by Toby Neal
“I’m glad we haven’t found anything from Alika’s company.” Marcella joined them. “I wonder what’s going to happen to it with him in the hospital.”
Sophie stayed silent. She didn’t want to get involved any further. “What’s going to happen about Assan?”
“DEA is going to move on this with HPD support. We’ll seize all his assets here in the States and try to extradite him for trial—but he’s in Hong Kong, and likely to stay there. We have trouble getting criminals over here for trial. So likely, the best we can hope for is to shut him down in the U.S. and send his case to Interpol, see if they can keep him boxed up elsewhere.”
“It’s a start.” Sophie was still thinking of Assan’s new young bride. She had to find a way to get that girl out. And on the way home, she thought of little girls trapped in closets.
Chapter Twenty
It was very late when Sophie finally got home. Unlocking the door, she deactivated the alarm, and once inside, reviewed the new security camera footage of the front door area and swept the apartment for bugs. This would be her new routine every time she entered.
Once she was sure the apartment was clear, Sophie stripped by the washer as was her habit, and dropped everything down to the skin into the basket. She sponged the Kevlar vest and helmet and hung them to dry on a rack.
Her body was stiff and exhausted, though she’d done nothing more than observe the raid. It was the adrenaline overload, she decided, and realized she hadn’t gone to the gym since that first day after Alika’s attack.
She was avoiding Fight Club. Too many reminders of Alika. And now she wasn’t getting enough exercise to feel on top of her game, or to keep her depression under control.
Alika’s family must think she’d dropped him when he was down. It was too bad if they did. Staying away from him was the safest choice she could make until she knew Assan was out of the way.
It would be great if the Security Solutions saboteur could hack into Assan’s operation and set him up to be taken out by one of his dealers, Sophie couldn’t help thinking a second time as she sat down to her computers.
She was already pretty close to being inappropriate by bringing the team down on Assan with nothing more than intuition.
Intuition which had been right.
Maybe she and the saboteur had more in common than she’d ever imagined. If she had the software and access he did, she didn’t think she’d be able to resist the temptation to make sure something permanent happened to Assan. Shutting down his drug operation in the U.S. was going to be a blow, but it was probably only a temporary one that he’d not only recover from, but take out on his new child bride. Sophie was all too familiar with how Assan would experience some setback at work, and come home to displace his aggression.
She struggled to suppress a sense of futility. Nothing she did was really going to touch him.
Sophie clicked on the secure email address she used for Bureau business. A short message with a link attached was waiting from an unlisted source.
Could this be from the unsub who’d planted the cameras?
Sophie’s pulse picked up. She clicked on the message.
“Got your video message. Yes, let’s talk. Meet me at this chat room at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow.”
Her appeal had worked. She could scarcely believe it. She saved the chat room address, one of those “old school” chat sites where paradoxically, older software used to run them protected users’ anonymity.
Nothing more to be done on this until 9:00 a.m. tomorrow. It was time to find out what was happening on the Security Solutions and kidnapping case, no matter the hour. She put on her headphones and called Ken Yamada.
“Yes.” Ken sounded alert and irritable.
“Hi, Ken. Wondering what’s been happening with the Security Solutions and kidnapping cases? I’ve had a bit of a personal crisis I’ve been dealing with, but I didn’t want to go to bed without checking in with you.”
“Yes. We searched Sheldon Hamilton’s house and office. Didn’t come up with much. We got some DNA samples; running those as standard procedure but not really expecting it to match anything in the system. What’s most remarkable is how little real presence the man had. His apartment was pristine, a showplace. Apparently has a maid that comes once a month, and she said nothing much changes between her scheduled cleans. She’s never seen Hamilton. Which isn’t in itself unusual; the man is constantly traveling according to Honing, the VP. Still, we found very few personal effects in the apartment or office. Gundersohn and I think we should have found more and had more of a sense of who this man is. I know you were running the online stuff, did you do any better?”
Sophie clicked open the file on Sheldon Hamilton. “Same thing here. Most everything he has is in the company’s name or given to him as perks. He’s the owner and CEO and effectively uses the company to provide a front and take care of all his personal expenses. I couldn’t find any assets but one bank account in his name where he apparently receives payment or wages. I didn’t want to get into that until we’re sure he’s a missing person; then I’ll take a look at his financials.”
“Go ahead and access the finances. He’s missing all right. We had another call from Todd Remarkian; he’s returning from Hong Kong after doing all he can to find his boss. Apparently, the Hong Kong police have no leads.”
A silence as they considered. Sophie had three screens going, each working on something else, but she minimized Amara’s current project and pulled up Sheldon Hamilton’s bank and went to work drilling into their mainframe. She could get an injunction granting access to Hamilton’s accounts, but that would take more time.
“Well, I’m still not sure what case we can make against this company,” Sophie finally said. “Certainly there are gray area activities going on, but are they illegal?”
“The saboteur is illegal of course, but proving what he’s doing is going to be next to impossible. And we know Security Solutions caters to criminals, but are they responsible for their clientele’s actions? Again, hard to bring a case here.”
“Did you have to cut him loose?”
“We did. He didn’t want to go, if that tells you anything. Begged us to charge him with something. He’s afraid of someone.”
“Was he willing to tell who the saboteur was?”
“Said it was his only bargaining chip. I told him we weren’t interested enough to make him a deal for Witness Protection with no real threat identified. He wasn’t happy, but also not miserable enough to spill.”
“Where’s he at now?”
“His apartment.”
Sophie remembered that impersonal little shoebox of a place. “I’m betting he tries to disappear again.”
“Without something more, we have nothing to hold him on and nothing to offer him. So I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the last we saw of Lee Chan. He has a lot of money stashed in the Caymans.”
“So what’s the latest on the kidnap case?”
“Every time we try to get something hard on Takeda Industries, we come up dry. We thought we found an office address but when Gundersohn and I went by, it was a vacant lot.”
“So who’s collecting the rents on that apartment building where Anna was held?”
Ken sighed. “You want the truth? I haven’t had time to track that. But I’m beginning to think this isn’t some big operation.”
“I agree.” The back of Sophie’s neck prickled with her conviction. “But Remarkian told me that he and Sheldon had found evidence their client information was being peddled online. So maybe our kidnappers in the morgue bought the Addams family information and used it.”
“Speaking of. I did run down their case file at Security Solutions, and it seems that someone had the access code to deactivate ‘Helen,’ the nanny-cam software and alarm system. That’s how they were able to take Anna from her bedroom.”
“So that confirms it as a leak from inside Security Solutions?”
“It seems that way. The house staff
had the code to turn the alarm on and off, but only Belle and her husband had the code for Helen. It must have been a terrible moment when they realized she’d been taken.”
“Just think how Anna felt,” Sophie said, her skin going cold with remembered trauma. She’d been snatched in the marketplace, an ether-soaked rag held over her nose and mouth until she passed out.
“Yes, well.” Ken cleared his throat. “Back to work.” He hung up.
Sophie opened her file on Takeda Industries. It couldn’t hurt to follow up with the building manager, since Ken hadn’t had time to. She texted Ken that she was going on a field trip to interview the building manager tomorrow morning, just as Sophie’s software broke into Sheldon Hamilton’s bank accounts.
Immediately she leaned in, scanning through the data. Twice-monthly wages were deposited and then immediately diverted, to a numbered account with its location masked.
His salary, as founder and CEO, was an eye-popping amount. Why was he diverting and hiding it? Had Sheldon Hamilton planned his own disappearance?
Sophie set down her headset, leaned back in her chair, stretching. She was too wound up for bed. Doing one more sweep of the apartment for bugs, she hung up the detection wand by the door and, wearing her silky sleep tee, went through her yoga routine in the icy silver moonlight, finally ending with meditation.
Breathing, resting upright in the lotus position, she let her mind float free. Suddenly, she was sure she knew who the saboteur was. The hard part was going to be proving it.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sophie held up her creds wallet. The manager of the apartment building where Anna had been held was a stocky Filipina woman named Florence Torres, wearing a big plastic gardenia pinned to a tight bun. Shiny dark eyes flashed as she checked the ID. “I thought you cops were done with that apartment.”
“Can you keep this conversation confidential?” Sophie subtly imitated the woman’s posture, her legs slightly spread and arms open, a way of helping create rapport she remembered from her Academy training. She waited until Florence, curiosity evident in her narrowed eyes, gave a brisk nod. “We’ve had some information that this kidnapping might not be a one time thing. So is there anything you can tell me about Takeda Industries, about how the apartments are rented, that might help us prevent another situation happening in your building?”
They were standing in the doorway of the manager’s office, and the woman gestured for Sophie to come in.
“Sit.” She shut the door and pointed to one of the plastic chairs positioned in front of a battered metal desk. “I saw the pictures of that little girl. So sad. And, as you may know, we have a kidnapping problem in the Philippines, too.”
“I’d heard that,” Sophie said.
“Well, I don’t want to be a part of anything like that. So, I’ll tell you I have some worries. But this can’t get back to me.” She pointed a stubby brown finger at Sophie, the petals of the gardenia in her bun quivering with suppressed emotion.
“Of course not.” Sophie hoped she didn’t have to call Torres in as a witness.
“Apartments on the fourteenth floor are kept open for short term rental. Last month, I got a call to hold the apartment the kidnapping took place in, as I told the other investigators. But what I didn’t tell the other investigators, was that this happens every four or five months. Always from the same number. I didn’t realize something bad was happening on that floor until now.” She dug in the desk, fished out a file labeled CASH TRANSACTIONS. “I run it through the usual billing, but I don’t get a name, and I don’t get anything but an envelope of cash stuck through the door.” She pointed to the slot.
“Didn’t you have concerns about this before?” Sophie asked.
“It’s a good job,” Torres said. “I want to keep it. The number is all I have to give you. But Takeda Industries, the parent company, is the one that directed me to keep all those apartments on that floor open, in case they need them.”
“Thanks. I hope it will be enough. And this will remain between us.” Sophie stood.
“I just don’t want to think of any other little children stuck in a closet. I hope that helps get whoever’s behind it—if it’s more than just the one time.”
Sophie looked down at the Post-it in her hand. “This is more than we’ve had to go on so far. Thank you. But I’m afraid it will just be a burner phone. Would you be willing to call me the next time one of the rooms is reserved?”
The woman pursed her lips, looked Sophie up and down. “Yes. Give me your direct number.”
Sophie handed her a card and handwrote her own cell number on it. “I will do my best to answer, day or night.”
Outside, the wind of early morning soft as a caress, Sophie checked the time. She had to get back to her apartment for an important online chat.
At her home workstation, Sophie set a trace to working on Torres’ phone number and logged into the chat room at 9:00 a.m. The old-fashioned blank screen of the DOS chat room field felt like stepping into a black room, blindfolded.
“I’m here,” she typed. Her screen name was MMA Fighter, one of her favorite monikers, not least because people usually assumed she was male and it was interesting to see how they reacted to her differently because of it.
The letters glowed green on the black background. Of course, she had a tracker program queued up for when the unsub arrived, but for a long moment the cursor pulsed gently and slowly, highlighting how alone she was.
She wondered if it would always be this way. Sophie, alone, reaching out with a little, tentative “I’m here.”
And no one responding.
The phone number for the possible kidnapper connection came back. NO REGISTERED USER. Of course it was a burner. She’d just have to hope Florence Torres called to tip her off the next time the apartment was used.
Depression she’d been beating back with the stress of the case and nonstop activity rolled over her in a fog. A sense of leaden heaviness filled her bones. The sludgy meaninglessness of it all rolled across her mind and slowed everything down to pointless effort.
Nothing good ever lasted. Alika, just a possibility of something wonderful, lay broken and unconscious for the fourth—or was it fifth—day. Her mother was in a psych hospital, suicidal. Her father’s safety was at risk because of her. Her program, probably confiscated, was doomed to be unused. She’d compromised her home and endangered Bureau assets and intel with her actions. But Sophie knew it wouldn’t have mattered if everything had been going great in her life right now.
The depression was there, some hereditary sickness of the brain, and it swamped her like quicksand whenever it wanted to.
Ginger glanced up from Sophie’s feet as if sensing something wrong. The lab sat up and whined, expressive brown eyes intent on Sophie’s face. She pawed at Sophie’s leg. Sophie couldn’t bring herself to touch the distressed animal.
It reminded her of so many days when she knelt by her mother’s low bedside with fragrant morning tea, and those huge, sad dark eyes just stared, and nothing she did could bring a response or a smile.
She’d finally come to understand her mother. Deep inside, she was afraid the void would pull her into darkness, too.
But she’d go down fighting. Literally. That was something different between them.
Sophie had called the office to let them know she was coming in a little later, and heard that Waxman had a team meeting to review the Security Solutions case scheduled for 10:30 a.m. She didn’t have much longer to sit around waiting in the chat room.
It was a good thing, too. She was in no mental shape for the acuity needed for this encounter.
“You there?” she typed. The question mark at the end of the sentence seemed to mock her, pulsing green in the black screen. It made her feel needy and vulnerable. She was angry that this unsub had hooked her emotions.
Another five minutes, then she would leave.
The depression was so bad she wanted to crawl to her bed and pull the covers up over
her head and disappear into that darkness, so much like the blank screen of the computer that stared at her now like a void she could fall into…and keep on falling.
“Sorry to be late. Delayed.” An answer appeared at the speed he was typing it, unspooling in green letters like a rope thrown to a drowning victim.
She focused with an effort and typed back.
“Thanks for responding. I don’t appreciate the cameras in my apartment. I asked for this chat to compare agendas and see if we can come to an agreement.”
A pause, then his answer blipped across her screen. “Sorry about the surveillance. I needed to stay ahead of what was catching up to me.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Security Solutions? I take it you’re with them.”
“You could say that.”
“That’s enigmatic.” Sophie tried the word, since it most closely matched her sense of this unsub.
“Amorphous. Inscrutable. A ghost in the machine.” He was showing off a little now, demonstrating his vocabulary. “All true.”
“I see your handle is Ghost. Is that what you are?”
“Among other things. I also make a mean omelet and love dogs.”
She smiled involuntarily. Was he flirting with her?
“I think you know I’m a dog lover, too. Hope Ginger didn’t lick you too much when you broke in.”
“She’s a sweet girl. Listen, you don’t have to worry about me being in your place. No hostile intent there. It was a one-time thing. Unless you invite me back.”
Sophie smiled again. The depression receded a tiny bit. This dialogue was stimulating.
“I can’t see any way that would ever be appropriate,” she typed. “Still, I have to give you credit. Not too many people in the world can beat me at this game and you found my place first.”
“That’s the part I like, too. It’s a game. No one gets hurt when I play but those who deserve it. And I can tell you’re close to finding where I tracked you from. I’m keeping an eye out for you—but I warn you, I won’t be easy to find.”