Troubleshooter

Chapter 18 - Father and Son

THE ASIAN Man had come back from dinner to his temporary apartment. He checked the messages from his cover-life phone. A coworker apologized for not being able to make it to drinks and dinner. The Asian Man sat down to think. He pondered whether to inform his Controller about the events of the day. He was pretty certain that the company had no idea of what was going on, but he didn't like coincidences. In his experience, one coincidence led to the next, up to the point where coincidences became a string of evidence. It was only a few more days, so he had to be patient and stick to the plan. But the Controller should know, he decided. As the field operative, the Asian Man was used to making his own tactical decisions, but for overall coordination of the mission, the Controller was an equal member of the team.

The Asian Man glanced at his watch. It was getting close to their evening contact schedule. He had to get going. He dressed again, picked up his keys, and some spare change and left his apartment. The modern London of ubiquitous mobile phones made it hard to find good old phone booths. But modern London still had plenty of Internet cafes that allowed cheap voice calls through the net for guest workers into all parts of the world. The Asian Man bought an hour ticket from the vending machine, found a free computer away from other surfers and logged in. He had brought his own headset and took some measures to obfuscate his digital tracks and to check for malware that a previous tenant or the authorities had left on the device.

"Dad, this is your son. How are you?" They were talking in a local dialect of their homeland. It was doubtful that the CIA or the British Military Intelligence had a short-term possibility to translate it. If at all.

"Good to hear you, son. The city still becomes you?" Although the call was routed around the world, the Controller was also located in London.

"It does, thanks. At work we today had a special audit. Unplanned."

"Anything we need to worry about?"

"One is from headquarter office, Mergers and Acquisitions department, an accountant. Name of Paul Trouble. The other one is a senior auditor who apparently has been doing the British books for Strom Industries for some years now. Name of Sam Lornsen. Plus another guy. Didn't get his full name, sounded German, last name Schwartz."

"Is it possible that now of all times, Strom decides to make a merger or sell-off the company? It would be very sad if you lost your job again." The Controller added this to keep up the cover of a father and son conversation.

"Everything is possible, but it is a strong coincidence."

They were quiet for a while.

"You continue as planned," the Controller proposed, "but we should have an eye on the apartment of our friend. I will arrange something right away."

The Asian Man agreed. "Thanks Dad, for your advice. Always appreciated."

"Goodnight, Son."