Bureau stuff.” Price nodded. “Could be anyone looking to see what goodies are being cooked up. Hell, it could be industrial even, not political.”
Delahunt nodded. “Still could be. Nothing’s been proven. However the FBI team they sent to Toronto managed to catch a glimpse of someone seen surveying the employee entrance.”
“Custody?”
“No.” Delahunt shook her head. “This wasn’t a joint op with the Canadians. They took his photo and requested RCMP help with digital analog forensics.”
“They ID the guy?”
“Sure. Man named Jen Duh sh Tyen Tsai.”
“If Schwarz were here you’d know he’d say—”
“Gesundheit,” Delahunt agreed. “He’s a funny man that Hermann.”
“Yeah, but looks aren’t everything.”
“You got that from him, didn’t you?”
Price took a sip of coffee and shrugged. “Sometimes he’s funny. Mostly he’s just funny ’cause he’s trying to be funny and fails.” She set the mug of coffee down. “But surely Mr. What’s-his-name doesn’t go by that handle.”
“Mostly just Jen.”
“What do we know about him?”
“We know he’s in Toronto. We know he’s a sort of free agent between Chinese Tong running underworld activities there. Part courier, part outside hit man, part information broker.”
“So a criminal mercenary with connections to Chinese syndicates is running a surveillance operation on a DOE private contractor facility. And you tied him in to Seven how?”
“Look at his sleeve.” Delahunt gestured toward a RCMP file photo. “His left arm, inside, above the elbow.”
A “sleeve” was a slang term used by tattoo enthusiasts to indicate an arm that was entirely covered by ink designs from deltoid to wrist. Jen Tsai’s was covered in swirling images of Chinese characters, mythological demons and iconography in bold reds, blues, yellows and black.
“Where? I don’t see…” Price trailed off as she scrutinized the photo. “Ah.”
Just above Jen Tsai’s elbow was a horned demon skull, screaming mouth lined with fangs. Flames swirled inside the gaping jaws, and in the center of the flames were the numerals 1+6=7.
“Yeah,” Delahunt agreed. “Little odd for a hardcore Chinese gangster to be sporting primary arithmetic in his colors, no?”
“Oh, yes,” Price answered.
“We have his probable twenty?”
“We most certainly do.”
Price picked up her coffee mug. “Good. I’ll call Hal have him pull the Bureau boys off surveillance. Then I’ll send Able Team around to knock on some doors.”
“Knowing Ironman, it’ll be heads that get knocked more than doors.”
Price shrugged. “Whatever…”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Toronto, Canada
Regent Park, 3:00 a.m., the streets were quiet.
From behind the wheel of the black Excursion SUV, Carl Lyons surveyed the neighborhood. The vehicle had been waiting for them at the airport.
Lyons watched the streets with the cynical, jaundiced eye of a veteran cop.
Regent Park’s reputation preceded it. Fifty percent of the people living in the urban area were teenagers and sixty-eight percent of all the people there were settled in well below the national poverty rate for the rest of Canada.
With poverty, the lack of aspiration, and the loss of hope came crime and most often violent crime. Regent Park was a tough neighborhood not unlike any other bad neighborhood in any other First World country. It wasn’t Islamabad or Caracas, but it could still kill you.
“Keep an eye out for gangbangers working as sentries for drug dealers,” Lyons muttered.
“This isn’t my first rodeo, Hefei,” Blancanales reminded him.
Lyons grunted and turned down Queen Street East. In the back Schwarz was using his CPDA to run a more sophisticated GPS unit than the one that had come with the big Excursion. The CPDA he had begun using was a SME PED, or Secure Mobile Environment Portable Electronic Device.
Barbara Price had managed to secure a crate of the high-end encrypted devices from her old bosses in the Puzzle Palace, the National Security Agency.
“You notice some bastards have torn down all the street markers?” Schwarz observed.
“So police have a hard time responding to incidents or giving their location for backup,” Lyons said.
“Hey,” Schwarz replied in his best faux-Hispanic accent, “this ain’t my first rodeo, Hefei.”
“You guys are assholes.”
Schwarz leaned forward and nudged Blancanales on his shoulder. When the ex-Green Beret turned he saw Schwarz grinning madly, hand up to his ear as he mimicked holding a phone.
“Bring-bring.” Schwarz giggled, then made his voice deep. “Kettle? Yes, this is Pot, um, you’re black.”
“I’m an asshole?” Lyons snapped. “I’m an asshole? On what grounds?”
“On the account of your warm and overly gregarious people skills.” Blancanales laughed.
“Hey,” Lyons snarled. “Some people are like Slinkies, not really good for anything…but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs.”
Outside the vehicle rows of dingy brick buildings from the Toronto Community Housing Corporation slid by in uniform ranks.
The city planners had originally visualized Regent Park as a transitional community, and it was Canada’s largest experiment with a social housing project where people on social assistance could find affordable housing until their circumstances improved.
That had turned out to be very few and the population had stagnated, then grown. Eventually it had also become an immigrant community neighborhood. Into this melting pot of urban squalor Jen Tsai had moved, establishing links with local street gangs and building a safe haven for himself.
Lyons turned onto Parliament Street and began driving north in the general direction of the more upscale, historical Cabbagetown.
“There,” he said. “On the right is Regent Park—that’s our primary landmark. See what the GPS is saying.”
“Already on it,” Schwarz acknowledged.
“Circle
