by Robin Mahle
“I can’t say with any certainty that’s the case yet, sir. My team and I are working on it. And the reason I’m here is to request additional resources. We’re a four-man operation and in need of help from an operative I met with in Beijing in addition to a top analyst who can jump in with both feet. There’s no time for red tape in this situation, sir. We need to act now.”
“Get in the proper request and I’ll expedite it.”
“Thank you, sir.” Axell pushed off his chair to leave.
“Has Mobley been briefed?”
“He has, sir. I need to get back to the shop and come up with a game plan for my team.”
“Axell, do you believe your life or the lives of your team are in danger?”
“I have no idea.”
Aaron diligently worked on obtaining intel on Malcolm Ford when Will and Lacy returned to the shop. “Good. You’re back. How did Mobley take the news?”
“Not well, but he’s authorized additional resources,” Will replied. “Axell’s not back yet?”
“I am.” He appeared from the rear entrance. “I heard the tail end of your conversation. I’m about to send in the request for satellite surveillance and an analyst to back up anything Hunter might need on Ford. The director said he’d process it ASAP.”
“What did he say about Janz? About losing him?”
“Nothing. Not to me, anyway. Until we know who’s behind Janz’ death, the need to tread lightly around those outside our team is paramount. I know we have help, but the four of us here? We need to depend on each other right now.” Axell turned to Aaron. “Any luck on Malcolm Ford?”
“I did find something of interest. Come take a look.” Aaron turned around his monitor. “A shell company. Out of Luxembourg. I had to dig pretty deep inside the SEC, but I found his name in a filing and discovered the PLC’s managing partner was Malcolm Ford. What’s interesting here is that the company sells shares privately, not on the exchange.”
“Why would that matter?” Lacy asked.
“Well, I’m no expert in business structure, but from what I read, they would’ve sold shares to raise capital. Maybe enough to purchase Dalian stock. I don’t know.”
“I could ask someone in White Collar,” Will began. “Gain a better understanding of the structure.”
“Okay. So we know who this guy is. The name of his company. Now we need to know the source of the funds. I’d like to know where we can find him too.”
“What do we do about Janz’ death? Do we need to be concerned here, Trevor?”
“Lacy, no one knows about the task force apart from the president and the directors. No one else knows any of us are a part of it. Janz was spilling intel, and he got killed for it. Now, if he was under surveillance, which seems the most probable scenario, they will find out it was me he was talking to. And I’ll take precautions. However, I don’t believe any of you are in danger. If we get intel to suggest otherwise, we have the resources to do what we need to do to protect ourselves. I’m going to get a team to sweep the house. If Janz was bugged, we’ll know and we’ll know who was doing it.”
Shen Yang stood, his back turned to the unexpected guest who had arrived unannounced, and gazed out over the garden of his lavish estate from his home office window.
“We’ve suffered exposure at the hands of your friend, Mr. Matthew Greiner, who is no longer with us as of 5am D.C. time.”
“Witnesses?” Yang said, still turned.
“One. Trevor Axell, CIA. Earlier this morning, I received a call from one of our operatives inside the agency. He informed me a meeting had taken place with the CIA director. Agent Axell made a request for additional resources.”
Yang finally turned. “I will take it from here. Thank you.” He waited for the man to leave before picking up his phone. “I trust you’ve been made aware of the situation?” Yang sat down in his chair. “I felt it necessary to inform you that we will need to take precautionary measures to ensure no evidence is found in the home of Matthew Greiner. I’ll need all files deleted. Personal and otherwise. Can you confirm that will happen?” He waited for the reply on the other end of the line. “It will need to be sooner rather than later, or we risk discovery of our arrangement. And you’ll inform your people?” He waited again. “Very well. Goodbye, sir.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Yang.” The secretary stood in a ray of grey-morning light and opened his refrigerator door, its bright bulb stinging his tired eyes. Inside was the water he now craved, and on closing the door again, he drank almost the entire bottle in one fell swoop. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He’d only just been made aware of this debacle and so Yang’s call was to be expected. He thought they had enough on Janz that he would remain loyal, which was why he was chosen. But he hadn’t diverted Agent Axell’s attention, and in fact, appeared to have offered evidence that could destroy everything. Now Janz was gone. The facilitator. And Trevor Axell knew things.
The problem now was how to keep Axell from getting to Yang. He needed Yang and vice versa. They’d come so far and had accomplished a great many things he thought impossible. China was still dumping stock and their currency was tanking. The sanctions were working, even if it was beginning to tear apart the country. Sacrifices still needed to be made. And had been made. The devastation of the mall attack was still fresh on the minds of the American people.
He picked up his phone again and made the call. “We’re going to have to give him up. They’re too close.” He waited on the line. “Given what’s happened, I doubt he’ll get a word in before they kill him. If it has to be that way, then we’ll deal with it. We have much of the plan in place already. And he has people inside Xinjiang who are aware. We’ll have to use that to our advantage. Nothing has to change.” He tipped the few drops of water left into his mouth. “No. Once he’s gone, I’m confident it will end there. We’ll just sit back and wait. Don’t make a move. Just let it happen.” He ended the call and started back up the stairs.
Chapter 15
Twenty-three million, give or take a million or two. That was the number of Muslims in China, the majority of which resided in the Xinjiang region and were of Uyghur descent. This equated to roughly two percent of the entire population. A notable minority. One in which the Chinese government had been grappling with in its efforts to control the population’s growing extremist views. A consequence of their own harsh actions.
This was Yang’s home. This was Yang’s belief. And as he sat in his American home, with his Han Chinese wife, he knew that the bold alliance he helped form put them both in grave danger. The closer he came to completing the objective, the riskier it was for him to even leave his home, let alone visit his homeland.
What started out as a joint effort to bring an end to, as he saw it, the complete extermination of his people through eradicating their religion, appeared to have become beneficial to only one side. And that side was not his.
Now, the man who had been a trusted liaison, ensuring the money flowed and the inquiries were squelched, was gone. Dead. And Yang was on his own. He’d helped them get rid of Lei Jian. A man who, for all intents and purposes, had become drunk with his own perceived power. He’d helped keep the Dalian Company running, avoiding the tough US sanctions. And now he’d begun to feel his friends were no longer his allies. That perhaps they no longer wanted the same things. Or was it that they never wanted the same thing to begin with? Had Yang been so consumed with the objective that he failed to see its faults?
Trevor Axell was going to be a problem, one he hadn’t counted on and certainly not one he believed was his problem to solve. Would Yang have to renege on his agreement? And if so, what would the ramifications of such an act have on his people?
He walked downstairs as the sunlight soared in the sky. The time had come to confront those who had put him here.
Aaron rubbed his eyes and rolled back in his desk chair. The information he’d uncovered and its consequences were still sinking in. Inside his apartment, timidity climbed up his spine.
He eyed his front door— it was locked. He stood from his chair and walked to the middle of the room, standing still, eyes cast in every direction. Soon he began checking all the windows of his third-floor unit. All were secured.
He reached for his phone, hand hovering over the call button, and hesitated. Since working inside the Agency, Aaron learned how easy it was to listen to anyone, anywhere. And with the evidence he’d just come across, it wasn’t worth the risk.
The car keys sat on the small breakfast bar. Aaron snatched them up along with his coat and laptop, and was out the door. The question became, who would he turn to first? Axell, out of a sense of duty, or Lacy, out of a sense of loyalty. Both would need to know and his heart told him to turn to the woman. It would of course be Lacy. No one mattered to him as much as she did.
Within minutes, he found himself standing at her front door, hunched over in the freezing rain that was beginning to turn to hail in the building storm.
Lacy opened the door before he had a chance to knock. “I saw you pull up. What are you doing here? Are you okay?” Her concern for him appeared in her worried eyes. “Come in before you freeze to death out there.”
“Thanks. I had to talk to you and I just wasn’t sure if I could call.” He shed his drenched coat, hanging it on the rack, and walked into the kitchen. “I need to show you something.”
Lacy followed him, glancing up at the staircase, hoping the kids wouldn’t come down.
“Are the kids asleep?” he asked.
“Yes. I was just making sure no lights were on, that I hadn’t awakened them.” She walked toward the coffee maker and started a pot. “Let me get you something hot to drink.”
Aaron set up his laptop. “Thanks. That’s some storm out there tonight.”
“It is. This must be important for you to come out in this weather. It couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
She returned with two mugs in her hands, placing one in front of him. “Here.”
He sipped on the warm drink. “Sit down. This is going to take some time.”
Lacy appeared even more concerned. “What did you find, Aaron? What’s happening? Have you told Trevor?”
“I came straight here. I thought you should know first. Then we can figure out what to do.” He directed an anxious eye to her. “It’s always been you and me, right, Lace?”
“Of course, it has. Aaron, you’re starting to scare me.”
He turned the laptop toward her. “Axell forwarded me a contact at the Treasury Department’s FinCen and I emailed him earlier today, after you all came back from speaking with the directors.”
“FinCen is the Financial Crimes Network, right?”
“Right. They have an international Financial Intelligence Unit. This guy is in that unit. They track international organized crimes, money laundering activities—things like that to help combat the financing of terrorist organizations. And there are like a bunch of other of these units worldwide. All share the information, right?”
“Got it. Go on.”
“So anyway, he sent me this reply. Basically, just giving me some whitewashed version of how things ran over there and if I wanted something, I needed to fill out umpteen forms. You know, all that bureaucratic shit that I loathe.”
“Great. So he was a big help, then.”
“More than he thought, that’s for sure.” Aaron smirked. “I had an email address. I had a link to the forms to fill out and well, you know, I just did what I do best, right?”
“Of course you did. What did you find, Aaron? It’s late. You’ll have to spare me the hacker lingo.”
“Sure. Yeah. Okay, so with some tricks I learned at the agency and additional clearance I got from Axell because of the meeting, I got into the database where their forms are filed. A 314a request was filed by the DOJ on Shen Yang. The request allows FinCen to contact international financial institutions regarding companies or people who may be involved in money laundering or terrorist activities. The request helps them locate accounts and transactions of the suspected person or company.”
Lacy nodded, appearing to grow impatient by Aaron’s over explanation to which he was often prone.
“I’ll get to my point.” He picked up on her frustration. “The request filed on behalf of the Department of Justice was an effort to trace any transactions between Yang and the MSS through one of their many shell companies set up as fronts. I came across a name I know you’re familiar with. Synergy Dynamics.”
Lacy peered at the screen, which displayed the form. “SynDyn. I knew there must be more to it than Bruce let on.”
“Lacy, this could mean that SynDyn is a shell company the MSS created to shield money going to Dalian. And Matthew Greiner, aka Casper Janz worked for them. For a while, anyway.”
“But why shield the money? So far, Dalian’s done everything by the book.”
“Have they? Lei Jian worked to help crush Dalian’s competitors, which included Nova Investments and, of course, its parent company, Liwa Properties. Maybe this goes back much further than we ever believed.”
“But you’re saying that this FinCen is meant to help find money going to terrorist organizations. And SynDyn could be a front to get money to Yang. Does that mean the Treasury department knows about Yang’s associations with the Movement? And did they know before the attack?”
“This form was filed very soon after the sanctions. Meaning the DOJ already suspected Yang of funneling money to terrorists.”
“And yet let him continue to run Dalian. Unless this was something that they intended to use against him at some point in time.”
“What we have now is proof, Lacy. This establishes ties to Dalian, Yang, SynDyn, and suspected terrorist groups. And SynDyn’s former front man, who is now dead. This appears to have been put on the back burner. And like you say, maybe it was intended for use against him down the road. Now I just need to find out how Malcolm Ford fits into this.”
“Casper Janz, or rather, Matthew Greiner left SynDyn to work more closely with Yang. Maybe Ford is the new front man. Keeping the money going into Dalian.”
“This muddies the waters, Lacy. At least as far as Janz is concerned. This guy bounces around between SynDyn and Dalian. Who is paying him? Who is he really working for?”
She peered through her kitchen window. “I really don’t know. Former CIA turned Chinese operative? We’ll need to let the guys know about this. It’s important. But you know, it’s late. None of us have had any sleep. Least of all Trevor. Why don’t you crash here? Storm looks to be hitting pretty hard right now. We’ll head out to the shop first thing in the morning. Gives us a few hours’ rest anyway. I won’t be able to stay long, though. I’ve still got a job to do at the Bureau. I’m on thin ice as it is.”
“This is starting to get very complicated—and possibly dangerous, Lacy. Why can’t you just leave the Bureau? This going back and forth, it can’t be what’s best right now.”
“I don’t want to leave, first and foremost. I’m happy there. But I don’t know how long I can do this either. If I let my duties slip and something happens. You’ve been watching the news, right? You see what’s going on out there?”
He nodded.
“How long before we get a home-grown attack? I can’t let that happen, Aaron.”
“I know. None of us can.”
Axell stood outside the home of Casper Janz. A sideways rain pelted his face while he secured the buttons on his overcoat. He’d been told the job was done. The sweep was complete. And that they’d found nothing.
He entered the home where another agent stood watch. “Where’s Hicks?” He’d called on the man who’d helped him bug the Meeks’ home because he knew he could be trusted, insisting that he run the sweep.
“In the kitchen.”
Axell made his way through the entrance, amid other agents donning headgear and instruments that would locate recording devices. “You found nothing?” He continued his approach.
/> “Axell. You didn’t need to come down here,” Hicks replied.
“The hell I didn’t. You cannot seriously tell me there were no devices in this house?”
“Look, I know this isn’t what you expected, but my guys know what they’re doing. And I thought you had the same confidence in me.”
“I do. I apologize.” He examined the home in disbelief.
“It’s possible someone beat us to it,” Hicks continued. “They knew we were coming and cleaned the place out.”
The kid had a point. “Whoever fired at Janz knew I got away, and probably came back to clear out. Nothing left behind to trace or listen to. So we’ve got a big fat zero here? Nothing that will help us figure out who wanted Janz dead?”
“Axell, I respect the hell out of you, you know that. I wouldn’t have offered my services before if I didn’t. And because Colburn vouched for you. You want to discover who took out Casper Janz, best bet is to look at who gave him his backstop, right? Whoever that was stood the most to lose if his cover was blown in my humble opinion. It’s a start anyway.”
“Thank you, Hicks. You’re a smart kid. I appreciate you coming out here in this shit weather and doing this. And, I’ll take your idea into consideration. We have to start some place. I was just hoping we’d find something here.”
“That would have made things easier. But since when are our jobs easy?”
Axell patted him on the back. “Go on. Your team should pack up and get out of here before the streets start flooding. I’ll close up here.”
“Want to take a look around?” Hicks asked.
“Might as well. Got nothing to lose.”
“No, sir. Good night, Axell.”
Axell waited for several more minutes for the team to pack up. And as he stood in the now-empty house, his mind flew at lightning speed in search of answers. So many open ends remained and now Janz was gone. A man who had been working for Yang for some time, which was concern enough for Axell. “What am I missing?”
