Barb lay back, enjoying the afterglow. Julian was already asleep, and she couldn’t blame him. Their coupling had been vigorous and lengthy. He possessed the stamina of a man half his age, and she’d taken every advantage of it. More than that, she’d enjoyed the genuine affection they felt for each other. She’d met Julian in the course of business, and at first, she’d been dazzled by his larger-than-life public persona, but what had really drawn her was the kind and thoughtful man he proved to be in private. She was of an age where she found those qualities aphrodisiacal.
Now, her mind went to Peter Jackery. She had neutralized the immediate threat he posed to the Sanchezes and Walkers. That bought her time to devise her next move. While she did that, of course, he’d be planning a move of his own. She felt certain she’d thrown him off his game, but he wouldn’t stay thrown for long. She needed to be ready to kick things up a notch. She needed to take the fight to him. That meant she needed to know where Jackery was vulnerable. She needed intel.
She fired off another email to the private detective service, this time asking for every available detail on the life and history of Peter Jackery. But she didn’t stop there. She also needed the kind of information that wasn’t published anywhere, that only came to light in private conversations between those in the know.
She needed the Shit Club.
#
It had come about naturally over time. After her successful collaboration with Nancy to save the Simitri from the unreasonable CEO, Barb had continued to reach out to her counterparts at other companies they had business with. Whether their titles were office manager like hers or “executive assistant” or “personal assistant,” they were the women who got shit done. Like Barb, they were the surrogate mother, looking after the boy geniuses who received all the glory. Over time, as they got to know each other, friendships blossomed. In twos and threes, they met over drinks to commiserate and gossip. Eventually, someone suggested they all get together as a group.
That first meeting had been a revelation. They discovered the deep satisfaction of being among those who understood them. With each story they shared, their kinship grew. They discovered they had much more in common with one another than any one of them had with her employers. They also revealed how each had taken actions in the past to save their employers from themselves, often without the knowledge of those employers. They agreed they could be more effective if they shared information with each other, especially the information their bosses considered top secret. They could influence their own corporate strategy best when they knew each other’s corporate strategy. Let the boys puff out their chests and act like they were duking it out with one another. Behind the scenes, these women hashed out the solutions that were best for all concerned.
In other words, they got shit done.
Someone suggested they call themselves the Shit Club, and the name stuck.
This was how Barb had first gotten word of Jackery—through the eyes of the various women who’d served under him. They never lasted long in their position. He was a supremely unpleasant man to work for. As each new assistant was hired, various members of the Shit Club would feel her out to see if she could be trusted to join. Jackery tended to hire on the younger side, and some of these young women displayed a misplaced loyalty to him, which made them bad candidates for the club. Others were more realistic and, after careful vetting, were invited in. For the duration of their employment, they provided the club with valuable information on Jackery and his latest plans. More than once, they’d worked together to save the industry from his ill-conceived schemes.
When each was inevitably let go, the club made sure she found a better position with more pleasant working conditions. It was one way they looked after each other.
Barb remembered vividly her last Shit Club meeting. It had turned out to be surprisingly emotional. These women were realists, not given to sentimentality, but Barb occupied a special position in their lives. As the oldest among them, she’d served as something of a mentor and mother confessor. Each had a story to tell of a time she’d made a difference in their lives. And each expressed her personal and permanent gratitude.
Barb was now ready to call upon that gratitude.
#
“Hey, Genevieve.”
“Barb! It’s great to hear from you. How are you doing?”
Barb stood in front of the kitchenette refrigerator, wrapped in a silk robe, holding her phone in one hand and reaching for a wine bottle with the other. She didn’t worry about keeping her voice down. Julian was out cold and snoring softly in the bed behind her. It would take an A bomb—or the sound of a retainer check bouncing—to wake him.
“Enjoying my retirement,” said Barb. “How are your boys treating you?”
“The usual bullshit. Nothing I can’t handle.”
“I have no doubt of that.”
“What’s up?” said Genevieve. “I know you didn’t call to chit chat.”
“I’m involved in something. A little pro bono work to help a struggling community. And guess whose name came up? Peter Jackery.”
“The Jackass?”
“None other,” said Barb. “I was hoping to reach out to his assistant on the sly.”
“I can’t help you with that. His current slave is a kid named Marcy, a true believer in the cult of Jackery. We took one look at her and closed ranks. She doesn’t know about the club and never will.”
“Marcy, huh?” said Barb. “Thanks for the name. Is there any word on the street about the Jackass himself?”
“You mean besides his crazy cult compound for billionaires? He’s been hitting up everyone’s boys, trying to get them to sign on. The consensus is it’s some kind of scam to milk them for ‘membership fees’ and then—oops, sorry, things just didn’t work out.”
“It’s no scam,” said Barb. “It’s worse. Tell your boys to stay miles away. Jackery’s serious, and it’s going to blow up in his face.”
“You know this for a fact?”
“I do.”
“Thanks for the heads up. I’ll pass it along. And, Barb?”
“Yes?”
“Whatever it is you’re doing, be careful. He may be a jackass, but he’s a ruthless son of a bitch.”
“That’s what I’m counting on.”
#
At the kitchenette table, Barb sipped wine and tried to place herself inside Jackery’s head. By now, he knew of the existence of an entity named “Barb” who’d taken steps to interfere with his plans. How would he react? Obviously he’d want to find out everything he could about his newfound enemy. But, of course, he wouldn’t do any investigative work on his own. He’d delegate that to his assistant.
Barb did a quick search on “Jackery” and “Marcy.” The top result was a LinkedIn page for one Marcy Gold. In the photo she came across as an intense girl with dark, curly hair and cheeks that hadn’t lost their baby fat. Jackery was truly robbing the cradle with this one. Outside of an internship in college, her only experience was working for Jackery. Barb decided the girl would make the perfect conduit for disinformation.
The first step would be to construct a fictional identity to plausibly share her name. One thing working in her favor was Jackery’s deep-seated sexism. He wouldn’t naturally suspect a woman of being strong enough to challenge him—especially if Barb offered him an alternative that better matched his prejudices.
She let her mind wander. She often did her best thinking when she wasn’t thinking. Her name had been a constant presence in her life ever since the day in third grade she’d chosen it to stop the constant teasing over her foreignness. How many times over the years had she said and heard it? Now, she needed to look at it afresh, to consider other associations it might hold, such as the barbs on fish hooks or conversational barbs. There was barbed wire and fish called barbs. Barbie dolls and barbarians. Barbells and barbecues. Barbers and barbiturates.
As her mind sifted through the possibilities, she could feel another one just out of reach. It was something she’d heard maybe once or twice a long time ago. A name. But it wasn’t “Babette” or “Barbarella.” It was something frilly-sounding with a meaning that was anything but.
She forced herself not to think about it, blanking her mind.
Barbarossa.
Yes, that was it. Such a funny-sounding word, like a Spanish princess. But it had something to do with war. That much she remembered. She quickly pulled up Wikipedia and did a quick search.
Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II.
Ah, yes. Hitler’s betrayal of Stalin and the infamous non-aggression pact they’d signed at the start of the war. What a perfect allusion: one megalomaniac stabbing another in the back. Jackery would have no trouble conceiving of one of his billionaire buddies turning against him—or, even better, a group of them.
Barb quickly assembled a fictional portrait of a secret cabal operating under the pseudonym “Barbarossa.” She sprinkled her portrait with hints pointing to various other Silicon Valley success stories. An interview Jackery had given a few years back back, in which he’d named the men he considered his friends and allies, was particularly helpful.
After she’d finished, the question became: how to plant the fake information for Marcy Gold to find? But she couldn’t be too obvious. She needed to make the girl work for it.
Barb began by creating an X account with a nonsense name and writing a dozen cryptic tweets. She added the same hashtags to each one: #Barb and #Barbarossa. Next, Barb went to the libertarian message boards and discussion groups she knew were favorites of Jackery and his ilk. She sprinkled nonsense messages with bread crumbs from her imaginary portrait and tagged each message with both #Barb and #Barbarossa.
When she was done, she went looking for evidence of Marcy Gold’s research in progress. After a while she begin to notice messages authored by someone with the username “goldengirl2000.” These messages were probing the fellow users of the boards, asking if anyone had seen any recent activity from anonymous or unrecognized users. Barb figured Marcy didn’t want to come out and ask if anyone had heard of the name “Barb.” She must be hoping to pick up on unusual behavior, so Barb gave her something to pick up on. She scattered replies to some of goldengirl2000’s messages, and in a couple of them, she included the #Barb and #Barbarossa hashtags.
That should keep our Marcy occupied. And it should throw Jackery off Barb’s scent—at least for the time being. But she knew it wouldn’t do anything to prevent Jackery from moving his scheme forward. If anything, knowing he had an enemy would lead him to redouble his efforts.
Barb had stymied his ability to attack the Sanchezes, as well as Danita’s family. But attacking people in Dixon had never been Jackery’s goal. It was merely the means he used to move himself toward that goal: owning all of Dixon. Taking the Sanchez property was merely the first step in that process, but it was a critical one. As she understood it, the plan was to have the sheriff auction off the farm to Jackery as the only bidder. Her obvious next move was to blow up the process.
She did a quick search to see when the auction was scheduled. She discovered that the date wasn’t weeks away as Danita had led her to believe. It was the next day. Either the girl had got the date wrong—not likely—or Jackery, sensing his own vulnerability, had prevailed upon the sheriff to move it up. Barb no longer had the luxury of time. She needed to act now.
She walked back to the bedroom area of the RV. Shaking Julian awake, she asked him for the name of a lawyer who specialized in real estate and foreclosures. He mumbled a name before turning away and falling back asleep. She walked out to her laptop and quickly located the contact info for Julian’s suggestion. She called the number, dropped Julian’s name, and was soon talking with the attorney herself about the process of governmental auction of seized property. The lawyer filled Barb in and answered her questions graciously, and by the end of the call she had all the information she needed.
She sat back, picking up her wine and taking a sip. Armed with her new knowledge, she felt prepared to counter Jackery’s move. All she needed was to rest up so that she’d be prepared to execute her countermoves. She rinsed out her wineglass, headed to the bedroom, slipped off her robe, and nudged Julian over. As she slid into bed beside him, she let her thoughts wander back to the events of the past few days. She considered the challenges she’d taken on, first Danita and now the Sanchezes, as well as the steps she’d taken on their behalf, and she felt a glow of satisfaction.
The depression she’d felt at the onset of her forced retirement was long gone. She felt alive in a way she hadn’t for years. To put it simply, she was having fun.