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Chapter65

I rolled into the hangar with breakfast sandwiches for everyone. Jennifer had wanted Indian fare, but she’d have to settle for McDonald’s.

The general aviation side of the hangar was much quieter than it had been the night before, when everyone and their brother seemed to pack up and fly to Mumbai. Thakkar’s helicopter was long gone, as well as a plethora of other government aircraft. Kerry Bostwick and Veep had flown out with the RAW team.

Veep had wanted to come to the hangar, cutting ties with the intel side of the house and rejoining the team, but I’d told him he’d be more valuable as a liaison with Kerry, feeding me information about what was happening. I would have liked to have had a face-to-face with Kerry before he left, but I was preoccupied with talking to our mysterious Chinese captive.

We’d searched him, finding a cell phone and a bunch of pocket litter designed to prove he was just a businessman, but nothing that screamed “I’m a spy for China.” Which was to be expected. I’d turned over the phone to Brett, telling him to get Creed on it, and then had a one-on-one with our mystery man. Well, really a two-on-one. I had Knuckles in the aircraft just to look menacing, but I’m the one who did all the talking.

We’d gone around and around, and he was good, I’ll give him that. He gave me nothing to grab on to for leverage. He just repeated the same tired refrain that he was a businessman and had no idea why we had him. He only wavered when I confronted him with the fact that his own “business partners” had tried to kill him, but he stuck to his story that he had no idea who those men were and that he was attending the light and sound show as a tourist.

I asked him to explain how his phone had called the bodyguard who had tried to assassinate Riva Thakkar, and he acted like I was clinically insane, telling me that he had no idea what I was talking about.

After two hours, I gave up, deciding to let Creed do his work overnight. From what I’d seen, the Black Cats weren’t planning to assault during this cycle of darkness, so I had some time to get more evidence against him. And I wanted him to stew a little bit, marinating in what I’d told him, letting him know that he wasn’t going anywhere and cooperation was the best option he had.

Knuckles shut the roll-up door and I handed him a bag of food, saying, “Drink’s in the passenger seat.”

Jennifer stuck her head out of the open aircraft door and said, “McDonald’s? Really?”

I said, “Yep. How’s he doing?”

“He’s awake. He’s asked when you’re coming back to talk. He knows we’re digging into his cell phone.”

I looked at Knuckles and said, “How’s that going?”

“Not good. I’ll let Brett explain.”

I went into the small office to find Brett in a headset talking to Creed on a video call. Creed looked like he hadn’t slept, circles under his eyes and a day-and-a-half stubble on his face.

Brett saw me, took off the headset, and put the computer on speaker. He said, “Tell him what you just told me.”

I went to the screen and said, “Tell me what?”

“Pike, I can’t get anything from the phone. You said he turned it off last night, but that’s not what he did. He reset it. It’s basically a fresh phone right now. Like it came straight out of the factory.”

“I thought that was impossible. That even if someone reset a phone to factory settings, you could still find traces of what they’d done and who they’d talked with.”

“Ordinarily, that’s true, but in this case he wiped it, using some sort of program that completely erased all its data. It was so good, it erased even itself, leaving just a smidgen of a trace about its presence. Honestly, it’s better than the wiping program we have on our own Taskforce phones.”

“So we basically wasted the night. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Well, I’m saying that I worked all night and can’t get anything out of this phone. Even the SIM card is wiped. But the lack of any evidence is evidence in itself.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can prove the phone was wiped with a sophisticated program, not a cheap app he purchased on Google Play. And that itself is proof of something.”

I nodded and said, “True. What ordinary businessman has a program to eliminate all traces from his phone?”

He said, “Sorry, Pike. I did my best.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure you did. Go get some sleep, I might need you in top form later.”

I closed out the video just as Jennifer entered the office. She said, “He’s asking for you.”

I looked at Knuckles and said, “Ready for round two?”

“Do I get to do something besides glare at him this time?”