national level yet as long as he believed there was a chance he was my problem.
My eyesight was blurring as I realized too I was feeling the affects of not having slept in over twenty-four hours and this whole thing seemed stupid practice debate. What did this dude want?
When The Price is Wrong
Looking at Bodgan’s legs and crossed body language I tried to calculate how much money this dude was expecting from me, was it $1,000 or $100,000?
And why me out of all the thousands of techies and natives to choose from I simply just didn’t get it? If this were a tech meeting we’d already have a term sheet or terms to discuss….
Me: How much?
Bogdan: $200,000
Me: What?! In US dollars?!
Bogdan: Campaigns are not cheap Ms. Taylor and I have zero plans of staying in this shitty little techie city you call home
Me: You realize I literally just got off a plane from Europe and have maybe $20 to my name right?
Bogdan: Of course Ms. Taylor, that’s why I’m generous and willing to give you one week to find the money. If you don’t, expect to spend twice that in lawyers since we will be sure to pile you in the most typo’d and convoluted rabbit hole of paperwork… if you aren’t already in handcuffs or jail I will make it so you have no life ever again. Respectfully, obviously.
Although I think we all agree here finding the money is probably the easiest for you.
Me: Let me get this straight— you harassed me in Europe shaking me down for payments, I got schooled by the Derch. I have now gone through huge hurdles to come back to the US and now within hours of arriving you are shaking me down for another $200,000?
Bogdan: That’s how it works Ms. Taylor. You enjoy your freedom right? Freedom is never free.
I sat there in the Los Hellas hotel lobby, digital fireplace behind the blue suit wearing east coast douchebag, confused how this situation happened and also curious how I was going to find my way out.
Bogdan: If you do not donate to buy campaign within the next week Ms. Taylor I will tarnish your branding online and make you a criminal or worse if not.
Its your choice but I don’t have a lot of time or patience as soon I hit the national roadshow to boast about my success in Los Hellas even though I’ve been in office six weeks. Time is of the essence.
And like the Ivy League asshat he was, Bogdan Brown stood up fixing his suit pants, adjusted his fancy watch and walked out. There were bodyguards of his standing outside the building, blocking the hotel doors from anyone entering which I had not noticed while he was talking to me.
He left as fast as he arrived and while physically gone, the number he said was not gone. $200,000. In a week. How?
Blackmail-as-a-Service
Finally checking into my hotel room I plopped my suitcase and bag next to the hotel bed before face planting and sleeping. I woke until the entire next day, still in the same airplane clothes. Gross.
When I woke up the sun was already in full force and my phone had hundreds of messages including a text from Bodgan “6 more days…” This guy.
I checked my European and American bank accounts—I barely had any money to my name. The Derch had cost me millions over the last two to three years playing spy kids with my investments and my American friends were close to killing me for ‘f**king around’ in Europe. Now an sleazy American politician wanted his cut. It was all too much.
I debated on exposing the politician to media but I knew that would be pointless. Was seriously considering jail time if it meant saving the $200,000 I didn’t have. There really didn’t seem any way out of this pickle. Being back in the U.S meant I could control the narrative a little bit more and Bogdan couldn’t do a whole dog-and-pony show extraditing me from Europe since I was already back, so there was that.
Remembering a side account I kept in Los Hellas I realized I did have between $50,000-$100,000 saved for a rainy day. It would nearly wipe me out giving it to politician Bogdan which also seemed like a bad idea so I called around and decided to instead find a shady lawyer to handle the situation. Within a few phones calls I secured a “Middle man” as one would say, for $75,000. Shady lawyer would need 1/2 of the $75,000 by the next day which was doable. I knew it would only be a bandaid for a little bit of time, maybe only weeks. Aside from sleep the only thing I needed most at this point in life was exactly that, time.
Bogdan sent me a text within minutes of me securing the middle-lawyer and sending him payments to send to Bogdan
“Fair enough Ms. Taylor. I’m also open to payment plans”
This wasn’t the final solution, however it was indeed A SOLUTION. Something.
With my first American drama slightly handled I gave Brad a call to see if he could meet me to brainstorm but he was busy at work probably hacking and collecting five developer salaries since he was able to fake work at several places at once.
Brad didn’t pick up my calls and I only wanted to audio chat with him at this point. I didn’t want ANYTHING in print or text about Bogdan that could be used against me—I knew for sure my phone and messages were now being watched. America is the land of the free after all and this whiteboy was all about his money.
With the Europeans on vacation in Amsterdam not realizing I wiped their computers of years of files I created, an American politician putting me on a blackmail payment plan, and my hacker friend leaving me with a black backpack with some paper files in it—I had nothing better to do in the hotel room than to finally take a deeper look at the long spreadsheet list of names and IP addresses of people whom were talking sh*t about me in Los Hellas and or who Brad deemed ‘not helpful’ to me. Scanning through the hundreds of lines there were some names I expected to see and some others that shocked me. Nothing too crazy. Still wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with these enemy-friends. What I needed was a solid American comeback plan.
People needed to know that I’m a nice person, good intentioned and not a total idiot. It probably wasn’t worth explaining the whole Derch idiots who don’t even know what term sheets are to people in Los Hellas. Although it would be nice if I could prove my intelligence some way. Media? Blog post? How much time did I actually have until this Bogdan politician would freak out and go off on me?
There were more questions in my mind than answers and my American arrival was not anything I’d imagined it would be. America the land of the free ROFL.
Throwing the paper list of names from Brad on the hotel floor, I laid on the bed staring at the ceiling figuring out this bizarre International Rubik’s cube I somehow was caught in, when I noticed my phone was ringing, it was my ex boyfriend Pierre trying to video call.
I picked up the video call to see this handsome, cheery, carefree European face as my Swiss ex-boyfriend greeted me
Pierre: Good Morning for you darling!
How is it going in America land, everything is great right?!
I didn’t have the heart to tell him I arrived to American political blackmail and had a month’s long revenge list of people to take out and probably less than that to solve the political problems I was facing.
Pierre’s chipper mood actually annoyed the sh*t out of me. Such European arrogance and innocence the way Europeans lived in comparison to the U.S.
“Alles gut, schatzi. Danke”
I forced a smile into my the camera of my cell phone trying to decide if I wanted to cry or scream, while I knew in my heart there was no way Pierre would be able to comprehend all that I was dealing with
“it always feels good to be home” I lied “home sweet home as they say”