Cold Silence (A High Stakes Thriller) (18 page)

She always wondered how people could so easily forget that America was really a country of immigrants, the melting pot and all that. Jennifer discussed her English heritage as though her parents were right off the
Mayflower
but the fresh-off-the-boat Chinese in America were somehow a source of shame.

Mei glanced at her watch again and jumped up. Three minutes until her meeting with Chang.

She grabbed her coat and made sure she had a few dollars in her pocket. If this guy was going to fire her, she certainly wasn't going to appease his guilt by letting him pay for her coffee. Checking her waistband for her ID card, she scanned her office as though it might be the last time she saw it, and headed down the hall.

* * *

Red-and-blue tie. That was how she was supposed to recognize Andy Chang. Too stunned to think, she'd agreed. But as soon as she'd hung up, she realized a red-and-blue tie was about the most common tie combination that existed. On the way down in the elevator, she spotted one just red and blue and one that was mostly red and blue but had a bit of green and yellow, too. Would that one count? She glanced at the face of that man, then turned immediately away again. He was all wrong. Chang was Chinese, spoke Cantonese.

She reached for the building's door when someone pulled it open from behind her. She looked up at the smiling Chinese face. She smiled awkwardly and looked away, pushing herself out the door.

The man followed right behind her, so she found it impossible to look at his tie without turning around and staring. Instead she walked briskly to the corner and then stopped as though she were going to cross the street. The Chinese man passed her and walked directly into the cafe where she was supposed to meet Andy Chang. Had that been him? At least he'd been ugly. The Andy Chang on the phone had been charming, and the last thing she wanted was to be fired by a charming, attractive man. Better he was charming and ugly, she thought.

The man she'd seen had a large forehead and eyes just slightly too far apart. His nose was flat and thick and he was shorter than she'd hoped. Mei was tall for a Chinese woman, almost five-seven. Her sisters were only five-three and -four, and her additional inches added to her feeling of isolation from them. Being taller made her more American and less Chinese.

So at least he wasn't attractive. She should have known better than to expect Chow Yun-Fat. It had been his voice on the phone. It was so masculine, so American. And the way he'd jumped back and forth from English to Cantonese... She shook her head. She'd found it sexy.

Feeling foolish, she waited a few moments until he was safely out of sight. Then, before allowing herself to think any more, she headed to the cafe. The man was standing at the counter placing an order, so she found a table at the back and waited.

She sat with her back facing the front and waited until he'd gotten his coffee. She glanced around the center of the room, noticing a couple leaning over, talking together. She watched them for a moment, studying how their fingers played between their coffees. She wondered about them, the way she always wondered about strangers in relationships. Her job was often about trying to learn what people were thinking, what made them tick.

Computer crimes were the least understood in terms of criminal behavior. What would motivate someone to start a computer virus or to block accessibility to a site like Yahoo!? She'd attended a series of courses at Quantico on criminal behavior, but it hadn't included cyber-crimes. Her hope was to someday be part of the team to develop a profiling system for cyber-criminals. For now, the science was in its infancy. She
had
hoped to be involved, she thought, as she looked back up for the man in line.

She frowned. He was gone. She started to stand when someone spoke to her. "Ling Mei?"

She looked up at a strange face. Not the man in line at all. This was an attractive man with large hazel-brown eyes that glinted with a hint of mischief. She nodded dumbly.

"Chang Andy," he said, maintaining the traditional Chinese order of their names. "Is this seat taken?" he asked in Cantonese.

She shook her head, disappointed at how good-looking he was.

He sat down and put a cup of coffee in front of her. "Nonfat latte, one sugar."

She looked at the cup and frowned. "How did you know?"

He smiled broadly, exposing a line of straight, white teeth that had clearly had the benefits of American dentistry. "I work for the FBI."

She laughed and thought it was an odd way to begin a conversation with someone you were about to fire. Then why had he called her here? She sipped the drink while taking in his appearance out of the corner of her eye. He had thick hair cut short except for in the front, where it was longer and flat over his forehead. It was like George Clooney's. She caught her ridiculous thought and pushed it away.

For the first time she looked at his tie. He wasn't wearing one. "Where's your tie?"

"I took it off. I thought it would be fun to watch you look for me. I didn't realize there would be another Chinese man in here at the same time. When you saw he was gone, I wanted to catch you before you ran out."

He smiled as he spoke, as though they had been set up on a blind date, but she fiddled awkwardly. She kept her shoulders back and tried to look relaxed.

"That's it? No more small talk?"

She felt her cheeks blush. "Uh..."

Andy touched her arm. "I was just kidding, really."

She forced a smile. "I guess your call made me nervous."

"Really?"

"A call from the Office of Professional Responsibility?" The sentence came out in a voice that was more a squeak than anything else. She lowered her voice again. "Doesn't everyone get a little nervous when you call?"

He raised both hands over his head and with wide eyes said, "Whoa. No bad news here, I promise. Everyone raves about you."

She relaxed for a moment and then realized that the couple playing fingers were now staring at her. "Then why did you call?"

"Actually, I'm sort of returning your call."

"My call?"

He smiled. "You talked to Dennis Eaton about some issues with Jennifer Townsend."

She nodded. Eaton had spoken to the Office of Professional Responsibility?

"Well, the information made its way to me, and I think maybe we can help each other."

"I didn't expect Eaton to talk to you guys."

"It wasn't anything official. Word just sort of got to me."

She looked down at her latte, wishing this were over.

"Can you stay for a minute? I promise it's not poisonous."

She bit the inside of her lip and nodded.

Andy shook his head. "I'm going to have to kick Tony's butt."

She frowned. "Tony?"

"Tony Lew said you'd appreciate the whole tie joke. Something about a blind date in college."

Mei blinked and then smiled, stifling a laugh. Tony Lew had been the biggest jokester she'd ever met. He'd spent four years of college torturing everyone into doing stupid stunts because he swore people would find them amusing. He was notorious among U. Penn alumni. "Tony Lew put you up to this?"

He nodded, his expression slightly hurt, as though he were being left out of the joke.

"Never believe anything he tells you."

"That's why he's a public defender?"

She laughed. "Exactly."

He paused and studied her for a minute. "I wonder what else he lied about."

"Probably everything," she said, taking a sip of her coffee.

"So you're happily married with two-point-five children?"

She felt her face blush and she detested the sensation. She shook her head and laughed as though she got asked that every day. "God, no. Not married and no kids."

Andy smiled and lifted his coffee cup. "To Tony Lew and his bad jokes."

She raised her cup, watching him. Was this some sort of joke? It would be like Tony, but it would also be cruel. She'd kill Tony if he was messing with her. She touched her cup to Andy's and said, "But I can't believe you called me here as a joke to Tony or anyone else."

He took a sip of black coffee and shook his head. "Actually, I do need to talk to you about Jennifer."

That was what she had been afraid of. Mei set her cup down. "Okay."

"We know she's been involved with a Russian for almost seven years." He pulled a picture from his breast pocket and slid it across the table toward her, the way she'd seen people do in spy movies.

The man in the photo was standing on the street, his face turned sideways. The angle gave her a clear view of a very crooked nose. He was attractive in a hockey player sort of way—wide, bushy brow, and a thick neck. He had a set of deep blue eyes the color of pool water. He looked innocent enough in the photo, but Mei instantly imagined he could have been the man who'd given Jennifer the bruise on her eye.

"You've seen him?"

She shook her head. "I don't think so."

He took the picture back and put it away. "They're pretty discreet and we don't have enough on him to pursue it, but his father is high up in the local Russian mob."

"Why did you call me?"

"Well, Eaton talked to someone in my office about the issues between you and Agent Townsend."

"Eaton talked to your office about it?"

Chang raised his hand. "Like I said, nothing official. He said he would handle things himself." He paused. "Which I'm guessing he didn't do."

She shook her head.

"Things with Agent Townsend have been rough?"

She didn't answer. She didn't know how much to tell him.

"Okay. Let me tell you my part first. Then you can decide what you want to say. When I heard there were some issues with Townsend and her partner, I thought maybe they were related."

"Related to her dating a Russian mobster?"

"Maybe."

"Why would Jennifer date someone like that?" Mei asked.

Andy shook his head.

"She makes good money, is smart, intelligent."

He gave her a sad smile. "Who knows?"

Abuse was less rare than she wanted to think, but Jennifer came from a good family, was an FBI agent. She didn't fit the victim profile. "Is there a specific reason you're interested in the fact that Jennifer's with this guy?"

Andy raised an eyebrow and smiled.

She shook her head. "I mean, besides the fact that she's FBI and he's mob." She sounded like an idiot. "That didn't come out right."

"No. It's a fair question. Obviously we don't track the dating patterns of all of our agents." His gaze stuck on her a moment too long, and she looked down at her coffee and then took a sip to avoid making eye contact again.

"This has to be in the strictest of confidence."

She looked back up and nodded. "Of course."

He eyed her for a moment and then nodded as though he had decided to believe she could be trusted. "In this case, we have some specific concerns about what Jennifer might be able to provide him."

She thought about their work. "He's interested in computer crimes or something?"

He shook his head.

She watched him, puzzled. "What, then?"

"We think her boyfriend, Dmitri Kirov, is trying to help his father locate Megan Riggs."

Mei was surprised by the mention of both Megan's name and Kirov's. But it was the fact that Megan had entered her own mind so recently that surprised her most. "Kirov," she thought out loud. "His brother was the one—"

Andy nodded. "Viktor Kirov was the one Mark Riggs killed. His father, Oskar, vowed revenge. We think that's what happened to Megan down in New Orleans, but we've never had the chance to tell her."

"I heard the leak came from your office," she said slowly.

"My office? You mean, Professional Responsibility?" His expression showed his surprise.

She nodded.

"We confirmed the leak was from Megan's group." He paused and started to nod. "I bet I can guess from whom you heard that the leak was from our office."

"Jennifer."

"Exactly what I guessed."

Mei shook her head. "Why would Jennifer help this guy find Megan? Those two were like sisters."

"The Russian mob can be very convincing."

Mei thought about Jennifer. "Oh, God."

"Megan Riggs is in danger again. Unfortunately, we don't know where she is any more than the Russians do. And when they find out, we need to be there."

"What makes you think they'll find her after all this time?"

Andy shook his head. "I saw the last person who wronged the Kirov family. He was in hiding for eleven years before they got to him. His own wife didn't recognize him. Megan Riggs is next on the hit list."

Chapter 17