I did some math.
Subtracting Courtney's (recently well-publicized) birthday from 2005 gave me 1988. Twenty years after the Mexico City Olympics. That plus the equally public knowledge that she had been adopted equaled two hypotheses that I transcribed to my notepad as questions.
"1) Did Svetlana Blefescu have a love-child by Fyodor Ivanov?"
"2) Could Courtney Carlson really be Ted's biological granddaughter?"
The only way to answer those questions would be to ask them of Courtney, herself. There was only one problem. According to that SPORTS ILLUSTRATED story, she was now a freshman at the University of Georgia. And, even if I bought a plane ticket with my own money, without a driver's license, I'd never be able to rent a car at the Atlanta International Airport.
I decided to literally sleep on it. So, at 6PM, I punched out and had Lazlo drive me home. The next morning, after punching in, I went straight to my editor and told him everything I had dug up and/or concluded.
"If someone on staff, who _does_ have a driver's license, could accompany me, I'd deeply appreciate it. More importantly, the paper would have a great human interest story for the front page!"
Long story, short? The Old Man had Bernie Jensen, the head of our Legal Department, put me in touch with a private detective named Diego Garcia. Diego would accompany me as my cameraman. Not quite a stretch of the truth, as he genuinely was an ex-LAPD crime scene photographer! And, after handling the car rental for both of us, he would take my lead in tracking down Ted...and confirming whether or not I was right in my suppositions.
We departed LAX on a red-eye flight. With the clerk who handed us our tickets explaining why mine was only one way.
"Your editor told me to tell you (and I quote); 'If this turns out to be a wild-goose chase, that b.s. artist won't need to come back.' End quote."
To relieve the boredom of insomnia (I was too keyed up to fall asleep, right away), I asked Diego how he had happened to become a private eye.
"Tio Pepe," he replied: "My Mom's only brother. He disappeared back in 1963. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, in fact! I think he was working for the CIA, back then, and got captured by the Commies. I've been trying to use the Freedom of Information Act to find out for sure. So, I can finally keep the deathbed promise I made to Mom."
After that, we both resumed our attempts to fall asleep with a little more success. By the time the flight attendants woke everyone up, to tell us we were about to land, it was five-thirty in the morning (Eastern Standard Time).
tbc
Giantess World
