I am Hollywood

[Chapter 1127: You Seem Really Excited?]

Eric looked at the variety of electronic devices in the box in front of the girl. Although the quantity wasn't large, it still sent shivers down his spine. "Did you find all of these at our place?"

"Not all of them," Drew replied as she picked up the black ashtray again. "This one came from Jeffrey's office. He's absolutely furious about it and has already hired a detective agency to look into the matter. He wants to throw all those traitors to the company in prison. The others were gathered from my and Liz's homes, Firefly Studios, the Burbank headquarters, and the Liberty City estate. Thankfully, they only found one at the Liberty City estate, in that sitting room next to the hall, which is one place you rarely visit. The top floor bedroom and the underground study are areas that Natasha and I always kept clean. The maids didn't have access, and after multiple thorough checks, nothing was found. Also, they caught someone at the estate. I wanted to toss her into the ocean, but that would be illegal, so she's still there, waiting until this blows over, then we'll make her pay as per the contract."

Even though the estate felt relatively secure, Eric didn't let his guard down at all as he glared at the girl. "You seem really excited?"

"It's thrilling!" she unabashedly laughed and leaned closer to the camera. "It feels like we are in Mission: Impossible."

If it weren't for the video call, Eric would have immediately given her a light smack on the forehead. "Alright, focus a bit more. What's going on in New York?"

"Not much there. I even checked the house where you keep the little fox. They usually clean it themselves, so there wasn't much of a chance for anyone to plant listening devices or maybe nobody was really interested in them." The girl continued, not caring about Eric making a fool of himself in front of Caroline and Merissa. "But Vicki mentioned that there were paparazzi hanging around East Hampton a while back, but they haven't been seen for a while now."

As long as it didn't interfere with the safety and lives of the women and children, Eric didn't mind paparazzi much. He processed the information the girl provided and asked, "By the way, when was the listening device planted at the estate?"

She seriously pulled out a folder from the side and flipped through it. "March 25. She was planning to place another device in the client area by the curtain wall that day, but there was a fierce little cat guarding it, and she didn't dare approach. For the next few weeks, you were mostly out of Los Angeles, and she only did cleaning once. She was cleaning the kitchen that time, and since Natasha was nearby, she didn't get a chance."

A fierce little cat?

Eric pondered for a moment, quickly recalling that Carmen Cass had been staying at the estate those days.

Thinking about Carmen's personality, that description was actually pretty spot on. He tugged at the corner of his mouth, giving the girl a warning look but gradually began to understand that all of this, including the network attacks and eavesdropping, primarily started within the last month.

Of course, Eric was also aware that external observation of him would definitely not have begun just that month.

But every behavior needs sufficient motivation and benefit to drive it. If one couldn't expect sufficient returns, they wouldn't recklessly eavesdrop on a super rich guy like Eric; if discovered, it would surely incur retaliation, and the return on investment wasn't great enough for most to act that way.

However, things were different now. Not just with Clover Fund, even within the Firefly system, stocks like Yahoo, Cisco, and Amazon had enough weight in the Nasdaq market to influence its direction.

If someone knew about the Firefly system's equity management plans for its new tech companies, given the current frenzy in the Nasdaq market, acting on such knowledge could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in profits for speculative capital.

Even more so, if they could access serious negative information sufficient to affect the entire tech stock market, pre-establishing short positions could yield billions when the Nasdaq market crashed.

In his memory, the shocking 9/11 incident was rumored to have involved hedge funds heavily shorting airline stocks beforehand. While no solid evidence ever surfaced, it certainly wasn't without basis. Moreover, such maneuvers through insider information were entirely feasible.

After thinking for a moment, Eric instructed the girl, "Pay more attention during this time, and don't let anything happen."

"Uh-huh," she nodded and then asked, "So, Eric, aren't we going to catch the culprit?"

"This matter is for you to handle. Just don't do anything out of line. Let's not keep that maid locked up anymore; hand her over to the FBI."

Eric had little expectation that anything would come of it. Anyone in their right mind would try to ensure they wouldn't be implicated. He also had a general idea of who was behind the schemes, likely major Wall Street investment banks and large hedge funds. Small fries probably wouldn't have the resources to pull off something like this.

"But I think if we hand it over to the FBI, we'll be less likely to find anything," she protested.

"I just want to see if they can figure anything out."

The girl seemed to understand and nodded. "By the way, Eric, the CACI team has already conducted a preliminary inspection of the planes over here. Only some details need thorough testing. The president of CACI said there were basically no issues; yours should be about the same."

...

After discussing some more matters, Eric ended the video call. He leaned back in his leather chair and began to reflect on the recent events carefully.

The eavesdropping incident started about a month ago.

Fortunately, he had been incredibly busy during this month, hopping around Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and even recently Tokyo, leaving little opportunity for anyone to eavesdrop on him.

Moreover, the party most interested in Clover Fund, he had been very cautious from the start.

So far, only Eric himself fully understood the all-encompassing four-month sell-off plan. He merely confirmed a list of stocks and their quantities each week based on market conditions, handed it to Kelly, and then she would reach out to various trading studios for the sell-offs.

Other than that, even Chris and Katzenberg hadn't been privy to much of that information.

Thinking this through, it was likely that those people could only access Clover Fund's recent few weeks of sell-off operations. But even that was just a possibility; it was more probable the opponent was getting nothing, which was why there had been a frenzied attack on his personal email last week, catching Steve Mitnick's attention.

Clover Fund started selling on March 22, and today was April 23, a Friday -- just the perfect five-week period.

This week's cash-out amount still needed the weekend for calculation, but he roughly remembered the numbers from the previous weeks: $1.6 billion, $1.8 billion, $1.7 billion, and $2.1 billion.

In just four weeks, Clover Fund had made an insane $7.2 billion cash-out.

$7.2 billion was equivalent to what Eric had invested in capital over the past few years. In fact, if one included the $2.378 billion from the sale of 3.1% of stocks to AOL a few months ago, Clover Fund had already raked in substantial profits over the past few years.

So even if the Nasdaq index were to crash right now, Eric wouldn't be too fazed.

After all, aside from the stocks held by Clover Fund, the Firefly system had no plans whatsoever to unload any tech firms like Yahoo, Cisco, or Amazon. On the contrary, Eric hoped to take advantage of the bursting tech stock bubble to increase his holdings in those firms.

Currently, Wall Street's capital not only couldn't obtain what they wanted but couldn't get any necessary information from him.

Even Clover Fund, unless they could get details on Eric's large-scale transactions of tech stocks, plus account information, before blowing it up through the media, otherwise, merely eavesdropping on scraps of information would hardly shake the now totally out of control Nasdaq market.

As for tracking the actions of Clover Fund, even that was unrealistic. Many on Wall Street had already cleared out their tech stocks before the Nasdaq reached 3000 points. So now, even if they wanted to sell, they'd need to have stocks to sell in their accounts.

What these players could do now was either short sell or buy before selling again.

The former had already seen much capital engaging in such operations, while the latter's risk was even more significant than the former's.

...

Rubbing his temples, Eric opened his eyes to see Caroline and Merissa silently sitting opposite him and said, "You both should go and rest. There's still quite a while until we get to London."

Caroline and Merissa stood up together, concerned, and asked, "Eric, do you want to sleep for a bit?"

Eric nodded, stood up, and walked out of the study, heading straight into the front cabin's bedroom. He kicked off his shoes and exhaustedly collapsed onto the large bed.

Moments later, he felt the mattress sink slightly beside him, a faint fragrance wafting in. Eric instinctively reached towards it and felt Caroline's slender waist. He turned to see her bright eyes sparkling as she sat on the edge of the bed.

He patted the spot next to him and teased, "Come here and be my body pillow."

Caroline's face flushed slightly, but she quietly kicked off her shoes, undid her suit jacket buttons, took it off, folded it neatly, and lay down next to him, wearing just a thin blouse and white casual pants.

Eric really wanted to pull the girl closer, but as he looked at Caroline's quivering eyelashes and the nervous look on her face, still wearing her serious OL outfit, he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Kissing her forehead, Eric chuckled, "It feels like I'm about to be executed here."

Caroline opened her eyes and turned to face Eric, locking eyes for a moment before she whispered, "Eric, should I have Mary come over?"

Eric immediately felt a bit guilty and shook his head. "I only want Carly with me."

Caroline blinked and touched Eric's face with her hand. "Eric, I'm quite smart. I know everything."

"And you know how to make the man you like feel even guiltier?"

"Uh-huh."

Eric grasped Caroline's small hand, kissed it, and said, "Well, I'm now so guilty I feel like jumping off the plane."

Caroline smiled and nestled against Eric's chest, wrapping her arms around his waist, whispering, "Eric, I like you."

That suddenly brought back memories of that night in Lonely Pine Town, where Caroline had said the same thing.

Eric hugged the girl beside him, saying, "Now I feel even guiltier for having a girl confess her feelings to me twice."

"Eric, I plan to make you feel guilty for a hundred years."

"A hundred years is too long. Is a lifetime okay instead?"

"Uh-huh."

...

In April, London's weather still felt chilly. As the plane landed at Heathrow Airport, fine rain fell from the sky, creating a gloomy, foggy scene.

London was eight hours behind Tokyo, but the distance was considerably greater than that from Los Angeles to Tokyo, exceeding twelve hours of travel. By the time they landed, it was already the afternoon of the 23rd in local time.

Caroline's home was very close to Heathrow. The premiere would occur the day after tomorrow, so Eric arranged for a car to take the girl home right at the airport. The CACI information security team from California had begun inspecting Eric's Boeing 747 as soon as they landed, with Carter Moen staying behind to keep an eye on things.

As they entered the city, they naturally checked out the Kensington residence again. After wrapping everything up, it was already evening.

"Mr. Colin Southgate, president of Midway Group, has agreed to the lunch invitation tomorrow noon. I've booked a table at the Royal Garden Hotel restaurant. The Bertelsmann Group hasn't replied yet; we should get news by tomorrow morning. Also, here are the financial reports of the two companies for the past five years. I've highlighted the important information," Merissa said as she placed several files on the coffee table. "This also includes the guest list for the premiere of Iron Man on the 26th, and the Japanese media reviews post-premiere in Tokyo were very positive. Mr. Coyle Crowe expected Iron Man's box office in Japan to reach around $50 million."

Eric stood at the coat rack in the corner of the living room, changing out of his trench coat while listening to Merissa's updates from the sofa. "Alright, let's go grab a bite."

"Eric, I..."

"Are you attending any art exhibit?"

"No."

"Then come with me to eat."

"..."

"Did you eavesdrop on my conversation with Carly on the plane?"

"No."

"Seems like you did. That's not a good habit," Eric laughed. "Looks like I really need to teach my eavesdropping assistant a lesson."

Merissa's face turned red. "Eric, you can't say that."

"I'm the boss; I can say whatever I want."

"I'll resign if you keep this up."

"Well, you still need to change that bad habit before resigning," Eric walked over and took her arm. "Come on, what do you want to eat?"

Merissa looked quite reluctant but still linked her arm with Eric's. "There's no way we'll get a table at the corner restaurant now."

"Then let's go somewhere else," Eric shrugged. "Honestly, these restaurants are like this. The more you care about them, the more proud they become. I always thought those who felt proud of being able to reserve a table at some restaurant were pretty foolish."

*****

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