Mitch left his office and took the stairs down to the I.T. department. Marcus was working on a translation, adorned in one of his customary loud shirts. Seeing Mitch, he removed the headphones.
“Marcus, you rang?” Mitch asked.
“Mitch my man, looking resplendent in that suit, but just once, I’d like to see one of these lovely Caribbean shirts beneath that black suit jacket.” Marcus frowned.
Mitch laughed. “Yeah, that’s on the cards. How is it going?”
“Can’t complain so I won’t. But I have something for you.” Marcus rose and handed Mitch a photo. “The name you gave us to trace, the one Nicholas got of the man registered for the dive …” Marcus looked at his notes. “Ba Hao-cun, he is one of the four police officers from the Beijing Armed Police Force here to study with our former G20 security team and doing that English course.”
Mitch dropped down onto the stool in front of Marcus.
“Ah ha,” he said.
“Is that a good ‘ah ha’ or not-so-good?” Marcus asked.
Mitch frowned, his eyes narrowed as he thought.
“This is very worrying.” Mitch ran through the scenario in his head: I have a missing ambassador whose fingerprints are found on binoculars at the beach at Cape Hatteras, along with the prints of a dissident who is not in the country supposedly. Now I have one of the Beijing Armed Police Force visiting the same location doing a dive. Mitch rose. “Marcus, I need to know if this Ba Hao-cun is the real thing if you know what I mean?”
“I’m way ahead of you my man. I have photos of the four police men that were due to enter the country last Sunday, their security clearances and their fingerprints as supplied by the Beijing Armed Police Force several months ago. Knowing you were going to ask me to check it out—mind you, there’s no reason why we might check it out because Ba Hao-cun is a welcome guest and he’s doing some diving—but knowing you, Mitch…” Marcus grinned.
“You’re killing me, what did you find?” Mitch groaned.
“I matched the photo of the police officer named Ba Hao-cun against the face of the person who came through the international airport last Sunday on Ba Hao-cun’s passport. The facial recognition scanner says ‘not a match’.”
“Seriously?” Mitch sat down again next to Marcus to view the screen.
“Wait, there’s more,” Marcus continued. “Glad you’re sitting, because the facial recognition software did bring up a match of the man who came through on Ba Hao-cun’s passport. Fortunately the young man has been to the States before, mind you he was a teenager travelling with his parents on a holiday, so I have no current information on him, but his name is Fan Wen and he is not a member nor has he ever been a member of the Beijing Armed Police Force. Your on-the-ground person in China can help you out with what he does these days now he is all grown up.”
“But where is the real Ba Hao-cun and are the other three police officers that came through security at the same time the real thing?” Mitch said.
“I’m onto that too. I checked security and yes, three other police officers entered the country at the same time as Ba Hao-cun or Fan Wen, or rather, three men entered on the policemen’s passports,” Marcus confirmed. “I’ve given Justin the photos of the three other Beijing police officers and he is running facial recognition software on everyone who entered the country at that same time as Fan Wen to see if there is a match… he’ll know soon enough if the real thing entered the country.”
Mitch exhaled. “What we do know for sure however, is that we are training a man who is not a Beijing police officer… I need to get someone in that classroom.” He tapped his foot on the stool. Remembering where he was, he stopped and rose. “Thanks Marcus, seriously great work.”
“Anytime, my friend. Why only four though?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” Mitch asked.
“Why are only four of them here … surely they’ve got a bigger security team than that planned for the event,” Marcus said.
“It’s train the trainers—we train them, they go home and train their teams,” Mitch said.
“Ah, gotcha. That’s a relief, I thought we might have lost the rest,” Marcus said, with a grin. “Catch Justin before you go, see if he’s got any answers yet.”
Mitch went down the hallway, entered another department and greeted Justin, another of the young I.T. whizzes with his two-toned hair, earphones dangling from his jacket and a desk surrounded by gadgets. Mitch looked over the tech’s shoulder, as a program ran the remaining three policemen’s images against people entering the country in a continuous stream of images—it stopped every now and then to consider someone whose face was constructed in a similar manner.
“No connection yet, Mitch,” Justin said, “but check with Sophie.” Justin nodded to his right. “She’s running criminal checks on those four hotel guest names.”
“Thanks,” Mitch said.
He went to the other side of the room where a young female researcher with the biggest pair of framed glasses he had ever seen was wading through online files.
She pointed to the first one on Mitch’s list. “I think you can eliminate the hotel guest Heng Yoo,” Sophie said. “He’s got one traffic ticket and is about eighty years old. He’s an American citizen.”
Mitch sat down beside her. “Nice work,” he encouraged her.
She opened the files on the second name on the list.
“Kang Nguyen has a criminal record …” she began.
Mitch sat upright with interest.
“For pornography,” she finished. “He is twenty years old and was born in America.”
Mitch slumped back in the seat.
“I’ve got two more to run,” she said. “But it’ll only take a minute.” She put the names in and within a few minutes, had the results.
Sophie frowned, and removing her large glasses, turned to look at Mitch. “I think those names are fake.”
“Why?” Mitch asked.
“It is a man and woman, the names are in the system, but the woman has used her maiden name to book in and she is now married. I think maybe …” Sophie hesitated.
“Yes,” Mitch pushed.
“I think they might be having an affair.” She blushed.
“Oh, right. Could be. Well I was looking primarily for two men, but thanks,” Mitch stood again.
“Got something!” Justin yelled, punching the air.
Mitch grinned at his enthusiasm and returned to Justin’s side.
“What is it?” Mitch looked at the two photos frozen on the screen and another two frozen on another screen.
“One match so far… two to go. The guy on the right hand side of the screen came into the country last Sunday with…” Justin stopped to consult his notes, “…along with Fan-Wen who Marcus identified as impersonating the policeman Ba Hao-cun.”
“Right, but is he the real policeman?” Mitch pushed.
“His passport says he is Foo Deshi, one of the four members of the Beijing Armed Police Service but I got some other files popping up. His real name is Kiang Hai.”
“And Kiang Hai is not a police officer,” Mitch said looking at the original four policemen.
“Absolutely not. Check this out,” Justin said opening some media files. “This is a story about the four police officers who were coming over for training. The guy on the left is the real thing, Foo Deshi.” Justin flicked back to the customs photo. “Now check out the photo of this coming through security who is supposed to be Foo Deshi.”
Mitch leaned forward and studying the clipping. “They are two different men.”
“Yeah, this guy is impersonating Foo Deshi and we have his name—Kiang Hai—because he was a navy man who has been here with his fleet.”
“Great job, Justin, just brilliant,” Mitch said.
“I’ll keep trying to match the other two men,” Justin said.
“Yes, please.”
So where are the other two real police officers if these two are impersonating them? Mitch mused. He kept studying the press clipping, then grabbed Justin’s desk phone and called upstairs. He waited until the trainee, Matt Bennett, was located. He asked him to come down to the floor below.
“Matt’s been looking through customs vision for me,” Mitch explained. “He’s one of our trainees.”
“Poor guy,” Justin added.
Matt bound in and Mitch introduced him to Justin.
Mitch continued. “This might impact on your search through the customs vision of William Ying,” he explained to Matt. Turning to Justin, he said, “So let me understand this. Two people by the name of Kiang Hai and Fan Wen are in the country at the moment. They entered the country last Sunday. Their occupation is listed as police officer.”
Justin nodded.
Mitch continued, “So if Matt is looking at customs entry vision from last Sunday, he should see these two men on the right of the screen enter the country only they entered with passports that said they were Foo Deshi and Ba Hao-cun respectively, who are actually the two men in the photo on the left in the police uniforms?”
“Affirmative,” Justin nodded.
“So you might find William Ying has done the same thing—entered as someone else. Or he may never have left the country, but check all other arrivals around the same time as the two Asian officers. OK Matt?”
“Absolutely,” Matt nodded his understanding.
“Can you print these out for Matt?” Mitch asked. “And thanks,” he said as he tapped Justin on the shoulder, “great work. Not a word of this to anyone guys, you know that I’m sure.”
He rang John Windsor.
“Where are you?” Mitch asked.
“I’m just returning to the office, about fifteen minutes away. What’s up?”
“I’ve got something we need to be worried about. I’ll set up a conference call for the top of the hour?” Mitch said.
“I’ll be there. How worried?” John hesitated to ask.
“Majorly worried,” Mitch hung up.