Chapter 22 Pierre
PIERRE
Pierre Raveaux was reviewing security footage from the Ala Moana Center for one of this Security Solutions cases. The Security Solutions office hummed with its usual activity—analysts at their screens, the soft murmur of phone conversations, the coffee maker gurgling in the break room.
His phone buzzed. The familiar Hawaii number made his heart jump—Sophie rarely called during work hours unless something important was happening. “Bonjour, Sophie. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Pierre, I need you at the Federal Building. Now.” Sophie’s voice was tight with an underlying urgency that made him sit up straighter. “Can you bring the artifact database you compiled? The one with all the provenance research?”
He minimized the security footage and pulled up the file in question. “Of course. What’s happened?”
“The shipment of artifacts is on a cargo ship heading for international waters.
We need to document that the artifacts are protected cultural patrimony to get a court order to stop the vessel.
I'm working with Special Agent Chen, but we need your expertise and that work you did on the stolen items.”
Pierre was already saving the file to an encrypted thumb drive. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Anything else I should bring?”
“Just yourself and that brilliant mind of yours.” His neck flushed at her praise. “And Pierre? There's something else I need to discuss with you. Privately. It’s about my mother.” The call ended.
Pierre stared at the phone for a moment before pocketing it along with the thumb drive containing the records.
Sophie rarely mentioned Pim Wat, the woman who had nearly destroyed all their lives the previous year. He’d been injured in an attempt to capture her in Greece, and two young Yām Kh?mk?n operatives he’d been working with had lost their lives.
If that devil woman had come up, something was very wrong.
He locked his workstation and grabbed his jacket. Kendall Bix, the chief of operations, looked up from his desk as Pierre passed. “Heading out?”
“FBI needs assistance with the artifacts case. Sophie called me in.” He adjusted his leather satchel, a nervous habit from his Interpol days. “I may be gone the rest of the day.”
“Good hunting,” Bix said, already turning back to his screens.
The drive to the Federal Building was mercifully quick since traffic was flowing smoothly through downtown Honolulu.
Pierre ran through the implications of Sophie’s call.
If the artifacts were already on a ship, they were running out of time.
Maritime law was complex, and once that vessel reached international waters, boarding it was going to be difficult to justify.
He parked in the visitor section and made his way through security, the thumb drive metaphorically heavy in his pocket. The elevator ride seemed interminable. When the doors finally opened on the FBI floor, Sophie stood in the foyer area, waiting.
“Pierre, thank you for coming so quickly.” Stress had tightened the skin beneath her eyes and left the scar on her cheekbone a stark line. “Special Agent Chen’s in her office pulling together the NAGPRA documentation. Let’s take her your data.”
They made their way inside and down to Special Agent Chen’s office.
The agent’s space was organized chaos—law books piled on every surface, multiple computer monitors displaying databases and documents.
An Asian woman who must be Agent Chen looked up as they entered; her glossy bob was frazzled and she had pen marks on her blouse.
Sophie introduced them. Chen came around with a hand extended and they shook. “Monsieur Raveaux, excellent. Sophie said you have comprehensive provenance documentation on the artifacts?”
“Everything that was stolen has a backstory.” He handed over the thumb drive. “Cross-referenced with museum records, archaeological surveys, and cultural practitioner statements.”
“That last part is what we really don’t have time for.” Chen hurried around her desk and plugged in the drive, her eyes widening as she scrolled through the files. “This is incredible. How long did this take you?”
“I had help from a number of sources at the Bishop Museum and elsewhere, including Dr. Yoshimura,” Pierre said. “Each piece tells a story.’”
“Special Agent Chen, can you pull up the photos of the twenty-three stolen pieces?” Sophie asked.
The FBI agent opened another file, displaying high-resolution images of the artifacts and casting the image to a wall-mounted monitor. Pierre leaned in, cataloging details. “I recognize these.”
“Now we need to match the documentation you brought to each of the pieces.” Chen’s fingers flew over her keyboard.
“I’m building the legal argument with each identified piece.
And thank you, this background is exactly what we need.
I’ll pull this together and then you can check the matches, Monsieur Raveaux. ”
“Pierre, please,” he said.
She glanced up through her lashes with a brilliant smile. “And you can call me Janet.”
Sophie leaned in, ignoring the byplay. “Janet, now that you’ve got what you need, can I borrow Pierre for a minute?”
“Of course.”
Pierre followed Sophie’s confident departure from the office—clearly, she was no stranger to the layout. A few minutes later, they got off the elevator at the top floor. Storage and mechanical items took up the open space, but a hallway led to a plainly marked exit.
Sophie led him through the service door, out onto the roof.
A running track had been installed along the perimeter of the building, offering spectacular views of Honolulu, the ocean, and the mountains behind them.
Several covered picnic tables in the middle of the space provided a place for meals.
Trade winds whipped across the open space, carrying the scent of the sea and faint sounds of traffic below.
“We can talk here,” Sophie said, beginning to walk briskly along the track; she was clearly anxious about something. “No cameras, and the wind makes audio surveillance impossible.”
Pierre fell into step beside her. “Very cloak-and-dagger,” he said lightly. “What’s happened with your mother? I take it there’s bad news?”
Sophie’s jaw tightened. “She’s disappeared. Completely erased from CIA databases. Agent McDonald, my contact there, has supposedly retired. His replacement claims to have no knowledge of her.”
Pierre stopped walking. “That’s impossible. There must be documentation—”
“No.” Sophie resumed walking with her long-legged stride, and he hurried to catch up. “I’ve tried every CIA contact I had—disconnected. I even tried hacking their database, but they’ve changed all the protocols and I wasn’t able to get in.”
Implications hit Pierre like a blow to the solar plexus. Pim Wat Smithson was one of the most dangerous individuals he’d ever encountered in all his years of international law enforcement. “Do you think she’s escaped?”
“I don’t know what to think.” Sophie’s voice was controlled, flat. “Maybe she’s in some black site McDonald never documented. Maybe someone higher up decided she was too valuable to waste in a cell.”
“Or too dangerous to leave alive,” Pierre said quietly.
Sophie flinched but nodded, speeding up her pace. Pierre almost had to jog to keep up. “I need you to reach out to your Interpol contacts. Quietly. See if there’s been any trace of her. New identities, unusual activity in her old networks, anything.”
“I’ll make some calls.” He touched her shoulder gently. “We’ll find out what happened. But right now, we need to focus on stopping those artifacts from getting out of our waters.”
“Yes. You’re right. One problem at a time.
” Sophie took a deep breath, visibly pulling herself together.
She stopped and faced him; the wind blew her hair around and sun struck her light brown eyes, turning them almost amber.
She seemed to be observing him with the same intensity, then spoke.
“Chen’s waiting for us. She’s reached out to a federal judge who’s sympathetic to cultural patrimony cases, but we need rock-solid documentation before we have the Coast Guard serve the documents and send a team to the vessel. ”
“I’m glad I could help.”
“You did. Thanks for coming. It helps to have someone I can confide in.” Sophie’s phone vibrated. She glanced down at it. “Feirn has been helping with facial reconstruction of Sunan and other possible members of his group. He has some more results for us to see.”
They hurried back downstairs. Pierre entered Chen’s office while Sophie went to a nearby conference room, emerging minutes later with a young Asian man that Pierre recognized as Connor’s second in command. He carried a laptop.
“This is Feirn,” Sophie said. “My bodyguard. Show them, please.”
Feirn set the laptop on Chen’s desk, opened it, and turned the screen toward them. “This a face who may be Brotherhood,” he said in careful, heavily accented English. “He left Yām Kh?mk?n same time as Sunan.”
The screen displayed a 3D facial reconstruction featuring a hard-looking Asian in his mid-forties, with a distinctive scar through the left eyebrow.
Pierre started. “Merde. That’s Khun Sakchai.”
“You know him?” Chen asked sharply.
“Only by reputation. He’s wanted by Interpol. A thief of high-end art and valuables. Former Thai special forces, suspected in a dozen assassinations across Southeast Asia.” Pierre met Sophie’s eyes. “He’s a white whale for Interpol; they’ve been hunting him for years.”
“He’s likely the one masterminding the artifact thefts,” Sophie said. “And we’re running out of time to stop him.”
“Show Pierre Sunan’s picture,” Chen urged. “We didn’t have any hits on him in the criminal databases, but maybe you recognize him too.”
Feirn hit a button, and another visage filled the tablet’s surface. This man was younger, with high cheekbones, heavy black brows and a shaved head. “Don’t recognize him,” Pierre said.
“We’ve got two faces to circulate everywhere around the world through law enforcement,” Sophie said. “Good work, Feirn.”
The young man ducked his head in embarrassed acknowledgement.
“I’ll make sure these images get out,” Sophie said. She and Feirn left.
Chen’s phone rang. She listened for a moment, then hung up. “The judge will see us in two hours. We need everything ready by then.”
Pierre took a seat at a chair by the window. He opened his laptop.
“I’ll add you to the document I’m creating. You can access the matches I’ve made, pairing your material to the missing pieces as I’m assembling them,” Chen said. “We can check them together in real time.”
“Oui. Yes,” Pierre said. A moment later his computer pinged with the access to the file.
This document was a critical step to getting the artifacts back and possibly stopping Sunan’s bid for power; but a darker worry gnawed at him.
If Pim Wat was truly missing, and assassins like Khun Sakchai were part of Sunan’s group, then Sophie was in more danger than she realized. He was glad she had a bodyguard. Hopefully Feirn would be enough.