“Feeling okay,” Leonard said as he slid into his chair. “Still seeing lights here and there. I’ve got a thick skull. I’ll be fine.”
Hirsch reflexively adjusted the knot on his tie, then looked Leonard in the eye. “We’re going to pull the plug on the Lius.”
Leonard hadn’t even settled into his chair. “Already? It’s only been—what?—a couple of months now?”
Abrams said, “Sun’s abuse on Jiang has been increasing lately, for whatever reason.”
“Is it us? We’ve stayed away from her, haven’t we?”
Abrams threw his hands up and said, “Yeah, we’ve stayed totally away from her.”
“How’s she doing?” Leonard asked.
Hirsch looked at Abrams. “We only have what Min tells us, but not real great if she’s to be believed. Sun’s been beating her. We’ve gotten a few surveillance photos of her. The photos show some facial bruising, which supports Min’s claim. But, in a more general sense, Sun’s behavior has been more erratic lately. This is taking a toll on Jiang, particularly with his violent outbursts. Min is refusing any further cooperation. She’s demanding that we pull the plug now.”
“What kind of information have we been getting from Min?”
Abrams glanced at Hirsch. Hirsch said, “It’s been good information, Joe. It’s mostly been a mix of classified technical documents from Brooklyn Capital, but we believe most of the information Min is seeing is coming from a data collections and processing station in Hong Kong. It’s been a lot of miscellaneous imagery and other documents on Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines and other spots around Southeast Asia.”
Hirsch stopped for a moment, then glanced back at Abrams. Abrams said, “It’s been good, legit information, which has been in short supply for China as you know. So this isn’t an easy decision, but we are working on possibly bringing a couple of Min’s associates into the mix, and we feel it’s very important to treat Min and Jiang well and live up to our end of our agreement.”
“So, we’re picking the two of them up and transporting them out of China?”
Abrams nodded. “Yes, of course.”
“When?” Leonard asked.
“Later in the early morning hours tonight, tomorrow morning technically,” Abrams said.
“I want to be there,” Leonard said. “I’d like to see them off.”
“We figured you would,” Hirsch said. “We’re leaving from here at 3:00 a.m. China time. We’ll save a seat for you if you can make it.”
“I’ll be here.”
They sat in silence for a moment before Hirsch said, “After you see the Lius off, you’re going to be departing for Dubai.”
Leonard pointed toward himself. “You mean me?”
“Yes, I’m sending you to Dubai.”
“Why?”
“We have information that the Chinese are preparing to sell the data from Brooklyn Capital in Dubai.”
Leonard was incredulous. “And you want me to steal it back?”
Hirsch laughed softly. “No, we may need you to try and buy it back.”
“I don’t understand,” Leonard said. “Why would the Chinese sell it?”
Abrams said, “We don’t necessarily believe the Chinese state is the driving force behind the theft of the data. We think it’s more likely the primary culprit for the theft is a small syndicate of wealthy Chinese businessmen working with assistance from the Chinese government. However, be believe this syndicate has recently fractured ties with their government brethren, and it means to put the most sensitive information up for sale.”
Leonard said, “But what assurances could we possibly have that they won’t just turn around and sell it to someone again after we’ve already purchased it back? I assume it’s digital data and can be easily replicated.”
“We can’t,” Hirsch said. “But it may give us a better idea of the exact type of data that was stolen and the volume of information stolen.”
Leonard threw his hands in the air. “It’s your call. Always happy to be of service if you need me to.”
“Very well,’ Hirsch said. “Be here by 3:00 a.m. tonight. The details of the sale in Dubai are vague, and I’m not sure yet how long you’ll be there. So pack for an extended stay, possibly as long as eight or nine weeks. We’ll be on the road to the Lius home to pick them up by quarter after three.”
Southwest Connecticut
Friday, March 7, 2:47 a.m. EST
The ride in the Fiat was smooth as Lee sped northbound along I680, retracing her route up to Zhang’s lodge. As the sun had already set, the landscape along the route was limited to a series of shapeless forms appearing in gradations of purple, blue, and black. There was nothing there that could pull her attention from the commotion going on between her ears. She was beginning to think some of those voices she was hearing in her head were her own, as she had not spoken with any friends or family since the evening of the Ingenuity Ball. Her only communications with anyone other than Maliq Okoye had all been via social media, which was available to her without risking her location.
Her central concerns remained those concerning her alleged involvement with the Chinese intelligence apparatus. She had learned from an IM chat with Reynolds that the negotiations with the FBI were still at a standstill. She had recovered a handful of voicemails from both Agents Frank and Reardon imploring her to contact them, but Reynolds was adamant that she refrain from this. All of her leverage came from her knowledge of the various Chinese actors currently under scrutiny with the FBI. To voluntarily give up that information without written legal protections in place, according to Reynolds, would be a catastrophe. So she had reluctantly agreed to follow Reynolds’s counsel, and had not yet told them about her discovery of Zhang’s lodge.
Lee released herself for a few moments from her thoughts, allowing the low hum of the Fiat’s wheels on the pavement to soothe her. A series of oncoming vehicles sped by, their headlights temporarily lighting the interior of the Fiat before passing by into the night. The private recesses of her mind flickered in response and the warm, metallic sounds and rhythms of the tool and die facility manifested into Lee’s mind, infiltrated her senses. She saw images marked by darkness punctuated by small bits of light: a work lamp in a corner, pale light from a lantern on a corner adjacent to the warehouse, the glowing blue of the flame from the torch carried by Fang’s gangster friend. Pressing her body into a narrow space between two of the large ovens, still warm from the heat of the day’s work.
The Fiat careened over a crack in State Highway 202, which momentarily brought Lee back to the present. But as soon as the lights of Brookfield were behind her and the interior of the vehicle was plunged back into blackness, Lee’s thoughts strayed again to the factory. She recalled her terror as she sat squeezed between the ovens, her skin damp with perspiration. She had been frantic to find Jin. Where was Jin? She maneuvered herself so she could see over the ovens, a tricky and uncomfortable piece of acrobatics in her tight quarters, as she used the bottom of the sleeveless blouse she’d been wearing that day to wipe the perspiration from her stinging eyes. Now on her knees, she spied two of Fang’s murderous friends scaling the metal staircase to the second level. They were scanning the room, looking for Jin and his friends—those who were still alive, anyway. Nearly frozen with fear, she willed herself out of her hiding place and crawled along the ground floor parallel to the ovens that had been placed along the wall until she’d reached a bulky steel workbench. From there she had a view of the entire factory floor from the far end, away from the exit and entry points.
From this new vantage point, she saw through the dim light the hopelessness of their situation. She counted ten of Fang’s men making their way through the rows of workstations, searching for her and Jin and his cohorts. Abruptly, she heard the pop-pop of a revolver off to her left near the stairs where Fang’s guys had ascended, and a fraction of a second later the whole factory exploded into a hail of gunfire. Through an amorphous cloud of smoke drifting toward her, a
lithe young Chinese man with slicked back hair and a series of tattoos on his left arm, neck, and shoulder materialized as he came for her, chain in hand. She grasped a wrench from atop the workbench, bringing it down firmly in her right hand. She pleaded silently for him to re-direct himself, but these benignant incantations merely joined the echoes of the bullets in their angular, ineffectual journeys off the factory walls. Lee swung the wrench at the man’s lower leg, heard the faint sound as it struck bone and the leg gave way. The man’s chain passed over her head, denting a metal cabinet in the workbench. The man howled in pain. She sprinted away from him, into the waiting arms of another of Fang’s thugs.
She remembered nothing of the short walk through the haze to the center of the factory floor, as she believed with her whole being that she was walking to her execution. Jimmy Fang with his knife, locked in a death stare with his funeral mask. Buddha’s eyes. She wanted to say something, make a demand for Jin. But she was petrified and in shock, incapable of uttering a sound. Fang placed the tip of his blade at the corner of her right eye and began to move the blade down her face, along her cheek. With the adrenaline, she hadn’t even realized that the blade was cutting her. She said nothing as the knife continued down her face to her neck. The squeal of a still-distant police cruiser pierced the factory. A strange look crossed his face for three heartbeats; she counted them as her heart thumped against her chest. It was a look of empathy. Cultural empathy. It could not have been anything else, she felt. You and I are both Chinese in this place. In this brutal, urban milieu. For those three seconds, for reasons she would never know, Fang had been willing to place her on equal footing. It had been a confirmation of their common place within the cultural jungle and all of the struggles that this entailed. It was three seconds that saved her life.
A second police siren pierced the factory, snapping everything back into real-time. Fang brought the knife down, placed it in a sheath at his waist, and directed his cohorts elsewhere. A few minutes later, she found herself surrounded by three corpses and a phalanx of NYPD officers. None of the corpses had been Jin, who had slipped up the staircase and managed to survive the ordeal, as well. She was handcuffed and taken to a police cruiser and, eventually, to a hospital.
The Fiat deftly handled a crack in the road, as it passed over it with little more than a whisper. Her thoughts drifted from the old factory to Maliq Okoye’s den, where Okoye had sat in the dim light and revealed to her the abductions and that some of her colleagues had already been found murdered. You know everything we know, Frank had said. Though clearly she had not. And now their trust had been broken, as far as Lee was concerned, and that was the second main reason why she had not yet forwarded her information on Zhang.
Lee had to take it slow, despite the fact she’d discovered a trail that seemed to lead in the general direction of Zhang’s compound. It was dark; however, the scarcity of leaves was allowing the residual light from the neighboring towns and the moonlight to filter down, as she was able to navigate the trail without the aid of any other lights. She had followed the trail in a winding pattern, which led downhill from a narrow dirt road that, itself, intersected with Highway 37 where she had parked the Fiat. After another couple of minutes in a deliberately slow, downhill hike, she could see a light on a building through the crooked branches of a collection of cedar, birch, dogwood, and sugar maple trees spread along the flattening slope. A few more strides and she was at a clearing where the smaller of the two structures comprising Zhang’s compound was located.
Keeping herself hidden behind a maple tree, Lee pulled her smart phone from her nylon running jacket. For the occasion, she’d decided to layer tight-fitting athletic clothing, which gave her some warmth while maintaining ease of movement. She stood in place for a few more minutes, examining the building closely for any sign of activity. Though the exterior lights were on, the interior was black and she could detect no movement at all either inside or around the exterior of the structure. Standing in place, her hands became cold and she shoved them into the pockets of her jacket. Layered as her clothes were, if she did not get inside soon she was going to have to get back to the Fiat for warmth. She made her final decision and proceeded carefully out from the cover of the maple tree toward the building.
This building, the smaller of the two that had been visible from Highway 37 the day prior, was a cozy, single-story cabin nestled into a slight valley to the southwest of the main building, which was a mansion by comparison. As Lee approached, she took a path out of view of anyone who might be peering through the lone window on the west-facing side. Any fear of being discovered dissolved, however, as she peered into the still blackness of the interior of the cabin. She circumnavigated the structure as stealthily as she could, noting the lights of the main structure off to the northeast. Though her view was obstructed by trees, she estimated it was a distance of two hundred feet or so to the main building from where she stood. She tried opening the back door on the south-facing wall, then also the front door on the north side. As she had expected, both were locked.
When she had completed the 360 degrees around the cabin, she pulled a spray can from a pack on her back which contained a few items Kep and she had thought may be useful. She sprayed the window with the contents of the canister until it was coated with a thick, even layer. A few seconds later, the contents had hardened into a flexible resin. Lee pulled a small hammer from a loop in her pack, and struck the glass in the window lightly in the very center. The window cracked into multiple pieces, but the resin held them together. Lee gently hammered around the perimeter of the window, and pulled the entire glass window and resin out in one piece with hardly a sound.
With some difficulty, she lifted herself up to and through the window head first. She landed awkwardly on a wooden floor inside the cabin. As she gathered herself, she flashed the light from her phone around the room. She was in a hurry and, since the first part of her unlawful sojourn was tightly planned, she initiated an intense search for lighting. She was rewarded almost immediately with a light switch next to the door on the south-facing wall. She hesitated before flipping the switch and decided to pull down the shades on the windows first. She pulled the shade over the window of the south door then, as she crossed to the front door, she tripped on something metallic and nearly fell headlong onto the floor. She found that the metallic sound was from an aluminum handle on a wooden door that had been built in to the floor.
Ignoring the trap door for the moment, Lee finished shutting the drapes on the remaining windows, then flipped on the main lights from another switch next to the front door on the north-facing wall. The main lights, though an improvement, still seemed quite dim to Lee. She could now, at least, see the entirety of the room, though there was little to see: a cloth recliner and foot rest with a reading light overhead, a black armoire, a safe, a miniature refrigerator, a black wooden desk with a computer and dual monitor. There was an unused brick fireplace between the recliner and the armoire, and even a rotary dial phone on a stone ledge above the fireplace.
Lee turned the main lights off and went straight to the computer, where she flipped on a small desk lamp. For protection, Lee pulled a small knife from her bag and laid it on the desk. The computer was already booted up, but it was password protected. The keyboard was a combination of English and Chinese, so the keys were labeled with both English and Mandarin characters.
In this relative darkness, she dialed a number on her phone, which Keplar Wang answered.
“I’m inside,” Lee said. “I’m sitting at a desk with a computer. I’m going to need the password cracker.”
Wang spent the next thirty minutes talking her through how to create a bootable flash drive on the computer from whence they could run the password cracker. It took some time as they had to troubleshoot to figure out what kind of operating system they were dealing with. Eventually, they determined that it was a Chinese open-source system, a system Wang was only vaguely familiar with, but one that his hacker friend in C
hina, Qi Luo, knew quite well. They’d patched him in to the conversation from Beijing to help them.
Qi Luo said, “It would help if we had a hint of some kind. Lyn, have you run across anything near you that might resemble a password? Anything at all?”
She made a cursory search of the desk and did find a small notepad with some random Chinese expressions written on it with a pen. She relayed these expressions to Qi, who then helped her set these as priority search expressions within the password cracker software.
A short while later, they’d installed the password cracker. While they waited for the cracker to work its magic, Lee kept Wang and Qi on standby as she searched the room more thoroughly.
She went first to the trap door that had been built in to the floor. She reached for the aluminum handle and pulled. The heaviness of the door forced her to use both hands, but she managed to wrestle it open, fold it over on its hinges, and lay it down on the floor. She peered into the opening and found a small room with five computer monitors resting on a gray metallic bench extending around the perimeter. A single black office chair on wheels with thick black cushioning had been strategically placed in the middle. She descended a ladder down into the subterranean chamber, which was lit by a series of horizontal lights that followed the bench around the perimeter of the room. Each of the five computer monitors was black. Though they were powered up, there wasn’t any information feeding into them.
She noted also a few packs of Chinese-manufactured cigarettes. In the corner, also resting forlornly on the bench, was a small radio, a stack of Chinese-language books, a newspaper written in Mandarin from the Chinese city of Chongqing, a pair of speakers, and an electric fan.
She ascended the ladder to search the remainder of the cabin. She found that the safe was locked, but the armoire was not. Its tinted glass doors parted, revealing five semiautomatic rifles, two pistols, and multiple boxes of ammunition on the bottom. She also discovered another closet she had not previously noticed. It was during a search of this closet that she began to hear a steady beeping from the computer.
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