Double Exposure - Part 4: The Accountant
11 June 1982. 7:52 am. Seattle, WA.
Claire Weber stood behind the large silver machine, pulling on the lever to pour hot espresso into a small cup. She never tired of the aroma of the potent liquid no matter how many cups she poured in a day.
She looked around the coffee shop as she got the coffee ready for the patron. ETG, or Espresso To Go as it's formally known, was a hip new coffee shop that opened in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. The clientele in the morning consisted mainly of young, urban professionals grabbing some coffee on their way to work, whereas in the afternoon and evening, the clientele shifted to be more intellectuals and hippies there to discuss politics and world events.
Claire handed the drink to the client, thanked him and then proceeded to take yet another of the endless orders that come in every weekday morning.
Her hair was pulled back to help keep it out of her face as she made the coffees, and she wore almost no make-up. She had to wake up at 5:30a every morning to make it to ETG by the time they opened at 6am. She didn't want to have to wake up even earlier just to do her make-up regiment. She wore a simple brown apron over her casual clothes, with a name tag that had the name 'Claire' written on it. The mission supervisor at Echelon thought using her own first name for her inaugural mission would be easier. It takes a lot of practice to instinctively react to a name that is not your own and most young agents didn't have that ability yet.
As she mindlessly poured yet another coffee, she kept an eye on the entrance waiting for the young executive to make his appearance.
Claire finished up her training a little over two months ago and was assigned to this mission just last month. The target was Jason Owens, a newly promoted executive at Boeing that worked in their research department. Owens was an extremely talented and gifted engineer at Boeing working on next generation technology. He quickly rose through the ranks at the company, making him one of the youngest executives in Boeing's history.
Owens was currently assigned to a government project for the top secret Advanced Tactical Fighter program that Boeing was a part of. As part of that group, he was put under surveillance from the government, mainly the FBI. The FBI team flagged some irregular expenditures that Owens was making that did not align with his salary, but that is all that they could ascertain. They requested the help of Echelon in order to identify how in fact he was making these purchases.
Echelon quickly assigned Claire to the mission, she was available since she finished her training and she was in the right age group where she could make contact with the target without drawing suspicion.
Claire knew it was a low-risk, low-profile mission, but she was excited to finally be out in the field. She was eager to utilize her training and use the opportunity to impress her higher ups at Echelon.
The FBI team had provided Echelon with a profile of Owens and a month's worth of daily routines they gathered from surveilling him. He was 32 years old, single, no kids, no pets. During the week, every morning on his way to work he would stop at a recently opened coffee shop in his neighborhood, ETG, for a cup of coffee. He would then drive approximately 20-30 minutes to work where he would spend the entire day at Boeing headquarters, never leaving the building, even for lunch. At approximately 6pm every day, he would make the drive back to his modest home in Fremont. Almost nightly, he would order take-out, typically a pizza or Chinese, and eat in alone. His lights went out around between 11p - 11:30p every night before he started the routine again the next day. A pretty normal and boring routine.
The weekends on the other hand were an entirely different matter. Owens would go out regularly to the bars and clubs almost every Friday and Saturday night. He joined various friends and acquaintances on these nights. Typically he never met with the same group two weekends in a row. When he went out, he was wild and reckless. The FBI team monitored on more than one occasion of him driving drunk after a night out. Also, upon closer surveillance, one member of the team thought they saw drugs in his car, but they could not positively confirm.
Most of those weekends, he would bring back a different girl to his place. The women would either spend the night or leave very late, taking a cab when they did. Occasionally one or two of the women would repeat their visit on another night, but that was rare.
The main issue that brought Jason Owens to the FBI's attention however were his purchases. The FBI knew the exact salary that Jason Owens made, and some of his purchases did not match with that salary, including a Porsche 924 Turbo. There was a chance that he had family money or money from investments that were paying off, but the lavish spending was a red flag that signaled that he might be getting paid by some outside organization for information related to what he was working on. Claire was assigned to get close to Owens in order to positively identify his source of additional income.
Claire poured over the file that the FBI had put together on Jason Owens. She knew his personality type all too well. A young hotshot who is full of himself. He thinks he is invincible and untouchable. Claire had no doubt that Owens threw his money around a lot at the clubs in an effort to attract women who were easily impressed by material wealth. She quickly formulated a plan on how to get close to him.
Soon after she was assigned to the mission, she conferred with her mission supervisor and presented her plan of action, to which he agreed. She would get a job at Owens regular coffee shop and make contact with him that way, gradually becoming friendlier and friendlier with him each morning that he came in. When the time came, with a little prodding and flirtation, she knew that he would ask to meet her outside of work, based on her best guess, that day would be today.
Just then, the door to ETG opened and Jason Owens walked in. He wore a stylish dark grey, double-breasted suit with thin pinstripes. He had a wide tie with a paisley pattern and black Oxford shoes. The ensemble oozed authority and success. If Claire had to guess, Jason had to be one of the most fashionable dressers at Boeing.
Claire had to admit that he was an attractive man. His hair was perfectly coiffed, shorter around the back and sides but longer with volume on top. It was parted perfectly to the side in a very preppy look.
He has a clean-shaven, chiseled face with strong features. His jaw was angular and well-defined, and subtle dimples appeared when he smiled. His skin was tanned, most likely from a tanning bed rather than natural sunlight. When he smiled, it showed his perfectly maintained white teeth.
Her overall impression of him was that he was polished and put-together, he was someone who takes care of himself without appearing overly fussy, but she could tell that he was quite vain and conceited.
"Jason!" Claire squealed with exaggeration and a fake smile painted on her face.
