I said, “Will do.”
I made the turn and the Rover pulled out after I passed. Pike pulled out after the Rover. I took the second right, turned again at the first cross street, and pulled into a red zone outside a white, three-story apartment building. The entire block was lined with three-or four-story apartment buildings, and they all looked pretty much the same. Jon Stone pulled up behind me, blocking a drive. He remained in the Rover. Pike passed, pulled over a few spots ahead, and walked back along the sidewalk. I got out and met him.
“Jon’s car.”
I climbed into the shotgun seat, and Pike got in back behind me. Stone had the AC maxed. Frigid air screamed from the vents like an arctic gale. He cut the fans when I pulled the door.
“I don’t know how you do it, Cole. You must be an honest-to-God shit magnet.”
Pike said, “Stop.”
I frowned at Pike.
“What does he mean?”
Stone said, “Here’s what he means.”
He held out his phone, showing me a photograph of the device. The photo was red, as if it had been taken in a photographer’s darkroom. He held the phone too close.
“See this?”
I slapped the phone away.
“Keep it up, you’ll eat it.”
Pike said, “Jon.”
Stone flicked his finger across the screen, showing the device from a different angle.
“What we have here is an audio surveillance device. I removed it from an outlet in your boy’s bungalow.”
I let him keep going.
“It’s what we call a passive listener, meaning it constantly listens, but only transmits when it hears non-ambient, atypical sounds, like someone knocking or someone speaking.”
“How does it know what’s ambient?”
“It’s smart. Plant this baby in an office, it figures out the air conditioner and freeway noise don’t matter.”
He flicked to a red photo of a larger device connected to a small rectangular box by a wire.
“Found this one hidden in the door buzzer at the end of the hall, up near the ceiling above the bathroom door. It’s a digital camera and motion sensor tied to a digital transmitter.”
Stone lowered his phone.
“This isn’t off-the-shelf technology. Not here, in China, or anywhere else.”
“Okay. So what?”
Pike said, “Jon’s source believes these devices are used by ChiCom intelligence agencies.”
I looked from Pike to Stone.
“Spies?”
Jon Stone muttered in Chinese before shifting to English.
“Likely the Ministry of State Security or the Military Intelligence Department, not that there’s much difference. This gear—”
He jiggled his phone, meaning the pictures.
“—is their version of my gear, which means we may have a serious problem.”
I didn’t like it. I didn’t like Rachel Belle Bohlen being beaten to death, or her apartment being ripped apart, or Joshua Schumacher being missing, but Jon Stone was talking nonsense.
“The guy owns hotels. Are you saying the Chinese government sent spies to hunt down a kid with a podcast nobody listens to all to protect a hotel magnate?”
Stone gave me wide, innocent eyes.
“Unless they want his mommy.”
It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to know where he was going.
“They’re after Adele?”
Stone glanced at Pike, then made the big eyes again.
“I have access to certain sources. You understand this, right?”
“Is this about his parents?”
“Cole, listen. I don’t know. But once upon a time these cats lived under so many layers of black they ceased to exist. Whatever you read online after they left Stanford is bullshit. Even my source, and my source knows everything, only knows rumors. And you know why those rumors exist?”
Jon didn’t expect an answer, so I didn’t interrupt.
“His mother worked on projects so black even my guys can’t find out, and, brother, these dudes are top of the food chain. When you’re that deep, you are working on dangerously secret shit.”
“Adele.”
“Applied Thought. Adele and the husband, but she was the money. Legend.”
“Adele and Corbin worked for the government.”
“Your mailman works for the government.”
“The military.”
Jon shrugged.
“Maybe. Who knows? People like this work in little compartments only two or three other people know about. They’re funded with untraceable money nobody has to explain or account for, not even to the president or the Joint Chiefs. Nobody knows what these people did.”