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color-coded to alert authorities instantly to the specific basis of the alert. A Blue Notice was issued to authorize the collection of additional information about a person’s identity, location or activities in relation to a crime.
    “The chief’s had a rocket up his ass about human trafficking ever since his meeting with the UN Secretary General a couple of months back, and he’s had the Intel geeks working round the clock to come up with an actual identity for this Night Witch. Once they’re done it’ll be no surprise if you, me or Reigns get handed the UN Security Council Special Notice  “ For Intrepid Action, ”  containing the name of the general’s new favorite candidate for rendition. Meanwhile, while the geeks are tapping away at their keyboards, the primary focus here on the ground is to substantively prove that Wu Ming is connected to the people traffickers, ideally the Night Witch. Once that’s done then phase two will begin and things will get serious.”
    “You’ll follow the trail from him to this Witch?”
    “Exactly.”
    “And how does Reigns fit into all this?”
    “So far as the police department here is concerned, Reigns works for Interpol and has been sent to Hong Kong to liaise with a guy named Inspector Victor Lam regarding a trafficking investigation. That’s all we’ve given them. Lam is acknowledged as HKPD’s foremost expert on these Triad guys and is therefore the perfect choice to assist her.”
    “What do we know about him, and how did she get him to cooperate without telling his superiors what we’re really doing here?”
    “Like I said, she’s good. She’s been cultivating him as a potential asset for some time, long before she was sent here, building up rapport and trust, using her previous Interpol role as cover. She had to convince him to work for us covertly, running the operation as if it was one of his own while keeping the operational details secret from HKPD. He took some convincing. He’s a solid guy, a by-the-book kinda cop, but she’s a pretty tenacious woman. The short version is that he arranged for her to get a job with one of Wu Ming’s supposedly legitimate front companies – a factory here in Kowloon, specializing in fake designer clothes, light manufacturing, that kind of thing. They needed a book-keeper. The timing was perfect – they had a tip-off about the vacancy from one of Lam’s informants.”
    “Let’s just hope all this effort leads somewhere,” Morgan said, feeling he was stuck on a never-ending rollercoaster. Despite his general sense of mission fatigue, he was eager to get moving; he didn’t handle sitting around waiting very well at all. “How has this thing been running while Reigns has been on the inside?”
    “Lam holds covert meets with her – pre-scheduled before she was infiltrated. I stay well clear of the play, but occasionally check in with him by phone in lots of veiled speech to get the latest info she has passed on … ambiguous chat about my ‘niece,’ ‘Grandfather’ … you know the drill. She’s been inside for over a month, and until yesterday there’s been nothing to report. I was starting to think we were wasting our time here but the general was adamant we should stay the course for at least three months before re-evaluating. Things have just changed.”
    “Changed, how?”
    “Last night, Reigns activated her early-warning signal. We couldn’t send her in with one of our Gucci sat-phones with all the bells and whistles, so we came up with a standard, very simple digital distress flare – an eight-digit code: three-three-three-three-six-three-three-seven, which on a keypad corresponds to the word ‘defender’ – that she could tap out on the standard, albeit slightly enhanced, commercial cell phone she’s carrying. The code comes direct to me and, of course, the comms geeks back at headquarters in London.”
    “Meaning ‘Standby, something’s happened, and you may need to get me the fuck out