The Risk Agent by Ridley Pearson

Author:Ridley Pearson [Pearson, Ridley]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Thrillers
ISBN: 9781101584972
Google: _BN-ScM4COUC
Amazon: B0074VTGP8
Barnesnoble: B0074VTGP8
Goodreads: 16441389
Publisher: Jove
Published: 2012-06-19T05:00:00+00:00

9:20 A.M.

CHANGNING DISTRICT

Knox and Grace spent the night working in the safe house. Grace reviewed Berthold’s financials with special attention given to Marquardt’s travel expensing, while security video of Lu Hao’s apartment building ran in the background. If the Mongolians had a prior relationship with Lu, maybe they’d be seen. Or if the kidnappers had returned for Lu Hao’s medication and laptop, perhaps they could be identified.

Knox confounded himself attempting to find any hidden files in the memory of Lu Hao’s digital frame, a process well above his pay grade. He determined that the frame’s memory was partitioned into two virtual drives—like two separate file cabinets. He’d been able to retrieve the images from one of the virtual drives, but as far as he could tell, the other was blocked by a password.

“If anything’s on this frame other than the photos, we’re going to need an expert,” Knox finally confessed.

Grace said nothing.

“Did you hear me?”

“I heard you.”

He glanced up at the fast-forwarding security footage. They shared this task.

“Anything?” he asked. She had the two volumes of endless spreadsheet pages in front of her. She’d placed bookmarks of torn napkin throughout both, making the printouts look feathered.

“I put Selena at risk,” she said, not looking up.

“You had no idea she was going to guilt-trip off her boss going to some island and start blabbing about it.”

“I have made her an unknowing accomplice.”

“Sometimes you sound so cold-hearted,” he said. “Not today.”

“And nearly all the time you sound pig-headed.”

“I think we could both use some sleep,” he said.

“I need Lu Hao’s records.”

“I think we’ve established that.”

Grace looked up at him, her face lined with fatigue.

“The Berthold Group’s accountants consolidated the payments to Lu Hao’s consulting firm in the GA—general accounting. Trying, I suppose, to make the payments appear like business as usual, when they know otherwise. The problem with that practice is that when those payments change substantially, as is the case recently, it is a red flag.” She showed Knox the pages of numbers; he pretended to follow along. “In this case, an additional two hundred thousand U.S. was paid out to Lu Hao’s consulting firm. The timing is significant, John. First, the added two hundred thousand,” she switched volumes and drew her finger down a column, “then, less than a week later, Marquardt’s redacted trip to Chongming Island,” back to the original ledger, “then a second overpayment of two hundred thousand U.S., the same day Lu Hao went missing.”

Knox whistled. “Four hundred grand. Which is why they didn’t want you getting hold of their books. It took you only a matter of hours to connect it.”

“There are a hundred ways to hide such things. They are either arrogant or ignorant. Both are crimes when it comes to accounting.”

“So they made a couple balloon payments, probably to the Mongolian. Thanks to Sarge, we know the Mongolian has connections to Beijing. So the payments went north. But that doesn’t get us any closer to extraction? To finding them. I mean, this is all

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