“I don’t know any more now than I did then. It’s like you want me to catch him passing nuclear secrets to the Russians or something.”
“Or something,” Lipton said. He plucked his flop of gray-blond hair out from under his shades and then reached into his jacket. He pulled out a sheaf of papers and held it up.
“What’s that?”
“Court order to put a locator on Ryan’s cell phone. FBI wants to track his day-to-day movements.”
“What?” She snatched it out of his hand and began reading the documents.
“We have evidence he’s been conducting some highly suspicious meetings with foreign nationals. We need to be there and see what’s going on.”
Melanie was furious that the investigation was continuing. But something else occurred to her. “What does this have to do with me? Why are you even telling me?”
“Because you, my fair lady, are going to put the beacon on his phone.”
“Oh no I’m not!” Kraft said testily.
“I’m afraid you are. I’ve got the card you need to use. There is no physical device that he might find, it’s all done through the software. You just poke the little card in his phone, let it load, and then pop it back out. A thirty-second operation.”
Melanie looked off into the street for a moment. “Don’t you have assets for this?”
“Yes. You are my asset. My asset with assets, if you know what I mean.” He looked down at her chest.
Melanie looked at him in disbelief.
“Uh-oh,” Lipton said with a barking laugh. “Am I about to get another right hook to the teeth?”
Melanie picked up from his tone and his facial expressions that he had somehow enjoyed it when she hit him.
She told herself she wouldn’t do that again.
She took a moment to compose herself. She knew, with the information the FBI had about her and her father, that Lipton could make her do whatever he wanted. She said, “Before I agree to do this, I want to talk to someone else at National Security Branch.”
Lipton shook his head. “I’m running you, Melanie. Deal with it.”
“I’m not saying I need a new handler. I just want to confirm things with someone other than you. Someone above you.”
Now the special agent’s nearly constantly leering smile wavered. “That thing in your hand is a court order. Signed by a judge. What more confirmation do you want?”
“I’m not your slave. If I do this, I want some sort of assurances from the FBI that you won’t keep using me. I do this, and I’m done.”
“I can’t make that promise.”
“Then find me someone who can.”
“It’s not happening.”
“Then I guess we’re finished.” She stood.
He uncrossed his legs and bolted to his feet. “You realize how much trouble I can make for you?”
“I’m just asking for someone else to talk to. If you can’t make that happen, then I hardly believe you have the clout to send me to prison.”
She stepped into the morning crowd heading up King Street toward the Metro.
The Peninsula hotel is on the southern tip of Kowloon, overlooking Victoria Harbour in a high-end retail district called Tsim Sha Tsui. A five-star property, the Peninsula opened in 1928 and proudly wears its old-world colonial charm.
Past the fleet of fourteen green Rolls-Royce extended-wheelbase Phantoms at the front of the building, past the huge ornate lobby and a short hallway, an elevator whisks patrons to the top of the hotel. Here, the ultramodern and chic Philippe Starck — designed Felix restaurant serves modern European cuisine in front of floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over Victoria Harbour to Hong Kong Island. A small bar sits at the top of a spiral staircase overlooking the restaurant, and here four Americans sat together in a back corner, sipping bottled beer and looking out over the lights.
Chavez said, “You said this morning that the FastByte situation was complicated. What did you mean by that?”
Yao took a swig of his Tsingtao. “FastByte Twenty-two’s real name is Zha Shu Hai. He’s twenty-four years old. He’s from the mainland, but he moved to the USA as a child and became an American citizen. He was a hacker when he was a kid, but he got a security clearance and was hired by a government contractor to do penetration testing of their systems. He figured how to break in, tried to give the information to China, and then was caught and sent to prison.”
“When did they let him out?”
“They didn’t. He was doing time at a federal correctional institution — that’s minimum security — in California. He was on work release, teaching computer skills to senior citizens, and then one day… poof.”
“He split?” asked Chavez.
“Yep. The Feds canvassed his home and all his old known contacts, and he never turned up. Escapees just about always return to their old life, even if it is just making contact with family, but Zha did not. The U.S. Marshals Service came to the conclusion that the Chinese helped get him out of the U.S. and back to the mainland.”
Biery was confused. “This isn’t the mainland.”
“No, it’s not. It’s a surprise that he’s turned up here, but there is one thing even more surprising than that.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s now with the Fourteen-K.”
Chavez cocked his head. “Fourteen-K? The Triads?”
“Exactly.”
Ryan was surprised Ding knew about this organization. He had never heard of 14K. “A gang?”
Chavez said, “Not like a gang in the States. Here, just admitting you are a member is against the law. Isn’t that right, Adam?”
“Yeah. Nobody admits they are Triad in HK. Just being in management will get you fifteen years in jail.”
Ding explained for Ryan and Biery: “There are over two and a half million members of the Triads around the world. The actual name of the organization is San He Hui, the Three Harmonies Society. The Fourteen-K are just one of many offshoots, but they are the most powerful around here these days. There are probably twenty thousand members of Fourteen-K here in Hong Kong alone.”
Adam said, “I’m impressed.”
Chavez waved the compliment away with a hand. “In my business it pays to know who the agitators are when you go into a new territory.”
“So,” Ryan asked, “FastByte Twenty-two is a member?”
“I don’t think he’s a member, but he definitely associates with them.”
“If he isn’t a member of the Triads, what is his relationship with them?” Ryan asked.
“It might be some sort of a protector-protected relationship. A guy like him can print money. He can sit at his computer and then, within a couple of hours, steal the credit card numbers of ten thousand people. The kid is worth his weight in gold as far as his ability to conduct cybercrime, so the Fourteen-K could be watching over him due to his value.”
Chavez said, “How good are the Fourteen-K guys at protecting him?”
“They keep a couple of enforcers around him twenty-four-seven. There are Fourteen-K on him when he goes to work; when he gets off work, they guard his office and they hang outside of his apartment building, too. He does like to go shopping, out to the clubs at night, and he does this primarily in Fourteen-K bars and neighborhoods, and always with goons by his side. I’ve done my best to watch him to see who he moves with, but, as you can see, I am a small operation here. I thought I was doing a good job keeping my distance, but just the other day it became clear they burned me.”
“Any idea how?” Ding asked.
“None at all. One morning he just had more security and they were most definitely hunting for a specific threat. They must have made me the evening before.”
Ding said, “It sounds to me like you need a couple new bodies in your operation to help you watch him.”