The Enigma Broker

Quip groused, “ICABOD, you don’t have to boil the ocean every time we are looking for clues in our information searches. I have you sift through mountains of data so I don’t have to. In those areas where we are looking for obscure clues that are needles in the proverbial haystack, it is unnecessary to tell me all about the haystack. Just net it out so we can take that information to our next decision point. When we need more background on the information point, I will ask. Understand?”

ICABOD acknowledged, “Understood, Dr. Quip.”

About that time Wolfgang joined Quip in his office and proudly stated, “Well, I’ve finally got some financial leads on the coal commodities problem. It looks like it all started back in 1880 when they first began hauling the product to market. There was a high affinity with hauling oil as well. The financial dealings with both of these commodities apparently lends itself to weight shorting, delivery irregularities, and some financial sleight of hand.

“Brokering commodities seems to be a good ‘ol boy network that is quite resistant to proper weights and measures, which suggests a high correlation to organized crime. With the growth in populations and settlements into communities and cities, the demand has increased. With that demand, the control over a given commodity has centered on those that seized the opportunity early on. From there the industry created a significant lever for control. The resulting back room deals lend themselves rather handsomely to income tax evasion and price setting as a way of life.”

Quip’s eyes glazed over as Wolfgang’s offering closely approximated ICABOD’s earlier monolog. Wolfgang continued, “Now these Dark Matter Organizations, or DMOs, don’t appear to be part of the commodity gaming institutions that are in current operation. My beginning assumption was that the financial footprints of these DMOs must be as cloaked as these operators are.

“I built a reverse financial algorithm to only look for non-associated money movements, but only on a parallel but not necessarily parabolic course. And voile’! A pattern emerges that is almost identical to these commodity anomalies. So now what I want to do is …”

Quip, now unable to take any more, barged into Wolfgang’s analysis. “Wolfgang, stop it! I now know what’s wrong with ICABOD. He’s been listening to you. I no sooner get done lecturing him on just netting out his research, when you come in here boiling the ocean right behind him. For God’s sake, I’ll trust your methodology if you two will just tell me what the answer is that you have found.”

Wolfgang was about to comment on Quip’s complaints when Jacob and Petra strolled into Quip’s office, oblivious to the turmoil.

Petra happily announced, “We’ve run our background analysis on the ePETRO company and their falling oil price with some important success.

“It all started back in the 1880s when … oh, Jacob, you give them all the background information leading up to our discovery of …”

Quip was now about to call emergency services to ask for a defibrillation device and an antidote for caustic background research from one’s associates.

He loudly proclaimed, “Can someone in this room just provide the net-net statement of their research and spare me the endless soliloquies on how you got there?!”