Wire-Pulling Pt. 01

"Huh? What job's that for?" he asked, confused.

"Uh... None. It's... personal," I clarified, trying to find a way to explain this without giving away that I intended to get involved in my mother's trial. "I got some pictures that I... need to confirm."

There was a notable moment of silence on the other end before he spoke casually.

"Well, that depends. If you trust him with your personal stuff, I'd say: Ask the kid."

"Tim? Our resident basement dweller?" I chuckled. "Since when does he do photo analysis?"

"He doesn't." I could almost hear him shrug his shoulders as he said that. "But since he's the only one in the office speaking the same language as those eggheads, I use him as a go-between when we need them. And..." There was another noticeable moment of silence. This time, however, it almost seemed like hesitation on the old man's part. "...I recently learned that he does know his way around photo and video editing as well. Depending on what you need specifically, maybe he can help you out. If not, he'll direct you to someone who could."

I thought about that for a short moment. Tim, who happened to be my former neighbor, was also the IT guy in our small security firm. But he also programmed the firm's web applications and apps we use to submit and process surveillance videos and photographic evidence, so maybe it wasn't too far off that he could help. I quickly realized that I didn't have anything to lose either way. So, after hanging up the call with Bill, I called Tim, who immediately noticed the edge in my voice and told me to just come around his place.

I packed up the photos in the shoe carton, jumped into my car, and made the hour-long drive to his family home. When I arrived, I was greeted by his mother. Because Tim, our IT guy, was still living in his mom's house. A fact I would never forget to point out whenever I got the chance.

"Paul, Dear!" she greeted me with a slight blush on her face while seeming a little out of breath, but displaying a genuine smile on her lips. "How nice to see you again!"

"Hello, Mrs. Brown. I hope I'm not intruding?"

"Oh, heavens no! Tim told us you were on your way. But he's helping his sister with something at the moment. Come, sit down. I'll get you something to drink while we wait."

After she all but dragged me into the house and maneuvered me towards their living room, she quickly made her way into the kitchen while she happily chatted away. Then she handed me a cup of coffee and joined me on the sofa, keeping me company for the few minutes it took Tim to show up.

He wasn't alone, though. He entered the living room with his sister in tow, who, to my surprise, looked much the same as his mother did when she opened the door for me: Flushed face and a little out of breath. To my even greater surprise, after he gestured to me to follow him, she kissed him on the cheek while I could've sworn I saw his hand sit quite low on her back. Almost too low.

Shaking my head, I followed him into his Home Office where we both sat down at his desk.

"Sorry for the wait," he said while opening a small fridge and gesturing toward the soda cans with a questioning look.

"No, thanks. Your Mom got me something while we waited. And the wait wasn't bad since she kept me company. I think she likes me," I replied with a smirk.

"Yeah, well... She appreciates that you looked out for me last year. Especially that time when that stabby psycho came after me for putting him in jail," he explained in a casual tone. "So, what's up? You sounded a little off on the phone."

I hesitated for a second.

"Can I trust you?" I finally asked and saw the surprise on his face.

"Dude!" I think I offended him with that question.

"If I give you some photographs, can we determine whether they're legit?" I asked carefully, not wanting to tell him the whole story if I could help it.

"No. Nobody can." He sounded very sure. That surprised me.

"Seriously!?"

"Yeah. Sorry, but life is not like what CSI: Cyber claims it to be. I'd need the originals. And by 'originals', I mean to get me the camera they used to take the pictures, or, at the very least, the SD-Card that was inside that camera to save the original files on."

"Wow!" I exclaimed while blinking. "I... did not expect that."

"Well, the problem is that if you mess with photographs, it leaves... how do I explain this easily... it creates hard edges, so to speak. Clusters of pixels that differ in coloring in a specific way you can look for digitally. But once they're printed, the printers will smooth everything over when they mix the ink to create that color. They're not that accurate. And, even if they were, there's honestly no way to detect it because the pictures were most likely converted from RGB to CMYK, messing everything up. Even if you have them as digital files, if you save them as anything other than the original TIF file the camera created, the compression algorithm will create clusters of similar coloring to reduce the file size and remove all hints of manipulation. If all you have are printed copies, you can only look for inconsistencies in the motives themselves."

"What kind of inconsistencies?" I asked, feeling my hopes subside.

"Like a third arm showing up around a model that is being hugged from behind, because the editor cropped them together from multiple shots. Stuff like that." He sounded remarkably casual as he said that.

"Well, what are the chances for that!?" I sighed.

"Surprisingly high." He laughed upon seeing my confused face. "You have no idea how often that stuff happens because it's VERY easy to overlook. There are entire websites dedicated to gathering pictures of underwear models missing their belly buttons... I've heard."

I gave him a weak grin upon his last little joke, but what he said before made me think again.

"If I had... a lot of pictures that needed to be checked. Would you help me?" I asked, trying hard to suppress my embarrassment.

Instead of answering me verbally, he literally wiped the table clean with a wave of his hand and looked at me expectantly. I sighed again, placed the shoe carton in front of him, and braced myself as he opened the lid.

"What am I looking at?" he asked before even touching a single picture.

"My mother's supposed affair."

"Uh," he started before his face took on an even more serious expression. "I'm pretty sure I've seen that face somewhere."

"Probably. It was all over the news for the past month." I nodded and quickly saw realization enter his eyes.

"HOLY SHIT!" he suddenly called out. "That's your mom? Your mom is Senator Anderson's wife? Does that mean you're his son?"

"Stepson!" I corrected him with clear anger in my voice.

"Sure, sure... but can we stay focused on the real issue here!?" he started, causing me to brace myself once more. I wasn't eager to discuss my circumstances yet, no matter how close we were. "Do you have ANY fucking idea how many Matrix references I missed out on, Mr. Anderson!?"

I just blinked at him for roughly five seconds, then broke out in laughter. The way he said 'Mr. Anderson' sounded exactly like Agent Smith, and I realized how stupid it was of me to worry about him, of all people, to mock me about anything. When I told Breston about that friend of mine, who had his own shitty family, I was talking about Tim. That was the reason we were neighbors in the past. He had moved out of his home, much like I did, though they somehow managed to work it out after about a year apart, and now they seemed closer than ever.

With the tension broken and my fears placated, we got to work after I dumped the photos on the table. Tim started to neatly lay them out in their supposed chronological order until they covered the entire table. Then he stood up as if to increase his distance, and just... looked at them. For a good five minutes, he stood there completely still, but his eyes rapidly jumped from picture to picture.

"Your Mom's hot," he suddenly deadpanned but continued before I could tell him off. "Also, the pictures have been messed with."

That last part blew any thought of protest out of my brain as I just stared at him. He pointed at the picture showing my mother's first sexual encounter with Carver.

"See that jacket on the floor?" he asked, and I noticed the plain-looking beige jacket next to the bed. It was quite hard to notice since it was almost the same color as the hardwood floor.

"Yes. So?"

"Well, according to the timestamp, that picture was taken on May 9th. But, according to this picture..." His finger moved to another picture further down the stack. "...they bought this jacket six weeks AFTER that get-together, on a shopping trip on June 22nd."

My eyes jumped between those two pictures as I tried to compare them. He was right! That was one hundred percent the same jacket!

"Now," he continued. "With that in mind, make a direct comparison of the pictures of their get-togethers." He placed the four pictures next to each other. "They were taken in two different angles each, so four different angles altogether, but the bed is always at the edge of the frame. Notice how, in the pictures of their first time, you only see the room to the left of the bed, and in the pictures of their second time, you only see the room to the right side of it?"

"Holy. Shit." I breathed out and continued to look at the two pictures.

"Yup. Doesn't make sense, does it?" he shrugged. "We both know, installing hidden surveillance takes time. It's a risk you take, even if you have someone watching your target to warn you if they suddenly come back. So, it doesn't make sense to remove the cameras after the first time, just to install them again for a second time. Especially if you don't know WHEN to have cameras ready. It makes more sense that the whole thing was premeditated, and they had four cameras recording the single time your mother cheated. The camera angles were intentionally placed like this, so it would be harder to detect similarities in how the clothes were strewn about the room and make this obvious."

I was beyond excited. This was it! This was my ticket for payback! I got the fucker!

"Well, don't celebrate too early," Tim suddenly ripped me out of my thoughts. "This only proves that they messed with the timestamps. It doesn't prove that the images themselves have been altered or forged in any way."

"Doesn't matter. As long as we can prove any kind of falsification, it throws doubt on the whole process," I said, feeling quite sure of myself.

"Well, in that case... Happy to help!" Tim shrugged. "And remember: There's absolutely no special reason why I paid so much attention to your mom's nudes."

That earned him a not-so-little smack over the head, but we both laughed about it. Then, he spoke again.

"You know what that means, right?" he asked in a somber tone.

"Yeah," I sighed as I nodded in confirmation. "I'll have to speak with her."

There was one thing neither of us had said out loud when we discussed all the things that didn't make sense in this case: Why go through the trouble of forging photographic evidence of a second sexual encounter?

Legally, it doesn't matter whether you cheated on your spouse just once in a drunken one-night-stand or had a full-blown long-term affair. One time is enough to justify divorce on the grounds of adultery, anything more than that has absolutely no impact on what happens in the court room during your divorce proceedings. But, more importantly, unless Carver had taken these pictures himself, in his own apartment, they wouldn't even have been admissible in court! Had my mother not freely admitted to the affair, the senator wouldn't have had any grounds to divorce her on anything but irreconcilable differences and go for a 50/50 split. So, why obtain these pictures in the first place?

I thanked Tim again as we packed everything up, bid my farewell to his mother and sister on my way out, and got into my car for the drive back home.

During that drive, though, my good mood ebbed away as I realized that Tim was right. If I wanted to truly fuck that asshole's life, I needed more than what I had now. But I was sure that, if we played our cards right, we could use this discovery to put the screws onto Carver. If he learned that his story of the long-term affair was busted, I was sure we could make him talk and expose more lies.

When I tried to call Breston and inform him of my findings, my call went directly to voicemail. He must've already been on the plane back to Austin, where his office was located. Looking at my watch, I also noticed that it was quite late already. I'd just have to call him the next morning to let him in on the good news.

Interlude 01

September 20th, Austin, Texas
On the inside, Fairfield was livid, but he went to great lengths to hide this from his assigned protégé, who was currently sitting in the passenger seat next to him.

About two hours earlier, Fairfield had been informed that the presumed incompetent lawyer Yvette Anderson was able to obtain, using what little funds she had managed to scrape together, somehow succeeded in locating her son. And, while the lawyer wasn't deemed a threat to their operation, young Paul was another story. Not only would he be highly motivated to ruin his stepfather by exposing the man, but he also had access to crucial resources the lawyer himself could only dream about.

So, just to be safe, Fairfield immediately launched into a closer examination of the evidence Dallas had prepared for this case, and his trained eye spotted the screw-up with the jacket as soon as he saw the picture. Now this meant additional work he had not expected and consequently hadn't factored into the number he gave the senator back in April. He hated working extra hours because of poor planning! It also didn't help that he couldn't really blame Dallas for this, since Fairfield had only given him the targeted timeline for this operation but then trusted that his protégé would be able to deal with the details himself. Lesson learned, and all that.

It was three in the morning when the both of them got out of the nondescript disposable car and walked up to Carver's condo.

As was second nature to Fairfield, he opened the door without the need for a key, and without announcing their entry in any way. Without causing the smallest of noises, he found his way into Carver's bedroom, with Dallas, who had to listen to the dressing-down of a lifetime on their way to this condo, directly behind him.

Carver slept peacefully in his bed as Fairfield placed the taser on his larynx. As Fairfield pressed the trigger, Carver's eyes flew open. The precise placement of Fairfield's weapon caused the vocal cords to be paralyzed within a fraction of a second, robbing his victim of the possibility to call for help or even alert anyone with a scream. After about five seconds, in which Fairfield had trouble maintaining the delivery of the charge over the violent convulsions of the body beneath him, Carver passed out.

"Now," Fairfield started as he turned to Dallas with anger in his voice. "Open the bag I gave you. There is a fuse and a light bulb in it. Get to the breaker box and replace the fuse for the bedroom with the one from the bag. Then get back in here and screw the light bulb into the lamp on his bedside table. Once we turn it on, we have about two minutes before it shorts and causes a nice little fire."

Ignoring Dallas's shocked expression, Fairfield turned towards said bedside table and grabbed the half-full bottle of liquor Carver had placed there with an empty glass. According to the label, it was a forty-year-old Malt Whiskey.

"What a waste..." he moaned to himself as he leaned down to Carver's face and opened his mouth. "Thank you!" he explained upon smelling the proof of where the other half of that bottle had gone. Then he filled half the glass on the nightstand with the liquor, taking care to spill most of it around the table, "accidentally" soaking even the curtains and bedsheets.

"But... why!?" Dallas finally found his voice as he stared at Fairfield with wide eyes. "Nobody noticed the jacket! Everything went smoothly, just as planned!"

"Nobody noticed your mistake, yet!" came Fairfield's terse answer. "What do you think how long this money-grubbing idiot will keep quiet when the son shows up, most likely with a few of his friends from that security firm he works at, and demands answers? This is on you! This job was your responsibility! You wanted to prove yourself and you screwed it up! Now you'll be the one to fix it!"

As Fairfield spoke, he slowly moved towards Dallas because he knew what would happen next. While the vast majority of his employees came from various three-letter agencies, Dallas was one of the very few who previously worked in a private institution specialized in "corporate consulting". While Dallas was anything but innocent, he wasn't used to the unseemly side of this business.

Fairfield had been opposed to recruiting him in the first place, but, sadly, Dallas's father was one of the founders of his organization. And, as it turned out, he was right to protest this blatant nepotism. In the two years Dallas had been under his command, he had screwed up three of the eight assignments he received. Each time was just another small mishap, like the one with the jacket in the photo, that endangered the entire operation. And Fairfield was no longer willing to put up with it. It was time the guy learned how to fix his mistakes or took his leave! It was, after all, Fairfield's quota that suffered from these problems.

"I'm not going to KILL a man just because the job MAY be in danger!" Dallas suddenly called out. He wanted to add some more, but the words got stuck in his throat when he saw the look his superior was throwing his way.

"Then get your ass back to the car!" Fairfield hissed dangerously. "And think about your own future in this business."

For a moment, Dallas stood in Carver's bedroom, watching the unconscious body that, after convulsing from the electric shot, was only half covered by the sheets. His brain went into overdrive as an endless stream of thoughts and scenarios shot through his head, trying to find a less permanent solution for this problem.

He couldn't think of one.

Fairfield was waiting for Dallas to snap, or at least to plead for the life of the man, but Dallas surprised him. After about a minute, he simply dropped the bag with the prepared items, turned toward the door, and left the condo. Not that it would've made a difference anyway. After all, if you taze someone and they pass out, chances are they won't wake up again unless someone fixes their heart rhythm. So, if he wanted Carver's lungs to show signs of smoke inhalation when his corpse was examined, Fairfield had to get to work.

About six minutes later, Fairfield joined the already waiting Dallas in their car, his clothes already impregnated with a slight burning smell. He started the car, but only drove it up to the next intersection from where they kept an eye on the condo.

Another ten minutes later, the bedroom window finally burst as yellow and blue flames shot out of it.

"Well, by now, Carver should be crispy," Fairfield commented with a serious expression. "And you're the only one you can blame for it! Keep this in mind the next time you try to take shortcuts or give out hastily created material."

Just as Fairfield wanted to start the engine again, the passenger door flew open and Dallas leaned out of the car to puke all over the sidewalk.

"For crying out loud!" Fairfield exclaimed as he grabbed Dallas at the back of his jacket and pulled him back into the car. "What are you doing!? We don't have the time to clean this up! I can already hear the fire trucks' sirens!"