Graham had woken, but refused to open his eyes.He'd escaped consciousness late last night with the help of his trusty accomplice, alcohol. Now consciousness had recaptured him, and would eventually force him back to the gulag of his negative mind,a crucible of suffering.

So he tried to remember the dream he'd just had, before his mind casually deleted it:a girl in a bakery.She gave him flowers. She said she'd been working there 20 years.She knew him from school.She bought flowers everyday hoping one day he'd walk in and she'd present a bunch to him, as a proposal for marriage.And 20 years of dead flowers later, he walks in.

The subconscious has a way of compensating for acknowledges the chemical imbalance, and so seeks the lighter genres for our dreams.But when we wake, consciousness can't be fucked with the frivolity.Although perhaps we shouldn't be too harsh on consciousness: it has reality to deal with " it's just trying to get by.

Graham knew he'd forget the dream unless he committed it to paper, but that meant opening his eyes, finding pen and paper, and surrendering completely to the new day and his habitual negativity.

So he turned his mind to last night.The evidence of his raging hangover had told him something bad had happened, or at least something of vital importance.However, his memory of last night had been corrupted by huge quantities of alcohol. He'd somehow got home, and found his bed.That reassured him. He could feel he was still wearing his work clothes, even his shoes.Graham was no longer reassured.He checked his trouser pockets.A piece of paper in his left pocket.Finally compelled to open his eyes, he took it out and saw it was a note with just two words :-

"Tonight, Zebra"

That's why he liked to keep his eyes shut.His heart was he needed a drink.Oh girl in the bakery, I'll marry you.I'll buy YOU flowers for the next 20 years.Damn these dreams.

Graham experimentally propped himself up in bed.His headache dialled up its pain in reaction to his movements.He stared at his laptop.His heart thumped harder, and his headache amped up its pain correspondingly.

The laptop sat there, looking back at Graham, as if it to say "open me".Graham's laptop held some sick secrets.These secrets carried a huge payload, powerful enough to nuke around 10 careers, all of them belonging to his superiors.Then there'd be the fallout of their divorces and court cases, finally the nuclear winter of their jail time.Graham had whispered these secrets to his laptop via USB, email, FTP.

But had his laptop spilled the beans to the rest of the world? Had he persuaded his laptop to do such a thing?

That thought sent Graham to his feet, past his laptop, to the kitchen fridge.Four tall, shiny cylinders of Stella Artois greeted him.He stared at them, enjoying their shape and shine.He felt such LOVE for those cans (he could actually feel his eyes moisten).And so the familiar ritual: the tug of the ringpull, the carbonated gasp, the raise of the head, and the temporary relief.And despite the headache and cork of nausea threatening to pop open, Graham fell into his usual contemplative reverie during those first few swallows.He examined the note again.His own handwriting.Well it had to be, since Zebra was his own codeword.Named as such because of the black and white nature in which the whole stinking operation his company was involved in was going to be spilled to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.

He turned toward the laptop again, not daring to boot it up just yet.That would wait until he'd at least finished his 2nd can and tried to remember what had happened last night that had provoked him to activate such a desperate plan, and had he followed it through? He knew that he'd only go through with such a plan in a drunken and desperate state.He knew he'd been drunk, but had he been desperate enough?

The 2nd can fizzed open, but his own memory was still refusing to yield this information.He was failing to recollect, his memory bluescreening, returning critical errors.Something about Paulson, surely? Graham reflected on his boss, Stephen Paulson.The idiot with his hubris and showmanship, and when things didn't go his way, his passive aggression and bullying.Graham was the butt of many of Paulson's jokes, each one adding weight and credence to Operation Zebra, which was hatched a good 18 months ago.

Graham had become a peripheral figure at RefinedZinc Ltd over the last year and a half at least.He was excluded from the profit share (no other employee was excluded), and was not awarded a pay increase at the last pay review (all other employees had been given a pay rise).All this had happened without a word spoken by either his superiors, or was constructive dismissal.Passive aggression.They were pushing him out, even though he'd set up their entire IT infrastructure, without which, they'd never have gotten where they were today.They now saw him as some kind of glitch, a bug in their system that needed ironing out.He no longer fitted in with their more expansive, ostentatious style that had enveloped the office since their big successes. Graham wasn't as confident as his colleagues, and in the times he could sense the cabin fever truly rising in the office (particularly Friday afternoons when the guys were playful and less focused on their work), Graham would become an easy target, someone to bounce off a joke at his expense.Contributing more credibility and plausibility to Operation Zebra.

Suddenly it came to him. It was a facial the pub.He'd gone to the toilet, and on his return to the table, David Grieg's face was frozen in mock stupidity, with his eyes following Graham as he walked back from the toilet.Graham caught this in his peripheral view the whole time.Laughter from Pauslon next to other words, a typical night out with work.Which increased the purpose and necessity of Operation Zebra.

So tipping point established (which was important to Graham), it was time for another beer.And then to fire up the laptop.The 3rd beer afforded him some more time to reflect on his decision.What was he going to do next? He'd clean up his act, quit the drink, and move abroad.This was no kind of life, being stuck in this rut of anxiety alleviated by drink, which in turn, fuelled his depression.He'd got some money in the bank, enough to make a move possible. He'd just up and go.Operation Zebra would be the push he needed.He would HAVE to leave the country anyway, as the operation was all about fronting up about the leak and not doing it anonymously " this was to be his revenge, after all and he wanted to take full credit for crushing the company into bankruptcy.The tax dodges run into millions, and an informant of such a crime becomes of great interest to many people.People with resined baseball bats and such implements.These wrecking crews would likely be activated the moment the police made their first arrests.Graham would need to leave soon.

But something was attempting to ameliorate such anxious thoughts.There was a feeling that all of this panic was unnecessary.Some soothing new information danced on the edge of his thoughts, as yet unarticulated.Had he bottled the whole thing? Maybe he hadn't sent anything off. That feeling was gaining ground.

No more guessing.Graham booted the laptop; he needed confirmation of what happened last night.Did he really send the details to the tax office?He would confirm this fact and if true, calmly gather a bag of clothes, get his wallet and passport and walk out the door, and take a taxi to Heathrow.He'd pick out a destination at the airport and get a standby ticket.

He was thinking of which country to fly to when his laptop finally booted.He opened his email account and checked the Sent folder.Last email sent at 4.45PM yesterday afternoon.What? He hadn't sent anything last that was that then.Jesus....all that getting worked up over nothing....but.....

No, surely not.....he saw he'd added a new email account.d.grieg@refinedzinc.com " he checked the Sent folder on this account and saw 1 email sent:- "RefinedZinc " undeclared profits"with a large attached file.Upon opening the file he read Operation Zebra's cover note, with all of David Grieg's contact details, should the tax office need more information from Mr Grieg.He'd even sent the email via his company's SMTP server, all fingers pointing to David Grieg.

Operation Zebra was all about taking responsibility for the leak, about taking credit for front up, and take revenge, with the brass neck of full disclosure.But the tipping point last night was the fulcrum of an even more twisted plan.

Graham opened the 4th can, holding it in salutation to David Grieg, the brave whistleblower of RefinedZinc Ltd.