Ridley Pearson - The Risk Agent

He awaited a city bus to screen himself from the opposing sidewalk and, as the bus passed, slipped into the salon.

Amy occupied the third of three chairs to the right, her hair foaming, her attendant shooting a stream of water from a squirt bottle onto her head while working up the suds. Despite the wet application, it was referred to as a “dry” shampoo. Grace, in the middle chair, was being prepared.

Knox greeted the owner, a fit man in his early forties with a cataract film covering his left eye. The man checked with Amy in the mirror. Amy nodded.

“You wait, few minutes, please,” the man said in passable English. He pointed. “Waiting area in back, past curtain.”

Knox and Grace exchanged a meaningful look. He wondered if she, too, had spotted the Mongolian following Amy.

Knox wondered how the Mongolian had possibly made the connection to Amy-the cocktail party? Quintet?

The curtain was a Simpsons bedsheet thumbtacked into the doorjamb beyond which was a tiny sink and stool. Knox was forced to turn sideways to slip past the sink and into a narrow hallway that led to a back door. He inspected the door, checking the lock. The door opened on to a sublane where laundry was in bloom. Clear both directions. He turned. Homer and Marge laughed at him in faded glory.

The tiny storage room’s shelves were crowded with hand towels, hair product, a rice cooker, a cutting board and a plastic pail of green vegetables. Near the far wall, half a wooden door on rusting file cabinets served as a desk. At the desk, his back to Knox, sat a twenty-something Chinese boy with a lousy haircut. If he stabbed the laptop’s keys any harder he was going to break it.

He spun to face Knox. A poor attempt at facial hair. He was chewing purple gum. He spoke English. “Ready when you are, professor.”

“Tom,” Knox said, introducing himself.

“Randy.”

As if.

Amy came through wearing a towel on her shoulders and her hair spiked punk rock by shampoo.

“You two make introductions?” she said.

“Yes,” Knox said.

Grace entered next, crowding the space. Her eyes tightened, dancing between Amy and Knox.

“Let’s have a look,” Randy said. It sounded rehearsed. The kind of guy to practice lines in front of a mirror.

Knox provided him the digital frame. Amy had made all the arrangements; she carried the anxious concern of a worried hostess.

Grace seemed more interested in Amy than the laptop. “It is crowded here. We will give you room.”

Knox stayed. He wasn’t leaving a stranger in possession of the frame and its possible contents. Randy connected the frame to the laptop by wire, and began typing. Ten minutes passed, feeling like thirty.

“Memory is partitioned,” he said. “One side encrypted. You care about frame?”

“Only its contents,” Knox said.

Randy pried the frame open with a screwdriver, startling Knox.

He spoke as he continued disassembling the device. “Common mistake is try to break encryption.” He exposed a small circuit board. Using a magnifying loupe, he studied the board as his hand blindly searched the desktop for the screwdriver.

“But that’s what we want,” Knox said. “We want the data from the encrypted partition.”

“I understand,” Randy said. “Breaking such code can take days. Weeks.”

“We don’t have days or weeks.”

“No. But we have this,” he said, holding up the screwdriver, his attention still trained onto the loupe and the circuit board.

“The CMOS battery is soldered,” he said.

He sat up and addressed Knox.

“Just like laptop, the board uses small watch battery to hold password. Dead battery, no password. Sometimes battery is soldered to keep it from separating. That is case here. Screwdriver too big. Need paperclip.”

“How about a bobby pin?”

The man looked at him, confused. “Bobby?”

“Hair clip? We’re in the right place for hair clips.”

“Excellent!”

Minutes later, Randy had used a metal bobby pin to short the board and drain the small battery’s charge. The full directory of the partitioned side of the frame’s memory now appeared on his connected laptop.

The women rejoined Knox.

“Contents?” Knox asked.

“A dot-xls file. Microsoft Excel. Also some small audio files. Photos. I will download for you.” He handed Knox a thumb drive.

“Give us a minute please,” Knox said, eyeing Amy and indicating for Randy to leave the room.

“The upper back massage is most pleasant,” Amy said, escorting Randy out of the small room. “Only takes ten minutes. You will try now.”

Grace opened the spreadsheet. Five minutes passed, Knox standing behind her, impatient. Anxious. The spreadsheet notes were all in Chinese characters. He could read some, but not all of them.

When she spoke, she spoke English.

“It is everything,” she said. “Lu Hao used full names. Phone numbers. He recorded all payments. Very much money, John. More than is accounted for by The Berthold Group of course. Over past six months, nine million yuan. Over a million, U.S.

“With this kind of inside information,” she continued, “any construction company would be ensured of success. On the other hand, if the government got hold of this list, they would jail every one of them. The inherent value of this is astronomical.”

“How many contacts? How many getting payments?”

“The same. No new locations.”

“The Mongolians?”

“No sign of the most recent payments.”

Knox mulled this over. “Seriously?”

She nodded. “The four hundred thousand is unaccounted for.”

“Why so much detail? How stupid could he be?”

“Lu Hao is not stupid. Ambitious? Overconfident? Yes. But not stupid. It is doubtful keeping records was his idea,” she said. “Someone must have required it.”

“But then why’s it incomplete?”

She shrugged.

Knox attempted to clarify. “You’re saying Berthold wanted this accounting.”

“It is far too much money to entrust without some form of accountability. A person could embezzle a small fortune.”

“Do you think that’s what happened? Lu Hao put his finger in the pie?” That would explain kidnapping and holding the man.

“Not Lu Hao,” she said.

“Who would he have reported to? Marquardt?”

“Certainly not! This would put him at a direct risk of prosecution. Someone Marquardt trusts. Preston Song, I think, maybe. My immediate boss, Gail Bunchkin, is also possible. But I think Song. His being Chinese helps the company if it is investigated-keeps the charges off a foreign executive, which would look very bad. It is most likely Marquardt would have received only a verbal report on anything to do with Lu Hao’s activities.”

“Okay,” he said, compartmentalizing. “So as soon as we turn this over, the bribes will likely begin again.”

“Without a doubt. This will allow the Xuan Tower project to get back on schedule.”

Sensing a change in her, he said, “What is it, Grace?”

“As we have discussed: if The Berthold Group is working against us, then the moment they have Lu Hao’s accounts they no longer need Lu Hao. With all the attention being paid to him, it might be more convenient if he disappeared. The police will want to speak to Lu Hao. Maybe others in the government.”

“Yes,” Knox said. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. And now, with Sarge out of the equation, maybe there’s no ransom money anyway.”

“I remind you of Marquardt’s trip to Chongming Island. Again, I suggest this trip had nothing to do with the Xuan Tower, yet possibly everything to do with Lu Hao’s disappearance.”

“Explain.”

“My mother claims Lu Hao was on Chongming Island on the sixteenth for a four-day fete. The seventeenth he left me the voice mail.”