by Matt Rogers
Chapter 3
Smith and Wesson were back at the office informing their boss of what had transpired.
“Do we have a new client?” Robert Craft asked.
“Oh yeah” Smith replied.
Robert Craft was one-half of the business empire, the other was Sebastian Sons. Many believed Robert had heirs since the name of their venture led them to think so but he didn’t, he couldn’t, he was sterile. He had faced cancer and won the battle but lost the war. He would go on living, write his own destiny but when his life was over so was his genetic code. He was the last of his kind. He had no immediate relatives and could sire no prodigy. Many men would’ve succumbed to the fruitlessness of attempting to leave a legacy but not him. He doubled-down and decided to make his mark no matter the circumstances.
“Okay, what do we have?” asked Sebastian Sons.
“We have an open-ended line of credit to find a missing man” replied Wesson.
“Open-ended?” asked Craft.
“Yes, sir.”
“What does that mean?”
“Unlimited funds, sir.”
Both men’s eyes widened at the mention of the words. During their rise to the top of the investigation services they had met and worked for some of the wealthiest families and corporations in the world and while many bragged they had infinite funds upon further review there was always a limit.
“Did you verify their claim?” Craft asked.
“Yes, sir” Smith replied.
“How?”
“Miss LeTorque, the one who hired us told her butler, a gentleman by the name of Nat to go with us down to the Federal Reserve in Dallas and open a line of credit with the full backing of the United States of America.”
“What?” Sons asked in stunned disbelief.
“I know this hard to get your head around, sir, but it’s exactly as Smith said. We went down with Nat, entered the Reserve and left with a check” Wesson said.
“A check?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What check?”
“This check, sir” Smith replied holding a four by nine inch piece of paper in his hands.
“Let me see that” Craft said and Smith gave it over.
What Craft saw was an illusion, it had to be, for what it showed was a check made out to Craft and Sons signed by the man himself, the head of the Federal Reserve of Dallas, a Reserve which controlled the banks in the southern half of the United States, a country with an unlimited credit-line and the ability to print money from thin air and in the line where a monetary figure was to be placed there was nothing, only a blank space. It was, in effect, an IOU from the most prosperous nation on Earth, an IOU with a sum to be determined later, an IOU of infinity.
“Holy…!”
“Yes, sir, that’s what we thought also.”
Craft handed the check to Sons and sat in silence. He knew he should say something but was speechless for one of the few times in his life. He couldn’t grasp the enormity of the situation because it exceeded his reach. ‘Unlimited’ kept running through his mind along with yachts and golfing. He loved both and could now go about doing them for the rest of his life assuming they could find their man.
“Wow!” was Sons’ input.
“Yes, sir, once again, that’s exactly what me and Smith said” replied Wesson.
The silence in the room lasted for minutes until it was finally broken by Smith.
“I’m assuming we’re taking the case?”
“Heck, yeah!” both Craft and Sons exclaimed.
“Then I guess we’ll get started. Oh, and sirs?”
“Yes” they responded together eying the paper of imaginary greed.
“We’ll probably want a raise when this is over.”
Smith didn’t get an oral commitment, only tacit nods of approval from the men who could not take their focus away from nirvana on processed tree pulp.
Smith and Wesson went down the hallway to their office. Inside they found their young protégé, a college senior preparing to enter the workforce who was interning as a paralegal for the agency. His name was Joshua Stevens. He was smart, dedicated and desperate which made him the ultimate assistant.
“Joshua, what do you have for us?” Wesson asked as they entered the room.
Joshua looked up from the monitor on his desk, sat back in his seat and sighed.
“I’ve got nothing.”
“Excuse me?” Smith asked.
“I’m sorry, boss, but I can’t get access to anything or anyone related to this case.”
The two detectives had phoned the young paralegal after their appointment with Miss LeTorque to gather any information on her, her family, her business and anything about the man they were looking for; Johnny Johnson.
“You couldn’t get access?”
“No, sir. All our contacts say they were denied.”
Smith and Wesson were shocked. Their ‘contacts’ were law enforcement, all law enforcement including local police and the various federal and state authorities. Craft and Sons had methodically and purposefully over the years worked hand in hand with any and every agency they could infiltrate. It was a win-win situation for all involved. The authority, whether cop, fed or treasury would access their secure databases for them whenever they asked and in return, when it was time for the authority to retire with full benefits they would also be moving on to a side job as detectives with six figure incomes at Craft and Sons. Everyone scratched each other’s backs and all came out ahead. The best part was it was an ongoing process without the need for individual intervention. While on the force the cop would introduce others he worked with to the unique opportunities the detective agency offered. This gave Craft and Sons something even the government could not achieve; access to information on anyone in every legal database in existence. No one protected their turf because there was no turf to protect. If they had the information, good, if they didn’t, no problem. Craft and Sons would move on to the next one who did. They were able to keep in the graces of those in power because they never, under any circumstances, impeded law enforcement for their own benefit. If they were on a case and discovered criminal activity by those who hired them they would withdraw. They wouldn’t necessarily inform the authorities themselves because it was against their moral code to turn in clients for petty offenses but if the authorities asked first they would most definitely respond.
“Every contact?” Wesson asked in disbelief.
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I thought so too, therefore I had our contacts repeat to me exactly what they saw on their screens when they tried to get the information.”
“And what did they say?”
“Well, they said what I’ve got here in front of me” Joshua replied as he turned his monitor around so the detectives could view what was on its screen.
ACCESS DENIED
FOR SECURITY CLEARANCE CALL NAT
“You have got to be kidding me” Smith said while reaching for his phone.
“I tried to figure out what NAT is but came up with nothing. No one has ever seen that acronym before” Joshua said to Wesson.
“I believe that’s because it isn’t an acronym, Joshua.”
“It’s not?”
“No.”
“What is it?”
The question was answered by Smith.
“Hello, may I speak to Nat?” Joshua heard as Smith spoke into his phone.
“Yes, Detective Smith, this is him. I’m assuming because of this phone call you are working on my Mistress’ case?” he heard.
“Yes.”
“Then please tell me what I can do for you.”
Smith paused for a second because he felt things were going off in a strange direction. Unfortunately he had no idea which direction he wished to travel so he decided to go along for the ride.
“Can you get us access to information we are currently being denied?”
“Yes, if it is relevant to the
case.”
Smith couldn’t believe his ears. The man was a servant after all. How could he gain access to information unobtainable to the highest levels in law enforcement? So he asked what he thought was impossible.
“Can you clear us to view this Mister Johnson’s driving record?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“It is now available to your agency’s computer. Namely the one in your office which is currently being used by a Mr. Joshua Stevens.”
Smith turned to look where Joshua sat and as he did one thing became abundantly clear.
“Well, look at that! We’re in” Joshua said.
He had been completely wrong in his earlier assessment of the black servant in tuxedo and gloves.
“Nat?”
“Yes, Detective Smith?”
“Just who exactly are you?”
The answer he received was not very informative.
“I am a servant of LeTorque, Detective. I work for their benefit and they, in turn, work for mine.”
Smith was conditioned for cryptic answers because they were generally viewed as thought-provoking so were employed by the wealthy whenever they could slip the annoying statements in a conversation.
“Okay, stay mysterious if you want, no sweat off my brow. Now, I would also like any information you can give me on the LeTorque.”
“You are not now allowed access to that information, Detective.”
Smith heard the words but couldn’t process them.
“Excuse me? We’re looking for a member of their family. The more we know about them the better chance of figuring out where this gentleman went.”
What came next set the tone for their future.
“I am sorry, Detective, but as of right now your task is to find the whereabouts of Mister Johnson not the family of LeTorque. You will have access to any and all information on Jonathon and if in the process you come along information pertinent to the LeTorque I may or may not allow it. I am sorry if this hinders your effectiveness but it is the only way forward at this particular junction.”
Smith was apoplectic.
“Now hold on one second! You hired me to find this guy and when I say I need information…”
“Good bye, Detective.”
“What? Don’t you dare…!”
Smith looked at his cellphone as though it had personally insulted him.
“He hung up on me! That man actually hung up on me!”
“That man also gave us a blank check” intoned Wesson.
Wesson was right and Smith grudgingly admitted it. He could get angry and feign indignation but in the end the one writing the check paid the bills. There was no way the detective agency of Craft and Sons was not going to play by the rules set forth by those who commanded infinite resources. So he dusted off his bruised pride of insult through disconnection, peered closely at the monitor and took in the information on the screen.
“He’s not much to look at is he?” Smith said.
“Nope, kind of bland” Wesson answered.
“Says he’s five-eight, one-hundred-sixty pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. Huh? Look at that” Joshua said.
“What?”
“There’s no date of birth. Hey, is it even possible to get a driver’s license without a date of birth?”
“I don’t actually know? I assumed so but apparently I was wrong” said Smith.
“Pull up his birth certificate, it’ll be in his social security file” Wesson said.
Joshua logged in to the Social Security database, entered Jonathan Johnson, his driver’s license number and waited for a mili-second as the information was obtained.
“Is that…?”
“This has to be a joke.”
What appeared was a mocking reminder the information age still had a few quirks to iron out.
BIRTH CERTIFICATE
JONATHAN JOHNSON
YES, I WAS BORN