Yao raised his eyebrows. “You volunteering?”
“Absolutely.”
Yao asked, “Have you done any surveillance work?”
Ding smiled. “I’ve done a fair bit. Ryan’s helped me out once or twice. He enjoys it.”
Jack nodded. “It’s in my blood, I guess.”
“I imagine it would be.” Ryan still detected a hint of suspicion from Adam Yao. The guy was clearly a dialed-in observationalist. He said, “Just out of curiosity, what sort of surveillance, I mean, other than this situation here, does Hendley Associates get itself involved with?”
Ding said, “Typical business-intelligence stuff. I can’t really go into it.”
Adam seemed to accept this, and then he looked at Gavin Biery.
“Mr. Biery, will you be joining us?”
Chavez answered for him: “Gavin will stay here at the Peninsula and support us.”
Adam Yao reached into his pocket and pulled out his iPhone. He punched up a photo, and then passed the phone around.
“Zha Shu Hai,” Yao said.
His spiked hair, jewelry, and punk rock clothing surprised Ding and Jack. “Not exactly what I expected,” said Ding.
“I was picturing a younger Chinese version of Gavin Biery,” admitted Ryan.
Everyone, Gavin included, laughed.
Yao said, “Lots of hackers in China think they are counterculture rock stars. The truth is, even the civilian ones like Zha usually work for the Chicoms, so they are pretty much the opposite of counterculture.”
Ryan asked, “There’s no way he could be working for the Chicoms, is there?”
Yao shook his head. “Being here in HK and not on the mainland, and moving around under the protection of the Triads, those are two pretty big strikes against the theory that this kid is shilling for the PRC.”
Ryan had to admit that Yao’s logic seemed sound on that point.
With that settled, Yao finished his beer. “Okay, guys. We can pick Zha up when he leaves the Mong Kok Computer Centre tomorrow evening. With three of us, we might catch a break and get some pictures of his contacts.”
Everyone agreed.
“First, though,” said Adam, “we need to do some dry runs through the city, just to get a feel for how we will work together. Why don’t we meet early to do some practice tails for an hour or two?”
“Good idea,” said Ding, then he drained his beer and called for the check.
As the men headed out through the restaurant, a young American dining with an attractive female stood and quickly rushed over toward Jack. Ding put himself between Ryan and the man and held a hand up to stop him.
The diner said, a little too loudly, “Junior?”
“Yeah?”
“Big fan of your dad’s! Great to see you! Man, you’ve grown up.”
“Thanks.” Jack smiled politely. He did not know the man, but Jack’s dad was famous, meaning Jack himself was recognized from time to time.
The guy had been smiling himself, but the small and tough-looking Hispanic man giving him the stink eye had blunted his excitement to some degree.
Jack shook the man’s hand. He expected to be asked for an autograph or a picture, but he could tell Chavez was having a cooling effect on the encounter.
Yao, Ryan, Chavez, and Biery headed back down to the lobby. Adam said to Jack, “I bet that gets old.”
Ryan chuckled. “Getting recognized? It’s not a big problem. I don’t get noticed one-tenth as much as I used to.”
Gavin said, “I had a vendor in the office the other day who didn’t know Ryan worked with us. When I introduced him I thought the guy was going to crap his pants, he was so thrilled. Must have been a big Jack Ryan, Senior, fan.”
Everyone laughed. The Campus team wished Adam a good evening, and Adam headed out into the night to catch a ferry across Victoria Harbour, back to his apartment.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Melanie Kraft sat at a fast food restaurant in McLean, just a couple blocks from her office at Liberty Crossing, picking at her salad. She did not have much of an appetite after her conversation with Special Agent Lipton that morning. She worried that at any time, carloads of FBI agents could appear to arrest her, and she even caught herself looking out through the glass of the shop more than once when a car pulled up.
She thought, not for the first time, about sitting Jack down and telling him what was going on. She knew it would destroy his trust in her, and he would be justified in never speaking to her again, but maybe if she explained the situation, the entire situation, he would understand enough that he would not hate her for the rest of his life. She’d done very little, after all, in her mission to spy on him for the FBI. In fact, other than a couple of phone calls about his trips abroad, Lipton was correct when he said she was basically useless as an agent.
Her phone rang, and she answered it without looking. “Hello?”
“Hey, hon.” It was Lipton. “Okay. You get what you want. Come on over and you can meet with my boss, Special Agent in Charge Packard.”
“Come over? Come over where?”
“To J. Edgar. Where else?” The J. Edgar Hoover Building, on Pennsylvania Avenue, was the headquarters of the FBI.
Melanie balked. She did not want to be seen walking into the Hoover Building. “Can we meet someplace else?”
“Sugar, do you think SAIC Packard’s got nothing better to do than to drive out to McLean this afternoon?”
“I’ll take the afternoon off and come to D.C. Right now. You tell me where. Anyplace but the Hoover Building.”
Lipton blew out a long sigh and said, “Let me call you back.”
An hour later Melanie entered the same underground garage where she had met with Lipton previously. Unlike that early Saturday morning, it was now packed with cars.
She found two men standing next to a black Chevy Suburban with government plates.
Packard was younger than Lipton by a few years, though his hair was fully gray. He passed Melanie his credentials, which she looked at briefly to confirm his name and title, and then he handed her all the paperwork Lipton had shown her that morning.
Packard said, “What we are asking of you, Miss Kraft, is very simple. Place a software location tracker on Mr. Ryan’s phone without his knowledge, and then stand down. We are not telling you we won’t require your services again, but we will not require you to provide us updates on his whereabouts.”
Melanie said, “I have not gotten a straight answer from Special Agent Lipton, maybe you can provide me with one. Just what evidence do you have that he has committed any crimes?”
Packard took a moment. “It’s an ongoing investigation, of which Mr. Ryan is a subject of interest. That’s really all I can tell you.”
Melanie was not satisfied. “I can’t just indefinitely spy on my boyfriend. Especially if I have no reason to believe he’s done anything wrong.”
Packard turned to Lipton now. “Darren, can you give us a minute?”
Lipton looked like he was going to argue. Packard raised a single bushy eyebrow, and Lipton shuffled off through the parking garage, headed up the ramp to street level.
Packard leaned back against his Suburban. “First things first. I know Special Agent Lipton is a little rough around the edges.”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“He’s damn good at what he does, so I give him some leeway, but I know this must be difficult for you for many reasons.”
Melanie nodded.
“I’m sorry about this entire situation. Hell, to tell you the truth, Jack Ryan, Senior, is my hero. The last thing in the world I want to do is expose his son in some sort of illegality. That said, I swore an oath, and I go where the law points me.
“I know Lipton has, essentially, threatened to expose your father’s involvement with that Palestinian thing in Egypt if you don’t play ball with us. Sometimes our job gets a little dirty like that.”