Sophie sipped an extra strong mug of tea as she sat down at the team meeting in the conference room at the FBI building. Waxman was already seated beneath the shiny FBI logo on the wall at the head of the table, and he’d asked Ken to take notes on the white boards as they reviewed the case.
“So where are we with this kidnapping case, exactly?” Waxman asked. “It seems like we’ve gotten diverted down a rabbit hole with this Security Solutions lead.”
“Sir, I met with the building manager this morning.” Sophie described the meeting. “I ran the number she gave me, and it came back to a burner phone, which I’d expected. But someone is renting the rooms on the fourteenth floor of that building on a regular basis.”
“That seems like something we can stake out and follow up on. Keep us posted if you hear anything from Torres,” Waxman said.
“Yes, sir. Does anyone have any new ideas about the disappearance of Sheldon Hamilton at Security Solutions?” Sophie asked.
No one answered that. Finally, Gundersohn said, “I think at this point we need to assume that the suspect with the means and opportunity to be the saboteur/information seller is Lee Chan.”
“And I take it he isn’t talking.” Waxman made a pyramid with his fingertips.
“I think I know who the saboteur is. It’s not the same person selling the confidential client information.” Sophie had taken a caffeine pill along with a deep sip of her tea, hoping the stimulant would counteract the lethargy of depression still plaguing her and give her the energy to disclose everything that had happened. “I have a lot to fill you in on, sir.” She got up, went around the table, and took the erasable marker from Ken Yamada.
“Yesterday I detected a security breach in my apartment.” She drew circles on the board and labeled them: Honing, Chan, Hamilton, Remarkian, Saboteur, Data Leaker.
“I’m pretty sure the saboteur is the one who got into my apartment and wired cameras to monitor me.” She described the situation she’d gone through yesterday and the steps she’d taken to correct it.
“I used one of the cameras Bateman retrieved after he swept my apartment to send the unsub a message. He responded, and this morning I talked to him in an untraceable chat room. He called himself a friend of law enforcement.”
Sophie explained that her apartment had been broken into by someone similar in appearance to the missing Sheldon Hamilton. She suspected that he had returned from Hong Kong and set up surveillance on her to keep ahead of her investigation into Security Solutions.
Waxman’s blue eyes were steely slits fixed on her face over his steepled fingertips. “So you think he’s the saboteur?”
“It’s my best guess.” She swallowed, looked down. “I don’t think we have any idea what his motives are. I asked him, but he wouldn’t say. Denied being any of the four main players at Security Solutions. But I think when we find Sheldon Hamilton, we’ll know more.”
“You haven’t presented any evidence that Hamilton is anything but missing and possibly the one that broke into your apartment,” Waxman said. “For all you know, it could have been Lee Chan in that chat room. Or Remarkian or Honing.”
“Well, all we have to do is see what each of our suspects was doing at nine a.m.,” Gundersohn said. “The one that was chatting online was the one who broke into Agent Ang’s apartment. That’s all we can say for sure, not who that person was or whether or not he was the saboteur. And it wasn’t the saboteur Lee Chan was so afraid of, it’s whoever is selling secrets. Got any ideas about that, Agent Ang?”
“No. There are still too many possibilities.” Sophie frowned, hands on her hips. “Working up my background on the CEO, I broke into Hamilton’s financials. He’s been rerouting all his money to a numbered account for two years. Whatever he’s doing now, he’s planned for a long time.”
“None of this makes any sense,” Waxman said impatiently. “Why would Hamilton build up this company only to abandon it to Honing and Remarkian, even if he did siphon off some cash? This company is worth a lot. And who’s Lee Chan afraid of, or is he faking all that to throw us off?” Waxman smacked his hands down with a sound like a rifle shot and stood. “You know what? Let’s do a raid on Security Solutions and gather up whomever we can and put them in interrogation and grill them about an alibi for 9:00 a.m. See what we can shake loose. Yamada and Gundersohn, get some local PD muscle to go with you, and find Lee Chan while you’re at it.”
Sophie stood with the men.
“No, not you, Agent Ang. I want to talk a little more about the security breach in your apartment,” Waxman said, his eyes the color of steel.
Sophie sat back down, apprehension tightening her throat.