LEGEND OF NEVETSECNUAC - THE CAPITAL CHANNING - SECTION 5

 LEGEND OF NEVETSECNUAC - THE CHAPITAL CHANNING - SECTION 5

The temporary Chief Inspector Tomlin Kenny (filling in for Yori), facing a complete lack of evidence, a clean slate with no semblance of new clues at all, proved unwilling to re-open the investigation, frustrating all avenues of the Prime Minister's indirect efforts.  While his investigators pursued more incriminating facts, he concentrated on fulfilling the terms of the agreement with the emissaries.

Incredible though it seemed, the upright Lenny Sukzor had insufficient monetary reserves to match the amount needed to repay the emissaries in full (for the missing gold) and his insistence on secrecy precluded all efforts to raise the money among his more affluent associates.  As this predicament placed the Under Secretary in a terrible bind, Lamont Gudaren held back his efforts until he saw what desperate means Lenny Sukzor would resort to.

01-LENNY SUKZOR (3)JP

After extensive soul searching, Lenny Sukzor’s brilliant solution had been to capitulate to his fate, bear the truth in Court and face the dire consequences, come what may.  Fortunately, the Prime Minister had been informed of it in time and was able to intervene through a third party and affect Lenny’s financial rescue.

It had never occurred to Lamont Gudaren that he should dip into his own reserves to restock Lenny Sukzor for the missing gold.  In fact, this idea was inconceivable to him even though he did possess the means to do so. 

One problem was that his vast fortunes were mostly hidden, concealed under a barrage of companies and holdings under host names.  To dip into it, simply to extract the Under Secretary from his predicament, would risk exposing its (this network’s) existence. Therefore, he’d rather let Lenny Sukzor be found guilty and be executed before he would part with a single brass coin of his holdings.

Moreover, the Prime Minister suspected that this could very well be another of Egil Viggoaries's ploys; his typically underhanded, devious means (aim) to force Lamont’s hand and hope he got careless.  As the pressure had mounted greater and greater, the more Lamont had been certain of this wily design and, the more he looked upon Lenny Sukzor as a mere pawn of the eunuch.  The sinister, costly plot was surely put together to draw in a much bigger fish; himself.

“But in the end, I outsmarted you, Egil Viggoaries, and I managed to turn your trap to my own advantage.” Lamont grinned, mumbling to himself.

For a while things had looked rather bleak, as time had run out and he had lost patience with his competent investigators who still had not turned up anything conclusive, anything concrete, nothing at all with which to file an indictment, much less order an arrest.

Then, in an unexpected stroke of good fortune, one of his investigative forces had a serious breakthrough and through it, they had uncovered a piece of vital information.  There was finally that (sought after) thread which, when followed, led to two of Lenny’s former servants who had been dismissed for wrongful conduct some three years prior.

 This oversight had nearly cost Lenny dearly, for the Prime Minister was certain that it was they who had exacted revenge upon their former master by robbing him and setting the place on fire.  Sure enough, when the two conspirators had been sought out, proof positive was attained (retrieved from its carefully concealed cache), in the form of one of the rare Kontu artifact (relic), in their present hideout.

The Prime Minister knew that it would have been too careless for the mastermind of the robbery to have paid these two for their services with part of the loot, especially a piece which was so easily traceable.  The only explanation was that one of the culprits had stolen the miniature during the heist, not expecting it to be a hard item to fence and figuring that its loss would go unnoticed. 

Without creating an incident, the perpetrators were summarily apprehended and incarcerated under a minor charge but, when it came time for their thorough questioning, they were found, both mysterious and under the most bizarre of circumstances, expired. 

Suicide had been ruled out, as had outside tampering for there had been a heavy and constant guard posted over them.  The subsequent autopsies all indisputably confirmed that they had died only minutes apart in their separate cells by natural causes.  When the Prime Minister's elite force arrived on the scene they investigated all avenues, as usual, and discovered that a luminous poison had been administered days before the pair were even suspected of the theft and had remained inert until after they had been arrested.  Unfortunately, after causing the intended victim's death, this type of poison decomposed into a chemical, often found in all corpses.  They had no existing proof to back up their findings.  And so once more these unsubstantiated allegations, the case Lamont had so meticulously built up against his greatest adversary, had to be dropped.

As far back Lamont Gudaren would recollect, it had always been the same, persistent cat-and-mouse game with Egil Viggoaries.  Every so often Lamont would achieve some small gain, other times he would have to concede gracefully to defeat and retire to lick his wounds.  Occasionally he would be forced to yield a little ground but on the next round his nemesis would be the one to retreat.  Their rise to power had been kept in check by these incessant measures and countermeasures.  Lamont Gudaren knew that, at the end of it when all was said and done, there would be only one victor and, determined as he was to be that one, he had spent the last few years mounting his secret associations (connections) and extending (widening) his support network.  His best efforts were concentrated on the grand strategies (schemes) that won ultimate (final) wars, not every day insignificant battles.

02- PM LAMONT GUDAREN -1-JP

These minor setbacks only ruffled his plumage for a time, nothing definite. Once again, he lied to himself.  In fact, the eunuch's steady growth in power and mounting influence (far surpassing his), had become a constant source of worry and irritation to Lamont.

 Many nights, Lamont laid awake concocting ingenious means to curtail his nemesis’s power; if not outright vanquish, him and his invincible network of agents.

This most recent victory concerning Lenny Sukzor afforded him much pleasure and so he was able to shrug off the more troubling notions he had about the case.

Eventually, through a trusted third party, Lenny had been provided with the required amount and the Prime Minister's part in this had, for the time at least been concealed from, the Under Secretary.  As far as Lenny Sukzor was concerned it was his close friend and sometimes confidant, Lakkos Hemming, who, during an intimate dinner, had sensed something was wrong and, with his persistence, had wrung a confession out from Lenny Sukzor.  Upon learning the source of the Under Secretary's problem (predicament) and its scope, Lakkos Hemming most readily volunteered to help his good friend out of the present difficulty.  He had offered Lenny the entire amount as a loan since Lenny refused outright to accept it as a gift.  Lakkos did specify, however, that there was no urgency to repay this trifling sum.

Mindful of Lakkos Hemming' supposed vast inheritance, his immensely wealthy family connections, Lenny had not suspected in the least that, the latter was in fact in dire straits himself, having lost the entire family fortune, discreetly of course, and quite some time ago, because of his terrible, hidden vice.  In fact, Lakkos was completely (utterly) bankrupt, barely able to keep up the outward pretense of opulence, going deeper into debt all the while with his extravagant expenses incurred.

And who was the source of the immeasurable amount Lakkos was put under obligation to?  Why, the Prime Minister's trusted affiliate, Tugo Kenny, of course, who acted as front man for the Prime Minister.  As it were, Lakkos Hemming had mortgaged his entire future, even his children's future.  The considerable sum with monthly interest incurred could never be repaid in his lifetime; hence he often became subjected to extortion or blackmail.

When the gold failed to surface, just as the Prime Minister had anticipated all along that it would never be recovered or traced, the Prime Minister had spun this entrapment to force Lakkos Hemming, who in fact held an important office in the Treasury, to rig the books once more. 

This time it was, supposedly, to help Lenny out of his predicament, in exchange for a temporary reprieve and extended time of repayment on his (Lakkos’s) next installment of, amassed debt.

03- LAKKOS HEMMING

Lamont Gudaren had conceived, long before these events, that the Undersecretary's friendship with Lakkos Hemming would cost Lenny dearly one day and so had bided his time, waiting for such an opportunity.  When the proper circumstances availed themselves, allowing maximum gain for the Prime Minister, he intended to disclose the truth to Lenny Sukzor and extract a hefty repayment and significant favors from his new pigeon.  Under threat of exposure as a co-conspirator or even the instigator of Lakkos' crime, Lenny would be constrained to comply.  Under the dictates of his good business sense, the Prime Minister never invested in anything or anyone without first assuring himself of at least a tenfold return.

Lamont Gudaren grinned in satisfaction and returned to his desk and picked up a file only to push it aside as his mind wandered back to his triumph.  It had, accordingly, gone quite well for him. Lakkos Hemming was able to embezzle even more funds than were immediately needed and offered the overage to rebuild the Undersecretary's mansion.  For the time being the illicit deductions had been so expertly hidden in the financial maze that they could never be traced back to their source unless the Prime Minister purposefully disclosed the discrepancy.  Meanwhile the newly rebuilt mansion would stand as testimony to his resourcefulness in ensnaring the incorruptible Lenny Sukzor.

Prior to this, Lenny Sukzor’s integrity had been virtually invulnerable, and, despite Lenny's obvious dislike of Egil Viggoaries, there had been no means by which the Prime Minister could persuade the Undersecretary to join him in a secret affiliation and buy his loyalty to his own cause.  An independent ally who wielded a certain influence on the Sovereign, was certainly a boon to his interests, his greatest conquest yet.  He had even placed another of his agents, the Assistant Imperial Architect, Quanz Yommei, in charge of the rebuilding.

How fortunate that this had all transpired just in time before the assassination attempt on His Highness and the exposure of the treachery of the Kontu emissaries.  Now, Lenny Sukzor’s action and integrity shone even brighter still and won him further favor with Sovereign Zakhertan Yozdek.

In Lamont Gudaren’s estimation, Lenny with his barely tapped (utilized) potential had been pegged, speedily, in a very short span, to ascent in power; hence, Lamont had taken advance precaution to truss Lenny Sukzor, with puppet's strings, especially since the Undersecretary was blissfully ignorant of his full potential.

“And when the command performance is called for, the right pressure here, a tug there, and Lenny Sukzor will dance like one of my concubines” Lamont grinned viciously.

A sudden knock on the door disrupted Lamont Gudaren’s licentious reverie and, responding to his loud consent, his secretary entered timidly and scuttled up to the desk to add even more files onto the pile on the desk.

"Is that the last of them?" the Prime Minister growled.

"No, you’re Excellency, there are still more forthcoming.  Also, the compiled data on the litigation being investigated by the Tunco Commission should soon be ready for your perusal.  The memorandum on the matter involving Konizo Noer has also been drawn up according to Your Excellency's specifications and is now being written out by the scribes."

A grunt and a wave of dismissal sent the fellow on his way.  Frowning, Lamont opened the file before him once more and he surveyed it with stern visage.  But again, it failed to capture his imagination, and he let his mind stray once more, as he drummed his fingers on the file's cover.

 

 Even with his busy schedule he should make time at his earliest convenience to throw a feast of introduction for this scholar Fradel Rurik Korvald, if only to consolidate support among the invited and antagonize the cursed Egil Viggoaries. This business with Yekov could wait.  

Decisively, he recalled his secretary and dictated a set of orders, one of which was the forwarding of invitations to a select group of privileged individuals, inviting them to a future banquet (formal meal), given in honor of Fradel Rurik Korvald.

 

 

 

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(END OF SECTION 5)