At some time just before sunrise, Addy got up, walked to the back of the deck – Macy didn't know exactly where because she didn't turn or even try to look – and returned a minute later holding a laptop. He set on the table so the both of them could see clearly and hit a few keys so rapidly, his fingers were a blur. And then, a terminal-like window opened up, inside which was a smaller window showing a file system.
"Here we are," he said.
He looked at her. She looked back. He sighed. She spoke.
"I'm just not very sure I get what you're saying. I don't want there to be any miscommunication."
"Here's everything we have, so far."
The folders were named, but not with the kind of words that were self-explanatory. Some were words that could be found in a dictionary, but didn't really shed light on what the folder contained. Some were just a random series of letters and numbers and even other characters. She didn't search for meaning though. She wasn't one to lose sight of what was important.
He clicked on one folder. Inside were a few videos. "Surveillance," he said. "CCTVs we could grab. For some reason, the cameras around the building weren't working that night."
"Red Earth's building?"
"Yes. Red Earth is on the third floor of the building. Not even the entire floor. Just one corner of it. A fourth of it. Here's the thing though. The rest of the third floor and the floors up, four through seven, are all different companies and offices, which all share a connection with Red Earth. Make of that what you will. Anyway, that night,"
"The night of Isabelle's disappearance."
"Yes. She's on video in the morning, walking in. Doesn't leave. Some time in the evening, the cameras stop. Power loss. Signal interruption. Or something else. Don't know. Can't know. There's just nothing. A little after eleven, they come back up. And then, there's no Isabelle. Whatever happened, happened in that period of darkness."
He showed the cameras that recorded Isabelle entering the building. She was dressed as usual. A knee length black skirt that hugged her shapely hips and legs while still being comfortable enough, a white blouse and a black jacket over it. The big black purse hanging over her right shoulder. The phone in her left, that she was looking into. Her hair was tied in a tight bun. She liked keeping her hair out of the way. She couldn't cut it because one, she liked her hair long and two, Macy loved her long hair. There was nothing in her body language suggesting any discomfort or worry. Everything was fine that morning.
That was the last of her.
Addy next pulled up the video from a traffic camera at a signal four streets away. A black SUV with tinted windows was driving through the green signal. He next pulled up another camera, this one from a store front on a street that was a completely different direction. The same black SUV was driving past.
"Look at the timestamps," he said. "9:11 at the signal. 9:47 outside the store." He then pulled up a city map with the roads and street drawn. "Follow this road." He traced a road from the signal, past the building in which was Red Earth's office and stopped outside the store. Wasn't the straightest road, but it was a continuous route.
She wasn't convinced, yet. But she waited, because he wasn't done.
"There's no word about Isabelle or Red Earth from that night. It wasn't a commissioned job. We can thus safely assume it was handled by internal staff. Now, look at this." He pulled up a company internal document listing the vehicles registered under the company's name. Circled in the middle of the list was the black SUV from the video. The name of the company, however, was Aqus Media. "Aqus has no direct relationship with Red Earth. But, the company that owns Aqus Media, Modus Operandi, that big conglomerate has hired Red Earth several times. Now, I will admit, we might have been wrong. About Stryus." He pulled up another document, that was very different, in that it wasn't a company internal document, in fact it didn't look official at all. It was more like an individual's record. And what it contained was very interesting. "The last Red Earth was hired by an executive of Modus Operandi, was for a personal job. That was mostly how it went. Modus Operandi's executives commissioned Red Earth mostly personal jobs. This last one had to do with negotiating a favourable deal with a party that had information that the executive needed."
"What has this to do with Isabelle?"
"That was actually what took so long. Getting into Red Earth. Red Earth maintains an air gapped system. All of their systems run on a network that isn't connected to the internet or any other network. But nothing is truly impregnable. It just took time. We managed to make a copy of Isabelle's data. She was on the team assigned to the job. There were two others in the team. Volga Mueners. Hugo Shaze. Volga resigned three weeks ago. A family emergency. Taking her record into consideration, she was immediately relieved. Hugo was transferred to an off-site facility. And Isabelle. The commonality – they're all three disappeared."
"Who is this executive?"
He pulled up a photograph of a forty something, round faced man of an average height and an average build, dressed in a sharp suit that was clearly expensive. His eyes glinted as he smiled, throwing off evil vibes even through the photograph. "Chu Im Wang. Nephew of chairman Ho Minh of Modus Operandi, and son of the president Chu Nam Po."
"Chu Im Wang. That's who we are after."
"Yes. How do you want to proceed?"
"Like I said, revenge. I want to personally destroy him," she said in the calmest voice void of any inflection. "I guess we start with the job. The information he wanted."
"The first clue," he said in a similarly calm voice.