The Depository

by E Y Mak

  It all made sense now.

  This familiar face was the Phantom.

  He pulled out his Phineas phone and activated the disk-imaging software. He plugged it into the USB port of the ancient laptop and initiated the transfer.

  The progress bar on the phone screen showed no movement at all.

  Russell looked concerningly at the display before he realized the issue. The laptop was so ancient, the hard drive so slow, that copying the entire contents of the computer would take some time.

  He would only have time to copy the one document.

  Russell unplugged the phone and reset the application to connect as a standard USB drive. He reconnected the phone, and the computer recognized the device as a generic disk drive. He used the trackpad to drag the asset ledger document from the desktop onto his phone.

  A progress bar on the screen launched, indicating the 30 minutes it would take to copy the file.

  Shit.

  Benita’s voice suddenly cut through the silence.

  “Russell? Our scout said that Mauritius is on his way back. He’s got Dominique and Elva with him.”

  He looked at his Speedmaster.

  1:58 p.m.

  “Copy,” Russell said as he slammed the lid of the laptop shut. He thought about it for a few seconds, then tucked the laptop under his armpit.

  This was all he needed.

  He slipped out of Mauritius’s office and quietly crept back towards the stairwell where he had entered. As he turned to shut the door, a fist came out of the darkened corner beside him, knocking him to his knees.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  A second punch connected with Russell’s torso and the Nokia in his left hand went flying into the wall. However, Russell managed to keep his right arm locked against his body, protecting the laptop. Russell fell to his knees, trying to get a glimpse of his assailant. A sharp pain shot through his right jaw where the sucker punch had connected, and he tasted blood pooling in his mouth.

  Above him was the hulking mass of Ricardo, Glock drawn and pointed straight at Russell’s center mass.

  “I’m taking you in, Russell.”

  “No one asked you to chase us the way that you did. You fired in the middle of a shopping district. Are you insane?” said Russell.

  “Shut up,” said Ricardo, launching a forceful backhand to Russell’s face. Russell tried to deflect the slap, but the blow ended up going straight into Russell’s right cheek instead. Russell felt his head snap sharply to the left. Slowly, he swiveled back to face Ricardo and looked straight up at him. The anger in Ricardo’s eyes was evident—Russell could see the veins popping in his eyes, his lips pursing, and his nostrils flaring.

  That was when Russell noticed that Ricardo was not wearing his tactical uniform.

  “Did Phineas revoke your badge again?” Russell said.

  “Taking you in will get me back in the good books. I figured you would come back here. I’ve been waiting in the lobby for days, waiting for you to show up,” said Ricardo.

  Russell decided that, for now, he was going to play into Ricardo’s quest for glory. There was a bounty on Russell’s head. If Ricardo managed to bring him in, he would get the accolade he needed to get his career back on track.

  Russell could play to this.

  “Let’s make a deal. You can take me in now. But there’s a bigger score out there,” said Russell.

  “You don’t have a damn choice,” said Ricardo.

  “Are you wondering, at all, why I’m here? Do you even know why I came to Hong Kong?” asked Russell.

  “I don’t care why you are here,” said Ricardo, now pointing his pistol directly into Russell’s temple. “Get up, we’re heading back.”

  Russell stood up and looked Ricardo straight in the eye.

  “Do you believe that I murdered Daniel?” he asked. Russell waited three seconds before continuing. “I came to Hong Kong to investigate the suicide of a man named Tim Butler. Except we don’t think it’s suicide—we think it’s murder. Daniel’s orders were for me to investigate Fuengirola and its CEO, Mauritius.”

  Russell paused to let Ricardo digest the information. He was still silent. Glock still pointed at Russell’s temple, Ricardo disabled the safety.

  “Go on,” Ricardo said.

  Russell explained the link that they had found between the mining project out in Cameroon and the building that Mauritius was constructing out in the same area.

  “The only thing is that Mauritius is a lot smarter than Daniel or I gave him credit for. He can do a lot more than we possibly thought he could. He’s creating records of conversations that never happened. He generated a video to frame Butler—making him say things that never happened. But Butler refused to give in. So Mauritius took him out and made it look like he killed himself out of guilt and shame for being linked to one of the biggest frauds in recent history.”

  Ricardo looked at him, eyes never moving. They had worked on bounty-hunting missions before—Ricardo always hit first and asked questions later. The fact that Ricardo had not shut him up yet meant that he was getting through to him.

  “And now he’s trying to do the same to Candice and me,” Russell said. “I’m here today to clear her name and mine. I need to get out of here. Mauritius is just on the other side of this door,” said Russell.

  “I can’t,” said Ricardo. “If it came out that I let you do that—that’s another strike on my record. I need to take you in.”

  “You can’t,” Russell pleaded. “I swear to you, I’ll find you once I’m ready. If you don’t let me do this, Mauritius is going to be able to cover his tracks. It doesn’t matter who hears my story. I have one shot to make a big enough splash that even he won’t be able to cover it up.”

  “No,” Ricardo said. He had momentarily lowered the Glock but suddenly raised it again. “I’m taking you in. Tell your story to the police. And to Phineas.”

  “Wait,” Russell said. “There’s more. I have proof. You can be the one to tell the world about it. Take this laptop.”

  “Let’s see,” said Ricardo.

  Russell slowly put his hand between his armpit and pulled out the computer. He stood up and moved it towards Ricardo’s outstretched hand.

  Then he dropped it.

  In the split second that it took for the laptop to fall out of Russell’s grip and hit the ground, Ricardo lowered the Glock and automatically reached out with both hands, cradling the laptop inches before it hit the cold cement floor.

  In that same split second, Russell lined up a swift, strong knee to Ricardo’s midsection. Since Ricardo was already swooping down to stop the falling laptop, Russell’s knee instead connected full force with Ricardo’s head.

  The laptop, slowed by the momentary intervention of Ricardo’s fingers, hit the floor harmlessly next to the Glock that he had also dropped. Ricardo’s head whipped backward and he stumbled three steps away. Seizing the moment, Russell shot a strong uppercut with his right hand, connecting to Ricardo’s chin. Unfazed, Ricardo instantly tried to grab Russell with a leg lock.

  How the hell was he not knocked out by that? Russell thought as they rolled on the floor towards the edge of the staircase. Russell could see the Glock, just inches out of reach. Ricardo saw it too and was able to grab the gun. Russell used both of his hands and grabbed Ricardo’s firing hand and slammed the weapon against the cold concrete three times, but Ricardo refused to let go.

  With his free hand, Ricardo tried to strike Russell on the right side of his head. Russell rolled away from the punch, causing Ricardo’s hand to ricochet past him and slam into the cement. Ricardo screamed in pain but quickly tried to wrap the same exposed arm around Russell’s neck.

  Each squeeze of Ricardo’s arms on his throat caused Russell to see red. Choking, Russell released his hold on Ricardo’s gun hand, grabbing Ricardo’s arm in an attempt to weaken Ricardo’s grip on his neck. He pushed and pulled and squirmed, to no avail.

  Between bouts of redness and the growing
threat of blacking out, Russell saw an exposed pipe laying at his feet. He kicked at it, trying to use the metal cylinder as leverage, but Ricardo pulled him away. Russell attempted to grab something—anything—as he was dragged across the floor. But the redness kept coming back, longer each time.

  With Ricardo’s hands still wrapped around his throat, Russell grabbed Ricardo’s head. The sudden unexpected movement caused Ricardo to relax slightly but was not sufficient to make him let go. However, Russell used all of his strength to jerk Ricardo down towards him. Simultaneously, Russell cradled his head forward. The impact of Russell’s skull on Ricardo’s nose caused Ric’s nasal cavity to explode, forcing him to let go.

  Ricardo crouched over, blood streaming down his face onto the cement floor. Russell stood up again and felt the air returning back to his airway. He stepped forward and picked up the Glock. He took a step back to build some distance between him and his assailant. He aimed the weapon straight at Ricardo’s thick body. He didn’t want to hurt Ricardo any more than was necessary, but he needed to trust that Ricardo wouldn’t just take him back to Phineas.

  He needed a contingency. A backup in case Petri’s hack failed.

  “Ric, just let me do what I need to do.” He didn’t move the gun away from Ricardo’s chest as he walked over. “This is your objective.” He passed the laptop to Ricardo. “Get this to Petri Ulanov.”

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Outside Two Isle Tower

  Mauritius crouched in the back of the vehicle, fidgeting impatiently. Near the rear doors, blood pooled around the head of the Asian man with the shaved head, bulbous bright-red beard, and long neck. Mauritius looked at Elva, sitting on the opposite side of the van cabin. She stared silently back at him with a deadpan expression.

  Twenty minutes earlier, Mauritius had been sitting in Prince Café when he had received a cell phone notification that an unknown USB device had been plugged into his computer. The USB stick had masked itself as a wireless keyboard, and standard security protocols would not make this a notification event. Mauritius, however, had set his computer to specifically alert him to every type of connection`.

  The first thing he had done was remotely check the video camera hidden in the doorjamb of his office door. On his phone screen, he saw the unmistakable visage of Russell Woo crouched near his desk. He watched as Russell spoke into a cellphone tucked into his shoulder.

  He’s back.

  Mauritius then logged into the building’s security system from his phone. He quickly scrolled the security video back to when Russell had entered the building. He tracked it back to when Russell and his accomplice had left the Fa Yeung van Mauritius was sitting in now. That was where Mauritius was going to intercept Russell. It was time for Mauritius to leave Hong Kong anyway.

  He squatted uncomfortably, shuddering at the thought of his cleanly pressed dress pants wrinkling in the back of the vehicle. Mauritius looked to the driver’s seat, where Dominique was sitting. They had easily overpowered Russell’s accomplice, and Mauritius himself had summarily executed him with the tiny derringer that Elva hid in her purse at all times.

  They now awaited Russell’s return. The windshield and front windows had rapidly fogged up from their collective body heat. He listened intently, but could only hear the loud patter of rain hitting the roof of the vehicle. Mauritius couldn’t see farther than a yard outside the windshield, but the swirling tempest and foggy windows also hid them from anyone approaching the van from the outside.

  Through the rain and the wind, Mauritius heard splashes outside the van. He gripped the pistol and aimed as the sliding door opened.

  Chapter Sixty

  Brooklyn, New York

  A knock on her front door jolted Candice from her sleep. She checked her watch. It was two in the morning. She stood up and walked to the door, peering outside. Junior Agent Knight was standing out there, fiddling impatiently on his cellphone. She unlocked the door.

  “Yes?”

  “I got a call from the Tower. We need to head back, now,” he said with an impatient tone.

  Knight drove the Phineas unmarked Dodge Charger. He weaved quickly and effortlessly between vehicles as they made their way back towards the Tower. Candice sat in the backseat, separated from Knight by a metal protection grill. They sat in silence for three blocks before Candice spoke up.

  “What did they say?”

  “They didn’t have much of an update, except that they want both of us to come back to the Tower. Phineas HK called an all-office meeting.”

  “Does this have anything do with Russell in Hong Kong?”

  Knight shrugged.

  Minutes after Knight had parked the Charger, Candice was sitting at an oval table on the eighty-eighth floor. After Agent Knight had escorted her inside the room, Bob Regan instructed the younger agent to wait outside. Candice watched Agent Knight walk out and mouth the words “Good luck” to her as he closed the doors.

  Ten others surrounded the table, none of whom she had met except Bob Regan, who was sitting midway down the table. At the head of the table sat John Phineas, whom she recognized from the large oil painting that hung in the lobby of Phineas Tower.

  John Phineas was a legend at the firm. He was in his midseventies and, even at this late hour, wore a three-piece suit with no tie. A high hairline accentuating his silver-grey hair and a full matching silver-grey beard. A true English gentleman, he checked the time on a pocket watch that he stored in a jetted pocket in his vest. He was a tough man to read, but most of her colleagues respected him as a man of high moral principles. They often joked that there was nothing worse than disappointing Old Man Phineas.

  After introducing herself to a number of the other attendees, she took the opportunity to look around the rest of the room. A large television screen covered the east wall from floor to ceiling. A static yellow Phineas logo dotted the dark background of the screen. She noticed John Phineas looking at her with a puzzled raised eyebrow. Suddenly feeling out of place, she looked down and fiddled with the buttons on her shirt.

  Unexpectedly, the television blinked to life, and a live video feed of five different similarly populated boardrooms emerged. At the bottom of each feed was the name of a different city: London, Johannesburg, Paris, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Berlin, and Hong Kong. An older East Asian man, presumably Chinese, spoke first for Hong Kong in the Queen’s English.

  “All, we’ve called this meeting to order as we have some grave news. As you know, we were requested to assist the HKPD in containing Russell Woo of the New York office. Russell managed to evade our agents for several days. Today, Russell’s cellphone was activated inside the office of Fuengirola Holdings Corporation, a holding company for Mauritius Delgado. You know him as the chief executive officer and president of Delgado AV.”

  Candice breathed a sigh of relief. He’s alive!

  The talking head from Hong Kong paused, as if waiting for questions before speaking again. When no questions were posed, he continued.

  “Delgado’s last known whereabouts is on board a private airplane with a flight plan indicating a scheduled landing in Cameroon. MSS and the HKPD are running through Fuengirola’s computers to see if they can ascertain any more information. But they are keeping Phineas out of this process. To our understanding, everything they’ve tried so far has caused any data held within to be irrecoverably deleted. Unbeknownst to the Chinese authorities, however, one of our agents, Ricardo Hernandez, managed to obtain one of Mauritius’s localized computers.”

  The man in Hong Kong gestured to a nondescript black laptop resting on the board-room table.

  “Unfortunately, it is not good news to report. Mauritius has been monitoring, listening to, and surreptitiously downloading information from computers all over the world through his antivirus software. He’s used the information collected over decades to create a repository of incredible proportions. We’re still combing through the documents, but it looks like three billion people are affected. And it’s not just
financial information. It’s incredibly private information that was retrieved. Webcam and mic recordings, videos, photos, other private documents containing secrets that were certainly never to be made publicly available. He has the digital secrets of half the population in the world.”

  The talking head stopped to let the information soak in. After sipping from the glass of water in front of him, he started talking again.

  “The data collected is indiscriminate. Individuals, companies, and governmental organizations are all affected. From what we can tell, it’s the largest database of private information ever created.”

  A woman with a French accent interjected. “What does the repository have on us?” Candice recognized her as Leslie Augustine, the managing director of the Paris office.

  The Hong Kong leader responded. “We don’t know yet. The documents we’ve reviewed are not the actual database. They just point to its existence. From our perspective, all of the information leaving our servers is encrypted. That should protect us in the short term. He may have it, but he isn’t able to do anything with it yet without decrypting it. But it may only be a matter of time.”

  The room was silent. Phineas servers had all sorts of confidential and privileged information. Government secrets that would shake national security of all members of the G8. Thousands of petabytes of video in major cities across the world. Security details for the next two Olympics. This was information entrusted to them. Just sitting out there, waiting to be compromised. Every person on the call knew the magnitude and consequences of what was at stake. Candice was jerked back to the television monitor by the Hong Kong partner.

  “Mauritius is versed in manipulating information on the internet. He knows how to mimic being someone else. I understand that there’s someone present in the New York office that can speak to that.”