Chapter 10 - Mystery Shopper

Finne passed through the entrance to Target right on schedule, he thought. He was certain that the price offered on the 60 inch Sony DLP Rear Projection TV was well under valued and would not last long. Finne hoped to arrive before the hordes of families would hit the super center after the schools had let out this last day before the weekend. Finne had done his homework on the subject and conferred with several colleagues on their experiences buying similar HD TV units. This price was better than what Finne could have ordered on-line at any of the major retailers.

Finne found this deal because he was a detective – in all senses of the word. Finne could scour through volumes of data and identify the slightest deviations from the norm with impeccable accuracy. When Finne pulls something out of the pile for a closer look, it always turns out to be warranted. This time, Finne’s perceptive cognizance found a last minute one column advertisement among the obituaries in the Metro section of the Washington Post. In keeping with the black on white ink standard for the obituary pages, the ad was obscured and less than attention grabbing. Only those that scour through every intricate detail of the information contained in a single day’s publishing of the Post - from the first print to the final – would have interpreted this block of space on the page to be more than an ink smudge. In fact the add would have presented exceptionally well on any of the color pages of the paper, but the number of hue changes and the details of the background printed in black and white like the photo copied result of most bank and treasury checks where a dominant security / water-mark repeats across the face. Except for the disclaimer line that remained slightly above the border at the bottom of the ad frame and below the rippled circles of ink smudged above. In the finest typeface, it read: “* 40% off Clearance price for the 60 inch Sony XBR rear projection DPL TV is limited to stock number 0079423730.”

True to his commission, Finne was an inspector with the perseverance to labor through the forensic review and audit of massive amounts of raw data for the purposes of validation and investigation. But, Finne was gifted with intelligence and exceptional perception capabilities that were obvious to those he came in contact with. His personal talents as an orator and advocate for the beliefs he cherished were definite factors in the successes Finne had achieved in his career and social life.

Finne was bright, very bright, which brought him much adoration from his friends and family. We had poured over his background and conducted interviews with six layers of developed character reference leads, and it had been impossible to find anyone who spoke poorly of him. That was only a part of our problem and today’s gaming would hopefully help us to abate some of that risk. The fact of the matter was that he stood in the cross-hairs of this operation and several billion dollars would be exchanged based on today’s outcome.

[Target has crossed the starting line] was heard over the comm. channel that was open to the entire support team.