"But how's he going to find me? How's he going to know where on God's green earth I live? I don't need anyone to baby-sit me. I need you to get me that goddamn information I wanted."
"Okay, okay."
From above: the sounds of people walking, a door opening and closing. Then silence. Sonny Li listened for a moment. He pushed the door open fully and glanced out. In front of him was a long corridor that led to the front door, the one through which the men--presumably other security bureau officers--had just left.
To Li's right was an entryway to what must have been a living room. Staying close to the baseboards to keep his footsteps quiet, Li moved through this hallway. He paused outside the living room then looked in quickly. An odd sight: the room was filled with scientific equipment, computers, tables, charts and books of all kinds. Which was the last thing one would expect to find in this fine old building.
But what was more curious was the dark-haired man sitting in a complicated red wheelchair in the middle of the room, leaning forward, looking at a computer screen, talking to himself, it seemed. Then Li realized that, no, the man was talking into a microphone near his mouth. The mike must have been sending signals to the computer, telling it what to do. The screen responded to his commands.
So, was this creature Lincoln Rhyme?
Well, it hardly mattered who he was and, besides, Li had no time to speculate. He didn't know when the other officers would return.
Lifting the gun, Sonny Li stepped into the room.
Chapter Thirteen
One meter forward. Another. Sonny Li was a slight man and he moved silently.
Sneaking closer to the back of the wheelchair, looking on the tabletops for any evidence or information about the Ghost. He would--
Li had no idea where the men came from.
One of them--far taller than Li--was black as coal and wearing a suit and bright yellow shirt. He'd been hiding against the wall inside the room. In a seamless motion he swept the gun from Li's hand and pressed a pistol against his temple.
Another man, short and fat, flung Li to the ground and knelt on his back, pushing the air from his lungs as sharp pain coursed through his belly and sides. Handcuffs were ratcheted on fast as an eel.
"English?" the black man asked.
Li was too shocked to answer.
"I'ma ask you once more, skel. Do. You. Speak. English?"
A Chinese man, who'd also been hiding in the room, stepped forward. He wore a stylish dark suit and had a badge dangling from a chain around his neck. He asked the same question in Chinese. It was the Cantonese dialect but Li was able to understand.
"Yes," Li responded breathlessly. "I talk English."
The man in the wheelchair spun around. "Let's see what we've caught."
The black man hauled him to his feet, nearly off the ground, ignoring Li's moans and gasps of pain. Holding him with one hand he began patting his pockets with the other. "Listen here, you little skel, I find any needles in your pockets? I find anything that's gonna poke me unpleasantly?"
"I--"
"Answer the question now and tell the truth. 'Cause if I get poked, you gonna get poked too." He shook Li by the collar and shouted, "Needles?"
"You saying drug stuff? No, no."
The man pulled the cash out of his pockets, his cigarettes, ammunition, the sheet of paper he'd stolen from the beach. "Ah, looks like this boy here borrowed something he shouldn'ta from Aye-melia. An' while she was busy savin' lives, no less. Shame on him."
"That's how he found us," Lincoln Rhyme said, eyeing the sheet of paper with his card attached. "I was wondering."
The trim blond man appeared in the doorway. "So you got him," he said without surprise. And Li understood then that this young man had spotted him in the alley when he'd taken out the bags, and had left the door open on purpose. To draw him upstairs. And the other men had made a noisy show of departing, pretending to leave Lincoln alone.
So you got him . . . .
The man in the wheelchair noticed the disgust in Li's eyes. He said, "That's right--my observant Thom here spotted you when he took the trash out. And then . . ." He nodded at the computer screen and said, "Command, security. Back door."
On the computer screen a video image of the back door of the building and the alley popped up.
Li suddenly understood how the Coast Guard had located the Fuzhou Dragon floating in the endless ocean: this man. Lincoln Rhyme.
"Judges of hell," he muttered.
The fat officer laughed. "Don'tcha just hate days like this?"
Then the black man pulled Li's wallet out of his pocket. He squeezed the damp leather. "Our li'l skel here been swimming, I de-duce." He opened the wallet and handed it to the Chinese officer.
The fat man pulled out a radio and spoke into it. "Mel, Alan, come on back in. We got him."
Two men, probably the ones Li had heard leaving a few moments ago, returned. A balding, slight man ignored Li and walked to a computer, began to type frantically on it. The other was a man in a suit with striking red hair. He blinked in surprise and said, "Wait, that's not the Ghost."
"His missing assistant then," Rhyme said. "His bangshou."
"No," the red-haired man said. "I know him. I've seen him before."
Li realized that there was something familiar about this man too.
"Seen him?" the black officer asked.
"Some of us from INS were at a meeting last year in the Fuzhou public security bureau--about human smuggling. He was there. He was one of them."
"One of who?" the fat officer grumbled.
The Chinese officer gave a laugh and held up an ID card from Li's wallet, comparing Li's picture with his face. "One of us," he said. "He's a cop."
*
Rhyme too examined the card and the driver's license, both of which had pictures of the man. They gave his name as Li Kangmei, a detective with the Liu Guoyuan Public Security Bureau.
The criminalist said to Dellray, "See if any of our people in China can confirm it." A tiny cell phone appeared in the agent's large hand. And he started punching keys.
Looking over the diminutive man, Rhyme asked, " 'Li' is your first or last name?"
"Last. And I not like 'Kangmei,' " he explained. "I use Sonny. Western name."
"What're you doing here?" Rhyme asked.
"Ghost, he kill three people in my town last year. He had meeting, I'm saying. Had meeting with little snakehead in restaurant. You know what is little snakehead?"
Rhyme nodded. "Go on."
"The little snakehead cheating him. Big fight. Ghost kill him but woman and her daughter also killed and old man sitting on bench. Got in way and Ghost just kill them to escape, I'm saying."
"Bystanders?"
Li nodded. "We try to arrest him but he has very powerful . . . " He sought for a word. Finally he turned to Eddie Deng and said, "Guanxi."
"That means connections," Deng explained. "You pay off the right people and you get good guanxi."
Li nodded. "No one willing testify against him. Then evidence in shooting disappear from headquarters office. My boss lose interest. Case got collectivized."
"Collectivized?" Sellitto asked.
Li smiled grimly. "When something ruined, we say it got collectivized. In old days, Mao's day, when government turn business or farm into commune or collective, it fail pretty fuck fast."
"But," Rhyme offered, "the case wasn't collectivized to you."
"No," Li said, his eyes hard ebony disks. "He kill people in my town. I want make sure he come to trial."
Dellray asked, "How'dja get on the ship?"
"I have lots informants in Fuzhou. Last month I find out Ghost kill two people in Taiwan, big guys, important guys, and was leaving from China for month until Taiwan NSB stop looking for him. He going to south of France then taking immigrants from Vyborg in Russia to New York on Fuzhou Dragon."
Rhyme laughed. This small, scruffy man's information had been better than the FBI's and Interpol's combined.
"So," Li continued, "I go undercover. Become piglet--immigrant."
Sellitto asked, "You find out anything about the Ghost? Where he stays here? Associates of his?"
"No, nobody talk to me much. Got on deck when crew not looking--mostly for puking." He shook his head, apparently at the unpleasant memory of the voyage. "But not get close to Ghost."
Coe said, "But what were you going to do? We wouldn't extradite him to China."
Perplexed, Li said, "Why I want him extradited? You not listen. Guanxi, I'm saying. In China they let him go. I going to arrest him when we land. Then give him your public security bureau."
Coe laughed. "You're serious, aren't you."
"Yes. I was going to do."
"He had his bangshou with him, the crew of the ship. Little snakeheads to meet and greet here. They would've killed you."
"Risky, you saying? Sure, sure. But that our job, right? Always risk." He reached for the cigarettes Dellray had relieved him of.
Thom said, "No smoking here."
"What you mean?"
"No smoking."
"Why not?"
"Because you can't," the aide said firmly.
"That craziest thing. You not make joke?"
"No."
"Subway stupid enough. But this is house, I'm saying."
"Yes, a house where you can't smoke."
"Very fuck," Li said. He grudgingly put the pack away.
A faint beeping from across the room. Mel Cooper turned to his computer. He read for a moment and then spun the screen around so that everybody could look. The FBI's Singapore office had sent an email confirmation that Li Kangmei was indeed a detective in the Liu Guoyuan Public Security Bureau of the People's Republic of China. He was presently listed as being on undercover assignment but his office would say no more about it. A picture of Li in a navy-blue uniform accompanied the message. It was clearly the man in the room before them.
Li then explained how the Ghost had scuttled the Dragon. Sam Chang and Wu Qichen and their families, along with Dr. Sung, several other immigrants and the baby of a woman on board the ship got away in a life raft. Everyone else drowned. "Sam Chang--he become leader on raft. Good man, smart. Save my life. Pick me up when Ghost shooting people. Wu was father of second family. Wu smart too but not balanced. Liver-spleen disharmony."
Deng saw Rhyme's frown and said, "Chinese medicine. Hard to explain."
Li continued, "Wu too emotion, I'm saying. Does impulse things."
Even the FBI's crack behavioral profiling was out of Rhyme's comfort zone, being the physical scientist that he was; he had no time whatsoever for disharmonious spleens. "Let's stick with facts," he said.
Li then told them how the raft hit the rocks and he, Sung and the others were washed overboard. They were swept down the shoreline. By the time Li made it back to where the raft had beached, the Ghost had killed two of the immigrants. "I hurry to arrest him but by time I get there, he gone. I hide in bushes on other side of road. I saw woman with red hair rescue one man."
"John Sung," Rhyme said.
"Dr. Sung." Li nodded. "Sat next to me on raft. He okay?"
"The Ghost shot him but he'll be all right. Amelia--the woman you saw--is interviewing him now."
"Hongse, I call her. Hey, pretty girl. Sexy, I'm saying."
Sellitto and Rhyme shared a humorous glance. Rhyme was picturing the consequences if Li had said that to Sachs's face.
Li pointed around the town house. "I get address from her car and come here, thinking maybe I get stuff that lead me to Ghost. Information, I'm saying. Evidence."
"Steal it?" Coe asked.
"Yes, sure," he said unabashedly.
"Why'd you do that, you little skel?" Dellray asked menacingly, using a popular cop word, short for "skeleton," meaning basically: worthless little snitch.
"Have to get it for myself. Because, hey, you not let me help you, right? You just send me back. And I going to arrest him. 'Collar,' right? You say 'collar.' "
Coe said, "Well, you're right--you're not helping us. You may be a cop in China. But here you're just one more fucking undocumented. You are going back."
Eyes flashing angrily, Sonny Li stepped close to Coe, who towered over the small man.
Sellitto sighed and tugged Li back by the shirt. "Naw, none of that shit."
Amused at the man's bravado, Coe reached for his cuffs. "Li, you're under arrest for entering the United States--"
But Lincoln Rhyme said, "No, I want him."
"What?" the agent asked in shock.
"He'll be a consultant. Like me."
"Impossible."
"Anybody who goes to this much trouble to nail a perp--I want him working on our side."
"You bet I help, Loaban. Do lots, I'm saying."
"What'd you call me?"
Li explained to Rhyme, " 'Loaban.' It mean 'boss.' You got keep me. I can help. I know how Ghost think. We from same world, him and me. I in gang when I boy, like him. And spent lots time as undercover officer, working docks in Fuzhou."
"No way," Coe blurted. "For Christ's sake, he's an undocumented. As soon as we turn our back he'll just run off, get drunk and go to a gambling parlor."
Rhyme wondered if a kung fu match was about to break out. But this time Li ignored Coe and spoke in a reasonable voice. "In my country we got four classes people. Not like rich and poor, stuff like you got here. In China what you do more important than money you got. And know what highest honor is? Working for country, working for people. That what I do and I one fuck good cop, I'm saying."
"They're all on the take over there," Coe muttered.
"I not on take, okay?" Li then grinned. "Not on important case like this."
Coe said, "And how do we know he's not really on the Ghost's payroll."
Li laughed. "Hey, how we know you not working for him?"
"Fuck you," Coe said. He was furious.
The young INS agent's problem, Rhyme assessed, was that he was too emotional to be an effective law enforcer. The criminalist often heard contempt in his voice when he spoke about the "undocumenteds." He seemed affronted that they would break federal law to sneak into this country and had suggested several times that immigrants were motivated essentially by greed to come here, not by a love of freedom or democracy.
Apart from his derisive attitude toward the aliens, however, he had a troubling personal stake in collaring the Ghost. Several years ago Coe had been stationed in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, running undercover agents in mainland China, trying to identify major snakeheads. During an investigation of the Ghost, one of his informants, a woman, had disappeared and presumably been killed. Later it was learned that the woman had two young children but had so desperately needed money that she was willing to snitch on the Ghost--the INS never would have used her as an informant if they'd known that she had children. Coe was reprimanded--suspended for six months. He'd become obsessed with collaring the Ghost.
But to be a good cop you've got to tuck those personal feelings away. Detachment is absolutely necessary. This was a variation on Rhyme's rule about giving up the dead.
Dellray said, "Listen up. Ain't in the mood t'put you kiddies in a time-out corner so juss settle down. Li stays with us for's long as Lincoln wants him. Make it happen, Coe. Call somebody at the State Department and get him a temporary visa. We all together on that?"
Coe muttered, "No, I'm not all together on that. You can't have one of them on a task force."
" 'Them'?" Dellray asked, pivoting on a very long foot. "Who exactly might 'them' be?"
"Undocumenteds."
The tall agent clicked his tongue. "Now, you know, Coe, that word's kinda like marbles in a blender to me. Doesn't sound respectful. Doesn't sound nice. Specially the way you say it."
"Well, as you folks from the bureau've made clear all along, this isn't really an INS case. Keep him if you want. But I'm not taking any heat for it."
"You make good decision," Sonny Li said to Rhyme. "I help lo
ts, Loaban." Li walked over to the table and picked up the gun he'd been carrying.
"Nup, nup, nup," Dellray said. "Get your hands offa that."
"Hey, I a cop. Like you."
"No, you ain't a cop like me or any-single-solitary soul else here. No guns."
"Okay, okay. Keep gun for now, Heise."
"What's that?" Dellray snapped. "Heise?"
"Means black. Hey, hey, don't get offense. Nothing bad, nothing bad."
"Well, can it."
"Sure, I can it. Sure."
"Welcome on board, Sonny," Rhyme said. Then glanced at the clock. It was just noon. Six hours had passed since the Ghost began his relentless pursuit of the immigrants. He could be closing in on the poor families even now. "Okay, let's start on the evidence."
"Sure, sure," Li said, suddenly distracted. "But I need cigarette first. Come on, Loaban. You let me?"
"All right," Rhyme snapped. "But outside. And for Christ's sake, somebody go with him."
Chapter Fourteen
Wu Qichen wiped the sweat off his wife's forehead.
Shivering, burning with fever, soaking with sweat, she lay on a mattress in the bedroom of their tiny apartment.
The basement rooms were down an alley off Canal Street in the heart of Chinatown. They'd been provided by the broker that Jimmy Mah had sent them to--a robber, Wu had thought angrily. The rent was ridiculous, as was the fee the slimy man had demanded. The apartment stank, the place was virtually unfurnished and roaches roamed the floor boldly--even now, in the diffuse noon light bleeding in through the greasy windows.
He studied his wife with concern. The raging headache Yong-Ping had suffered on board the Dragon, the lethargy, the chills and sweats, which he'd believed were seasickness, had persisted even after they'd landed. She was afflicted with something else.
His wife opened her fever-glazed eyes. "If I die . . . " she whispered.
"You won't die," her husband said.
But Wu wasn't sure that he believed his own words. He remembered Dr. John Sung in the hold of the Dragon and wished he'd asked the man's opinion on his wife's condition; the doctor had treated several of the immigrants for various maladies but Wu had been afraid that he'd charge him money to examine Yong-Ping.
"Sleep," Wu said sternly. "You need rest. You'll be fine if you rest. Why won't you do that?"
"If I die you must find a woman. Someone to take care of the children."
"You won't die."
"Where is my son?" Yong-Ping asked.
"Lang is in the living room."
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