“I did some checking, and I am sorry to have to admit that some of our countrymen who consider themselves to have an association with my business were going to be on the receiving end of the transport of those people. Here’s a list of names for you. Be mindful that they are just street criminals, and nobody I would give so much as the time of day to.”
He hands a neatly typed sheet of paper with names, addresses, telephone numbers, and hangouts. The detectives understand these are to be the sacrificial scapegoats. Mary Margaret thanks the Mafia don and waits for the more important intelligence.
“Yeah, well, I also asked around about anybody else that might be in charge of this kind of evil goings-on. We ran into a stone wall—just like you—for the most part, but all the paths seem to lead to the Asians. We found fingers pointing to the Snakeheads—I’ve got more to say about them in a minute—the Yakusa from Japan, the Fuk Ching who are Chinese organized criminals operating in the U.S., the Hong Kong triads who are in competition with both the Snakeheads and the Fuk Ching, the Heijins from Taiwan, the Jao Pho and Red Wa gangsters from Thailand, and the Nam Cam Gang from Vietnam. You already know about the Izmaylovskaya gang from out of Moscow.
“One name keeps popping up—somebody called ‘Sister Chi,’ who is connected with or maybe runs the Snakeheads from Fujian, China. They are the biggest and most efficient human smugglers and run their human trafficking like a General Motors company with franchises. I am not even sure if some woman with that name really exists. Nobody has ever seen her, and no cops ever find forensic traces—just a few unfortunate massacres like the one over on Bond Street. My informants tell me, ‘Find Sister Chi and you find the monsters.’ I’ll tell you this much. I would match my Sicilians and Italians to the best fighters in the world, but none of them wants to have anything to do with the Snakeheads. A word to the wise: you would do well to steer clear of them and this Sister Chi unless you have an army with you.”
It is sobering, but the detectives believe that Lanza is giving them the straight skinny. He may have been whitewashing the Sicilian and Italian Mafia to some degree, but Lanza’s and the task force’s evidence thus far seems to point away from them and towards this mysterious “Sister Chi.” The meetings with the remaining four Mafia dons that day either confirm that belief, or—as in the case of the new Lucchese family don—they are stonewalled.
Mary Margaret and Martin do their homework and are sobered by what they learn about the Snakeheads. They are Chinese gangs that smuggle people to a number of other countries. They largely inhabit the Fujian region of China and smuggle their customers into wealthier Western countries, including Western Europe, North America, Australia, and some into nearby wealthier countries, such as Taiwan and Japan. Snakeheads use various clever methods to get their illegal migrant customers and their potential slaves to the West. They use stolen or altered passports, illegally obtained visas, and employ bribery as an art form to move people from nation to nation until they arrive at their final destination. They infiltrate real businesses and create fake business delegations and tour groups as a way of beating immigration controls. The rate of payment for successful smuggling can be as high as seventy thousand dollars for each person—with the exception of kidnapped children who get to travel free to a short life of miserable unpaid servitude.
There are big Snakeheads who are the Chinese arrangers and investors, little Snakeheads or recruiters who live and work out of China, and enforcers hired by big Snakeheads to work on smuggling ships. They may even be illegal immigrants themselves and are often the most brutal, similar to slave overseers during the despicable era of American slavery; and all along the way, there are support personnel—local people at the transit points who provide food and lodging to illegal immigrants and help maintain and sell provisions for the ships. The Snakeheads–like the American and Russian Mafiosos and several other Asian and Eastern European criminal organizations–constitute a thriving—albeit heinous—industry. Everyone involved from top to bottom is part of a soulless and murderous cabal impervious to the pain and suffering they inflict.
Chapter Eight
June 7, 2020
The Howard University students arrive at the Saint Agnes orphanage at eight in the morning in two large rented school buses ready to start their day of assistance to the “Wednesday’s children.” They gather up brooms and plastic garbage bags and barrels while the nuns available make sure the girls’ return home orderly and safe. Half a dozen parishioners from the Assumption of Mary parish turn out to help as well.
Pediatricians-to-be Cerisse and Drake Farrer appoint themselves as directors of the project—such as it is—and take advantage of their captive audience to learn more about the impact of trauma on children in Red Hook as they caravan to the mansion on Captain Hobartson Avenue, where Mrs. Chang and her family have been hosting the girls from the orphanage for the past three days of fun and birthday partying. Like many community spirited groupings, the buses of volunteers are in a happy mood. Everyone likes to think of himself or herself as being part of an endeavor to benefit less-fortunate children.
When they park on Captain Hobartson Avenue in front of the impressive old home, Cerisse and Drake are struck by what is not there. All of the festive Chinese decorations in the yard and on the outside of the house have been removed, and the place looks as if the celebration had never taken place.
Cerisse bounds up to the front door and knocks. Then knocks again. Then bangs vigorously on the sturdy old oak door a third and final time. No one answers. That is strange. She has one of those moments of pause, thinking maybe she is in the wrong place or on the wrong day or at the wrong time. But she knows that is not the case. She trots back to the bus and takes her husband aside and tells him what she has seen, or more importantly, what she has not seen.
“We should call them,” Drake says.
“I don’t have a number,” Cerisse tells him.
“Let’s call Sister Ophelia and see if she knows what is going on,” Drake says.
“Not yet, Drake. Let’s not alarm her. Maybe there’s a perfectly obvious explanation. Let’s investigate a little,” Cerisse says, but her dark little brow is now furrowed.
They have the rest of the students, nuns, and parishioners stay in the buses while they check around the back. It takes less than five minutes. There are no indications that the children are there or that they have ever been on the property. Now, both of the young medical students are genuinely concerned. Where are the Changs? Where are the seventy-eight little Wednesday’s Children? What to do?
“I’ll call Sister Ophelia,” says Cerisse. “You get ready to dial 9-1-1, Drake. I have a very bad feeling about this.”
Sister Ophelia picks up on the second ring, listens to Cerisse, and says, “Make the emergency call. Get our girls onto the Amber Alert system. I will mobilize every Catholic in New York. We are going to find our Wednesday’s Children.”
Cerisse gives Drake a nod; he dials the emergency number that puts into effect the nationwide emergency system. In a matter of seconds, every cell phone on the buses signals an alert complete with the photograph of Brigid O’Hanlon, who instantly becomes the poster girl for the “Wednesday’s Child” abduction alert. In less than five minutes, virtually every newspaper, radio, television, and Internet outlet is informed; and the kidnapping of Brigid O’Hanlon becomes the news alert of the day and the top of the breaking news headlines.
An absolutely uncharacteristic response comes from Cerisse and shocks her young husband who considers his little bride to be unflappable. She begins to cry and dissolves into sobbing, her face contorted in horror and pain.
He is all but certain that he knows what is going on; but Drake asks anyway, “What is it, Cerisse? We’ll get them back. We’re doing everything we can.”
She clasps him in an embrace that is almost fearsome in its intensity. He has never seen such fear from Cerisse or anyone before. He knows her past.
Cerisse was born Cerisse Monet in the Democ
ratic Republic of the Congo in 1999—the best that anyone could reckon. She is a pygmy who at twenty-one stands just under four feet seven inches tall and weighs just over eighty-one pounds. She was robbed of her childhood, her virginity, and her freedom by French and Bantu slavers, and forced into involuntary servitude as a prostitute before she began to menstruate. She was rescued and adopted by her mother, Sybil Norcroft—who was then a famous media personality and is now the director of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States—and brought to America. Cerisse is tough, resilient, and brilliant. In a nurturing environment, she gradually lost her fear of men and many of her nightmares because her new father, Charles Daniels, was and still is a pillar or strength and patient kindness. With good nutrition, Cerisse Daniels lost her need to hoard food. With her first opportunity to go to school, the fourteen-year-old Cerisse made meteoric progress, learned English as well as her native French, and graduated from an exclusive prep school, and then with honors from Howard University. She started medical school at Howard when she was twenty-one.
Now this horror. Cerisse slips back into the terrors of her childhood, her hatred and loathing for men, and her determination to get revenge. For half an hour she is unreachable. Drake recognizes all of the symptoms and makes an emergency call to Director Norcroft of the CIA using a special personal family code to identify himself and says that he is calling to report an emergency.
“Yes, Drake, what is it?” Sybil’s calm and reassuring voice answers.
As soon as the director of the CIA puts down the phone after getting a full description of the situation in Red Hook from her son-in-law, Drake Farrer, she sets her agency into motion. Her first call is to the commissioner of the NYPD, the second is to FBI director William Crutchfield, the third is to the chief of naval operations, Admiral Norman S. Conklin, and the fourth is to the chief of U.S. Coast Guard intelligence, Admiral Cynthia Abelard. The message is the same: a brief description of the history of the crime and a request for action. Her next call is to her husband, Charles Daniels, Chapter Eight to alert him and to have him go home; so, he can take care of Cerisse when Drake brings her there. Her final call is to McGee. That call is made on her most secure line.
“McGee, you recognize my voice. We need some special help getting these Wednesday’s Children back home. I’m afraid regular channels and law enforcement bureaucracy is going to be too slow and too careful. You have contacts. Let’s get them into action even if a few delicacies of the law get bent.”
“And a good morning to you, Sybil,” he laughs. “I’m on it.”
McGee’s first call is to Dominic Lanza.
“This must be pretty important, McGee, to get me on my private line,” the Mafia don says.
“You know I wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t, Dominic.”
McGee then gives the crime boss a quick rundown and an exhortation about the urgency. He concludes by saying, “Look, my friend, La Cosa Nostra [Sicilian: “our thing”] has never condoned this kind of treatment of children. These are good innocent Catholic girls who basically come from your neighborhood. We have to do everything in our power to see to it that those kids don’t leave the country.”
The don is in no mood to banter after McGee’s impassioned plea.
“I have the teamsters, the dock workers, the garbage unions, and a bunch of soldiers. We’re in good terms with the other four families just now; I can get them on board. But you know there’s kind of a stickler—a couple of sticklers. The first is money; this’ll cost a lot of overtime, if you know what I mean. The second is more important; not everything that my people do will be pretty or even kosher. We need some assurances for our guys should they step over the line a bit.”
“You have my word, Dominic. You know I’m good for it. That will be my main personal effort.”
“Good enough for me. Now let’s stop yammerin’ and get to work.”
Thirty minutes later, the results of the telephone networks gets underway in addition to the regular Amber Alert procedures. The NYPD has 38,000 officers, and every man and woman who is not otherwise involved in crucial casework is assigned to temporary duty on the elite Organized Crime Human Trafficking Unit. A call from the commissioner of police and the president of the NYC PBA [Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association of the City of New York] alerts the Sergeants Benevolent Association, and the Captains’ Endowment Union and brings in 8,000 volunteers from the off-duty officers. An army of 4,500 auxiliary police, traffic control, academy students, and citizen’s watch groups joins the brigades of New York’s finest and pours out of the emergency headquarters set up at 1 Police Plaza blanketing the city looking for anything that even suggests a means of transporting the seventy-eight girls. Every officer and volunteer carries a glossy 8×10 of Brigid O’Hanlon. The Lee Family Tong sends out a distress call through its ages-old alert network, and thousands of Chinese mobilize to monitor and to report on criminal activities in their world.
The FBI puts agents into every airport; the Coast Guard and the Navy have officers and enlisted men and women interviewing personnel and running surveillance in every port in the U.S. and enlists the assistance of Canada and Mexico in the effort. ICE [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] calls in every asset to monitor the nation’s borders. Every state trooper patrolling the nation’s highways has an image of Brigid O’Hanlon on his or her vehicle’s computer. On an official level, Interpol and the brother and sister officers of the human trafficking arms of law enforcement departments of the entire civilized world are placed on full alert; and entry airports, maritime ports, and border crossings are included in the worldwide search. This is the largest and best coordinated manhunt ever instituted. The unofficial effort is in the shadows, but it is equally dynamic.
Sybil finds time to meet Charles, Cerisse, and Drake at the family home in Georgetown. By the time the DCIA gets to the house, Cerisse has calmed down and now displays an icy determination—a mind-set shared by the rest of the family and the members of the worldwide dragnet as well, for that matter.
“Mama, I am going to be involved. The Howard University Medical School has decided to make this a school project. We will be walking the streets of New York and the District. We will contact everybody we know; everybody is going to see what African-Americans can do when we unite!”
“Okay, Cerisse, my love, but be careful,” Sybil and Charles advise, knowing that their daughter—though diminutive in size—is a giant in determination and effectiveness.
Detective Mary Margaret MacLeese and her partner, Detective Sergeant Martin Redworth, get the Amber Alert thirty seconds after Cerisse Farrer puts it into motion. Mary Margaret heads directly to 1 Police Plaza to be part of the command center of the law enforcement effort, and Martin takes four squad cars full of the elite human trafficking team to concentrate on getting what intel they can from the immediate Red Hook area where the presumed crimes occurred.
With the assistance of Sister Ophelia and her sister nuns in the orphanage and Father O’Leary of the Assumption of Mary parish, Martin is able to link up good Catholics with determined cops to knock on every door in the parish and get the word out to the Catholic faithful in the rest of the five boroughs. What has anybody seen? What news is there of the Wednesday’s Girls? And what have the good Catholics seen or heard about Asians in the company of non-Asian groups of girls?
Martin himself catches the first break—the first potentially useful clue. He and a prominent member of the parish congregation who has joined him as a temporary partner are admitted to the home of Mildred Franklin, the secretary of the Carroll Gardens Saint Mary’s Star of the Sea Church on Court Street. She is one of the women who helped set up the party for the girls at the Captain Hobartson Avenue mansion four days previously.
“I was hoping you would come and see me, Detective. I’m glad you are involved in the search, too, Mr. Cratchley. Good to know that we have good Catholics on the job. I think I can give you some information. I so hope it will be useful to bring back our
precious girls from Saint Anne’s.
Chapter Nine
June 3–8, 2020
“Are all the brats asleep?” Sister Chi asks as the last of the orphanage people and the Howard University students finally get out of the door. “I had my eyes on the pygmy kid from HU; she looked like a twelve-year-old. But her husband—the big black guy—looked like he would make trouble. The black kid wouldn’t have fit in anyhow.”
“How long will they stay asleep from the red punch, Mrs. Chang?” Sun Choy asks and realizes her mistake immediately.
She is new—more slave than soldier—so Sister Chi tolerates her ignorance, but gives her a reminder, “Not to forget, Sun. Name is not ‘Chang’ anymore. Must not use the name I used here with the ignorant Catholics. They hunt for ‘Chang’ while Chi moves on.
“We have to be careful with young girls—just enough chloral hydrate and cognac to put them under, then we give them phenobarb or lorazepam because they are long acting. Can’t have any needle holes in their pretty skin, can we?” she Wednesday’s Child explains and gives Sun Choy a hard pinch as punctuation. “Don’t like oxy so much—gets them hooked, and the Arabs don’t like their virgins to be dopey or whiny. After they lose their flower, oxy is good—keeps them in line.”
Sister Chi and her chief lieutenant in the Snakeheads, Zhuoru Guo Meng, make a careful final examination of the girls to be sure they are still breathing and that their hearts have not stopped. All of them are sound asleep and hardly react to the prodding by the two Snakehead kidnappers.
“Following Mr. Zhuoru, friends. Get loaded up and get this place clean. No fingerprints, no plates, cups, or anything that can have prints or that DNA. Big trouble, that DNA. Make place clean enough for the emperor’s first courtesan.”
Wednesday’s Child Page 5