by Ruby Loren
It was a relief when the police said they were finished with me.
I went to return Billy to his enclosure and figure out how the heck he’d managed to get out. At first, it wasn’t obvious how he’d managed to escape. Not until I saw the sticks he must have pulled off one of the lovely trees I’d added to his lovely new enclosure …and then piled up against the wall to form a rudimentary ladder. I supposed it was a credit to his own intelligence that even though he’d left it all set up, none of the other raccoons had taken the opportunity to have a walkabout.
“Probably because they’re happy in their shiny new home. Why can’t you be?” But I wasn’t angry with the raccoon. Every now and then, you had animals who knew how to keep you on your toes. I accepted that they were a blessing in disguise. How else would we know what to improve?
I’d just finished removing all of the lower twigs from the trees - with a mental note to add in some softer, less ladder-like foliage - when Katya arrived outside the enclosure and beckoned me through the glass.
“I just had a call,” she said when I’d walked round. “They want to see you now. You’re going to be told the truth at last.”
“Am I?” I said put off by her solemn tone.
“Yes,” she reassured me. “I’m just not sure if you’ll regret it.”
It was with warnings like that ringing in my ears that I sat down in front of a desk in an innocuous backroom of an equally bland office block on a local industrial estate. On the opposite side of the table, Mr Flannigan and Ms Borel watched me.
“So…” I said when it became apparent that no one was going to start talking.
“So…” Mr Flannigan repeated back to me. “You finally stuck your nose into something you can’t pull it back out of. Congratulations.”
I thought about shoving my chair back and walking out of the room if this was how they were going to talk to me. But I knew if I did that, there were probably some scarier consequences in store. After all, there was a reason I’d been brought in for this talk. If they’d thought I was safe just living my life as an average Jane, no one would ever have admitted any of this stuff to me… despite me knowing parts of what was going on.
“I’m not here for a lecture. I’m here for the truth,” I told the pair of suits.
“You’re here for whatever we tell you you’re here for,” Flannigan said, the colour rising up his neck. I was reminded that this man had once had the audacity to ask me out on a date. Faked or genuine, it looked like he hadn’t forgotten the slight against him.
“You know who we are, don’t you?” he continued.
I folded my arms. “I thought this was an explanation not an interrogation.”
I might have imagined it but I thought one corner of Ms Borel’s mouth tweaked up a fraction when I said that.
“If an explanation is what you want, that is what you will have. Afterwards, we will discuss what happens next,” she said, finally putting a stop to Flannigan.
“Okay,” I replied. And then I listened as the truth came pouring out.
“There are still parts I am unable to tell you, simply because that is our policy. If one person knew every aspect of every operation and was then compromised… well, where would we be?” Ms Borel tilted her neat grey bob at me. “I can, however, tell you a lot. Luke Alton, the man you know as Lowell Adagio, has worked with us for a long time. I believe he told you a little about his own recruitment mission - something which we didn’t authorise him to do. However, it was deemed necessary once he had identified the man he recognised from his first operation working with us. Unlike you, he did not stumble upon our organisation. He was recruited straight out of university and spent years working a desk job prior to his first operation.”
I felt my jaw set in a hard line as I heard Lowell’s story - his real story - for the first time. This was a man who’d said he’d loved me, when all along, he’d been lying to me. “Why?” I said before she could continue.
“I think you already know the answer. You know some of it, at least.” For a moment, Ms Borel looked almost apologetic. “We’ve been tracking Jordan Barnes and his businesses for quite some time. However, he and his associates are very intelligent. We believe they have links with some of the most dangerous organisations in the world. From terrorism to election fixing and assassination - you name it, they’ve helped process the money needed to fund it. Unfortunately, the reason they’re so successful is because they're very good at their jobs. Catching wind of what they were doing was nearly impossible. Finding the evidence needed to bring them down? I’m still not sure if it can be done.”
I frowned, remembering the conversation I’d heard from inside the cupboard. That had sounded like some pretty damning evidence to me.
“They’re so good they can even talk openly about what they do and have none of it stick to them… ever! Previously, we’ve gathered evidence, akin to what you overheard, and have thought that it was finally over. But, as soon as we made a move to take them in… they were gone. We assumed they had someone on the inside, pretending to be working for us.” She sighed. “Maybe they did. This time, we’ve kept the information quiet, even from our operatives. At the start, it was a larger group, who each knew only a single piece of the puzzle. Now that we’re at the end game, they know more. It’s enough that if someone does double-cross us, we won’t have to look far to find out who it is.” Ms Borel gave me a hard look.
“I’m sure you’re thinking ‘but you’ve been aware of them for ages, you must have all the evidence you need by now!’” She shook her head. “When we lose them - we think they do this purely as a precaution when they’ve finished a job - they disappear completely. When they return, they’re different people. I don’t mean to look at, necessarily, although they usually change a few things. I mean, they’re completely different people. They have a whole new untraceable life. I’ve been working here for years and have never seen anything quite so convincing. We’re still no closer to working out how it’s even possible.”
“Well, that’s reassuring,” I couldn’t help saying. I got a withering look for my trouble.
“It took a lot of work, but we finally figured out one of the methods they use to launder the money. They use genuine products and sell them at grossly inflated prices to their clients. All they have to do is mess with the quantities produced and it all looks legitimate. They’re also smart enough to never put too much on one product or person… well - until now.” They both looked at me for a moment. “The way the game’s played is that one of them - the agent - scouts someone. It’s usually from a crowdfunding site, but they can approach out of the blue, too. But that’s not entirely true… I told you these people are smart. They’re not handing out contracts at random. They target people who are already relatively successful. Take yourself, for example. A literary agent suddenly being interested in your work wasn’t completely unbelievable, was it? I’m sure you did a background check, and that looked fine, too. Then, publishing companies lined up to take you on. They play it differently every time, but I think with you, perhaps even then they recognised that you had a special product, one that they would need to feign great excitement about. That, or perhaps they just wanted to big it up and put more money into play. In turn, they could transfer more money.” Ms Borel’s lips thinned into something like a smile. “I think you can probably draw your own conclusion.”
“Lowell… Luke… I met him before all of that. He was working on a case at Avery Zoo. We caught a group of people selling animals on the black market. I know he was hired by someone I used to know,” I said, thinking fond thoughts of Mr Avery Senior.
“At first, your meeting was purely by chance. We encourage our agents to keep normal jobs and integrate themselves into society. It provides more convincing backstories, and it’s something to do to stay sharp in-between operations. Luke really was working as a private detective.” She shot me a thoughtful look. “Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean he’s your average detective. He doesn�
�t work for an agency. That’s all fabricated.”
“I saw a website with his picture on. It was the same picture he used for his Facebook profile picture,” I said, confused.
Mr Flannigan smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant sight. “You’re not the only one Luke has fallen out with. Someone in tech had a problem with him. They set the whole thing up, probably hoping to get him in trouble. Or killed.” He looked amused by the idea.
“He nearly was killed. He would have died if I hadn’t been there.”
“Yes, he made a mistake. Although he wasn’t working directly for us, he still sent reports - as do all of our employees. His report that you had helped him was what drew our interest in the first place. Luke had already made some ground with you, I believe.” Ms Borel had the good grace to look embarrassed for a moment. “A background check revealed that you had a webcomic.” She sighed.
I realised something bad was coming. Something that she wished she didn’t have to tell me.
“The number of visitors to your site was good, and the comics are lovely. I want you to remember that. We haven’t fabricated any part of your current published success. In fact, the viral nature of this book’s launch and the subsequent fame you and your comic have received has actually caused us a lot of problems.” She smiled thinly. “However, much like your publishers, our people couldn’t figure out a way to tone down that success to make the mission more manageable again. We’ve all had to ride your wave.”
I looked down at the desk. The white veneer seemed to swim around for a moment as my eyes blurred with emotion before drying again.
I thought I’d known it all - the truth about everything that could hurt me. But I hadn’t. I hadn’t known what they'd done to Monday’s Menagerie.
“The crowdfunding campaign. That was all you, wasn’t it? You’re the people who set that up?” I knew it was true even as I said it. After all, hadn’t I all so recently witnessed the result of a very similar fabricated crowdfunding campaign to help launch Mellon Zoo? How could I have been so blind? I inwardly berated. I’d known about the Mellon Zoo campaign before this meeting. Why had I never suspected that they’d done the same thing to my comic? I’d been so proud of that campaign and so touched that my readers had reached out and done that for me.
I’d been such an idiot.
“When you were approached by a man claiming to be a literary agent and appearing to have a solid reputation and a decent number of accolades - albeit modest ones - we knew we had one of them on our hook. The operation now focused entirely on you and your interaction with the man you know as Jordan Barnes.”
“And absolutely everything seemed to go wrong,” Flannigan jumped in. “You weren’t sure if you wanted to publish your comic. Everyone wants a chance to be published! That’s why these people are so successful at their little schemes! But not you… you were too happy being a zookeeper.”
“Animal consultant,” I corrected him through gritted teeth.
“You think I care?” He was really getting into it now. “The reason we came to France is because we thought someone might have already compromised our operation. We really did believe Pascal might have been killed for what he knew - or at least, what someone incorrectly believed he knew.” He sighed. “But it was just the usual human drama and a complete waste of time.”
“I’m sorry someone dying was inconvenient for you,” I couldn’t help butting in.
Flannigan shot me a glare before continuing. “People seem to inconveniently die around you all the time. We’re keeping such close tabs, we know you have nothing to do with any deaths, but it is interesting, isn’t it? Who knew zoos were such hotbeds of crime and murder?”
I frowned and looked away. I’d wondered that, too, but had reached my own conclusion a while ago. The zoos I worked at usually needed help of some kind. Even when the penguin keeper had died at Avery Zoo, the zoo itself hadn’t been doing as well as we’d all believed. People seemed to die when there were hard times and dangerous undercurrents. Even poor Jenna had been killed because someone was trying to do something that would have returned Avery to hard times… and then who knew what might have happened?
“Next, Luke left his phone lying around. We knew you were already growing suspicious about how easily he managed to find jobs close to where you were working and some other details of his backstory, too, but that was the final nail in the coffin, wasn’t it? You left without updating him on your publishing deal and threw our whole operation into turmoil.” A nasty smile appeared on his face. “Fortunately, we have access to your email inbox, so when your contract with Jordan went through, we knew about it. We also knew that he set up the dates for meeting with the publishers.” Flannigan rubbed his chin for a second when he thought about it. “To be honest, we believed that was it for Luke. You’d decided you didn’t like him. I’m sure you can just imagine the surprise that caused at HQ.” He accompanied that with an eye roll. “We were going into the second phase of the operation which involved the new zoo and keeping an even closer eye on you as your book went through their semi-sham publishing cycle.”
“Why bring Lowell in?” I’d decided I wouldn't call him Luke. He was stuck with the stupid name he’d picked for his cover.
“We’d been out of contact with you for a while. Reintroducing Luke was supposed to allay our concerns that you might have learned more in the interim and could be about to throw us into hot water,” Ms Borel stepped in. “It was a calculated risk. It would obviously make you realise that something was going on, but it would also allow us to know if you were close to learning anything that might have caused us problems.”
“Because if I had known something, the first thing I would have done was to blab about it to my literary agent,” I said unimpressed. All of a sudden, my expression cleared as something occurred to me. If it hadn’t been for Auryn… who knew?
“The second reason was that your phone conversations and email exchanges seemed to change in… tone… between you and Jordan Barnes. Luke stepped back in and replied to your text, hoping to divert your attention away from our target. Perhaps you’ll be pleased to know we had no idea about your relationship with Mr Avery. If we had, then I doubt you’d have seen Luke again. We might not even have ended up having this conversation.” She looked a little sorry for a moment.
“I’d rather know,” I told her, truthfully. “I’d have figured it out in the end. No one - even with funding - builds a zoo as fast as you did without there being something shady going on. There were no setbacks in the build at all. Also, your manager, Amanda, had business experience, but didn’t have a clue about animals or zoos. At first, I thought that she’d been selected by other clueless investors and had brought me in to be the expert, but it was still strange. Even so, I would have overheard someone talking, sooner or later.” I raised an eyebrow at her.
“Katya,” Flannigan said with a sigh, but I thought I also detected a note of affection in his voice. I was willing to bet it was unlikely to be returned.
Ms Borel’s lips pursed, but she didn’t comment. “The real undoing of our operation is probably what some people would consider comeuppance for everyone involved. Rock and Roll Publishing shared a few of your comics on one of their many ‘blank placeholder’ social media profiles. I won’t go into the details of how they do that because it’s childishly simple.” She frowned again. “They shared your comic strips, and although the vast majority of their page likes are fake, in order to be convincing, they have to gain social interaction on their posts. They also expect the author’s, artist’s, musician’s… whoever’s… fans the relatively successful person has will pile in, too. It’s usually at this point that the company announces to the person they have a contract with that they’re going to do a preorder because they think their calculations on a print run may be below what’s required, and they want to get an idea of whether they need to do a much larger first run.” She sat back in her chair. “Obviously, this is a ploy to make their subject feel good about the
deal they’ve just signed, but it’s also not far from the truth of what they actually do. By running a preorder, they can figure out how many genuine fans are going to be buying the product. Then, they round the number up a bit to give some leeway and print the excess they need to sell at their inflated prices in order to transfer the money they’re really in business to move and make. They lie about the print run numbers and for a long, long time… no one noticed.” She shook her head. “We only know because someone on their side had a falling out and ran over to tell us what we were missing. Otherwise, they’d be carrying on in peace and we’d still be looking in the opposite direction, wondering how on earth people got the money to fund all of the horrors this country has seen so recently.”
Now it was my turn to frown. “My comic books are funding terrorism?” I wasn’t sure why that hadn’t sunk in yet.
“They’re just a product,” Ms Borel corrected me. “As I was saying, the publishing company shared a few comic panels on their social media, and they paid to boost the posts - just like a legitimate company would in order to create social proof. But then… as you know… the posts went viral. This time, there was no fabrication on our part. For both the publishing company and us, it was a nightmare scenario. Suddenly, a lot of eyes were looking in our direction. The whole operation was in jeopardy. All we could do was keep close tabs on the publishing company and see what they decided to do next. Would they run and risk exposing what we hoped they still believed was completely secret, or would they try to ride it out and dispense with your contract later?”
“They extended my deal,” I said, feeling confused by that.
“We think it was one of the options they explored. I know you overheard the same conversation Luke did. Jordan and Leona, as they’re calling themselves this time around… they’re toying with the idea of keeping you on as their star distraction. Your success continues, and they just fiddle the numbers a bit, in terms of print vs actual production. It’s a higher risk strategy, but you heard the reasoning behind it, too - the more money there is, the easier it is to conceal large transactions. Especially when you’ve got a crooked accounting team.”
