"Just normal business, Nige."

How could those simple words be so chilling?

For one thing, they were uttered, without emotion, by a man pointing a gun at my head.

I saw his finger tighten on the trigger and waited for death.

*

The day started well. I rose early, feeling refreshed and optimistic.

Sitting behind my work computer, I picked up where I had left off yesterday.

Accountants attract a negative image. Dull, systematic, predictable. No flair or charisma.

Yes, I was a number cruncher. I loved it. But I was an investigative analyst for...I'd have to kill you if I told you. OK. Old joke. But I had my protected ID and I had signed the OSA.

Most of the job was routine processing. Ruling out errors as opposed to deliberate malfeasance.

But sometimes... I was reviewing this file for the fourth successive day. I just sensed there was more to it than met the eye. Too neat, too clean. Laundered? That was the word, with its sinister implications, which kept me interested.

My special expertise was ghost tags. That's why they recruited me. They were a portal to a crypto-world. I could sniff them out like bloodhounds could sniff, well you know what.

Got it! That fat dot on top of the second "i" in financial, line 12, page 23. Select. Augment. Decompress. Oh, yes!

A whole new world of detailed information. Encrypted, of course, but, given time, I would crack it. It didn't take long. I got lucky. Wow! Amounts, transactions, bank details, dates.
Names! I had to take this to Xavier. Now!

Zelda, his protective PA, ushered me in, then sat on Xavier's right.

"What you got?" smiled the big man.

I talked him through my findings and conclusions. His boss, Yannick, was running a skeleton operation, blackmailing commercial entities we were investigating, extorting huge sums of money in exchange for our inactivity.

"What do you think it's all about?" I asked naively.

That's when he uttered the unexpected words and produced the gun.

It all seemed to unfold in slow motion.

Zelda swivelled, knocking the gun to the floor. Before Xavier could react she chopped him to the neck and produced her own pistol.

"Well done, 34A7," she said. "We just needed the evidence."