Drawn in Blood (Burbank and Parker 2)

“Hey, it’s dinnertime in Hong Kong. I’ve been on the phone since midnight.”

Derek whistled. “Compared to you, I’m a slacker.”

“Hardly. I slept all day yesterday. I knew what kind of night it would be.” Rich glanced up, gestured for Derek to have a seat. “How’s Sloane?”

“Better. I finally got her to relax this weekend. But she’ll go stir-crazy if she’s stuck in today. So my guess is she’s back out there, chasing down leads—by herself, since she refuses to have full-time security on her.”

“I get the feeling she’s pretty good at taking care of herself,” Rich noted drily.

“Most of the time. But if any more of her leads put her in Xiao Long’s line of fire, I’m assigning her full-time security whether she likes it or not.” Derek’s tone was as unyielding as his words. “Anyway, speaking of leads, I’ve got a major one for you. The street gun dealer who’s the middleman for your subgun sale is Tommy Nguyen. He’s American-born Vietnamese, known for brokering risky, high-priced deals. He does a lot of business with Chinese gangs. Apparently, it was his guys who stole those four MP5Ks from an upstate New York police department. They delivered the subguns straight to Nguyen, who moved them fast to a Chinese gang. They paid top dollar for them. My informant will be calling me this morning to let me know which gang it is. That’ll tell us who’s working with your Albanian art thieves.”

“Thanks for jumping on this so quickly.” Rich was clearly relieved. “Let me know the minute you hear anything.”

“I’ll track you down wherever you are.”

“Probably right here at my desk, on the phone.” Rich pulled out his legal-size pad of paper, on which he’d scribbled tons of information. “Now for you. As I said, I just hung up with the Hong Kong police. They confirmed that the shady art dealers our Dutch collector did business with were Chinese. More specifically, they were linked to the Fong Triad.”

“Interesting.” Derek’s forehead creased in thought. “That triad was thriving in the nineties. It’s lower profile now. But it’s still alive and kicking. Any proof they were in possession of the Rothberg?”

“Yup. That’s one of the questions I was waiting for an answer on. Thanks to defecting triad members who are now confidential informants for the police department, we have positive evidence that Dead or Alive was in the hands of the Fong Triad before it was sold to the Dutch collector. And it gets better. I was hoping for a name, any name, the police could give us. That would be the starting point we needed to fill in the holes in the provenance.”

“If they gave you a name, I’ll fly out to Hong Kong tonight.” Derek was perched at the edge of his chair.

“I was ready to do the same thing. But there’s no need. Seems we caught a lucky break. The name they had was Zhang Ming, now Daniel Zhang. He’s a former member of the Fong Triad, who was personally involved in the purchase of Dead or Alive. Evidently, he immigrated to the U.S. and turned his life around.”

“Where in the U.S.?” Derek demanded.

“Right here in Queens,” Rich supplied. “He’s working as a youth counselor in the Chinese-American community in Flushing. And before you ask, yes, he’ll talk to us. We can go over there and meet with him this afternoon.”

“Yes.” Derek curled his fingers into a triumphant fist and punched the air. “That’s the most promising lead we’ve gotten since the Burbanks’ break-in.”

“I thought you’d react that way. So, how does two o’clock work for you?”

“I’ll make it work.” Derek was about to thank Rich, when his own cell phone rang. He glanced down at it and saw the familiar number of his informant’s throwaway phone. “With any luck, this is the answer you’re waiting for.” He flipped open the phone. “What have you got?” A long, stunned silence. “You’re sure?” Another silence. “Okay. Keep your ears open.”

He snapped his cell phone shut, shaking his head in disbelief. “It’s a smaller world than we thought,” he told Rich drily. “The guy who bought the subguns from Nguyen was Jin Huang.”

Rich gave him a quizzical look. “Who’s Jin Huang?”

“Xiao Long’s enforcer.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. My informant’s description matches Jin to a tee. And the timing’s right, too. Xiao had Jin buy the subguns a few days before the Campbells’ house was hit. Seems our Dai Lo has bigger fish to fry than even I imagined.” Derek’s mind was racing. “This whole operation is out of Xiao’s league. Someone’s definitely backing him. My guess is that the backer is a wealthy, prominent triad leader, and Xiao is shipping the stolen paintings to him in China.”

“So it’s likely that the same triad leader is behind the European museum heists. He hired the Black Eagles, and has now decided to take his operation to the U.S., with Xiao Long facilitating things.”

Derek nodded. “Xiao’s got a full-blown New York art-crime scheme going, stealing paintings from wealthy Manhattan residents. So why not expand it to the big time? With the backing of his Dragon Head back in China, they can score big by setting up targets for the Albanians. Come to think of it, Matthew Burbank described two Mediterranean thugs in Xiao’s entourage the night of their ‘chance’ encounter in Chinatown. That’s strong confirmation that Xiao is working with the Albanians.”

“Suddenly it appears we’ve got one complex case here—not two sepa

rate, overlapping ones.” Rich’s tone and demeanor was as intense as Derek’s. “Talking to Daniel Zhang just became our top priority. Our answers could all be linked to the Fong Triad.”

Sloane was already halfway to Manhattan when her cell phone rang.

It was her mother.

“Where are you?” Rosalyn asked. She sounded even more forceful than usual.