From A Producer To A Global Superstar

Michael had spent most of the morning going through the same pieces of information he had already seen.

The problem was that none of them gave him what he needed.

M had followed the changed instructions. The original carrier had been turned back. A replacement courier had taken the packet to a location that meant nothing on its own. Someone had later collected it, and whatever had happened after that had resulted in evidence that damaged both Michael and Silas.

Michael still did not know who had made the change.

He had his people working on the courier because the courier was the only person in the chain they could still find.

By early afternoon, one of them called.

"We found him."

Michael looked up from the papers on his desk. He had been sitting in the same chair for nearly an hour, though he had barely read the last few pages.

"Where?"

"He was staying in a rented room outside the city. We brought him somewhere quiet."

Michael paused before answering. "Did he give you anything?"

"Not yet."

That was enough to make Michael put the papers aside.

"Keep him there. Do speak to me when you have something useful in fact make sure you get something useful as this is closest lead we have gotten."

"Yes sir."

The call ended.

Michael remained seated for another few seconds. He had expected the courier to be difficult. People who accepted anonymous jobs and moved packages without asking questions usually understood that knowing less kept them alive longer.

Still, Michael needed to know what had happened after the packet left M’s hands.

He called his men again.

This time, the conversation lasted longer.

The courier had denied knowing who hired him. He had no name, no company, and no direct contact with the person who had arranged the job. Everything had been handled through messages and calls. He had received a location, been told where to collect the packet, and then been given another location where he was supposed to leave it.

When Michael’s men threatened him, the courier still insisted that he had never opened the packet.

"He keeps saying the same thing," the man on the phone explained. "He says he doesn’t ask questions. Someone pays him to carry something, he carries it. That’s all."

Michael leaned back in his chair.

"Did he say anything about the location?"

"He remembered it. He said it was strange because there was nothing there. No business, no house he was supposed to enter, nothing that looked important."

"And who was supposed to collect the package?"

"He says he doesn’t know. He left it where he was told and went away."

Michael rubbed his forehead.

"Then ask him who gave him the instructions."

"We did. He says the contact changed more than once."

Michael’s attention sharpened.

"More than once?"

"That’s what he says. He doesn’t know why. He says he just followed the instructions."

Michael thought about M.

The same thing had happened to her. The instructions had changed, and she had assumed the changes were legitimate. She had handed the packet to the courier and walked away without knowing what happened afterward.

There was a pattern here.

Michael told his man to continue.

"Ask him whether anyone else has contacted him since the delivery."

There was a pause on the other end.

The answer came a few seconds later.

"He says someone already did."

Michael sat forward.

"Who?"

"He doesn’t know. That’s what he’s saying. Someone came asking about the delivery and the location. They asked him the same kind of questions we’re asking now."

Michael’s hand stopped on the edge of the desk.

"When?"

"He says yesterday."

"Yesterday?"

"Yes. He says two men came to him. He doesn’t know who they work for. They questioned him for a while and left."

Michael stared at the papers in front of him.

That was new.

Someone else had already found the courier.

Someone else knew enough about the altered handoff to know where to look.

"Did he describe them?"

"Not properly. He says they didn’t give names."

"Then get whatever description he can give you. Clothing, vehicles, anything."

"We’ll do that."

Michael ended the call.

For the first time since the courier had been found, he felt that they might finally have something worth following.

The fact that someone else had reached the courier before them bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

There were only a few people who could have known about that part of the chain. Michael had considered Silas, but the theory still did not sit properly with him. Silas had enough reason to investigate the evidence, but Michael had not yet seen anything that proved Silas knew about the courier.

Besides, if Silas already knew about the courier, why had he not approached Michael?

Michael dismissed the thought and waited.

An hour later, his men returned with more information.

The courier had given them a general description of the men. He could not identify their faces clearly, but he remembered one of them had been wearing a dark coat and the other had spent most of the conversation standing near the vehicle.

More importantly, the courier remembered the vehicle.

Not the full registration.

Just enough.

Michael’s people had already started checking nearby cameras.

That was when Michael gave them another instruction.

"Don’t only check the place where the courier was found. Check the road around it. Check the cameras near the route to the drop location. I want every useful angle you can get."

His man agreed and ended the call.

Michael stood and walked toward the window of his holding.

The city outside continued as if nothing had happened. Cars moved along the road below, people crossed between buildings, and the traffic lights changed with no concern for what was happening inside his world after all right now he can just see the world through this window and can’t interact with it.

A few months earlier, Michael had believed he could still control the situation.

Now he was spending his time trying to understand who had touched a packet he had once believed was safely under his control.

The difference was difficult to ignore.

His phone rang again.

"Sir, we have something."

Michael turned from the window.

"Go ahead."

"We found footage from one of the cameras near the route."

"And?"

"It doesn’t show the collection of the packet. The camera is too far from the location. But it shows the two men who questioned the courier."

Michael waited.

"We also have still images."

"Send them."

The message arrived almost immediately.

Michael picked up the tablet from the desk and opened the images.

The first photograph was poor. The men were partially turned away from the camera, and the distance made their faces difficult to see.

The second was better.

Michael looked at it without much interest at first.

Then he stopped.

He enlarged the image.

The man on the left was wearing a dark coat. His face was still not completely clear, but Michael knew him.

He had seen that face in meetings.

He had interacted with this particular person that he couldn’t mistake.

He had watched him stand outside rooms while Silas spoke.

He had seen him travel with Silas when sensitive matters required people who knew how to keep their mouths shut.

Michael opened the second image.

The other man was there as well.

There was no mistake now.

He knew him too.

Michael lowered the tablet slowly.

"Where did you get this?"

His man answered through the phone. "From the camera near the courier’s route. We traced the vehicle after the courier gave us the description."

Michael barely heard the rest.

He was looking at the two photographs again.

He knew those men.

They worked for Silas.

Silas ...

Michael had worked with them before, long before everything between him and Silas had fallen apart. They had handled meetings, movements, private arrangements, and problems that were never supposed to reach the public.

There was no reason for them to be anywhere near this courier unless Silas had sent them.

Michael looked back at the photograph.

The courier had been questioned by Silas’s men before Michael’s people ever reached him.

That meant Silas had already found the same trail.

For several seconds, Michael said nothing.

He had been searching for the person who had altered the evidence.

Now he understood that he was not the only one searching.

Silas was following the same trail.

He couldn’t understand what he was feeling or what to even feel as the thought that Silas was already a step ahead of him in his own investigation or

"Ah." Michael let out a frustrated breath.

He took a sip of the water by his side as his mind replayed the picture of who he saw to be sure he wasn’t seeing things he picked up the phone and zoomed in and out continously but came up with the same hard and bitter conclusions.

That Silas was following the same trail as him.

’But why ?’ Michael head spin to answer this question

Why was Silas following the same trail as he does.

Just maybe

Maybe he knows something he didn’t know.