Chapter 38
Agent Greer slipped out of Daiyu Mei's room, having successfully embedded tracking bugs in her laptop and tablet. Gabrielle smiled to herself, the CIA really did have the best gadgets although her friend in Homeland Security had got her hands on some good stuff recently – maybe an agency move was in her future as she was finding herself becoming increasingly disillusioned with the Company. She let herself back into her room and got to work syncing her laptop to the bugs; everything that the lawyer typed into either device would now be captured and tracked. However, she was still missing the woman's main means of communication and urgently needed a ploy to get her hands on her cell phone – Gabrielle had been observing her target from a safe distance but hadn't seen her leave her cell unattended for a second. She frowned as she considered various strategies, when a thought came to her – smirking, she scrolled through her contacts until she reached the one she wanted and sent a quick text.
Greer sat across the room from Wo Fat's fiancée in the packed hotel restaurant. A young waitress briefly caught her eye and Gabrielle gave her a barely perceptible nod of her head. The girl gracefully weaved her way between the tables, stopping to refill the guest's water glasses when she saw that they were empty. When she reached Ms. Mei's table, she stumbled and poured the whole jug of iced water over the table and into the woman's lap. Ms. Mei jumped up with a loud shriek, brushing off the icy water as best as she could. Her mother rushed around to help her, berating the clumsy waitress at the same time. The daughter joined in the abuse, calling the poor girl all the names under the sun. The rest of the restaurant had ground to a halt, all eyes on the scene unfolding before them. The manager bustled over, alternating between apologizing profusely and reaming out the waitress until the hapless girl couldn't take any more and ran from the restaurant in tears, pushing past the other waiting staff who had all frozen in place. After another minute of grovelling, the manager finally calmed the two women down and the restaurant gradually returned to its noisy bustle, the incident soon forgotten.
Greer slipped out of the restaurant, smirking from the satisfaction of a job well done. Back in her room she synced up the latest bug that was now very well hidden in her target's cell phone. She sent an encrypted message to Kono to confirm that all the electronic devices were now under surveillance and granted her remote access to the laptop that was monitoring the bugs. With a happy little sigh Gabrielle decided that an afternoon of pampering treatments in the decadent spa facility was in order. A girl had to take her opportunities when she could, right?
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The Naval Intelligence officers and support staff had their hands full analyzing the data recovered from Wo Fat's command center in North Korea. Harry was like a kid in a candy store, not knowing which sweet treats to pick first. They were uncovering lists of buyers, detailed information on the supply chains and how the weapons were being moved between countries, the identities of the middle men and many hundreds of pages of financial records. Chin had advised the lieutenant to follow the money and that was what he was doing. His first job was going back to just before Operation Switchback, the disastrous CIA mission to capture Wo Fat in Macau. He then scanned all payments going out from the time that Jenna Kaye's intel had first been pushed up the chain of command. It was tedious and painstaking work, but after a few hours he found a suspicious payment of $500,000 that had come out of one of Wo Fat's many 'business' accounts. He only had a bank account number to go on, but it was a start. He picked up the phone and dialled Chin.
Chin ended the call and hollered for the rest of the team to come over to the surface table, or 'the font of all knowledge' as he had affectionately named her, getting quite angsty with anyone who didn't treat his baby with the care she deserved, "We need to trace this bank account, it could be the payment to Kray for selling out the CIA extraction team." Kono nudged Danny out of the way with her hip,
"Move over and let the experts work, Danny," her dimpled smile softened the insult, "you have many skills, Brah, but getting information out of this technical marvel is not one of them." Danny huffed in indignation,
"One day you'll discover that fancy finger work on a bloody machine cannot solve all crimes, Rookie. I have my own sources in the international banking world," and with that the detective retired to his office to make some calls and maybe call in some favors if the need arose.
The account number traced back to a bank account held in a private Swiss bank based in Basel, the bank in question was called J. Safra Sarasin. Chin cursed under his breath. The Swiss privacy laws were brutal and almost impenetrable and they especially didn't respond well to the heavy-handed tactics often employed by American agencies. Danny came out of his office at that moment, "Let me guess, you're just working out how to compel a private Swiss bank to reveal the account holder's details?" Chin groaned,
"This is going to be impossible." Danny shrugged,
"Maybe for a mere mortal, but not when you're Super Detective." At that Kono looked at him in surprise and waited for him to elaborate. Danny obliged, "I have a contact who owes me a favour that works at Sarasin. There's no way that he can divulge the account holder details but I may be able to get him to tell us the dates and times of any recent withdrawals that were made in person. Then we can check CCTV from around the bank and see if we can spot anyone we know."
Kono gazed in awe at the older man, "I think I have just been schooled by a Jedi Master."
Despite their initial optimism, it was now many frustrating hours later and they were no further forward. They had a day and a time for the last big withdrawal just over a month ago but it was proving impossible to get their hands on the CCTV from around the bank in Basel. There were no flight records showing Kray making the journey to Switzerland, meaning he either went in under the radar on a private plane or was using an assumed name. Chin leaned against the table, deep in thought. He slowly spoke, "I might know someone who could help. Do you remember Jerry, my high school classmate?" Kono laughed,
"How could I forget Jerry and his basement of doom? Danny, you're gonna love this dude!" She looked to Chin, "Road trip, Cuz?"
Chin nodded, "Yeah, I've been keeping in touch with him since the murder of Kai Akana – it has really affected him. If you can see past the ludicrous conspiracy theories then there is one smart cookie under all that hair and I know he has contacts all over the world. I'm feeling a bit hungry anyway – I could eat some of Mrs. Ortega's homemade cake." At this Danny perked up,
"Cake, you say? I'm in," he turned to Kono, "lead the way my little Padawan."