by E Y Mak
Carry on. He told himself.
He stepped forward, casually, without turning back. Acting as though he had not heard anything. It was probably nothing. All this talk of a phantom was just keeping him on edge.
Except that he heard a step behind him again.
That same sound.
The slightly squishy sound of a rubber sole on pavement.
Ten feet, perhaps.
Instinctively, Russell spun around to catch a glimpse of whatever was behind him. He turned, immediately lowering himself into a partial squat, knees bent and open stance. His briefcase dropped to the ground as his right forearm folded into his body and his left arm came out to anticipate and intercept a glancing blow.
But he saw nothing but the expressionless New York City street during the witching hour, devoid of movement. And life. And light.
Chapter Fourteen
The next morning
The alarm went off quietly at first, quickly rising to a sustained rendition of Eye of the Tiger. Russell rolled over in his king-sized bed and looked at his phone.
5:30 a.m.
He tapped his phone to snooze. After laying in bed for nine more minutes, he slowly peeled himself out from under his sheets. He pulled an Underarmour dry-fit T-shirt over his head before leaving the bedroom.
After blending his morning banana-and-kale smoothie, he set out to Central Park for his regular morning run. Three hours later, he was at his desk in Phineas Tower and diligently beginning to make up for yesterday afternoon’s diversion. Russell had decided during his run that he would take on the rest of this file after his regular work hours, whatever they were, and keep it entirely off the books and off the network. He would use Candice sparingly, if at all.
Russell spent the morning working on a security plan for the protection of three Credit Suisse investment bankers during a diligence trip into Somalia. The natural resource sector had been accelerating in a disputed eastern region of the country, and a large financing was scheduled for later in the year. Before Credit Suisse would sign the deal, the bank’s risk-tolerance policy required at least one on-the-ground visit on each of the mining properties.
Unfortunately, the northeastern region of Somalia had been declared autonomous in 1998 as the Puntland State of Somalia. Settling the terms of any protection detail with local authorities was next to impossible; Phineas had been retained by Credit Suisse to provide protection. Credit Suisse had explicitly asked for Daniel to coordinate. Daniel had promised Credit Suisse that he would before he promptly asked Russell to take care of most of the file.
After finalizing the protection plans, Russell printed off a copy of the thirty-page report and left it with Marissa to forward copies to Daniel and Phineas’s Protection department.
His other tasks were similar in scope, and the Butler suicide remained in the back of his mind. He powered through the rest of his files with precision. By 7 p.m., Russell had caught up with all of his current tasks. As he slipped the last report off his desk and into his outbox, he came across a new folder from Intelligence that he didn’t recognize.
Russell Woo—5959 Maple—September 21—Highlights
He had never bothered to understand the technical details behind how the highlights were generated. What he understood was that the computer had both facial- and image-detection software running on the raw video. Using artificial intelligence, the software had purportedly better than human-like ability to identify individuals or groups of people and objects. The software could run through in hours what previously would have taken weeks for a team of agents in the Investigations department.
If Butler’s death was not a suicide, focusing on the activity at the Butler residence in the weeks leading up to the time of the suicide could give him a lead. To stage something as complex as a suicide, the perpetrator would need an intimate familiarity of the crime scene to avoid detection. He or she would need to intimately know Tim and Cherry’s usual routine. When they went to work. When they dropped the kids off at school. How long they stayed away from home. Whether they enabled an alarm system. If the killer worked alone, he would be there.
Russell logged on to PhineasNet and inputted his credentials. Within seconds, the printed summary populated his screen.
The usual suspects popped up. Tim and Cherry and their kids. Mr. and Mrs. Horton, the Butler’s next-door neighbors, made a frequent appearance. The postman. He scanned down the list. The majority of the hits were categorized as “Neighbours” or “Relatives.” Nothing out of the ordinary here. They were supposed to be there.
Item thirty-three on the summary was another folder labeled ”Unidentified subject #33.” He clicked on the link to see all of the video clips of this subject. As he cycled through each of the videos, a mixed sense of concern and validation began growing as he realized he had found something. He was looking at someone obviously surveilling the Butler home.
In every video clip of the man, his body language never changed. The first hit showed him driving a dark-blue SUV down a busy street towards the Butler residence. He then always parked about six houses over from the Butler Residence, always facing away from the airship. The man would always exit the car briefly and sit in the backseat behind the rear tinted glass. The SUV would then just stay parked there for hours at a time. During this time, Cherry and Tim would come and go—and this man would be watching. To an onlooker on the street, the SUV just looked like a neighbor’s car. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it.
Russell tried to zoom in, but the subject clearly knew where the observing airship was, and always shielded himself by looking away from the ship or by pulling his hoody low over his head. Russell was unable to get a good clear look at the subject’s facial features. He rewound, then rewound again, all of the highlights. In each clip, the man stayed frozen, exhibiting the body language of a statue. He had very limited movement. Whenever he did move, he moved deliberately and efficiently. There was an economy of motion in the way he carried himself.
Russell scrolled forward to September 21, the evening of the suicide. There was no hit. The nearest airship did not have a line of sight most of the day, and when it did, there was no SUV. And there were no drones that had been dispatched to respond to something-anything-on or around that time.
Still, this validated Lukas’s suspicions. Even if this was not the Phantom, this man existed, and he appeared to be stalking Timotheus. But was he the killer? What had he been doing watching the Butler residence all the time?
Russell clicked the profile for the “Unidentified Subject.” There were thousands of hits for him, mostly in various areas of New York. Russell randomly selected a bunch of the hits, but they were also of limited use. He was a master of avoiding being caught by the airship. But there was hope. There were over 34,596 individual hits for this guy. And he existed.
I’m going to need some extra manpower on this.
He made a mental note to call Candice and ask her to drop by his office in the morning. He then felt a familiar pang of hunger hit him suddenly, and he glanced at his watch. It was already 9:30 p.m., and he needed a break. Russell grabbed a granola bar from inside his desk, put on his jacket, and walked up to the observation deck on the seventy-seventh floor, where one could have a 360-degree view of the city. It was a common area for tired staff to unwind.
In the strong, cold breeze on the deck, Russell pulled his jacket tighter with his left hand and shoved his right hand into his pocket for warmth. He heard a crinkle. He felt around inside the pocket and found two sheets of paper.
They were the documents that he had printed off in Tim’s home office before being caught by Cherry. The first sheet was a nondescript hotel booking in Cameroon for a business trip Tim had taken.
The second sheet was the crinkled paper that had jammed the printer. Russell unfurled it—it was an email print out:
To:Timotheus Butler
From:Fuengirola Holdings Limited
Re:Douala Project
Date:Sep
tember 7, 6:44 a.m.
The terms of our offer are for $15 a share.
M5Ko49wxcA1kCgEYIGXR7TZ0p0XA3eAVtt
Russell thought back to the timeline of Ndian Resources. The stock had already dropped to thirteen cents by September 5. Why would this company be trying to close a deal at such a high price? What kind of odd valuation was this deal being priced at?
He quickly checked the stock ticker app on his phone to make sure he had remembered the event properly. The stock was halted on September 9. Given that the Douala Project was already worthless by the seventh, such a high bid made no sense. There was no public announcement for this deal.
Something this unusual should have tipped off the investigators though. The SEC should have figured this out, or the police investigating the suicide would have analyzed all of the emails in Tim’s inbox, and something of this magnitude would stand out.
What is Fuengirola—and why did they want to overpay so much?
Russell returned to his office and connected his phone to his desktop. By enabling the cloning application on his computer, he created a duplicate of Tim’s email inbox. He scrolled down to September 7, 2014.
The email from Fuengirola did not exist.
Russell did a search in the email program for Fuengirola. Nothing.
Was the email another phantom?
He picked up his desk phone and dialed Candice’s extension. Instead of the voicemail he was expecting, Candice answered.
“Candice, it’s Russell. I need you to find me everything you can on Fuengirola Holdings.”
“Can do,” she said. “What time do you need it by?”
Chapter Fifteen
Bons
Candice and Russell sat in the same booth that Russell had occupied previously with Lukas. Russell ordered a coffee while Candice settled on a chamomile tea. As she looked across the table at him, Russell noted that she still looked fresh for someone who had just worked a sixteen-hour day. She passed over a folder titled “Fuengirola Holdings Limited.”
He held it, stared at the cover, then handed it back to her. “I’ll read it later this evening. Brief me.”
Candice opened the file to summarize. “Sure thing. Where to start?”
“From the beginning. Tell me about Fuengirola,” requested Russell.
“Fuengirola is a company incorporated in Hong Kong. Its shareholders are a network of other corporations and trusts, mostly unknown nominee Cayman companies. It’s hard to find anything about the corporate governance once we get into the Caymans,” said Candice.
“Right. We have ways to dig into that. But let’s park that discussion for now. Continue,” Russell instructed.
“Nonetheless, we did manage to gather some information on some of the shareholders. It seems like all roads lead back to one guy, a Spaniard called Mauritius Delgado. It took a while to find the link,” said Candice.
Russell leaned back in the booth and took a sip of coffee. “Now why does that name sound so familiar?” he asked.
“Because you have his antivirus installed on your computer. Delgado is the Delgado from Delgado Antivirus,” she said without looking down at the file.
“Okay. Why is his holding company interested in a random mine in Cameroon?” he asked.
Candice said, “I didn’t know why. He’s a tech guy. No geological resource expertise, as far as I can tell.”
“Sorry—was just thinking out loud,” Russell said. “What can you tell me about Mauritius?”
Candice handed over a profile photo of a late-forties Caucasian man with midlength black hair. The thin jowls around his mouth were partially covered with the faintest hints of a mustache and goatee. His skin was tanned, with a pale outline where a pair of aviators must have lightened the area around his eyes. The eyes themselves bulged slightly, in a way that was indicative of potential hyperthyroidism.
“Mauritius developed the first antivirus software for the Windows PC in the 1980s. He had opened his first start-up at twenty and made a fortune entering into exclusivity contracts with most of the major computer hardware manufacturers, making sure his software was bundled with almost every new computer sold in the world since the 1990s. He’s one of the richest men in Spain today. Delgado AV is still the number one ranked software in the industry,” said Candice.
“Does he have an active role in Fuengirola?” Russell asked.
“He’s organized his corporate affairs in a way that distances himself from Fuengirola, at least publicly. But it’s a holding company. It shouldn’t be doing all that much except holding other assets,” said Candice.
“What is he doing nowadays? Any run-ins with the law?” asked Russell.
“He has been staying out of trouble lately,” she said as she sifted through the folder. She pulled out a piece of paper and started scanning. “Had a rap sheet in the mid-’80s. Mostly minor property-related crimes, but there was a relatively serious assault charge in ’86. Some firearms trafficking offenses. There’s a bit of a consistent pattern of that until the late ’90s. That’s when it seems like he turned a new leaf and from 2000 onwards his slate is entirely clean. No criminal records, no negative media hits. Nothing now.” She flipped the sheet over to an empty page.
“Where did we search?” asked Russell.
“All over. Our media searches have pretty good worldwide coverage if the subject is important enough. And he is,” she said.
“Okay. I see a two-pronged approach here. First, we need someone on the ground in Hong Kong to look into Mauritius further. There is no rhyme or reason to Fuengirola’s proposed acquisition—and the fact that the emails were deleted seem, at the minimum, consistent with validating Tim’s assertion that he was set up.”
Ever the eager student, Candice had begun taking notes in a little black notebook. He gave her time to finish what she was writing.
“Second, we need to find out just exactly who this Phantom is. Daniel is not going to like pumping more time and money into this, but this new evidence might change his mind. There’s something more here than just a simple suicide,” said Russell.
Candice nodded. “Are we going to get Phineas HK to do this?”
“No. Daniel is going to want to keep this quiet for now. We might need to get the NYPD to give us an okay to tail this a bit further though,” said Russell.
“What do you need me to do for now?” asked Candice.
“Nothing for now. If I get the go-ahead—I’ll need you to do some digging on the Phantom. I’ll introduce you to Daniel. If you need any help—he’s the man to talk to. He’s a gruff guy—a former marine—but he’ll look out for you,” he said. “Me, I’m heading to Hong Kong.” Russell smiled and looked at Candice as she took another sip of her tea. She caught him and he quickly looked away. Not going down this road again. He redirected by asking her if she was enjoying her second day at Phineas.
Candice only hinted a smile, but her big brown eyes lit up as she spoke. “Yeah! It’s been a pretty busy couple of days. I’ve been to the field twice already. I also accompanied Agent Stamos as he sat in as a witness for a trial.”
“What was it for?” asked Russell.
“An accused arsonist was being tried. He had burned down seven homes on Staten Island. The NYPD had trouble finding him. However, our data analytics detected several patterns—he always burned two hours after the Jets won, always picked homes on the north side of the street, and only seemed to operate in neighborhoods with a predominant Asian population. As a result, drones were strategically deployed, and they found the guy on his next day out. Agent Stamos attended at court to enter the surveillance photos into the public record,” she said. “It’s really amazing what the drones can do and how flexible their instructions could be.”
“It’s true,” said Russell. “The drones already react so much faster than the airships ever could. With the right data, PhineasNet could probably figure out, to the minute, the next time a bored teen was going to graffiti the Brooklyn Bridge and dispatch drones to intercept h
im in the Home Depot before he bought the spray paint. Things have changed a lot since I first joined Phineas. I expect they’ll change just as much during your tenure.”
“I know. It’s so interesting,” said Candice. She quickly looked at her watch, then looked back up at Russell. “What was your first case like?”
“Our client was the daughter of one of the leading cardiologists in the United States. He was murdered in an alley next to the hospital. Someone had been waiting for him. Obviously, the police looked into it, but after two weeks, they hadn’t found the guy. Our client pushed the police as far as they could go, but eventually it started falling on deaf ears. That’s when she went to Daniel and, ultimately, me.”
“How’d you find the guy?” asked Candice.
“Daniel and I tracked him down pretty quickly. We cross-referenced a list of vehicles that were in that area against known pharmacists—our forensic psychologist suggested that it was someone who dealt with prescription drugs daily. We found out that the cardiologist had been molesting this guy’s daughter,” said Russell, as he looked down and stirred his cup of coffee.
“Did you guys use any of the airships or drones?” asked Candice.
“Yeah. The pharmacist didn’t really think it through carefully. Now, the drones are only good for tracking things once we tell them where to go. We can set a target and three drones will drop from the sky in less than three minutes.”
Russell took another sip of coffee before he continued.
“However, it’s less useful when we aren’t sure where a particular target is. Like, even a ballpark idea where he is. But the Guardian II or any of the other remaining airships work if there is line of sight. In this case, we managed to get some good shots of the guy, directly from the Guardian II! That never usually happens—it’s usually one of the smaller airships or, nowadays, drones,” said Russell.