Rose pulled up some more of the attachments. There were a handful more photos of Lee and her companion in the bank, followed by a series of bank documents. After zooming in to better read the detail, he surmised they were confirmation receipts for deposits wired into an account at a Brooklyn credit union owned by Lee. They were relatively large amounts, some running in the thousands of dollars. They’d originated from banks in China and Hong Kong.
He sighed heavily and sat back in his chair, running a hand through his hair, disbelieving. He grabbed the receiver on his phone and dialed Zeilinsky’s number. Zeilinsky confirmed where the photos had been retrieved from, and Rose ordered him to have the photos and receipts sent to the lab to verify their authenticity as soon as possible. Had she been working with the Chinese in some capacity prior to when they’d approached her? It had seemed almost too convenient when Xiang had asked her out. Was that done intentionally to allow the Chinese to deceive the FBI through Lee?
Rose was in the process of dialing Lorren’s direct line when his smart phone rang. Rose sighed deeply and pressed it against his ear.
“Rose here.”
“John, this is Benny.”
“Hey, Benny. What’ve you got?”
“Just got word from the NYPD about another body related to the Brooklyn Capital case. It’s Rochelle Honeycutt this time. Passer-by found her body in a park up in the Bronx earlier this evening.”
Rose sighed heavily again. Honeycutt was the one they’d linked to the location at Pell and Grant. To know Honeycutt’s body had now been found elsewhere was a blow to Rose.
Cardenas said, “You okay, John? You sound tired.”
“Been a long week, Benny. Can you handle it? I need to go home for a while and get some shut-eye.”
“Certainly. I’m headed over there now. I’ll update you tomorrow morning.”
Rose disconnected from Cardenas and was about to speed dial Lorren’s number when the smart phone buzzed again, and he damn near hurled the phone against his office wall. He counted to five to calm himself and connected the call.
“Rose here.”
“John, it’s Milt. Might have a lead, albeit an unusual one and a real long shot.”
“Spill it, Milt.”
“Our surveillance technicians have continued to monitor the info coming from the Empress, the boat docked in the harbor. Haven’t gotten anything actionable yet, but one of the technicians has been noticing something peculiar in the Brooklyn data set.”
“Go on.”
“The peculiarity, to be specific, is a certain Mandarin phrase that means something analogous to “the deity.”
“Come again?”
“Terry Phong, the analyst who discovered this, thinks that “the deity” is a person. More specifically, a person who may be responsible for much of either the planning or financing of these abductions, or both.”
“Can you explain a little more the circumstances and reasoning behind this?”
“Phong has been personally translating all of the information coming from the Empress. Most of the information seems to be related to the back end of the operation. It consists of multiple different data types, including names, numbers, and various kinds of tables and charts. The names revealed in this information don’t seem to be people who are in the U.S. at this time, at least not legally. Certainly, none of the names match anyone on Brooklyn Capital’s employee list. Aside from the first four that we’ve already located and placed surveillance on, we haven’t yet been able to ID any of them. Some of the tables appear to be financial in nature—lists of expenditures. Others appear to be timetables. But it’s this “deity” phrase that stood out. At least, it did to Phong. So Phong speculated that maybe this “deity” person isn’t part of the Chinese state apparatus. Maybe he’s a citizen of China, but not part of the formal C.C.P. apparatus.”
Rose said, “You’re implying that these abductions aren’t being run and financed by the Chinese government?”
“That’s the implication, yes. Or, at the least, not solely by the government. Maybe the government is the lead and they’re getting assistance from a wealthy citizen, or a host of them.”
“Go on,” Rose said.
“So Phong ran with the hypothesis that maybe “the deity” is an ultra-wealthy Chinese businessman. He wondered how someone like that might spend his or her free time. In particular, he wondered if maybe this individual might frequent any elitist social websites. So, he borrowed a web spider from a friend of his and used it on a slew of these online sites. And, it turns out, there were a couple of hits. Someone using the “deity” handle had made posts to an online social club called Q1-CN.”
“How does this social club work?”
“It targets members of the Chinese upper middle class on up to the ultra-wealthy. The website states that a person isn’t eligible to join until five of his or her friends are members. For those who are members, there are three status levels: silver, gold, and platinum. Apparently, it’s fairly common for China’s wealthy elite to use these sorts of sites.”
“What was contained in the posts?”
“The posts were over two years old and very generic in nature. They were just random remarks. Something along the lines of an enquiry as to how to use portions of the website’s functionality.”
“It’s an interesting hypothesis, Milt. How do you suggest we proceed from here?”
“I took the liberty of running the “deity” moniker through the FBI database and there was a hit. It turned up as part of an investigation into a suspected immigrant-smuggling operation being run from parts of southeast China, through L.A., and into New York.”
Rose thought in silence for a few moments before Reardon continued. “It’s a long shot, but I think it’s worth looking into further.”
“I’d agree. I’ll try and track down the lead agents on that smuggling case and I’ll follow up with the NYPD as well. Very nice work, Milt.”
“Thank you. It was this analyst named Phong who did all the work, though. He deserves the credit.”
“Duly noted. I’ll get back to you about all of this. Gotta call Lorren.”
“Later, John.”
Rose took a deep breath. He was glad he had fielded the call. It was the first bit of good news all day, or all week for that matter.
New York City
Sunday, February 22, 12:43 a.m. EST
Even the silvery moon, which occasionally peeked through the naked black branches above, appeared icy cold. A front had moved in earlier, and the breaths of the few pedestrians Paul Lanthier had seen en route from the Brooklyn Capital building into Long Island had escaped in plumes of white condensation. Lanthier momentarily studied the relative light and dark surfaces of the moon as it appeared briefly from behind a cloud. The winter chill seemed to seep into his mindset as he fancied the moon’s surface as a sheet of ice, the dark and lights surfaces matching those of the ice on the small lakes he’d skated around on many years ago in upstate New York. Old memories of his times as a child spent playing hockey seeped into his brain.
He reached to the air dial on the dash of his SUV and turned the heat setting up a notch, from seven to eight. The intermittent dashes of the lane markings along I-495 crept into and then out of his vision until he came upon the turnoff onto Caleb’s Path, a two-lane road running southbound into Islip. He suddenly remembered his cell phone in his coat pocket, which he’d turned off before the dance. He reached back, pulled it out, and turned it back on. He continued southbound on Caleb’s Path as the phone powered up. A couple of minutes later, he maneuvered off of Caleb’s Path and onto southbound State Highway 111. He was entering into Islip as he pulled his text messages up. He had only one new text. It was from Amelie. It read: a#!_dont co*me.
Lanthier frowned. Don’t come? What on earth did that mean? Lanthier pressed the accelerator. There had been rumors at work of a series of abductions of Brooklyn Venture Capital employees. Though he believed them to be unfounded, the rumors had only
grown more persistent over the past few days. He couldn’t bring himself to believe that anything might happen to him or to Amelie. Nothing that would threaten their quiet abode in Islip, not far from the Atlantic Ocean. Still, the message was bizarre. He sped the SUV up as it continued southbound along Highway 111. He proceeded on 111 until he reached Highway 27A where he turned eastbound for a little while before turning south again on St. Mark’s Lane.
It seemed an eternity before Lanthier finally turned off of St. Mark’s onto the narrow drive leading to their isolated French colonial home. He settled the SUV at the end of the drive, next to the house. He reached to the back seat, grabbed the carrying case with his sax inside, and walked quickly to his house. He bounded up a set of wooden stairs onto the roofed porch, which traced around three sides of the house. He unlocked the door, entering into the dining room.
The layout of the ground-level floor was very open, and he had sight lines from where he stood into both the kitchen and living room. However, the lights had been dimmed and the furniture and piano in the living room appeared as shapeless brown forms. Amelie, who should’ve been resting on the sofa as she always did while he was away, was nowhere to be seen.
Lanthier called out, “Mel! You here?”
Silhouettes of men began to appear, set against the light coming through the window from the front porch. A gloved hand reached in and turned a small knob on the kitchen wall. The lights illuminated, and Lanthier found himself in the company of five Asian men: two in front of him, two behind him, and one who had just come down from the stairs leading up to the second floor. The men from behind, Lanthier thought, must’ve come around from the opposite side of the house.
Lanthier said, “Where’s my wife?”
The man who’d adjusted the light answered. “She’s safe. But you’re coming with us.”
Lanthier thought through his options, but he had none. All five of the men were brandishing pistols. Lanthier had only enough time to glance at the piano in the living room, where Amelie loved to play, before the men cuffed him and led him back out of the house. A bitter thought flashed into his brain as he was led to an SUV that had been parked along St. Mark’s Lane: that he would never see her alive again.
Beijing, China
Tuesday, February 25, 3:43 p.m. CST
Joe Leonard pressed on the accelerator and felt the cycle scoot southbound along a cycle trail south of Mingguang Bridge along Beilishi Road, a side road running parallel to the eastern flank of the 2nd Ring Road. He swore under his breath as he swerved the cycle around a trio of pedestrians on foot. There were times, such as now, when Leonard preferred the presence of the infamous Beijing smog. The thicker, the better. It made it almost impossible for Sun’s surveillance men to keep track of him for any length of time.
He glanced again to his rear, where two young men on electric cycles similar to his own were following behind. He’d left work at Ricardo’s early and had begun a counter-surveillance run. He was to meet with one of his regular agents, a young sailor in the Chinese navy. The sailor was only in Beijing sporadically during times when his ship had returned from sea, so it was especially important that Leonard make the meeting. The two men trailing him were, however, proving to be much more difficult than usual to evade.
An intersection appeared where the trail split in two. Leonard accelerated again as he steered the cycle to his left, into the eastbound lane. A few minutes later, he slowed the cycle, resigned to having to lose the men on foot. Leonard spotted the two men in his peripheral vision as he locked his cycle in a rack in Bahai Park in central Beijing. As he started on foot, he caught a glimpse of a small sailboat floating next to a dock along a small lake on the old imperial grounds, which included the Forbidden City.
Leonard walked at a quick pace eastbound across a bridge on Wenjin Street, which took him to the east side of the lake. He then turned south onto Nanchang Street, walking quickly along the western wall of the Forbidden City. He was two-thirds of the way to the south end of the ancient fortress when he spied a third young man, who was in street clothes and talking on a radio, materialize from behind a tree along the drive. As he maneuvered eastbound along the front of the Forbidden City, he turned northbound and risked a quick glance to the west where he saw not three, but now four men trailing him. Leonard was beginning to feel resigned that he was going to have to miss his meeting with the sailor. Maybe I can lose them in the Forbidden City, Leonard thought. It would be a last ditch effort. Leonard sped up, passing a small cluster of tourists to his right, making his way to Meridian Gate, the front entrance to the Forbidden City.
By chance, Leonard had already purchased a ticket several days prior, as he’d planned on meeting another agent of his there in a week’s time. A few minutes later, he entered into the interior of the ancient city and began walking very quickly in a haphazard pattern between the various pagodas within the city walls.
Leonard was virtually certain he’d lost his surveillance “friends” as he approached the imperial garden, located about two-thirds of the way in. He was walking quickly through the gardens, a cluster of spectacular pagodas mixed in with layers of trees and shrubbery, when a middle-aged man dressed in winter clothes flashed in front of him, grabbing his waist. He wrestled with the man for a few brief seconds before, suddenly, he felt a dull but intense pain in his head. Simultaneously, a bright light flashed in his eyes and his mouth tasted foul. Everything seemed to go in slow motion. The ground rushed up at him, and he thought his head had smacked the ground but, oddly, he didn’t feel any pain. Appearing upside down in his field of vision, a woman and a young child stood near a manicured bush, staring at him, a look of shock on the woman’s face.
One of his attackers materialized in front of him. He was saying something and gesturing at him wildly. He wasn’t as much hearing the man, as he was reading his lips. “Stay away from Jiang Liu,” he was saying.
He was blacking out, but he was vaguely aware that his body was being pummeled. He was able to roll himself face up, and he momentarily saw a third and fourth man hovering above him, kicking him. One kick connected hard and at the right place in his groin and his breath left him. He gagged reflexively as the pummeling continued. He had a final thought as a man grabbed the terrified woman and the girl and was forcing them to turn away. What’s boss going to think about this? Then he lost consciousness.
Part III
Buddha’s Eyes
Chapter 29
Brooklyn, New York
Wednesday, February 26, 6:17 p.m. EST
Lyn Lee sat Indian style in near darkness with her laptop propped up on a short wooden stool in front of her. The darkness was punctuated only by flashes of the multicolored light on her computer screen as her digital excursions took her rapidly across an array of miscellaneous websites, a subset of which were law related. The only other light in the disk-shaped alcove in which she sat came from moonlight streaming in through a circular, convex skylight above her. The illumination was just enough to reveal the contours of African pieces that had been placed around the perimeter of the little room, which curved around her in a circle with a diameter of twelve feet or so. It was just enough space for her to fit a sleeping bag, a pillow, and her laptop. A hand-carved oaken chest was big enough to fit a modicum of clothes and accessories, toiletries, and other odds and ends. A lamp with a dark brown hand-carved base and tan-colored cloth shade served as her primary light source, but she had it turned off presently. When she really needed to concentrate, she preferred working in the dark.
The gradations in light from Lee’s laptop changed rapidly as Lee’s fingers flew through a series of applications and websites. For the past couple of hours, she’d been engaged in a search for legal information. Thus far, her search contained keywords and phrases such as treason, Espionage Act U.S. Code Section 793, Diplomatic Relations Act, and Title 18 U.S. Code Chapter 115. She found herself keenly interested in the latter, which stated, to her great distress, that “…whoever, owing allegia
nce to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies…is guilty of treason and shall suffer death or shall be imprisoned not less than five years…”
She knew very little about U.S. law, but she knew enough to know that convictions often boiled down to a matter of interpretation given a set of circumstances. She’d spent a lot of time in her research, but she hadn’t approached being able to make conclusions at all regarding her present situation. As yet, she didn’t have access to decent legal representation and, until she did, she was determined not to fret about the whole subject. Having reached this conclusion, she’d decided to re-focus her efforts on other matters.
She re-visited a webpage that contained a cartoonish black-and-white depiction of a thin man with spiked hair, an earring in his left ear, and outrageously oversized horn-rimmed glasses. The drawing on the website was digital, but the black-and-white image appeared to have been originally sketched with a pencil or done with a piece of software that allowed for the same effect. Underneath the sketch were two fields for typing in a login ID and password.
Lee hadn’t visited this website in many years, but she was trying to re-establish contact with Pan-Ik, and this was her best chance at it. The website was the login for a server that had long been abandoned by the computer science department at a small liberal arts college in the northeastern U.S. Due to the expansive reputation of one of the college’s ex-students within the hacker community, and an unlikely convergence of events, the server had become the online home for a community of elite hackers. Pan-Ik had been one of those hackers. There had been a period of time, many years ago, when Lee, with Pan-Ik’s encouragement, had become interested in hacking. Pan-Ik had showed her the ropes and even helped her gain access to the server where she’d downloaded a few hacker tools. It had been a long time since she’d last logged in, however, and she was having difficulty remembering her password. Of all her activity since she’d prematurely left the Ingenuity Ball, she’d spent more time trying to re-enter the website than anything else.
The Thought Cathedral Page 36