The Depository

by E Y Mak

  “But how is the Phantom involved?” Benita said.

  “I don’t know.”

  They chatted a bit further, but there wasn’t a lot more they could glean from the report. By the time they had moved on to another topic, the neon lights and sparkling business signs that were so prominent earlier were fading in the distance. The skyscrapers gave way to dreary low-rise government housing. Anchored boats lined the edge of the waterfront, where people, even in this late hour, boisterously dined on geoduck, abalone, mantis prawns, and fresh scallops.

  Fai pulled his fishing boat into a dock east of the main promenade, then thanked the pair profusely after they paid the final half of the agreed price. Russell and Benita thanked him and set off towards their destination. Patrick’s flat. It was on the top floor of a six-story building. He had often bragged that it was the most expensive penthouse in the village. That was true. Sai Kung didn’t have many tall buildings then. Russell could see that there were more now, but Patrick’s was still one of the highest.

  As they got to the building, Russell noted the round-the-clock concierge and private security. Patrick had handpicked the location as his fortress of solitude on weekends away from his primary residence in the central area of Hong Kong. He had put in substantial renovations to the building, and Russell vividly remembered Patrick’s boasting about annoyed neighbors complaining how his now-modern building ruined the spirit and clashed with the architecture of Sai Kung Town. Patrick didn’t care. As they approached the building, loud cheers and music blared from the rooftop.

  After entering the garish building, Russell spoke to the concierge and told him that he was here to see Patrick. After a quick confirmatory phone call, the concierge brought them to an express elevator leading to the penthouse floor.

  Six stories later, the elevator door opened directly into Patrick’s flat, where he was apparently hosting a party.

  Benita stepped over a line of beer bottles clustered around the elevator door, while Russell scanned the room, searching for the familiar face of Patrick.

  Instead, he saw the angry eyes of Giraffe the gangster across the main living room, glaring right back at him.

  Chapter Fifty

  Giraffe beelined towards the elevator haphazardly, hitting a side table and knocking off a half-dozen beer bottles. The room fell silent briefly as the bottles shattered on the floor, emptying their sudsy remnants all over the marble floor. By the time Giraffe reached Russell and stared him down, six inches from Russell’s face, the boisterous party had restarted.

  “You’re going to pay for what you did to my business, you bastard,” Giraffe said.

  Between the Phineas chase, the ever-present threat of the Hong Kong police, and whatever Mauritius may be preparing, it was a miracle that they had not yet been caught. Their luck had run out.

  “You guys had something of mine. The girl.” Russell said, motioning to Benita.

  “The ghost girl. What was she doing spying on my territory?” asked a seething Giraffe.

  “She wasn’t spying,” Russell lied.

  “It doesn’t matter. She had no right to be there.”

  Giraffe leaned further in, his face now only an inch from Russell’s. Beads of sweat had begun to stream down his bald head. Russell stood still and maintained his unflinching gaze. “We can’t pretend nothing happened,” Russell said coolly. “You tried to grab my partner.”

  “She followed us in then told us she was working for us. We couldn’t just let her leave without talking with the big boss first,” said Giraffe.

  “Big boss?” asked Russell. “You mean—”

  A sudden commotion came from a room on the far side of the living room. The door swung open, and a short, stocky Chinese man dressed in a yellow LA Lakers jumpsuit walked out. His round face was framed by thick black plastic glasses, a wispy mustache, and a half-baked goatee. His hair was short but there was a tuft that flipped up at the top of his head. That tiny tuft had always been there, and Russell had often mocked him by calling him Tintin. It was his old friend, Patrick Tse.

  “Western Boy?” Patrick bellowed across the room in Cantonese with a sarcastic tone. Russell recognized the nickname that Patrick had given him in high school. Without moving his eyes away from Giraffe, Russell responded, “Hey, Patrick. Thought I’d drop by since I was in town.”

  Patrick said, “What’re you doing? What’s with the mess here?”

  Giraffe said, “Boss, we caught the girl following one of our deliveries into the Jade Room. We were holding her until we had the chance to talk to you. This punk broke in and took her away. He injured Tap and Ho.”

  Benita spoke up. “You guys were forcing a teenage girl to work for you. She was crying and bleeding. I couldn’t just sit there while you did that.”

  Russell said, “Patrick, you know what we do, and you know why she had to follow.” He finally turned his gaze to Patrick, looking directly into his eyes with an intense stare. “But I need to talk to you about something else,” Russell said.

  Giraffe took the opportunity to sidestep and block Russell from having any direct line of sight with Patrick. He said, “Don’t trust him, big boss. He’s trouble.”

  “Shut up, Giraffe,” Patrick said. Giraffe turned towards Patrick in surprise, then bowed his head.

  “Yes, boss,” Giraffe said through gritted teeth, blending back into the party.

  Awkward seconds passed by before Russell stepped forward and leaned over to whisper into Patrick’s ear.

  “I need to talk to you in private.”

  Patrick stepped back and spoke to him calmly. “You come uninvited to my home and demand my time. Who do you think you are?” Patrick walked over to the bar and poured himself two shots of Chivas Regal. “We’ve got a party going on here. I don’t have time to talk in private.”

  Russell recognized the ego immediately. Patrick was trying to maintain his position of power over everyone in the room. He needed to make sure that everyone knew that he wasn’t going to just give anyone the time of day. Russell played along and pretended he was stunned by Patrick’s volume.

  But Benita didn’t know what was happening. “No, Patrick. We have to talk—” Benita said.

  Patrick stopped her midsentence and spoke sharply to Russell, his eyes bulging incredulously. “Who is this girl? Why is she talking to me like this?”

  “Just give me an hour and I’ll explain everything,” Russell said.

  Patrick took a sip from his glass. Russell looked at the dull-green mixture in Patrick’s glass. He remembered attending a party back in 2008 when Patrick had first introduced the Chivas and green-tea mixed drink that was soaring in popularity in Asia. It was an unassuming drink—the sweetness of the green tea overpowered the smell and taste of the alcohol. He would be five or six drinks in before the intoxicating effect of the Chivas boomeranged back. He had been so enamored by the combination that he had brought the concoction to a Japanese tapas bar in New York and charmed the pretty bartender into making one for him. She ended up putting it on the menu as a “Russell Woo.”

  After the day that they had gone through, Russell really could use a drink. He decided to break the tension that Patrick was trying to artificially create.

  “Let’s go to the back and have some Russell Woos,” he said.

  Patrick rapped his knuckles on a nearby marble side table, and looked out the window and then back at Russell. He finally lost the scowl and threw out a hearty laugh.

  “Make sure to bring in the big bottle of Chivas and three glasses,” he said to Giraffe.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Because of high real estate prices, most homes in Hong Kong are one-to-two-bedroom flats of less than five hundred square feet. Only the super rich could afford spare rooms. Patrick’s flat had many spare rooms. Russell had been here before, but Benita hadn’t, so Patrick gave them an impromptu tour of the rest of the flat as they walked away from the party. They had passed by two empty guest rooms and an extra living room before they f
inally arrived at his study.

  It was an enormous room, with a large, rustic hand-carved table surrounded by several European leather-backed chairs. Custom framed Renaissance prints adorned three of the four walls and crown moldings folded down from the vaulted ceiling. Another marble side table stood in the corner of the room, offering a half dozen varieties of hard liquor. From their personal history together, Russell knew that Patrick probably barely knew anything about any of the lavish furnishings in this room. Undoubtedly, a dealer had offered his decorating services, playing to Patrick’s ego and seemingly unlimited bank account. Russell walked past the table to the floor-to-ceiling window making up the fourth wall and looked for the blinds.

  Patrick noticed this immediately and chuckled. “Chill out, man. I built this whole place to hide from all those damn eyes in the sky. The view helps me think, and I hate being watched when I think.”

  Russell nodded. Unsurprisingly, living in a city with a constant eye served to trickle down paranoia to even the smallest cracks of city life. In the 1990s, the real estate value of homes in Manhattan peaked on the side of a building that would typically be on the far side of the surveillance routes of the Guardian and the other airship. And though Manhattan properties were still several times more expensive than property in the surrounding boroughs, property values in Queens, Staten Island, and even New Jersey were comparatively higher than in Brooklyn. Real estate agents speculated this to be a direct effect of the Phineas surveillance network.

  Russell sat down in the chair next to Benita and directly across the table from Patrick. An older Asian lady came in and set down three cans of Yeo’s Green Tea on the table, then returned to the door, bowing before exiting. Russell placed the three whiskey glasses on the table beside the cans. It had been a while since he had tasted this concoction.

  Patrick stood up, cracked open all a can of green tea, and began pouring the glasses. “I know why you’re here. There’s been nothing about you specifically in the news yet, though that Phineas car chase was the headline earlier today. But my contacts in the HKPD know what’s going on. There’s a warrant out for you in New York City. And you’ve been red-noticed on Interpol.”

  “First time for everything, I guess,” said Russell.

  Benita said, “When we were being chased, the cops were working with Phineas to bring us in.”

  Patrick didn’t respond, instead focusing on pouring tea into all three glasses. Afterward, he picked up the Chivas bottle and tipped two ounces into each glass. He handed a glass to both Benita and Russell before slowly rolling the third glass in his hands as though he was airing out fine red wine.

  Russell obliged and took in a mouthful of the sweet liquid. He was now more of a traditionalist and preferred to drink his alcohol in its purest form, but there was something delicious about this localized cocktail. He closed his eyes and savored the taste, trying to activate the alcohol to numb the dull pain in his shoulder.

  “Did you do it?” Patrick asked.

  “Of course not,” Russell said, keeping his eyes closed.

  “Good enough for me,” said Patrick. After taking a swig of the Russell Woo, Patrick continued. “Anyway, my guy said there’s paperwork to extradite your ass back to America. But someone higher up in the Chinese government is intervening.”

  “Why’s that?” asked Russell.

  “Fuck should I know,” said Patrick.

  Russell took another drink, slower this time. By now, he had already finished most of his drink. After swallowing the liquor, he turned to Benita. “So Phineas is probably trying to take me back to New York, but the Chinese want to keep me in Hong Kong.”

  “Popular guy,” Benita said. “I can’t see why.”

  Russell smiled at Benita and shrugged at the same time. “China must be tracking Mauritius as well. But how come we haven’t been visited by anyone from MSS. Has someone been tailing us?”

  “Probably,” said Patrick. “But the surveillance, including CCTV, is strongest in the Kowloon Peninsula and the Island. It’s not as strong out here. It’s why I live here. Still, you guys got lucky not being caught before getting on that boat. The little show that Phineas put on yesterday in Mong Kok chasing you guys resulted in a lot of collateral damage. There’s footage of a big black SUV with the Phineas logo smashing through a crowd. It’s all over TVB, so my guess is Phineas will stay low for now.”

  “Anyone hurt?” asked Russell as he was fixing himself another drink.

  “None seriously. But it was crazy video, man. Anyway, I wouldn’t get too cozy. Phineas may hang back but the cops won’t. HK Airport and any of the ports are off-limits to you now. I’d avoid any of the train stations too. At least in the immediate future.”

  “Anyone looking for Benita?” Russell asked. Benita had been listening intently for the last little while. He had noticed that about her. She was a chameleon when she needed to be—blending into the background and just soaking up information. Phineas used assets like her in investigations all the time.

  Patrick looked at Benita. “Yeah, she’s considered an accomplice.” Patrick rolled his eye towards Russell. “But you’re still the main guy they want.”

  “You don’t really seem that concerned, Patrick, harboring a fugitive wanted by two countries,” Benita said.

  “Happens all the fucking time. I have friends everywhere. They don’t piss without calling me first. Besides, it’s all bullshit. You were always the by-the-book guy, even in high school. Didn’t you join the army just to rebel? What happened? Why are you in town?”

  Russell summarized his investigation into Tim Butler, the pursuit of the Phantom, his lead to Hong Kong, his meeting and capture by Mauritius, and the Phineas chase. He hinted at his belief that there was something more to Mauritius, validated by the ominous build in Cameroon and Russell’s attempted capture.

  Patrick spoke. “Mauritius is obviously well known in Hong Kong. Anyone with money is. But he has a solid business reputation. What could he be storing in Cameroon?”

  “We’re trying to figure that out right now. We need to get more information. These physical files aren’t enough. We’re going to need to get onto his computer.”

  Benita looked at Patrick. “Do you have anyone on staff?” she asked jokingly.

  Patrick shook his head. “Not yet. But I like the way you think. Maybe I could make it happen.”

  Russell knew what he had to do. “We need our own white hat to get us in. There’s a guy at Phineas that can help.”

  “Phineas isn’t going to help us right now,” Benita said. “They’d just as quickly take you back to New York.”

  “No, the organization won’t help me. But he will. We have to be careful. If there’s one thing Mauritius has been able to do, it seems he can manipulate information. Just look at Tim and what he’s doing now to Candice and me. He seems to be able to not just create fake news but create fake facts. We need to leak what he is doing as soon as possible before Mauritius has a chance to cover it all up.”

  Benita said, “We could make a big splash about it online. Get it all out there before Mauritius can control the story.”

  Patrick began gently stroking the tip of his beard like an ancient Chinese scholar. Russell knew that Patrick was thinking about how this could benefit him.

  “I need to find a secure line and make a call to Petri Ulanov,” said Russell.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Brooklyn, New York

  Candice peered through the peephole on her apartment door. Her lawyer, the infamous Craig Harvey, had managed to get Bob Regan tossed from investigating her on account of a conflict of interest. When Candice appeared in court for her first hearing, Harvey also got her out on bail instead of her being remanded in custody.

  Looking outside, she saw that Junior Agent Knight of the Phineas Protection Department remained in the simple wooden chair outside her apartment he had occupied for the last four hours. Candice wondered why they had sent a junior agent to watch her—and only one of th
em at that. She couldn’t read Knight. He was mechanical in his actions and had a matching robotic personality. But he seemed trustworthy and was passably pleasant.

  Bob Regan had mentioned the protection detail was for her safety, but she knew it was because Phineas wanted to keep tabs on her. She was still a suspect in the murder of Daniel Peters. To her, it was obvious that the Phantom had killed him. He had “work to do.” She had told her story, but no one truly believed her. Yet.

  Candice went back to the laptop set upon a drop-down table in the corner of her kitchen. She was going to insert herself into her own investigation. She couldn’t rely on Phineas to do an objective job for her. She took a sip of the Rooibos Chai tea that had just finished steeping but wasn’t really enjoying the flavors simmering in her mug. She sat back and closed her eyes, trying to let the warmth of the beverage calm her spirits. It didn’t work.

  After a minute of concentration, Candice grabbed the blue Bic pen and Moleskine lying on the table and opened to a fresh sheet. She scribbled an outline of the last seventy-two hours. The Phantom was a smart adversary. She tried to brainstorm what kind of link the Phantom had to the high school where she had been imprisoned. It was unlikely that he had been a faculty member or student there at one point. He seemed too smart for that obvious historical connection. It was more likely he had some kind of geographical link to it. He must live or work relatively nearby.

  She looked at the manila envelope that remained on the table. She had managed to convince one of the Bobs to let her collect her cubicle belongings. The envelope had been waiting there. It was addressed to her and signed from Petri. She had hidden it underneath her coat while Knight had driven her home.

  The executive summary described the degree of known connection between those six victims she had listed in her email. Based on a review of public and private databases, including several social networking websites, the report was not aware of any direct familial, friendship, or business connections between any of the individuals listed.