Clem’s cell rang before Meghan or Beth could question him further. He turned his head and listened quietly and slid his phone back into an inside pocket when the call ended.
‘Burke wants us downstairs. Nope, she didn’t say why,’ he answered Beth’s questioning look.
The sisters filed behind the two agents who went down the small hallway to an elevator door. Peters jabbed the button to summon it and stood staring at the stainless steel doors.
‘You didn’t see the grab?’ Beth addressed his profile.
‘I wasn’t looking behind. I figured Clem had her in his sights.’ A muscle beneath his ear twitched, as if irritated by Beth’s piercing gaze.
‘How difficult is it to shadow a woman, a fellow agent?’ Beth muttered.
A dull flush flooded Peters's face as he swung around angrily, jabbing a finger at her. The hallway was narrow, crowding the four of them; Peters’s finger poked Beth’s chest.
He withdrew his hand quickly, though not fast enough as Beth slapped it away, with a cold, ‘Don’t touch me.’
The red on Peters’s face darkened. His left hand half flickered toward the inside of his jacket, to where a Taser was holstered. He didn’t get to complete his action.
Beth lunged forward, so fast that he couldn’t react, couldn’t even blink. She came inside his open stance, shoved him back with her left palm against his chest and grabbed the Taser with her right. She released it smoothly even as his hand was grasping at empty air, and pointed it at the FBI agent.
She heard the whisper of steel on fabric behind her and flicked her eyes at the steel doors. Its polished surface showed Meghan in her familiar crouch, her Glock aimed squarely at Clem who had one hand inside his jacket, the other raised above his head. Peters stood frozen in disbelief. Anger and fear hadn’t reached his eyes. Not yet. Clem didn’t move.
The elevator came to a sliding stop and its doors whooshed open. It was empty. The mirror at its back looked on in mute silence at the tableau in front of it.
Beth waited a beat and then relaxed and whirled the Taser in her palm and handed it to Peters. Grip first. ‘We won’t talk of this.’
Peters’s shades looked at her and then down at the device. His face was white, his hand had the faintest tremble as he took the Taser and holstered it. He gave a short nod and entered the elevator. He had his game face on by the time he turned around and faced the doors. If it was normal practice for him to be easily disarmed by a woman, it didn’t show.
They went down the floors in silence and when the doors opened again, Beth stepped out first and then Peters.
Clem gestured courteously to Meghan who thanked him with a regal nod and walked out. Clem’s lips twitched. It could have been a smile.
Burke was waiting for them in the lobby, on a couch in the corner of the vast room, her presence and body language creating an island of privacy.
‘It was the director,’ she addressed her agents. She looked past them, at the twins. ‘Another case.’
The sisters seated themselves opposite her, waited for her to collect her thoughts and resume.
‘There isn’t much more to tell,’ Burke began, after a swift glance at the twins and her agents. ‘We suspected the ambulance to be the heist vehicle, but Peters and Clem were too far from their ride to give chase. They called it in. Informed the cops. But the ambulance got away.’
‘What of Cali?’ Meghan broke the short silence that followed Burke’s narration.
‘She’s still missing. No ransom notes, no contact from her kidnappers, but you know all of that. What you don’t know, what the wider public doesn’t, is that the FBI wasn’t contacted either. None of our undercover agents were compromised. No case was sabotaged, and Cali had knowledge of a few.’
They would’ve been, if Cali had been grabbed by another intelligence agency. They would’ve sweated her. Or worse, Meghan surmised.
‘So the Chinese weren’t involved?’
‘Doesn’t look like it,’ Burke agreed in resignation. ‘Not in Cali’s research program.’
‘What of Lian though?’ Beth asked curiously. ‘You had cause to suspect her. Of being a plant.’
Burke’s professional mask dropped. She turned her back on her agents and let an expression of weariness cross her face.
‘Yeah. And we monitored her ever since she pinged her radar. But she isn’t involved. Not in Cali’s disappearance.’
‘You know that for sure? How?’ Beth pressed her.
Not involved in Cali’s disappearance. Meghan picked on that and answered before Burke could.
‘You’ve hacked her emails, all her communication, haven’t you? You bugged her home. Probably placed optics too. That’s how you knew we were here. That’s how you’re sure she had nothing to do with Cali.’
‘You two want to join the FBI?’ Burke side-stepped Meghan’s reply with a smile.
‘It’d be a cold day in hell,’ Beth snorted. ‘We’ve turned down the director. Several times.’
‘Lian’s involved in something, though. Has to be. There’s a reason high-flying Sarah Burke is tracking her,’ Meghan looked searchingly at the Special Agent in Charge, not wishing to let her off the hook till they had answers.
Burke bit her lip for a moment and looked from one twin to the other. ‘What the heck,’ she said finally. ‘You’re both security cleared. Way higher than the clearances I have, the way Broker tells it.’
Broker was right. All the Agency operatives had access to the most sensitive intel and classified information. They had to, to be effective.
‘Lian’s dad was connected to the Triads. You know–’
‘We know of the Triads,’ Meghan cut short Burke’s elaboration.
‘Right. Her father's connection went right to the top of one of the largest Triad gangs. The 14K. We discovered the connection only after we’d hacked her emails.’
Meghan whistled softly and considered the implications. The 14K was big in Asia. It was growing in Europe and North America. It was one of the most secretive gangs in the gang universe.
No wonder Burke’s buzzed about this. She deals with special cases. She’s got a possible in on the 14K. This’s as special as it gets.
‘Is Hattexon a front for the gang?’
‘Nope. It’s a legit firm. Lian’s work with them is all above board. She’s not involved with the gang either. In fact she was persuading her dad to give up all gang activity. Her father was involved in people smuggling–’
Meghan cut her off again, this time with a hand wave. ‘Not wishing to be rude, Sarah, Lian and the 14K are no longer of interest to us, not if Lian or the Triad gang had no role to play in Cali's disappearance.'
Cali was.
‘What of Cali?’ she persisted with her questioning.
Burke’s professional mask came on again. ‘You know the status on that. Still missing. Thought to be killed by Cain. That’s a NYPD investigation.’
Beth kicked at the SUV’s tire once, twice, and with a last forceful kick, got inside and looked straight ahead while Meghan wheeled out of the hotel. Back to the airport to hand over the wheels.
Then to board the Gulfstream and head home.
With nothing to show for traveling four thousand miles and pursuing the only thin lead they had.
Burke had left them earlier, with her agents in tow, after a promise to keep them abreast of any development.
‘Frickin' waste,’ Beth stared moodily as a bare chested skateboarder whizzed past her window, sucking from a drink in his hand. He waved at the twins. They ignored him.
‘Look at the bright side,’ Meghan tried to cheer her up. ‘We’ll be leaving this blue sky and sunshine behind, before you deck the next surfer dude who approaches you.’
The twins loved visiting California. It was cheerful. It was upbeat. It was different from New York.
However, it wasn’t home.
Zho followed the sisters to the airport and watched them disappear inside its deep recesses. His phone rang after forty-five minutes - confirmation that the twins had boarded a private jet - and on cue, a silvery airplane rose above the airport's buildings and reached for the sky.
Zho had eyes on the twins in New York. He had come close enough to overhearing them discuss their plans to fly to Palo Alto. It had been a simple matter to follow them on a different flight. The 41S wasn’t the biggest gang in the country. It wasn’t the smallest either, and it had resources. One of those resources was a private jet.
He had followed the sisters in Palo Alto, had seen them case Lian Cheng Vaughn’s home, and had watched the FBI agents surround them. He had snapped pictures of the agents, particularly of the female one. He followed them to the twins’ hotel and it was there that his luck ran out. Hanging around in the hotel would have been too conspicuous. He hadn’t gotten close enough to use any surveillance device. He didn’t know what was being discussed indoors, however he could make a guess.
He called Peng Huang from the airport parking lot, his eyes on the jet till it merged with a cloud.
Peng Huang cursed for a while and then made his call to Hong Kong, to the connector, who made the third call.
The man in Beijing fired off questions rapidly. What was the impact of this development? Was the FBI woman a threat? Was everything on track?
Don’t know. Don’t know. Yes, were the answers.
The Beijing man barked an order. Find out about any possible impact and about the FBI agent. It eventually reached Zho.
Amongst many other things, Zho was good at finding out answers.