“How are we going to get in? You want me to knock the door off its hinges?”
She rolled her eyes and pulled out a lockpick set. “It’s an old-school lock,” she said. She took a key, inserted it into the lock, then withdrew a small heavy screwdriver and banged the end of the key while turning it.
There was a snick as the lock opened. He turned to Nancy and felt his jaw drop.
Nancy put the key and screwdriver back into the lockpick set, then noticed the look on his face. “What?”
“You’re scary sometimes.”
“Why only sometimes?”
He bit his lip. “Good point. What now?”
She pointed to the door. “You’re the super soldier. You go first.”
“Glad to be cannon fodder.”
A genuine smile lit up her face. “I dislike you less than most. Try not to die.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” He took a breath, then gently pushed the door open and stepped inside.
He half-expected a booby trap and was glad when nothing happened. He found the light switch and flicked it on. The office was long and narrow, with a desk at one end and a rack of computer gear at the other.
He motioned to Nancy and she entered the office and closed the door, locking it.
“Doesn’t look like there’s much here,” he said.
Nancy pointed to the rack of computer gear at the end of the room. “Karen tried to break in but couldn’t get past their firewall.” She shook her head. “No matter how many layers of technology you try to hide behind, there has to be a computer terminated somewhere. And, there it is.”
They approached the rack. He inspected the gear but was unable to make sense of it. “What are we supposed to do with this?”
She pulled a small thumbdrive from her handbag and plugged it into the USB port of the top computer. She removed her cellphone and made a call. “It’s in. You should see it momentarily. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.” She hung up and put the phone back in her purse.
“That’s it?” he asked.
She nodded. “C-Tec is a small ISP leasing bandwidth from SK Broadband. Karen suspects these computers have been hosting IP’s and websites involved with the MV Rising Star and the attacks in Nashville and Syria. She couldn’t break in, but that thumbdrive contained a rootkit that installed and took control of the computer, then dialed home via an encrypted channel. She’s cloning the computer now.” She removed the thumbdrive and plugged it into the USB port on the next computer, waited a few moments, then continued until she had placed it in every computer in the rack. She checked her cellphone and smiled. “All the computers are talking out. Karen will soon have everything on these systems.”
“How do you know so much about this stuff?”
Nancy grunted. “I don’t, I just listen to Karen when she speaks. Osmosis, I guess. Take a look around, what do you see?”
He shrugged. “It looks like an office.”
“Of course,” she said, an edge to her voice. “Look closely. You’ve trained for this. What do you see?”
He spun around slowly. “Nothing on the walls. No pictures. No artwork. The desk is clean.” He walked over and rifled through the drawers. “Nothing.” He peaked over the edge. “Nothing in the trash. The office is a front for the servers and that’s it.” He sniffed. “Wait a minute. I smell something.” He picked up the trash can and sniffed. “Smells like… tea?”
He lifted the trash can and looked inside. There was a stain in the bottom. He tilted it so Nancy could lean in and sniff.
“Smells like green tea,” Nancy agreed. “It’s still pungent. It’s not old. Green tea quickly loses its scent.”
He raised an eyebrow. “How the hell do you know that?”
She shrugged. “Just one of those things. If the tea isn’t old, it means a regular visitor.”
“So what do we do?”
“Simple,” she said. “We wait.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Deion wormed the rental car through the crowded streets of Shanghai before reaching Pudong. The city was ablaze with neon lights. He could almost close his eyes and pretend he was home in Chicago, except Shanghai had a metropolitan vibe all its own.
He kept an eye in the rear view mirror as he navigated the heavy traffic, driving past sidewalks full of young men and women wearing clothes of every color, many in shades of neon or black leather with silver and chrome accents.
Mark Kelly noticed him watching the mirror. “How could anyone follow us in this mess?”
Deion snorted. “The Chinese keep a close eye on the airport. I don’t think they have the assets to follow every car, but you never know.”
“Right,” Mark said. “So, why bring me instead of Taylor?
“We’re trying to blend in,” Deion said, taking a left. “Two black guys on the streets of Shanghai? That’s not blending in. That’s a potential carjacking.”
Mark guffawed. “TM is wrong. You do have a sense of humor.”
“Don’t tell Wise. He thinks I’m all business.” He pulled the car to the curb and parked on a narrow side street, peering down the back alley. Their contact, Wei Dong, regularly met his handler, Robert Morrison, in the back of the noodle shop they were observing.
After several minutes, he turned to Mark. “Looks clear. Let’s go.”
They made their way to an unmarked door in the alley where Deion knocked four times. An old Chinese man opened the door and glared at them until Deion handed him a paper bag full of yuan. The old man peered inside the bag, then opened the door and waved them in.
He led them to a storage room stacked to the ceiling with bags of flour and white cardboard boxes, nodded, then shut the door behind him as he left.
Mark raised an eyebrow. “The old man trustworthy?”
“Yu? He’s worked for the OTM for years. As long as the money holds out, he’s rock solid.”
After a few minutes the door opened and a lean young man with greasy hair stepped in and closed the door behind him.
“Wei Dong?” Deion asked.
The young man frowned and replied in Mandarin. “Who are you? Where’s Bob?”
Deion didn’t feel comfortable with three men parading through Shanghai, nor with Morrison learning more about their mission than necessary. Even in the OTM, there were levels of operational security. “I know Bob is your handler, but we need to speak with you,” Deion replied in Mandarin.
Wei eyed them suspiciously and shifted from foot to foot. “I don’t know you.”
Deion nodded. “Bob said your Mother loves lilacs, but roses are her favorites.”
The man stopped his fidgeting. “True,” he said in heavily accented English. “What do you want from me? Things are… crazy since that bomb went off. It’s all everyone can talk about.”
“How crazy?” Deion asked.
Wei sighed heavily. “High security. They search us when we enter or leave.”
It made sense, of course. The nuke was a major world event and Wei did work for the PLA. “We need to ask you about the data the Unit’s collected. You know where it’s stored?”
“Yes,” Wei said, nodding his head. “I’m a firewall guy. I have to know where the data is so that I can protect it.”
Deion resisted the urge to snort. Protect it? It was stolen from US companies. He let it slide. “Who has access?”
Wei shrugged. “Lots of people. A team analyzes everything and rates it. If it’s important, it goes to the Army guys.”
“Army guys?” Mark asked.
Wei nodded. “Most of us are hackers. We’re not soldiers. We do it for fun and for money. We’re not bad guys. The Army guys? They’re dicks!”