Chapter 5: Beginnings 4

The media displayed John Vladson's house a lot. He would often conduct press meetings and gatherings at his house. John Vladson most probably did those things intentionally to win the public's favor. Doing these things made the public believe that they knew everything there was to know about John Vladson, as a person's home is a representation of themselves.

But, thanks to the coverage his house got on media, I had a rough idea of the corridors and rooms in the house.

I entered through the balcony of what seemed to be an empty guest room on the first floor. After examining the room and taking a few things that may have come in handy, I silently made my way out of the room.

It was around 2 am, so it was obvious that the family was still sleeping.

There were no guards stationed inside the house. Even though cameras covered most parts of the hallways and stairs, with some extra effort, it became possible to covertly make my way into John Vladson's office on the first floor. On my way, I passed through 2 rooms and had to go through an open kitchen.

There was a camera beside the office door that looked directly at it. The camera probably had night vision and could record even at night. Was this the end of my venture?

No! I've come this far already!

The camera was placed on the hallway wall where I was coming from. Its back pointed at me. I looked around to see if any other cameras were nearby too. Unable to see any camera near which looked in my direction, I slowly made my way to the camera, which was pointed at the office door. The solution I have is to cut the power supply to the camera or cover the camera with a clock. Both were possible as the camera was not more than 10 feet above the ground. But, both of these options would attract security in less than 8 minutes.

Deciding that it would be best to cover the camera, I took the tablecloth placed beneath a vase on a side table in the hallway. I silently put the thick dark cloth over the camera.

The door was locked shut. Even though it wasn't a simple task to break open the lock, with the help of a few bobby pins I stole, *cough*, which I happened to pick up in the guest room, and my knife, I succeeded. The door was crafted in such a way that it looked like it was made of wood, but after careful examination for a couple of minutes, I noticed that the door was made of reinforced steel.

I closed the door behind me without making any noise. It wasn't difficult to see as the moonlight shone in the room through a double window to the left of the entrance that was covered with a translucent white curtain.

The office was quite lavish. Desks and chairs were made of expensive wood; the marble floor had a white carpet, and the walls were painted white. There was one desk in the center of the room; behind it was one chair with a cubicle base and two chairs in front of it.

There were three steel cabinets behind the desk measuring around 8 feet in height and 4 feet in length.

Even the most discreet crimes are documented for various purposes, like blackmailing in the future or as proof of events people wanted to sweep under the rug; there were many reasons.

John Vladson would have also indeed documented at least some of his crimes.

He obviously wouldn't hide the documents in the cabinets accessible to anyone who came to his room. Then where would he?

I examined and analyzed the room for some time before it finally struck me. The chair behind the table had a thick base. There was even an arc on the carpet behind the chair. This was not normal.

While crouching to examine the chair closely, I noticed a small hole in the bottom right of the chair's base. I took out a bobby pin, straightened it, and inserted it into the hole.

It felt like a few hinges and pins were inside this hole. Is this some lock?

After raking the pin for a while, a clicking sound was heard.

The chair's base then opened up like an everyday cabinet.

Now, this isn't something that one gets to see every day. Most people hide their stuff in a secret drawer on a table or a secret locker behind a painting. But John Vladson was a little too cunning. He hid his secrets in plain sight, and he knew that his secrets would be safe because, well, he sat on them, literally.

The inside of the cabinet in the chair had two racks. There was everything against John Vlason in here. Piles of Files, papers, pen drives, hard disks, and even a little money.

Taking out a file from the top and examining it revealed it to be about the latest money fraud that he had partnered in. I flipped through the pages of some other files as well.

In my mind, there was no doubt that John Vladson was corrupt. But! These findings were far beyond my expectations.

I took out another file from the pile. This? This file was not about John Vladson. It was about his daughter, Marie. This file had all the evidence that Marie sometimes illegally sold as well as took illegal drugs. John Vladson might have archived this so that he could use it against Marie if push ever came to shove.

I couldn't carry all these files on my way out if I wanted to stay covert. I took five files about the biggest scams and crimes committed by John Vladson along with Marie's file and put the rest of the files I had taken out back into the secret cabinet inside the chair. It took me around four and a half minutes to do all this; I needed to hurry.

After slipping the six files I had into my Inverness cape, I headed towards the door.

It was still dark. I peeked outside from the door but saw no one.

I quietly closed the office door and went to the guest room from where I had entered.

When I reached the kitchen on the first floor, right before the guest room, I suddenly stopped in my tracks and ducked behind the kitchen counter when I heard the sound of footsteps.

Twenty feet, fifteen feet, ten feet! The footsteps kept closing in. Did someone notice my presence? But, I had been as covert as possible! I need to find a quick and silent way to take care of the person in front of me.

Wait! I don't hear the sound of footsteps anymore. I heard the sound of a door opening and something sliding. I peeked my head above the counter to see what was happening.

A fridge? A woman was drinking from a bottle of water while standing in front of a fridge with open doors. I recognized the woman; it was John Vladson's wife. She must have come out to drink cold water in the night.

She went away after a minute and a half, and I continued to make my way to the guest room stealthily. After entering the guest room, I quietly closed the door behind me. I tapped my coat to see if the files were still with me. They were safe.

Then, going to the balcony, I examined if any guard was standing below. Fortunately! It seemed empty. I leaped from the balcony onto the tree and climbed down. My jump made the tree shake a little, and the tree's leaves rustled a bit. This much noise would probably not alarm any of the guards about the presence of an intruder. I sprinted while crouching and ensuring I stayed behind trees and made as little sound as humanly possible.

As I reached the wall, a loud siren started going off. Most of the guards rushed to the mansion while three guards ran along the walls scanning for evidence of an intruder.

I quickly climbed over the wall and made my way to my car, feeling good that I didn't get caught.

A sigh of relief left my body as I entered the car, closed the door, and started driving with my headlights switched off.

I suddenly realized that I hadn't eaten anything other than eggs and toast in the last 24 hours. My stomach was roaring, and I decided it would be best to get something to eat before doing anything else.

I stopped in front of a convenience store in the middle of the road between two high-rise buildings. After checking to see if the files were still with me, I exited the car and headed for the convenience store. After strolling through the store for a couple of minutes, a packet of cup noodles along with a packet of chips were bought by me.

After removing the top cover, I filled water in the cup noodles till just below the recommended mark. After all, thick noodles were the best. I heated the cup of noodles in the microwave that was sitting on the cash counter.

Taking the heated cup of noodles and the bag of chips with me as I rushed to the car felt like an eternity of waiting. At last, I took a seat in the car and began devouring the food.

Most probably, it was because I was hungry, but the cup needles and the chips tasted better than any meal I could get, even in a 5-star restaurant. It felt as if the cup noodles had the perfect balance of spices and ingredients. The perfect crunch of the chips enhanced the experience tenfold. It felt as if the entire world had suddenly got its color back.

I devoured the food I had bought in less than 3 minutes. At last, after working the entire day, I felt somewhat satiated.

Satiated, I began flipping through the files that I brought out with me.

Four files were about scams, frauds, and laundering, each involving more than 40 million citz (40 million citz = 400,000 dollars). The other file was about how John Vladson had his political enemy assassinated. All this combined would surely imprison Vladson for at least 30 years.

As Marie technically tried to kill me, it would be best to give her a slap on the wrist this time. Removing all the evidence that Marie sold drugs sometimes, I only let a photo and some witness accounts of Marie taking drugs remain in the File about Marie. This would imprison Marie for about three weeks and make her pay a fine of around 200,000 citz.

I headed straight for the police station. As I did work as a private detective, coming and going to the police station was not uncommon. There were also a few people on the police force whom I was fortunate enough to call friends.

I headed inside the police station after parking my car. The security guard checked my I.D. After giving a satisfied nod, he permitted me to enter the police station.

I then headed straight for the office of the Chief of this police, who also happened to be one of my closest friends.

I knocked on a door with a board saying ' Matthew Beh, Chief of Police'

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