Medusa

CHAPTER 29

AFTER LEADING ZAVALA TO FALLS CHURCH, CHARLIE YOO had headed back to FBI headquarters. He chatted with an agent from the Asian Crime Unit, looking for tidbits of information to pass along to his employers. As a member of one of the world’s largest crime organizations, Yoo got a perverse thrill wandering the halls of the world’s largest law-enforcement agency. He was still at the Hoover Building when Caitlin Lyons called and asked if they could get together for a drink at a Georgetown bar. Yoo jumped at the invitation. Caitlin was a good source of FBI gossip, and she was attractive as well.

He took the elevator down to the garage and was walking to his car when Lyons stepped out from behind a concrete pillar.

“Hello, Charlie,” she said.

Yoo gave her his widest grin.

“Did I misunderstand?” he asked. “I thought we were meeting at the bar.”

“I decided to save you the trip. You must be tired after setting up my friends Joe and Kurt for a hit.”

Yoo maintained his grin with some effort, and his hand reached inside his jacket.

“Hi, Charlie. How’s by Yoo?”

Zavala had stepped out behind him.

“Joe!” Yoo said. “Am I glad to see you. What a great surprise . . .”

“That I’m still alive?”

“Huh? Don’t know what you’re talking about, Joe. Guess we got separated at the warehouse.”

Yoo’s hand was moving under his jacket in a way that would have seemed casual to the untrained eye.

“Make a bet with you, Charlie,” Zavala said. “Five bucks says Lyons drills a hole through the back of your skull before you get that gun out of its holster.”

“I’m feeling lucky,” she said. “Make it ten.”

She held her pistol with both hands, arms extended.

“Take your jacket off slowly and drop it on the floor,” Zavala said.

Yoo did as he was told. Zavala stepped forward to relieve him of both his guns, not only the one in the shoulder holster but the one in the belt holster as well. Frisking him, Zavala found a short, double-edged knife in its ankle sheath.

“Let’s go for a ride, Charlie,” he said.

Zavala held his arm in the air as if hailing a taxi. Headlights snapped on. A car roared out of nowhere with a squeal of tires and screeched to a stop just inches from Yoo. Zavala produced a roll of duct tape, bound Yoo’s wrists behind him, put a strip over his eyes, and slapped another over his mouth. Then he shoved Yoo into the backseat and sat next to him, with Lyons on the other side.

They drove in silence for a half hour before stopping. They hustled Yoo out of the back and down a short flight of stairs. He was plunked in a chair, and the tape was removed from his eyes and mouth. He glanced around at the sparsely furnished room.

“Where are we?”

“FBI safe house,” Lyons said.

She was sitting on the opposite end of a rectangular table. Zavala sat on one side, staring at Yoo with no humor in his banged-up face. Across from Zavala was a pale-haired man whose eyes were boring into Yoo like blue lasers.

“My name is Kurt Austin,” the man said. “Who do you work for?”

“The Chinese state security agency,” Yoo said.

Austin sighed and glanced at Lyons.

“Charlie,” Lyons said, “do you remember the time we went to the shooting range and I showed you how well I shoot?” She lifted her pistol off her lap and pointed it at Yoo. “Answer Kurt’s question or I’ll drill you a third eye.”

Yoo swallowed hard.

“I also work for the Pyramid Triad,” he said.

Austin motioned for her to lower her gun.

“What’s your job?” he said.

“I never left the gangs,” Yoo said. “I’m a high-level foot soldier. I don’t make decisions. I only follow orders.”

“Who ordered you to get Joe to the fortune cookie warehouse?”

“After Joe stopped by my office, I reported his visit. I usually just talk to the next in the line of command. That’s as high as I go. That way, if I ever got busted, I’d be limited in what I could tell. This time, I talked to the top dog.”

Austin thought back to the raid on the Beebe.

“You’ve been with the Triad a long time,” he said. “What do you know about a guy in your organization with a shaved head and a bad temper?”

Yoo blinked in surprise.

“Sounds like Chang,” he said, “the one I talked to. He’s in charge of the gang network worldwide, guys like the Ghost Devils. Do you know him?”

Austin ignored the question.

“Who are the other leaders?” he asked instead.

“C’mon, Charlie,” Caitlin Lyons said with impatience when Yoo hesitated, “we know about Wen Lo being the front man for Pyramid.”

“Maybe,” Yoo said. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Tell me about Phelps,” Austin said. “He was in charge of the gang at the warehouse.”

“The Ghost Devils are the local D.C. gang. They meet at the fortune cookie place. That’s where major orders come through from the boss. You never know whether it’s going to be a man or a woman. But, hey, that hologram is pretty cool, isn’t it?”

Yoo looked around at the unrelenting stares and his grin faded.

“Okay,” he said, squirming in his chair. “Phelps is a mercenary, a hired gun. I don’t know much about him, he comes and goes. He does big important jobs for the Triad.”

“Is it unusual to have a foreigner at such a high level?” Austin asked.

“The upper leadership doesn’t fully trust anyone Chinese. They don’t even trust one another, which is why they use the holograms. That way, they can just pop in anywhere around the world and give orders without even being there.”

“Why did your bosses want to kidnap Joe and me?”

“They don’t like you. I told Phelps we were playing with fire, snatching someone from a big government agency like NUMA. He said that didn’t matter, it was orders from the top. They hoped you’d both show at the same time, but Joe worked as bait.”

“How could you be certain I’d be able to find Joe?”

“Phelps was going to call, saying he was an FBI agent, to give you Joe’s location. Guess you didn’t get the message.”

“Guess I didn’t.”

Austin then lobbed a question from left field.

“What do you know about Bonefish Key?”

Yoo gave him a blank look that couldn’t be faked.

Austin believed Yoo knew more than he let on and was higher up in the Triad than he admitted, but he ended his questions.

“I’m done for now.”

“Can I go home?” Yoo said.

“After we talk some more,” Lyons said, “we’ll bring you back to D.C. But it doesn’t end there.”

“I can deal,” Yoo said. “Let’s talk.”

“Good,” she said. “You are going to spy on the Triad for us. If we think you’re jerking our chain, we’ll let it be known through our people in Hong Kong that you are a turncoat.”

“That wouldn’t be healthy,” Yoo said. “I’ll do it.”

They questioned him further until deciding there was little more to gain. They taped him up again and drove back to the Hoover Building. There, they removed the tape and dropped him off on the sidewalk. Then they drove back to NUMA.

“My head is spinning,” Caitlin Lyons said. “What just happened?”

“The Pyramid Triad has developed an influenza virus that they want to use to bring down the Chinese government,” Austin said. “They hijacked the lab working on a vaccine for the virus, and, once the Triad topples the government, Pyramid will market the antiviral around the world and make billions.”

“Hundreds of thousands of people could die before that happens,” she said.

“Do you think anyone at Pyramid gives a damn?” he asked.

“Not from what I’ve seen. Where do we start?”

“Get the Asian Crime Unit to crack down on the Ghost Devils. While you handle this end, Joe and I will try to find the lab.”

“What should I do about Charlie Yoo?”

“Use him, then lose him.”

“I like that,” she said with an evil smile on her face.

Lyons dropped them off at the NUMA tower. Austin and Zavala headed their separate ways home to pick up their bags and said they would hook up again at the airport.

Austin checked his cell phone while driving home. He had left it in the car when he went to investigate the cookie factory. He listened to the voice mail from Phelps, saying he was an FBI agent. Yoo had told the truth about one thing.

Austin clicked the phone off and nailed the accelerator.

Time, as always, had become the enemy.