Point of Contact

27

Paul and Bai grabbed two cups of steaming-hot tea and settled into their seats back in his small office. Bai was on Paul’s elbow, as usual, and intensely interested in Paul’s every keystroke. Paul spent the first thirty minutes doing another random survey of the various subledgers, especially accounts payable and accounts receivable.

He then turned his attention to the statement of financial position and pulled up the shareholders’ equity statements. After all, the overall purpose of this accounting exercise was to help assure both Dalfan and Marin Aerospace that the agreed-upon price for the stock purchase was a fair value for both parties. There were a few technical details and also terms in Mandarin script that Bai needed to clarify for him early on, but overall it was an uneventful exercise in due diligence as Paul plodded on, line after line, figure after figure.

Though initially attentive and alert, Bai’s focus began to wane. The young accountant began pecking away at his own laptop hardwired into Dalfan’s LAN. Paul couldn’t see Bai’s screen, but he could see the reflections of an intense video game playing on the lenses of the young man’s glasses.

What Bai couldn’t have suspected was that Paul was running a subroutine in his brain’s CPU while he was overtly working on his accounting assignment. Paul thought he might have found a way to override the encrypted electronic lock on the Dalfan computer he was using, but it would be a multistep process, and the first step in the process was wearing Bai down.

So far, so good.

From yesterday’s work session, Paul had learned that Bai had a fast metabolism and was nearly ravenous by the time lunch rolled around. Paul pushed on with his mundane accounting work until he could hear the boy’s stomach mewling like a drowning cat.

“We have a problem,” Paul said.

Bai’s attention was fixed on his laptop screen. “I’m sorry, did you ask me something?”

Paul turned in his squeaking swivel chair. “I said, there’s a problem.”

Bai’s eyes snapped up. “Problem?” He slammed his laptop shut.

“Yes, a problem. I can’t do my job if I can’t connect my laptop to the mainframe.”

“It’s not possible. You know the security protocols.”

“It’s not possible for me to do my job if I don’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m finished doing my preliminary survey. Now it’s time for me to do my formal examination of your records.”

“I thought that is what you were doing.”

“No. That was only a survey — an overview. To give me the thirty-thousand-foot perspective. Now I need to drop down and hit specific targets.”

“But why do you need to connect to the mainframe with your laptop?”

“That’s where my accounting software is located.”

“That’s not possible, sir.”

“That’s why we have a problem.”

“What kind of software do you use?”

“Analytical software.”

“We have CaseWare IDEA analytical software already installed on our computers. If you don’t know how to use it, I can show you.”

“IDEA is an excellent program and I’ve used it many times. But I prefer my own software.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s mine. I wrote it.”

Bai blinked a few times, his face blank with confusion, his brain stuck in a continuous logic loop. Finally he blurted out, “I’m sorry, it’s just not possible.”

“Then how else am I supposed to be able to download all of these data sets?”

Bai shrugged.

“Oh, I have an idea,” Paul said. “You can load all of the data points I need by hand into my computer within the next twenty-four hours. It’s probably not more than half a million numbers. And of course, you can’t make a single mistake while you do it. Would that work for you?”

“You’re not serious.”

“How else can I get the data into my laptop?”

“Let me speak with Mr. Fairchild.” Bai exited the office and headed across the suite to Yong’s office. Through the glass partition, Paul watched the two of them speak. A few moments passed and Yong glanced up, glowering at Paul. Paul waved meekly. Yong rose and crossed the suite, entering Paul’s office with Bai in tow.

Paul remained seated.

“Please explain your problem again, Mr. Brown?”

“Please, call me Paul.”

“The problem?”

“I can’t do my forensic audit without my software. Bai has explained to me that I can’t download the encrypted security passcode onto my machine or have any other direct interface.”

“Why can’t you use our analytical software?”

“It isn’t as good as mine.”

Bai whispered something in Mandarin. Yong nodded. “Would it be possible to upload your software onto our machine?”

Paul shrugged. “Are you sure you want to do that? The whole point of not allowing alien machines to connect to your mainframe is to prevent malware from infecting your system. Call your IT person, but I bet they’d have a real problem with that.”

Yong nodded at Bai, who grabbed a desk phone and speed-dialed a number. Paul guessed it was the IT department. Bai and the party on the other end of the line chatted in Chinese for a bit. Bai hung up. “Mr. Brown is right. They don’t want to upload his software.”

“Even if they check it?” Yong asked.

“No, sir.”

“There is one other possibility,” Paul suggested. “If you can loan me one of your encrypted USB drives, I can download the data I need and transfer it to my machine. That way my machine is never in direct contact with your computer.”

“Why can’t you just use Bai’s?”

“I prefer one of my own.”

“Why?”

“It would be a violation of the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board auditing protocols to allow a Dalfan employee — or a Marin Aerospace employee, for that matter — to have access to the data and records I’m examining. Surely you see how that would be an ethical violation?”

Yong rubbed his face, thinking. “Yes, I suppose it would be.” He turned to Bai. “Get him one of our drives — and wipe it clean. Then make sure he’s registered with it and the serial number is recorded.”

“Yes, sir. Will he have to turn it in each day before he leaves?”

“Yes, of course.” He turned to Paul. “Is that a problem?”

“No. I’ll BleachBit the drive clean each day, just to keep things… ethical.”

“You must also return the drive to us when you’re finally through with it. It’s proprietary, and we keep a strict accounting of each device.”

“No problem. I’m sorry for the inconvenience. It’s just that I have a job to do.”

“I understand. Hopefully this will be the last hurdle for you to jump in order for you to complete your assignment.”

Paul smiled. “That’s the plan.”

It was mostly bullcrap, of course.

Paul had to lie. It was his only choice. But he wasn’t happy about it.

Bai was right. IDEA was a great piece of analytical auditing software, and just about anything Paul needed to do on this “due diligence” audit could’ve been done with it. Paul’s software was even better because he’d written the macros and templates himself, based on his years of experience in fraud analysis. But to do a proper fraud investigation would take several weeks for a company this size. What Paul really needed was the Dalfan encrypted USB flash drive. That didn’t solve his problem, but it got him one step closer to completing his mission.

Or so he hoped.

In the meantime, he had work to do. Rhodes had told him that the audit was legit, but that it was in addition to his more important task. Paul couldn’t shake the feeling that the auditing assignment was just a cover for the software upload. A giant waste of time. That didn’t make sense, either, though. Rhodes was paying a lot of money to send him and Jack out here. But then again, it wasn’t his money, was it?

Paul pushed that idea aside and opened up his program. Time to eat the elephant.

Even if he had all the time in the world, on a project this size the trick was to cut it up into bite-sized pieces rather than try to swallow it whole. If there was some kind of fraud or illegal activity taking place, and if whoever was behind it was careless enough to record the transactions somewhere in the general ledger, his auditing software might be able to sniff it out. It would take a great deal of luck to find anything, since all he could do with so little time available was perform random checks of selected data sets. But Fortune was a lady, and she favored the bold, statistically.

Paul had constructed thirty discrete tests to perform, most of them numerical, but some were qualitative, searching and comparing the names and addresses of vendors, banks, warehouses, and products, as well as key words related to transactions, assets, destinations, and personnel. Connecting people, places, and patterns of behavior sometimes proved more valuable in cracking a fraud case, especially when the fraudsters were good at hiding the numbers. In fact, one of the Singapore banks that did business with Dalfan had been connected to the North Korean rare-earth-element debacle a few years ago, though no charges were ever filed. It was an interesting coincidence he would check out later.

But it was number-crunching that dominated Paul’s work. He believed that most fraudsters weren’t as good at hiding the numbers as he was in finding them, and he had the track record to prove it. But he was no fool, and it usually took a combination of both investigative approaches to crack the hardest cases. As far as he knew, Dalfan was innocent of any wrongdoing, but for the sake of this exercise, he was going to assume they were hiding something, and hiding it very well.

Would he find Dalfan vendors that changed bank accounts frequently? Had any Dalfan employees authorized multiple payments for items below a certain threshold limit to avoid triggering a limit alarm? Were there invoice receipts paid for amounts greater than the goods receipts they were matched to? How many purchase payments were made that exceeded the purchase-order amounts?

And then there was his Benford’s law search engine.

Paul rolled up his sleeves. It was going to be another long day, but it was still going to be a lot of fun. It was hard for him to believe that anybody could find this kind of work boring.