Ghost Dancer

by John Case

  Da Rosa grimaced. “Yes, of course—Big Ping! Has a shop on the Rue de Gaulle. Wear Kevlar.”

  Wilson laughed. “That bad?”

  Da Rosa shook his head. Drained his drink, and rattled the ice. “No, he’s okay. But you don’t go to Big Ping for a couple of diamonds. He’s more of a wholesaler.”

  “I thought they were all wholesalers,” Wilson said.

  “Well, they are. Only Ping, he’s dealing directly with the militias, so he’s comfortable with big loads.”

  “Sounds dangerous.”

  “Not for him.”

  “Why not?” Wilson asked.

  “Because he’s a triad,” da Rosa told him. “Sun Yee On.”

  Wilson frowned. “Which is what?”

  Da Rosa pursed his lips. “Fifty thousand gangsters, working as a team. Like Wal-Mart, but with guns.”

  Wilson went looking for Big Ping’s shop the next morning, following a crudely drawn map that the hotel’s manager had given him. Even with the map, it wasn’t easy. Most of the streets were unmarked, and the buildings were unnumbered. He could have asked someone on the street, How do I get to Big Ping’s? But if da Rosa was right, that would be like asking the way to Al Capone’s.

  So they walked. And walked some more.

  Zero and Khalid did their best to look mean. That was what they did—that was their whole thing—and they glowered with the best of them. But Wilson could tell they were scared. There were lots of AKs on the street, and everywhere you looked, there were people with handguns in the backs of their jeans. Walking a step behind Wilson, Khalid grumbled, “I thought we’d be in Europe now. Hakim said—”

  “I thought so, too,” Wilson lied. “But there’s special business.”

  Khalid was silent for a while, peering at the signage, and eyeing a gang of nine-year-olds that trailed behind them. “Hakim never said anything about ‘special business.’”

  Wilson glanced over his shoulder. “That’s why it’s special.”

  Suddenly, Zero let out a bark, and pointed to a sheet-metal sign hanging above a heavily carved wooden door at the end of a narrow alley.

  777 EX-IM 777

  PING LI ON, PROP.

  An Asian man sat on a stool beside the door, a shotgun resting across his knees. The moment Wilson entered the alley, the man got to his feet and waved his forefinger from side to side. Wilson hesitated, and then he understood. He turned to Zero and Khalid. “Wait here.”

  Big Ping’s office was cool and dimly lighted, with a couple of small glass cases holding a modest display of cut and uncut diamonds. Overhead, a bank of fluorescent lights buzzed noisily, while a table fan turned left and right atop a painted Chinese chest. A heavily carved ivory screen stood by itself in the far corner of the room.

  An elderly Chinaman waited behind one of the counters, his face blank. Nearby, a handsome young Asian in a white linen suit sat on a folding chair with his elbows on his thighs, flipping through a tattered copy of Hustler.

  Wilson looked into the old man’s watery eyes. “Mr. Ping?”

  The old man’s face twisted into a frown. “No Ping!” He hesitated for a long moment. Eventually, a smile flickered under a tangle of nostril hairs. “You want buy diamond?”

  Wilson shook his head.

  The smile vanished as the old man snorted in contempt. “So! You sell diamond!”

  Wilson gave him an incredulous look. “That’s amazing! You should be a private eye.”

  The old man wasn’t laughing, but the guy in the white linen suit cracked a smile. Dropping the magazine, he got to his feet. “I’m Ping.”

  Wilson turned to him. Offered his hand. “Frank d’Anconia.”

  “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. You’re the one who set the kid on fire…” With a gesture of his hand, he led Wilson behind the ivory screen, where a massive iron door was bolted into the wall. Beside the door was a nickel plate with the outline of a hand engraved on its surface. Ping pressed his own hand into the engraving. A diode flared, and the door sprung open on its hinges. “In here…”

  The doorway led to a windowless room—a vault, of sorts, where the air was heavy with cigarette smoke. Two men sat at a heavy wooden table that was covered in green baize. The men were drinking tea.

  One of them looked like an oversized Buddha with beige teeth. The other man was da Rosa, who glanced over his shoulder with a laugh and said, “What took you so long?”

  Wilson frowned. He didn’t like being played.

  The fat man chuckled, and lighted a foul-smelling Gitane. As a gesture of goodwill, he made an effort at English: “Good night!”

  Da Rosa laughed. “I see you’ve met Little Ping.”

  Wilson glanced at the young man in the white suit.

  The young man smiled. “My father’s English isn’t very good. But, please, have a seat.” He gestured to a chair. Wilson took it.

  The fat man—Big Ping—leaned forward: “American?”

  Wilson nodded.

  “We don’t see a lot of Americans here,” da Rosa said. “You’re like a celebrity.”

  Big Ping’s eyes widened. His great head nodded, as if to confirm some astonishing insight. “You CIA?!”

  Wilson shook his head. “No.”

  Big Ping looked disappointed. Said something to his son in Chinese.

  Little Ping translated. “He says, if you’re CIA, we could do some good business.”

  “I’ll bet we could. Only…I’m not.”

  “Too bad. You want some tea?” Little Ping asked.

  Wilson shook his head.

  Big Ping’s brows collapsed into a chevron. Leaning toward Wilson, he demanded, “Qui vous-êtes? Que voulez-vous?”

  Wilson turned to Little Ping. “Tell your father that I don’t speak French.”

  Little Ping shrugged. “He wants to know who you are, what you want.”

  Wilson sat back in his chair. Then he glanced from Big Ping to da Rosa, and back again. The silence began to peal. Somewhere in the room, a clock ticked.

  Finally, Big Ping smiled, as if he’d just had another realization. With a look of great contentment, he placed his hands palms-down, fingers spread, on the baize-covered table. Little Ping remained where he was, hands crossed in front of his crotch.

  It took Wilson a moment, and then he saw it. All three of them had the same tattoo: a triangle of little blue dots between the thumb and forefinger. Wilson glanced at da Rosa.

  The mercenary smiled. “I was born in Macau.”

  Big Ping nodded.

  Little Ping said, “Mr. da Rosa’s a good friend. We don’t have secrets from him.”

  Wilson thought about it some more, and decided he didn’t have much choice. With a sigh, he said, “Okay, I’ve got a couple of diamonds to sell. Quite a few, actually.”

  To Wilson’s surprise, da Rosa said something in Chinese. Big Ping replied, and da Rosa laughed. Turning to Wilson, he said, “He says he doesn’t see any diamonds. He wants to know if you’ve stuck them up your ass.”

  Wilson acknowledged the bon mot with a weak grimace. “No,” he said. “I decided to use the bank. It seemed more professional, somehow.”

  Little Ping laughed as da Rosa translated.

  Wilson complimented him. “You speak Chinese. I’m impressed!”

  Da Rosa shook his head. “It’s not Chinese. It’s Fuzhou.”

  When da Rosa failed to elaborate, Wilson turned to Little Ping.

  “My family’s from Fujian,” the younger Ping explained, “so the Fuzhou dialect comes naturally. Most Chinese don’t understand it, so it’s like talking in code. Good for business.”

  Big Ping looked uncomprehendingly from Wilson to da Rosa to his son. Then he stubbed his cigarette out, and cut loose with a burst of incomprehensible lingo.

  Little Ping nodded, and turned to Wilson. “My father says you should go to the bank, and bring the diamonds here, so he can evaluate them. He’s a good appraiser, and he’ll give you an e
xcellent price.”

  Wilson dismissed the idea with a bored nod. “Right! But you know what? I don’t think we’ll do that. Because it occurs to me that maybe—just maybe—something might go wrong, and, well, I could be robbed. So we’ll do something else. But before we do anything, there’s a couple of things I need to know.”

  Little Ping translated for his father. Finally, he said, “Yes?”

  “If we agree that four million dollars is a fair price, can you handle it?”

  Suddenly, Big Ping gave up the pretense of not speaking English. With a wave of his hand, he interrupted his son’s translation, and said, “Of course.”

  Wilson turned to him. “Good. And if we do business, you can wire the money to my bank?”

  “Oui,” Big Ping replied. “If everything is in order, we can make the transfer through the HongShang Bank.”

  “Great! So we’ll do it like this: We’ll go to the Banque Zaïroise, and take a look at the diamonds. They have a private room available for box holders, and you can bring any equipment you need.”

  “Then what?” Big Ping asked.

  “If we’re in agreement, you ask your bank to make the wire transfer to my bank. Not the one in Bunia, but a British bank. Isle of Man. I’ll wait with you until my bank confirms the funds are in the right account. Then we’ll go to the Banque Zaïroise a second time. I’ll give you the diamonds, and…bye-bye.”

  “Bye-bye,” Big Ping repeated.

  “And there’s one other thing,” Wilson said.

  “There’s always ‘one other thing,’” da Rosa observed.

  “I’ve got two friends outside…” Wilson told them. Big Ping raised his eyebrows in a way that was meant to be a question. “I want to make sure they’re taken care of.”

  Big Ping cocked his head, and frowned. Little Ping looked bewildered. After a moment, he said, “I think it’s better—you pay your own people.”

  Wilson shook his head. “That’s not what I mean,” he said. “What I mean is, I want you to take care of them. Can you do that?”

  Silence. Da Rosa looked puzzled. Big Ping stroked his chin. After a moment, he turned to da Rosa with a grin and said, “Flyswattah! He means: flyswattah!”

  It went down exactly as Wilson expected.

  In the morning, he went to the bank with the Pings, who brought along a kit with a felt cloth, a small microscope, and an array of loupes. The three of them sat at a small iron table in a glorified broom closet for nearly three hours, looking at the diamonds, one by one. Eventually, Big Ping got to his feet, and announced they had a deal. There would be no bargaining. He would pay four million dollars, as Wilson suggested.

  Less a finder’s fee for da Rosa, he added. Plus a second fee for the wire transfer, and a third fee for what he called “the other business.” Wilson agreed with a hurried “Okay, okay!,” sealing the deal before the Chinaman tacked on a value added tax and cab fare.

  In the end, Wilson would receive $3.6 million by wire transfer from Hong Kong to St. Helier.

  He handed the Chinaman a piece of paper with the transfer codes he needed, and promised to meet him at his office the next day. Zero and Khalid would accompany him. In the meantime, it was decided that he would stay in his hotel, where Ping and his friends could keep an eye on him. Once the wire transfer came through, he would accompany Ping to the bank and give him the diamonds.

  That night, Wilson treated the boys to a dinner of elephant steaks, washed down with a bottle of what was alleged to be Dom Pérignon, but which tasted suspiciously like Asti Spumante.

  He told the two of them that he’d spoken to Hakim by satellite phone from Big Ping’s office, and that the old man was delighted with the way things had gone. He had reservations for each of them on a flight from Kampala to Antwerp in two days’ time. Big Ping’s people would take them to Kampala, and Hakim would meet them at the airport in Antwerp. And there was one other thing, Wilson said. He had a surprise.

  Khalid’s eyes widened. “What?” He looked like a kid, coming downstairs to a Christmas tree.

  “You’re getting a bonus,” Wilson told him.

  “A bonus?”

  Wilson nodded. “Ten thousand dollars.” He paused for a second, and added, “Each.”

  Khalid gasped.

  Zero looked from one man to the other, then tugged at his friend’s galabia, demanding that he translate. Khalid spoke softly in Arabic, and a look of ecstasy came over them both. For a moment, Wilson was afraid Zero might burst into tears.

  So he slapped him on the back with a laugh, and basked in his bodyguards’ delight. They were good kids, and it was nice to see them happy.

  Da Rosa sat by himself at a separate table, nursing a gin and tonic. As he watched the celebration unfold in front of him, he shook his head in disbelief. This guy, d’Anconia, was a piece of work.

  Little Ping was notified of the wire transfer by e-mail at eleven a.m. the next morning. Wilson confirmed the transaction in a call to the St. Helier bank twenty minutes later. At noon, he met the Pings at the Banque du Zaïroise du Commerce Extérieur. Together, the three of them went into the bank, leaving their bodyguards outside, warily eyeing one another. It was, Wilson reflected, quite a crowd. Zero and Khalid on one side, and on the Pings’ behalf, their counterparts: four young gunmen in T-shirts and sunglasses, none of whom was old enough to drink in California.

  Inside the bank, the older Ping examined the diamonds for a second time. When he’d confirmed that this was the same batch that he’d seen the day before, he moved the diamonds, head and all, to a second safe-deposit box—one that he’d rented for the purpose. With a satisfied look, he shook Wilson’s hand. “That’s that,” he said.

  Wilson cocked his head. “Except for that other thing…”

  Big Ping nodded. “Of course,” he said, and beckoned Wilson to follow him. “We take care of that now.” Together, they walked back to the Chinaman’s office.

  Wilson didn’t know what to expect. He had very mixed feelings about what was going to happen. He liked the boys, he really did. But their loyalties were to Hakim, not to him, so they were a danger to him now. Hakim’s associates would soon come looking for their money, and when they did, it would be a whole lot safer for Wilson if Zero and Khalid weren’t around to help them.

  Which was too bad. Terrible, really, but that’s the way it was. Great men did terrible things. How else were they to accomplish their dreams? That was the tragedy of the world-historical man. He sacrificed his humanity to the greatness of his vision and, in doing so, condemned himself to a kind of solitary confinement, sealed off from the rest of the human race by the impenetrable barrier of his own greatness.

  You don’t blame a lion for killing a gazelle. It’s what the lion does.

  When they arrived at the door to the office, Little Ping took Wilson by the arm, and nodded toward Zero and Khalid. “Tell them to wait here.”

  Khalid heard and understood.

  Little Ping had sodas and chairs brought to them. Zero thanked him effusively, and the boys sat down outside the heavily carved wooden door, just under the sign with the lucky numbers.

  Going up the stairs to the second floor, not knowing what to expect, Wilson stood before a window, watching the alley with Little Ping. Soon, Big Ping huffed up the stairs, talking quietly on a cell phone.

  Zero and Khalid were talking and laughing when a dusty pickup truck with improvised armor appeared at the end of the alley. Zero got to his feet, shooing the truck with his hand. The driver ignored the gesture, and began to back into the alley, ever so slowly. As he did, the truck began to emit a slow beep, warning people out of the way. Beep beep beep.

  Khalid jumped to his feet with a shout, yelling angrily at the driver to get out of the alley. Beep beep—Khalid fired a warning shot into the air. And then the truck accelerated.

  There was nowhere for them to go. The truck was almost as wide as the alley. In a panic, the boys fumbled with their guns, finally getting off a burst of shots, as the
y staggered backward into the concrete wall of Big Ping’s emporium.

  There was a shriek of panic, and one of them (Wilson thought it was Khalid) screamed “Mr. Frank!” Then the truck slammed into them, cutting Zero in half and mangling Khalid from the hips down.

  The building shook, but Wilson couldn’t take his eyes away. Watching the scene in the alley was like watching an anaconda devour a pony. It was horrible and mesmerizing all at once. The truck rolled slowly forward a couple of feet, its tailgate dripping. Khalid lay writhing on the ground, his right arm thrashing uncontrollably, as the driver shifted into reverse. Beep beep—The truck rolled over them, and the building shivered a second time.

  The warning signal stopped as the truck rolled back the way it had come out, and stopped. The driver’s window rolled down, and da Rosa stuck his head out from behind the steering wheel. Seeing the mess at the end of the alley—his handiwork—he gave the men on the second floor a thumbs-up.

  Big Ping nudged Wilson with his elbow and, grinning, said, “Like…flyswattah!”

  CHAPTER 18

  BERLIN | MARCH 16, 2005

  Just the sight of her irritated Pete Spagnola. Which was not good, since she was his deputy and Spagnola saw her three or four times a day. A Smith graduate, she was arrogant, ambitious, and, though still nominally young, fat enough to seem almost matronly. Even her gender-bending name pissed him off. Madison Logan. It sounded like an airport.

  Because of something powerful and armored in her physique, he had, in a moment of inspiration, dubbed her “Humvee.” The name was so apt that it prompted guilty laughter the one time he’d let it slip. But it had gotten back to her, of course. (That was one of the problems: Everything got back to her.)

  He was himself, by his very nature, a risk taker. That’s what had driven him to join the Central Intelligence Agency—his love of adventure. It was an irony of fate, then, that a guy who might have prospered as a NASCAR driver or a jungle guide had ended up mired in such a stolid bureaucracy. The Agency, once proud of its nimble and bold spies, had long ago adopted a don’t-rock-the-boat mentality so profound that even the collapse of the Soviet Union had gone unremarked upon until after the fact. (To have mentioned it earlier would have encouraged budget cuts.)