Threat Vector

up with sweat. He started to lower it from his eye, but then the penthouse doors in the lobby opened and, true to his daily ritual, the Shenzhen knockoff computer hardware maker stepped out alone and walked across the lobby. Just then three white SUVs rolled by Yao’s car and stopped under the awning of the Tycoon Court.

Each day the vehicles picking up the man were the same. Adam had been too far up the street to read the license plates on his earlier attempts, but today he was close enough to get a good angle and he had plenty of time to snap pictures of the tag numbers.

The back door to the second vehicle was opened from the inside, and the counterfeiter ducked in. In seconds the three SUVs rolled off, east on Conduit Court, disappearing around a hilly turn.

Yao decided he would attempt to tail the SUVs today. He would not get too close and it was unlikely he’d be able to follow them for long before he lost them in the thick traffic, but as far as he was concerned, he might as well head off in the same direction as they had on the offhand chance he’d get lucky and track them to a major intersection. If so, and assuming they took the same route each day, he could position himself farther along the route tomorrow and tail them a bit closer to their ultimate destination.

Any success using this technique would be a slow process and a long shot. But it beat coming here every morning, sitting here, day after day, which was beginning to look pointless.

He lowered his camera to the passenger seat and reached for his keys, but a loud rapping on his driver’s-side window made him jump.

Two police officers peered in the window, and one used the plastic antenna of his walkie-talkie to knock on the glass.

Great.

Yao rolled down the window. “Ni hao,” he said, which was Mandarin, and these cops likely spoke Cantonese, but he was pissed about wasting his morning, again, so he did not feel like being helpful.

Before the officer at the window said anything he looked past Yao to the passenger seat of the Mercedes, where the camera with the two-hundred-millimeter zoom lens sat next to a directional microphone with a set of headphones, a set of high-quality binoculars, a tiny notebook computer, a small backpack, and a legal pad full of handwritten notes.

He looked up at Adam now with suspicion. “Step out.”

Adam did as he was told.

“Is there a problem?”

“Identification,” the officer demanded.

Adam reached carefully into his pants and pulled out his wallet. The cop a few meters back watched him closely as he did so.

Adam passed his entire billfold over to the officer who requested it, and he stood quietly while the man looked it over.

“What’s all that in your car?”

“That is my job.”

“Your job? What, are you a spy?”

Adam Yao laughed. “Not quite. I own a firm that investigates intellectual property theft. My card is right next to my license there. SinoShield Business Investigative Services Limited.”

The cop looked the card over. “What do you do?”

“I have clients in Europe and the U.S. If they suspect a Chinese firm is manufacturing counterfeit versions of their goods over here, they hire me to investigate. If we think they have a case they’ll hire local attorneys and try to get the counterfeiting stopped.” Adam smiled. “Business is good.”

The cop relaxed a little. It was a reasonable explanation for why this guy was sitting in a parking space taking pictures of the comings and goings next door.

He asked, “You are investigating someone at the Tycoon Court?”

“I’m sorry, officer. I am not allowed to reveal any information about an ongoing investigation.”

“The security office over there called about you. Said you were here yesterday, too. They think you are going to rob them or something.”

Adam chuckled and said, “I’m not going to rob them. I won’t bother them at all, though I wish I could sit in their lobby and enjoy the air-conditioning. You can check me out. I’ve got friends at HKP, mostly in B Department. You could call and get someone to vouch for me.” The Hong Kong Police B Department was the investigative branch, the detectives and organized crime force. The officers, Adam knew, would be A Department, the division under which the patrol cops worked.

The officer looking Adam over took his time. He asked Yao about some B Department police he knew, and Yao answered comfortably until a connection was made.

Finally satisfied, the two policemen headed back into their patrol car and left Adam by his Mercedes.

He climbed back inside his car and slammed his hand on the steering wheel in frustration. Other than tag numbers that would probably lead him nowhere, it had been a wasted day. He’d learned nothing about the counterfeiter and his activities he had not already known yesterday, and he’d been compromised by some damn security guard at a condominium tower.

Adam was once again, however, greatly appreciative of his fantastic cover for status. Running a private investigation firm gave him a ready-made excuse to be doing just about anything he could imagine being caught doing while in performance of his clandestine duties for the Agency.

As far as CIA nonofficial-cover “white side” jobs were concerned, Adam Yao’s SinoShield Business Investigative Services Ltd. was as solid as they came.

He drove off, down the hill and back toward his office near the harbor.

TWENTY-FOUR

Jack Ryan, Jr., woke next to Melanie Kraft and immediately realized his phone was ringing. He had no idea of the time at first, but his body told him it was well before his normal internal clock’s wake-up call.

He grabbed the ringing phone and looked at it. 2:05 a.m. He groaned. He checked the caller ID.

Gavin Biery.

He groaned again. “Really?”

Melanie stirred next to him. “Work?”

“Yeah.” He did not want her to be suspicious, though, so he followed that with: “The director of the IT department.”

Melanie laughed softly and said, “You left your computer on.”

Jack chuckled, too, and started to put the phone back down.

“Must be important, though. You should take it.”

Jack knew she was right. He sat up and answered. “Hello, Gavin.”

“You have got to come in right now!” said a breathless Gavin Biery.

“It’s two a.m.”

“It’s two-oh-six. Get here by two-thirty.” Biery hung up.

Jack put the phone back on the nightstand, fighting off a very strong urge to hurl it against the wall. “I’ve got to go in.”

“For the IT guy?” Melanie’s tone was incredulous.

“I’ve been helping him on a project. It was important, but not ‘come in the middle of the night’ important. But he seems to think this warrants a two-thirty a.m. meeting.”

Melanie rolled over, away from Jack. “Have fun.”

Jack could tell she did not believe him. He sensed that a lot from her, even when he was telling her the truth.

* * *

Jack pulled into the parking lot of Hendley Associates just after two-thirty. He came through the front door