Heroes who like zeros

One of my cousins is a born story-teller. Ummm...no, that won't do. He is a story teller probably since the moment he was conceived. The special thing about his stories are, you will never be able to tell facts from fiction in those stories, if you don't know him well. But with experience, I learnt that there is a pattern to his lies. He lies when he is the protagonist of the story. So last night when he told me about a recent incident not involving himself, I knew I could reproduce it anywhere without the "all characters are fictional" disclaimer.

The story involved his gutless chicken-of-a-boss, one of his blatantly dishonest client and a couple of ^%$@&*! I-T officers. It started with the unscrupulous client making a hell lot of money in a transaction, also involving my cousin's boss. The I-T guys somehow smelt it and came to the client's office for further investigation. One of the officers asked the client("politely") to get up from his seat so that he could himself sit there and check if he was trying to hide any files in his desk. This infuriated the client and he yelled, "tumhaari aukaat nahi hai is chair pe baithne ki". The brief war of words that ensued later ended with the I-T officers shown the door by the security personnel. My cousin didn't tell me if the officers didn't have a proper search warrant but the story was building up so nicely, i didn't dare disturb the momentum.

The officer's ego was so badly hurt by the incident, he swore that he will bring that businessman to his knees very soon. The I-T people started visiting my cousin's office frequently after that incident, looking for incriminating evidence against the client. For "obvious"(?) reasons, my cousin's boss chose to hide all the details regarding the transaction. He was summoned to the I-T office(the HQ) a couple of days later. Over there, the same I-T officer who had unfinished business ( and balance sheets ) to take care of, very amiably asked him if that was the first time he had come to an I-T headquarter. He offered to show him around and took him to the "recording room". There they played a recording of the cell-phone conversation where he(the boss) was found telling the client how efficiently they had kept his secret from the I-T dept, asking for more business at the end of conversation. For the next few hours the officer made him sing like a canary.

A week or so later, armed with all the information and documentation the officer called up the businessman and,...... *beep* ...... and this was when my khufia cell phone chose to konk off. Like a madman I ran to the other room and put it on charge. My voice quivering with excitement, I called him back immediately to know what happened next. "Nothing", my brother said. "They agreed to settle it for 35000000. The files were burnt."