by Tom Clancy
Jack said, “There was an article that named your firm along with a couple others a few months ago in Investor’s Business Daily. When our own problems brought us over here to Hong Kong, we dug it out and gave your office a call.”
“Ah, yes. A case we worked on last year involving some high-tech patents being counterfeited in Shenzhen. Happens all the time, but it was nice to get the free advertising.”
“What sorts of projects are you taking on these days?” Jack asked.
“Could be anything, really. I have clients in the computer industry, in the pharmaceutical industry, in retail, publishing, even in the restaurant business.”
“Restaurants?”
Adam nodded. “Yep. There’s a prominent chain in southern California, over sixty locations. Turns out they have eleven more locations over here that they didn’t know about.”
“You’re kidding,” said Biery.
“Nope. Same name, same signs, same menu, same little hats on their heads. Except the owners of the chain don’t see a dime of the profits.”
“Incredible.”
“It’s happening more and more. They just busted a ring of fake Apple stores over here selling Mac knockoffs. Even the employees thought they worked for Apple.”
“Must be tough shutting them down,” Ryan said.
Yao smiled pleasantly. “It is tough. I enjoy the investigation part, but dealing with Chinese bureaucracy is… What’s the word I’m looking for?”
“Bullshit?” Jack said.
Yao smiled. “I was going to say ‘tedious,’ although ‘bullshit’ is a better description.” He regarded Ryan with a smile. “So, Jack. Why don’t I see a couple of square-jawed security guys in black suits and earpieces standing behind you?”
“I rejected my Secret Service detail. I like my privacy.”
Chavez added with a smile, “I watch his back, when necessary.”
Yao chuckled, took a sip of his coffee, and shuffled in his chair. Jack caught him looking at Chavez for a moment. “Well, gentlemen, what sort of mischief has China made for your financial management firm?”
Gavin Biery said, “It’s cybercrime, essentially. My network has been getting hit with a series of very well thought-out and organized hacking attempts. They managed to get in and to steal our client lists. Obviously this is extremely sensitive data. I was able to trace the source of the intrusion back to a command server in the U.S., and I hacked into that server.”
Adam said, “Good for you. I like a company that’s willing to fight back. If everybody did that, we’d sure as hell be in a better place as far as commercial theft. What did you find on the server?”
“I found the culprit. There was data on there that told me who was behind the attack on it. Not a real name but his online handle. We also were able to establish that the attack originated here in Hong Kong.”
“That’s interesting, and I’m sure that was tough to trace them all the way back here, but there’s something I don’t get. Once these folks get the data they are looking for off your network… there is no point getting it back. It’s out there, they’ve used it, copied it, compromised you. What’s your objective coming over here?”
Chavez stepped in. “We want to catch the guy who did this so he can’t do it again. Prosecute him.”
Yao gave the three men a look like they were hopelessly naive. “My professional opinion, gentlemen, is that that is highly unlikely. Even if you could prove this crime, the criminals won’t be prosecuted here, and if you’re thinking about extradition, you can forget about it. Whoever this guy is, he is working here in HK because this is a damned convenient place to commit such crimes. It’s getting better, HK is not the Wild West it once was, but you guys are in over your heads. I hate to be blunt, but better I tell you honestly before you burn a hell of a lot of money over here finding out the same thing.”
Jack said, “Maybe you could take us on as a client, just to investigate a bit. If nothing comes from it, well, it’s our money to burn, right?”
Adam said, “The problem is, these cases are built very slowly and methodically. Right now I’m working on a case that’s four years old. I wish I could tell you things over here moved faster, but it won’t serve anyone’s purposes to mislead you about what you are faced with.
“On top of all that, I’m much more versed with the intellectual-property side of fraud over here. Cybersecurity is a growing problem, but it’s not my specialty. I honestly think I’d be somewhat out of my lane.”
Chavez asked, “Do you have any contacts or resources at all? As Mr. Biery said, we’ve got a user name for the perpetrator. We were hoping there might be someone over here with a database that could get us a little more information on this character’s operation.”
Yao smiled, a little patronizing to the older man, though not intentionally. “Mr. Chavez, there are probably ten million hackers across China involved with computer fraud to one degree or another. Any one of these guys probably has multiple user names. There is not a database that I am aware of that keeps up with that rolling landscape.”
Jack said, “This guy is pretty good. Surely somebody knows about him.”
Yao sighed a little but kept a polite smile, then stood and went behind his desk. He pulled his keyboard to him. “I can send an instant message to a friend up in Guangzhou who’s a bit more up-to-date on cyber — financial crime. It’s going to be a needle in a haystack, I promise you, but it won’t hurt to ask him if he’s ever heard of the guy.”
As Adam Yao typed he asked, “What’s the handle?”
Gavin and Jack looked at each other. With a conspiratorial smile from Ryan that said, Let’s blow this guy’s mind, he gave Gavin the go-ahead.
Biery said, “His handle is FastByte Twenty-two.”
Yao stopped typing. His shoulders stiffened. Slowly he turned back toward his three guests. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Chavez had joined the game with his two colleagues. He asked, “You know him?”
Yao looked across his desk. Ryan could feel a mild suspicion on the part of the CIA covert operator, but above this, the thrill in the young man’s eyes was obvious. He seemed to recover a bit before replying, “Yeah. I know him. He’s… he’s a subject of interest in another case in which… in which I am tangentially involved.”
Jack tried not to smile. He liked this guy, he was smart as hell, and it was clear by everything Jack had seen that Yao worked his ass off out here, essentially by himself. He enjoyed watching Adam Yao squirm trying to find the right words to hide his excitement that he might finally get some more intel about a target that had, until now, not been on anyone’s radar but his own.
“Well, then, maybe we can work together to combine our efforts,” Chavez said. “As Jack said, we are willing to put some money into this operation to see if we can track him down.”
Yao said, “The tracking down is free of charge. He’s working out of offices in the Mong Kok Computer Centre up in Kowloon.”
“You’ve seen him? In person?”
“I have. But it’s a complicated situation.”
“How so?” asked Ding.
Yao hesitated for several seconds. Finally he asked, “Where are you guys staying?”
Jack answered, “We’re right across the harbor at the Peninsula.”
“Are you three free for drinks tonight? We can talk it over a bit more, maybe come up with a plan.”
Chavez spoke for the group: “Eight o’clock?”
THIRTY-SIX
Melanie Kraft sat on the sofa in the living room of her carriage-house apartment on Princess Street in Alexandria’s Old Town. It was seven in the evening, and normally she would be up at Jack’s place or even working late, but tonight Jack was out of town and she just wanted to sit on her couch in the dark, watch TV, and think about something else other than her problems.
She flipped channels, decided against a Discovery Channel program about the Middle East and a History Channel program about the life and caree
r of President Jack Ryan. Both of these shows would normally be interesting to her, but right now she just wanted to vegetate.
She settled on an Animal Planet show about wildlife in Alaska. She felt sure that would keep her attention and take her mind off everything that was going on.
Her mobile buzzed, moving across the coffee table in front of her. She looked down, hoping it would be Jack. It wasn’t. She did not recognize the number, but saw the area code was D.C.
“Hello?”
“Hey, girl. What you up to?”
It was Darren Lipton. He was the last person on earth she needed to talk to tonight.
She cleared her throat, put on her business voice, and said, “What can I do for you, Special Agent Lipton?”
“Senior Special Agent, but I’ll let it slide.”
He seemed like he was in a good mood — jovial, even.
It occurred to Melanie almost immediately that he was probably drunk.
“Senior Special Agent,” she corrected herself.
“Listen, we need to get together for a quick powwow. Might take all of fifteen minutes.”
She knew she could not say no. But she was not ready to say yes. She wanted Lipton to think she was not his puppy, his personal property that would come whenever he called. Even though that’s exactly how Melanie felt now that he’d revealed that he was holding her entire future in his hands.
She said, “What’s this about?”
“We’ll discuss it tomorrow. How ’bout we get a cup of coffee. Seven-thirty a.m. I’ll come to you. Starbucks on King Street?”
“Fine,” she said, and she hung up the phone, then went back to watching grizzly bears catch salmon, her mind heavy with new worries.
* * *
Melanie and Lipton sat at a table outside on a cool and windy fall morning. Her hair whipped around her face while she sipped her tea to keep warm. Lipton drank coffee, his black trench coat was open to show a dark blue suit, and he wore sunglasses even though the sky was overcast.
She wondered if he was trying to hide bloodshot eyes. In any case, with the shades and the blue suit and the black trench coat, he screamed Fed to anyone in the coffee shop or walking by on the sidewalk who paid attention.
After a minute of one-sided small talk, Lipton got down to business. “My boss needs more from you. I tried to placate him, but you haven’t given us anything since our last conversation.”
“I don’t know any more now than I did then. It’s like you want me to catch him passing nuclear secrets to the Russians or something.”
“Or something,” Lipton said. He plucked his flop of gray-blond hair out from under his shades and then reached into his jacket. He pulled out a sheaf of papers and held it up.
“What’s that?”
“Court order to put a locator on Ryan’s cell phone. FBI wants to track his day-to-day movements.”
“What?” She snatched it out of his hand and began reading the documents.
“We have evidence he’s been conducting some highly suspicious meetings with foreign nationals. We need to be there and see what’s going on.”
Melanie was furious that the investigation was continuing. But something else occurred to her. “What does this have to do with me? Why are you even telling me?”
“Because you, my fair lady, are going to put the beacon on his phone.”
“Oh no I’m not!” Kraft said testily.
“I’m afraid you are. I’ve got the card you need to use. There is no physical device that he might find, it’s all done through the software. You just poke the little card in his phone, let it load, and then pop it back out. A thirty-second operation.”
Melanie looked off into the street for a moment. “Don’t you have assets for this?”
“Yes. You are my asset. My asset with assets, if you know what I mean.” He looked down at her chest.
Melanie looked at him in disbelief.
“Uh-oh,” Lipton said with a barking laugh. “Am I about to get another right hook to the teeth?”
Melanie picked up from his tone and his facial expressions that he had somehow enjoyed it when she hit him.
She told herself she wouldn’t do that again.
She took a moment to compose herself. She knew, with the information the FBI had about her and her father, that Lipton could make her do whatever he wanted. She said, “Before I agree to do this, I want to talk to someone else at National Security Branch.”
Lipton shook his head. “I’m running you, Melanie. Deal with it.”
“I’m not saying I need a new handler. I just want to confirm things with someone other than you. Someone above you.”
Now the special agent’s nearly constantly leering smile wavered. “That thing in your hand is a court order. Signed by a judge. What more confirmation do you want?”
“I’m not your slave. If I do this, I want some sort of assurances from the FBI that you won’t keep using me. I do this, and I’m done.”
“I can’t make that promise.”
“Then find me someone who can.”
“It’s not happening.”
“Then I guess we’re finished.” She stood.
He uncrossed his legs and bolted to his feet. “You realize how much trouble I can make for you?”
“I’m just asking for someone else to talk to. If you can’t make that happen, then I hardly believe you have the clout to send me to prison.”
She stepped into the morning crowd heading up King Street toward the Metro.
* * *
The Peninsula hotel is on the southern tip of Kowloon, overlooking Victoria Harbour in a high-end retail district called Tsim Sha Tsui. A five-star property, the Peninsula opened in 1928 and proudly wears its old-world colonial charm.
Past the fleet of fourteen green Rolls-Royce extended-wheelbase Phantoms at the front of the building, past the huge ornate lobby and a short hallway, an elevator whisks patrons to the top of the hotel. Here, the ultramodern and chic Philippe Starck — designed Felix restaurant serves modern European cuisine in front of floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over Victoria Harbour to Hong Kong Island. A small bar sits at the top of a spiral staircase overlooking the restaurant, and here four Americans sat together in a back corner, sipping bottled beer and looking out over the lights.
Chavez said, “You said this morning that the FastByte situation was complicated. What did you mean by that?”
Yao took a swig of his Tsingtao. “FastByte Twenty-two’s real name is Zha Shu Hai. He’s twenty-four years old. He’s from the mainland, but he moved to the USA as a child and became an American citizen. He was a hacker when he was a kid, but he got a security clearance and was hired by a government contractor to do penetration testing of their systems. He figured how to break in, tried to give the information to China, and then was caught and sent to prison.”
“When did they let him out?”
“They didn’t. He was doing time at a federal correctional institution — that’s minimum security — in California. He was on work release, teaching computer skills to senior citizens, and then one day… poof.”
“He split?” asked Chavez.
“Yep. The Feds canvassed his home and all his old known contacts, and he never turned up. Escapees just about always return to their old life, even if it is just making contact with family, but Zha did not. The U.S. Marshals Service came to the conclusion that the Chinese helped get him out of the U.S. and back to the mainland.”
Biery was confused. “This isn’t the mainland.”
“No, it’s not. It’s a surprise that he’s turned up here, but there is one thing even more surprising than that.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s now with the Fourteen-K.”
Chavez cocked his head. “Fourteen-K? The Triads?”
“Exactly.”
Ryan was surprised Ding knew about this organization. He had never heard of 14K. “A gang?”
Chavez said, “Not like a gang in the States. Here,
just admitting you are a member is against the law. Isn’t that right, Adam?”
“Yeah. Nobody admits they are Triad in HK. Just being in management will get you fifteen years in jail.”
Ding explained for Ryan and Biery: “There are over two and a half million members of the Triads around the world. The actual name of the organization is San He Hui, the Three Harmonies Society. The Fourteen-K are just one of many offshoots, but they are the most powerful around here these days. There are probably twenty thousand members of Fourteen-K here in Hong Kong alone.”
Adam said, “I’m impressed.”
Chavez waved the compliment away with a hand. “In my business it pays to know who the agitators are when you go into a new territory.”
“So,” Ryan asked, “FastByte Twenty-two is a member?”
“I don’t think he’s a member, but he definitely associates with them.”
“If he isn’t a member of the Triads, what is his relationship with them?” Ryan asked.
“It might be some sort of a protector-protected relationship. A guy like him can print money. He can sit at his computer and then, within a couple of hours, steal the credit card numbers of ten thousand people. The kid is worth his weight in gold as far as his ability to conduct cybercrime, so the Fourteen-K could be watching over him due to his value.”
Chavez said, “How good are the Fourteen-K guys at protecting him?”
“They keep a couple of enforcers around him twenty-four-seven. There are Fourteen-K on him when he goes to work; when he gets off work, they guard his office and they hang outside of his apartment building, too. He does like to go shopping, out to the clubs at night, and he does this primarily in Fourteen-K bars and neighborhoods, and always with goons by his side. I’ve done my best to watch him to see who he moves with, but, as you can see, I am a small operation here. I thought I was doing a good job keeping my distance, but just the other day it became clear they burned me.”
“Any idea how?” Ding asked.
“None at all. One morning he just had more security and they were most definitely hunting for a specific threat. They must have made me the evening before.”