Spence thanked the haughty receptionist with a smile that was as brief and insincere as the one that had greeted her. “There’s no need to trouble yourself,” she declared crisply. “I know my way.” With that, she turned and headed to Tracy Ireland’s office.
After being shown in by Ms. Ireland’s personal assistant, Spence had a few minutes to set up her laptop at the conference table before Ireland glided in. “Ms. Spencer,” she declared by way of announcing her presence before settling across the table while regarding the young woman with a calculating gaze. “So tell me, how do you propose to go about protecting my models and saving my reputation?”
The suddenness of Ms. Ireland’s no-nonsense approach and the way she had cut to the chase both pleased and slightly unnerved Spence. She was used to military wives, women she had spent time with growing up. They had an annoying habit of taking their time getting to a point, a trait, it seemed, Tracy Ireland didn’t hold with.
Taking a moment to rearrange her thoughts, Spence discarded all the pleasantries she had carefully rehearsed in her head on the way to the agency and instead went right into her presentation. “You understand your business and this world far better than I, and know what would and wouldn’t work as far as the agency is concerned. So rather than put before you a solution that may not be at all suitable, I shall provide you with a number of options which you, based on your needs, can choose from.”
Spence managed to check the urge to grin when she saw the smile on Tracy Ireland’s lips, one that told her the woman was pleased with her approach. “Would it be safe to assume that whilst the first priority is to ensure that there is not a repetition of what happened here in London, and that your models are protected from future occurrences, you are keen on identifying and neutralizing the person who has been doing this?”
“It would be,” Ireland replied, betraying an edginess in her voice that told Spence her assumptions about the woman had been spot on. “I not only wish to identify them, I want to deal with them in a way that they will not soon forget.” Tracy’s smile, one that now did not betray a hint of warmth or mirth, grew, causing Spence to realize that the woman before her hadn’t become the owner of an international agency by being nice. Someone had gone after her, and Tracy Ireland definitely had the look of a woman who was going to pay it back in full measure. With that thought in mind, Spence’s own grin grew to match her client’s as she decided that this operation might be more fun than she had initially anticipated.
“In that case this is what I would recommend. To begin with, we need to run a number of classes in self-defense.”
Furrowing her brow, Ireland regarded Spence askew. “I thought we were talking about the Internet and keeping my models from being harassed and threatened whenever they use it?”
“Online self-defense, Ms. Ireland,” Spence explained. “If you hope to prevent a recurrence of the sort of thing that caused you so much trouble during fashion week here in London, your girls need to understand how to deal with trolls and cyberstalkers. They need to know how to use the Internet without giving away too much information about themselves, their habits, or their very thoughts online, information that can leave them vulnerable to identity theft or worse.” Spence pulled a bulky folder from her laptop case as she spoke. “One of your girls, a Susie McLennan, is a prime example of what can happen when they leave themselves open to be exploited by malcontents and pervs.”
“Models, not girls.” Tracy sharply reminded as she took the folder Spence handed her and began leafing through it.
“Yes, of course. Models,” Spence replied in a manner that hinted at being submissive but wasn’t. “I did some investigating last night and within half an hour came up with this,” she explained. “She has accounts on Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, and Twitter. For the life of me, I don’t know when she finds the time for sleep given the way she’s always online, posting where she is, who she’s with, and what she’s doing to everyone and their brother. It’s not just the people who are attacking your agency who can use this information. I expect there are plenty of other undesirables out there who’d like to get inside the head of a young woman like Ms. McLennan.”
“I see your point,” Ireland muttered without hiding her ire over the way one of her models had been carrying on. “I can arrange whatever time you will need for these classes.” After taking a moment to calm down, she closed the file before her and looked back up at Spence. “Proceed.”
“In addition to the training, I would recommend buying an e-mail and Web filtering service for the agency. It could be set up to cover your models, which will offer them a degree of extra protection, provided they follow the advice from the training.”
“That’s all well and good, Ms. Spencer. What I am interested in, what I want you to tell me, is how Century Consultants intends to go about identifying and neutralizing the bastard who is intent on putting me out of business.”
Spence bit back a grin as Tracy Ireland unconsciously adopted the military language she had become so used to hearing Andy and Tommy use.
“This is where you have some options. We could turn this matter over to the police and allow the courts to bring the miscreants to justice, provided of course the police were able to find out who they are and put together a case the courts were willing to take up. That, of course, would take time, probably two to three years.”
Upon hearing this, Ireland frowned. “I’d be out of business by then. The alternative?”
“The alternative, Ms. Ireland, would be to handle this on our own. In doing so, there is a very real possibility the evidence we, Century Consultants, come up with wouldn’t be admissible in court if you decide to take this up with the authorities at a later date. It would, however, be an awful lot faster.” Spence paused to allow Ireland time to mull over the options she had placed before her.
“How much faster?”
“One way of going about this is a honeypot operation, an approach that could take a couple of months to get results. Or, if our foe is truly intent on putting you out of business, as little as a few weeks. The third idea is derived from what I have seen of the messages used to intimidate your girls — I mean models — during the run-up to London fashion week. They are all pretty long winded, which is good.”
When Spence saw the hint of a frown appear on Tracy’s brow, she hurried on. “As in the world of fashion, everyone has a unique style. Even when they attempt to do otherwise, people write using the same style. Century Consultants will employ an analytical program that will enable me to match this style to a person in much the same way the police use fingerprints. With the samples of writing you and your models have on file, I will be able to check everyone you suspect might be behind these attacks on your models. If our target is on the list, I can pretty much identify them with eighty percent accuracy.”
“So, we would have a one in five chance of getting it wrong?”
Unable to help herself, Spence allowed her own smile to grow. “That’s where we come to part two of the plan. We set up a juicy decoy our target won’t be able to resist. That will allow us to collect everything else I would need to give you ninety-nine percent confidence. Now, among your models, do you feel there’s one who would be up for playing this game?”
3
It took but two days to pull together a course she had dubbed Cyber self-defense for Tracy Ireland’s models. Despite being pleased with it and supremely confident it was exactly what was needed, on the day she returned to TI Modeling, Spence was more than a little nervous. Show-and-tell had never been one of her favorite activities at school. Pausing by the door of the training room, she took a moment to push an errant lock of hair out of her eyes and draw in a deep breath before entering the room. The words of Lord Tennyson’s poem once more rang out in her ears as clearly as if Andy and her father were standing behind her, whispering “forward the Light Brigade” to her.