What do you think? Of course not

A couple of weeks passed as they slowly built their case against Andersson. His position in the archive gave Peter a perfect cover for snooping around, with all the access he needed to all sort of information in the company. It was mainly he who did the work, with Eric helping out and checking the information whenever they could find an excuse for requesting the naked office boy to come down to the archive. Tonight was a critical night in their plan. They had not found any smoking gun in their search for evidence of Erics ever naked presence being a cruel punishment by Andersson. But they had found many indications of Erics fee scam and how the company had tried to cover it up, and they had also found many traces of different lawsuits from unsatisfied customers that the company had buried, not always in legal ways. Tonight, Peter was supposed to smuggle out a hard drive with all the evidence and have one of his contacts check it out and give advice of how this would hold if it went public.

As usual, Peter had requested the help from Eric to move some boxes and now they were doing the last-minute checkup of the files that Peter would take with him, working together from a desk in the far end of the archive, out of sight from the guy guarding Eric that night. They were so focused on what they were doing and so worked up and excited about what was about to happen, that they didn’t hear the footsteps approaching. Both jumped high when someone, as out of a bad gangster movie, suddenly said, “Well, well, gentlemen. What do we have here?”

Infront of them stood no other than Mr. Andersson, accompanied by a whole entourage of broad jawed muscled up men in black suits. Both Peter and Eric stood there frozen, and Eric shivered as all the hopes and excitement fell apart with the mere sight of Mr. Andersson.

“It has been so fun watching the two of you for the last weeks,” Andersson began. “It has been just like a parody of a bad detective show, seeing the two of you snooping around and walking straight into to my trap.”

Eric tried to grasp what he was hearing. Had Andersson been onto them the whole time? It had felt too easy at times, gathering the evidence, but this could not be right, could it?

“You know, these men might look like they are all just muscles and no brain,” he said pointing to the guys around him. “But do you really think they wouldn’t report to me if you run into an old friend, Eric?” Andersson asked rhetorically. “And don’t you think someone would tell me if a stranger suddenly started to ask around about our dear little naked office boy, Peter?” he continued. “And why do you think a position at our archive suddenly opened? And why do you think you was hired the day after you applied and after only a fifteen-minute interview?”

“Another thing,” Andersson said, giving Peter a broad smile. “If you are going to be a successful investigating journalist, you should try to build a better cover than to just dye your hair, grow a beard, and buying new glasses. And you should probably come up with a better alias than just using your mother’s last name.”

“By the way, all that evidence you so tiresome have gathered are all fake, in case you wonder. It is all just small breadcrumbs that I was throwing you lure you straight into the honeypot,” the man continued, giving both of the boys a triumphant look.

Eric felt his stomach churned as Andersson spoke. It had all been a big setup. His instincts had been right in the beginning. There was no way they could outsmart Mr. Andersson, and now he found himself in front of the terrifying man, caught red handed once more.

“I’m really disappointed in you Eric,” Andersson said. “You were doing so well as our little naked helper. I was actually thinking about easing up on you, you know. Not that I would have let you go anytime soon, but maybe you could have started to make some earning for the work you are doing. In a year or two, you could have made enough money to buy yourself some skimpy briefs and a train ticket out of here. Who knows.”

“I told you all those months ago, Eric, that your problem was a lack of humiliation in your life and that I was going to give you just that by stripping you of absolutely everything. But your actions the last week shows me that we still have a long way to go and that you have learned nothing. And if you think that you have nothing more that I can take away from you, I can assure you that you are wrong.”

“And you,” Andersson said, looking at Peter, “what should we do about our great undercover journalist?” Peter had been listening at Andersson while trying to put up a business like and calm appearance, but Eric could see the fear in Peters eyes. “Well,” Andersson continues, “I think it is about time that we start to grow this nudist movement. And you, Peter, you look just like the perfect new member to the group.”