“No,” Justine replied. “We’re going to see what else he knows before deciding what to do.”
“I’ve told you everything,” Rafael protested, his voice breaking pathetically.
“And you’ll tell us again and again and again until we’re satisfied you have nothing else to give,” Sci snapped.
There was another heavy silence.
“It goes without saying, do not let him out of your sight,” Jack said.
“Don’t worry about that,” she assured him before hanging up.
“Tell us again what happened?” Sci said, activating the voice recorder on his phone. His tone was flat, like someone who’d suffered a bereavement. “I want every detail this time. Don’t leave anything out, no matter how small. We need something we can use to find Alison.”
“She went for dinner,” Rafael began, “with friends. Annabelle’s on Sixty-third Street. He must have been following her for a while because he knew to take her when she was near home. We live on the Upper East Side, on a quiet street, and there isn’t much traffic at night. He knew the best place to snatch her.”
Justine couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for the man as his voice failed him. Alison’s kidnapping and the use of her as leverage was clearly torture to him. It had pushed Rafael beyond breaking point.
“He called me after he took her,” Rafael said once he had composed himself. “When we met, he told me what he needed. I had no idea what he had planned. I wouldn’t have... I couldn’t...” He choked out the words then his voice drifted into silence.
“How has he been communicating with you?” Mo-bot asked.
“Sendal,” Rafael replied.
“It’s a secure messaging platform,” Mo-bot explained.
“Why did he target me?” Rafael asked, giving way to self-pity, which was offensive to them in light of the harm his poor judgment had caused others.
“Because you love your wife,” Justine replied dispassionately, as though she was delivering a profile. Her voice did not once betray the depth of her personal feelings about what this man had done. “Anyone could see that in the photos of you together. You were identified as a weak link. Someone they could break.”
Rafael and Alison Lucas regularly featured in New York society pages. She hailed from a notable Manhattan family, so they were an easy target, and the newspapers and magazines were full of useful nuggets of personal information.
Rafael looked away, ashamed.
Mo-bot stood and approached Justine.
“Little conference outside?” She nodded toward Rafael. “I don’t want him listening in.”
Justine followed her into the corridor, which was quiet due to the lateness of the hour. It was shortly after 11 p.m. and the city beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows was shutting down for the night.
Mo-bot closed the door behind them. “If he’s using Sendal we can trace him...”
“But?” Justine asked, noting the pregnant pause at the end of Mo-bot’s sentence.
“But Jack’s going to need to call in a favor.”
Chapter 44
We were on Wangfujing, a busy street in the Dongcheng district of Beijing, near the Forbidden City. It was lined with modern stores, and here and there street hawkers were preparing food carts and stands for their lunchtime trade. The smell of hot pots, noodles and spiced meats filled the air as we made our way back to the workers’ hostel, but I wasn’t interested in food. I was still reeling from the news that Rafael Lucas, a man I’d considered to be a friend, had betrayed us all. He’d sentenced Lewis to death, put Jessie in hospital, and jeopardized the safety of everyone in Private New York.
I told Zhang Daiyu what I’d learnt and she looked at me in shock. She didn’t know Rafael, but I think she could sense my hurt and disappointment.
“Do you think he had anything to do with what happened here?” she asked when I’d finished briefing her.
“I don’t know. Justine, Sci, and Mo-bot are questioning him now. They’ll send me anything relevant,” I replied. “We need to stay focused on Liu Bao.”
I said the words as much for my benefit as for hers. It would have been all too easy to dwell on the betrayal, to obsess over what Rafael had done, but I couldn’t afford to indulge myself in what would have been a perfectly natural reaction. I had to put an end to this and make my organization and my people safe again.
Zhang Daiyu made a call as we walked away from the market. She asked Huang Hua to meet us at Liu Bao’s office late that night with a surveillance package. We would bug his place and see what we could get on him and his associates.
Zhang Daiyu and I caught a cab a block later and didn’t speak as the vehicle joined the 2nd Ring Road. I was tired and, despite my determination to move on, still shellshocked by the news. How could a colleague I’d considered a friend do this to the people he worked closely with? I considered myself a good judge of character but would never have foreseen this kind of betrayal. My mind swam with questions. Had Rafael also played a part in what had happened here? Did he have even more blood on his hands? I gazed absently at the passing city and tried to puzzle out what had happened. Shang Li’s team had been killed, leaving the Beijing office leaderless. David Zhou had been put in the frame for the attack, but the real trail led to Liu Bao, an underworld figure who’d blackmailed Molly Tan into engaging us. Meanwhile in New York something similar had happened and it seemed a Chinese national was involved, strengthening my theory that the attack linked back to here.
My phone rang and I pulled it from my pocket to see Mo-bot’s name.
“Go ahead,” I said.
“Can you talk?”
“I can listen,” I replied.
“Good enough. We got a lead from the traitor. He and Angel have been using Sendal to communicate.”
“The secure messenger?” I asked.
Zhang Daiyu’s interest was piqued but she said nothing. Our taxi driver kept his eyes fixed on the road.
“The same. Not many people know this, but Sendal isn’t as secure as you might think.”
“I assume everyone can read anything I write online.”
“Wise man. Well, maybe not you then, but the average Joe or Josephine won’t know that the National Security Agency has back doors into most messaging systems. The men in black can read your every word. So, I was wondering if you could reach out to Secretary Carver and call in a favor...”
She was talking about the Secretary of Defense. He owed me a couple of favors, but I wasn’t much for cashing in markers. Mo-bot knew this, so she gave me some added incentive.
“The lawyer might deserve what’s coming to him, but his wife doesn’t.”
She was right as usual. Rafael might have betrayed us, but his wife was an innocent.
“Does he know what this is all about?” I asked.
“No.”
“Was he involved in what’s happened in Beijing?”
“He says he has no idea, and he didn’t give Angel anything on the operation over there,” Mo-bot replied. “I believe him. He’s cooperating fully. He’s desperate to get Alison back. If we can find this Angel, he might be able to tell us why we’re under siege on two fronts.”
She was right again.
“I’ll make the call,” I assured her.
Chapter 45
I made the call from the cab, and the Secretary of Defense phoned me back just as we arrived at the workers’ hostel on Changcui Road. I first encountered Eli Carver during the Moscow investigation in which I had saved his life, and then again after rescuing Joshua Floyd from Afghanistan, events which had given me special access to one of the most powerful men on earth.
“Secretary Carver,” I said as I followed Zhang Daiyu through the lobby. “Thanks for calling back so quickly.”