“The booking was made through a shell company registered in Delaware.Chen’s tracking the ownership now, but these things are designed to be opaque.”
Sophie finished dressing and moved quietly through the house to the kitchen.The coffee maker, already set up, gurgled to life at her touch, a small comfort in the predawn darkness.“What about the plane itself?”
“Registered to a leasing company.These jets change hands like trading cards.But here’s the interesting part—the flight plan shows a refueling stop in Guam.”
“That’s not the most direct route to Singapore.”
“No, it’s not.And Guam has much lighter security than Honolulu International.Maybe easier to adjust the cargo without anyone noticing.Take on more passengers or something.”
Sophie poured coffee, the bitter scent sharpening her focus.Though she still preferred tea, coffee gave a faster caffeine hit and today, she needed it.Through the kitchen window, she could see the ocean lightening from black to deep purple.
“Can we intercept at the airport?”
“Already mobilizing a team.But Sophie, if we’re wrong—if this is a decoy or just coincidence—the real artifacts could be halfway to Asia while we’re chasing shadows.”
“It’s a risk we have to take.”Sophie took a sip of coffee, letting the heat warm her.“Send me everything you have.I’ll start analyzing, looking for more information.”
“Sending now.And we need to consider another possibility.What if they’re not shipping the items together?What if Yoshimura and the Ancient Ways members are planning to fly with the artifacts personally, as luggage?It would be harder to track individuals than cargo.”
Sophie headed to her office.As she hit the lights, her tablet, plugged in on her desk, chimed with incoming files.She hurried over and opened the first one, her eyes scanning the data.“Then we need to check the passenger manifests too and alert Homeland Security and use facial recognition to look for anyone connected to Yoshimura, or the Brotherhood.Maybe target Thai passengers, since we don’t know what to look for.”
Marcella blew out a breath; Sophie could almost see the lock of hair that usually rested on her forehead lifting in the breeze of it.“That’s a lot of ground to cover with limited time.”
“I know.But what’s the alternative?”
“I think it’s time to get more agents on this, and loop in the CIA in case we can’t intercept the artifacts before they leave the islands,” Marcella said.
Sophie swallowed a hot gulp of coffee, remembering her call to Agent McDonald, a call that hadn’t been returned.“I already reached out.My contact there hasn’t gotten back to me.”
“We’ll have to do this through official channels.I’ll wake up Waxman next; he’s going to love hearing from me.”Marcella’s tone softened slightly.“We’ll find the artifacts.Chen’s got half the cyber division working on this, and I’ll have Marcus help and call in favors with TSA, private aviation security, anyone we can think of.”
“I’ll work from here for now, but I’ll come in if you need me.”Sophie sat in her chair and activated her rigs with a key fob.“I want these unsubs more than you know.”
“Sophie ...”Marcella hesitated.“Is this about a challenge to Connor’s leadership in the Yam Khûmk?n?This ceremony—it sounds like something out of a movie.”
As her rigs booted up, Sophie stared into her coffee, seeing Connor’s face in the dark liquid.She had to protect him however she could and the details of the Brotherhood’s challenge weren’t relevant to the FBI’s investigation.“I did not name my source and I won’t.I can’t.Just trust that he’s not lying about what the Brotherhood are planning for the artifacts.These fanatics are capable of anything.”
“All right.We’ll proceed on the assumption that this timeline is real and removal of the artifacts from the USA is imminent.I’ll let you know when I have more.”Marcella ended the call.
Sophie pulled up the files Marcella had sent over.Somewhere, in all the ways a treasure trove of precious artifacts could leave this island, was the answer to where they could be recovered.She just had to find it before they left American soil.
Once they did, it was a CIA matter—and that was a whole other animal to deal with.
The soft creak of her office door closing made her turn.Feirn stood in the entry holding a mug of coffee, fully dressed in his usual ninja black despite the early hour.“I heard you talking,” he said in Thai.“You have news?”
“The artifacts are gone from Thornfield’s estate.Possibly heading for a plane off this island today.”
His eyes narrowed.“Then we hunt.How can I help?”
Sophie frowned.“I can give you my tablet to work on.I’m going to engage some software that looks for keywords and have it sift all this departure info and variables.But I could use someone to help with facial recognition.So far, we only have a name for Sunan.Did you ever see him?”
“I was very new at the Yam Khûmk?n when he left, but yes, I’ve seen him.”
“Good.I’ve got a program on my laptop that you can use to reconstruct Sunan’s face, so we can put the airports on alert and circulate a general Be On Look Out.”She paused, touching the scar on her cheekbone.“Have you personally seen any of the other warriors he recruited for the Brotherhood?”
“I don’t know who they are.”Feirn cast his eyes down, troubled.“I wish I did.”The mug he held featured a grumpy-looking cat curled asleep with the caption, “DO NOT SPEAK TO ME UNTIL THIS MUG IS EMPTY.”The incongruity of the young ninja holding that mug brought a smile to Sophie’s face.
“Well, Sunan’s the most important unsub anyway.I’ll get the program going for you and show you how to use it.Wish we’d thought of this before, I’m sure Marcella will put anything you come up with right to work.”
