The Risk Agent

by Ridley Pearson

  Knox confounded himself attempting to find any hidden files in the memory of Lu Hao’s digital frame, a process well above his pay grade. He determined that the frame’s memory was partitioned into two virtual drives-like two separate file cabinets. He’d been able to retrieve the images from one of the virtual drives, but as far as he could tell, the other was blocked by a password.

  “If anything’s on this frame other than the photos, we’re going to need an expert,” Knox finally confessed.

  Grace said nothing.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “I heard you.”

  He glanced up at the fast-forwarding security footage. They shared this task.

  “Anything?” he asked. She had the two volumes of endless spreadsheet pages in front of her. She’d placed bookmarks of torn napkin throughout both, making the printouts look feathered.

  “I put Selena at risk,” she said, not looking up.

  “You had no idea she was going to guilt-trip off her boss going to some island and start blabbing about it.”

  “I have made her an unknowing accomplice.”

  “Sometimes you sound so cold-hearted,” he said. “Not today.”

  “And nearly all the time you sound pig-headed.”

  “I think we could both use some sleep,” he said.

  “I need Lu Hao’s records.”

  “I think we’ve established that.”

  Grace looked up at him, her face lined with fatigue.

  “The Berthold Group’s accountants consolidated the payments to Lu Hao’s consulting firm in the GA-general accounting. Trying, I suppose, to make the payments appear like business as usual, when they know otherwise. The problem with that practice is that when those payments change substantially, as is the case recently, it is a red flag.” She showed Knox the pages of numbers; he pretended to follow along. “In this case, an additional two hundred thousand U.S. was paid out to Lu Hao’s consulting firm. The timing is significant, John. First, the added two hundred thousand,” she switched volumes and drew her finger down a column, “then, less than a week later, Marquardt’s redacted trip to Chongming Island,” back to the original ledger, “then a second overpayment of two hundred thousand U.S., the same day Lu Hao went missing.”

  Knox whistled. “Four hundred grand. Which is why they didn’t want you getting hold of their books. It took you only a matter of hours to connect it.”

  “There are a hundred ways to hide such things. They are either arrogant or ignorant. Both are crimes when it comes to accounting.”

  “So they made a couple balloon payments, probably to the Mongolian. Thanks to Sarge, we know the Mongolian has connections to Beijing. So the payments went north. But that doesn’t get us any closer to extraction? To finding them. I mean, this is all well and good-and fascinating,” he mocked, “but we’ve already established the Mongolian is as interested in finding Lu Hao as we are. So he’s a…distraction.”

  “Selena claimed that Marquardt and Preston Song would never travel together unless for due diligence on a future project.” Grace lowered her voice. “Connect that to Beijing, where the government decides all the biggest construction projects. Lu Hao wasn’t paying off the Mongolian to aid the Xuan Tower. He was paying for information on a new government project. Such projects can be worth billions.”

  “Speculation.”

  “A logical deduction based on research and information. We must act!”

  “So, Lu Hao makes the second payoff. Why does the Mongolian give a damn about him after that?”

  “Protect the Beijing superior,” Grace said. “If Lu Hao talks, heads roll.”

  Executions of corrupt officials were not uncommon in China. It had been a while since the last.

  “Interesting,” Knox said. “But again: it doesn’t get us any closer to extraction.”

  “Listen,” she said, “Marquardt hired us to get Lu Hao out. But he could be as panicked as the Beijing contact. If The Berthold Group is seen to be involved in influencing a government official, they, he could be imprisoned. The Australians were given twelve years.” She was referring to a recent trial that had made international headlines. “Maybe they could negotiate their way out of criminal charges on the Xuan payments. But not something of this size tied directly to Beijing.”

  Knox wasn’t going to repeat himself.

  “Perhaps Lu Hao’s records confirm this.”

  “Not to be rude, but who cares?” Knox said. “Honestly, I don’t care who’s paying whom at this point. I want an address. I want extraction.”

  She was silent for some time. “Lu Hao’s records are our only source of possible information.”

  Knox closed his eyes and tried to work it out. The money trail was apparently fascinating to an accountant, but he’d grown tired of it. The big payments to the Mongolians and on to Beijing were clearly significant. “Yang Cheng could be behind the kidnappings,” he said. “It was his men in the alley behind Quintet. He knew about your hire at Berthold, so he obviously has an insider there. He wanted you to abandon Marquardt. Make things more difficult for Marquardt. Maybe we can trade for the hostages.”

  “If Yang had Lu Hao he would have Lu Hao’s information. Yang is not the kidnapper.”

  “You know what? Who gives a shit? What’s important to us is that with Sarge down, there’s no ransom money.”

  “Yes.”

  “We won’t want to trade the accounts until we know what we’re giving away.”

  “Again, I do not follow.”

  “Lu’s accounts may reveal who has the most to fear, who has the most to lose. Therefore, who will pay the most.”

  “John, are you talking to me?”

  “The accounts are the prize-it explains all the attention on Lu’s apartment. The attack on us.”

  “You and I want the same thing, if for different reasons,” she said. “Lu Hao’s books.”

  “You sound like a marriage counselor.”

  “Do not get your hopes up.”

  “Ha! Regardless,” he said, “once we have Lu’s books we can start dealing. Yang Cheng, the Mongolians, maybe Marquardt as well.”

  “You want to sell the information for cash. To raise money needed to pay the ransom,” she said.

  “I thought you said you weren’t following.” He paused. “Amy knows this guy-I’ve met him a couple of times. Sells counterfeit video games. A computer brainiac. He can help us.”

  “So call this person,” she said reluctantly. “Selena owes me a copy of Marquardt’s redacted credit card statement. I will ask her again. This may help as well.”

  “You don’t have to sound so excited about Amy helping us,” Knox said.

  “This has nothing to do with you. It is Chinese. You would not understand.”

  “Face? I understand face.”

  “Westerners intellectualize face. Chinese live it. It is very different.”

  5:40 P.M.

  Knox did not like the idea of putting them all in the same room together-pigs for the slaughter-but saw little choice. Carrying a black backpack containing Lu Hao’s digital photo frame, he checked the street for surveillants at every opportunity. Changed his look every few blocks with baseball caps and sunglasses.

  He arrived early at the rendezvous, a dismal-looking beauty salon with a white, pink and blue barber pole outside. Walked past and continued for another block. Crossed through traffic. Cut back at the next light and approached the salon for a second time.

  He paused by a curbside dice game being played on an inverted cardboard box in the shade of a plane tree. Cigarettes dangled from wet lips. Spitting tobacco bits, and sipping cold tea, rheumy-eyed men competed fiercely.

  Amy arrived at the salon first, taking no security precautions whatsoever. Grace followed, also performing a walk-by before entering. Selena had e-mailed Marquardt’s electronic AMEX statement; Knox had left her studying it, unsure if she’d pry herself away for this meeting; glad she had.

  He awaited a city bus to screen
himself from the opposing sidewalk and, as the bus passed, slipped into the salon.

  Amy occupied the third of three chairs to the right, her hair foaming, her attendant shooting a stream of water from a squirt bottle onto her head while working up the suds. Despite the wet application, it was referred to as a “dry” shampoo. Grace, in the middle chair, was being prepared.

  Knox greeted the owner, a fit man in his early forties with a cataract film covering his left eye. The man checked with Amy in the mirror. Amy nodded.

  “You wait, few minutes, please,” the man said in passable English. He pointed. “Waiting area in back, past curtain.”

  Knox and Grace exchanged a meaningful look. He wondered if she, too, had spotted the Mongolian following Amy.

  Knox wondered how the Mongolian had possibly made the connection to Amy-the cocktail party? Quintet?

  The curtain was a Simpsons bedsheet thumbtacked into the doorjamb beyond which was a tiny sink and stool. Knox was forced to turn sideways to slip past the sink and into a narrow hallway that led to a back door. He inspected the door, checking the lock. The door opened on to a sublane where laundry was in bloom. Clear both directions. He turned. Homer and Marge laughed at him in faded glory.

  The tiny storage room’s shelves were crowded with hand towels, hair product, a rice cooker, a cutting board and a plastic pail of green vegetables. Near the far wall, half a wooden door on rusting file cabinets served as a desk. At the desk, his back to Knox, sat a twenty-something Chinese boy with a lousy haircut. If he stabbed the laptop’s keys any harder he was going to break it.

  He spun to face Knox. A poor attempt at facial hair. He was chewing purple gum. He spoke English. “Ready when you are, professor.”

  “Tom,” Knox said, introducing himself.

  “Randy.”

  As if.

  Amy came through wearing a towel on her shoulders and her hair spiked punk rock by shampoo.

  “You two make introductions?” she said.

  “Yes,” Knox said.

  Grace entered next, crowding the space. Her eyes tightened, dancing between Amy and Knox.

  “Let’s have a look,” Randy said. It sounded rehearsed. The kind of guy to practice lines in front of a mirror.

  Knox provided him the digital frame. Amy had made all the arrangements; she carried the anxious concern of a worried hostess.

  Grace seemed more interested in Amy than the laptop. “It is crowded here. We will give you room.”

  Knox stayed. He wasn’t leaving a stranger in possession of the frame and its possible contents. Randy connected the frame to the laptop by wire, and began typing. Ten minutes passed, feeling like thirty.

  “Memory is partitioned,” he said. “One side encrypted. You care about frame?”

  “Only its contents,” Knox said.

  Randy pried the frame open with a screwdriver, startling Knox.

  He spoke as he continued disassembling the device. “Common mistake is try to break encryption.” He exposed a small circuit board. Using a magnifying loupe, he studied the board as his hand blindly searched the desktop for the screwdriver.

  “But that’s what we want,” Knox said. “We want the data from the encrypted partition.”

  “I understand,” Randy said. “Breaking such code can take days. Weeks.”

  “We don’t have days or weeks.”

  “No. But we have this,” he said, holding up the screwdriver, his attention still trained onto the loupe and the circuit board.

  “The CMOS battery is soldered,” he said.

  He sat up and addressed Knox.

  “Just like laptop, the board uses small watch battery to hold password. Dead battery, no password. Sometimes battery is soldered to keep it from separating. That is case here. Screwdriver too big. Need paperclip.”

  “How about a bobby pin?”

  The man looked at him, confused. “Bobby?”

  “Hair clip? We’re in the right place for hair clips.”

  “Excellent!”

  Minutes later, Randy had used a metal bobby pin to short the board and drain the small battery’s charge. The full directory of the partitioned side of the frame’s memory now appeared on his connected laptop.

  The women rejoined Knox.

  “Contents?” Knox asked.

  “A dot-xls file. Microsoft Excel. Also some small audio files. Photos. I will download for you.” He handed Knox a thumb drive.

  “Give us a minute please,” Knox said, eyeing Amy and indicating for Randy to leave the room.

  “The upper back massage is most pleasant,” Amy said, escorting Randy out of the small room. “Only takes ten minutes. You will try now.”

  Grace opened the spreadsheet. Five minutes passed, Knox standing behind her, impatient. Anxious. The spreadsheet notes were all in Chinese characters. He could read some, but not all of them.

  When she spoke, she spoke English.

  “It is everything,” she said. “Lu Hao used full names. Phone numbers. He recorded all payments. Very much money, John. More than is accounted for by The Berthold Group of course. Over past six months, nine million yuan. Over a million, U.S.

  “With this kind of inside information,” she continued, “any construction company would be ensured of success. On the other hand, if the government got hold of this list, they would jail every one of them. The inherent value of this is astronomical.”

  “How many contacts? How many getting payments?”

  “The same. No new locations.”

  “The Mongolians?”

  “No sign of the most recent payments.”

  Knox mulled this over. “Seriously?”

  She nodded. “The four hundred thousand is unaccounted for.”

  “Why so much detail? How stupid could he be?”

  “Lu Hao is not stupid. Ambitious? Overconfident? Yes. But not stupid. It is doubtful keeping records was his idea,” she said. “Someone must have required it.”

  “But then why’s it incomplete?”

  She shrugged.

  Knox attempted to clarify. “You’re saying Berthold wanted this accounting.”

  “It is far too much money to entrust without some form of accountability. A person could embezzle a small fortune.”

  “Do you think that’s what happened? Lu Hao put his finger in the pie?” That would explain kidnapping and holding the man.

  “Not Lu Hao,” she said.

  “Who would he have reported to? Marquardt?”

  “Certainly not! This would put him at a direct risk of prosecution. Someone Marquardt trusts. Preston Song, I think, maybe. My immediate boss, Gail Bunchkin, is also possible. But I think Song. His being Chinese helps the company if it is investigated-keeps the charges off a foreign executive, which would look very bad. It is most likely Marquardt would have received only a verbal report on anything to do with Lu Hao’s activities.”

  “Okay,” he said, compartmentalizing. “So as soon as we turn this over, the bribes will likely begin again.”

  “Without a doubt. This will allow the Xuan Tower project to get back on schedule.”

  Sensing a change in her, he said, “What is it, Grace?”

  “As we have discussed: if The Berthold Group is working against us, then the moment they have Lu Hao’s accounts they no longer need Lu Hao. With all the attention being paid to him, it might be more convenient if he disappeared. The police will want to speak to Lu Hao. Maybe others in the government.”

  “Yes,” Knox said. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. And now, with Sarge out of the equation, maybe there’s no ransom money anyway.”

  “I remind you of Marquardt’s trip to Chongming Island. Again, I suggest this trip had nothing to do with the Xuan Tower, yet possibly everything to do with Lu Hao’s disappearance.”

  “Explain.”

  “My mother claims Lu Hao was on Chongming Island on the sixteenth for a four-day fete. The seventeenth he left me the voice mail.”

  “You’re beating yourself
up over that call.”

  “He was on Chongming Island on the seventeenth! The bribes,” she said, pointing to the laptop, “are for favors. Inspectors. Suppliers. There is a banker on here.”

  Knox nodded. He knew the participants-up close and personal-from his earlier visits.

  “I suggest,” she said, “the two payments of two hundred thousand U.S. had something to do with Chongming Island. My home. Lu Hao’s home. I believe the payments were made through an intermediary-the Mongolians. Lu Hao’s phone call to me…he was frantic. Maybe he got stupid and pushed too hard. Got himself into trouble. My point is that he had seen something. My mother confirmed he was on Chongming Island the day he phoned me, only days behind Mr. Marquardt’s trip.”

  Knox liked this as a possible motive for the man’s kidnapping, and said so. “That has teeth.”

  “I have the name of the driver Marquardt hired on Chongming Island,” she said. “Marquardt’s credit card statement,” she supplied. “We can follow his trail. We need to determine the purpose of this trip of his. Perhaps it leads to Lu Hao and Mr. Danner.”

  “It’s beyond our purview,” he cautioned.

  “You talk about the power this accounting holds,” she said. “And of course, you are right.” This was her first such concession-that possession of the information, more than even the information itself, gave them leverage with which to negotiate. “But knowledge of whatever secret exists, whatever secret they wanted hidden, would give us far more understanding and possible leverage.”

  “Marquardt is not the enemy. He’s who hired us. Did he play it close to the vest? Of course! But we can use this trip of his without knowing the exact details. It’s called ‘finesse.’”

  “Once I deliver the accounts,” she said, “there may be no Lu Hao. No Danner. Finesse that! What if Marquardt’s-Berthold Group’s-only interest in working through Rutherford Risk is to find out how much, if any, of this malfeasance can be discovered by third-party investigators?”

  Knox had already considered this same idea-that he and Grace were being used as proxy investigators. Expendable investigators.