Chris Jordan - Measure of Darkness

“I see you’re enjoying our little meal,” she observes. “Take my word, it only gets better. Mrs. Beasley’s homemade ice cream with ginger sauce has been known to make fully grown humans weep with pleasure.”

“I, um, can’t wait,” he says. Shrinking a little, aware what comes next.

Boss lady favors our guest with one of her cool, controlling smiles. “Mr. Bean, you have done exemplary work for us in the past, as a freelance operative, and given what you have been able to accomplish with so little muss and fuss, I certainly want the relationship to continue. However, we need to be assured that your particular talents will not put us in legal jeopardy. Your sponsor, Mr. Delancey, would have us believe you somehow melt through security by way of human camouflage. Or by borrowing Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility. Jack has read all the Potter books, by the way, because at heart he’s deeply romantic. Whereas I saw part of one movie and found it tedious, undoubtedly because I don’t believe in magic, and don’t want to, not even a little bit. To the contrary I believe in data, in facts on the ground and in the scientific method. Which made me wonder how you do it, how you manage to evade security wherever you happen to be assigned, even on very short notice. There being no satisfactory explanation, I have concluded that you are not, in fact, evading security.”

Milton flinches, ever so slightly.

“It seems very likely that you have in your possession valid identification that allows unfettered access to a variety of venues,” she continues, not simply a statement but a pronouncement of fact. “The possibilities are actually quite limited. You could be with the state police, FBI or IRS, any of which could get you through security in most places, but none of those agencies have you on any database we can find. So by a process of elimination, if you are not a card-carrying member of a government law enforcement agency, you must be affiliated with one of the major auditing firms. How am I doing, Mr. Bean?”

The Invisible Man couldn’t be more stunned if boss lady had firmly tapped him on the temple with a large rubber mallet. “How did you figure that out?” he finally manages to ask.

Naomi allows herself a small sniff of satisfaction. “Sheer surmise. No other explanation suffices. Publicly traded corporations are required to submit to unscheduled spot checks from auditing firms. That’s especially true of any company with Department of Defense contracts. Ergo.”

“Ergo?”

“Therefore, hence, it follows,” she says, defining the word with a thin, prim smile. “Fret not, Mr. Bean, your secret is safe with us, just as our secrets will be safe with you.”

Naomi doesn’t need to add any threatening qualifiers, like “on pain of death” or “on pain of never again being invited to share Mrs. Beasley’s cooking.” The Invisible Man, with a dip of his head, surrenders to her powers of deduction. Far from the first, unlikely to be the last.

“You got me,” he says, with a sigh that could be relief.

“Details, please.”

“Three years ago I was a forensic CPA with-” and he names one of the major national auditing firms, here redacted. “Your basic Mr. Bland with a calculator, making sure it all added up. That was my life. Checking the numbers, following the money. It was a career I chose, because it fit me. Milton Bean, CPA. Then in the course of my work I stumbled on this, um, let’s call it an elaborate scheme to divert revenue from one financial entity to another, and then another, round the world, for the purposes of avoiding taxes and as well as cheating the shareholders. I’d call it a musical-chairs variation on a Ponzi scheme, but virtually undetectable unless you happened to get lucky, which I did. In more ways than one. Much to my surprise, and very much to my boss’s surprise, I ended up as a whistle-blower, of a sort.”

“Meaning you didn’t blow it very loud.”

Milton Bean smiles, betraying, for the first time in our presence, a slight glow of personal pride. “As whistle-blowers go, I was very discreet. A tiny little tweet, you might say. There were several large financial corporations involved-of the too-big-to-fail variety-as well as long-standing complicity from my own firm at the very highest levels. Also, the likely failure of several highly leveraged institutions, and many innocent victims, if I testified. So we all came to a reasonable accommodation. The corporations agreed to make good on the taxes they had been avoiding, plus pay very substantial fines, and I received a generous cash settlement and also got to keep my job, with all the usual benefits. Except I draw no salary and never have to show up for work.”

“You liked being undercover,” Naomi says, nodding to herself. “Blowing that very discreet whistle.”

He grins. “It’s way more fun than being an accountant.”

At a certain angle, in a certain light, he really does bear the smallest possible resemblance to Brad Pitt, if Brad Pitt was a certified public accountant with a receding hairline and forgettable eyes.

“All my life people tended not to notice me, and I pretended not to be bothered by not being noticed. Milton Milquetoast, the man who blends into the background. Now I get to use that personal camouflage to my advantage. Playing to my strength, you might say.”

“I do say,” Naomi says, impressed. “Bravo, sir! Well told! Now that your special talent has been sorted-the details of which will not leave this room, rest assured-please report on your visit to QuantaGate.”

According to Milton, the employees of the small research and development firm are in a deep state of shock and disbelief, stunned by the sudden death of their legendary founder. Not that anyone on the staff pretends actually to have known Professor Keener other than in passing. According to office chatter, Keener was formally polite but remained very much aloof, spending most of his time in his personal lab. More than one QG employee described him as “impossible to know.”

“It’s as if they all labored in the shadows of his genius, attempting to develop functional equivalents of his theoretical constructs. Which I gather has something to do with a new form of communication between high-speed computers,” Milton adds.

“Functional equivalents? Theoretical constructs?” Naomi asks, probing. “Did they use those terms, exactly?”

He nods. “More than once. Understand, as an auditor I was not permitted access to the secure labs and workshops. My movements were restricted to the general office area and the cafeteria. The support staff.”

“Who restricted your movements?”

“Security.”

“Wackenhut or Gama Guards?” Naomi asks, naming two of the biggest private security providers.

“Gama Guards,” Milton says. “Your basic corporate rent-a-cops, in uniform. Cordial but firm-mere accountants are not allowed into the labs. That requires another level of clearance, plus fingerprint and iris recognition. There’s not that many lab employees-less than thirty, according to the payroll-so presumably they all know each other. No way I could have gotten back there unobserved.”

“Understood. Jack, do you have any contacts with Gama Guards?”

“One or two. Cops who went private.”

“Be nice to check out the lab, or at the very least chat with someone who works in the secure area.”

“I’ll make some calls,” Jack says, making a note of it.

“Okay,” Naomi says. “This is all good. We’re making progress of a sort.” She turns to our guest. “I’m sure you’re eagerly awaiting the dessert course, Mr. Bean. That will follow my brief summation, and it is our habit to enjoy the final course in silence, understood?”

He licks his lips and nods. “Perfectly,” he says, posture attentive.