“Obstinate,” she said proudly. “That’s the word.”
“I’ve been called worse,” he said. “Still, we’ve gotta assume they know about you. Your friend didn’t know about me, right?”
She shook her head.
“But it won’t take the cops long to figure it out. The cop on the train got both of our names. If he’s got a halfway decent memory….”
Her concern registered again on her expressive face.
All the more reason to get the hell off the main road, Jake thought. First, he’d need to figure out if their mission was remotely possible now. If her friend had given up Su, he could have just as easily told them that he would be driving her to the remote location. Hopefully that’s all he had known.
Outside the contact’s apartment, police cars had blocked off the street and two men were carrying the man out on a stretcher, down the front steps and into an unmarked military van.
Leaning against a police car, bundled in a parka, the bald man cast his gaze on an army colonel in a green wool uniform standing before him.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the colonel said, his eyes and head nodding toward the street.
The bald man laughed, his voice echoing against the apartments, breaking the silence of night. Then his disposition changed to a determined stare.
“You are the Fool on the Hill,” the bald man said. “I am the Walrus. Goo goo g’ joob.”
The colonel looked at him like he was insane.
The bald man continued, “It doesn’t matter. Luckily I don’t depend entirely on you.” In fact, he did not depend on the colonel at all, or anyone else in the military of incompetents. But he knew he would need them eventually, when his plan came to full fruition. So, even though he did not like it at all, he would have to appease this colonel. For now.
The bald man moved off of the police car and put his hand on the colonel’s shoulder board, running his fingers through the stars. “Let’s sanitize the apartment. He was a troubled young man. Suicidal, in fact.” Then a smile came to his face and a chuckle turned in to a full guffaw.
15
It was Friday morning and Special Agent Jane Harris stood at a table in the downtown branch of the Bank of the Pacific, pretending to fill out a form, and taking her time about it. Sitting at a small table a short distance away, Cliff Johansen and the Asian woman talked with a bank official. But she was just out of ear shot.
Moments later, Cliff signed something and then went with the banker into the vault. The Asian women glanced about the room, checking her watch every now and then.
Harris knew she couldn’t stay there much longer. She was being too obvious. She had to move. Picking up some literature on a bank credit card, she went to an open teller and asked her a few questions about their current rates. Then she smiled and left, returning to her vehicle parked half a block from the Trooper.
“Well?” asked agent Drew Fisher. “What’s up?”
“The two of them talked for a moment with a banker and then Cliff went into the vault without her.”
“Probably a safe deposit box.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“What else?” he asked her.
“Current Visa rates are nine percent. I might apply.”
He gave her a callous look.
“All right. Give me a break. It’s not like I got much sleep in this beast of a Blazer last night. Cliff did fill out some paperwork.”
“Wire transfer?”
“Could be.”
“I’ll call and have that traced.”
“What about probable cause now?” she asked. “Last night…”
He waved her off. “You wanna sleep in here again?”
“Carry on.”
He called Portland and initiated a trace. Just as he got off the phone, he noticed Cliff and the woman departing the bank.
“Here we go,” Fisher said.
Agent Harris started the engine and waited for them to pull out.
Li was behind the wheel of the Trooper and Cliff sat in the passenger seat, squirming about nervously.
“You act like we just robbed the bank,” she said, checking the rearview mirror as she pulled out into traffic. “You should be happy. You’re half a million richer.”
Cliff sighed with her words, as if he had finally just realized what she was saying. On one point she was correct. He did have more money. But he was now also culpable for a crime. He had stolen from his country and sold the data to this woman who worked for…well, that was the problem. He assumed it was the Chinese government, but it could have been the Taiwanese, the Koreans, North or South, or even some terrorist group. And the DVD he had just given her was useless without his encryption codes.
They made their way toward the Parkway that led out of town. She turned North toward Redmond and picked up speed, keeping her eyes on the rearview mirror.
“What’s the matter,” he asked her.
“I think someone’s behind us.”
“A tail?” He looked over his shoulder and saw at least five vehicles. “Which one?”
“Turn around,” she said. “Don’t want them to know we know.”
A moment later she looped around and picked up Highway 20 toward Sisters. But the Blazer with the two people were still there.
Cliff leaned forward and looked into the right outside mirror. “The Blazer?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
She passed a long line of cars before the highway turned from four lanes to two. Now there would be a little cushion.
The road quickly became a series of curves that would not allow passing.
“Listen,” Cliff said, “what difference does it make? So we’ve got a tail. What do they have on us?”
She glanced sideways at him, a look he had not seen in her before. What was it? Desperation? Concern?
When she spoke, her words were measured. “We have the DVD you just gave me. We have the transfer of money you just got. We have you not showing up for work for the last two days. And, how we sure you not get caught sending data to yourself?”
That was the only thing he was sure of, but she was right about the rest. Well, not the money. For, although she had transferred the money to his local account, he had set it up days ago to have all of his transactions, however small or large, split into fractions of one hundred. So, a transfer of one dollar would look like one cent. Subsequently, a transfer of five hundred thousand, would end up as one hundred transfers of five thousand each, keeping it well under the ten thousand dollars that would send up flags with the Feds. He smiled now thinking of his own genius. Not only would the incoming money be fractionalized, it would immediately shift before the end of business to five other accounts in various sheltered countries. And, over a period of a few days, the money would again collect in a single account in Liechtenstein.
“What so funny?” she asked him.
“Nothing. This is just getting so cloak and dagger. It’s pretty cool.”
“Glad you like it.”
When a passing lane came up, she sped up and started to pass a slow-moving camper trailer. But then she slowed down when she was even with the camper. Just before the passing lane was about to end, she jammed the gas and passed the truck and camper, barely making it with the oncoming traffic honking at her. Now the line of cars, with the Blazer at the end, would be even farther behind.
She sped up and rushed toward the small town of Sisters.
“Damn it,” said special agent Harris. “She’s on to us.”
Agent Fisher had his hand on the dash. “Looks like it.” He pulled out a map from a side pouch and opened it to their current location. “Shit. The road splits in Sisters to one twenty-six and two forty-two. Which way will they go?”