The Red Room Read online

  During that window—hours, or minutes sometimes—people like Grace Chu, a private contractor based in Hong Kong and specializing in forensic accounting, are able to slip through the back door undetected.

  Thanks to other sources on the inside of those companies, Grace Chu is also told when to get out.

  Most of her days are spent poring over spreadsheets or money wire transactions, establishing trails and hard evidence for the client, most typically Rutherford Risk. Today she works like a day trader, jumping in and out of the market, seizing opportunity, playing margins. She’s attempting to establish and trace an individual’s net worth. It’s a nerve-racking exercise not meant for the faint of heart. A moment’s hesitation and the SEC or FBI will have her location. Get out too quickly and she loses her only chance at access.

  Today she’s inside the server of a Jordanian bank; tonight or tomorrow, if the current back door holds, an Iranian investment firm. She’s curious about the op. Yesterday, Dulwich instructed her to data-mine this man’s financials. Dulwich wants her travel plans left open. He sounded uncertain. It’s new territory—Dulwich at sea, running her personally. Success will mean promotion; she can taste it. To prove herself as a field operative capable of on-the-fly intelligence gathering and analysis will put her in a class by herself. She knows of no one at Rutherford Risk with this particular hybrid skill set.

  She works wirelessly using a “hopper”—a cellular Wi-Fi device that jumps among three carriers randomly, the same technology that makes her jailbroken iPhone impossible to eavesdrop on. It costs her some speed, but she has grown accustomed to the pauses.

  She’s working from the downtown campus cafeteria of the University of Hong Kong, meaning her IP address is shared by a few hundred at a time, making a quick trace difficult, if not impossible. She’s stolen a user ID and password off a nearby, far too casual user.

  The bank’s firewall is impenetrable. The last effective cyber raid was in 2004. This back door they’ve been given is far more benign—it’s for the bank’s local area network, which includes all web searches, most e-mail traffic, video conferencing data as well as the security server.

  Grace monitors the cafeteria’s visitors, studying the face and body language of each new arrival. It’s lunchtime and therefore busy, which is both a blessing and a curse, but she chose the time slot to help support her cover. Her fine features—she’s been described as “haunting”—win the attention of males over twenty, many of whom underestimate her age, which is well north of that. She keeps her laptop screen angled slightly down; it wears a layer of plastic film that limits side views, but there’s a sweet spot she found from just above head height that concerns her.

  She types a long string of commands. A year ago, she was fairly new to this cyber play, made anxious by it. Now she eats it up. Over the months, she’s grown addicted to these short bursts of information theft, much the way she imagines runners treasure their endorphins.

  Working with remarkable speed, she moves through the root directory hierarchy, navigating to the security servers. In her mind’s eye, it’s like going down ladders and through tunnels, into anterooms and on to other tunnels and more ladders. Throughout the process, she raises her eyes, tracking newcomers, accounting for those already in place. Her memory is superior. Her mind has been trained to be nearly photographic. She has identified the two men back by the soda fountain, the woman by the trash can, another woman eating alone. Any of these could be a threat. There’s a male student who looks like he’s hoping to see up her skirt. She’d like to flip him her middle finger but keeps it on the keys.

  One thing she’s learned about security servers: the systems are organized to accommodate and account for the intelligence level of those meant to operate them. Not every security guard is a Bill Gates in waiting. The video stream is labeled KAYMARA. Camera.

  In seconds she’s opening a dozen video feeds, like surfing a traffic cam site. She closes them as quickly as they open. She’s not interested in the teller windows or the safe or the safe-deposit boxes. Not interested in the elevator interiors, the back hallway or the six exterior cameras.

  All the while, a stopwatch app runs in the upper corner of her screen. She’s been online 2:07 minutes and counting. Even using a back door, she may be sniffed and identified for having an IP address outside the known database of approved users. She should be safe staying within five-minute usage intervals.

  At 4:22, she clocks off.

  The second hack, she heads directly to the camera list.

  Her third breach hits gold: the camera is mounted behind four desks, with a view of the teller windows’ left side. One of the desks is occupied. Her fingers fly across the keys as she builds a macro that logs in, clicks through to the proper security camera, takes a video screen shot and logs out at the four-minute mark. The macro will loop until she shuts it down.

  She hits Enter, angles the screen lower and is caught off guard by the young skirt-chaser’s approach.

  Terminate or continue? These are the decisions that define her: when to run, when to admit temporary defeat, when to trust her instincts. Right now couldn’t be better—the hack is clean, the macro running flawlessly. She has the op teed up perfectly. She just needs the other two desks filled following lunchtime breaks.

  This guy’s a problem. He asks in Cantonese if the seat is taken. It’s a dialect she has nailed but an accent she finds tricky even after two years living in the city. Her rebuff of him is polite but firm; her right pinky finger hovers over the F12 key while her left index finger covers the FN. These two keystrokes combined will log off the laptop and send it into a double-encrypted sleep mode that would require seventy-two hours on a Cray computer to have a hope of gaining access.

  Appearances mean nothing. The boy’s approach is taken as a high-level threat. If he lifts a finger, she’ll break it like a twig, and his arm along with it. Apologies to cock-motivated boys like him are cheaper than excuses to Dulwich.

  He offers a smile he’s practiced too many times in his dormitory mirror.

  “Listen to me, cousin,” she says, losing her accent slightly to her temper. “I don’t appreciate boys . . .” she lingers on the word, savoring it, “looking up my skirt, or trying to. If you haven’t seen one before I’m not interested in you, and if you have, then you know it’s a woman’s secret treasure and she doesn’t wear it like a Shanghai billboard. If I wanted to share pictures of it, I’d post them on the corkboard over there by the register, neh? Back up and leave me alone or I’ll put my heel so deep in your crotch you’ll have shoe leather for a tongue.”

  His sallow skin tone drains to the color of talcum powder.

  The fact that he sits there, standing his ground, is cause for worry: he’s a cocky bastard.

  She detests the thought of logging off when everything is going so well. She can’t bring herself to do it without further provocation. But her instinctive reaction is impatience and she’s trained to guard against it. Good things come to those who wait. She’ll have another shot at this data, she reminds herself.

  So why can’t she bring herself to log off? It’s him and his obstinacy; she’s taken it as a gender challenge and she’s not about to cave.

  She’s angled the screen too low to see what’s happening at the bank. The boy’s flirting will provide good cover, but the distraction has cost her: she’s lost track of who’s entering or exiting the cafeteria. Her best chance now is to keep this boy engaged for the sake of anyone who might be watching. The longer she has him with her, the longer her computer continues recording the bank’s video camera.

  “A woman’s secret treasure, or her secret pleasure?” he says now, and draws the opposing chair back with his shoe, making space to sit.

  “Pleasure cannot be kept secret,” she returns, suddenly enjoying the wordplay, “whereas treasure can.”

  Keeping her prior threat in mind, he estimates the
length of her extended leg and moves the chair far enough back to accommodate. He sits.

  “Origin EON seventeen-S,” he says.

  She wishes she could stop the blush that floods her face. John Knox has told her it’s a tell that could get her killed.

  The boy has been lusting after her boutique laptop, not her crotch. She’s made a fool of herself, and he’s so smitten with her electronics that he’s played along.

  He rattles off specs and she counters with the upgrades she’s opted for. Lunge. Parry. His eyes go wide—and then wider. His upper lip is sweating.

  Has she misjudged his age? Is he too old to be a student? Teacher’s aide? Grad student? Or is he a risk-taking thief who dresses well and chats up girls on college campuses, snatches their laptops and disappears before they can rise from their chairs? The Origin is worth over four thousand USD. Mainland gamers would pay that or more.

  If he manages to steal the unlocked laptop, she and Rutherford Risk would suffer. She plays the odds, pressing the two keys and protecting the data. She’s angry over being forced to do so, is tempted to knock the guy across the room.

  Quoting a proverb, “‘Man’s schemes are inferior to those made by heaven,’” Grace casually closes the Origin. It’s heavy, but she one-hands it into the Trager Tru-Ballistic case.

  “I was admiring it. And you. That’s all, cousin.”

  “Next time you might consider antiperspirant on your upper lip, cousin.”

  He holds up both palms in an act of surrender. Behind his eyes, he hungers to test her threats. That look convinces her he intended to steal the laptop. She has to wonder if he was hired.

  She slings the case over her head so the strap, which will hold up to any box cutter or razor, crosses her chest, separating her breasts.

  “I think I’m in love,” he whispers as she passes.

  4

  The air in the Red Room is piped in through slit vents in the ceiling. The temperature is perfect. The humidity, perfect. The company, less than perfect.

  Dulwich is not himself; he’s lost sleep, some color, and his throat is raspy, suggesting he’s stressed.

  “Are we going to rewind,” Knox asks, “or am I supposed to keep up?”

  “What do you think?” Dulwich scratches at the burn scar below his collarbone. The line of pink runs down into his shirt. The phantom itch is one of the man’s tells. He’s editing himself on the fly.

  “Akram Okle owns a pair of Indian restaurants, both called Saffron. One in Bethany. The other in Amman. He’s done well. Not well enough to afford his last purchase, but the man knows his art and would have no problem forming a partnership to make a buy. He’s a family man, no connection to organized crime. Well educated. A pleasure to do business with. You’ve got the wrong guy.”

  “His mother is gravely ill,” Dulwich says. “As we speak, he’s traveling to Istanbul to join some, or all, of his six siblings. Three brothers, three sisters. He’s not in partnership. He’s a middleman for his brother, Mashe.” He pronounces it “Masha.” “That’s who bought your piece.”

  “Okay.” Knox does not appreciate Dulwich knowing what he knows. He circles back to the photos taken of Akram from a year and a half ago. Police. Interpol. A cultural ministry trying to stem the flow of precious art.

  Dulwich’s focus can be laserlike. “After I saw these photos, when I realized you deal in more than nose flutes, it seemed so unlike you. So I go back through your college records to find out you were an art history major.”

  “Minor. My major was sorority girls.”

  “Save it for someone who laughs,” Dulwich says. “Why’d I never hear about this? Too soft for the tough John Knox?”

  “I don’t tell everything on the first date.”

  “So you’re an art dealer now?”

  “Finger cymbals are folk art.”

  “How long?”

  “A while. Here and there, now and then. Better margins when I can find the right piece. It’s a pretty tight-knit club, gray market art. I have a long climb ahead of me, but yes, I enjoy it. Sue me.”

  “You’re about to skip a few rungs,” Dulwich says. “Move to the front of the line. No more papier-mâché face masks for John Knox. What’s the gray market equivalent of Christie’s or Sotheby’s?”

  Knox doesn’t answer. His heart is pumping. Dulwich has a disturbing way of knowing how to play him. Knox would love to get away from hill tribe trinkets and into the art world, gray market or not. But Dulwich can’t make such promises.

  —

  “YOU ARE to offer Akram the bust of Harmodius.”

  “Harmodius and Aristogeiton.” Knox doesn’t need Google.

  “Apparently so.”

  Knox can tell Sarge is out of his element. “Athenians who paved the way for democracy. Bronzes were made of the heroes, the first art in human history to be commissioned out of public funds, adding to the gravitas of the pieces.”

  “Listen to you,” Dulwich says.

  “The statues disappeared, likely seized in wartime. Copies were commissioned. This is still four hundred years before Christ. A piece—just a piece!—of one of those copies surfaced in the 1980s and sold for millions.”

  “You will be offering the head and left shoulder from the original Harmodius,” Dulwich says.

  “That’s impossible. No one will believe that. Not even me. The originals were lost two thousand years ago. Come on.”

  “It’s been tested. Assayed. Whatever. It can be tested again. It’s the real deal, Knox. And yes, you will have it. I’m told the estimated value is well north of ten million.”

  “Well north,” Knox says.

  “You’ll be asking five hundred thousand.”

  “And why would I do that? Why would anyone do that?” But he knows the answer. It’s been stolen. It’s a piece for one’s bedroom, not one that can be seen by others. There are too many questions that need answering. Given the current climate of cross-cultural theft, trying to deal it to a museum would result in jail time.

  “If you’re trying to court me, you’re going about it all wrong. What the hell are you and Primer up to?” Knox has a nose for Dulwich bullshit. The closest they’ve been to the truth was the bit about good and bad players on the same team. That line’s been running through Knox’s head since Sarge said it.

  “You deliver the Harmodius. Grace will make sure the money flows in the right directions. You’ll make a name for yourself in certain circles.”

  A name? Knox thinks. He’ll be legend, and Dulwich is fully aware of this. He’s offering Knox a career change, a gold pass into the inner circles of the art world, gray market or not. The fucking Harmodius?

  “Grace,” Knox says. He works occasionally with Grace Chu on Dulwich jobs. She’s a rising star within the ranks of outsourced Rutherford operatives like him. They have a platonic chemistry that Knox welcomes. She’s insanely smart, wildly ambitious and enough of a risk taker to keep up with him.

  “You’re after Mashe Okle’s money stream?”

  “It’s NTK.” Need To Know. “You make the offer. You make sure he bites. You and Grace deliver the Harmodius. An in-and-out. Like I said.”

  “What’s the catch?”

  “You need to sell directly to Mashe. I need you two in the room with Mashe for five minutes.”

  “Play the lure? For what, a hit? No thanks.” Knox stands. The acrylic chairs are painfully uncomfortable.

  “No hit.”

  “Bullshit. I lead you to him and some sniper takes him out that day or three days later. What’s the difference? You think if I never find out, it lessens my role? That’s bullshit. Who is he?”

  “No sniper.”

  “Who is he?”

  “NTK.”

  “Fuck that. Good guys and bad guys on the same team, you said. So is he a bad guy on a good team or a good
guy on a bad team?”

  “I wasn’t talking about him.”

  “The client? You were talking about the client?”

  “NTK. I don’t need to know. You don’t need to know. Leave it at that. I . . . we’ve been promised no killing. For you: it’s fifty thousand on acceptance. How much are Tommy’s new meds? Once you two get the five minutes, a hun more. For a week, tops, including travel.”

  “I won’t bait a guy for a bullet. He’d have to be a real monster. I would need proof. Who’s the client?” Knox resents Sarge for bringing up his brother’s medical situation. They know each other too well, he thinks, not for the first time.

  But Sarge is right. There’s a compound currently in testing for Fragile X and the treatment of social withdrawal. The results are promising, but Tommy’s well above the test’s age limit of twenty-one. Getting him prescribed the drug will be tricky and expensive—and even if Knox succeeds, costs are estimated at ten thousand dollars a month.

  “I’m telling you, I wouldn’t ask you to do this if—” He searches. “Listen, there’s no bullet. Not from us, not from our client. Could he take one? Of course. But not from us.”

  “Who’s us?”

  Dulwich purses his lips. Knox changes tactics.

  “What’s the right way for the money to flow? What are you after?”

  Dulwich retains his expression.

  Knox processes the use of the Red Room, the limited information he’s being offered, the eighteen months of photo surveillance. It feels like the work of Interpol’s Stolen Works of Art group or a domestic organization like Scotland Yard. He doesn’t like it.

  “Art theft? That kind of politics? I need guaranteed amnesty,” Knox says.

  “The client has no say over that. It’s beyond borders. Grace is your best bet. Trust Grace. She says run, you run.”

  Dulwich has revealed more than he intended, a costly and unusual mistake. The client is either nongovernmental or a covert governmental group unable to interfere. Knox can’t put it together. He doesn’t like hearing that he’s to take direction from Grace; she’s become Dulwich’s star pupil. Knox has always been more the gum chewer in the back row. Grace’s importance to Dulwich is on the rise; his own status, he’s not so sure about. And it’s so out of character for Dulwich to slip up that Knox has to wonder if it’s an intentional ruse. Why would Dulwich game his own assets?