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“Look for a hidden control button on or under the desk,” Garcia chimed in. “I’m on my way to assist.”
Laura Lee’s hands felt over the paneled wall. There were multiple panels making up the wall, so a door could easily be hidden among them. Everything felt solid. And she detected no levers that would open a door. Then she went to the desk. There was nothing remarkable about the top, no place a control could be hidden. Maybe it was an actual program on the computer that would be used there.
Next, she ran her hand under the table top. A flat surface was all she felt. She dropped to the floor and visually inspected under the desk. On the right inner leg at the top where it joined the tabletop, she found it. There was a button. She pressed it while her gaze remained on the west wall. A portion of the panel swung open.
“Bingo,” she transmitted. “Found it.”
She stood and went to the now opened doorway. She stepped into the private office with large windows that also overlooked the magnificent backyard of the property, which she could clearly see with the many decorative lights that adorned the backyard patio area just outside the windows. A fireplace with expensive-looking furniture clustered around it to create a seating area was in the center of the room. And at the far end of the room was an enormous wood desk with a computer on it and the picture of the Forbidden City on the wall behind it.
“Got the picture on the wall behind the desk,” she said.
She approached the desk. Not only did the computer sit on it, but there were also two cell phones, and at least a dozen file folders bulging with papers. She lifted a sheet of paper from an open file folder. It was a printout of a spreadsheet filled with numbers. The headings were written in Chinese. If the numbers represented dollars or yen, there was a lot of money being recorded on this spreadsheet.
A noise coming from the right drew her attention. The door that she was sure had been closed was now ajar. She drew her .9mm and stepped towards the door. Her heart rate quickened. “I’m not alone in this area,” she whispered. “Someone was watching me in Zhou’s office.”
“Lah-lee, hold position and wait for Razor,” Dupont said.
“Negative,” she replied.
She pressed her back to the wall beside the opened door and listened. She heard the faint sound of another door closing. That meant it was probably clear to enter. And she wanted to track whoever it was, so they didn’t get away. She quietly and slowly opened the door, cautiously poking her head in.
In the low wattage lighting, she could see that it was a closet with rows of men’s clothing hanging incredibly neatly along both walls, organized by articles of clothing and color. The middle section was a wooden rack filled with men’s shoes. Zhou’s closet. That probably meant the door at the far end of the closet led into his bedroom. She wondered if anyone from the FBI was searching that room. Could the person she looked for just be another agent?
She crept through the closet, her gaze scanning into the shadows between the hanging clothes to be sure no one was lying in wait, preparing to pounce on her as she passed. By the time she made it to the door, her heart was pounding in her chest.
“Lah-lee, report your location?” Dupont transmitted.
“Zhou’s clothes closet,” she whispered.
Dupont looked back at the monitor that displayed the first-floor drawings of the house. “I see the master bedroom, bathroom, and closet backing up to that office, but no door between the two rooms is in the schematics.”
She pressed her ear to the hardwood door and listened. She heard nothing besides her own heart beating rapidly. Slowly turning the door knob, she prayed no one was within the room and for the first time second-guessed pursuing whoever had been watching her alone. But if she’d waited for Garcia, the person would be long gone.
She thrust open the door and stepped into the room, gun leading the way. It was a bathroom, an incredibly large bathroom with gleaming gold fixtures reflecting the lighting that glowed around the ceiling. Under her feet was a marble floor that also tiled a separate tub and shower, but no toilet. No one was inside.
There were two doors, one open and she could see a bedroom lay beyond, a second door she was sure led to the toilet room. She crept up to the closed door. Cracking it open very quietly, she found the toilet. She left the door open and turned her attention to the bedroom.
Her shoes sunk into the plush carpeting of the massive master bedroom. This room also had floor to ceiling windows that gave spectacular views of the backyard, so lit up in the dark of night. The bedside lamp was on, giving off just enough light combined with the light coming through the windows to see the room. She didn’t see anyone else in the room, but she felt like someone was there. She wasn’t sure why.
She made a lap around the room, looking into every corner and behind every piece of furniture. No one was there. The curtains on the sides of the windows her heavy bunches of fabric that flowed to the floor. She circled wide on her approach to the window. From a distance, she bent slightly and craned her head to examine behind the curtain on the right side as best she could without moving it. It appeared no one was there.
As she straightened up, her gaze caught sight of a man across the room in the far corner. It was Jin Ma. She was sure. He saw her too, and he bolted to his right. She ran towards him. “Stop! FBI!”
Just then, the door on the far wall opened, the brightness from the hallway spilling in. “Federal Agents!” Garcia called as he entered, weapon in hand. As he entered, he momentarily blocked the light with his solid form. When he moved further into the room, the light from the hallway illuminated that corner of the room, which reflected the light. It was a mirror.
Laura Lee spun around and went back to where she’d stood when she saw him.
“Laura, what’s going on?” Garcia asked.
Gazing into the mirror, she now saw it reflected the image of the curtains on the left. She aimed her pistol at the curtain. “Come out from behind there! FBI!”
Garcia moved into a position to cover her. “Now!” he called. When there was no movement and no response, he moved in. Laura Lee gripped her weapon, ready. He flung the curtain back. No one was there, but the window behind it was open. “Must have been a breeze moving the curtain,” he said.
“No, he was there. I saw his face in the mirror,” she said. “It was Jin Ma. He was behind this curtain.”
“He’s in China, Laura. He couldn’t have gotten back already,” Garcia said.
“Someone got on that flight at JFK and off in Beijing. It wasn’t Ma,” Laura Lee said. “I’m telling you. I saw his reflection in that mirror. I didn’t just see movement.”
