Free The Covert Element by John L. Betcher

Dukes
trying to slither back ashore, we returned to the parking lot.
    Beer gut walked up to Bull and me.
    "That was exciting," he said with a smile. "I wanna thank you
guys for sticking up for Melina. She’s a good friend. I owe you guys
one."
    "Does that translate into Red Stripe currency?" I asked.
    Beer gut laughed.
    "You bet it does. Let’s all head back out on the deck and watch
the river go by."
    Melina also came up to us.
    "Thank you so much, sirs," she said with a thick Jamaican
accent. "Thank you."
    "Are you okay, Melina?" I asked.
    "I’m okay. Come drink some Red Stripes. We’ll celebrate."
    "Those’ll be on the house," the bartender called from the
doorway.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER TEN
     
     
    One year ago, in Bellechester, Minnesota.
     
    It was the second full year of operation for Bellechester
Organic, and Walter Marsden couldn’t have been more pleased with
the little enterprise. His business partner, Bellechester Investors,
had fulfilled its commitment to handle all hiring for the facility. As
long as they had taken care of that, Marsden had thought they
might as well handle all the bookkeeping, payroll, and accounting.
He received a report each week of the business cash flows,
expenses, and routine operational data. And he liked what he saw.
    Bellechester Organic had enlisted 80% of the area’s farmers
into its organic production program. The dairy was producing not
only milk, but yogurt and some high quality young cheeses as well.
About 50% of the farmers engaged Bellechester Organic to handle
field application services – both organic and traditional. And hog,
poultry, and dairy services operations were drawing the attention of
an increasing number of farmers with each month that passed.
    Best of all, Bellechester Organic was already turning a decent
profit. Loan payments to AgInvest were current. Salaries –
including his own – were generous. His organic brain child had
turned into a healthy lad with a promising future.
    Then some unusual things started to happen. They weren’t bad
things, per se . Just unusual.
    Despite a relatively stable national market price, profits on
sales of organic corn meal began to climb. Slowly at first. Then at a
more brisk pace. Furthermore, expenses for the farm services arm
of the business were rising rapidly. But there was no corresponding
increase in farm services revenue.
    Marsden suspected some sort of a change in the manner in
which such things were being reported to him. He spoke first with
his onsite accountant. There hadn’t been any changes in accounting
reports of which he was aware. But Marsden should speak with the
IT folks to see if the data they were inputting had changed
somewhere along the line, or if the accounting programs might have
a glitch.
    A check with the IT manager didn’t provide any greater
clarification. As far as he knew, the accounting programs were
operational, and there hadn’t been any changes on the data entry
front.
    Perplexed, Marsden called his contact at Bellechester Investors
to find out what was really going on. The man on the other end of
the phone call was an attorney named Albert Dosdall. He was
located in Chicago, Marsden thought, though Marsden had never
visited Dosdall’s offices.
    "Hello, Walter. How are things in sunny Minnesota? Going
well, I trust?"
    "Oh, yeah. Things are looking good. Really good." Marsden’s
voice was higher than normal, and his breathing mildly panicky. He
always felt this way when he had to talk to Dosdall. He didn’t know
why. Dosdall was nice enough. He was just so . . . decisive. So . . .
intimidating.
    "To what do I owe the pleasure of this call, Walter? Are the
workers we hired not living up to expectations?"
    "Ha. I suppose I’d hardly know if they weren’t. Your
management team seems to have everything well in hand. I barely
need to do anything around the place. Just collect my checks and
monitor reports."
    "Yes, indeed. And that’s the way it should be, Walter.