The Red Room

5

By the time Grace reestablishes herself in a Starbucks on Queen’s Road, the sidewalks are quieting down from the lunch rush. She finds a corner table.

The second of the two four-minute recordings made while she fended off her young thief shows a bank officer returning to work. Taking her seat at one of the unoccupied desks, the woman quickly logs on to the bank’s computer network. The beauty of high-def recordings and retina displays makes itself clear in the ease with which Grace is able to zoom in on the woman’s hands and observe the keystrokes in stop-motion.

She dares not attempt to use this woman’s ID and password while the woman is logged on, so Grace reconnects with the live security camera repeatedly. Forty minutes later, the bank officer logs off and leaves her desk. Grace pounces.

She meets Dulwich on the upper level of an eastbound double-decker tram twenty minutes later and details the encounter with the man in the cafeteria.

“Mashe Okle, our POI,” she says — person of interest—“is indeed paying the medical bills for one Delbar Melemet — female, seventy-three — in care at Istanbul’s Florence Nightingale Hospital. Mashe Okle’s income is bifurcated. His deposits from state-generated Iranian paychecks put him at the mid-to-high end for research academicians. Additional phantom income, the result of pension funds that don’t appear to come with any restrictions, bumps that to six figures in U.S. dollars. He appears to have no mortgage, no housing costs. Utilities, even a wireless bill, all these are a no-show.”

Dulwich’s head pivots back to front, watching the passengers come and go. Experience tells her that even when Dulwich appears distracted, as now, he’s listening closely.

Beside him Grace also admires the well-heeled mix of Europeans and Asians crowding the sidewalk, reveling in the cleanliness of the streets and the elegance of the architecture. Nonetheless, despite its reputation as the “London of Asia,” Hong Kong carries a whiff of malfeasance beneath its white-collar façade—probably, Grace thinks, due to its pirate heritage. She waits until the tram is moving again, no new passengers having sat down within hearing distance.

“There was a cash withdrawal from the account on the day following the woman’s hospitalization. Fifty million rials. That computes to the cost of a round-trip, first-class ticket, Tehran to Istanbul, with enough left over for living expenses for several days.”

“Good work.”

“An hour later, a first-class ticket is purchased with cash at an Emirates branch office in downtown Tehran under the name of Mashe Melemet.”

“Spell it.” Dulwich scribbles onto a busy piece of notepaper.

“Mashe Melemet, aka Mashe Okle, departs Monday,” she continues, glowing now like the star pupil in the first row. “With a two-hour layover in Dubai.”

“I may be able to pull a passport photo for the Melemet ID.” He tries to cover his excitement. She interprets, deciding he doesn’t have a photo of their mark; realizes she’s given him something he and, by inference, their client, need.

“Book yourself a flight arriving in Istanbul just ahead of his,” Dulwich says. “Arrange a driver and surveil Okle. Nothing stupid. You can pick him up again at the hospital, so you don’t need to stick to him.”

“Yes, sir.” Questions hang in the air. Grace wasn’t aware this would involve field ops. She’s thrilled. She’d love to get out of the office for good. Is she to work directly with Dulwich — no John Knox? She would view this as a promotion of sorts. She’s about to ask the obvious question when he subverts her.

“You’re Knox’s accountant, same as Shanghai,” he says. “Use your EU creds where necessary. They’ll hold up. But in terms of the mark, you’re there in the room to protect Knox from any kind of sting. You and I will need to know the players. You may not hear from me, but I want to hear from you.”

His mention of Knox is bittersweet. “Understood. If I may?”

“Go ahead.”

“Who protects John Knox from himself?”

Dulwich smiles, which doesn’t suit his face. Two of his front teeth are chipped.

“If the POI’s cover is broken,” Dulwich says, “it will be bad for him and everyone around him.”

“Do we extract at that point?”

“You’d have to get in line. A long line, I expect.”

“Behind whom?”

Dulwich smirks. “You and Knox make quite the pair. The point is… your takeaway is this: we need to know as much as we can about all the players. That’s how we protect the POI. It’s fluid. White water.”

He’s telling her that the events in Istanbul are moving dangerously fast. The mark, along with her and Knox, are all at risk. The information hit her as a welcome jolt. For the last few years, she has lived for such rushes.

“Look: you two are only there to make Knox’s deal. Anything and everything you do, Chu, has to make sense when viewed through that lens. Copy? You are Knox’s accountant, working to keep him clean in the deal. Nothing more. There’s no backstop. I don’t exist.”

She wants badly to ask about the deal. But Dulwich made it clear when he briefed her in the Red Room that this is a Need To Know op. She has never operated under such restrictions. She doesn’t know if Knox has or not, but she can guess he will not respond well to them.

In contrast, Grace can and does follow orders. She’s all about team play. A dozen questions crowd her thoughts. She says nothing.