Maas spent his afternoons in regimented wandering. He visited the same little bookstore every day, but never bought anything. He starred in the windows of the high end real estate agencies, scanning all the posted listings but never going in the office. He roamed up and down the tree lined avenues with his hands in his pockets and his head low. He didn’t make eye contact with anyone and he didn’t go anywhere. He just kept walking in circles until he could claim his favorite seat at the local dive bar.
His choice of seating location didn’t have any tactical value. Maas sat with his back to the front door, and too far away from the back door to use it as a viable secondary escape. Maas didn’t appear to know anything about personal security and if he did, he didn’t care. His version of escape came in a bottle. He drank a dark brown doppelbock called Paulaner Salvator. The beer made the whole room smell like chocolate malt when Maas drank by himself. He often got to the bar first. By the time the after work crowd arrived, three or four glasses stood empty on his table, circling him like satellites. Maas wouldn’t leave the bar until he had at least six beers and his consumption often ran into the double digits. Then he would stumble back home in the dark to square off with Maria Maas.
Hamilton Chu knew everything about Maas’s pattern and preferences because he’d followed the stupid bastard every day for three weeks. Chu shadowed Maas because the drunk once designed satellite technology. For a brief moment, Erich Maas defined satellite technology. He dropped out of Cornell as the next big thing ten years ago. Wired magazine did a story on him soon after, proclaiming him a revolutionary who would impact technology as much as, if not more than, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and Steve Jobs. But his first major independent project failed in spectacular fashion. Then, an attempted buyout of a competitor crippled the financial health of his company. The final blow came when the board of directors of the company he created bought him out and sent him packing. Confidential sources said Erich Maas had developed an explosive breakthrough in long range access technology, but right now he couldn’t get a job installing cable boxes. He represented a dangerous opportunity.
A man in Maas’s situation created a unique target in the world of industrial espionage. While the tech industries of the West saw him as a liability, countries with substandard satellite technology could gain a tremendous advantage with Maas’s designs. China stood to gain the most if they got their hands on Maas’s work. But high level satellite technology fell under several national security regulations. The NSA monitored all communications between foreign nationals and experts at this level. Maas couldn’t work for, or even have contact with, members of foreign governments without explicit clearance from Homeland Security and Disney would start selling porn before Maas got permission to work with Beijing. If the Chinese wanted him, they had to recruit him in secret.
So Chu watched and waited for any sign of Chinese operatives trying to make contact with or pass messages to Erich Maas. When he first got the assignment, Chu assumed Maas went through his daily ritual as part of his tradecraft. The daily strolls could be part of a complex pattern designed to avoid or expose surveillance. The visits to the coffee shop offered a chance for covert conversation. The wandering in the streets gave Maas the chance to hide and pick up packages at designated dead drops. Even the pilgrimages to the bar might just be a cover for his Chinese handler to meet Maas and exchange information. Chu looked for any sign of Maas’s connection to foreign agents. He didn’t find any evidence of espionage, but what he did find out about Maas was worse than any corporate spying.
Maas lurched towards the bar to pay his tab. Chu used the ritual to cover his exit. Maas always drank first and paid later because he never knew how much he might consume. Chu always paid for his drinks up front so he could leave before Maas and not attract attention. The target didn’t react to the pattern. He didn’t seem to notice Chu going to the same bar two or three times a week. Maybe the fact that Chu altered his appearance and timing with each visit kept Maas from seeing the pattern. Maybe Maas was too lost in his depression to notice the world around him. It could have been a bit of both, but Chu didn’t take any chances. He slipped away from the crowd inside the bar, weaved through the hipsters smoking by the front door and walked in the direction of Maas’s brownstone.
Chu passed Stanley Kean at the corner near the bar. The tall, lanky man waited at the bus stop, reading a worn out copy of the Communist Manifesto. Kean didn’t look at Chu. Chu didn’t acknowledge Kean. When the bus arrived, Kean put away his book and reached for his wallet. Chu crossed the street. Maas left the bar and trudged in the direction of his home. In the mirror of a closed artisanal bakery, Chu saw Kean patting his body as if he’d misplaced his wallet. Kean didn’t look at Maas. Maas passed Kean without any sign of recognition. The bus doors closed, leaving Kean on the corner behind Maas. By the time the target crossed the street, Kean had fallen in behind him, using a trio of giggling girls as a partial buffer between himself and Maas. Chu went down a different street, comfortable they’d completed the surveillance transfer unnoticed.
Chu took an apparently random path back to their rented apartment. Every block he walked and turn he took gave him an opportunity to detect or evade anyone following him. Chu hadn’t seen any signs of a counter surveillance team on Maas, but good teams avoided notice until they decided to strike. Chu threaded his way through Park Slope alone, hoping tonight would be different than all the other nights.
Their apartment didn’t have a direct line of sight to Maas’s brownstone, but the two spaces were only separated by a short block of no more than two hundred feet. Chu opened the front door and listened. A single set of footsteps sped up the stairs. Chu guessed Kean arrived before him. Chu stopped at the mailbox and pretended to check it. RSVP Security took care of all the mail and bills for the space through a fictitious talent agency, so he knew the box would be empty. But the charade gave him cover to ambush anyone who might have followed them. As Chu stood in the lobby, no one else entered the building. So Chu closed the mailbox and made his way upstairs without enthusiasm. He knew the next item on Erich Maas’s schedule. No matter how many times he wished it might be different, the days always ended with Erich and Maria together.
Chapter Two: The Same Team
“He’s at it again.”
Kean stood in the kitchen of the exposed brick apartment and poured Cap’n Crunch into a red Solo cup. He captured the image of a post frat bachelor and most of the apartment maintained a similar illusion. Bottles of Heineken and Cuervo competed with boxes of Oreos and bags of Doritos for shelf space in the kitchen. A huge flat screen TV dominated the living room, surrounded by mismatched pieces of black furniture. A PS4 sat in the middle of the room with its accessories strewn across the floor. Only the master bedroom failed to fit the image of their cover. Chu forced himself into the makeshift surveillance room without a word to Kean.
Several flat-screen computer monitors filled the otherwise dark room with a cold white glow. Each screen revealed a room or hallway inside Maas’s brownstone. The squat, flabby shape of Ganesh Privti perched in the center of the video hub. His wide frame blocked out much of the light from his machines. He took off his bulky headphones when Chu came up beside him, but he never looked away from his screens.
“The subject is conforming to standard behavior patterns. There isn’t anything substantial to report.”
Chu didn’t respond to the unspoken invitation to go away. He leaned over Privti’s shoulder, trying to find Maas on one of the screens. He found Erich and Maria in the basement. The pinhole camera over their heads gave Chu and Privti a clear view of the action.
“You call that normal, Neshi?”
Maas grabbed a fist full of his wife’s hair in one hand and her throat in the other. He had her bent backwards over the washing machine, barking angry words Chu couldn’t hear through Privti’s headphones. Maria held up her hands in surrender, trying to beg her way out of the argument. Chu didn’t need to hear the audio. He coul
d imagine what she said. The words were part of his identity.
Privti’s words were just as familiar. “Please stop calling me pet names, Hamilton. I am not your pet. I am not comfortable with your pet names.”
Maas balled up his fist and punched Maria in the stomach. The small woman doubled over in pain and collapsed onto the concrete floor.
“Do you think she’s comfortable? You think this is standard behavior for her?”
“We know it is.” Kean had to duck to get through the bedroom doorway, but once he reached Chu and Privti, he stood up to his full height and pour cereal into his mouth from the cup. “He pulls the same shit every night. She puts up with it every night. I’m amazed she’s still alive.”
Maria curled her body into a fetal position and covered her head with her hands. Maas stood over her, kicking her in the ribs and stomping on her head with his tattered shoe.
“You’d be surprised what some women are forced to put up with.” Chu’s hands balled up into fists on the table. He didn’t look away from the abuse, but his mind flashed back to beatings in his memory.
Privti leaned away from Chu in a subconscious attempt to put space between them. “This is standard behavior for the target and the wife is not forced to put up with anything. She is an American woman. She can leave. She can report him. She is not a helpless victim.”
Maas had his shoe off now. He raised it high over his head and beat Maria’s back and legs. The battered wife flinched and writhed with each blow. Chu couldn’t hear the whimpers, but he knew the sound.
“She’s a naturalized citizen, Neshi. Her English is limited. Her friends and family are thousands of miles away. She has no independent source of income. It took you twice as long to set up the surveillance because she’s not allowed to leave the house. So where exactly is she supposed to go, how is she going to get there and who’s going to help her once she’s gone?”
“The wife is not our concern. Our job is maintaining surveillance on the target until he is contacted by the opposition.” Ganesh turned away from Chu and put his headphones back on to end the conversation. “And do not call me pet names. I am not your pet.” He pretended to resume his observation of Maas. Chu continued to stare at the side of Ganesh’s head, making no effort to give the man space or end the discussion.
Kean pulled the cup away from his face, searching for a way to ease the tension. “I hope he doesn’t kill her before Beijing shows up. If he does, he’ll be too hot to get recruited.”
At last, Maas gave up on Maria. He lumbered back up the stairs, leaving her broken body on the unfinished basement floor. Liquor and fatigue forced him to navigate the stairs on his hands and knees, giving him the look of a drunken grizzly bear. Maria’s face remained hidden under her bruised arms and ravaged hair. Drops of blood began to pool on the floor beneath her head. Chu felt the echoes of her pain with every convulsive spasm of her body.
“Hope is not a plan Stanley. Mrs. Maas might not last much longer. If we’re going to preserve this operation, we need to---”
“We don’t need to do anything.” Ganesh snapped off the headphones and jumped out of his seat as if he’d been shocked. “You have no authority to intervene. We have clear rules of engagement. You cannot expose this operation to the police because you are too weak to do your job.”
“You think I’m weak because I don’t want to watch a man beat on his wife every night?” Chu eased the chair out of his way to give himself a clear shot at Privti. The larger man thrust his finger out in anger, but backed away with a trembling lip.
“It is weak to not do your job. It is weak to not mind your own business. You have no right to interfere with a man and his wife. It is not your place.”
Chu took a slow step towards Privti. He held his hands up to signal peace, but the tone in his voice had a predatory edge. “It’s not my business, Neshi?”
Kean stepped between Chu and Privti, holding up his own hands with a more sincere display of pacification. “Cut it out, Smoke. We’re on the same team. Let’s just take it up with Ghost in the morning.”
“I am not like him! I am not on his team! I do not want his pet names!”
Chu stopped his advance and dropped his hands, but his voice became darker, more menacing. “Is it none of my business because of the job, or is it because I don’t have a wife?”
“Leave it alone, Smoke--”
“Spit it out, Neshi. Do you think I want to stop Maas because I’m a fag, or is it because you just like to watch women get beat up?”
“Do not call me pet names!”
“Do you hate it when I call you Neshi because you think I’m flirting with you? Huh? Are you afraid I’m going to try and fuck you in the middle of the night?”
“Leave me alone! I’m not on your team!”
“Enough, Chu!” Kean raised his voice without conviction.
Chu stood close enough to crack the taller man’s sternum with his knee, but he didn’t. He had the range to reach out and crush Privti’s trachea in a single step. He never made an aggressive move toward them. But he thought about it and they knew it. Chu let the knowledge sit with them when he turned to leave the room with one more glance at Maria Maas’s body on the cold stone floor.
“This isn’t going to end well, gentlemen.” Chu left the surveillance room, leaving the men to wonder what he meant.
Chapter Three: You’re Not Batman
“Smoke, can you explain to me why my field technician is threatening to sue us for sexual harassment?”
Baker didn’t sound pleased, although his voice retained its laid back, harmonious tone.
Chu glanced over his shoulder as he walked down Prospect Park West. He didn’t plan on using any names or saying anything out loud to compromise the mission, but he checked for eavesdroppers out of habit. “Your tech is a backwards homophobe who sees everything as a threat to his manhood.”
“That may be true, but it doesn’t explain why he’s so upset.”
“He knows how to get upset? That’s funny. He doesn’t seem too upset watching the nightly video.”
“He’s focused on the job, and he’s coming at this from a different cultural perspective--”
Chu stopped in his tracks and threw his back against the low stone wall of the park. “Fuck his perspective. Have you seen the video?”
“I’ve seen the highlights and I’ve read your reports. I know how bad it is and how hard it is for you to watch.”
Chu fought to control his breathing. “This isn’t about me, Ghost. What happens to the mission when he goes too far? What happens to her? We can’t just sit and watch while he just does whatever he wants to her.”
Baker breathed an exasperated sigh. “OK. Let’s look at the options. If you get in the middle of it to protect her, the fish won’t bite and the whole trip is a waste of time.”
“What about an anonymous threat?”
“To tip him off to the fact someone is watching him? Don’t you think he might mention your threat to the fish once they make contact?”
“We don’t know--”
“He can’t know you’re there, Smoke. He can’t get picked up by LE. You can’t remove her from the fish tank and you can’t let her know you’re there either. If there is any deviation from his standard routine, if he gets spooked about anything, the fish will swim away. A lot of people are counting on this meal. You just need to hang on.”
Chu pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose to release the painful pressure in his head. “You’re not hearing me. I’m not the one who needs to hang on. I’m not in the tank with him. We don’t know the timetable for contact. We don’t know if she can last long enough for the fish to bite. So what happens when he goes too far and she doesn’t get up? The fish aren’t going to be able to grab the bait if LE locks him away.”
“I hear you and I agree with you. But I think you’re underestimating her. She lived in the tank before we got here. She’s been married to him for years and she lived with him before the
marriage. This isn’t a new situation. She coped with it before us. She can--”
“So we’re going to punish her for being tough enough to last as long as she has? What kind of fucked up shop are we running?” Chu heard his voice rising and felt the strain in his lungs as his chest heaved. He needed something to do, someone to hit to release this tension.
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