Suspects(17)

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—

Mike got a surprise in his office the next morning when Rafael Gonzales from Homeland Security at the airport called him on his cell. He had forgotten about his earlier call with him after they cleared de Vaumont to fly.

Rafe identified himself and sounded hesitant, but Mike had been helpful before, and always pleasant when he’d called him, including the time he called in the middle of the night about Pierre de Vaumont.

“Hi, Rafe, how’s it going at JFK? Keeping the bad guys out of the country?” Mike spoke in the warm, friendly tone that was his style.

“Trying to, Mike. We’re identifying more of them these days. They’re getting easier to filter out. Other countries are starting to share our concerns, although they still think we’re too extreme about it.”

“Keep it that way. Less work for me if you don’t let them in.” Mike smiled as he listened. “What can I do for you?”

“I was actually calling to give you an update on the guy we had questions about a few days ago, Pierre de Vaumont.”

“Really? How so?” Mike was surprised that Rafe had intel about him. Pierre had been busy in the city since he’d arrived.

“He met with two men at the airport yesterday. They’re Chinese, a couple of big deal types we know about and keep an eye on when they come through. These two are involved with gambling in Macao. I’m pretty sure they’re involved in drugs too, but they’re careful when they come here. They came in yesterday and flew to Venezuela. They had a long layover, and de Vaumont met with them at one of the airport restaurants. I have no idea what the meeting was about, and we had no reason to question them. We had them under full surveillance. I had two of my men out of uniform sitting nearby. They spoke Chinese the whole time, and de Vaumont did too. He spent about an hour with them, and then he left. We filmed them, nothing was exchanged, no one passed anything. No money changed hands. It appeared to be strictly social, although they didn’t look like de Vaumont’s type. He’s pretty fancy, and these are both rough guys. I’m glad they flew through and didn’t stick around. I’m sure they’re up to no good.”

“There’s no way of telling why de Vaumont met with them,” Mike told him. “He seems to be all over the map with the people he meets and connections he makes. It could have been anything, as long as there’s a commission in it for him.”

“I tried to get one of my Chinese-speaking agents in to sit near them. But by the time he got there, they were leaving, and he speaks Cantonese, while they were speaking Mandarin. I just thought you’d like to know that he had a meeting out here, and who he was with.”

“He’s a hell of a busy guy,” Mike commented, wondering what the meeting was about.

“I think it’s safe to say it was either about gambling or drugs. What they wanted from de Vaumont, and how they connected with him, I don’t know,” Rafe said.

“Send me their names, and I’ll check them out. I want to see if we have them in our system. Or maybe Interpol does.”

“They keep their noses pretty clean in the States. We’ve never had anything on them we could prosecute them for. They don’t want to get arrested here. But we know who they are, so we keep an eye on them when they come to New York.”

“Thanks for the heads-up,” Mike said, then told him to call anytime and hung up. Their names showed up on his email a few minutes later, and Mike checked them out. The CIA seemed to have no particular interest in them. They were in the main database, listed as gambling moguls in Macao, living in Beijing. They weren’t wanted for any offenses in the U.S., but it was nice of Rafe to call. What de Vaumont was doing with them, Mike couldn’t imagine. They sounded a little too down and dirty for him.



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—

Mike checked with the tail who had been with Pierre the day before, and he confirmed the meeting at the airport.

“It’s on my list about him that I turned into operations this morning. I don’t know who the two Chinese guys were, but it seemed to be a friendly meeting. They had lunch at the Chinese restaurant at the airport. They ate some dumplings, talked for about half an hour, and left. I think they were on a layover between flights, and de Vaumont acted as though he knew them. They spoke Chinese the whole time,” which the agent didn’t.

Pierre de Vaumont was turning out to be a bigger mystery every day. The range of the people he consorted with appeared to be limitless, although Mike was sure there was a motive for his meetings with all of them, and something in it for him. He was like a human cash register, collecting money wherever he went. No one was too low or too high for his attention, and he seemed able to adapt to each one, whether Saudi royals or Chinese gamblers.

Mike would have been fascinated by him if he weren’t so worried about Theo Morgan.

The agent who’d tailed him the day before added that he had gone to a dinner party at the home of prominent New Yorkers after Theo’s party, and had met with the young Saudi royals again and gone to a nightclub after that. Then he had joined up with two well-known Russian billionaires at their hotel, and a group of hookers had gone up to their suite shortly after that. Pierre had gone back to his hotel, alone, at five a.m.

The question that remained for Mike was who was Pierre de Vaumont, really, and what the hell was he doing in New York?