Jimmy felt like this was all too easy ripping off the CIA. He was always ahead of the game. Marcus Roet was always paying him to do things he had already done. It was perfect. He was going to be rich when he got to America.
Jimmy headed out to do buy some instant noodles and beer at the supermarket that he’d noticed around the corner. He needed to wait an hour before calling Roet back with the intel about the daughter. Another two grand in the bank without breaking a sweat.
A few hours later, Roet’s phone rang, it was Jimmy on the line again.
“Yo Boss! Dr. Wu has a daughter at NYU. Her name is Ning Wu. Easy to remember, Ning, like New York.” Jimmy’s voice came over loud and clear.
“Excellent news! That’s what we needed Jimmy,” said Roet, relieved to finally have some reliable and actionable intel on the asset’s daughter.
“No problem Boss. You put the money in the bank, yes?”
“Yes, Jimmy, you will get paid today. Check your US account in twenty-four hours. Money will be there. Make sure you don’t spend a cent of it there in China. Any activity on this account will get you a one way ticket to a Chinese jail. We cannot have that Jimmy. You understand?”
“Sure Boss. Don’t sweat it. I’m all good here. I spend money when I come to America.”
Roet hung up abruptly, not caring to talk to Jimmy any more than he had to.
Chapter 7
Ning Wu
The sun shone through Ning Wu’s white IKEA curtains that were drawn across her bedroom window in Manhattan. She woke up late again this morning. She had already missed her first two classes of the day. Living alone meant that she could sleep in whenever she felt like it. She took time choosing a cute outfit and then packed her Dior handbag and headed out to the Starbucks on the corner to get her ‘triple-venti, half-sweet, non-fat, caramel macchiato.’ She had learned quickly in New York that an obnoxious coffee order was totally acceptable in America. Her Daddy called America: “the land of the entitled.” Ning loved to abuse her Daddy’s credit card, and since the death of her mother a few years back, he had become very soft with her. She could get away with anything.
Two casually dressed men in their thirties watched her until she left Starbucks and she disappeared down the dirty stairs into the New York subway. One of the men gestured with his head that it was time to go and break into her apartment.
They sat casually on the stoop waiting for someone to exit the building. Eventually an old man came out, struggling with the door and his walker. The two men held the door open for him, and one dropped something in to stop the door closing completely. As the old man meandered down the street, the two men entered the building and went up three flights of stairs to Ning Wu’s apartment and turned the lock easily with the two pin technique they teach you in ‘trade craft.’ One sat at the laptop, put a small flash drive in the USB slot and began typing code. The other installed two microphones and four tiny cameras around the apartment including one in the bathroom, as per Roet’s instructions.
Ning was riding the C train to University in a fairly empty carriage as Manhattan’s morning rush hour had long passed. Two young guys, dressed in hoodies and jeans were standing up the other end, one of them keeping an eye on her. The train arrived at West 4th Street and the two guys followed Ning as she got off. The taller one jogged nimbly ahead of her up the stairs and waited near the closest exit to the street for his accomplice to run by. The second guy came from behind Ning, bumped into her so roughly that she fell to the ground. He grabbed her handbag from her shoulder and took off up the stairs, disappearing around a corner. A couple of minutes passed as Ning was helped to her feet by a couple of concerned New Yorkers.
The guy at the steps gently coat-hangared his accomplice as he jogged past him, bringing him to the ground without hurting him, and freeing the handbag from his grasp.
As she arrived at the exit, the thief had gotten up and escaped, but the other was standing there holding Ning’s handbag up high in the air asking: “Who’s bag is this? Does this bag belong to someone?”
Ning walked over to him and gushed: “Thank you so much, thank you!”
He handed her back her bag. Smiling, and panting a little.
A small crowd had formed, people started to tell her: “Wow that guy got your bag back for you. The thief guy is gone though! Is anything missing?”
She looked in her bag and noted that her ‘Hello Kitty’ purse was still inside. Nothing was missing. She turned to thank the guy but he was gone.
The two guys met up again three blocks to the east.
“Where did you put the tracker?”
“On her keys.”
“Did you clone the phone?”
“Right here!” He said holding a small device in his hand.
“Good job. Better call Marcus and give him the good news.”
Marcus Roet was typing numbers into a ledger when his cell phone rang.
“Roet!” Marcus answered, seeing that it was a team member calling.
“It’s done. The phone’s cloned, and the tracker is on her keys.”
“Where on her keys?” asked Marcus accusingly.
“It’s cool, she won’t find it. It’s inside her stupid fluffy Asian keyring toy.”
“No need to be racist,” said Marcus, laughing, not really giving a shit.
“You want me to come in with the clone?” he asked
“Please. Soon as you can. Let’s get her up and running.”
Marcus smiled his smug ferret toothed grin. Now he could strong-arm the father, Dr. Wu and work him like a puppet.
Chapter 8
Sam Chilvers
Sam Chilvers arrived for work at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia. He had been transferred there a few years ago to work at the ‘Center for Special Activities’. They were in charge of covert operations that gave the Government deniability if operatives were compromised in the field. Sam was ex-Delta Force. Despite being highly skilled and experienced, he was creeping up in age, and he couldn’t run with the twenty-somethings anymore. He was divorced with no kids, still athletic despite a bothersome shoulder wound where he had taken shrapnel during one of his tours. The injury had ended up being worse than it should have been because Sam had refused the MedEvac helicopter, preferring to stay with his men. This was typical of Sam’s behavior on the job. He had been a trusted and well liked member of the squadron. His old tradecraft instructor had begun keeping tabs on him after his first tour. The CIA were always looking for this type of operative: highly intelligent and calm under extreme pressure. It also helped that he was single and had no kids. Sam’s suitability to covert operations had made him a strong candidate for CIA recruitment.
In a suit, Sam could easily pass for a civilian. He didn’t have the military swagger and had never obsessively lifted weights, so he was fit looking without being bulky. Sam could shine his winning, dimpled smile on anyone he met but if you looked at his face long enough you could catch a subtle element of pain behind the blue eyes.
Sam was currently focusing on training a young Chinese-American female recruit for placement in China. The CIA had begun stalking her after a University Professor alerted them to her brilliance. Being perfectly bilingual, her Chinese language skills were highly useful. At Camp Peary, also known as: ‘The Farm,’ she had gone on to graduate ahead of her male classmates, proving also to be an extremely fine marksman and was generally quite violent in training, causing several injuries to other recruits. She was a loner, and considered by most to be very hard to read. Her parents had also been operatives stationed in China for a few years in the 90’s posing as barbecue manufacturers. In 2003, when she was only thirteen years old they had been suddenly expelled from China with no explanation, which was a great loss for the agency, as it was difficult to embed CIA operatives in China.