by E Y Mak
Russell saw that Candice had looked outside to see if she could spot the Guardian II or an airship in the sky or even catch a glimpse of a passing drone. Russell did likewise but wasn’t able to spot any from his vantage point. He had realized a short while ago that the character of New York must have become very different from the New York without Phineas. It was a city where its citizens depended on, and at the same time feared, the Guardian II and the security network provided by its company. It was a city that was growing complacent and dependent. He had often daydreamed about moving to a remote forest somewhere and living entirely off-grid, away from the city and its watchful eye.
Maybe one day.
The pair chatted a bit longer as they finished their drinks and walked into the cool evening air. Russell politely offered to walk her back to Phineas Tower, but she declined and instead set off to take her shortcut to the WTC station. As he watched her hurry off into the distance, he felt a familiar chill. He squinted into the surrounding darkness but didn’t see anything.
So much for complacency, he thought.
Russell shook his head slightly and walked towards Barclay Street to find a cab, glancing at the shimmering reflections of the moon in the puddles as he walked by.
Chapter Sixteen
The next day, Phineas Tower
Russell went into Daniel’s office at precisely 9:00 a.m. and described the missing emails and the fuzzy clips of the Phantom uncovered so far. He also showed him the printed acquisition offer. Daniel pointed at the random string of numbers and letters. “What’s this?” he asked.
“It’s a cryptocurrency wallet address. For payment. It’s a very odd way to acquire a public company. That never happens.”
Russell could tell, by Daniel’s line of questioning, that he was hooked. The remote possibility of uncovering a conspiracy to take out and discredit Tim Butler was indeed a professional carrot for Daniel to chase.
“Alright,” Daniel said. “Go to Hong Kong and see what you can find out about Delgado’s role in all of this. But first, let’s get Harry on the line.”
Russell took out his smartphone and speed-dialed Harry’s cell. The phone was picked up after three rings.
“Harry Lions,” the aggravated voice said.
Daniel put both of his palms face down on the desk and towered over the smartphone. Daniel always tried to command the conversation with his loud and controlling voice, so Russell simply leaned back and let Daniel do his thing.
“Detective Lions? Sir, this is Daniel Peters, Director of Investigations and Intelligence at Phineas. I’m here with Russell Woo. He’s found something now on the Butler file. We have a video clip of the expressionless man noted in the file. He was casing out the Butler residence for weeks before the murder. We can’t tell who it is yet. The resolution is not sufficient. But the man’s behavior is suspicious enough to follow.”
The line was silent for a moment before Harry spoke: “Okay, what else? I need more than that.”
“We also have an email from a Hong Kong company that agreed to enter into a deal with Ndian two days after the stock had hit rock bottom. It was priced ridiculously higher than its valuation. Oddly, the email was deleted from Tim’s computer and his email server, but a print copy was uncovered during Russell’s investigation of the crime scene,” said Daniel loudly into the speakerphone.
Harry was again silent. He did not like being second-guessed.
Daniel continued. “Our theory is that Tim may have been part of an illicit business deal gone sour. We don’t know how the Hong Kong company fits into all of this, but it was keen on the deal even though it had no reason to be. We intend to find out what its angle is. It is our cleanest lead so far. For whatever reason, the deal was not signed, press-released, or consummated. Now, we don’t know yet if this business deal is linked to our expressionless man. We do know he was at the crime scene before the murder,” continued Daniel. His face was now less than six inches from the handset.
Murdered. To Russell’s knowledge, this was the first time that word had been used to describe Tim’s death.
Harry finally responded. “Okay, wait. Russell came in the other day looking at the file on behalf of a client. This is not technically NYPD business. We’ve closed the file. What do you want from us?”
“Russell’s client is not prepared to authorize the expenditure for us to go to Hong Kong. We would like to send Russell there as an agent of the NYPD to further the investigation,” said Daniel.
“No, I can’t authorize that. You know I can’t, Daniel. I’m already over budget. Your evidence is tenuous, at best. I’m not going to send someone on a wild goose chase,” protested Harry.
“What if we make it conditional? We send Russell over on our dime. If this pans out, we pass on half of the costs to the NYPD for billing in the ordinary course. Otherwise, Phineas eats the costs,” bartered Daniel.
Russell knew that Daniel had Harry where he wanted him. Harry was in a conflict situation; he would look like he was only trying to protect his own conclusion. It was a reasonable, limited risk proposition to him and the NYPD.
“. . . Okay. You can send Russell over. But I want one thing to be clear. I don’t want anyone else working on this file—just you and Russell. I don’t want this to show up in any of your books or records—not even in your internal emails—for now. As far as Phineas and the NYPD are concerned, there is no investigation. I’m not prepared to justify a wild goose chase upstairs just yet,” said Harry.
“Yes. There is a junior on the file though—Candice Pirelli,” Daniel said as he looked over at Russell to confirm her name. Russell nodded and Daniel continued, “I’m sure you’ve already received the brief on her, since she’s been cleared to work on the NYPD contract and she might be in touch with your precinct. She’s already started.”
“Okay! No more though,” Harry blurted out sharply. “One more thing. I want Russell to report all of his findings directly to me. I don’t want this in my NYPD email for now, so just call me when you have updates.”
Daniel said, “Of course. We won’t forget about you guys. If we find anything, we’ll let you know and, if all goes well, we’ll make sure you’re the arresting officer.”
Russell knew what was going on. Harry wanted to make sure that he got credit for the work he had already put into the file. It was common courtesy for Phineas to try to be in the background as much as possible for these files. It didn’t always end up working that way. Phineas detectives in their suits stood out in the field. But John Phineas wanted his agents to stay in the shadows and remain as low-key as possible.
Russell finally spoke up. “Yes, I can do that.”
After finishing the call with Harry, Daniel sat back down and turned to Russell. “He’s right, you know. I shouldn’t be authorizing you to head to Hong Kong right now. This stays between you and me for now. I have to meet with John tomorrow to update him on the NYPD contract renewal. I’ll leave this off the agenda for now.”
“Understood,” said Russell.
“Who else have you told about this file? Is there anyone else working on it?” asked Daniel.
“No one except for Candice. But she knows the low key nature of this one.”
Daniel shrugged with disinterest. “Still never heard of her.”
“You’ll be hearing from her soon. I’ve chatted with her a couple times already—she’s smart and going places here.”
“A looker?”
Russell curled his upper lip and returned a shrug. “Seems like the only type we hire around here.”
“Alright, I’ll go talk to her later. We’ll find out what we can about this Phantom. You, find out the link between Fuengirola and Ndian. Let’s impress the NYPD with what we can do. For now, let’s keep it between us three at Phineas.”
Chapter Seventeen
East Village, Manhattan
Candice stared at the flashing red light on her phone.
Mandy, a friend of Candice’s from Idaho, had come into t
own. A group of her friends had decided to celebrate her first day in the Big Apple with a trip to O’Doul’s, a neighborhood pub. Candice was enjoying herself most of the evening. Since coming to New York, she had spent almost all of her waking hours exclusively with Phineas-related activities. It was nice to blow off some steam.
After declining a round of drinks from the two men at the next table, the girls had left the bar at midnight. It was then when Candice saw the red light flashing on her Phineas phone.
How long has that light been on? Phineas had a policy to respond to emails within two hours. She unlocked the phone with the fingerprint reader and saw a single email waiting.
To: Candice Pirelli
From: Daniel Peters
Subject:Russell Woo’s file
Date:October 15 21:57
Importance:High
Candice,
Give me a ring as soon as you can. I need you to do some research for me. I just met with Russell earlier. He said you’ll know what I’m talking about. Thanks.
D.
Candice looked at her watch. The email had come in two hours ago—why hadn’t she seen it till now? Duty calls. She scrolled to Daniel’s name on the company contacts list and gave him a ring.
He answered in his deep, baritone. “Daniel here.”
“Director Peters? It’s Candice. I’m sorry, I just got your email. Do you need me in right now? I’m in East Village, but I can be there as soon as possible.”
“That’s fine. I’ll see you then,” he said.
After apologizing to Mandy and the rest of the girls in her group, she hailed a cab. Candice was in Daniel’s office within twenty minutes. She was instantly struck by the dominating stature of the man, even though he was still seated in his oversized leather office chair. He looked to be in his mid-fifties and over six and a half feet tall and intensely muscular. His dark skin was exceptionally well taken care of and, even in this late hour, he was impeccably dressed in a dark suit.
“Director Peters?”
“Please, call me Daniel,” he said. I saw that Russell has left for Hong Kong, but we have to keep things going over here. I’ll be working with you to see what else we can dig up on this Phantom that he’s chasing.”
Candice was a bit surprised. He had thought by now that Daniel was no longer involved in active investigations. She was a little intimidated working directly with Daniel, who did not have the calm temperament that Russell radiated.
“Okay,” she said with a slight crescendo, unintentionally evidencing her confusion.
Daniel smiled. Candice figured that he must have noticed her apprehension. He said, “We did an additional look back on the Phantom. This guy has been around. His name doesn’t pop up in our database, but his face has been seen before. We linked up with some of the other offices—looks like he’s popped up in Montreal and London as well as in New York the last couple of years.”
“What was he doing there?” she asked.
“That’s what I need you to find out.” He handed her a paper with a login and password. “I need you to watch these videos and see if you can find out what he was up to back then.”
Great. More tape review. The rounds at O’Doul’s were certainly affecting her judgment, because she asked Daniel, “Is this something I can start tomorrow?”
Daniel looked up at her. She detected a glimpse of disappointment in his upturned mouth, but his face quickly softened. “If you must,” he said. “But this is a priority. We only have a couple of days to work on this file. Someone at the directors meeting on Friday is going to wonder what the hell Russell is doing in Hong Kong.”
After getting a couple more details from Daniel, she agreed to see how far she could get this late evening. She made the lonely journey back to her cubicle, picking up a glass of water from the break room along the way. She sat down at her desk and looked around her floor—the only lights shining were the dim glow of the screensavers from some of the older monitors scattered throughout the floor. It was quiet without the usual buzz of staff around. Even the HVAC system was off at this late hour to conserve energy. The silence was deafening.
After logging into her computer, she entered the video link into PhineasNet and clicked on the first video on the list.
February 22, 2011
It was a CCTV shot of a back alley. The video displayed a time stamp of 23:22. A single streetlight in the lane illuminated a row of garbage cans stacked directly underneath. Two shabbily dressed men walked down the alley carrying a mattress in tandem towards the vantage point of the camera. Two green rectangles appeared around the faces of the men and a heads-up play displayed “Unknown” on the man on the left of the screen. The words “Raymer Bichin, 99.9% probability” overlayed over the man on the right and a list of nine convictions appeared under his name.
As soon as the two men made it to the brightest area of the shot, they stopped and leaned the mattress onto the garbage cans. After dropping the mattress, the two men walked back away from the camera. As they walked into the distance, another figure approached the camera. He looked away from the two men as they passed. As he got closer to the camera, another green rectangle appeared around the approaching figure. The same heads up displayed “Unidentified Subject #33, 99.5% probability.”
As the man approached the camera, the mattress slid down from its propped position right in front of him. He gingerly stepped around the mattress and then disappeared at the bottom of the camera. In the final five seconds before he exited from the bottom of the screen, she finally got a very long look at his face. A chill went down Candice’s spine as she saw the man. The expression in his face had never changed. But not in a stoic way. It was chilling in an inhuman, unnerving, non-blinking kind of way.
She ran through several other clips. At first, she viewed the hits chronologically, and there were a high number of hits scoring relatively low in terms of probability. There was an agricultural worker in Los Angeles that scored 81.1%, and a policeman in full NYPD uniform scoring 88.3%. She decided to focus on the more reliable probability scores, and sorted it so that they displayed in order of relevancy.
At the end of the hour, she had organized the clips into six key events. May 14, 2009, Albany. August 15, 2010, Utica. September 9, 2012, Brooklyn. April 4, 2013, Syracuse. March 5, 2014, Queens. September 26, 2015, Rochester.
But what was the link?
After another couple minutes of hunting and searching, she decided to cross-reference all of the dates with potential suicides. After a tense ten-second loading wait, the computer returned some results. It was a partial hit. For three of the six dates, a suicide had occurred within three months in a five-block radius around where this unidentified subject was detected.
Sally Skeith, a banker, slashed wrists.
Emerick Roberts, gubernatorial candidate, hung himself in his shed.
Alan Mackenzie, cryptographic researcher, drug overdose.
This had to be more than a coincidence.
Who was this guy? Was his modus operandi simply to stage all of his murders as suicides? How was he so good at covering his own tracks?
She had a hunch. What if the other three were classified as murders, purely because this Phantom had botched the suicide coverup? She broadened her search.
The three other hits returned murders within six months in a ten-block radius.
Angela Pfeiffer, college student, stabbed.
Carly Nadella, high school student, stabbed.
Mia Magdelene, coffee barista, stabbed.
It was a good lead. But it was odd. The last three hits were consistent in the mode of death, gender, and age. There did not seem to be a similar pattern with the first three.
She opened up a new email and penned a quick message to Russell and Daniel, asking to set up a meeting. Neither of them had seen any of the photos of the Phantom yet. She debated attaching a screen capture from the video, but decided against it for now, given the sensitivity of the file.
She continued co
mpiling and sorting the videos, working into the early morning, until she was beginning to nod off. It was all too easy to do so—the glare against her eyes in the darkness straining her eyes.
Just five more minutes.
Squeak.
The hairs on her neck curled. Her attention instantly jolted to her surroundings. There was no one on this floor at this time. At least no one she saw sitting in the darkness of the office.
It had sounded distant. She stood up, turned left, then right, but saw nothing.
She peeked around the cubicle. Still nothing.
She paced the office floor but found no one. She silently cursed to herself for her jitters—the building was locked down like a military bunker.
You don’t just walk into Phineas Tower.
She sat back down at her terminal and viewed a couple more video clips. Shopping malls, residential condo entryways, football stadiums. In each scene, the Phantom held the exact same facial expression—cold, distant, remorseless.
She was still energized from hearing the sound earlier. But it was late, and she figured it was time to pack it in and start up again tomorrow.
Suddenly, she felt a hand on her shoulder.
Chapter Eighteen
Instead of screaming, Candice instinctively stood, turned, and forced her knee straight into where her assailant’s groin was likely to be. She connected. Her follow-through went straight through a soft area.