Back at the couch, Chen handed him a cup of coffee and a plate with some scrambled eggs, a slice of avocado, butter, a few slices of tomato, and two pieces of toast on it. Then he sat down next to Harris on the couch.
“Thank you, Chen.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So, is this my life now?”
“It will be for a while.”
“Any idea as to why I was taken?”
“Besides being the White House translator?”
“Is that a reason to kidnap me?”
“Did you have all that security because you weren’t important?”
“I guess not.”
“You guess correctly.”
“Will I get to go home when this is all over?”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “I’m not the boss here.”
“Sasha?”
Chen smiled, “Look man. You’ve done a good job of not asking questions. Go back to that. You’re not going to get any answers from us. At least not right away, anyway.”
“Can I at least know why I’m here?”
“I can’t answer that. You’ll just have to let things unfold.” Chen stood up. “Listen. I get it. If I were in your position, I’d be asking the same questions. And you’ll get answers soon enough. To all of your questions.” He grasped a curtain that Nathan hadn’t noticed before, and drew it across the room. Harris couldn’t see the others, now. He was alone on the couch. To his right were a few more chairs and a men’s change of clothes. After he ate, he checked them out. They were his size.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
As she talked on the phone, Seiko turned her office chair around and gazed out her window at the ocean water, darkening as the dusk turned into night. It was 9:00 PM in Korea. 8:00 PM in Shanghai. And 8:00 AM in New York. The meeting she was having with a major American electronics distributor was going well. He wasn’t aware, but every single part of their conversation had been meticulously planned.
She started with wonderful news for him. “First of all, I just want to thank you for your investment in Ocean825. The company has had an amazing quarter, and we’re pleased to tell you that you’ve tripled your investment already.”
“What?? That’s incredible, Ms. Chiu! Outstanding. What made it so successful?”
“We were able to land a contract with a Chinese manufacturer of earbuds,” she lied, knowing the money was being laundered. “It’s a big deal. Very exciting. So, we’ll wire the return on your investment into your account immediately. My assistant is doing it right now.”
“Wow. What a surprise! It’s nice to wake up and get news like that, isn’t it?”
“Yes, definitely,” Chiu answered. “Lots of people are working hard. No doubt about that. We’ll gradually start adding to the company’s portfolio.”
“Wonderful.”
“I want to talk to you about another possibility.”
“Great. I’m all ears.”
Seiko smiled to herself. Nothing like an almost eight-figure deposit to get someone to be “all ears.” She continued. “I think one of my manufacturing endeavors could make an immediate impact for you.”
Over the next fifteen minutes, Seiko explained how she had gotten into the Chinese manufacturing of a single product. It also happened to be the fourth most popular item in giant box stores across the United States, and George was a titan in the box-store distribution world. As luck would have it, he was about to replace the 32” LED HD TV supply contract he already had, and Seiko had called “at the perfect time.” Chiu knew that, of course. Normally, replacing products for national distribution took months and sometimes years.
“You’re not going to believe this,” she said. “But we can step up right away. We have containers of them heading to San Francisco as we speak. We planned to sell them online over the next few months, but if you’d like them all now, I’d be happy to move them all in one transaction.”
“I don’t know. There are a lot of hoops you have to go through. We’ll have to take competing bids, first.”
“We’re able to get them to you for $57.82 cheaper per unit.”
The silence was beautiful. He was dumbfounded.
“How?”
“I’ve got a direct connection to the person who oversees manufacturing for the government of China.”
“For the same TVs?”
“Yes. And the same brands you have now.”
“Can you meet demand?”
“No problem.”
“Consider them sold.”
“Fantastic! Someone from my office will contact your team.”
Seiko Chiu had anticipated that distributors in the United States would want the LED flat-screen TVs she had manufactured in China. And since she was able to make them for much cheaper than their current providers, she knew she could successfully undermine their contracts.
Seiko ended the call and opened a side door in her office wall. It led to a small balcony that was right next to her floor-to-ceiling windows. On the balcony was a small bistro table and chairs. She sat down, plopped an ashtray on the table, lit up a thin cigarette, and dialed the number for her next call.
Helmut Wagner had successfully transferred money from the global fund to an account in Honolulu that was owned by Coconut Harbor Consultants. With that done, he signed the rest of the digital paperwork needed to send the product in the custom-made Sherpa Containers onto a boat that would immediately set sail for Honolulu. He stood up, stretched, and walked over to a small minibar to pour himself a scotch. After plunking a cube of ice into his drink, he was about to go sit down when his phone rang. He had expected the phone call would come.
The Land Rover pulled up in front of Tala’s barn. The leader of the team climbed out and so did one of the other men. Matteo stayed in the car with the third guy.
“Don’t go in there.”
“But I need to. I need to say good-bye.”
“No. Just go to the barn.”
“Please! She was only a distant cousin. But she was kind to us. Please. I need to.”
“No. You don’t. You want to say good-bye right here. Now. Outside the home. You don’t want to see her the way she is, Tala. Let your last memory of her be from while she was still alive.”
She began to cry. “Is she really dead?”
“Yes,” the team leader said. “And Mako was not kind to her. It’s a horrific scene.”
Cruz fell into his arms, sobbing. “I’m so sorry, Maria! I brought this to you. I’m so sorry.” She howled loudly. “I got you killed! Please … forgive … me!”
The soldier continued to hold on to her. He knew death. He’d seen it many times.
Finally, she began to calm down. “Good-bye, Maria. Thank you for taking us in.” She wiped her face with the back of her hands.
“Is this everything?” one of the men said, coming down the stairs of the barn with a small wooden box in his hands.
Tala looked up and nodded. “I know exactly how much money was in there, you know,” she said, thinking he’d taken it.
“I didn’t open it. Please check and make sure your passports are in there,” he answered, handing it to her.
Tala took it and held it in a way that allowed her right hand to input the simple three-digit code on the combination lock. She popped the lid open and was surprised to see everything inside—her money, their passports, and a few pictures that brought back memories of better times.
“Keep the passports out,” the leader said to her. “Close the box again and bring it with you.”
“Okay,” Tala said hesitatingly.
“Here. Take this.” The leader said again. He was handing her a small black carryon suitcase that he must have had in the back of the Land Rover. “Fill it with clothes, Matteo’s favorite blanket, some diapers, a few stuffed animals if you have them …”
She took it and headed up to her place.
The leader looked at his teammate and was about to say something when he heard a siren off in the distance
. “Go help her. We need to be out in five.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Justin sat down at the conference room table with Leonard and Bora. He pulled out a little yellow legal pad and looked at his notes. “I’m not interrupting, am I?”
“Not at all,” Leo responded. “Bora was just filling me in on some of the research she’s done on some of the investors around Red Flag. When she’s got a bit more, we’ll share it with the group. What did you find out?”
“I dusted all the guns and was able to lift twenty-seven partial prints from the ammo. Everything else had been wiped clean. When I put all the partials together, I was kind of surprised to find they formed one print.”
“Really?” Bora asked. “What does that mean?”
“The first thing it confirms is that they are part of a bigger organization. Somebody else packed their mags. So I sent the print to the FBI – Michi has a friend there. It took a while, but here we go.” He slid the results onto the table from his tablet. “Ivan Kuznetsov.”
“Who?” Leo asked, leaning forward.
“Ivan the Joke.”
“Are you kidding me?” Leo said with a chuckle. “Really? Ivan the Joke?”
“You remember him?”
“Sure. He was a Russian national working in the American Embassy for ICASS, right? The International Cooperative Administrative Support Services?”
Justin nodded. “That’s the guy. He oversaw motor pool operations. From vehicle maintenance and drivers to route planning and interaction with local transportation authorities.”
“About five years ago, our government accused him of spying on the United States. They found recording devices in limousines; chauffeurs who had ties to the Russian equivalent to of CIA – the SVR. Probably the most serious accusation was the plotting of a route for the American Ambassador at the time. The Russians attempted to assassinate him and his wife on that trip through Moscow. But, they failed.”
“What happened?” asked Bora.
“If I remember correctly, it was after the ballet, on the road back to the Embassy,” answered Leo. “There was construction, and they had to re-route the caravan down an alley.”
“That’s right,” Justin said. “As they were passing through the alley, a gang of assassins pounced on the Ambassador’s car, dragged everyone out, and threatened to kill them. The only problem was that the Ambassador and his wife weren’t in the vehicle. They’d gone in a friend’s car not protected. No fanfare. And she dropped them off at the embassy a few minutes later.”
Bora laughed. “Wow. That’s crazy. How’d he get the nickname?”
“The Russians denounced that he was a spy. They called him ‘the joke’ to mock the idea that he was a spy … basically saying that if he was a spy, he was an amateur.”
Justin agreed and added, “The nickname stuck on the U.S. side, too, because apparently, he made a lot of mistakes as a spy for the Russians.”
“So, was he a spy?”
“Well, that’s a good question,” Leonard said, nodding. “I think he was. And I think he was, in fact, very good. Have you ever seen that Jackie Chan movie, ‘The Legend of the Drunken Master?’”
“Yes. Where his character is stumbling around acting drunk, but it’s actually a clever disguise for his fighting moves?”
“Right. The other fighters get confused. In their heads, they know he should be passing out from all the alcohol he was consuming, but he kept outmaneuvering them and crushing them.”
“So, you’re saying that Ivan deliberately made mistakes to distract from the real damage he was doing?”
Dr. Stone nodded. “That’s what I suspect. But, why would Ivan the Joke be involved with a hit team that tried to take out Fox and Ashley?”
“What happened to him after the United States accused him of spying?”
“I’m not sure. Bora, can you find out?”
“Should we call President Baker?”
The LaunchPad team had developed a relationship with the former President of the United States in their last operation, but Dr. Stone was cautious. “Let’s try and find out from other sources, first. Calling any person who used to sit in the Oval Office has to be a last resort. And even then, we’d better have a very precise and well-researched question for him.” He turned to Justin. “What about the weapons, themselves?
“Nothing. Clean. No priors. The guns have no identificational markings at all.”
“No serial numbers? Have they been filed off?”
“There were none to file.”
“Trey’s told me about these kinds of weapons. They’re ghost guns.”
Justin nodded. “You order all the parts of the gun, separately, from stores across the country or even around the world. Then you put all the parts together and build the gun from scratch. The final assembly stage usually takes a little machining and fine-tuning, but it’s a fairly common thing these days among gun enthusiasts. The long-range weapon was on the model of a Mauser that is available all over Germany and Eastern Europe but also here in the United States, and well-liked by hunters. But the sidearms were copies of Russian weapons. MP-443 Grach pistols.”
Everyone saw that Saara Tuurig was awake. She had made her way to the kitchen and was pouring herself a cup of coffee.
“So we have Bora telling me that Red Flag has ties to over 300 shell companies. Helmut Wagner is connected to several of them, and he’s in Shanghai but flies back and forth to Hawaii. The Chinese are definitely involved in the kidnapping of Iris. Whether it’s the government or not, we don’t know. But it’s definitely Red Flag Commerce and Development Company. They are also connected to South Korean politics via Seiko Chiu and her family.”
“Wow,” Justin responded.
Leo continued thinking out loud. “We know that Red Flag has been connected to Malaysia, Europe, Southeast Asia, North and West Africa, and of course, here in America. They've been involved in everything from legitimate shipping operations to child trafficking and arms dealing. When Trey’s family was abducted, we discovered Red Flag was financing the construction of submarines in Croatia. Remember that? We found it through Russian mob connections. Now, what Bora just showed me connects Red Flag with the pig farm in North Carolina.”
“You found a direct link from Red Flag to the pork processing plant in Falling Creek?” Justin asked, amazed.
She nodded. “They have a mutual board member.”
Just then, Saara tapped on the door and walked in and Justin and Leonard stood up and shook her hand. Bora gave her a big hug.
“Did you sleep well?” Leo asked.
“Yes, Dr. Stone. Thank you,” the tall Finn replied, pulling a chair out from under the table and sitting down.
“We’ll just keep going, and I’ll update you later. Okay?”
She nodded and cradled her coffee mug in her hands.
“Justin, we still don’t have any information on the three hostiles that Michi took out?”
“No, sir. Their prints didn’t turn up anything in our system, and DNA results will take a while.”
“What about the bodies in Hawaii?”
“I just got off the phone with Boyd. Nothing so far. The fingerprints don’t lead anywhere. Facial recognition isn’t catching anything. They used different weapons down there. Colt-made M4 Carbines.”
“14-inch barrels?”
Justin nodded, “Yes, military-grade, not the 16-inch ones available for civilian use.”
“Serial numbers?”
“No, sir. And no prints. Partial or otherwise. Very clean and meticulous. Hopefully, the crime scene investigators will find something. But it’ll take some time.”
“Okay, kid. What did you find on the phones?”
“Just as frustrating. Fingerprints on the phones matched the driver and the passenger. Both phones were burner phones—nothing on them. No contacts. No numbers that had been dialed. It was like they were taken out of the store and never used. They aren’t even connected with a cell phone network.”
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“No apps?”
“Nothing.”
“Tracer phones,” concluded Saara.
Justin looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a cheap way to track your team. Give them phones that have GPS signals in them and track their movements.”
Park was a little embarrassed that he had never even thought about that. “Of course. No communication. No apps or games.”
She nodded. “Just the GPS signals. They don’t need to be hooked up to a network.”
Suddenly Justin paled, “Oh no! What if they were traced here?”
But Saara just shook her head. “We’ve taken precautions. Michi used a Faraday bag to transport them, and LaunchPad is basically a giant Faraday cage. It’s why we have to route cell phones through landlines or use your secure app for all comms in here, remember?”
Justin nodded and thought for a moment. “Can we reverse their GPS data?”
“You mean find out who has been accessing where they are?
Justin nodded.
“Satellite hacking. It’s not easy to do at all. But if you want me to work on it, I think I can reverse the data and trace it. Would you like me to start on that, Dr. Stone?”
“How’s Fox?”
“He’s doing well. No alarms have gone off in the last few hours. I just checked on him before getting my coffee. He’s still sleeping very well.”
“Okay, then, yes. See if you can find out who was tracking them. Is Ashley still asleep?”
“Yes. Hopefully, she can sleep a few more hours.”
“That would be great.”
Saara slipped out of the room and headed over to her desk under the flat-screen monitors that hung in the middle of the warehouse.
Leonard was just about to say something when his desk phone buzzed. “Finally!” he exclaimed. “Dusti!”
“Hi, Dr. Stone.”
“Were you able to access the footage we need?”
“I don’t know who you called, but I didn’t have any problems!”
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