Chris Jordan - Measure of Darkness

“Or the ten millionth,” Dane adds knowingly.

Naomi says, “It’s a theory, based entirely on supposition, but interesting nonetheless. Are you thinking this could be the spouse of a colleague? A visiting professor?”

“That, or maybe a diplomat’s wife…” Jack says. “Stationed at the Boston consulate maybe? That might explain the traditional dress.”

Naomi shakes her head. “There are Chinese consulates in New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Houston, but not Boston.”

Jack grins. “Off the top of your head?”

“Just something I know.”

“Okay, so maybe she takes the Amtrak up from New York. Maybe not. I’m not married to the idea she’s a diplomat’s wife-pun intended, by the way-but my gut tells me the mother is key, and could be connected to someone very powerful and/or dangerous. Hence the need for secrecy, and possibly kidnapping. And maybe hence the need to murder.”

“One of the tongs?” Teddy suggests, his voice barely audible.

“Strictly speaking, tongs are American, not Chinese,” Naomi says. “But I take your point. What if the mystery woman is the gun moll of a gang leader? How would that play out?”

“I never said ‘gun moll,’ whatever that is,” Teddy objects. “And what do you mean tongs are not Chinese?”

Naomi lapses into her dinner lecture mode. “Not, technically, any more than Italian-American crime syndicates are the same as the Italian Mafia. Tongs are a distinctly Western version of the Tiandihui, the original secret criminal societies in China, today known as triads. First established in San Francisco in the nineteenth century, when many Chinese arrived to labor on the railroads, and began to organize themselves for protection. Still very powerful, but quite staid and old-fashioned as modern gangs go. The tong presence here in Boston has a hand in gambling, extortion and loan shark rackets, but only rarely resorts to murder. The Hong Kong-based triads tend to be more deadly than the American tongs, and from what I hear the local Vietnamese gangs, if not more powerful, are certainly younger, more violent and much more dangerous.”

“So maybe she’s Vietnamese,” Teddy insists, a little louder and a lot more stubborn. “Why not? The neighbor is probably not being specific, saying ‘Chinese.’”

Naomi looks pleased. This is the kind of give-and-take that she encourages, and which Teddy hasn’t much engaged in until very recently. “Well argued. Regardless of ethnicity or country of origin, the notion of a criminal or gang connection has to be taken into account,” Naomi assures him. “Jack?”

“I’ll ask around.”

“Excellent. Tell us about Mr. Bing.”

“Quite the character,” Jack says. “I rather like him. Not at all what I expected.”

Jack would be a great storyteller if he didn’t keep reverting to cop speak. Even with the stilted phrases, he paints an intriguing picture of the young venture capitalist luxuriating in splendid isolation on his enormous yacht, explaining his decision to invest in Joseph Keener as a business opportunity, and as a friend of sorts, in hopes that the victim’s understanding of light might one day prove to be immensely profitable.

“My impression is he’s telling the truth, mostly. In the sense that he genuinely liked and admired the professor, and has some interesting insights into what made him tick. But he’s lying about not knowing about the Chinese girlfriend, and the fact they had a kid.”

“Your gut?”

Jack nods.

“Good enough. So why is Mr. Bing lying? What’s his motive?”

“If I had to guess, he may think he’s protecting Keener’s reputation, or the boy, or both. I’m going to give him a day to think about it, then go back at him.”

While we digest Jack’s presentation, Beasley serves the second course, a sliced grilled sausage stuffed with shrimp and mushrooms and various secret ingredients that can’t be pried out of her with any sort of bribe, or even the threat of waterboarding. The merest hint of cardamom, obviously, and at least one of us (me) detects black truffle lurking among the shiitake, but beyond that the chef’s unsmiling lips are sealed.

“Teddy? Your turn. Please bring us all up to date.”

“Um, there’s not really a lot to report yet. With Mr. Bean’s help-he placed a memory stick into one of their computers, uploading this really cool program-ah, we established mirrored access to the QuantaGate office computer system. We’ll just have to wait until something interesting pops.”

Naomi favors him with an indulgent smile. “Explain mirrored access, for those who might not be familiar.”

Teddy shrugs, as if it’s no big deal. “Means we’re limited to what people are actively keyboarding in real time. We can’t explore the system or access files-that would set off alarm bells-all we can do is follow keystrokes and mouse clicks from stations in the network, but at least we get all of them. That means, during normal work hours, anywhere between sixteen and twenty keyboards clacking away. A lot more data than can be followed by any single observer. So we’re feeding all the entries into a developing database, subdivided into categories of interest. Payroll, accounts receivable, inter-staff memos, gossip threads. Like that.”

“And any category or search term we care to add in the future?”

“Right, sure. No problem.”

“Dane? What’s our legal exposure on this?”

Our legal eagle rolls her eyes. “Seriously?”

“Confined to prosecutable infractions.”

“Specifically exposure under the U.S. Criminal Code 1030, ‘Fraud and Related Activity in Connection with Computers’?”

“If you say so.”

Dane looks thoughtful, pursing her pretty, plumped lips like a small, dazzling tropical fish. Say a well-coiffed piranha. “I’d say, very serious exposure. Under subhead 5A, the language concerns harm done by unauthorized access of protected computer. So the key to staying out of jail is to do no harm. On the other hand, subhead 2 makes it illegal to obtain protected information from any department or agency of the United States. A zealous prosecutor might well argue that a private company with a contract from the Department of Defense falls under that umbrella. Basically, criminal liability depends on what you do with information obtained. Pass it on to a foreign agent, you’d be facing charges of espionage and/or treason for sure.”

Naomi nods and turns her head. “Teddy? Do you intend to pass information to a foreign agent?”

“No freakin’ way! Plus, what we’re looking at in the cyber mirror doesn’t include whatever system they have in the actual lab. We’re culling data from cubicle workers, not scientists. It’s strictly look, don’t touch.”

Dane remains mildly skeptical. “Then I suppose cogent arguments could be made in favor of the defendant, should an arrest occur. My humble opinion? If the worst happens, felony conviction remains a real possibility.”

Teddy sits up straight, adding about three inches in height. “You mean I might be a defendant?”

“Always possible, given what we do and who we do it to,” Naomi makes clear.

“Cool.”

“No, not cool. Unless by cool you mean you’ll take every precaution to make sure you won’t get caught.”

“Absolutely, that’s what I mean.”

“This isn’t a cybercafe. There will soon be powerful forces arrayed against us, if they’re not already in place.”

“I get it,” Teddy says, somewhat petulant.

Before he can be further cautioned, the swordfish swims onto our plates, and for a good ten minutes nobody says a word. A few moans of pleasure, but no actual words.

Our first-time guest Milton Bean, gingerly forking slices mouthward, continues to look pleasantly, not to say orgasmically, dumbfounded. Orgasmic in the foodie sense, of course. Dumbfounded in the oh-my-God-never-have-I-tasted-anything-as-divine-as-this sense. Not that he’s forgotten the price that must be paid for his presence at this table, and which Naomi is now poised to extract.