Self Sacrifice

"I'm sorry Andy, you have more potential than any other employee here, but I can't keep you if you can't give me a good story, end of." Andy sighed and nodded.

"I'm sorry too. I just can't find..that one, you know?" His boss, Craig Resson nodded understandingly.

"I know what you mean. But despite that, it's how things have to be. I can, however, give you two more months before I have to let you go." Andy nodded hopefully.

"I'll find you a good story, Craig, I will!" He rushed out of the office before his boss could even nod, leaving him in there chuckling slightly.

Andy rushed back home. He'd been researching for months now, the reason why he hadn't found another story, because he knew this was the story that would make him famous. He could feel that there was something big behind all this.

There was a company, an international company buying and selling shares of other businesses, of the name Hendleston & Co. The CEO, Witt Hendleston, had recently been found miraculously innocent after a lawsuit was filed against him for embezzling billions of dollars from said companies. A man as powerful as that can find his way into twelve hotel rooms without having to move from his own. The next day, they found him innocent in a few minutes, despite the fact that he gave no defence. As it turns out, if you have the means of finding out what people care about most, you can make them say and do whatever you want.

Hendleston thought he had got away with it all, and had now cleared his name. The only problem was a memory stick, stolen by one of his rivals, Andy didn't know what was on the gadget, what files had been kept on it. This memory stick was in the possession of someone who Andy hadn't yet found the name of. But what he did know, was that this person was using it to blackmail Hendleston. Andy also hadn't yet found out what his rival was making him do. This is what he had to find out.

He was starting with the jury.

"Oh god...that man....I wish I'd never been asked for jury duty...."

"Mrs Peterson, can you tell me what happened the night before the final day of the trial?" She nodded.

"Well I was in my hotel room, just going over notes of the case, and my tv screen lit up. I hadn't turned it on. There was a picture of my children, Michael and Becky, and a threat written above it. He...threatened to...kill them if I didn't find him innocent. I mean, what else could I do?! I couldn't risk my babies lives-" Andy held his hands up.

"I completely agree with you, believe me I'm not here to get you into trouble. It's Hendleston I'm investigating. Mrs Peterson, can I ask, before the trial did you know anything about him?" She shook her head.
"And did you find out anything else about him during the trial?"

"No...I'm sorry dear. If you want someone who knows about him, Gregory Walsh is the man you want. He was on the jury, he absolutely despised the man, he knew an awful lot about him, it was clear from the way he referred to him. Most of the time, none of us knew what he was talking about."

"Gregory Walsh...thank you ma'am!! Thank you very much!!" Andy strode out of the room and towards the front door, before he left, the older lady called out.

"Good luck dear, I hope you can find whatever it is you're looking for on him. He's an absolutely vile creature, put him behind bars."

"I'll do my best!" He waved and practically ran towards the nearest tube station. By the time he'd reached home, he knew the man's number.
Walsh was more than happy to share his dislike of Hendleston with Andy, and he scribbled notes hastily as the other man blurted out everything he knew about him, about the trial, about the embezzlement, about how his biggest rival had stolen the memory stick from him and was now using it to blackmail him. This was where Andy really paid attention.

"Great man, in my opinion, to screw over a guy like that takes guts, although that's exactly what Carlile's got. Guts."

"Carlile?"

"Austin Carlile. Have you not heard of him? He's notorious, ruthless, filthy rich, one of the richest men in the entire world. He's had thirty lawsuits filed against him. Thirty! And he got away from every single one of them, without witness intimidation like that bloody Hendleston. To top it all off, he's only twenty six years old." Andy wrote it all down then sat back in shock.

"Jesus." Walsh laughed on the other end of the line.

"I know. Carlile is a money lender, on a big scale, that's his business."

"So Carlile has the memory stick with all of Hendleston's files on?"

"Yep. Definitely. And good luck to him getting it back."

"Do you know what he's blackmailing him to do?"

"You mean you don't know?"

"No. This is why I called you, I'm investigating but I couldn't find anything anywhere about this!" Walsh hesitated on the other end of the line.

"You're not going to tell anyone that I told you, right?"

"Of course not. You're helping me, I swear I will protect your name at all costs. You can have it in writing if you want."

"No it's ok kid, I trust your word. Thank you. What you probably don't know about all this, is that Hendleston is involved in drug trafficking, in a massive way. I mean we're talking billions of pounds sterling he's trading in, in almost every country in the world. On top of that, he knows people, in other kinds of trafficking too." Andy felt a chill run down his spine.

"Human."

"Yep. Anyway, a couple of months back, someone double-crossed Hendleston and tried to make off with twelve hundred thousand dollars worth of cocaine." Andy couldn't help but curse quietly.

"Hendleston tracked him down easily, and within a week he'd got the drugs back, every last gram, and had sent this guy off to one of the traders. He was sent to various different auctions all over the world, and bought buy some Thai millionaire at one in Hong Kong. Turns out, this guy he sold is called Samuel McKinnon. And McKinnon...is Carlile's favourite nephew." Andy made a sound and rubbed a hand over his eyes.

"Oh my god..."

"I know. So, Carlile waded in at this point. Took McKinnon back, paid off the businessman to let him go, and went after dirt on Hendleston. He's in with a famous publisher, Lee Comson, and he featured the incriminating article about the embezzlement, which led to every company under the sun suing Hendleston. In revenge, he tried to dig up things about Carlile, and god knows what he threatened him with, but it made Carlile angry, very angry. So he got the memory stick. And here we are."

"So what's on the memory stick?"

"Files to do with the trafficking, to be sure. Other things we don't know about. Either way, it's a massive case, and they're both extremely dangerous men butting heads. Sooner or later, innocent people are going to be caught up in it. Which is why I'm gonna tell you this now, kid. Be careful, watch your back. Guys like Hendleston aren't smart enough to be watching you before he even knows you have stuff on him. But Carlile keeps the old feelers out. If he thinks, even for a second that you have stuff on him, he's gonna come after you. So watch yourself." Andy swallowed.

"I will. Thank you."

"You're a journalist, don't write this on your home computer. Go to a library, much less traceable. And don't access your email while you're writing, or any other online account that could trace back to you. Just write it, put it on a memory stick then delete it off the computer." Andy nodded, now feeling scared but prepared.

"Thank you so much for all your help."

"No problem kid. Like I said, these are powerful and dangerous guys, I only like Carlile cause he's smart. But I think the world would probably be a better place without the both of them. Good luck with your article, and you know how to reach me, should you need to."

"Yeah. Ok, thanks very much Greg. Bye." Andy looked at his notes and sat back wearily. This was getting much more dangerous than he'd thought it would. He looked up Austin Carlile, and found very little information, only the basic facts like birth date, age, occupation, but there were countless photographs. Turns out he was something of a heart throb among the women, a very mysterious, attractive, rich young man had them all hot and bothered, there were loads of fan sites dedicated to him. But nothing of much interest.

The next best person to see was probably Craig. As much as Andy just wanted to get on with the story, it was probably best to brief Craig on just how big this story was going to be.

Craig Resson sat back in shock, pale-faced. Andy had never seen him like this before and winced slightly as he waited for feedback.
"Bloody hell. This is a big story, the biggest story I think I've ever heard of since wiki leaks for crying out loud. But I don't think...I mean...just look after yourself Andy, please. If we can get this story then great, but you need to be so careful it's unreal. He's probably trying to find you as we speak, men like that work quickly. So get the hell out of here, write up everything you have so far, do what Walsh told you to do. Then spend as little time as you can on it after that. We need to get it published before he's really cottoned on." Andy nodded and left quietly, seriously frightened, suddenly expecting everyone to be on the lookout for him, spying on him for Carlile. He pulled himself together and headed to the nearest library that wouldn't have too many people in it.

"Andrew Biersack, Sir. He's a young new journalist, hadn't written any stories of much significance. He's 24 but looks 20. He's an easy target."

"Are you an idiot, Radford?"

"I don't think so, Sir."

"He's all the things you say, and yet he's managed to dig up all this information and is about to publish something that could put me in a high security jail for the rest of my life. If he knew how to find all this, he probably knows how to make himself virtually untraceable from now on. So...don't say that he will be an easy target because I assure you, he will not be."

"Yes Sir, I apologise, of course."