She was happy to hear Shang Li was alive and relieved for his wife and children, but the good news had been followed by bad. Now Dinara, Feo, and the rest of the Private Moscow team were missing.
There had been a time when Justine had been jealous of Dinara, while she and Jack had been working closely together in Moscow, but Justine’s feelings had been grounded in a fear of losing him that proved to be unfounded. She had since come to know Dinara as an extremely competent investigator, and was genuinely concerned about what had happened to her and her team.
There was a knock at the door and Mo-bot entered. She was in blue jeans and a green T-shirt emblazoned with a screen print of bolting ponies.
“Any word from Moscow?” she asked.
Justine shook her head. “No. Jack’s on his way there now.”
Mo-bot whistled softly. “Does he know what he might be walking into?”
“Yes. That’s why he’s going,” Justine said. “He wants to put an end to this and get his team back.”
“I’m sorry, Justine,” Mo-bot responded. “This can’t be easy for you.”
“It’s the job,” she replied.
They both fell silent for a moment.
“You didn’t come in here for a gloom session with me,” Justine remarked at length. “What have you got?”
“Am I that transparent?”
Justine recognized Mo-bot’s knowing smile; some scheme was brewing. She nodded.
“Well, we do have something as it happens,” Mo-bot said. “Let me show you.”
Justine got to her feet and followed her along the corridor to the large conference room where she and Sci had set up a couple of workstations. Sci was at his, sipping from a paper cup.
“Morning,” he said cheerfully.
Mo-bot shut the door behind them and took a seat at her workstation. Outside, the midday sun was making the city shine, but the conference room was just the right side of chilly.
“What’s going on?” Justine asked, taking the seat next to Mo-bot’s.
She saw them exchange a look.
“Didn’t sit well with us that Angel gets shipped back to China,” Sci revealed. “Jack was right to want to bring him to justice.”
“I agree,” Justine said.
“The set-up Tate and his people had at the Consulate inspired us,” Mo-bot said. “We bugged the place with devices even the Chinese won’t find.”
“More advanced than the Pentagon’s?” Justine asked.
“No,” Mo-bot replied. “Just more creatively deployed.”
She indicated her screen, which brought up an image of an office ceiling. Justine could see strip lighting and the very top of a whiteboard.
“We hacked the phones of a number of embassy staffers, turning them into surveillance devices,” Mo-bot revealed.
“How?” Justine asked.
“Well, once you know who they are, it isn’t that complicated,” Sci replied. “That’s what she says anyway.” He nodded at Mo.
“I built a device that hijacks the Bluetooth connection to install my software patch. It’s more complicated than he’s making out,” Mo-bot said.
“Really?” Sci scoffed.
“Anyway, they are moving him tonight,” Mo-bot went on. “He’s booked on a private jet from Newark. We can tell Tate Johnson the license plate and the time of departure.”
“Do you think they’ll be able to hold him this time?” Sci asked.
“I hope so,” Justine replied. “We now have proof he was spying. We didn’t have that before. Liu Bao’s recorded confession changes things. Angel has clearly been engaged in espionage activity against the United States. Carver’s people must be able to hold him for that.”
Mo-bot nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
“Okay,” Justine said, hoping she was right. She would really like to see Lewis’s killer face justice. “I’ll make the call.”
Chapter 80
Tate Johnson had been very interested in the new evidence Justine had presented. Normally the State Department would have begun proceedings to secure Angel from the Chinese authorities so he could face prosecution, but with the information Sci and Mo-bot had obtained about Angel’s imminent departure, Tate said he wouldn’t involve State, but would instead take a discreet, more direct approach to get Angel in front of a judge.
Justine was unclear of Tate’s exact role as a contractor with the Department of Defense, but he seemed to have a great deal of authority. Within a couple of hours he had established an ad-hoc command center on the third floor of the FBI building in Federal Plaza in the south of Manhattan. Justine, Mo-bot, and Sci had been invited to attend as observers, but they were more than that — at least Mo-bot was. She gave Tate’s technical team access to the feeds she was picking up from the embassy staffers’ phones. There was no talk of warrants or illegality, and Justine couldn’t figure out whether that was because Tate’s team were independent contractors or if they had already taken care of the necessary legal procedures.
The FBI building was located on the corner of Worth Street and Broadway, towering above the neighboring structures. It was set behind concrete barriers to prevent vehicle assault and security was tight. They were scanned and searched on entry, and each floor and every room was assigned a security rating from sensitive to top secret. Only people with the relevant clearance were allowed in those areas. The large windowless conference room that was Tate’s base of operations was rated secret.
There were thirty-four people in the room. Justine knew because she had counted them all once she had managed to get hold of Erin Sebold to tell her Jack was on his way to Moscow. There wasn’t much else for Justine to do, so she watched Tate and his team preparing for the task that lay ahead.
There were fifteen field operators, distinguishable by their body armor and weapons: six women and nine men. Fifteen analysts and support personnel staffed computer and communications terminals, and then there was Tate plus the three observers from Private.
The plane had filed a flight plan to Beijing with a 5 p.m. departure time, and it was a fifty-minute journey from the embassy, so Angel had to be leaving at any moment. The room was quiet in anticipation, as though thirty-four people were simultaneously holding their breath.
“I’ve got him,” someone said, and Justine turned to see one of the analysts pointing at her screen. “Micro-drone camera in the underground garage.”
Tate’s people had bolstered Mo-bot’s surveillance with some gadgets of their own. Justine saw the hitman walking through a garage with a couple of handlers. He was taken to a large SUV.
“He’s getting into a silver Escalade, license DCM0089,” the analyst announced.
“Okay, people,” Tate said. “We’ve got our target. Move.”
The field operators hurried from the room, Tate following.
“We’ll let you know when we have him,” he said to Justine before he left.
The room fell quiet again as the analysts turned their attention to the surveillance and pursuit operation that was now underway.
Justine noticed Mo-bot and Sci get to their feet.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“We’ve never been good spectators,” Mo-bot replied.
Sci nodded. “After what this guy did to us, to Jessie and to Lewis, I want to see the whites of his eyes when they put him in irons.”
Chapter 81
They had parked a blue Nissan Rogue Private staff vehicle in a garage on Leonard Street, a block from the FBI building, and Justine hurried to keep up as Sci and Mo-bot headed there.