“Thanks, Arcus,” said Zak, who was several inches shorter than Hill but had biceps twice the size.
Zak stuck out a beefy hand and Hill shook it.
“You got it, Zak,” said Hill. “But I need to tell you that Kai is running out of second chances. I’m here for you, man, and you know that, because I was once a kid. But Kai has got to stop the breaking and entering. I know he’s had it rough. But it needs to stop and it needs to stop now if you want him kept out of the system.”
“I was only looking around,” said Kai defensively.
“You stole their jewelry!” said Hill.
“And gave it back.”
“And then picked my partner’s pocket! You stole his phone!”
“And gave it back. I wasn’t hurting anyone. I just wanted to see if I could do it.”
“You’re hurting you,” Zak said gently. “All of this is hurting you. And you are the one I care about.”
“Regardless,” said Emily, jabbing a finger at Kai, “you do not get to steal other people’s property. It’s illegal. Do you get that? Illegal.”
“You help people sneak into America illegally. Isn’t that breaking the law? Why the meltdown over this?”
Emily grabbed Kai by the arm and marched him into her office, which was located off the foyer. Hill flinched when Emily slammed the door, which rattled the window of her office, which overlooked the foyer. On the window was painted, in English and Chinese, the Law Offices of Emily Chang, and beneath this were additional details: Civil and Criminal Law, Legal Aid, Women’s Rights, Immigration, and EIR, which stood for Entrepreneurs in Residence, which is a Citizenship and Immigration Services program designed to help immigrant entrepreneurs start their own businesses.
“He’s a good kid, Zak, and smart,” said Hill. “But you’ve got to do something, okay?”
Zak nodded gravely and again shook Hill’s hand just as the four boys entered the gym. Above the door into the gym was another sign that read 13:5.
Inside the gym, the boys dashed left across the basketball court and entered the community center’s industrial kitchen, where Talanov had just picked up a large wooden spoon and twirled it in his hand, like a propeller. Surrounded by more than sixty kids ranging from seven to nineteen, plus twenty teenage mothers and their infants, Talanov was presiding over a pot of bubbling sauce. Beside the pot were two other pots. Above the stove, a stainless steel hood was sucking away steam.
“Look at him, showing off,” whispered Ginie to nineteen-year-old Jingfei Cho, who was Su Yin’s older sister. The two women were standing at a stainless steel table covered with fresh vegetables.
“Look at him showing off?” Jingfei replied. “You’re as bad as he is, suckering him the way you did with that goofy basketball shot.”
“Shut up, I am not,” protested Ginie, elbowing Jingfei, who elbowed her back.
Talanov threw Jingfei and Ginie reprimanding glances before returning his attention to the array of eager young faces staring up at him.
“We arrive at the moment of truth,” announced Talanov with dramatic flair. After twirling the spoon again, he removed the lid, gave the sauce a stir, then brought the spoon to his lips and savored the flavor as if it were fine wine.
“How is it?” Su Yin called out.
Talanov held up his hand – a signal to wait – then added pinches of freshly chopped basil, oregano, and thyme before grating in some fresh lemon zest, then a grind of black pepper, then an additional pinch of salt. He then grabbed a clean wooden spoon, stirred the sauce again, then once more brought it to his lips.
The kids held their breath and watched.
“Alex, how is it?” Su Yin called out again. “Tell us!”
“You tell me. Who wants a taste?”
The kids all raised their hands.
Talanov grabbed a ladle and theatrically filled a bowl with sauce. He then waved to Ginie and pointed at the utensils tray. “Spoons for my loyal subjects!”
“Seriously?” Ginie replied with a scolding glare.
Jingfei elbowed Ginie and nodded toward the utensils tray. “You heard the man.”
Ginie growled while Jingfei gave four heads of romaine lettuce rapid whacks with a large knife.
“I give you ragù à la sugo di pomodoro à la Talanov,” Talanov called out while Ginie began distributing spoons to the kids just as Talanov slid the bowl of sauce onto the counter. “Orderly fashion, one taste, no double-dipping. Pay special attention to the exquisite notes of olive oil, garlic, and spices, all orchestrated in perfect harmony with the robust flavors of grass-fed beef, sausage, onions, and peppers.”
“Why not just open a jar?” asked one of the boys.
“What’s the fun in that?” asked Talanov in return. “Besides, if you and I don’t show these girls how to cook, who will?”
The remark provoked an immediate outcry from the girls.
Inside Emily’s office, Zak glanced toward the echoes of shouting coming from the kitchen.
“This behavior has got to stop!” Emily shouted at Kai, drawing Zak’s attention.
“I didn’t hurt anyone,” mumbled Kai.
“But it’s costing us, Kai,” said Zak. “Money we just don’t have.”
“You mean it’s costing me,” said Emily sharply. “I’m the one with the income, not you.”
Zak flinched but maintained eye contact with Kai. “You know we love you,” he said, tussling Kai’s hair affectionately, “but if you don’t stop what you’re doing, the courts will take you away.”
Kai looked down at the floor and said nothing.
“Do you get how serious this is?” asked Zak.
Kai kept staring at the floor and said nothing.
“Is going to juvie what you want?”
“Maybe juvie is where he belongs,” said Emily.
A tear rolled down Kai’s cheek, but he kept staring at the floor and said nothing.
CHAPTER 16
High above the State of Indiana, Wilcox recoiled from the glass of red wine he had just been served.
“You can thank NAFTA for that little surprise,” remarked Stephanie, the forty-seven-year-old flight attendant. Dressed in a stylish navy blue slack suit and crisp white shirt, Stephanie was a slender brunette who had been working more than twenty years for the CIA. She had warm brown eyes that were twinkling with amusement at Wilcox’s sour reaction.
Wilcox asked for the bottle and Stephanie handed it to him. “This dates back to the Bush administration,” he exclaimed.
“And cellared just for you.”
With a scowl, Wilcox handed the bottle back. Dressed in a Hawaiian shirt of bright pink and yellow frangipani blossoms, Wilcox’s scowl made his bushy eyebrows protrude more than they normally did.
“By the way, nice B-29 you’re wearing,” Stephanie remarked about Wilcox’s shirt collar. “If engines fail, we can all grab on and glide safely to the earth. Those colors will act like a beacon.”
“I’ll have you know, I had this and three identical shirts handcrafted for me by a tailor in Panama back in 1984.”
“How very . . . practical.”
“Real men are not afraid to wear pink.”
“Of course, sir.”
Wilcox scrutinized Stephanie suspiciously. “You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?”
“Never. Will there be anything else?”
“Yes, dammit! A glass of Burgundy. As in France.”
“I’ll file an immediate request.”
“I’m the embassy’s Third Viticultural Attaché, for crying out loud,” proclaimed Wilcox, citing his well-known cover in the American Embassy in London. “Do you know how many embarrassing situations I’ve saved us from? You would not believe the antifreeze our former ambassador tried serving the President of France, on not one but two occasions. And the Russians! I shudder to think what would have happened had I not intervened on that occasion. It would not be an exaggeration to say I’ve singlehandedly saved America from no fewer than six disasters.�
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Stephanie suppressed a smile but did not reply.
“Diplomacy – dare I say, world peace – can be won or lost with the wine.”
“Of course, sir. Will there be anything else?”
Wilcox again eyed Stephanie suspiciously. “You are making fun of me.”
Stephanie suppressed another smile, moving on to serve other passengers aboard the company Gulfstream.
Wilcox chuckled at the banter he had come to appreciate with Stephanie over the years. He watched her serve glasses of NAFTA wine to the poultry delegation of two men and three women seated near the rear of the plane. The women were seated together, laughing and chatting. The men, both military types with closely cropped hair, were busy at their laptops, hardly saying a word.
Poultry delegates, my ass, he thought of the men. He waved and caught Stephanie’s attention and she returned to his seat.
“Something else?”
Wilcox nodded toward the two men. “Who are they?” he asked.
“A poultry delegation.”
Wilcox raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“That’s all I know,” Stephanie replied.
“All you know, or all you’re allowed to say?”
Stephanie smiled.
“Since when does the CIA handle poultry?” asked Wilcox.
“Perhaps Director Shaw would be the one to ask,” Stephanie replied before heading toward the galley.
Shaw. I should have known, thought Wilcox. Is he following someone . . . or hunting them?
Wilcox saw his cell phone screen illuminate with a call from Gustaves. Picking it up, he touched the green “answer” button and put the phone to his ear. “Hello, Diane,” he said.
Gustaves was standing in front of her desk in Washington with her phone on speaker. Angus Shaw was standing next to her, arms folded, his angular jaw clenched. Beside Shaw was his chief of staff, Adam Schiller, a bug-eyed man of thirty-five, whose coarse, well-oiled hair was brushed straight back. Behind the desk, a technician was working on Gustaves’ computer. The technician’s name was Álvaro and he looked more Irish than he did Hispanic, with curly brown hair that rose on one side, like he had slept wrong. He weighed just shy of three hundred pounds and grunted each time he moved. Right now he was working on his knees, which meant he grunted a lot.
“Álvaro, can you give us a minute?” Gustaves asked in Spanish.
“Of course, Madam Congresswoman,” Álvaro replied, and with a grunt, he stood and left the office.
Once he was gone, Gustaves said, “Bill, I’m on speaker with Director Shaw and I’m calling with some very bad news. My assistant, Amber, was murdered last night by two Chinese women waiting inside her apartment. They jammed the alarm frequency, so the wi-fi signal wasn’t able to alert our security team, although her security camera recorded what happened.” She took a steadying breath, then continued, “After taking her captive, they forced her to log on to her laptop and navigate past our security protocols. One of the women then searched through my folders for information on Talanov before planting a virus in our system that crashed everything. One of the women then broke Amber’s neck.”
“Diane, I . . . who would . . . why?”
“We know who did it,” said Shaw. “The Chinese. We also know why: to kill Diane.”
“Sir, this doesn’t make sense. My friend, Alice Ti, who’s with the Hong Kong CIB—”
“She played you, Wilcox!” yelled Shaw. “The Chinese are behind this and Talanov is part of the conspiracy. He’s finished, do you hear me? Finished!”
“Sir, I don’t for a moment believe Alice played me. Or that Talanov is involved.”
“If you are that blind, then maybe you should step down. Unless you’re part of this conspiracy as well?”
Schiller responded with a smirk. He had never liked Wilcox and Wilcox had never liked him.
“Angus, I’ll handle this,” said Gustaves, nodding toward the door. “Take a break and calm down.”
“I will get to the bottom of this, Diane, and you may not like what I find.”
Shaw stormed out of the office with a grinning Schiller following after him.
Once they were gone, Gustaves said, “Bill, we’re on very thin ice. Shaw wants Alex gone and I’m not sure I can stop it from happening.”
“And you know as well as I do that Alex would never do anything to harm you or this country.”
“I know, but all we have right now is a tangled mess of questions and two common denominators: China and Alex.”
“Come on, Diane!”
“Look, I know Alex will say we can’t assume this is all connected, but I don’t see how we can ignore the facts any longer.”
“Have we identified the two women who killed Amber?”
“No, but they’re Chinese and we have them on video.”
“Then I’d like to send Charlie the link to where that video file is located and have her place a copy in a dedicated cyberlocker so that Alice can have a look.”
“After what Shaw just said? That is not a good idea.”
“Alice won’t be able to access our secure internet or intranet, or any of our SCI vaults. The cyberlocker will be totally outside of our system on an isolated provider, and the access link will be temporary. For viewing only, no downloads permitted, and Charlie will set it up. Please, let Alice have a look. Let her see if she can ID those women.”
Gustaves exhaled slowly.
“I know Shaw thinks I was played,” Wilcox added quickly. “Many people have tried through the years and I know when someone is trying. Alice is not one of those. Please, Diane, let Charlie set it up so that Alice can have a look.”
Gustaves stared hard at the phone for a long moment. “All right, but like I said, we’re on very thin ice.”
“Not if it gets us an ID on those two women. If things go south, I’ll take the fall.”
“That kind of a fall would end your career.”
“At this point, I would welcome it. With your permission, then?”
Another slow exhale from Gustaves, then, “I’ll have Amber send Charlie—”
With a gasp, Gustaves stopped mid sentence. Amber, of course, was dead.
“Diane, I am so sorry,” Wilcox said softly.
“Thank you, Bill, but we don’t have time to grieve. Right now, we have work to do.” She walked around her desk and sat, then swiveled to face her computer. “I’ll send Charlie the link myself.”
“Thanks. I’ll let her know,” Wilcox replied, ending the call.
Sitting back in his seat on the Gulfstream, Wilcox thought about Amber. He couldn’t believe the brutality of her murder. Diane, however, was right – there was work to do – and with that, he sent Charlie a text, then went to the galley for another glass of wine. At this point, even NAFTA wine sounded good.
After emailing Charlie the video link, Gustaves swiveled back around and thought about the horrific security footage that Charlie would soon be watching. Through the infrared eye of the camera, a recording had been made of two women breaking into Amber’s apartment, then waiting until Amber arrived home. It recorded the taller of the two women smashing Amber in the face and then pinning her on the floor. Amber tried putting up a fight, but she was no match for the woman, who maneuvered her into a chokehold. The shorter woman then appeared with Amber’s laptop and ordered Amber to log on. Amber refused. The shorter woman slapped Amber in the face, but Amber still refused. The two Chinese women then appeared to disagree on what to do next, which was settled when the tall woman tightened her arm around Amber’s neck and cut off her ability to breathe. The camera showed Amber thrashing and kicking while the tall woman squeezed. The shorter woman finally intervened and the tall woman released Amber, who toppled to the side, gasping. The tall woman then yanked Amber upright.
After an exchange of words with the tall woman, the shorter woman knelt before Amber and held out the laptop again. With blood running from her nose, Amber opened her laptop and logged on, and once she had naviga
ted into the system, the shorter woman took the laptop, sat on the floor, and began working the keyboard. After a few seconds, she said something to the tall woman, who removed her arm from around Amber’s neck.
At that point there was a glimmer of hope in Amber’s eyes. Gustaves could see it, and everyone who had watched the footage had seen it. It was a moment when Amber thought she may get out of this alive. A moment when she took a sobbing breath.
Gustaves shuddered at what happened next.
Without warning, the tall woman grabbed Amber’s head and wrenched it in a violent one-eighty twist. The sudden action shocked the shorter woman, who bolted forward, trying to stop the tall woman. But Amber was now dead, and after a long moment of restrained anger, the shorter woman continued working at the laptop while the tall woman dragged Amber’s body out of sight. The shorter woman soon paused and read the laptop screen intently, then lifted a lanyard from around her neck. At the end of the lanyard was a USB drive, which she plugged into one of the laptop’s ports, and after a few seconds, executed several commands before unplugging the flash drive just as the tall woman reappeared. The women exchanged more words, after which the shorter woman wiped the laptop clean of fingerprints and replaced it in Amber’s briefcase. The two women then left the apartment.
Gustaves closed her eyes and fought back tears, then walked across the floor to her liquor cabinet, where she paused to wipe away a tear before opening the cabinet door.
While Gustaves was pouring herself a drink in Washington, Wilcox was finishing the last of his wine aboard the Gulfstream. With his empty glass in hand, he thought of Amber while absently looking out the window. He didn’t really know her apart from her friendly smile whenever he visited Diane. Even so, her murder was personal. Amber had been part of the family.
Setting aside his glass, Wilcox picked up his phone and dialed Charlie. “Have you watched the footage yet?” he asked once Charlie had answered.
“Yes, and I wish that I hadn’t, although I know I needed to see it. Amber was a friend. Not someone I knew all that well, but someone I really liked.”
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