“That’s interesting, and I’m sure that was tough to trace them all the way back here, but there’s something I don’t get. Once these folks get the data they are looking for off your network… there is no point getting it back. It’s out there, they’ve used it, copied it, compromised you. What’s your objective coming over here?”
Chavez stepped in. “We want to catch the guy who did this so he can’t do it again. Prosecute him.”
Yao gave the three men a look like they were hopelessly naive. “My professional opinion, gentlemen, is that that is highly unlikely. Even if you could prove this crime, the criminals won’t be prosecuted here, and if you’re thinking about extradition, you can forget about it. Whoever this guy is, he is working here in HK because this is a damned convenient place to commit such crimes. It’s getting better, HK is not the Wild West it once was, but you guys are in over your heads. I hate to be blunt, but better I tell you honestly before you burn a hell of a lot of money over here finding out the same thing.”
Jack said, “Maybe you could take us on as a client, just to investigate a bit. If nothing comes from it, well, it’s our money to burn, right?”
Adam said, “The problem is, these cases are built very slowly and methodically. Right now I’m working on a case that’s four years old. I wish I could tell you things over here moved faster, but it won’t serve anyone’s purposes to mislead you about what you are faced with.
“On top of all that, I’m much more versed with the intellectual-property side of fraud over here. Cybersecurity is a growing problem, but it’s not my specialty. I honestly think I’d be somewhat out of my lane.”
Chavez asked, “Do you have any contacts or resources at all? As Mr. Biery said, we’ve got a user name for the perpetrator. We were hoping there might be someone over here with a database that could get us a little more information on this character’s operation.”
Yao smiled, a little patronizing to the older man, though not intentionally. “Mr. Chavez, there are probably ten million hackers across China involved with computer fraud to one degree or another. Any one of these guys probably has multiple user names. There is not a database that I am aware of that keeps up with that rolling landscape.”
Jack said, “This guy is pretty good. Surely somebody knows about him.”
Yao sighed a little but kept a polite smile, then stood and went behind his desk. He pulled his keyboard to him. “I can send an instant message to a friend up in Guangzhou who’s a bit more up-to-date on cyber — financial crime. It’s going to be a needle in a haystack, I promise you, but it won’t hurt to ask him if he’s ever heard of the guy.”
As Adam Yao typed he asked, “What’s the handle?”
Gavin and Jack looked at each other. With a conspiratorial smile from Ryan that said, Let’s blow this guy’s mind, he gave Gavin the go-ahead.
Biery said, “His handle is FastByte Twenty-two.”
Yao stopped typing. His shoulders stiffened. Slowly he turned back toward his three guests. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Chavez had joined the game with his two colleagues. He asked, “You know him?”
Yao looked across his desk. Ryan could feel a mild suspicion on the part of the CIA covert operator, but above this, the thrill in the young man’s eyes was obvious. He seemed to recover a bit before replying, “Yeah. I know him. He’s… he’s a subject of interest in another case in which… in which I am tangentially involved.”
Jack tried not to smile. He liked this guy, he was smart as hell, and it was clear by everything Jack had seen that Yao worked his ass off out here, essentially by himself. He enjoyed watching Adam Yao squirm trying to find the right words to hide his excitement that he might finally get some more intel about a target that had, until now, not been on anyone’s radar but his own.
“Well, then, maybe we can work together to combine our efforts,” Chavez said. “As Jack said, we are willing to put some money into this operation to see if we can track him down.”
Yao said, “The tracking down is free of charge. He’s working out of offices in the Mong Kok Computer Centre up in Kowloon.”
“You’ve seen him? In person?”
“I have. But it’s a complicated situation.”
“How so?” asked Ding.
Yao hesitated for several seconds. Finally he asked, “Where are you guys staying?”
Jack answered, “We’re right across the harbor at the Peninsula.”
“Are you three free for drinks tonight? We can talk it over a bit more, maybe come up with a plan.”
Chavez spoke for the group: “Eight o’clock?”
THIRTY-SIX
Melanie Kraft sat on the sofa in the living room of her carriage-house apartment on Princess Street in Alexandria’s Old Town. It was seven in the evening, and normally she would be up at Jack’s place or even working late, but tonight Jack was out of town and she just wanted to sit on her couch in the dark, watch TV, and think about something else other than her problems.
She flipped channels, decided against a Discovery Channel program about the Middle East and a History Channel program about the life and career of President Jack Ryan. Both of these shows would normally be interesting to her, but right now she just wanted to vegetate.
She settled on an Animal Planet show about wildlife in Alaska. She felt sure that would keep her attention and take her mind off everything that was going on.
Her mobile buzzed, moving across the coffee table in front of her. She looked down, hoping it would be Jack. It wasn’t. She did not recognize the number, but saw the area code was D.C.
“Hello?”
“Hey, girl. What you up to?”
It was Darren Lipton. He was the last person on earth she needed to talk to tonight.
She cleared her throat, put on her business voice, and said, “What can I do for you, Special Agent Lipton?”
“Senior Special Agent, but I’ll let it slide.”
He seemed like he was in a good mood — jovial, even.
It occurred to Melanie almost immediately that he was probably drunk.
“Senior Special Agent,” she corrected herself.
“Listen, we need to get together for a quick powwow. Might take all of fifteen minutes.”
She knew she could not say no. But she was not ready to say yes. She wanted Lipton to think she was not his puppy, his personal property that would come whenever he called. Even though that’s exactly how Melanie felt now that he’d revealed that he was holding her entire future in his hands.
She said, “What’s this about?”
“We’ll discuss it tomorrow. How ’bout we get a cup of coffee. Seven-thirty a.m. I’ll come to you. Starbucks on King Street?”
“Fine,” she said, and she hung up the phone, then went back to watching grizzly bears catch salmon, her mind heavy with new worries.
Melanie and Lipton sat at a table outside on a cool and windy fall morning. Her hair whipped around her face while she sipped her tea to keep warm. Lipton drank coffee, his black trench coat was open to show a dark blue suit, and he wore sunglasses even though the sky was overcast.
She wondered if he was trying to hide bloodshot eyes. In any case, with the shades and the blue suit and the black trench coat, he screamed Fed to anyone in the coffee shop or walking by on the sidewalk who paid attention.
After a minute of one-sided small talk, Lipton got down to business. “My boss needs more from you. I tried to placate him, but you haven’t given us anything since our last conversation.”