by Andrea Kane
As she fell silent, the front door opened and a second guy sauntered out. Leaning against the side of the building, he lit up a cigarette and began to smoke. As soon as the butt became too small, he tossed it to the grass, ground it under his heel, and lit up another.
A chain smoker. Good. It meant the guy would make frequent trips outdoors to light up. And if he was a creature of habit, he’d probably choose the same spot to enjoy his cigarette. Which told Philip that he needed to time the cigarette breaks. That information could be crucial to their tactical plan.
It had been quiet for a while, so whoever else was inside with Lauren was either guarding her or otherwise occupied.
More waiting ensued.
Forty-five minutes later, the tall guy returned, parking in the exact same spot he’d left from. He opened the back door of the car and pulled out a few bags—bags that, upon closer scrutiny of Philip’s zoom lens—contained food and household supplies.
Okay, so the tall guy was the worker bee. And even though he used the back door for his comings and goings, he wouldn’t be a permanent fixture there. Plus he wouldn’t be going out for supplies more than once a day, and certainly not in the middle of the night or the wee hours of dawn.
That suggested that the back door was a weak point—making it a strong point of entry for the team.
That was all Philip was going to get for this quick go-round. Time to head back, collect his rental car, and return on his own. In truth, he could have used several days to get the full picture of arrivals and departures. But the team didn’t have the luxury of time. So he had to make a quick determination of the number of kidnappers and their routines.
Marc had already taken care of the rental arrangements. He’d gotten two dark Peugeot 5008s at the closest place in Osijek. Philip would pick up one, Marc the other. The first would get Philip back to the farmhouse for recon. The second would get Marc to the airport to collect Aidan, after which he’d drive them both out to join Philip at the rescue site.
Sitting back now, Philip dismantled his camera and lens and shoved his equipment into the duffel bag. “I’m finished for now,” he told Ivan via Ellie. “I’d like to drive directly to Osijek so I can pick up my rental car.”
“Fine,” Ivan said. “I’ll leave you there and drive home with the women. Will you be returning tonight?”
“No.” Philip was peeling off two thousand dollars, holding the twenty hundred-dollar bills visibly in his hand. “Once we reach Osijek, I’ll be thanking you for your help and hospitality.” He added another ten hundred-dollar bills. “And asking that you pass this along to Jozef with my thanks. I’m sure he’ll exchange all this for Croatian kuna without a problem. Ellie will be spending the night. Please drive her to the Hotel Osijek in the morning.”
He turned to Ellie and spoke in a low tone. “You and Derica have successfully completed your assignments. Payment will be wired to you ASAP. You can both return to Germany.”
Ellie smiled and extended her hand, shaking Philip’s. “It’s been a pleasure working with you.”
Zermatt Group Offices
West 75th Street, Manhattan, New York
1 March
Thursday, 7:55 a.m. local time
Inside the Cage, Terri sat back in her desk chair, a smug smile on her face as she studied her laptop screen. After long hours, she’d cracked David Cheng wide open, uncovering every facet of his life and, in the process, discovering a whole lot more.
For starters, Cheng was receiving monthly wire transfers of twenty thousand dollars, deposited into his account on the first of every month just like an employee’s salary or an outside consultant’s retainer. Each wire transfer had the same SWIFT code—SZDBCNBSOSA.
Terri quickly identified that code.
It belonged to a Chinese bank—specifically, Ping An Bank. Located in the city of Shenzhen, the code indicated that it originated at headquarters, the offshore banking department. And the originator? Jítuán, a large electronics assembling company that employed tens of thousands of people.
A company that would be crippled by the success of Nano’s new technology and that would thrive if it were able to control and exploit it against competitors.
So now Terri knew what entity Cheng was working for. All she needed was the duplicate cell phone Aidan had overnighted her to find Cheng’s contact at Jítuán and to figure out how high up this went.
She glanced at her watch.
The courier service should be here soon.
Starbucks
Northstar Drive, Lake Tahoe
1 March
Thursday, 7:10 a.m. local time
Vance was even more distraught going into today’s videoconference with Lauren than he had been yesterday.
Simone Martin had showed up at his and Susan’s hotel room door before dawn, explaining that, even though the entire team, including Aidan, would be listening to and observing the videoconference at the same time that Vance was having it, it was she who would be here as a stand-in for Aidan. And when she’d told them why—because Aidan was on his way to Croatia—he’d started to weep, holding his sobbing wife in his arms. They both knew that meant there was a rescue mission in place. Aidan’s on-the-ground team had summoned him. It was time.
And while this entire week had been hell, just knowing that this life-or-death moment was upon them had pushed both Vance and Susan over the edge.
Simone had spent several hours with them, talking calmly and reassuringly. But the fact was, she could offer them no promises. All they could do was to trust in Aidan and the team, follow their own game plan.
And pray.
Now, his laptop ready, Vance tried to calm his breathing as he prepared to give the performance of his life.
He couldn’t so much as hint to what was going on, nor could he act any differently than he had yesterday. As Simone had said, it was imperative that the kidnappers be totally unaware that a rescue mission was in the works.
His heart thundering in his chest, he typed in the new link the kidnappers had provided for today’s use.
The screen opened, and Vance’s face appeared. Seconds later, the second window opened with Lauren’s face in it, reducing Vance to a small image in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. The effect was one of bringing Lauren that much clearer and that much closer.
Again, Lauren was wearing a bright sweater that was clearly meant to make her appear hale and hardy. The attempt failed miserably. If anything, she looked more drawn, her eyes more haunted than they had yesterday. In his heart, Vance knew that Lauren was not only wearing down, she was giving up.
It took all his willpower not to tell her that help was on its way and that she’d soon be home with her family.
Instead, he just greeted her as he had before. “Hi, honey.” He knew his voice sounded shaky. But as Aidan had told him, the kidnappers would not only expect but welcome his fear. They’d feel that much closer to victory.
“Hi, Daddy.” Lauren was fighting for control, for her life.
“Tell me how you are. Are you eating? Sleeping? No one has hurt you, have they?”
“I’m fine.” She gave him the same staccato answers that she had yesterday. “I’ve eaten and I’ve slept. My privacy has been respected and I’m unharmed.” She ran through her food intake, her activities, and her continued good health.
Abruptly, she broke off, her gaze darting to her left. Then, her shoulders began to shake and tears poured down her cheeks. “Daddy, I have to give you a message: Stop asking others for help, including your most trusted associates at Nano. The people who have me said they’d kill me on the spot if you refuse to comply.” She buried her face in her hands. “Please, Daddy, don’t let them kill me.”
Oh dear God.
Everything inside Vance turned to ice.
“Lauren, honey, don’t cry. I don’t know what they’re talking about. Of course I won’t tell anyone at Nano. No one even has any idea you’re missing, much less kidnapped.” His eyes darted aro
und the screen, knowing the kidnappers were right there beside her. “Whoever’s listening, please don’t hurt my daughter. I’m following your instructions. I’d never risk her life. I’ve told no one at NanoUSA that my child has been kidnapped. No one. I swear it. Please…” Now Vance was the one who broke down and started to cry. “I’ll get you the rest of the drawings you want. Before the deadline. I promise. I love you, Lauren…”
The screen went blank.
25
Zermatt jet
1 March
Thursday, 3472 nm to OSI
10:11 a.m. EST
“Shit.”
Thirty thousand feet in the air, his private jet en route to Osijek, Aidan had been on his laptop, watching and listening to the video feed that was being relayed from Vance’s computer through Terri’s server and out to the Zermatt team members. When the screen went black, he slammed his fist against the arm of his cream-colored leather seat.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” He didn’t wait for Simone to initiate an emergency videoconference. He did it himself. Rapidly scanning through his contacts, he clicked on Marc, Simone, and Terri. Their names went green, at which time he clicked on the connect button at the bottom of the screen. He watched as his team members appeared.
“What was that about?” Marc asked, his tone grim.
“I don’t know,” Aidan said. “But that message clearly came from the Chinese, not the Albanians. The sophisticated phraseology, the careful choice of words… This came from the top.”
“Gentlemen, Susan is right outside this bedroom door.” Simone’s voice was hushed and she looked shaken, a rarity for her. “And Vance is going to be storming into the hotel room in about ten minutes demanding answers, so I better have some to offer. Do you think the Chinese know about me? That I’m the insider at Nano who’s assisting Vance? Do you think I was somehow careless and that someone saw me go into Blockman’s office?”
“No on all counts.” Aidan gave an adamant shake of his head. “They carefully chose the phrase trusted associate. You’re hardly that. You’re a consultant, working at Nano for a week. I think they have reason to believe that an insider—other than their mole—is now in the mix. The questions are what made them believe that and which of Vance’s associates is the suspect?”
“I’ve got a good guess as to the first part of your question,” Terri said. “The photos. I didn’t think of it before, but the technology and the skill set required to send them was sophisticated—maybe too sophisticated for Vance’s capabilities. If the Chinese tried to figure out where and how the pictures were taken, they would get nowhere. Ryan told me that the ring camera would strip out all Exif data, which normally indicates the type of camera, the exposure details, even GPS coordinates showing where the picture was taken.”
“Good points.” Aidan picked up on the particular note of urgency in Terri’s voice—a note that meant she had something substantial of her own to report. But whatever it was, it would have to wait. Right now their focus had to be on the immediate crisis.
“Let’s shelve the brainstorming,” he said pointedly. “We need to give Simone the ammunition she needs to handle Vance and Susan. She’s about to have to sign off. Whatever else we discuss, I can pass along when she gets in touch with me afterwards.”
“I’d focus on the reality of the message itself, not the words,” Marc said to Simone. Formerly with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, he was a pro at assessing and managing people. “The fact that the kidnappers are warning Vance means they’ve chosen to scare the shit out of him, not to kill Lauren. If the opposite were the case, she’d be dead and the message would be moot. All that’s a good sign. They want to up the pressure in order to eliminate interference and to get what they want. And what they want is a technology, not a corpse, just as you surmised from the beginning, Aidan.”
“That makes sense.” Simone was calming down. “I’ll make sure to stress that point to Vance. But I’ll also be honest with him about the transference of the photos being the possible red flag that led the Chinese to suspect another Nano employee is involved. I must be honest with him. He’ll know if he’s being played.”
“I totally agree.” Marc’s response was instantaneous and adamant. “You need to maintain their trust. Bullshitting them with half-truths is a surefire way to break that trust, at which point we’ll lose them entirely.”
“Vance is going to ask who at Nano we believe the kidnappers are referring to.”
“Again, be honest,” Marc replied. “Tell them we’re working on figuring that out now. But also tell them it’s not a bad thing that the Chinese are pursuing a dead end. It’ll keep them occupied while we carry out our rescue mission.”
Simone nodded. “Good point. I’ll make sure Vance and Susan understand that.”
“So we’ve given Simone a Band-Aid for dealing with the Penningtons,” Terri interjected. “But I have a lot going on at my end that I need to share with the team.”
“I guessed as much.” Aidan was watching Simone, who’d turned to look over her shoulder. He knew exactly what that meant.
Vance had just arrived.
“Go do your damage control, Simone,” he said. “No one does it better than you. In the meantime, Marc and I will get Terri’s briefing and fill you and Philip in later.”
* * *
As soon as Simone’s face disappeared from the screen, both Aidan and Marc looked expectantly at Terri.
“Go,” Aidan said.
Terri didn’t waste an instant. First, she filled them in on what she’d dug up on David Cheng. Then she went on to the rest.
“I analyzed the data from Cheng’s burner phone.”
“Any contact with someone who works at Nano?” Aidan demanded. “Someone who could be our mole?”
“Nope. But I have one better. Cheng’s contact at Jítuán is Xu Wei, the company’s CEO.”
There was a heartbeat of silence.
“So the CEO himself orchestrated Lauren’s kidnapping to steal Nano’s technology.” Aidan digested that piece of information. “How much do we have to go on?”
“More than a dozen phone calls to and from Xu’s private cell phone.”
“That’s not enough.”
“Then I’ll give you more. There’s another person Cheng’s been in frequent contact with—a young woman named Jia li Sung. She’s a graduate student at Stanford Business School with an outstanding GPA and a background check that’s impeccable. From her photos I can also tell you that she’s quite lovely. She lives in a garden apartment in Palo Alto and drives a nice, pricey BMW. Between the rent she pays and the car she drives—she’s definitely not hurting.”
“It can’t be Cheng’s girlfriend,” Marc surmised. “He wouldn’t be contacting her on a burner phone. Not unless there’s some connection to Xu?”
“Don’t steal my thunder.” Terri sounded as revved up as she always did when she was on the brink of some major revelation. “When I went on to do my due diligence on Xu, I hacked into US Customs and discovered that he’d visited the Silicon Valley area just last month, from January thirtieth to February first. From there I went on to dig up Xu’s credit card and see where he stayed, which was the Nobu Hotel Epiphany Palo Alto. I then tapped into the hotel security tapes for those dates in particular. And you’ll never guess who met Xu outside the hotel on two separate occasions.”
“Jia li Sung.” Aidan leaned forward, his mind racing. “Did they embrace? Kiss?”
“Handshakes. Formal ones. Nothing even hinting at an affair.”
“So she’s working for Xu in some capacity. And whatever that role is, it’s lucrative. It also requires her to talk to David Cheng—and, ultimately, to meet with Xu in person.” Aidan leaned back, steepling his fingers. “It sounds as if she’s a more significant player in all this than Cheng is.”
“I agree,” Terri replied. “I’m willing to bet that she knows—and is in communication with—whomever our mole at Nano is.”
“And I bet you’re
right.” Again, Aidan could tell from Terri’s tone that she had an idea to run with. “You want to go out on a limb with something. Let’s hear it.”
“It’s a risk. But it’s one I think will pay off. I’ll send a text message to Jia li from Xu Wei by hacking into his cell phone carrier and pretending to be him. The text message will be sent at a specific time this evening. Jia li will be on or near the Stanford University campus, based on her typical schedule and tracking her routine. He’ll tell her that he’s in Palo Alto because his security team turned up a classified leak that requires an urgent person-to-person meeting between the two of them and their Nano contact. He’ll tell her to set it up at her apartment—where they won’t be seen or recognized—to take place a half hour after the text is sent. She’ll take the bait.”
“And what will happen during that half hour?”
“Before that half hour,” Terri qualified. “What I have in mind will take place in two parts—the first, before Jia li goes out, and the second, while she’s gone. The text will come last.”
“Fine. What will happen before that half hour?” Aidan amended.
“An unexpected visit to Stanford Business School. And an equally unexpected visit to Jia li’s apartment.”
“Explain.”
“If you recall, I included a few other items when I overnighted you the specialized computer for Vance. One of those things is an IMSI-catcher, complete with some special software I added. It’s a black metal box with a plug. I labeled it Windsor, after my dog. Once it’s been appropriately planted in the right room at the Business School, it will be near enough to Jia li for me to embargo her incoming text messages and calls.”
“Preventing any surprise communications from Xu Wei that would screw up your plan.”
“Uh-huh.” Aidan could hear Terri frowning through the phone. “It’s not foolproof. Once Jia li leaves the building, there’ll be a twenty-to-thirty-minute period of time when Xu can reach her. We have to take that risk. His calls to her aren’t that frequent.”
“And during that twenty-to-thirty-minute period of time, you—as Xu—will be texting her about the emergency meeting.”