Will decided that he needed a small office that was well-located to transportation and easy for his clients to get to. He decided to stay in Philadelphia, lease space in the Old City area, and move to an apartment nearby. He spent the next few weeks taking care of the move and finally settled in.
The sun was warm as he walked into the office building on Chestnut Street. He entered the small office of Parnell & Associates. He had a part time bookkeeper, Anna, who also answered the phone when she could intercept it before the fifth ring when it was routed to the answering service.
Anna looked up and smiled. “You had a call this morning from the Brodsky team, as usual and a woman from a research firm doing an analysis on new businesses.” She handed the messages to him.
“I’ll give them all a callback this morning.”
He went to his desk and looked at his emails as he enjoyed a cup of coffee. Eventually, he got around to calling the woman from the research firm.
“This is Will Parnell returning a call from Bea Griffin.”
The call was transferred.
“Mr. Parnell, thank you for returning my call. I’m doing an analysis of basic data on new businesses in the Delaware Valley on a no names basis. I was wondering if I could visit with you briefly. Maybe this afternoon? I guarantee it will be painless.”
“Sure. Let’s do it at two.”
“Great. I’ll see you then.”
He had just returned from the bathroom when Anna let him know that his two o’clock had arrived.
He met her in his small conference room that had a simple table and six plain chairs. “I’m Will Parnell. Pleased to meet you.”
“Bea Griffen,” she said as she shook his hand and took a seat, pulling out a pen and small spiral notebook.
“How can I help you?” He smiled.
“First, let me thank you for seeing me. I really appreciate it. I know these kinds of things can be a pain.” She let out a soft giggle. “I’m working on an analysis of new businesses in the Delaware Valley that will be used to secure grant funding for all kinds of endeavors.”
“How can I help?” Will asked.
“Let me ask you, what led you to form Parnell & Associates, LLC?”
Will laughed. She had an easy way about her, and it made him comfortable. “I was working my ass off and getting nowhere. My wife, make that ex-wife, left me, and I realized that I wanted more than my job could give me, so I ended up forming my own business–taking control of my life, I suppose.”
She smiled. “Wow. That is motivation. Do you think you are happier?”
He thought about her question. “I don’t know, but I think that I will be, no matter what happens with everything.”
She hesitated. “Everything?”
He became slightly uncomfortable. “No matter what happens to me … my business.”
They talked some more, and she continued to probe him, but to no avail. Eventually, she finished her interview, thanked him, and left.
Once she was several blocks away she dialed her boss. “Will Parnell warrants a closer look.”
“Talk to me,” he said.
“I just felt something. It could be nothing, but he’s hiding something. I’m sure of it.”
“Okay. I’ll add him to the list. You send me your report, and I’ll have the observation team take it from here, immediately.”
“Will do. I’ll write it up and send it to you within the hour and head to my next appointment.”
Will called Anna into his office. “I want you to check her out.” He handed Bea Griffin’s card to her.
She squirmed a bit. “I sort of already did.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I was concerned about someone coming in here to talk with you about … well … personal decisions, so I contacted her place of business just to confirm the appointment.”
“And?”
“Something didn’t seem right. I asked a friend of mine from a Midwest phone company to check it out. She did. It’s a call center that handles government contracts.”
“Is there something wrong with that?” he asked.
“Maybe not, but maybe,” she said.
“What’s that mean?” Will was now getting nervous.
“My friend said that she was blocked from making any inquiry about this company. A colleague told her unofficially that the company has ties to NSA as in the National Security Agency.”
Will felt a tingling all over. “Well, let’s be careful, but I’m sure everything is okay.”
Anna chuckled, “Of course it is. I mean … you’re an upstanding accountant and lawyer.”
“Right.” Will forced a small laugh.
She went back to her desk, and Will decided to wrap up what he had been working on and leave early. He needed to talk with Alvin. Something was wrong, very wrong.
As he walked up Chestnut Street towards City Hall, he felt that he was being watched. He decided to take a cab trip in a circuitous route and get dropped off blocks from his apartment.
I’m being paranoid, he told himself. Nevertheless, he looked behind him sporadically as he directed the driver into south Philly and back to Society Hill where he got out on Front Street. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
The people watching him were doing so via satellite at NSA.
“Parnell just took a silly trip to south Philly and back to within five blocks of his new apartment. It looks like he’s going there now,” said the analyst assigned to follow and research him.
His supervisor watched the feed over his shoulder. “That is strange. Get a team on the ground to watch him. I want his cell, conversations in his apartment, everything,” she said.
“I’ll dispatch a team right away,” the analyst said.
Reed Logan’s firm received the job to do field research on Will Parnell. Logan had a full complement of operatives and support already in the Delaware Valley. They went to work.
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