![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Company
Time: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 (wee hours).
Place: Charming apartments in London.
Last Event: Visiting Terence at home.
Anabel, Paul, and Wen check in upon returning from Terence's house, after which everyone gets some sleep. Come daylight, the team discusses options and decides not to spy on Muhammad Asif directly, owing to the sheer number of cameras and police officers in his neighborhood. The plan is to check up on him in a roundabout way, starting with asking Chaturvedi whether the Company has any connections in the man's building. Anabel gets the job of making the phone call.
Anabel fills in Chaturvedi regarding the team's snatch of the bomb-maker. Chaturvedi tells her that the Company would be proud – especially given that the grab was discrete, and avoided explosions and gunfire. Then Anabel informs Chaturvedi of the group's new task, and asks him if he could find out what (if anything) the Company knows of Asif's building. Chaturvedi promises to do his best.
Once the call is over, it's time to visit the library and do a little research. The Agents decide to send Anabel, Hamid, Jili, and Paul on this errand, with Paul going along mainly as driver and minder. The four set out at once by car. As far as they can tell, nobody is following them. Over the course of the day, the investigators learn several things:
• Anabel delves into Asif's personal life and discovers that he's a silent partner in a restaurant owned and run by his brother, Ahsan. By the looks of the place, the "Emerald of Kashmir" isn't a mere curry joint, but a posh establishment specializing in Muslim-style Pakistani food.
• Hamid confirms what's already known about Asif, finds better images of him, and learns the basics about both his private company ("South Star Import-Export") and the charity he backs ("London-Pakistani Youth Initiative").
• Jili, too, confirms Belinda's info and finds better photos. She also learns that Asif's UK trading partner is a low-profile numbered company, and that Asif's legal counsel is one Ford Chisholm, with a business address in the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Over dinner, the group discusses these findings. Jili feels that the youth charity would have the worst computer security, while the solicitor would have the best. Paul believes that the youth charity would also have second-rate physical security, and suspects that Chisholm's might not be much better. After a little debate, the decision is to pay Chisholm's offices a night visit. The squad selected for this is Anabel, Hamid, Jili, and Paul.
Anabel dresses Paul, Jili, Hamid, and herself in a manner unlikely to draw attention in the area they'll be visiting. Then they pile into the group's car (formerly the bomb-maker's) and hit the road. Once again, the Agents keep an eye out for trouble – and once again, they spot no tail. It's late evening when Paul parks the car. When the four hop out and approach Chisholm's offices, nobody seems particularly interested in them.
The Agents reach the front stairs to Chisholm's practice without incident, whereupon they fake a conversation while Anabel deals with the door. Anabel does her best to make her lockpicking attempt look like she's using the key, and this goes quite well. Before long, she, Paul, Jili, and Hamid are inside. The instant the door is shut, Hamid and Jili locate and disarm the alarm, which proves to be better than Paul expected but nothing they can't handle.
When Hamid gives the all-clear, the squad fans out and gets to work. Anabel dashes upstairs to where the file cabinets are kept, Paul searches what appears to be Chisholm's office, and Jili starts working on the receptionist's computer while Hamid tries to crack Chisholm's computer. Things go reasonably well:
• Anabel systematically examines the paper files and discovers glaring gaps where "Asif, Muhammad" and "South Star Import-Export" should be. There's a level 6 shredder nearby, its bin filled with paper dust. It's obvious from the state of things (including the smell) that somebody has been busy destroying documents. Anabel does find intact documents on the Emerald of Kashmir and the London-Pakistani Youth Initiative, however. She tries to photograph them, but her camera isn't up to the challenge.
• Hamid and Jili start copying the contents of the computers to large portable hard drives they bought earlier in the day.
• Paul turns up a not-very-secret compartment in Chisholm's antique desk, in which he finds a digital storage card, presumably deliberately hidden.
After about an hour on the premises, Jili hears someone unlocking the front door. She hisses a warning to the others. She and Hamid leave the file transfers running but stash the hard drives. Anabel and Paul simply hide, in the file room and Chisholm's office, respectively. Jili is both the best-hidden and the closest, so she sees who comes in: a middle-aged man in business dress, sporting a hat and carrying an umbrella. He doesn't seem to notice that anything is amiss, and immediately strides upstairs.
From her hiding place, Anabel sees the new arrival switch on the paper shredder and begin to rummage through the cabinets. Before long, he finds the files he's looking for and proceeds to start shredding them. Once he's done, he pulls out a costly mobile phone, calls someone, identifies himself as "Chisholm," and asks for "Asif." Surprised to see the boss (Chisholm) at the office late on a Wednesday night – doing his own shredding, no less – Anabel listens carefully. Chisholm reports "It's done," and then assures the party on the other end that the shredder he employed is as good as anything that an intelligence service would use.
After the phone call, Chisholm heads downstairs, has a scotch, and leaves. The Agents witness all this, but fortunately, Chisholm doesn't see them. The solicitor eventually collects his hat and brolly, exits via the front door, and locks it behind him. As soon as he's gone, Anabel, Hamid, Jili, and Paul emerge from hiding and get back to work.
Upstairs, Anabel finds the paper index to the files and tries to deduce what documents Chisholm destroyed. As far as she can tell, that's "Deeds of Ownership, Asif." The surrounding files appear to contain papers confirming that various wealthy people own homes, yachts, and so on. However, there's nothing left of the Asif files, and a thorough check turns up no information of value. Meanwhile, the other three decide to steal the memory card that Paul found, and get to work dolling up one of Hamid's cards to look just like it, right down to swapping the labels.
After that, it's just a matter of hanging on until the file transfers finish. While the Agents wait for this, Hamid codes a quick-and-dirty keystroke logger that will dump data to one of the team's anonymous sites, and then installs it on both computers. Anabel uses the time to walk around looking for anything personal to turn into leverage. She noticed that Chisholm had a wedding band, and sure enough turns up photos of his wife.
Once the file transfers are done, the Agents get ready to leave. Hamid and Jili pack up the portable hard drives and the stolen memory card, while Paul finds a spare set of keys in Chisholm's desk and starts wiping the place down. Minutes later, the four are out the door, with Hamid rearming the alarm and then Paul locking up. The squad returns to the car without incident, and returns home.
It's very early on Thursday, June 28 when Paul, Jili, Hamid, and Anabel return. They share what they found with the others. Consensus is that if Asif is telephoning a wealthy, old-fashioned solicitor and having him destroy files at night, there's something fishy going on. After that discussion, Qoqa reports having made a reservation for four at the Emerald of Kashmir for Thursday night. The tentative plan is for Anabel, Jili, Qoqa, and Wen to have a "girls' night out" at the restaurant and see what they can do about meeting the owner (Ahsan) – or even Asif.
no subject
Thanks for the tips. Usually, I do not post on blogs, but I wish to say that this post really forced me to do so! Thanks, incredibly nice article. Thank you lots, I am obliged to announce that your blog is excellent!
Thanks and Regards,
Johny Lee
Insurance Bad Faith Attorney (http://www.mslawllp.com/california/insurance-bad-faith)