by Ian Hamilton
“When do you want this information?”
“By tomorrow morning at the latest.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
That isn’t good enough, Ava almost said, and then swallowed the words. “Thanks. I’ll be waiting.”
( 16 )
The flight to Manila departed ten minutes late; after an hour and forty minutes it landed at just past ten o’clock. With only a carry-on bag and no Customs and Immigration to deal with, Ava quickly exited Aquino Airport, got into a taxi, and then sat in traffic for close to an hour. But the time on the plane and in the cab wasn’t wasted. Although it was a domestic flight, the plane from Zamboanga had arrival and departure cards on board, and Ava was able to confirm what she thought she remembered about the information that had to be entered.
The landing card was one of the most detailed she’d ever seen. It requested basic data such as name, birthdate, country of birth, citizenship, passport number and date and place of issue, airport of origin, and flight number. It also asked for the home address of the traveller and a destination address in the Philippines, including street, town, and province. The departure card wasn’t quite as detailed, but it required the same basic personal data plus a flight number and a destination. If Elisha Gill was correct about the efficiency of the Bureau of Immigration, and if Kassab and al-Touma were in the system, Ava would soon know a lot more about them and their whereabouts.
She reached the Peninsula Hotel at a quarter after eleven — again too late for the restaurant. She checked in and got exactly the same room she’d barely used the night before. It occurred to her that everything else about her time in the Philippines had undergone a seismic change within the past twenty-four hours.
She showered, pulled on a clean T-shirt and underwear, and sat at the room desk. She turned on her computer and, while it booted, checked her phone. She’d missed one call from a Chinese number, and the caller had left a message.
“This is Fai. I just finished the second day of shooting, and it went well. I miss you and I love you.”
Ava hit the Return Call button and seconds later was put through to voicemail. She swore and then said, “I love you too. I’ll call in the morning.”
She returned to the computer and opened her email. There were several messages from Amanda with updates about the meeting in Shanghai. She scanned them for any hint of a problem with the Italians’ commitment, but it seemed that the PÖ team was getting a positive reception in the market. She replied to the last one. Glad things are going well. I’m caught up in a complicated situation that’s going to be demanding of my time, so for now don’t bother updating me unless there’s an issue you want me to deal with. I’ll be in touch as soon as I resolve matters here. Love, Ava.
She then glanced at her other email and, when she saw nothing of any importance, switched to a search engine. She entered “Ishak Kassab” and linked the name to “Zakat Foundation” and “Zakat College.” There were no hits. She did the same for “Fileeb al-Touma,” with the same result. She then linked their names to the banks in Saudi Arabia and Jordan. The banks were well established and there was a lot of information about them, but there were no connections to the foundation or the college. She changed search engines and repeated the process. Again no hits. She stared at the screen in disbelief. These men had to exist somewhere. The Foundation had opened bank accounts in Jordan and Saudi Arabia and had been funnelling money to the Philippines for a year. How did they manage to remain so far below the radar? It was time to reach out to Johnny Yan.
He answered his office phone on the second ring, with a brisk “Yan.”
“It’s Ava. Are you free to talk?”
He paused. “Wait five minutes and then call my cell.”
That was strange, she thought. She wasn’t surprised that he wanted her to call his cell, but his manner had been uncharacteristically brusque. She waited for ten minutes before doing as he’d asked. When he answered, she could hear traffic in the background.
“Are you outside the building?”
“I’m taking a smoke break,” he said. “Where are you this time?”
“Manila.”
“You’re always somewhere other than Toronto when you call me.”
“That was the nature of my old business.”
“And now?”
“I guess it’s the nature of my life.” She laughed.
“Are you phoning me for some help?”
“I am. There’s a bank in Saudi Arabia and another in Jordan —”
“Ava, I can’t do it.”
“What?”
“That last project — the one involving the holdings of that family in China — caused a lot of problems,” he said.
“It was the Tsai family of Nanjing, and the information you provided helped put an end to their massive corruption.”
“Even if that’s true, the blowback here was so strong that even people two and three levels up were ducking for cover.”
“Were you affected directly in any way?”
“No, I’m still in the same job, but I have a feeling I’m being watched. And I think my chances for promotion have stalled,” he said. “Felix Lau wasn’t so lucky.”
Felix was Johnny’s friend and his main contact in the international branch of the bank. All the enquiries made of international banks for Ava’s benefit had been initiated by Felix. “Oh no, what happened to him?”
“He was taken off the international desk and moved to domestic consumer banking. It’s the same pay grade but it’s boring as hell, and there’s not much of a future in it.”
“And you’re sure they moved him because of the Tsai enquiries?”
“Ava, he was grilled a couple of times about them. For a while he thought he was going to lose his job. I have to say he’s got balls. He kept both our names out of it, although mine did pop up somewhere in the electronic trail.”
“Were you questioned?”
“Briefly, but like I said, I think I’m still being watched.”
“I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
“It isn’t your fault, and when all is said and done, we were on the side of the good guys.”
“Is there anything I can do for you or for Felix?”
“I think it’s best if we just leave things as they are for now.”
“Johnny, please know that you can call me anytime you need help. And please pass along that same message to Felix.”
“I’ll let him know,” he said. “Now I should get going.”
When the line went dead, Ava put down the phone with a sinking feeling. She hated being the cause of her friends’ difficulties. She wished she could have said more to Johnny and could do more for him and Felix. Then, she thought, a bit selfishly, there was the problem of losing the access they provided to foreign banks. What the hell would she do now?
In the past she’d contacted banks directly, either by phone or electronically, and tried to bluff her way into getting the information she wanted. But her successes were hit-and-miss, and the downside of missing was that the banks would often alert the party she was interested in. Alerting the college or whoever was financing it wasn’t a risk she wanted to take. That left using a third party as her best option. But whom could she trust — and who trusted her enough — to do it?
The first name that came to mind was May Ling, but when Ava thought about asking her to help, the associated complications began to accumulate. She couldn’t expect May to use one of her companies to make an approach without clearing it with her husband and partner, Changxing. The same complications would probably arise if she asked May to go through one of her banks. Besides, how would banks in the Middle East react to a request from a Chinese bank in Wuhan?
Then she thought of Burgess and Bowlby, the Hong Kong law firm that represented Three Sisters’ interests in Asia. She had involved them when she
went after the Tsai family, and they’d been terrific, but everything they did had drawn on their wealth of experience and contacts in China. Ava wasn’t sure they would have any expertise or contacts in the Middle East. She also didn’t feel like answering the multitude of questions that any approach to Brenda Burgess would unleash.
“Shit,” Ava said, and reached for the phone to call Shanghai.
“Hi, Ava. Where are you? Still in the Philippines?” Xu said.
“I’m in my room at the Peninsula Hotel in Manila.”
“And how’s it going with Chang and his mysterious problem?”
“It isn’t mysterious anymore, and that’s not a good thing,” she said. “Do you have time to listen?”
“How much time are you talking about?”
“It could take a while.”
“I’m supposed to meet friends for a late drink. Give me a moment while I reschedule it.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“From the tone of your voice, it sounds like you’re into some heavy stuff.”
“That’s actually true.”
“So give me a minute.”
He was gone for several minutes, but that gave Ava time to start organizing her thoughts. Her decision to call Xu had been spontaneous, and now that she had, telling him what she’d stumbled into seemed completely natural.
“Okay, I’m back,” he said. “You have all the time you need.”
She drew a deep breath and began to speak calmly and concisely. She had no idea how long it took to describe and explain the details of her conversation with Chang Wang, her meeting with Ramirez, the trip to Tawi-Tawi, and her encounters with Wahab, Imam Sharif, Ben, Alcem, the lawyer Jaafar, and the banker Mutilan, but it was long enough that twice she had to drink water to relieve her dry mouth and throat.
Xu listened silently until she began to talk about her problem with accessing the banks in Saudi Arabia and Jordan. “Ava, are you asking me if I can help get information from them?” he interrupted.
“I guess I am.”
“Even if I could, I don’t know if I would,” he said. “Do you know how crazy everything you’ve told me sounds?”
“That’s the world we live in now.”
“It isn’t my world, and it shouldn’t be yours.”
“You’re lucky to live in Shanghai.”
“Which is where you should have come instead of going to the Philippines.”
“It’s a bit late for that now,” Ava said, surprised but not displeased by his protective attitude.
“What does Chang have to say about what you’ve found out? I find it hard to understand how he can expect you to manage this for him.”
“I haven’t told him anything about today, although I expect Senator Ramirez has,” she said. “In any event, all I’m doing is gathering information.”
“The problem is that you’re gathering information about people who’d rather stay in the dark. If they find out you’re prying into their affairs, you can’t expect them to react passively.”
“Xu, you know how careful I am. I’m not about to run off half-cocked.”
“But you’re not doing this alone. There are other people involved.”
“Yes, and it’s in their self-interest to be as close-mouthed as possible.”
“I can understand why the Brotherhood would want to keep things quiet, but do you trust the politician?”
“He’s a business partner of Chang and Ordonez in the pineapple plantations. I figure they must have a couple of hundred million U.S. dollars at risk. They’ll want to protect that at all costs, and to do that they have to keep the region stable and protect the Brotherhood. So yes, I trust him.”
“Even though you do, and even if the Brotherhood is as discreet as you say, where does that leave you?”
“I don’t know. The immediate challenge I have is those damn banks in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. I need someone who can help me get the information I want from them.”
“I can’t help you there, and I don’t know anyone who can,” he said. “But it seems to me that if the senator is correct about the unreliability of Philippine security services, you should consider getting in touch with the people who could be most directly affected by the situation in Tawi-Tawi.”
“The Americans?”
“Precisely.”
“I don’t know anyone I could contact. Do you?”
“Ava, in my business I try to avoid those kinds of people, not get to know them,” Xu said. “I can’t even think of an intermediary I’d feel comfortable using.”
“Actually, now that you mention an intermediary…I might have one,” she said.
“Someone you can really trust?”
“I won’t have a sense of that until I talk to him — assuming that I can,” Ava said. “He might not be in the same job, and even if he is, he knows me by another name. And he might not remember me that fondly.”
“That doesn’t sound like a recipe for trust.”
“Maybe not, but he’s the only person I can come up with right now. Don’t worry, I’ll mull it over before I do anything.”
“I’m still worried,” Xu said. “I’d feel better if I knew you had some protection. Do you want me to send Suen or some of my other men to the Philippines?”
“No, that’s not necessary.”
“Have you thought of bringing over Sonny?”
“Sonny doesn’t function very well outside of Hong Kong and some parts of China,” Ava said. Sonny Kwok had been Uncle’s long-time bodyguard and chauffeur, and she had inherited him when Uncle died. Technically he was her employee, and he devoted all his time to her whenever she was in Hong Kong. When she wasn’t there, he drove for Amanda and Ava’s father, Marcus, and her half-brother Michael.
“Well, if you’re going to insist on doing this alone, be careful. And if you need anything, call me.”
“I will, I promise,” she said.
Xu had probably been correct when he said the best route to the information she wanted was through the Americans. But could she go to them without violating the trust that the Brotherhood and Chang had placed in her? It might work, she thought, if she properly structured an arrangement with them. Besides, even Ramirez had intimated that sooner or later the Americans might be their fallback, and this wasn’t a time to be tentative. In her mind it wasn’t a question of whether she should be trying to get American assistance; it was a matter of whether Ryan Poirier would agree to act as the conduit.
The last time she had met Poirier, he was running Canadian Security Intelligence Service operations in Jakarta. At least she assumed he was running them, because he certainly acted that way. Through a complicated chain of events, she had found herself forced to work with him at the conclusion of a massive theft investigation that she and Uncle had pursued from Toronto to Vietnam and finally to Surabaya in Indonesia. With Poirier’s hands-on assistance, which included the bloody involvement of an elite Indonesian army unit whose help he’d enlisted, Ava had managed to recover thirty million dollars for their clients. Poirier and the Indonesians got the credit for busting an international money-laundering scheme operated by the ’Ndrangheta — a brutal Italian mob — and also managed to pocket close to forty million dollars for their governments to split.
Poirier’s attitude towards Ava before and during the Surabaya raid had been suspicious. Several times he had made it clear that he didn’t trust her, and even when events transpired exactly as she had predicted, his attitude didn’t change. Her last memory was of him abruptly closing a car door before driving away without so much as a thank-you or a goodbye.
If she’d told Xu that story, she knew he would not have taken seriously the idea of her using Poirier as the intermediary. But to her mind, the opposite was true. She had gone to Poirier with a story about the ’Ndrangheta that was almost preposterous.
Moreover, she had made contact with him through a tenuous connection in Ottawa, who in turn had been introduced to her through a Mountie in Guyana who’d met her only twice, and both times briefly. Yet he had heard her out, asked a number of hard but fair questions, and then fully committed to the project and delivered everything he said he would.
Admittedly she had been a bit nervous after his less than polite departure at the Surabaya airport, because he and the Indonesians had all the money. All she had was his promise that he would wire thirty million to Uncle’s bank in Kowloon. It would have been easy for him not to send anything and then make up some story about illicit funds. She would have no recourse if they sent nothing, and she was sure Poirier understood that. But the money was sent in full and on time, and with that act he earned her respect and trust. However, the question wasn’t how she felt about him; it was how he felt about her.
One of her biggest problems was that he didn’t know her as Ava Lee. She had used the name Jennie Kwong and had backed up the deceit with a Hong Kong passport. How would he react when she told him the truth? I won’t know unless I tell him, she thought.
She tried to remember where she had stored his contact information and began searching through her phone and emails. After ten minutes she gave up, frustrated, and went to the website of the Canadian embassy in Jakarta. She entered Ryan Poirier’s name. To her surprise, a photo appeared on her screen, and there was Poirier’s lean face, long chin, and red hair. He was officially an assistant commercial officer and evidently still stationed in Indonesia.
( 17 )
She had no idea what time she fell asleep. It was well after midnight when she gave up searching for Kassab and al-Touma, and she was exhausted when she finally went to bed. But her mind kept turning, and not even doing bak mei exercises in her head could shut it down. Finally, in the middle of an imagined conversation with Ryan Poirier, trying to explain why the woman he knew as Jennie Kwong was really Ava Lee, she nodded off.
She woke to the sound of her phone. She grabbed it from the bedside table and glanced at the incoming number. “Wahab,” she said, answering as she pulled herself erect.
