Torching the Crimson Flag

by Conrad Brasso

  Jennifer sat back down at her desk and placed her drink on a blue slate coaster from Wales. She had to think through her next steps very carefully.

  When her office phone rang, she’d assumed it was her boss. He often called at all hours of the night or day to task her with the next urgent company need. In her business, investment markets were opening on one continent and closing on others, all to the rhythm of local time zones. Often she would work all night, responding to the American market from Asia. But it wasn’t him. It was a computerized voice. When it first started speaking, it was so soft, that she turned the volume up on her phone. Then it got louder and more pronounced, repeating the same thing over and over. “Stop your research now, or you will be reported. We can make your life hell.” As it got louder and louder, she panicked and hung up. Now, she was kicking herself for not recording it first. This was the first time in her life she’d ever felt personally threatened, intimidated, and truly afraid.

  Jennifer slipped off her shoes, pulled her legs up onto her chair, and wrapped her arms around her knees, thinking. Obviously, she couldn’t reach out to anybody in LanchPad, right now. They were spread thin as it was, and tasked with a mission that she knew was all-consuming. She didn't know who was on the other end of the computerized voice. It could have been someone from her company, someone from one of the companies she was investigating, or even worse than all of those, someone from the Chinese government. Intimidation was not beyond them.

  The more she thought about it, the more Wu wondered if the timing was significant. She unballed herself and sat up to read her notes, reviewing what she’d been researching at the time she was called. Then she finished her drink, gathered her things, put on her shoes, and left her office.

  Like most people in her position, she had her own driver. And also, like most of her peers, she didn't trust him. So, she had him drop her off at a prestigious lounge club that she sometimes frequented to unwind at the end of the day.

  “I’ll take a taxi home. I don’t know how long I’ll be here,” she told him.

  After he was gone, she walked around the corner from the bar to a payphone. It was a rare sight in the city, but long ago she’d made a mental note of its location in case she ever needed one. She knew that most Hongkongers are obsessed with technology. They have a huge appetite for the next big digital thing and the fastest broadband speeds. Most of them own two or three smartphones and have often been considered as the most mobile-crazy population on the planet. But despite the rise of the smartphone, there were still a few payphones around. In the 1980s and 1990s, there were six thousand of them dotting the streets, with each phone earning over $500 a month for its owners. Now there were less than two hundred of them left.

  Jennifer used her fingernails to pull out a tiny piece of paper from inside her wallet and carefully unfolded it. Trey had given it to her over ten years ago and let her know that the phone number on it would always work. She memorized the instructions, inserted some coins, and dialed.

  “Hello,” a male voice answered.

  “Is Raymond Charles there?” letting whoever it was, know where she wanted to meet.

  “No.”

  “I’m so sorry. I think I dialed the wrong number.”

  “What number were you trying to call?”

  She read it to him and changed the five at the end, to a zero.

  “Yes, that’s the incorrect number.”

  “Sorry to bother you,” she said, hanging up.

  Wu looked at the time on her phone and saw that she had forty-seven minutes to make it to the Ritz Carlton’s rooftop bar by midnight.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Why are you strapping me in when you said there wouldn't be any pain?” Harris asked Sasha, nervously.

  “I said there wouldn't be any pain if you cooperate. If you don't, there’ll be lots of pain,” She answered pointedly.

  Chen tightened the last of the straps, snuggly pulling Nathan’s ankle against the support rail of the giant chair. Then he pulled a mechanical arm out from under the chair, extended it, and unfolded the small tray on its end. Sasha picked her laptop up off from her desk and perched it on the newly extended table. She attached a lavalier mic to its USB port and pinned it on Nathan’s shirt collar.

  “Tell me your full name.”

  “My name is Nathan Benjamin Harris.”

  “What day is it today?”

  “May 5th?”

  “The 6th. Say it again.”

  He repeated the answer, making the correction. “It’s May 6th.”

  As she was getting information from him, Chen tugged on a flat-screen TV that was attached to the trailer wall and extended the mount-arm. He turned it in Nathan’s direction, making sure that he had a clear view to its surface. Bing was setting up a digital video camera on a tripod and positioning it to capture Nathan’s face.

  “Dr. Harris, what do you know of biometrics?”

  He thought about it for a minute. “I translated for a conference on the subject, about four years ago. In Japan. Is that what this is all about?”

  “No. But do you recall anything you learned from that?” she asked, handing him a set of wireless Bose noise-canceling headphones.

  “Other than being amazed at the advances we’re making as a civilization? Not really.”

  “I’m going to play some videos in different languages. Listen to them through the headphones and simultaneously translate them into English. Speak clearly. The lavalier mic should pick up what you’re saying. The first one is in Arabic.”

  Nathan looked up at the screen as a woman in a black burka spoke. He translated what she was saying, “So during the day tomorrow, it’ll still be raining. But it will start clearing up during the night, and on Wednesday we will get the sun that we’ve been waiting for. Ahmed, back to you.”

  “Excellent. This next one is in Mandarin.”

  Nathan was wondering what this was all about, but he decided he’d better just do as he was told. The screen lit up with a popular newscaster in Beijing, interviewing a businessman that Harris didn’t know. “It is exciting to be in space again after that successful launch,” the reporter said, “Will this start a new decade of innovation by the government? Is the age of Chinese space domination now here?” The businessman answered, “We are adding new locations

  “Good,” said Sasha. “The next one is in Korean.”

  It was from a South Korean drama about an invasion from the North.

  “I know, my dearest,” Harris said, translating the first character. “Our love will endure whatever we face.” He licked his lips nervously. “It’s a global crisis that has reached every nation on earth. But we will be safe here,” he said, translating the other actor.

  “And now these next two are short. The first one is in Italian.”

  “How will the government fund this?” Nathan said, translating another news story, this one from Florence, Italy.

  “French.”

  “Has our target hospital reached its full capacity?”

  “Okay, Dr. Harris, now read this,” Sasha said, handing a piece of paper to the translator. “It’s in English.”

  “All units are now activating. Deliveries start tonight in the three locations.”

  “Let’s see how you did,” Sasha said. “You can give me those headphones.” She took them from him, put them on and then took her laptop over to her desk to work.

  Chen got up from his desk and approached Harris. In his hand was some kind of wireless gadget. “Nathan, scanning time. Give me one finger at a time, then your thumbs, then I’ll scan your palms, and finally I’ll scan your whole hands, okay?”

  Bing came up while Chen was working. “Dr. Harris, open your eyes and don’t blink.”

  The translator did as he was told.

  “A little wider.”

  As he opened them further, a blue light crossed his face from right to left.

  “Iris scanning,” Bing explained.

  Nathan resiste
d explaining the pun. He was growing more terrified by the moment.

  Chen had collected the data from that scanner and was returning with a different one. It was a single bar, about five inches long. He put it in the palm of Nathan’s hand. “Wrap your hand around it and squeeze.” There was a flash of light. “Good. Now I’ll put it in the other hand.” The same thing happened.

  “What was that?” asked Harris.

  “VPR.”

  “Which is …”

  “Vein Pattern Recognition. The LEDs emit the Near-Infrared light, and a little computer in this tube extracts your unique pattern of blood vessels.”

  Sasha turned around and faced the group from her desk. “We’ve got it. Good job, Dr. Harris.”

  “I have to admit, I’m a little confused with all of this,” Nathan confessed.

  “Well, your body is a living biometric key. Over the last five years, different people within a variety of governments have been capturing all of your data and sending it to us. We’ve been creating a master key. And because you were so well protected, we all knew the key would be safe.”

  “When was my data collected?”

  “Your voice is the most obvious one, right?”

  Nathan nodded.

  “The six sentences you just recorded completed that part.”

  “I recorded more than six sentences.”

  Sasha tapped a few keystrokes and Nathan could hear his voice coming through the speakers on the flat screen that faced him. “My name is Nathan Benjamin Harris. It’s May 6th. The day we’ve been waiting for is now here. Our global fund has reached its full capacity. All units are now activating. Deliveries start tonight in the three locations.”

  Sasha smiled. “Your fingerprints have been left at dozens of immigration offices around the world as you’ve traveled.”

  “Yeah, that’s true.”

  “You have to do an iris scan when you enter the White House war room, right?”

  “You hacked the White House?” Nathan asked, shocked.

  “Not exactly. Chen works for the company that made the hardware. It’s uploaded every iris ever scanned on that thing.”

  Nathan felt a chill go up his spine. “And the VPR?”

  “That was the proof of life we needed to finish the key.”

  “The key to what?” Harris asked.

  Antonio Sabini was glaring at his iPhone. “What do you mean, gone?”

  “I mean, I’ve been keeping a watch on her, just like you wanted me to. You know that.” Alvin Garcia answered. “I’d drive her home every Wednesday night. And on the other days of the week, I’d drive by and check on her. Last night, I dropped her off at her home. This morning I went to her place to see if she needed anything and she was gone. Her place was empty, but I could tell from her messed up mat and torn pillow that there’d been a problem. So I went into her cousin’s house. It was bad, man.”

  “Bad, how?”

  “The worst kind. Multiple stab wounds to her chest and face. Blood everywhere. I got out right away.”

  “Sounds like Mako’s work.”

  “Exactly. I thought the same thing. So I drove all the way over to his club. My God. The place was a mess.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Cops everywhere. I managed to sneak in and found out that Mako was dead. Shot in the face. And all his men were dead, too. Except for one.”

  “Did the police arrest anybody, or do they have any suspects?”

  “No. They won’t either. Everyone hated Mako.”

  “And Tala?”

  “I talked to one of the hookers, a girl that worked with her, said her name was Mary Jane. She claims a group of armed men came and got Tala.”

  “A group of armed men?”

  “Professionals from the sound of it. Dressed in combat gear. Serious types.”

  “What about Matteo?”

  “He’s gone, too.”

  “Who was the guy they left alive?”

  “I tracked him down. Apparently Mako was going to take the kid home, so he had Matteo wait up in his office. When the militia team got there, they demanded to know where the kid was. This guy led them to Matteo, so they let him go.”

  Sabini took it off speaker-phone and held his iPhone to his ear. “I don’t like the sounds of this, Garcia.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I don’t think there is anything you can do, really. A team like that is already in seclusion, out of the region, or even the country.” He paused, then continued. “Alvin, you’ve done a really good job for me, my friend. Thank you. Now that she’s gone, I don’t think there’s a reason for me to be paying you. If you hear of any news about her, though, you let me know. If it works out, I’ll pay you for the information.”

  “Ok, Mr. Sabini. I’m sorry I lost her.”

  “Not your fault. Your job wasn’t to watch her twenty-four hours a day. You did good, Alvin.”

  “Can I go back to driving day shifts now.”

  “Sure.”

  They disconnected, and Antonio decided to make himself an early-evening espresso. He didn’t exactly know what was going on, and he found it a little unsettling. He was hoping his brother could clear it up, but he was reluctant to call him.

  Sabini was Swiss-Italian from Locarno, on the northern shore of Lake Maggiore. He had a wife of twenty-seven years, one daughter who was studying abroad at Yale, and a pet sausage dog named Federer. Antonio had first met Seiko Chiu at a conference on private banking in Dubai. He was with a private bank called Sacro, Italian for sacred, and she was looking to open her own private bank in Switzerland. Within a year, he’d left Sacro and formed RF Global Fund, a five hundred million dollar private account for the super-rich to play with.

  The private bank manager wasn’t anything special to look at. He had a long nose that got broken when he was hit with a soccer ball in junior high. One of his eyes always looked over the shoulder of whomever he was talking with, while the other one bore into their souls. He was short, well-fed, and probably hadn’t exercised in twenty years. Sabini knew how to count money, but his greater talent came in redistributing it and watching it multiply.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “Justin has found three other possible targets. Get out of there and move to the next one,” Dr. Stone instructed Blue Team.

  “Roger that,” answered Trey.

  Bruce turned to Volodymyr. “If you get out of this truck, you’ll be shot. We’re watching you from satellite, and we have agents all over these ball fields.” He backed his way towards the drivers-side door and knelt on the seat. “Let me give you a piece of advice. Cooperate with the officers that are coming.”

  “Where are you going?”

  Agent Locke didn’t answer. He slipped out of the truck and melted into the trees, along with Tank and Trey.

  As they hurried back to the BMW, Bruce was already downloading new coordinates for the next location when Justin’s voice came through comms.

  “Blue Team. Forget last. Sending you a new location. Proceed to Lawson.”

  Back at LaunchPad, Leonard popped his head out of the conference room door. “What do you have? Why the change?”

  “Check this out, sir,” Park answered, pointing to his tablet. “This truck has heat signatures coming from the trailer. But look at what happened a few hours ago.”

  He ran the footage, and Saara, Bora, and Leonard watched over his shoulder. A smaller truck backed up to the large rig, it was about as big as a medium-sized delivery truck. A few people got out of it and proceeded to work at unloading something from the delivery truck to the semi. It was cumbersome and obviously heavy.

  “What is that?” Leo asked.

  “I’m not sure, but I thought it was suspicious.”

  “Send the image to me,” Saara instructed.

  Justin took a screenshot and sent it to her.

  “Should I call the Department of Homeland Security to investigate Volodymyr and the migrants?” Bora asked Leo while
they were waiting.

  “No. They’re not our focus.”

  Saara pulled up the image she’d been sent and ran it through clarification software. When it was finished rendering, she moved it onto one of the large flat screens above their heads.

  “I don’t know,” she said, looking at the image.

  “It looks like a massage chair,” Bora said, moving a little closer to the screen to get a better look.

  Leo shook his head. “We need to get to Harris right away if that’s what I think it is.”

  The three others turned to him, waiting for an explanation that never came.

  “Justin, go back to real-time. How close is Blue Team?”

  Park synced the satellite imagery with the team-tracking screen on the right. “Less than four minutes away.”

  There was only one way in and out of Lawson Creek Park. After passing a football field, Lawson Creek Park Drive continued and opened up to a large parking lot on the left, fronted by Trent River, and a large grassy area on the right. Both sides of the road were filled with semi-trucks. A few of the trucks had their engines on, regulating the temperature inside their cabs, while others were turned off, their drivers relaxing outside on lawn chairs or standing in small circles and chatting with other truckers.

  “Straight ahead of you is the land bridge to Jack’s Island,” Tank informed Bruce.

  The road went in a circle around the landmass that sat in the Trent River. From the satellite image, it looked kind of like a rabbit head with the right ear flopping over. They crossed over the bridge and passed three trucks parked at the entrance of the island, and as they continued along the road, they passed a few more.

  “Okay, our target is by itself in a little parking lot up on the right,” Lakota said, looking at his tablet. “Should we stop here or do a drive-by?”