As soon as it was dark, Danny Huang hailed a taxi. He asked the driver to drop him a street away and walked the rest. After a quick look around, he was confident no one had seen him arrive at the home of William Ying’s wife—or widow, given William was presumed dead. She greeted him warmly and he slipped into the house.
“You look wonderful, Danny.” She hugged him.
“It is so good to see you, Mei, you haven’t changed, so beautiful.” Danny studied her.
“Thank you, you are too kind, come, come.” She led him towards the back of the house and opened a door to a large white room with two chocolate brown Chesterfield couches and one wall covered in books. Tea was served on a mahogany table in the middle of the room. Mrs. Ying retreated.
Danny Huang smiled and extended his arms wide as he walked towards the two men standing by the window.
“It’s been a long time.” Danny smiled, “at last in the flesh.”
“Too long. You look well my friend,” William Ying said.
The VIP stepped forward and embraced Danny.
“It must be fifteen years, no, more,” he said.
“Twenty-two years,” Danny Huang told the men.
“No!” The VIP declared.
Both men laughed. “Sadly yes,” Danny confirmed. “We were twenty-one at university when you joined us. Now, you might not have aged, but last birthday I had forty-three candles on the cake.”
The men embraced again.
“Tea, come.” William poured as the men took a seat.
“Life good, Danny?” the VIP asked.
“I can’t complain; still working for the cause, aren’t we all? But you William, how are you? You look very well for a dead man.” Danny turned the conversation to William.
William turned slightly to glance out the window. “It hasn’t been easy, disappearing, being away from my wife and child for months at a time. But of course I am happy to do so for the mission.”
Danny nodded. “It will pay off. It’s beginning to already. You couldn’t have had the university access that you have had under your own name.” He squeezed William’s shoulder as William leaned in to pass him the tea.
“So good to see you both again. Ah, the things we got up to!” Danny laughed.
“You were a terrible influence on William and me,” the VIP agreed.
“What?” Danny laughed. “Never.”
“My poor folks thought I was there to study and improve my Mandarin.” The VIP shook his head. “Meanwhile you two with your private clubs and pipes,” he grinned at the memory.
“Couldn’t do it today,” William said.
“That makes two of us,” Danny agreed.
The three men reminisced for some time. Eventually Danny got down to business.
“So, you are confident the lift will go well, William?” he asked.
“I am very confident.”
“What was the hitch?” Danny continued.
“Just a mix-up in bearings. They were supposed to send me a small signal, just a mirror reflection at 1700 hours; nothing that would be picked up by anyone on the beach. But they got the coordinates wrong. It won’t happen again. I am driving back to Cape Hatteras late tonight and I will review the whole exercise. I assure you, they will be there for the pick-up,” William guaranteed him. “One other thing—I have misplaced the binoculars you sent me for good luck a few months back. I know they were a gift from our Chairman. I apologize and …”
“It’s not important my friend. I am only concerned about the job. I trust that you have it under control.” Danny studied his oldest friend as William nodded confidently.
“So, William, have you had contact with your family in Beijing?” the VIP asked.
William shook his head and lied. “No. It was agreed I would walk away. I do my best not to ever think about it; like it was another life and I was another person. It helps that I can see my wife occasionally like today and to know that they will never want for anything. Sometimes, I even feel liberated by my new identity.”
“I am looking forward to that,” the VIP nodded.
Danny smiled. “I understand. I too am a new man, several times over.”
Danny Huang got in late to his dorm room, there had been much reminiscing to do. Regardless, he couldn’t sleep with the excitement of the plan unfolding before him. He rose early and waited for young Ru to collect the hire car and pick him up. He was pumped not to have class today and to not have to return until Sunday. Gingerly Danny pushed aside the curtain and looked out the window. Old habits he told himself, remembering that he was a welcome guest of the country, a respected police office and didn’t have to hide. He smiled at the thought.
The occasional car went past. His warm breath fogged the window. He was grateful for the cooler weather. If it had been a warmer time of the year, it would have been impossible to wear long sleeves without attracting attention. They hid the tattoos and scars that might have raised suspicion about his identity as a police officer. At the thought of the scars he felt a slight burn—a phantom pain.
He thought about the mission and how easily it could be blown.
I must remember, at all costs, not to speak in English. After all, we are representatives of the Beijing Armed Police Force here to do a crash course in English and G20 security.
Danny Huang reached for his phone and called Hai.
“Report?” he said when Hai answered.
“We arrived last night about eleven p.m. The VIP house is secure and well-hidden, fully-equipped and ready for the VIP. The communications room is functioning; there are four cameras covering the house perimeters, the tank, beach and the view from the lighthouse,” Hai said.
“Have you made contact with Beijing?” Danny asked.
“Yes, and they are on schedule. No changes. They will do a communication drill with Ru when he arrives with you later today.”
“Good.” Danny saw Ru alight from a blue SUV out the front of the dorm. “We are heading off now. What are your plans for this morning?”
“We will scope the beach and chart the coordinates again just to be sure,” Hai answered. “Froggy’s going to do a bit of snorkelling today just to check the coordinates, but we’ve got a dive booked in for Froggy and me on Saturday with a school. William thought it better to join a local dive group rather than hire a boat; fits in with the tourism profile. It will give us another chance to scope the area. Other than that, we’ll be checking and re-checking everything we can.”
“Good. See you at approximately 1400 hours.” Danny hung up, grabbed his bag off the bed and headed to meet Ru. He left his room, closing and checking the door was locked. As he headed down the front stairs of the campus, he noted how empty it was due to the Fall break. Only the stray student wandering around the grounds was to be seen.
“You drive, Ru,” Danny ordered the young man who was leaning against the back of the car, smoking. Ru extinguished the cigarette and raced around to get behind the wheel.
Ru started the engine and handed several pages to Danny. “Here’s the latest printouts from the bugs in the VIP’s phone, sir.”
“Slim pickings,” Danny said.
“Yes, nothing to highlight in there, sir,” Ru reported.
They drove the entire trip in silence… Danny testing the young man’s nerve and Ru not being one for small talk. Eventually Ru turned off the main road, following the directions William had given him. He drove up the forest path to the VIP house; the track was several miles from the main road, with the occasional side street. A few properties dotted the turn-offs, but the area was largely deserted.
“Good,” Danny said his first words in hours. “Well away from the road, reasonably isolated.”
Ru came to the end of the road and saw the brick house. He drove into the property and put the car into the large garage beside the second vehicle. Danny Huang alighted, studied the area, and, satisfied that it was isolated, grabbed his bag and followed Ru into the house.
He was greeted by his own men, Hai and Froggy and by William Ying, who had arrived earlier despite a very late night with the VIP. He shook the men’s hands and accepted a tour of the premises; Ru stopping and staying in the communications room.
“Satisfactory, sir?” Froggy asked.
Danny Huang nodded and smiled. “Very satisfactory.”
Ellen waited to speak with Amy Callaghan, the team’s allocated contact in the Criminal Justice Information Services Division. A young officer having trouble accessing photo files was dominating Amy’s time; she sorted him out within minutes and turned to Ellen.
“Two o’clock rush hour,” she joked and Ellen laughed.
“Ellen Beetson.” Ellen extended her hand. “I don’t think we’ve officially met even though you’ve been here a while now.”
Amy rose and shook hands. “About eight months, and it seems like longer.” She smiled. “You’re on Nick’s team aren’t you?”
“Yes, and you have the dubious honor of being his housemate,” Ellen said.
Amy sighed. “Yes, it has its challenges and I’m trying to train him.”
Ellen laughed. “Mm, good luck with that.” She studied the sporty looking blonde. She was about her own height, clearly worked out and had similar length blonde hair. Her eyes were dark brown, unlike Ellen’s own green eyes.
“Thanks for helping us out. The surveillance footage has been really disappointing,” Ellen said. “But you have something for me?”
“Pull up a seat,” Amy offered, logging back into her screen. “If only we had got to this earlier. Not many people keep footage for a year.”
Ellen watched as Amy clicked through screens and files. She looked around; half a dozen people wandered about looking for intel.
“So research is the biggest part of your job?” Ellen asked.
“Got it in one. If some of these photos had been catalogued under William Ying as well as the Photo Gallery Exhibition I would have found them earlier. There’s about a thousand gallery exhibitions in the greater Washington area every year. Now check this out …”
Ellen leaned forward just as her phone rang.
“Sorry,” Ellen apologized.
“No problem, this is one quiet area where you can have your phone on.”
“Mitch?” Ellen answered and listened. “I’m just with Amy; she has something for me but I’ll see you there.”
Ellen hung up. “Sorry.” She glanced at her watch.
Amy continued. “I lifted as many images as I could from the background of the two CCTV footage reels we had. There’s not much there, but around William Ying, I’ve been able to pull out half a dozen images that might be of interest.” Amy opened the file. “I’ve identified these people through funeral notices and tributes that were online as well as the university’s obituary.”
Amy called up a shot of William Ying walking out of the gallery with a Chinese girl framed in the doorway behind him.
“Is that Jessica Wu?” Ellen asked.
“That is definitely her. Notice how close she is to him, as though seeing him off? Everyone else is still inside mingling,” Amy said.
“Yes,” Ellen leant forward. “Why? Joseph Kinaird is supposed to be the host. Why is Jessica there at all?”
“She wouldn’t have been having an affair with William Ying; or perhaps he was her mentor?” Amy suggested.
“Mm, worth exploring,” Ellen said.
“Now check this shot out,” Amy continued. “Here’s William getting into the backseat of the car, and in the left-hand top of the shot, there’s a man with a camera taking photos. I’m fairly confident from the physical build that this is Joseph Kinaird.”
“Amy, this is great. I didn’t see these before,” Ellen said.
“It was pretty hard to see them. I’ve magnified these and doctored them to try to get some definition,” Amy explained.
“But Mr. Kinaird was definitely there snapping away, so he must have photographed something they didn’t want to be seen.”
“The one that gave me the most grief was trying to find Rodney Lam. It’s weird because he is not in the uni’s year book, maybe because he didn’t show for photo day or didn’t like having his photo taken. He’s also one of the few students who wasn’t in any other clubs aside from the Asian Commerce and Culture group. But nope, before you ask, no pic there either.”
Amy pulled up a photo. “I think this is him.”
“Wow it is blurry,” Ellen agreed. “What makes you think it is him?”
“Well I found a couple of Facebook pages from students in his class and a couple had written about him, but no shots. Really weird; most students are all over social media,” Amy explained.
“What’s the context of this shot?” Ellen asked looking at the blurry photo.
Amy found the original shot and pulled it up. “This is William Ying getting into the car.” She zoomed in again and again. “That small figure through the open door and the adjacent window …”
“He’s in the back passenger seat with William?” Ellen gasped.
“I think that’s Rodney. Where he was going is a bit of a mystery.”
“Just like William Ying,” Ellen said. “But we know or think Rodney Lam died in a house fire. I wonder where they drove to after the exhibition.”