Page 22 of Billionaire Corruption

“Found some things you might want to know about.”

“Oh?”

“Before you, Simon Lückhoff was the CEO. For about seven years.”

I nodded. “That’s right. He got sick, cancer, I think. I haven’t heard, but I figure he must have passed away?”

Don grunted. He didn’t look like a man who smiled often. His face was lined deeply, his hair was buzzcut short, giving him a hard and rough look. Still, I had hired him, and I trusted him.

“He beat the cancer?”

“Never had it,” Don said, looking pointedly at me.

“Found him living in a condo in Florida. Nice place, not top end, I guess, but smart enough.”

He took some pictures from his pocket, showed me the upmarket building where Simon had his seafront property. There was another photograph of Simon and his wife, walking to their car. Simon looked older and fatter since I’d last seen him, but he was definitely very much alive.

“Couldn’t find anything in the company records about doctor’s appointments or treatments. Had a look at his file from the family GP. High blood pressure, cholesterol. What you’d expect.”

I sat back in my chair, mulling over this new information.

When Brock made me the job offer, he had told me the current CEO had to leave due to a medical emergency. Why the lie?

“I had a look at his accounts,” Don said. “He’s got some money there, not a lot. When he left Ladden, there was a payout. Couple of million. Called a severance package in the books.”

“A severance package?”

None of this made any sense to me.

“His COO at the time was Joe Kepler.”

“One of the board members?”

This was very unusual, and I also wondered why I didn’t know about that.

“He bought a lot of shares in the company over the years, owns quite a bit now. One of the biggest shareholders.”

I had never paid much attention to the South American side of the company. The expansion into Europe had taken up so much time. Setting up offices in Berlin, Paris, Madrid, and Amsterdam. Then dealing with the issues around Brexit and how this affected the UK business. My focus had been there for the past year.

“Calderwood?”

Don leaned forward, looked into my eyes.

“He’s a stooge.”

I had never taken to Calderwood, who’d always struck me as being too lightweight.

“Guy who is really running the show down there is Diego Lama,” I said. “Have a look at him but be careful. I think we have to have someone else check the financials.” But I had a feeling that I already knew what was going on. Lama was an astute businessman, but I every time I’d questioned his actions, I’d been told that this was the way to do business in South America and the less questions I asked the better. I tried to remember who’d told me that. It seemed important.

I got up.

“Keep digging. Talk only to me.”

Don nodded.

I shook his hand. “Keep me posted.”

As I left, I thought of the day I had given him the job. He’d been called to a second interview and during a standard company test, a red flag was raised about his aggressiveness. An overly enthusiastic HR lady made enquiries and found out he’d been asked to leave the police force after an incident in which he’d behaved with excessive force, roughing up a suspect to get information. Physical violence had been involved. HR wanted to pull his application and find a more suitable candidate. But I had a feeling about him. This was a guy who knew right from wrong and felt strongly about it, strong enough to break the rules to get his man. That was the kind of person I wanted on my team.

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