Story 1 - Home Delivery
It could have been the board meeting of any company at any boardroom table. But it wasn't. This was the weekly meeting of the executive of The Agency. The executive was made up of the seven departmental executive officers and Elizabeth Monaghan, founder and chief executive, who was seated in the plush leather chair at the end of the table. She turned to the prim, well dressed woman seated to her left. "Thank you Cat, I'm sure we all agree that those figures are very pleasing indeed". Catriona Macdonald, chief financial officer, smiled in return and closed the file in front of her. She had just presented a briefing on the financial results of the first six months of business which had showed that The Agency had brought in more than three times the projected figure for turn over. They had known when setting up the business that demand was high for their 'product' amongst their exclusive clientele, bud had underestimated just how high. Soon, they spread from their London headquarters to open offices in cities worldwide.
Their business was simple... sperm. The Agency provided rich women with the ability to select the precise gene pool to which their offspring would belong. Nationality, intelligence, eye colour, physical build, The Agency left no stone unturned when it came to researching the ancestry of their donors. But what makes the agency different is their ability to provide services out with the bureaucratic legal framework. In today's human rights obsessed culture, many countries insist there is a legal obligation on such organisations to maintain records of donors and clients, and to allow access to that information to the authorities upon request. For a substantial fee, however, The Agency could provide a totally anonymous service. No paper trail, no names, no comeback. The donors for these customers would usually be handpicked by The Agency's team of researchers, though on occasion they would be named by the customer themself. For these custom 'donations', The Agency would usually assign one it's team of beautiful seductresses. The donor would be put under surveillance for a period of time and would then be subject to the agent's seductive methods, until the product was obtained.
"So, almost done....", Elizabeth peered over her spectacles to Margaret Beckington, head of customer services, "Margaret, how are the current transactions? Any problems?" she asked.
Margaret Beckington, an attractive brunette in her mid thirties passed a sheet of paper up the table to Elizabeth, "All straight forward except one." She paused to allow Elizabeth time to scan the details on the paper, before continuing "It's a job that's come in from the Los Angeles office, the client has a number of specific criteria including complete anonymity and ....a Scottish ancestry".
Catriona raised her eyebrows, "Clearly a woman with taste." she smiled, being from Glasgow herself.
"Indeed." said Elisabeth placing the paper back down on the table. "That's quite a specific request sheet the client has compiled here, " she tapped the sheet with a perfectly manicured nail, "Have we located a target?" she aimed the question at Carol Lombard, head of the donor services department.
"Yes, we located a donor though it wasn't easy.", Carol replied. The short, slightly plump lady in her late fifties could have easily passed for a librarian. In actual fact, given the amount of research she and her team carried out, she virtually was! "We attempted to put a honey trap assignment in place but decided that it was very unlikey to be successful given the donor's characteristics. He's single, hardly surprising given the amount of time he spends working. Doesn't visit pubs or clubs often, seems quite shy in female company. ". A 'honey trap' was the term that The Agency used to describe the seduction of a donor.
"I see." Elisabeth took off her glasses and leant back in her chair, causing the leather to creak. After a few moments thought she turned back to Margaret, "What's the fee on this job?".
"Thirty five thousand dollars". There was an approving murmur around the table. "Yes, Hollywood is proving to be a particularly fruitful area. Word is spreading of our ability."
"Very well." Elisabeth sat up and looked down the table to the woman sitting quietly at the far end. "Gerda, can your team pick this up?".
Gerda Fleisch was a tall, well built woman. Now in her early fifties, she had been a colonel in the former East German ministry for state security or Stasi as it was better known. Her rise within that organisation had been brought to an abrupt end by the reunification of Germany in 1990. Since then she had worked as a security consultant for private German companies, but had felt out of place until she had been headhunted by Elisabeth to head up operations within the Non-Voluntary Acquisitions Department, or NVAD for short. On some occasions, where a seduction was impractical, The Agency would call on the services of it's NVAD agents. The NVAD agents are highly trained operatives, mainly recruited from the security services of Eastern Europe. Given total responsibility for recruitment, training, and operations, Gerda was finally back in a role that she could totally immerse herself in.
Though her spoken English was good, albeit with a strong German accent, she would occasionally pause to pick the appropriate word. In her business, misunderstandings could prove costly. "Believing that this subject might require the.... attentions of my department, I have taken the liberty of already placing the target under surveillance. I have an agent on standby, ready to carry out the... operation as soon as you give the order."
"Oh" said Carol. "I wasn't even aware we had passed you the details of the donor's identity."
Gerda smiled, but it was not a warm smile. "You didn't" she said simply.
"Well, your efficiency and ingenuity never cease to amaze us Gerda!" Elisabeth said, though from the awkward glances around the table it was clear that some members of the executive found Gerda's unerring ability to know more about what they were up to than they did themselves somewhat unsettling. "You have my blessing Gerda, carry out a non-voluntary acquisition at the earliest opportunity please." Immediately, Gerda stood up, nodded curtly in Elisabeth's direction, and left the room.
For a moment there was silence, broken eventually by Carol who had picked up the sheet of details on the donor. The irony of the term 'donor' was not lost on her. Whatever plan Gerda's agent had, it would not contain an opportunity to 'donate'. "Poor man won't know what's hit him." she said.
The text message simply read "NVAD Green light". Tanya Nikorski flipped the phone shut and placed it back in the pocket of her black leather raincoat. She had been sitting in the car watching the target's flat. His name was Paul Glenson, and he lived in the luxury first floor flat across the road from where Tanya was parked. Everything was in place, the target was at home alone and the surveillance team had reported that the downstairs neighbours had left the day before in an airport taxi weighed down with enough luggage to last a fortnight.
