Chapter 241 - Edward Undercover

A week passed without incident for the girls but for the boys, it was like a time bomb ticking. Julian Anastasia was tenacious and it was becoming increasingly dangerous for Alex to visit the office so Edward and Jasper made plans for the sisters to go on a short trip with their mother with Claire and Jenna's help while they arranged for a meeting with Julian. Wilmer's schedule was rearranged and Danny took over all the important matters so that the Wilde CEO could meet the dangerous man with his future son-in-law.

Elfie and Edward were finally contacted by Danny who told them he had a lead. Needless to say, with the green light given by Danny, they no longer had to sneak around with their investigations. Edward had Elfie dig up information on EZ Express' headquarters and timed himself for an interview there. There were some strings pulled successfully so Edward will be an intern there for two weeks so that he could investigate the inner network that Elfie couldn't get into.

The plan was simple. Edward talked to Claire and Jenna about what they were going to do and requested that the lady butler propose a trip for all three ladies away from New York for a few days. It wasn't hard for Orita to pull a few strings with her influence in the entertainment industry for a job featuring her daughters. A well-known magazine decided to respond to Orita's last-minute request for an exclusive scoop about life with her two daughters who had been on hiatus from the peak of their careers for a few months now after Jenna proposed the idea of some family bonding time. The girls were immediately excused from classes and booked for a plane to The Bahamas. Jenna booked a yacht for the interview and a private island so that the girls can relax by the beach for a weekend.

Once the details of the trip was confirmed, Wilmer and Jasper arranged a meeting date with Julian Anastasia. The sneaky CEO of EZ Express didn't even pause to consider before accepting the date. Jasper proposed the meeting venue at a hotel's private dining room that was secretly reserved under Wilmer's name because the young CEO simply didn't have that much money to spare so that Julian wouldn't be at his office or try anything funny. Julian didn't mind and accepted the invitation within the day. With that, the first stage of the plan was complete.

Edward was nervous. He told Scarlet that he had recently gotten a part-time job and wouldn't be able to meet up with her much so he told her to live with Alex for a while to keep her whiny sister company because Jasper was also recently working overtime a lot. The spy expected more questions but to his surprise, Scarlet was understanding and wished him all the best for his job. She even told him that she was going to travel for a short job herself with her sister at her mother's request even though it was Edward's suggestion.

"Let's go on another date after my job ends," he told her. "I should have saved enough for a grand date. Do you have a place in mind you want to go? We could try Disneyland."

Scarlet laughed when she heard his proposed dating spot. Disneyland was the last place Scarlet wanted to go. It was crowded, full of long queues and rowdy kids with overly priced merchandise. Alex might be interested but she would demand VVIP treatment but not Scarlet. The writer was more interested in the wackier side of life to feed her adrenaline junkie side.

"How about go-karts and horse-riding for a date? We'll go with my plans when I get back," she grinned and Edward found himself falling in love with her all over again. He pegged her for the indoors and bookish kind of girl who has her heart in the city but she proved him wrong by suggesting an outdoor date. Who knew that the actress Liu Xiu Wen was secretly an adrenaline junkie?

"Alright," he agreed. "I'll prepare something for a picnic out as well, hopefully the weather will prevail. If it doesn't we could go bowling and drop by the trampoline park instead."

The couple spent two days together at Edward's apartment planning their future date until Edward had to leave for the job he got and Scarlet had to move in with Jasper and Alex again for a few days.

It was finally the day that Edward and Elfie got to see what went on behind the scenes of EZ Express. His interview was a success and he was notified that he would be working as an intern with the IT department thanks to his fake certification that Danny provided. Mr Bayon was informed about Edward's involvement with the cold case and decided to bring his son back into action seeing as Edward was determined.

The General Secretariat only had one advice for his son.

"Don't die. Think about the ones who will cry for your death. If you're in danger, get out of there immediately. Your mother told me about your girlfriend and I won't allow you to skip out on me with that father and son talk you owe me. How dare you start cohabiting without introducing her to me!"

Needless to say, Edward's actions and freedom were very tightly restricted. He would be monitored at all times when working as an intern even though the Interpol has readied everything so that nobody would suspect him as a spy. The previous spies that the Interpol planted within EZ Express had either been murdered or forced to run because of Anastasia's influence in the underworld. They never thought about using a teen as a spy because of how risky it was but seeing that Edward and Elfie had gone ahead to make arrangements on their own, breaking multiple international laws to get their hands on a lead that nobody had been able to find before and grasping a new angle that the professionals weren't able to get until Scarlet received some insider information... it was only fair to send Edward for the mission.

Shutting away his emotions and weakness, Edward stepped into his spy mentality and wore the mask of a slightly lazy intern who was only doing the job for his grades. The contract was for two weeks and Edward met his temporary boss for the first time while listening to the ramblings about the organisational structure during the induction tour of the building.

"So there are a few departments but you don't have to know them all," said his new boss. "The list contains all the relevant people and their extension lines. Your job is to pick up calls and troubleshoot basic computer problems. Some things to note would be the meeting rooms. You'd be requested very frequently by the secretarial department to set up the projectors for presentations so take note of the calendar meetings."

Edward nodded and walked around, surveying the number of cameras and exits as they moved along. The office looked ordinary from anyone's perspective but Edward knew they would be hiding something within. He couldn't tell who was a legitimate office drone and who was part of the mafia business planted into the legal business. Julian cleaned up rather well and Edward now understood why the Interpol's spies were easily weeded. The company had many contract staff and those staff who worked there for too many years would either be given a golden handshake or forced to resign to protect its secrets.

"Do I need to attend the server room if there's a network problem?" Edward asked just to scope the feel of the environment. Interns were usually not allowed to do much but he wanted to push his luck and buy a cover story in case he had to meddle with the important security-related things.

His boss looked at him strangely. "The server room isn't here," he told Edward. "The management outsourced those to cut costs. If anything goes down, we simply call the service provider and send someone down to investigate. Usually, there isn't a problem because the company spends good money for monthly maintenance but if there is a case, the number for the helpline could be found on your phone list in case none of us is available and there's an emergency. Still, nothing should happen, you're only here for two weeks."

Edward blinked and looked at the number on his phone list. "That's convenient to know," he smiled. "At least I don't have much to do."

The IT manager looked at Edward's carefree smile and snorted. "You wish. By the end of two weeks, you'd be glad that you're not working here permanently. We often have calls about the strangest things and virus attacks are one of the biggest problems we face especially when dealing with the upper management executives. I swear these folks need to learn how to not click on suspicious emails or go to suspicious websites! I don't understand why the CEO doesn't want us to blacklist those links and sites when we have them in our history. I guess they just want to see us run around and justify the pay we get."

Edward raised a brow. "That's dumb. Why won't they put it in? Also, why can't we use those logs to set a warning to the users who want to click in? There should be a filter even if they don't want to block it with a firewall."

The manager raised a brow. "For someone as unambitious as you, you're rather bright."

Edward shrugged, playing the role of his character. "I'm not paid enough to deal with more work. That's your job, I'm only thinking of ways to make my job easier."

Hearing that, the manager laughed. His impression of Edward changed drastically. Perhaps this intern could help him to solve some of the bigger issues they had. Those runner calls can be settled by the other long-timers.