By noon, Noah had surveillance teams positioned on six different locations across Manhattan and Brooklyn. The operation was extensive, coordinated, and—he hoped—discreet enough that HTBB wouldn't immediately recognize the full scope of what they were facing.
He stood in the mobile command center, a converted van parked three blocks from King's Midtown office, watching live feeds from four different camera angles. King had arrived at his office at 7:15 AM and hadn't left. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows of his penthouse suite, they could see him moving around, meeting with clients, conducting what appeared to be completely legitimate business.
"He knows we're here," Coe said, standing beside Noah and studying the same feeds. "Look at his behavior. He's not trying to hide, not acting suspicious. He's putting on a show."
Noah nodded. King was too experienced to panic, too smart to make obvious mistakes. Instead, he was projecting normalcy, legitimacy, the image of a man who had nothing to fear from law enforcement scrutiny.
"Behavioral analysis?" Noah asked.
Agent Sarah Reeves, monitoring from her position in the back of the van, pulled up a psychological profile on her tablet. "King's a classic high-functioning psychopath—or more accurately, someone with pronounced psychopathic traits. He's extremely controlled, emotionally detached, capable of compartmentalizing violence and criminal activity from his public persona. The fact that he ordered the execution of a federal agent and is now calmly conducting business meetings suggests he's already moved past it, treating it as a solved problem."
"Which means he's planning something," Noah said. "He's not just sitting there hoping we'll give up. He's adapting, preparing countermeasures."
Reeves nodded. "I'd expect him to restructure operations, change protocols, maybe even shut down certain activities temporarily to deny us evidence. He'll make it harder for us to build a case."
Noah's phone buzzed—Agent Maria Garcia from the financial crimes team. He put her on speaker. "What do you have?"
"The transaction we were tracking—the eight million dollar movement scheduled for next week? It's been postponed. I just intercepted a communication between one of HTBB's shell companies and a Cayman Islands account. New timeline is two weeks out, and they're restructuring the route entirely. New intermediary accounts, new transfer protocols."
"They know we're watching the money," Coe said.
"Of course they do," Garcia replied. "They'd be idiots not to assume we have Perez's intelligence. Everything he documented is now suspect in their minds. They're probably changing everything—operational locations, personnel assignments, communication methods, financial networks. Essentially creating a new organization while maintaining the same leadership."
Noah felt a familiar frustration. This was the challenge of investigating smart criminals—they adapted as quickly as law enforcement could pursue them. Every piece of intelligence had a limited shelf life before the targets changed their behavior and made that intelligence obsolete.
"Can we still track the transaction when it moves?" he asked.
"Maybe. Depends on how thoroughly they restructure. I've got monitoring on all the accounts and shell corporations we know about, but if they create entirely new entities, route the money through different channels..." Garcia's voice trailed off. "I'll do my best, but we might lose it."
"Keep trying. That eight million represents six months of transactions with Mallman. If we can seize it, we hurt them financially and demonstrate to their clients that their money isn't safe."
"Understood."
Noah ended the call and turned to the surveillance feeds again. King was visible in his office, sitting at his desk, apparently reviewing documents. Perfectly normal, perfectly legal. Nothing that would give them probable cause for anything beyond what they already had.
"What about Vancouver Sell?" Noah asked.
Coe pulled up a different set of feeds. "That's our problem. We have surveillance on three known addresses associated with him, but he hasn't appeared at any of them. Last confirmed sighting was early this morning leaving a Queens apartment—one of our teams spotted him and tried to establish tracking, but he disappeared into the subway and we lost him."
"He's going dark," Reeves said. "Exactly what I'd expect. King can afford to be visible because he's insulated from direct criminal activity. But Sell is operational—he's the one who makes things happen, coordinates the illegal work. If we can document his activities, we can build a direct case."
"Which is why he won't let us," Noah said. "He'll stay invisible, work through intermediaries, make sure there's no direct connection between him and any criminal activity."
"So how do we find him?" Coe asked.
Noah considered the question. Vancouver Sell was their best target for prosecution—unlike King, who maintained layers of plausible deniability, Sell was directly involved in operations. He'd been at the scene when Benjamin was killed, might have even pulled the trigger himself. If they could locate him, surveil him, document his activities, they'd have the foundation for a solid case.
But you couldn't surveil someone who'd become a ghost.
"We don't find him," Noah said after a moment. "We make him come to us."
Coe looked skeptical. "How?"
"By putting pressure on HTBB's operations. They're restructuring, changing everything to invalidate Perez's intelligence. That requires coordination, communication, decision-making. Sell is their operational commander—he's the one who'll need to oversee that restructure. If we can disrupt their operations enough, create enough chaos, he'll have to surface to manage it."
"What kind of disruption are you thinking?"
Noah turned to Reeves. "Pull every piece of intelligence Perez provided about HTBB's locations. Warehouses, meeting spots, safe houses, everything. I want a list within the hour."