by HN Wake
3. Week two: Translator and operative made way via jungle trail toward Bangkok. This is a difficult journey. Trail ends in Songkhala Province, Thailand. Operative heard stories of jungle camps where Rohingya migrants were detained and where torture was frequent. Migrants were denied food and water. Many were forced to beg for money from remaining family in Myanmar. If money was attained, some detainees were released. Estimates of death tolls were in 50% range. Reports of mass graves in jungle above Songkala are prevalent. Those who were unable to secure money, were ‘sold to the fishing boats.” Thai officials—police and military—were complicit, often escorting in official vehicles the trucks transporting migrants.
4.Week three: Translator and operative secured private vessel. Under cover of night, pursued a typical fishing vessel from port expected to be at sea for years. Ship was fitted for the fishing of shrimp. It was later confirmed this ship provides shrimp to a subsidiary of Thai Consolidated Seafood, PLC, namely Lucky Foods. For period of one week undertook touch-and-go surveillance of Lucky Foods ship from a distance. Employed miniature drone coverage where possible. Confirmed 30 Rohingya workers on boat laboring 24 hours a day under unbearable conditions consistent with forced bondage/slavery.
5. Week four: The Lucky Foods ship made headway into Gulf of Thailand and made rendezvous with a larger ship (six stories high.) From a distance, it is clear this ship is over capacity—perhaps hundreds—of what appear to be forced bondage/slaves. Small ships like the one for Lucky Foods come regularly to exchange slaves. It is the opinion of this operative that the smaller fishing ships are replenishing their slave stock. As many as ten bodies are removed from the larger ship every morning. One morning, two young, naked girls with blood on legs jumped off the ship. Both were shot from above from ship’s deck. Bodies were not retrieved.
Determination: this is some type of slave terminal container/cargo at sea.
On fifth day of surveillance, operative identifies a non-fishing, cruise vessel approaching slave container/cargo. Cruise vessel is flying Thai flag and is identified on stern as originating from Bangkok. Three men in clean plainclothes appear to inspect the slave container/cargo.
Operative decides to follow Bangkok cruise vessel when it departs and returns to Bangkok.
6. Week five: Operative tracks three men from cruise vessel into Bangkok proper. Over a period of two days, identifies these men as: CEO Thai Consolidated Seafood, PLC; General Counsel Thai Consolidated Seafood, PLC; 3 Star General, Thai Army
7. Operative requests of HQ that she return to the slave container/cargo ship to document location and abuses. Requests intervention from HQ on behalf of hundreds of slaves on container/cargo terminal.
HQ denies the operative both of these requests.
Operative further requests that she document the direct connection between the Lucky Foods fishing boat, the slave container/cargo terminal and Thai Consolidated Seafood, PLC and supply this information covertly to parties that can intervene.
HQ denies this request.
HQ orders operative back to Hong Kong.
Operation is filed as complete.
— AMBROSE
Herbie pulled out his smart phone. He did an internet search for Thai Consolidated Seafood. It was based in Bangkok. Its latest annual report indicated its revenue at US$4.5 billion. It listed its customers as Walmart, Tesco, Carrefour and Costco.
Odom and Hawkinson had sent her in to confirm Thai Consolidated was involved in slavery then had pulled her off. Mac was willing and able to help those poor fucking slaves but they’d pulled her off. They’d left those poor fucking people on that boat.
Bastards. The both of them. No wonder she wanted to be rid of them.
25
New York, NY
The sky was grey above Times Square and the crowds were already milling past the brightly lit Patriot News lobby. A gust tickled the blond wig, pushing a strand against her dark eyeglasses.
Mac texted 89. “I’m going in.”
89 was waiting for her. “I’m here.”
The thick glass and metal frame of the revolving door was heavy and she had to lean into it, push hard with her arms and kick off the padded black flooring, while she balanced a Styrofoam take-out cup of coffee. Inside, under staggeringly high ceilings, the cold air had chilled the marble tiles. Muffled voices echoed off marble walls. Ahead, three uniforms stood behind a marble reception desk under an enormous painting of a seascape in grays and blues. A private security guard in a blue uniform stood by the revolving door, a doe-eyed black lab lying at his feet.
Mac slowed her pace as she crossed the expanse. Timing her entrance with other staffers, she pretended to rummage through her courier bag for her ID. She picked up her pace behind two chatting woman and slipped in behind them in line at the farthest turnstile. Each woman tapped their ID, waited for two clear bars to swing open, then passed through.
It was Mac’s turn. This was the moment of truth. Had the card been reported stolen?
Holding her coffee high, Mac followed suit and tapped the fake ID lightly on the top of a card reader. The turnstile beeped and a green light flashed. The two bars opened and she stepped through.
Ahead was the deep elevator lobby and a waiting crowd of five people. This was beyond anything the videos had picked up. She was on her own now in new enemy territory.
Both the down and up buttons on the elevator panel were lit. She waited for the downward elevator door to open and stepped in with two other Patriot News staff. As the mirrored doors closed, she pushed against the back wall.
For any operation, you needed to be in either predator or prey mode. Predator mode was used when you were moving in on a single target and highly attuned to one person, focused on their energy, their movements, their twitches. You had to take in their tells and translate their intentions. And you had to predict their actions.
But when you are in the lair of your enemy, you took on the role of prey. All your senses had to be attuned to the environment and the people surrounding you. You had to be prepared for flight if anything went wrong, if anything looked out of the ordinary. It was a highly attuned, but dispersed state of awareness that involved a balance of skill and intuition.
The two other passengers had normal degrees of energy: shoulders drooped, arms hanging lightly, feet still. The young man in front had a cold and was sniffing heavily. The woman carried a brown paper bag loosely. Neither posed a threat.
The elevator had a hint of detergent on stuffy air: there was no draft or the whir of a fan, which meant no escape other than through the mirrored doors.
Mac breathed deeply and quickly for three short breaths, letting her energy congeal and her adrenaline spike.
When the elevator pinged on basement, the doors slid open and the two staffers disappeared into a dark, cavernous space.
Mac stepped out and shuffled a few feet to the side to take in her bearings. The dark space was the size of a parking garage with a highly polished onyx floor. Overhead, a crisscross hatch of metal rods and beams spanned the distance, a skeletal framework for lights, spotlights, cables, rigging. Two darkened studios sat off to the right. One was a news desk in front of city-scapes. The other was a panel setup with six high chairs positioned around a tall, tinted-glass counter. Large neon letters beamed through the darkness, “Your News. Your Way.”
To the left, a brightly lit studio was preparing for a show. Two vivid orange chairs faced each other over a glass coffee table. Behind, a wall was back lit with blues and oranges. Cameramen were positioning cameras on wheeled pods with umbilical cables, long arms, and high feedback screens. On the riser, the host and the guest were getting primped by makeup artists who dusted powder across their faces.
Mac made her way in the darkness past the lit set. Clicks and whirs sounded off in the darkened perimeter. A man and a woman stood to the side chatting. Overhead lights turned on and someone yelled, “2 minutes.” The crew donned headsets.
Mac moved quickly throug
h the shadows toward a black metal door with a laser cut sign that read Control Room 3. She was pressed for time as the ID might get reported stolen and security logs would indicate it had been used. Also, if she entered the control room now, there was the chance the staff would be too busy with the show to notice. She pushed her shoulders back stiffly, felt her shoulder blades tense, breathed in deeply one breath followed by three short gasps. Her left hand reached into her pants pocket and fingered the cherry USB drive like a cigarette. Her right hand squeezed the long, cold handle and pulled open the heavy door.
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she leaned against the back wall. The dark room was dominated by a wall of six floating television screens, each displaying a different image: some were clearly from reporters in the field waiting patiently for their cue, some of the screens displayed feeds of text, and two others showed the studio set. Ten smaller lit screens were spread across three rows of work stations. Staff with headsets pressed buttons and moved computer mice across pads. The back row was empty.
From the far corner she heard someone giving orders. She squinted to make out a manager softly guiding the show. On one of the wall screens the host looked into the camera and delivered a huge smile.
Mac stepped away from the wall.
No one noticed.
She slid out the chair at the closest workstation in the last row. She felt along the left side of the desktop, searching for a USB port. She found it, slipped in the USB. She wriggled her fingers to release the stress then hovered them over the keyboard.
Still, no one noticed.
From the far corner, the manager spoke softly into his mic, “Camera one you’ve got a bad angle. Get the water glass out of the way.”
Her right hand closed around the mouse.
All eyes were on the screens on the front wall as a cameraman in the studio readjusted his view.
Mac hesitated as an image of Joe flashed across her mind. She pulled her hand off the mouse as if burned. In the dark, she blinked at the flashing screens as her hand hovered over the mouse.
Across the room, the manager spoke to someone. “Clean up that lighting on Jane’s face.”
Mac’s heart began pounding against her chest wildly.
The manager’s chin turned sideways as he squinted into the darkness toward the control room door. He had noticed her.
Her hand grasped the mouse and shook it. In front of her, a screen lit up.
The manager spoke loudly. “Who’s that?”
Her fingers flew to the keyboard.
The manager yelled across the room at her. “Who are you?”
All heads moved first to the manager then to her corner.
She looked up. “Just IT. Minor fix here.”
She typed in the password and hit enter.
He barked, “You can’t do that now, we’re live, for fucks sake!”
She pulled her hands away from the keyboard, “Right, I know, I was just checking it out.”
He shook his head violently. “Get the hell out of here. Now.”
She propelled her chair back and rocketed up, hands held up in front of her chest in submission. “So sorry! Just trying to get it fixed! So sorry!”
He inspected her. “You’re not IT. Who the fuck are you?”
She shuffled toward the door. “Sorry, sorry, bad timing.” She drove backwards through the door, light glaring into the control room.
The manager yelled, “Call security. Someone call security!”
26
New York, NY
When the subway pulled into the 42nd Street station, Otis Reddenbacker stepped out and lumbered down the platform toward an exit. Up on the street he set off across 43rd. He paused at the corner next to an NYPD local sub station and swept his gaze left down 43rd and then up over the Navy Recruitment Building and across Broadway’s pedestrian triangle. Cars rushed southbound on 7th Avenue, horns honking.
Keeping a twenty-foot distance between them, Ernest followed behind. A mother pushed a stroller past and a fat, cherubic baby gave him a surprised stare. So vulnerable. So innocent. He pulled out his cellphone and called Castle. “Target’s back in Times Square.”
“Keep on him,” Castle said. “If he does anything suspicious, bring him in. It’ll justify a warrant.”
Reddenbacker pushed off tired feet, crossed 43rd and carried along the pedestrian mall northbound. Ernest fell in line behind. A blind man led by an assistance dog passed. If something happened here, this man would be completely vulnerable.
When Reddenbacker reached 45th Street, he took a slight angle into the pedestrian Fence Island, heading north. Following him, Ernest crossed over a street grate and heard the faint hum from the art installation of a famous German artist. He wondered if Reddenbacker had even noticed it.
Reddenbacker took a position in the center of the top triangle of the bow tie—Daffy Square—and started fishing around in his camera bag. Ernest paused ten feet away.
Reddenbacker’s hand returned with a large camera. He clicked on a foot-long telephoto lens, aimed it at the jumbotron, and took a few snaps. He corrected something on the camera but he struggled, as if he was still learning the equipment. Two patrol officers crossed into Times Square, in line with the old man’s vision and Reddenbacker dropped his hand, holding the camera casually against his side. The two cops strolled the perimeter, their path leading them near Reddenbacker. The old man pulled out his cell phone and began talking, faking a call for the police officers.
A crowd of people surged through the square and Ernest had to reposition himself. Reddenbacker had resumed taking photographs, adjusting apertures, and checking the photos in the display screen. The scene tweaked his memory. This was the same corner from the photos in Reddenbacker’s desk. Outside Patriot News.
Ernest rang Castle. “He’s taking photos again. Up and down Times Square.”
“What’s your gut say?”
“He’s at the same location. Exactly. It’s clearly an ongoing job.
“Bring him in.”
“I’ll need patrol back up. Daffy Square. Tell them to come down 7th. Code 1 expedited.” Code 1 meant lights and sirens off. “Northeast corner of 7th and 46th.”
“Roger.”
Reddenbacker moved through the crowds toward the risers. He lifted his camera and started shooting down 47th street.
A squad car appeared above 47th, coming down 7th Avenue, moving fast. Ernest approached Reddenbacker from the back, pulling out a plastic tie, and stepped forward, placed one hand around Reddenbacker’s wrist that was holding the camera and leaned in. “FBI. I need you to slowly lower your hand.”
“I’m just taking photos here,” Reddenbacker insisted in a deep country Southern accent as he lowered his hand.
Ernest said, “I’m taking your bag off your shoulder.” He slid the new camera bag off the older man’s shoulder, hung it on his own. “Now hand me your camera.”
Reddenbacker slowly handed over his camera. Ernest shoved the camera down in the bag, pulled Reddenbacker’s hands close and secured them with the tie.
He turned Reddenbacker around, flashed him his ID.
Reddenbacker gave him the once over with a slow disparaging look. Ernest knew that look—it was at once superior and derogatory. It held the weight of the civil war.
As Ernest dictated the Miranda rights, Reddenbacker exhaled loudly and grumbled, “Jesus Christ Almighty. I’m just taking photos here. Are we still in America?”
Across the plaza, at the corner of 46th, the police cruiser had parked and one of the officers—a young black guy--was scanning Times Square.
“Maybe ya’ll should concentrate on terrorists or something?” Reddenbacker protested. “Not waste the time of a retired cop minding his own beeswax.”
Ernest already had an answer to that. “I saw you here earlier. Doing the same thing. This is suspicious activity. ”
From across the plaza, the black officer recognized Ernest as the agent securing a perp, and jogged over
.
Reddenbacker’s eyes were hard, black beads. “Got it out for white boys, do you, son?”
Ernest let the officer take over, “Take him down to FBI HQ. I’ll be there in an hour.”
Reddenbacker mumbled, “God damn United States. Lord help us good folks.”
Ernest knew what he meant by good folks: he meant white folks. He felt the shame bristle through him, heard the football coaches whisper in his ear.
27
New York, NY
The heavy metal door to Control Room 3 released her from the dark and she stumbled backwards into the cavernous space. She blinked as the lights seared her irises.
Behind her, the manager was yelling, “Security! Call security!”
The heavy door slammed as she careened past the lit studio and around the perimeter. On set, the interview continued. Hopefully the control room staff would stay inside
She raced toward the elevators in the dark, silence closing in. A waiting elevator shone as a beacon twenty yards out. Her feet landed on the hard cement floor with loud slaps as she sprinted toward the light. Her courier bag slapped against her thigh and her arms sawed through the air. Blond hair bounced on her shoulders.
The elevator was three yards out. She leaned forward, urging herself faster.
She cornered into the elevator and smashed the button for L. As the doors closed, she heard feet racing toward her.
She pressed her hands high on the mirror doors and leaned down, taking in three lungfuls of air to expand her lungs. She still had to make it out the lobby. As she stood she pulled the wig back to center.