This is one that I've been working on for awhile:
____________________________________________________
Chapter 1
I was sitting at my desk in my cubbyhole of an office in Tyson’s Corner. There was a nice, hot cup of coffee on the desk. I had my feet up. I was reading the Washington Post. I try to pay attention to the local political shenanigans, not because I’m a political junkie, but out of professional interest. When there is a serious political feud going on, people get interested in digging up deeply buried scandals. They want to find the skeletons that are so far back in the closet that they’re in old garment bags. It helps if I keep abreast of who is gunning for whom.
Digging up dirt is part of what I do. I’m a private detective.
The receptionist buzzed me to let me know that I had a client. My cubbyhole is in the offices of another private detective. She, in turn, shares a receptionist with three other offices. Two of them are new lawyers who had recently hung out their shingles; the third is some guy who claims to be a “financial planner”, which is probably some new breed of confidence artist.
I swung my feet off the desk and told her to send the client in. He was tall, pale, and white, with semi-short hair that was trending from blond to grey. “Good morning, my name is Jens Hauger,” he said.
I stood up and shook his hand. Hauger was wearing what appeared to be a reasonably expensive suit which gave him a European air. If he was armed, he concealed it well and the suit would have had to have been custom-tailored for it.
“My card,” he said, and proffered it.
“Have a seat,” I said, as I did so, as well. I looked at the card. It was appropriately thick and embossed. It said that he was the Chief Security Officer for the Royal Norwegian Embassy. I guessed that was the Norwegian royal coat of arms on the card.
Hauger reached into his inside suit coat pocket. The right side top drawer of my desk was open, a Ruger Security Six .357 Magnum was in it. My hand drifted towards the drawer.
His eyes twinkled a little as his hand came out holding some folding money. He placed that on my desk and slid it over towards me.
“Consulting fee,” he said.
I picked it up, four $50 bills. I put them back down.
“How may I be of assistance,” I asked.
Hauger began to reach for his jacket pocket again. This time, he pulled out a photograph and two small sheets of paper. He handed them to me. The photograph was a copy of a consulate ID card for a Peter Haupmann, who was forty six years old. The papers had details about Haupmann.
“Who’s Haupmann,” I asked.
“He works in our financial affairs office. He’s essentially a liaison between my government, Norwegian and American banks and your banking industry regulators.
“Sounds like a German name,” I said.
Hauger nodded. “Correct, Mr. Hawkins. But to answer your unspoken question, the war was a long time ago.”
I was skeptical. The war was a long time ago for Americans, but Norway had been an occupied country. Children with bitter memories of the hard times, both during and after the war, would be Haupmann’s age, maybe a few of years older. Stories would be told and handed down from generation to generation- How the Germans Shot Uncle Jan Johansen, and so on. Europeans were far better at holding on to their history than Americans. There’d be no forgetting.
“How does a German end up working for the Norwegian Crown,” I asked.
“Because he’s not German. His mother was Norwegian. She came to the States after the war. She later married an American banker. Haupmann went to Yale University and the Harvard School of Business.”
“So he’s an American?”
“Dual citizenship,” Hauger said. “Norwegian citizenship is conveyed at birth through the mother. His mother raised him to speak Norwegian as well as English. He spent a year of high school in Norway on an exchange program.”
“If you don’t mind my getting down to it: What’s the job?”
Hauger sighed. “I fear that something is wrong in his personal life. It may be something serious, something that could pose a security threat to my embassy or my country. But I have no indication that he is corrupt or has been turned by another nation.”
“You have a feeling?”
Hauger paused for a second. “Yes, a feeling. Haupmann is a valuable staffer. If I open a formal investigation, even if nothing is found, there will be a stain on his reputation in my country’s diplomatic service. It will damage his career and we might lose him to a banking house.”
“Where he would make a lot more money?”
“Yes, very much so.”
I mulled it over. “I would have trouble getting into his finances, you know.”
Hauger shook his head slightly. “I can get you signed releases from Haupmann.”
He looked at me. I looked back at him. Hauger was patient. No surprise, for he was either a policeman or a spy. Maybe both. Those trades teach patience.
“No,” I said.
“ ‘No?’ Why not,” Hauger sat back in the chair, looking slightly puzzled.
“I don’t doubt that Haupmann’s who you say he is. But I don’t know who you are.”
“I have my passport and embassy ID,” he offered.
I shook my head. “Passports can be fixed, business cards can be made by any print shop and I wouldn’t know what a genuine Norwegian Embassy ID looked like.” I picked up the money he had dropped on my desk. I took a fifty and tossed the rest back across the desk.
Hauger looked at the bills and made no move to pick them up. “I have already accounted for the expenditure,” he said, as if to himself. He looked thoughtful, probably thinking over what he might say to persuade me to change my mind.
He stood up. “Good day, Mr. Hawkins.”
“Good day, Mr. Hauger,” I replied.
Hauger nodded his head once and left my office. He had left the rest of the money on my desk.
