Chapter 19 Sophie
SOPHIE
She grabbed the phone before it could wake Feirn in the guest room beside hers; the young man’s circadian rhythm was still adjusting to Hawaii time. “Sophie Smithson,” she answered, her voice rough with sleep.
“It’s Marcella.” The FBI agent’s tone was terse. “We hit Thornfield’s storage facility. It was empty, but . . .”
“But what?” Sophie sat up, instantly alert. The sheets pooled around her waist as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. “Empty as in cleaned out, or empty as in never used?”
“Oh, it was used alright. We found packing material left behind. Specialty foam for delicate objects, climate-control gel packs, bubble wrap, etcetera. But whatever was there is gone now.” Marcella’s frustration crackled through the connection.
“Security footage at the estate shows a commercial moving truck leaving yesterday afternoon, about two hours before you flagged the location.”
“Foul breath of an inbred goat.” Sophie padded to her bathroom, closing the door softly. She splashed cold water on her face with one hand, holding the phone with the other. “We were so close.”
“Gets worse. The truck had fake plates. We lost it on traffic cams heading toward Kahului.”
Sophie’s stomach tightened. “Marcella, I have new intel from my source. The artifacts are intended for a ceremony in Thailand. The splinter group is planning to burn them.”
“Burn them?” Marcella’s voice rose. “Those artifacts are priceless!”
“I know. My source says it’s some kind of power ritual tied to a challenge to leadership in the Yām Kh?mk?n, which is happening in six days. They will be trying to take the stolen items to Thailand for the ceremony. We need to check every flight—commercial and private. They are on a clock.”
She heard Marcella’s keyboard clicking. “Do you have any idea how many flights leave Hawaii daily? And that’s just the direct routes. They could fly to Japan, Singapore, anywhere in Asia and connect to Thailand from there.”
Sophie grabbed her robe from the hook, her mind already racing through possibilities. “Private jets are the biggest risk. Easier to hide cargo, less scrutiny.”
“Already thinking that. But private aviation is a nightmare to track. They file flight plans, sure, but those can be amended in-flight. Say you’re going to Los Angeles, then ‘divert’ to Bangkok for ‘weather’ or ‘mechanical issues.’”
“What about cargo manifests?”
“Required for commercial flights, optional for private unless they’re carrying restricted items. And let’s be honest—anyone smart enough to steal these artifacts isn’t going to list ‘priceless Hawaiian cultural relics’ on their customs forms.”
Sophie opened her bathroom door quietly and peered out. The house was still silent, her children still sleeping. She moved to her walk-in closet and reached for clothing.
“We need to think like the group, which is called the Brotherhood of Ancient Ways,” she said, switching the phone to speaker as she dressed. “They’ve had this planned for years. They won’t risk commercial flights with X-rays and customs inspections. It’s got to be private.”
“Agreed. I’m pulling records of every private jet departure scheduled for the next seventy-two hours. But Sophie, Hawaii’s a hub. We’re talking dozens of aircraft, maybe hundreds if we include island hoppers that could transfer cargo to larger planes.”
Sophie tugged on a pair of black yoga pants, her movements sharp with frustration. “Focus on jets with range to reach Asia. Gulfstreams, Bombardiers, the big ones. And check recent arrivals too—they might have flown in specifically for this.”
“That narrows it some.” More keyboard clicking. “What about boats? Harder to track than planes.”
“Possible, but slow. The event is in six days. Would they risk an ocean crossing with that timeline?”
“Good point. Unless . . .” Marcella paused. “What if they’re not taking them directly to Thailand? What if they have a staging point? Somewhere to perform preliminary rituals or wait for the optimal moment?”
Sophie tugged down a snug-fitting tee. “That’s exactly what they’d do. The Brotherhood of Ancient Ways are fanatics about tradition. They’d want everything perfect.”
“So we’re not just looking for flights to Bangkok. We’re looking for flights to anywhere they might have allies. Japan has ancient martial arts connections to Thailand. So do the Philippines, Indonesia . . .”
“Yes, we need to cast a wider net,” Sophie agreed. “But we’re running out of time.”
She heard voices in the background on Marcella’s end. “Hold on—Chen just ran in. What? You’re sure?” A pause. “Sophie, we might have caught a break. Chen found a climate-controlled shipping container booked on a private cargo flight this afternoon. Destination listed as Singapore.”
“Singapore’s a major hub. They could go anywhere from there.”
“The booking was made through a shell company registered in Delaware. Chen’s tracking the ownership now, but these things are designed to be opaque.”
Sophie finished dressing and moved quietly through the house to the kitchen. The coffee maker, already set up, gurgled to life at her touch, a small comfort in the predawn darkness. “What about the plane itself?”
“Registered to a leasing company. These jets change hands like trading cards. But here’s the interesting part—the flight plan shows a refueling stop in Guam.”
“That’s not the most direct route to Singapore.”
“No, it’s not. And Guam has much lighter security than Honolulu International. Maybe easier to adjust the cargo without anyone noticing. Take on more passengers or something.”
Sophie poured coffee, the bitter scent sharpening her focus. Though she still preferred tea, coffee gave a faster caffeine hit and today, she needed it. Through the kitchen window, she could see the ocean lightening from black to deep purple.
“Can we intercept at the airport?”
“Already mobilizing a team. But Sophie, if we’re wrong—if this is a decoy or just coincidence—the real artifacts could be halfway to Asia while we’re chasing shadows.”
“It’s a risk we have to take.” Sophie took a sip of coffee, letting the heat warm her. “Send me everything you have. I’ll start analyzing, looking for more information.”
“Sending now. And we need to consider another possibility. What if they’re not shipping the items together? What if Yoshimura and the Ancient Ways members are planning to fly with the artifacts personally, as luggage? It would be harder to track individuals than cargo.”
Sophie headed to her office. As she hit the lights, her tablet, plugged in on her desk, chimed with incoming files.
She hurried over and opened the first one, her eyes scanning the data.
“Then we need to check the passenger manifests too and alert Homeland Security and use facial recognition to look for anyone connected to Yoshimura, or the Brotherhood. Maybe target Thai passengers, since we don’t know what to look for. ”
Marcella blew out a breath; Sophie could almost see the lock of hair that usually rested on her forehead lifting in the breeze of it. “That’s a lot of ground to cover with limited time.”
“I know. But what’s the alternative?”
“I think it’s time to get more agents on this, and loop in the CIA in case we can’t intercept the artifacts before they leave the islands,” Marcella said.
Sophie swallowed a hot gulp of coffee, remembering her call to Agent McDonald, a call that hadn’t been returned. “I already reached out. My contact there hasn’t gotten back to me.”
“We’ll have to do this through official channels.
I’ll wake up Waxman next; he’s going to love hearing from me.
” Marcella’s tone softened slightly. “We’ll find the artifacts.
Chen’s got half the cyber division working on this, and I’ll have Marcus help and call in favors with TSA, private aviation security, anyone we can think of. ”
“I’ll work from here for now, but I’ll come in if you need me.” Sophie sat in her chair and activated her rigs with a key fob. “I want these unsubs more than you know.”
“Sophie . . .” Marcella hesitated. “Is this about a challenge to Connor’s leadership in the Yām Kh?mk?n? This ceremony—it sounds like something out of a movie.”
As her rigs booted up, Sophie stared into her coffee, seeing Connor’s face in the dark liquid.
She had to protect him however she could and the details of the Brotherhood’s challenge weren’t relevant to the FBI’s investigation.
“I did not name my source and I won’t. I can’t.
Just trust that he’s not lying about what the Brotherhood are planning for the artifacts.
These fanatics are capable of anything.”
“All right. We’ll proceed on the assumption that this timeline is real and removal of the artifacts from the USA is imminent. I’ll let you know when I have more.” Marcella ended the call.
Sophie pulled up the files Marcella had sent over. Somewhere, in all the ways a treasure trove of precious artifacts could leave this island, was the answer to where they could be recovered. She just had to find it before they left American soil.
Once they did, it was a CIA matter—and that was a whole other animal to deal with.
The soft creak of her office door closing made her turn. Feirn stood in the entry holding a mug of coffee, fully dressed in his usual ninja black despite the early hour. “I heard you talking,” he said in Thai. “You have news?”
“The artifacts are gone from Thornfield’s estate. Possibly heading for a plane off this island today.”
His eyes narrowed. “Then we hunt. How can I help?”
Sophie frowned. “I can give you my tablet to work on. I’m going to engage some software that looks for keywords and have it sift all this departure info and variables. But I could use someone to help with facial recognition. So far, we only have a name for Sunan. Did you ever see him?”
“I was very new at the Yām Kh?mk?n when he left, but yes, I’ve seen him.”
“Good. I’ve got a program on my laptop that you can use to reconstruct Sunan’s face, so we can put the airports on alert and circulate a general Be On Look Out.” She paused, touching the scar on her cheekbone. “Have you personally seen any of the other warriors he recruited for the Brotherhood?”
“I don’t know who they are.” Feirn cast his eyes down, troubled. “I wish I did.” The mug he held featured a grumpy-looking cat curled asleep with the caption, “DO NOT SPEAK TO ME UNTIL THIS MUG IS EMPTY.” The incongruity of the young ninja holding that mug brought a smile to Sophie’s face.
“Well, Sunan’s the most important unsub anyway. I’ll get the program going for you and show you how to use it. Wish we’d thought of this before, I’m sure Marcella will put anything you come up with right to work.”
“Unsub?” Feirn’s dark brows lifted.
“Unknown Subject. It’s how the FBI refers to suspects.” She was already opening her tablet to the facial reconstruction drawing program. “See here? First you choose the shape of the face . . .”
Moments later they were both hard at work; Sophie texted Armita that she wouldn’t be able to help with breakfast but she’d join the children briefly when they were eating.
When Armita replied cheerfully in the affirmative, once more Sophie thanked all that was good in the world for her nanny; Armita had truly earned the title “Auntie” that the children called her.
As Sophie scanned her screens, a new email notification popped up—from an address she didn’t recognize, with a subject line that made her stomach drop: “Regarding your message to Agent McDonald.” The sender’s domain was cia.gov, but it wasn’t from McDonald.
Sophie’s belly tightened; she had a bad feeling about this.