by Toby Neal
“I have. We went to school together, actually. Lee it is then. Let me know the minute you’re back in this country for any reason.”
“Of course, Agent Ang. I confess I’m curious.” Sophie heard a note of self-deprecating humor in his voice.
“Nothing I can discuss here and now.” Sophie said. “I hope I can count on your full cooperation.”
“Yes. We want the FBI happy with us,” Remarkian said. “Not to mention the CIA, the NSA, and Homeland. So many federal agencies to keep happy.” She heard steel in his voice.
“Okay, I’ll call Lee then. Until we meet in person.”
“G’day, then.” Remarkian hung up decisively.
Sophie called Ken, brought him up-to-date and then called Lee asking to meet with him and Honing, vice president of the company, to discuss some “data irregularities” within the company.
“Can you tell me what this is about, Agent Ang? Confidentially?” She could hear the worry in Lee’s voice. “I don’t want my boss to be mad at me if I can help it.”
She remembered his earnest face while studying with him. He’d been good, but a linear thinker. There was no way he had the brilliance needed to develop Security Solutions’ software. She could see him being able to track her location, though.
“I’m sorry, Lee. I’ll have to talk to you and the other VP in person.”
It wasn’t long before Sophie and Ken Yamada sat in the office of the Vice President of Security Solutions’ client operations. Frank Honing, the VP, was a dark-haired man with a restless manner. He clicked and unclicked a stylus, with an electronic pad on his knee, as they sat down in a luxurious seating arrangement around a low coffee table. Lee Chan looked haggard, tilted dark eyes set in pouches of purplish flesh as if he hadn’t slept in days. Sophie felt a stab of guilt, looking at him.
“So what’s so urgent?” Honing asked. “First, we have an unscheduled visit, now this meeting request. Should I call our legal department for this meeting?”
“No,” Sophie said. “We’re here to help you, actually.” She had a folder on her lap. She hadn’t wanted to give them any data to mine further so she’d printed out the texts from the various situations the saboteur had engineered. “I spoke to your programmer, Todd Remarkian, and verified he was out of the country. If your company’s president is available, he should hear this, too. It’s regarding some irregularities we’ve discovered within your company that intersect with criminal cases.”
“Our Chief Executive Officer, Sheldon Hamilton, is out of the country, as well. They’re both in Hong Kong,” Honing barked. “I tried to get them on speaker at least, but they’re in meetings right now. We’re penetrating the Asian market and things are at a delicate stage of development. You can tell us anything you’d tell them.”
Ken gave Sophie a nod. They’d got the go-ahead to disclose the information on the cases Sophie had gathered by verifying with Gundersohn and Waxman that the company, however shady it might turn out to be, deserved to have this information.
“This information came through my computer analysis and some detective work.” Sophie took out three stapled stacks of paper. “Each of these is a transcript of extracted text messages from separate and unrelated crimes that may have been precipitated from within your company. In any case, Security Solutions is the only common factor in each of these seemingly coincidental setups.”
Sophie handed each of them, and Yamada, one of the stacks of papers. It was ridiculously antiquated to disseminate information this way, but once something was in digital form there was no telling where it would go or how it could be manipulated. “I’ll need to collect these printouts after this meeting. The upshot is this: we think you may have a saboteur within your company, someone who is using your clients’ criminal enterprises against them.”
She talked them through each of the cases: the gangsters killing each other, the SEC traders turning each other in, the kidnappers, the child porn ring. “We hope that by sharing this information with you, you can help us identify the saboteur within your company.”
“I had no idea.” Lee’s face had gone the color of beeswax. “Clearly this person has some computer savvy, but we have a whole Internet security division. It could really be anyone with access to our clients and their phone contacts.”
“Can you work up a list for us? We’ll help you nail this guy,” Ken said.
Lee glanced at Honing, who shook his head. “No. We don’t want a joint investigation with the FBI. You appear to have some interesting intel. How did you even come up with this?” Honing pinned Sophie with sharp dark eyes.
“I ran an analysis on these cases.” She shrugged as if it were both too simple and too complicated to explain. “It appears Security Solutions caters to the unsavory, and if someone is sabotaging your clients and helping them get busted by law enforcement, who are we to look a gift horse in the mouth?” It felt good to work the phrase into a sentence against this smug bureaucrat. “We’ve offered to help you, but fine. Clean up your own mess if you can. We’ll continue with our inquiry. I warn you, though, so far, we’re not impressed by the company you keep.”
A dusky flush rose up Honing’s neck. He tapped the tablet’s screen and made a sweeping gesture with the stylus. “We appreciate the information you’ve just passed on, and assure you we will cooperate fully with the FBI. We will be in contact with our management team for our next steps.” He stood, six foot of intimidating, forcing them to get up too.
“Let us know if you find the saboteur,” Ken said. “On behalf of law enforcement, we’ll be hoping it takes a long time.”
Sophie had to reach out and tug the printouts of the text messages out of Honing’s and Lee’s hands. “We’ll see ourselves out. You’ll hear from us if there’s any further information that comes to light.”
The Ghost watched a video of the meeting between Honing, Chan, and the federal agents. He zoomed in on Special Agent Sophie Ang’s face. Today she wore a pair of slim black pants and a tailored button-down shirt that showcased a slender toned body that reminded him of a human Doberman—and he was partial to Dobermans.
He could see muscle definition in her forearms and he glimpsed some sort of writing, tattoos, on the insides of her arms. He loved the color of her bronze skin, smooth as buttermilk. Her large dark eyes flashed with intelligence as she sparred verbally with Frank Honing, and he was glad the surveillance feed of the vice president’s office was both color and audio wired as he noted every word and gesture.
He wondered what kind of program she was running to be able to track the saboteur and draw these conclusions. He didn’t like what she was saying, of course. This was a major wrinkle. One he was going to have to put some thought and planning into addressing, but the fact that she’d gone to the company with her findings earned his respect. Gratitude, even.
Sophie Ang wasn’t just going to joust with him in the dark alleys of the Internet, she was after him in the flesh. He liked that, very much. He wondered if she was onto his countermeasures, but nothing in the video or conversation gave any hint.
The Ghost glanced down, annoyed, as his cell rang with a call from Lee. He’d known the tech would need reassurance, but he didn’t want to deal with him right now. He wanted to get to know Sophie Ang better.
He replayed the video and watched it again, from the beginning.
Chapter Eleven
Back at her office, Sophie told Ken she wanted to dig deeper into who was behind the kidnapping case by reviewing the whole file. It ate at her that whoever was behind Anna’s kidnapping was still at large. She had about an hour before she needed to take Bateman to her house to verify DAVID was gone from her workstation and she was due to meet Alika. Her pulse picked up, thinking of their date. It was nice to have something to look forward to at the end of the day.
Sophie opened a file on Takeda Industries, the company that owned the apartment where Anna had been held, and began her digging. Even without DAVID, she could use the FBI’s secure browser to
gather deeper than usual data about the company. She identified a parent holding company, a board of directors with photos, a variety of ostensible enterprises that included rental units, used rental cars, even rental furniture.
Victims could be picked up in company rental cars, housed in company rental units, tended to by kidnappers lounging on company rental furniture. She curled her lip in disgust.
Or, the kidnappers had just bought information on the family, and all three were dead in the morgue. There was no way to tell which it was at this stage. Sophie shunted all she’d gathered to Ken’s computer for him and Gundersohn to review, and glanced at the clock. It was time to go.
Bateman glanced around Sophie’s bedroom, avidly curious. Sophie keyed on her machines with the coded fob.
“Nice,” Bateman said. “Wondering how you afford all this on the same salary I get.” The podgy young agent had annoyed her with his fumbling advances in the past, and now she could add poorly hidden resentment of her family’s wealth to her dislike of him.
Having him here, in her bedroom, was almost beyond bearing.
“Who said we’re in the same pay grade? Just do what you came to do. Verify that DAVID has been removed from my home workstation.”
Bateman sat in her office chair and accessed Ying’s main drive. It didn’t take long for him to scan through all three machines. “It’s gone.” He squinted at her. “But I’m sure it’s not really gone.”
“None of your business, Special Agent Bateman. Now get the hell out of my apartment.”
He did, and she slammed and locked the door behind him. Ginger rubbed against her legs, whining as she sensed Sophie’s distress. “Thank God I’m seeing Alika. That will take my mind off the kind of day this was.”
Sophie showered and dressed in her best matching underwear, a pearl-colored satin set from a cousin who was a designer. She put on a whisk of mascara and a swish of scarlet lipstick and donned her favorite earrings, fat baroque pearls the size of cherries on little chains that swung when she turned her head. She dressed in black jeans and a tank top because that’s what she usually wore. She didn’t want him to think she was overly excited about their date.
She fed Ginger. She paced around.
Time went by. Alika didn’t show. She texted him a half-hour after he was supposed to be there. “Still going to sushi tonight?”
No reply.
Sophie poured herself a glass of wine, sat in the chair that faced a view of glorious setting sun reflecting off a burnished metal ocean. She got up and paced some more, annoyed. Irritated that she was annoyed.
She missed DAVID and her FBI work on her computer with the sudden fierceness like an addict must feel, longing for the needle. Her oblivion was being ‘wired in,’ and without her work, she was aimless, floating. Unplugged.
Alika’s no-show wasn’t helping. She called his phone and it went immediately to voice mail.
“Hey, it’s Alika. Leave a message.”
“Hey, Alika. Sophie here. Thought we were getting together? Well, I guess it didn’t work out. Give me a call when you get this.” She tried to keep her tone free of anything but slight puzzlement.
She hung up. A sense of loss, strangling and disproportionately terrible, clenched her stomach. She wanted to cry. Angry and agitated, she got on her treadmill and walked just to move while she waited. Ginger watched anxiously.
Another hour went by. The sun was long gone and the phone still didn’t ring.
Sophie took off her jeans, tank shirt and pretty underwear and put them away. She should never have let herself care about him.
She dressed in her running clothes, plugged headphones into her phone, and stuck it in the pocket of her running shorts along with keys and pepper spray. She broke into a jog on the sidewalk with Ginger trotting at her side. The lights of the city cast pools of amber on the sidewalk and familiar storefronts were rendered mysterious in the darkness. They ended up at Ala Moana Beach Park, much further than she’d intended to go.
It took that long running for Sophie to feel herself again after the blow of rejection. This was the first time Sophie really considered that she might need therapy, as Dr. LaSota had suggested.
A man hadn’t come to pick her up for a date. It wasn’t the end of anybody’s world and shouldn’t feel like it. That Alika could affect her that way frightened her. It was ridiculous, disproportional.
The run had also given her time to tick over all the information she’d gathered on the case. She came to the same conclusions about the saboteur and Security Solutions as she had earlier. For the short term, they could focus on finding the leak connection between Security Solutions and the kidnapping case, and as they did so, the FBI could build something long-term against Security Solutions, perhaps even use the company as a window to spy on their criminal clients.
It felt good to walk along the sand at the park and finally sit, gazing out at the ocean. Sophie watched the moon rise over the water and listened to the waves. The water smelled briny from nearby Ala Wai Canal, and the rigging of boats in the yacht harbor clanged in a melody accompanied by the rustling of palm fronds in the light breeze. Ginger flopped in the sand beside her, panting.
She was tired, too, but satisfied with all she’d done that day. It didn’t matter so much about Alika. She’d be fine even if things didn’t work out and he’d changed his mind about her.
Ginger suddenly sprang to her feet, panting with excitement. A man was jogging toward them on the hard sand at the edge of the water, a dog on a leash at his side.
“Sit, Ginger!” Sophie exclaimed, but she’d let go of the leash while relaxing in the sand, and in the darkness, couldn’t find it. The Lab leaped away and ran down the beach to greet the other dog with an indiscriminate display of friendliness.
Sophie ran after the lab and almost collided with the jogger as he tried to untangle his dog from Ginger’s advances.
“Heel, Anubis!” His voice was sharp.
Sophie finally got a hold of Ginger’s collar and wrestled her away from his dog. That animal stood like a statue, moonlight outlining a Doberman’s sleek body shape and cropped, pointed ears.
“I’m so sorry,” Sophie exclaimed. “She got away from me. She’s a Lab—no sense of dignity whatsoever.”
The man was as still as his dog. He topped her by several inches. She felt his gaze even in the dark, and somehow it made her wish she could see him. “You should be careful out here by yourself. There are all kinds of people here in the park.”
“I can handle myself,” she said, pepper spray and phone a reassuring weight in her pocket—not to mention her combat skills. “But thanks for the warning. And sorry for Ginger’s bad manners.”
He gave a brief nod, and she heard the clink of metal as he heeled his dog, and then, the man and the Doberman were jogging away down the beach, black shadows against silver sand and moon-dappled ocean.
Sophie frowned, wishing somehow they’d talked some more, that he hadn’t just taken off. Something about him and the dog Anubis was magnetic. But she needed to get home and get to bed. Tomorrow was bound to come too soon, and be full of challenges.
Chapter Twelve
Sophie’s phone woke her with Alika’s Rocky ringtone. She reached over to the end table in the pitch-dark the blackout curtains guaranteed, and fumbled it up to her ear. “Hey.” Her voice was husky with sleep.
“Sophie? Sophie Ang?”
It wasn’t Alika’s voice, but it was familiar.
“Marcus! Thought this was Alika. What time is it?” She squinted toward the red numbers of the clock by her computers.
“Four a.m.” Kamuela’s voice was grim. “I’m sorry to be calling you this way, but I saw your number was the last one Alika’s phone received.”
“What’s happened?” Sophie could barely force the words out past the sudden constriction of her throat.
“We got a call. Someone beat up Alika. They found him outside his warehouse at the docks. He’s…” Sophie could picture K
amuela’s face and see the way the big Hawaiian detective pinched the bridge of his nose when he was troubled. “He’s still alive.”
“Oh my God,” Sophie whispered. “Where?”
“Queen’s Hospital.”
“I’m on my way.” Sophie hung up and turned on the light. She sprang out of bed. Ginger leapt off, wagging her tail as if something exciting and fun was going to happen.
He’s still alive, he’s still alive he’s still alive. Sophie hauled on her clothes, grabbed her weapon and creds, and drove to the hospital in a dawn so new it hadn’t begun to stain the day. She hurried to meet fellow agent Marcella Scott and Marcus Kamuela in the waiting room. Marcella looked beautiful even in the dawn, her chocolate-brown curls caught up in a careless knot and her FBI outfit hugging a curvy figure. Marcella had known for over a year how she felt about Alika.
“Oh, girl. I’m so sorry this happened.” Marcella hugged Sophie’s stiff body tightly. Kamuela put a hand on Sophie’s arm to get her attention.
“Alika’s in a coma. Looks like it was a pretty systematic beating. He’s got broken bones and probably some internal injuries, according to the doc I got a hold of. It wasn’t anything like a fair fight—pipes and bats, and multiple aggressors. Most people would be dead right now.”
Sophie swayed, and was grateful Marcella had a good hold on her. He was fighting for his life while I was getting annoyed with him for forgetting our date.
She felt disembodied. This was a dream. She just hadn’t woken up yet. She wasn’t really here, in this waiting room with its fluorescent lights, plastic palm, and dog-eared copies of Highlights For Children.
She’d grabbed the nearest clothes to put on, and realized that the black jeans and tank were what she’d been planning to wear on their date.
“He’s going to be fine, right?” Sophie’s eyes felt open too wide, but she couldn’t seem to blink.