Choke Point

by Ridley Pearson

“If you’d wanted to solve crimes, you’d have been a cop, not a reporter. You can’t have it both ways.”

  “Of course I can. What is it you think an investigative reporter does? If we don’t follow an investigation, we cause one.”

  “Your niece again.”

  “It’s what I do. I shine a light where there is none.”

  Knox has spoken before he thought it through, and regrets doing so. “So we’re supposed to find Berna and bring her home. But we don’t happen to know where home is. We don’t know where she is. That’s biting off a big chunk.”

  “I don’t define the outcome. I pursue a story, or a series, to where it leads. That pursuit is not yet concluded. The more intimidation, the more inclined I am to believe I’m closer to the truth. It’s really that simple.”

  It’s about the money for Knox—Tommy’s endowment, a way to keep him independent. He’s going to need millions; he had barely started before the embezzlement. Now . . . he admires such altruism, but is too pragmatic to dwell on it. He has finished the tea. He reaches to return the mug to the holder. Sonia helps guide his hand, and makes eye contact as she touches him.

  “Stay,” she says. “I won’t sleep with a man until he owns my heart, but in India we know a thing or two about pleasure.”

  “In Detroit, too,” he says. He shouldn’t have looked into her eyes, not if he’d wanted to keep this uncomplicated. Her eyes have been his downfall since they first met.

  —

  “THIS NEEDN’T COMPLICATE THINGS,” he says, studying the grain in the cabin’s dark-paneled ceiling.

  “Of course it will,” she says, rolling onto her side and staring at his profile. “It already has.”

  “There’s something I want you to consider.”

  “The answer is no.”

  “They clearly have a long reach.”

  “They have killed one source, assaulted others, attempted to intimidate me—”

  “Kill you.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “We’re outnumbered.”

  “This is my cause, not yours. Let’s call this,” she says, laying her warm hand between his legs, “our parting gift.”

  “You’ve made it mine,” he says. “You gave them names.”

  She removes her hand. “They have names.”

  “Take a couple weeks away from here. Let it cool down.”

  “There are two different groups of girls in there, John. Those like Maja—day workers whose own families condone the labor. Then there are the Bernas. Some of them chained. None well fed, nor looked after. Who knows what happens to them?”

  “You can’t bring her back.”

  She rolls away from him. “Get out of my bed!”

  Knox sits up. Pulls on his jeans and gathers the rest of his clothes. He stands too quickly, banging his head on the ceiling.

  She rolls back, pulling the sheet across her.

  They meet eyes in the faint light of a spreading dawn. He looks away quickly, a reflex as he feels the power she now possesses.

  Grace listens to the voice mail forwarded by Knox for the third time. Chief Inspector Brower’s voice is calm and deliberate as he explains. The Special Investigative Services division of the KLPD has determined that two thousand euros used to purchase the radio-triggering device in the EU delegate car bombing is traceable to a single bank branch. It is information he is not supposed to possess, and therefore cannot act upon. The KLPD is itself unlikely to act, as the discovery surfaced as an unintended consequence of an ongoing investigation of its own, having nothing to do with the EU car bombing. The situation leaves the police and the KLPD in a bureaucratic tangle and has led to Brower’s sharing the information with Knox and Dulwich. The euros were withdrawn as cash and paid out to the man who built the trigger for the car bomb, providing a possible trail to the person who ordered the bombing—the person behind the knot shop.

  After her third listen, Grace stares pensively from the back window of a different Mercedes than the one she rode in the day before. Dulwich begins his day by renting a new vehicle, limiting the chance of a bombing. He has settled into his role as driver, looking comfortable behind the wheel, talking back to his Dutch-speaking GPS, and cursing the other drivers.

  Grace is asked for her take on the message. Dulwich has listened only once.

  “With the help of the Hong Kong office, we have a fair chance of breaching the bank’s firewalls. It should not be difficult to determine cash withdrawals in amounts over two thousand euros in a given time frame. My guess is it will not be a terribly long list given that it is a particular branch.”

  “It will be a shell corporation.”

  “Perhaps. If they are in fact that sophisticated. It is possible, certainly. But you are overlooking the obvious. Whoever is running the knot shop will not use banks. Safe-deposit boxes possibly. But far more likely a private safe in a home or office.”

  “So this is useless information? To hell with that. We must be able to use it somehow.”

  “These people are not stupid. But their customers? More likely, this cash was paid to the shop. A withdrawal was made to cover the purchase of some rugs or drugs or whatever else it is they sell. That money was passed along to the knot shop and locked up in a safe. When it came time to pay off the bomb maker . . .” She doesn’t finish the sentence.

  “It’s not the knot shop’s money, but a customer’s.” Dulwich stops the car at a red light, throws his arm across the backseat as he turns to face her. “We identify the customer, have a little chat, and we’re noses to the ground on our way to the shop.”

  “I identify the customer,” she says, correcting him. “Knox performs the interrogation. More than likely the money leads to a middleman or agent. But we are closer, yes.”

  “Don’t get all bitchy on me. It doesn’t suit you. We’re saying the same thing, and you know it.”

  “It is late in Hong Kong. I will need to speak to Dr. Yamaguchi or Mr. Kamat.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “I will require high-speed Internet access. Not this café or hotel bandwidth. A legal firm, an investment firm. Something with some muscle.”

  “Understood.”

  “The light is green.”

  Dulwich drives more slowly than just a few minutes earlier. “I’ll make some calls.”

  “As for tonight,” Grace says, “they may be expecting me.”

  “I can arrange for a runner.”

  “Please.”

  The GPS speaks again. Dulwich consults the screen. “Two hundred meters. Keep the phone in your boot and the call open.”

  “Make certain you are seen. But not your leg.”

  “The trouble with Chinese is they speak too bluntly. You need to work on that.”

  “If you want an American, hire one.”

  The Mercedes slows and pulls to the curb. Identical four-story brick buildings populate every block in every direction. Only the street signs and bicycles and parked vehicles break the similarities. A blue and white real estate sign is taped to the inside of a vacant storefront window. To the right of the empty shop lies an antique toy train store; to the left, insurance.

  The real estate agent awaiting Grace is in her late forties, wide of girth and heavy of bosom. She’s dressed in solid color wools. Her lipstick attempts to hide the purse-string wrinkles that have overtaken her mouth. They speak Dutch.

  “I will wait!” Dulwich calls out, also in Dutch. He’s a formidable specimen at any distance. The Mercedes looks suddenly smaller to both women.

  Grace dismisses him with a wave of the hand. She has slipped the iPhone into her right boot where it’s wedged between calf muscle and black leather. Dulwich will monitor the conversation as well as Grace’s location in case there’s an attempt to abduct her. The kind of space she has requested could raise some eyebrows. At least, she and Dulwich are hoping so.

  Graces walks to the center of the shop. A counter sticks out from the wall two-thirds deep into the
space. She goes through the motions of inspection, then asks if there’s cellar storage. She’s led down to an open common space into which storage cases have been installed. Like everything Dutch, the space is clean and tidy. It runs against Grace’s Chinese heritage.

  “I will be honest with you,” Grace says. “I am looking for something . . . it need not be so upmarket as this. I must not have explained myself. You might call it . . . artist space. A loft will not do because I must have quiet. Cellar space would be ideal. Four to five hundred square meters. Street access, but it cannot be a busy street with difficult parking.”

  “Galleries and boutiques are moving into this neighborhood. It is why I thought of you.”

  “My needs are strictly work space. Not retail. I have a . . . a start-up in mind. You know the women in India who make useful art from plastic bags? Eco-art? It is along those lines.”

  “Light industrial.”

  “Emphasis on light. It must be fairly close to town, but in a more residential neighborhood. A place with schools and housing.”

  “An old paint shop or garage. Furniture store.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “But on a quiet street,” the realtor says, reminding Grace of her own requirement.

  “Yes. Perhaps you could pull up some comparison leases or rentals? Maybe that would give us a lead.” Grace has reached the crux of the matter. “Rentals or leases made within the past twenty-four months.”

  The realtor nods contemplatively. “Yes. I am happy to do so.”

  “We could do this now?” Grace asks. “At your agency?”

  “My pleasure.” The agent fishes out a business card and hands it to Grace. “For your driver.”

  “Thank you.” For now, no attempts to kidnap or assault. The return to a civilized meeting feels foreign to Grace. The iPhone is getting hot against her calf. “Perhaps we could let other agents know as well.”

  “Yes, of course. I made some calls initially, but I can expand upon that now that I have your needs more fully in mind.”

  “I’m in something of a hurry,” Grace says. “Money is an issue, of course, but more than anything, I do not want someone beating me to the marketplace. First to the baker gets the freshest loaf.”

  “And the warmest,” the agent counters, leaving Grace to wonder if she means anything threatening by it.

  —

  DULWICH FINDS a pooled office rental; one of six stand-alone offices, rented by the day, week or month, that share a conference room, printers, copiers and faxes, and a receptionist to run them. The Internet access is fiber-optic.

  He, Grace and Knox meet there the following morning, with Knox in charge of runs to the kitchenette for coffee and tea orders. Dulwich has been awake since two when the Rutherford Risk offices opened in Hong Kong. Knox has been up most of the night on the canal boat.

  There’s little conversation as Grace goes about her work. Knox dozes. Dulwich answers e-mails. The office is warm. Dulwich opens a window to the sounds of a city waking up. Grace has been supplied a VPN address, user name and password by the IT boys in Hong Kong. If she hadn’t studied and trained under Kamat and Yamaguchi, she might have doubted the data would allow her access into the bank’s network, but the two are like magicians and she the adoring apprentice. Yamaguchi’s head currently occupies a video window in the corner of her screen. A Bluetooth headset adheres to her right earlobe like a piece of ugly jewelry. Overhearing the one-sided conversation, Knox has to stifle his chuckles that bubble up from ignorance; she’s speaking the utterly indecipherable language of computers.

  She puts Yamaguchi on hold to address Dulwich and Knox. “Only once I am in will we know if it will hold. If the system detects this as an attack, it will shut me out.”

  “I thought I gave you everything you need,” Dulwich says.

  “Yes. But Dr. Yamaguchi cautions me of the Ziegler Protocol—some institutional security maps a user’s most commonly accessed pages as well as the hierarchy route adopted to access those pages. Think of accessing The New York Times online. One person might go directly to Sports from the home page; another might first scroll the entire page reading headlines and then go to Sports. Those slight differences define us as users. Dr. Yamaguchi suggests I take my time getting to recent cash withdrawals. The deeper I am in the system, the more complex it is to compare this visit to others.”

  “So? What’s the problem?” Dulwich complains.

  “The longer I am online inside the server, the more time we give the Ziegler Protocol to work.”

  “Catch-22,” Knox says.

  “Exactly so. We must make a choice—collectively. It cannot be mine alone. If we are locked out, Dr. Yamaguchi believes it could be three to five business days before he can regain access for us.”

  “Shit.” Dulwich pulls the window shut. It’s too noisy for him.

  “Yamaguchi got us in,” Knox says. “I think we ought to listen to him.”

  “If you go directly to cash withdrawals, how long to download that data?”

  She shakes her head. “Not long, given that we are not looking back so very far. At these speeds, the download itself is a nonissue, which was the point of getting this kind of bandwidth in the first place.”

  “Give me a time, Grace.”

  “Under five minutes.”

  “And this protocol? How fast—”

  “Instantaneous.” Grace allows that to sink in. “Dr. Yamaguchi suggests looking at the company’s current stock price first—the information of the most interest to executives. It will be on the home page, so he suggests I stay there for at least twenty seconds. This user account we are borrowing belongs to an investment banker. Dr. Yamaguchi has assembled a list of eight landing pages that are the most commonly accessed on the network. Once we are past those eight, he believes we can make a run at the cash withdrawals. Even then, we will have to be fast. If this particular user has never accessed such data, it will generate a red flag that could result in session termination. On the other hand, the protocol may simply add the address to this user’s library.”

  “Including the download?” Knox says.

  “We will not know until we try. I have a screen capture program running. We will have a visual history of every page I saw.”

  Dulwich looks over to Knox for advice.

  “One shot?” Knox inquires of Grace, who nods. “I’m with Yamaguchi, but it’s your call, Sarge.”

  “Very well,” Dulwich says, coming out of his chair. “We take our time.”

  Knox comes around as well, shoulder to shoulder with Dulwich behind Grace.

  “Dr. Yamaguchi says hello,” she informs them.

  Knox feels stupid as he waves.

  Grace’s fingers are fluid on the keyboard. She doesn’t stab or punch. It looks more like she’s casting a spell than typing. The home page appears.

  “I am in,” Grace says.

  Yamaguchi is watching a mirrored image of Grace’s laptop. He speaks to her, but Knox can’t hear. Grace opens a small window in the lower corner that shows a stopwatch timer. At :25 she waves over the keyboard and another page appears. She resets the stopwatch. At :15 she navigates to a fresh page. She checks the price of two traded stocks and moves on. Forty seconds are spent on that page.

  Dulwich is sweating. He should have left the window open. Knox sips coffee. Office brew. He could never work in an office, a fact that won’t make any headlines. Watching Grace operate is fascinating—her accountant-minded precision, her adherence to a plan. Seeing this, he better understands Dulwich’s pairing of them. They are pinecone weights on a cuckoo clock, juxtaposed but working in concert. She is surreally even-tempered and made for such work. Yamaguchi’s mouth never stops moving as he speaks into her ear; Dulwich leans close enough that she can feel his breath on her neck. Grace robotically drills down into the site, page by page, resetting and restarting the timer to where Knox finds himself watching only the countdowns. He finishes the coffee, takes a three-point shot at the tra
sh can by the door and sinks it. The noise stands Dulwich up like a gun was fired, but Grace—dear Grace—never so much as flinches.

  “Okay, we’re in,” she announces. “Sorting by amount of deposit.”

  The column is longer than she told them it would be. At the top are amounts in excess of twenty thousand euros. She scrolls down through the high teens to the low teens on her way to four digit withdrawals. She is too good at what she does. The column blurs on her way to amounts hovering at two thousand euros.

  “Too fast,” Knox says. “I can’t read them.”

  “Dr. Yamaguchi . . .” Grace says. “Security spiders . . .”

  “We’re busted?” Dulwich injects.

  Grace navigates to the bottom of the page, where a blue-highlighted radio button reads: Download Data. She double-taps the track pad and a second window opens; she clicks Save File.

  Behind the pop-up window the server page posts a red-letter warning that this is Questionable Access. It’s followed by a yellow exclamation point and the triangular caution signs used for vehicles in the breakdown lane.

  Grace yanks the PCMCIA card from the laptop, causing a second warning sign on the screen.

  She turns to Dulwich. “I will need an external drive. Possibly a new laptop. Today. As quickly as possible. They will have back-doored my laptop. By now they know we’re in this building, this office. We must consider there is an outside chance the police may be dispatched. Perhaps no action will be taken. I suggest we—”

  Knox is already wiping down surfaces and door hardware. He fishes his paper coffee cup from the trash. Crushes and pockets it.

  “Did we get it?” Dulwich asks anxiously.

  “We got it. I think we got it.”

  “You think, or we did?”

  “We don’t need it,” Knox says.

  Both Grace and Dulwich are standing. Grace is packing up. Dulwich is at the window wiping down. But Knox wins the attention of both.

  “Nine thousand five hundred euros,” Knox says. “Somewhere on that page. You were scrolling fast. Maybe more, maybe less, but the amount doesn’t matter.”

  “Because?” Dulwich says. “What the hell are you talking about ‘the amount doesn’t matter’?”