A failure of communications between the NYPD and ICE meant there was a delay in fitting the ankle monitor and Hisami was forced to spend several more hours in custody. Tulliver and Samson met in a coffee bar a block away from the Metropolitan Correctional Center, once Samson had checked into a downtown hotel near Hisami’s apartment in Tribeca.
He had slept on the plane so he felt fresh. The same couldn’t be said of Tulliver, who was fighting several fires at once. The media were all over Hisami, who, up until a few weeks before, had managed to maintain a low profile that bordered on the secretive. In the past, he had consented to do interviews only when publicising his sister’s work with children suffering from cancer or, more recently, the Aysel centres. Though many remarked on his pleasant manner, they also noted that Hisami was reticent, elliptical. ‘Delphic’ was a word used a few times. Now he had even reached the pages of the New York Times, which had published a long profile that asked questions about his past relationship with the CIA and referred to the rumours about his part in a raid on a terrorist cell in Macedonia three years before. Hisami’s publicist regarded this as helpful coverage that portrayed him as America’s friend and as an action hero, but Tulliver said that none of it was good for business. The doubts about Hisami’s past and the credible rumours about his involvement in the Macedonian incident were causing the banks to review their relationship with Hisami. The elaborate structure of Hisami’s holdings and investments, particularly in media and biotech start-ups, already stressed by shorting the pharma stock, was beginning to rock. He was very rich, but it could all go overnight. ‘His wealth relies on a perpetual forward momentum and his constant focus,’ said Tulliver. ‘The most important part of his life is his daily conversations with bankers, which cannot be conducted from the Metropolitan Correctional Center. He’s got a long way back to rebuild those relationships and the confidence people had in him.’ He looked Samson in the eye. ‘He may not make it.’
Samson rubbed his neck and looked out of the window. ‘What the hell is this about, Jim? I mean, what the fuck are we all dealing with? Tell me what it is, because for the life of me, I don’t get it. A massive sum has gone missing and Adam Crane is responsible. Is TangKi merely the channel, or has Crane raided its reserves? Five people have been murdered and Anastasia kidnapped and held hostage in Russia without any kind of ransom demand. And now we know that Denis was working with the CIA in the 1990s and whoever is punishing him has access t0 detailed information about that time. Are we dealing with a vendetta? What’s it all add up to?’
‘I know as much as you do.’
‘Crap – you know much more.’
‘I have intimations.’
‘What the hell are they?’
‘I knew nothing of what he was doing with TangKi, but with Denis there is always a very good reason for his actions and that usually involves a principle. This is at the core of his psychology. He thinks very hard about an issue, a business opportunity or an idea, then he develops this principle which absolutely governs everything he does from then on.’
Samson shook his head. ‘I don’t give a damn about his fucking principles.’ He picked up his cup, swirled the remains of the black coffee and knocked it back. ‘Russia – it’s all about Russia. Anastasia is held in Russia, Crane has Russian family and, I’m making a guess here, but I believe that the money originates in Russia.’ He stopped again. ‘And the provenance of those photographs from Iraq and the changes to those documents have the smell of a smear campaign that would never stand up to any kind of forensic examination. This was an intelligence operation and ICE and Homeland Security fell for it.’
‘A lot of assumptions there.’
‘How did Denis get involved with Crane?’
‘He met him on the San Francisco charity circuit and he guessed he was suckering all those people into something or other at TangKi. Once Crane had bought the company from the founders and was bringing in all that five-star money, Denis became interested and he let Crane approach him.’
‘What’s the company actually do?’
‘It offers a few services. Using a crypto currency, it allows people to buy real estate anywhere in the world without the usual complications of lawyers, realtors and currency exchange. It’s also designed a blockchain service for owners of large developments so everything is transparent and investors can go into the records of a building and see exactly what has been done to the structure, when and who paid for it. And finally, it provides a way for people to invest in a portfolio of buildings and developments. That’s the original business and where the name TangKi comes from – it’s Malay for a ‘tank’ or ‘pool’. It was set up by two realtors – one of them Malaysian – who made a lot of money when they sold it to Crane.’
‘And Crane spotted it was a great way of laundering money, or his Russian masters did.’
Tulliver shook his head and looked down at his phone, which vibrated with a text message. ‘That’s Zillah. I’ll tell her to come here.’
They sat in silence for a minute or two. At length, Samson said, ‘If there’s anything you think I should know, you tell me, Jim. Pick up the phone, whether Denis gives you permission or not. It may just save Anastasia’s life.’
Tulliver looked at him hard.
‘I mean it. He’s not levelling with us about something.’
Tulliver nodded. ‘Okay. Let’s see what happens.’
Zillah arrived at their table with a laptop in a tote bag and a Japanese umbrella that collapsed so that it stood on the tips of its ribs. She muttered hello, hooked her hair back and opened the laptop. ‘Okay, so we tracked the vehicle four hundred miles north of the Crimea. It was hard. They had outriders and we lost it. But we have the plate and we know which company arranged the truck. It’s an outfit called Arcady-Ax Logistics, which likely has Mafia connections, and it operates out of Rybatskoye industrial zone, south-east of St Petersburg. The driver must have delivered Mrs Hisami with the kidnappers at some point between the place where we lost the truck and St Petersburg, so that’s, like, nine hundred miles.’ She raised a finger. ‘But if the truck came from the city – it has a St Petersburg plate with the number 178 – it seems possible that she’s being held at the top end of that nine-hundred-mile route.’
‘Maybe,’ said Samson.
‘Satellite imagery was our first thought, but the majority of the journey was undertaken at night and, besides, there was heavy cloud cover – the Russian winter is coming. So we figure our best line of inquiry is with the trucking company, and we aim to locate that truck and the man or men who drove it all the way from Crimea. I now have four people working on this, including one female Russian national who usually does work for us outside Russia. She has agreed to make an exception this one time. If we identify the driver, we’ll launch her and she’ll find out where the truck stopped, I promise you that. So we are putting all our resources into that area of the investigation.’
‘And what happens if you find the place?’ asked Tulliver. ‘Do you go in?’
‘That will be for Mr Hisami to decide. Going into a situation like that is fraught with danger for the rescuers and the kidnap victim.’ She looked from one to the other. ‘Have we received any kind of demand?’
‘No,’ said Tulliver, ‘but we haven’t had access to Denis’s phone since he’s been in jail.’
‘If this is coordinated,’ said Samson, ‘the people holding Anastasia will know that Hisami is being released.’
Tulliver didn’t reply to this but got up and pocketed his phone. ‘I’m going to go down to the jail. Denis is bound to be out soon. I’ll call you about the meeting later.’
‘It has to happen tonight,’ said Samson.
‘He’s got a lot of calls to make.’
Samson rose so he wouldn’t be overheard. ‘Tell Denis we’re not going to free Anastasia sitting in New York. If he wants his wife back, he needs to see me as soon as he can and he has to be completely open.’ He sat down as Tulliver turned without a word and left the café.
‘We’ve got company,’ said Zillah, without looking up. ‘They’re using the restaurant’s wifi to hack us. You should turn off your phone.’ She shut down and closed her computer and swiped the top of her phone screen.
‘Where?’
‘Two men behind you, four tables back. They’re using a laptop. They probably picked you up in the court.’
‘In earshot?’
‘No, but maybe we should move.’
Samson paid and followed Zillah to the door. As she passed the two men, who appeared to be engrossed in what they were doing, she darted over to lean on their table.
‘Hi, guys. Do you have the broadband password for this place? I’m in here all the time and can’t make it work.’
One of them, a man in his thirties, looked up sheepishly and said he thought the waitress could help.
‘Right, so you don’t have it.’ She straightened and her hand knocked the glass of water standing on the table into the laptop keyboard. They both jumped up, shouting. She stepped away and announced to the restaurant. ‘These two guys here, they’re hacking your devices.’ It took a few seconds for the café to erupt, by which time Zillah and Samson were on the way to the door.
‘We’ll walk, if you don’t mind,’ she said, beckoning to the silver SUV at the kerb to follow them.
‘What made you so certain about them?’ asked Samson.
‘The dongle with an aerial that picks up the signals of the devices in the room and tricks them to connect with it.’
‘Who was it?’
‘Could be anyone – the government, Crane’s people. God knows. ICE and Homeland Security are pissed about what happened in the court today.’
She stopped when they had crossed the street. ‘I have news. We think Crane is in Estonia.’
Samson stopped. ‘How do you know?’
‘One of the numbers you got from your friends in Naples was a bank account accessed from Tallinn two days ago. My people have a way of monitoring access to the account, though we cannot tell what’s in it, or what transactions take place. But we can tell where the source is.’
‘I didn’t give you the numbers,’ said Samson.
‘I’ve got a good memory,’ she said.
‘Tallinn is just a few hours from the Russian border,’ he said, ignoring her slightly annoying smile.
‘Four and half hours by road.’
‘Does anyone else know this? Macy, for instance?’
‘No.’
They walked on a few paces. ‘Keep this to yourself, Zillah.’
‘I have to tell Denis, but I can avoid telling anyone else. Why don’t you want Macy to know?’
‘I think the MI6 surveillance on Macy is pretty intense at the moment. I’m sure they know exactly where Crane is and are determined to protect that information. I don’t want them to have any clue that we know his location.’
She nodded.
‘Will you let me hear of any more activity?’
‘Yes. Are we done now?’ Zillah had a strictly transactional approach to conversation.
She turned and hopped into the back of the SUV before he could say goodbye. He kept walking in the direction of the park, but then hailed a cab to take him uptown to Union Square, where he got out and walked until he found another cab, which he asked to take him to the intersection of Varick Street and Canal, and there he went through several cleaning routines to avoid being followed, including diving into the subway and exiting on the other side of the street. It was unnecessary, because anyone could guess where he was going, but he had been aware of the minute barometric pressure exerted on the pursued by the pursuer, and he just wanted to know if he was right.