“I totally agree.” Marc’s response was instantaneous and adamant. “You need to maintain their trust. Bullshitting them with half-truths is a surefire way to break that trust, at which point we’ll lose them entirely.”
“Vance is going to ask who at Nano we believe the kidnappers are referring to.”
“Again, be honest,” Marc replied. “Tell them we’re working on figuring that out now. But also tell them it’s not a bad thing that the Chinese are pursuing a dead end. It’ll keep them occupied while we carry out our rescue mission.”
Simone nodded. “Good point. I’ll make sure Vance and Susan understand that.”
“So we’ve given Simone a Band-Aid for dealing with the Penningtons,” Terri interjected. “But I have a lot going on at my end that I need to share with the team.”
“I guessed as much.” Aidan was watching Simone, who’d turned to look over her shoulder. He knew exactly what that meant.
Vance had just arrived.
“Go do your damage control, Simone,” he said. “No one does it better than you. In the meantime, Marc and I will get Terri’s briefing and fill you and Philip in later.”
* * *
As soon as Simone’s face disappeared from the screen, both Aidan and Marc looked expectantly at Terri.
“Go,” Aidan said.
Terri didn’t waste an instant. First, she filled them in on what she’d dug up on David Cheng. Then she went on to the rest.
“I analyzed the data from Cheng’s burner phone.”
“Any contact with someone who works at Nano?” Aidan demanded. “Someone who could be our mole?”
“Nope. But I have one better. Cheng’s contact at Jítuán is Xu Wei, the company’s CEO.”
There was a heartbeat of silence.
“So the CEO himself orchestrated Lauren’s kidnapping to steal Nano’s technology.” Aidan digested that piece of information. “How much do we have to go on?”
“More than a dozen phone calls to and from Xu’s private cell phone.”
“That’s not enough.”
“Then I’ll give you more. There’s another person Cheng’s been in frequent contact with—a young woman named Jia li Sung. She’s a graduate student at Stanford Business School with an outstanding GPA and a background check that’s impeccable. From her photos I can also tell you that she’s quite lovely. She lives in a garden apartment in Palo Alto and drives a nice, pricey BMW. Between the rent she pays and the car she drives—she’s definitely not hurting.”
“It can’t be Cheng’s girlfriend,” Marc surmised. “He wouldn’t be contacting her on a burner phone. Not unless there’s some connection to Xu?”
“Don’t steal my thunder.” Terri sounded as revved up as she always did when she was on the brink of some major revelation. “When I went on to do my due diligence on Xu, I hacked into US Customs and discovered that he’d visited the Silicon Valley area just last month, from January thirtieth to February first. From there I went on to dig up Xu’s credit card and see where he stayed, which was the Nobu Hotel Epiphany Palo Alto. I then tapped into the hotel security tapes for those dates in particular. And you’ll never guess who met Xu outside the hotel on two separate occasions.”
“Jia li Sung.” Aidan leaned forward, his mind racing. “Did they embrace? Kiss?”
“Handshakes. Formal ones. Nothing even hinting at an affair.”
“So she’s working for Xu in some capacity. And whatever that role is, it’s lucrative. It also requires her to talk to David Cheng—and, ultimately, to meet with Xu in person.” Aidan leaned back, steepling his fingers. “It sounds as if she’s a more significant player in all this than Cheng is.”
“I agree,” Terri replied. “I’m willing to bet that she knows—and is in communication with—whomever our mole at Nano is.”
“And I bet you’re
right.” Again, Aidan could tell from Terri’s tone that she had an idea to run with. “You want to go out on a limb with something. Let’s hear it.”
“It’s a risk. But it’s one I think will pay off. I’ll send a text message to Jia li from Xu Wei by hacking into his cell phone carrier and pretending to be him. The text message will be sent at a specific time this evening. Jia li will be on or near the Stanford University campus, based on her typical schedule and tracking her routine. He’ll tell her that he’s in Palo Alto because his security team turned up a classified leak that requires an urgent person-to-person meeting between the two of them and their Nano contact. He’ll tell her to set it up at her apartment—where they won’t be seen or recognized—to take place a half hour after the text is sent. She’ll take the bait.”
“And what will happen during that half hour?”