Page 65 of Into the Gray Zone (Pike Logan #19)

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?”

I said, “Probably so, since all we have left are our fists.”

Jennifer squinted, and I said, “I’m just kidding.”

I grabbed the phone off the desk and we left the office, going up the short staircase of the Gulfstream jet. I entered finding

“Mr.Chin”—the name he’d asked to be used—sitting in the same chair I’d left him in last night, a tray of wrappers for Big

Macs and fries on a table to his front. Jennifer had let his arms free to eat, but his ankles were still handcuffed to a couple

of hidden bolts in the floor, put there specifically for that purpose.

He lowered the straw from his drink out of his mouth and said, “McDonald’s? That’s what you give me?”

I saw a bit of humor in his eyes, and it aggravated me, a match flickering next to a fuse. I said, “You complain again and

it’ll be the last meal you get for a while.”

I took a seat in the chair opposite him, and he said, “We both know that isn’t true. You have no authority to torture me.”

He pointed at Knuckles and said, “His presence here is wasted on me, because I know you will not harm me.”

“And how would a simple businessman know anything about what I’m authorized to do or not do?”

“I read the papers.”

I said, “You know and I know that you’re not a businessman. Let me tell you what I think. The Ministry of State Security somehow

found out that India had located significant reserves of rare earth elements and had tapped Riva Thakkar to extract it. You

were sent here—as a member of the MSS—to prevent that from happening. You chose to eliminate Thakkar as the easiest route,

and you hired some local thugs to do the work, to give you plausible deniability. How am I doing so far?”

He remained mute. I said, “Okay, so here’s where it gets a little iffy. Somehow, those local thugs left the chain and went berserk. Instead of just eliminating Thakkar, they torched an entire wedding party and then started screaming about the Khalistan Commando Force. Now, I don’t know if that was part of the MSS plan, or if you just lost control, but that’s where we are. My job is to rescue the hostages they’ve taken. Your job is to help me, if you ever want to see the light of day again.”

He said, “We went through this last night. I told you I’m just a businessman.”

I set his cell phone on the table and said, “You wiped this phone last night with a sophisticated program. Something beyond

what a businessman would have. Something an intelligence service would use.”

“How would you, a government flunky, know what a Chinese businessman would have on his phone?”

“I’m a businessman too, and trust me, I deal with some very sensitive information, and I don’t have that on my phone.”

He leaned forward and said, “Yes you do.”