The White Tigress

by Todd Merer

  OTHER TITLES BY TODD MERER

  The Extraditionist

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Todd Merer

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503954298

  ISBN-10: 1503954293

  Cover design by Jae Song

  FOR ELLA AND JOE

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  A PREDICATE ACT

  BENN

  PART ONE: THE COCONSPIRATORS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  PART TWO: THE CONSPIRACY

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  PART THREE: 2006

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  PART FOUR: OVERT ACTS IN FURTHERANCE OF THE CONSPIRACY

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  PART FIVE: TRIAL

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  PART SIX: THE VERDICT

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  PART SEVEN: POSTTRIAL

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  PART EIGHT: ANAWANDA

  CHAPTER 71

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

  Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;

  But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

  When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they came from the ends of the earth.

  —Rudyard Kipling, “The Ballad of East and West”

  There was a little girl,

  Who had a little curl,

  Right in the middle of her forehead.

  When she was good,

  She was very good indeed,

  But when she was bad she was horrid.

  —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  A PREDICATE ACT

  A felonious act ordered by criminal conspirators rendering them equally culpable as those who committed said act.

  —Title X, Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 (also known as RICO)

  The man with the scoped rifle who lay sprawled on the jungled mountainside had not been schooled in distance shooting, although he possessed the same abilities as a trained, battle-hardened sniper. He had an almost preternatural aptitude to will his heartbeat to slow, muscles to relax, mind to clear. He was blessed with perfect vision and uncanny sensory awareness. Instinctively, he could measure distance, angle of descent, effect of wind. He’d honed his skills not with a rifle but with a bow; in a millisecond, he could notch a feathered arrow and launch it into the green canopy, bolting the heart of a monkey a hundred feet above.

  He wasn’t hunting monkeys now.

  His dark clothing rendered him nearly invisible on the densely matted forest floor. Only a portion of his face was visible, where he squinted through the scope. His jet hair was long and straight. His skin was coppery, and in profile he looked to be the twin of the Indian on a Buffalo nickel. His name among his Logui people translated as Older Brother of Those Who Know More.

  He’d chosen his position carefully. A few feet ahead of him, the vegetation opened, providing a view from above of a white-sand beach and gentle turquoise sea. Half a mile offshore, a cargo ship was anchored. It had no markings, but a red flag fluttered atop its bridge. The sniper knew what the flag represented, but for now at least, his attention was focused on a Zodiac, its white wake trailing from the ship as its upraised snout pointed toward the beach.

  Still another minute, he thought, shifting his attention to a dozen-odd men on the beach. They wore green fatigues and were heavily armed. Even from a distance, he could see the yellow, blue, and red of their shoulder patches. The soldiers were from a Colombian Special Forces unit he knew all too well, a detachment his people thought were the worst of Those Who Know Less. For a moment, his attention drifted: a scenario in which he dropped them one by one. It would be so simple—

  He put away the thought and refocused on the Zodiac. He could hear it now, buzzing like an angry wasp. The prow lowered as it slowed and rode up on the sand. Three men rode in it, two in white sailor clothing. The third wore a dun-colored uniform with no insignia but for a red star on the front of his cap. The sniper adjusted his body so the rifle rested securely atop a bone bridge, its stock against his cheek, his eye on the scope. The sailors remained on the Zodiac as the third man stepped onto the beach.

  His face was now in the sniper’s crosshairs. He was Chinese.

  The sniper fired. A startled bird crossed the sniper’s sight line. When it was gone, he saw the Chinese lying facedown, a pool of red spreading in the white sand.

  The sniper stood and ran up the mountain, leaping fallen trees and entangled roots like the avatar he was: The Older Brother of Those Who Know More.

  BENN

  I was living on the cheap, and the leftovers from last night’s Chinese takeout were this morning’s breakfast. Meh. At the bottom of the bag was a Chinese fortune cookie plagiarizing Lewis Carroll:

  If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.

  Bull. Not only was the cookie stale, its tidings were false.

  Okay, so I had no idea of my precise destination, but I was certain my path led down some rabbit hole to the criminal underworld.

  The theme of my life as Benn T. Bluestone, Esq.: a troubling wont that led to trouble.

  My suspension had lifted, and once again I was an attorney in good standing of the Bar of the State of New York. On the record, I’d been suspended due to unethical conduct—off the record, because I had been o
n the verge of being indicted federally. My former clientele were in the wind as soon as my predicament hit the grapevine, reason being everyone assumes a lawyer will flip. Anyway, I wasn’t indicted and didn’t cooperate—well, not technically—but once the word rat hit the street, I became a pariah.

  I knew who’d outed me.

  Richard. The mystery man who’d spearheaded my prosecution but was like no lawyer I’d ever known. Sure, he played hardball SDNY-style—Southern District of New York—but he was too rough to be a federal prosecutor. And too smooth to be an agent with the DEA or FBI or any of the other dozens of federal acronyms that can jail one’s ass. Richard was the proverbial man in the middle. Best I could figure, the CIA or one of its dozen nameless tentacles ran interference for him . . .

  But Richard was history. My problem was here and now. Like, a total lack of business? The irony. A year ago, I was a prince of the White Powder Bar, a solo operator who called himself an “extraditionist,” leading jailed narcotrafficking cartel bosses down the yellow-brick road of cooperation. Then I got greedy and got too close to the wrong kind of people, in addition to which—mistake of all mistakes—I followed my dick into the wild blue yonder. Like Icarus, my wings melted, and I became the man who fell to Earth. Hard. I solemnly swore if I were ever blessed with a second chance, I’d not screw up.

  Then I got so blessed.

  PART ONE:

  THE COCONSPIRATORS

  CHAPTER 1

  I had no work, but I put on my lawyer suit. After Richard had forfeited all my assets, I was left with nothing left worth stealing, but I still double-locked my pad when I left. Force of habit, but being a veritable Paranoid Floyd is how I’ve survived.

  So far.

  I caught a downtown express, got off at Chambers Street, and entered the zone. Ever since September 11, 2001, there’s been a heavily guarded no-vehicle zone in downtown Manhattan that encloses certain federal buildings, the courthouses, and the MCC—the Metropolitan Correctional Center. I crossed Police Plaza and went down the alley between the old federal courthouse, the MCC, and the US Attorney’s office, using the enclosed walkways that connected them. The rat mazes of justice. Nowadays everyone was a rat.

  I entered the new federal courthouse at 500 Pearl, went up a floor and down a marbled hallway to the office of the clerk, where I picked up a CJA—Criminal Justice Act—application form. I dreaded the thought of being a court-appointed lawyer for the indigent for a hundred-odd bucks an hour, but I needed the pittance to keep me in mac and cheese.

  When I left 500 Pearl, there was a line outside the entrance to the MCC. I spotted half a dozen upper-echelon drug lawyers cupping phones surreptitiously. I guessed a big bust had gone down, and a new platoon of clients-in-waiting had just checked in to the jail. A year ago, I’d have been first in line.

  But today and forever after, I wouldn’t be repping drug dealers.

  See, I’d relapsed into the original reasons I’d become a lawyer.

  Standing tall for the very few who were actually innocent, and equally for the guilty entitled to legal representation. That’s how I’d started my career a lifetime ago before discovering the wonderland of riches enjoyed by lawyers who repped major narcotics traffickers. Man, I slid into that gig like it was a $5,000 custom-made suit.

  But sayonara to all that. It was fun while it lasted. But not funny the way it ended. Now I was just another mouthpiece striving for a buck or three, as long as it didn’t come from a drugster.

  Not much money in it, but I’d be recompensed in other, better ways. Like, sleeping well. Like, emptying a phial into a toilet and watching a hundred little blue valiums swirl down the flush. No regrets.

  Benn Bluestone, ex-extraditionist, recovering moralist.

  Anyway, because I didn’t have anywhere to go or anything to do, I took lunch at Forlini’s on Baxter Street behind the criminal courthouse, a joint leftover from the days when the area had been part of Little Italy. Now it’s an oasis in ever-expanding Chinatown. As usual, the place was packed with judges and lawyers and cops, and for sure some robbers. I got a few handshakes and a bunch of nods. I was letting the world know Benn Bluestone was back in town.

  After lunch, the place cleared out, but I dawdled over an espresso, considering the CJA form, thinking that I really didn’t want to be a CJA lawyer . . . when I took note of a news station on the TV above the bar. The footage was video taken from a plane above a sea where rescue vessels aimlessly circled patches of still-burning oil. An off-camera newscaster said something that sent a shiver down my spine and left me on the edge of my seat.

  “One vessel was a large factory ship. The others, its satellite trawlers working the rich fishing grounds of the Chukchi Sea. The explosions that sunk them occurred simultaneously, which, according to informed government sources, suggests a terrorist attack . . .”

  Informed government? Oxymoronic description.

  The camera zoomed to reveal a sprinkle of pepper-size objects amid the burning patches, and in my mind’s eye, I visualized dead men with flame-shriveled faces floating in the sea. I gulped what remained of my espresso. The dregs were bitter. I was bitter, too, because I thought I knew all about the so-called terrorist attack . . . but dared not tell a soul.

  The screen shifted to a studio. A pretend journalist with a good haircut said, “Russia and China and North Korea have accused the United States of subverting the international waters of the vast Arctic. The fishing flotilla was bound north, through the Bering Strait, and then west in the ocean along the Siberian coast—now ice-free due to climate change—to unload tens of thousands of tons of frozen fish on the far side of the Arctic, in the Russian port of Murmansk. The ships were of low-tax-advantage Panamanian registry, their home port Buenaventura, on Colombia’s Pacific coast.”

  Confirming what I dreaded.

  The point being that Colombians don’t send factory fishing ships and trawlers halfway around the world; their fishing and shrimping is done close by, in tropical waters. Their long-distance nautical endeavors are limited to one commodity: cocaine.

  Mr. Teleprompter was replaced by a trio of hyper ex-jocks talking sports. I ordered a vodka that I downed in a gulp. Shuddered. Resumed pondering Colombia, homeland of most of my former clients.

  But Colombia meant doing drug work, so I wouldn’t be going there anymore.

  Not to mention that I couldn’t go there anymore.

  Reason being: I wanted to live.

  Problem: I knew too much.

  For instance, I knew that this brave, new northern polar cocaine route serviced druggies from Russia to Portugal. A market snorting powder by the ton. The route had been devised by the kingpin of all Colombian drug lords, a genius who realized no nation had the resources or motivation to patrol the vast, newly ice-free region other than seeking out mineral rights.

  Sombra.

  Whom the feds—including Richard, my tormenter-in-chief—believed dead. A false assumption I’d corroborated to save several asses, including my own. I had flat-out lied.

  Fact of life: Sombra wasn’t dead.

  Fact of death: People who could identify Sombra died hard. Which was why I couldn’t go to Colombia; which was why I had no Colombian clients; which was why I was the only lawyer in Forlini’s during working hours—

  My phone rang.

  The screen said Unknown Caller, but I instantly recognized the asexual, Chinese-accented croon of Albert Woo, owner/operator of the Golden Palace, where he mastered ceremonies for wedding and birthday celebrations in New York’s Chinatown. Prior to that, Albert had imported China White heroin from the Golden Triangle, become Federal Inmate 97532-054, and then—under my tutelage—turned into a confidential informant and walked free.

  “Oh, Benn, Benn, Benn. Can you come to Golden Palace now?”

  I said I could, hung up, crumpled the CJA application, and fast-stepped it out the door.

  I was back in the game.

  I’d spent too many long evenings in the Golden Palac
e’s banquet hall, listening to Albert, in pink tuxedo and powdered face, sing in Chinese, enthralling his audiences of movers and shakers who ran Chinatown. After I’d cooperated Albert out from under his problem, he’d started sending clients my way. Lots of China White cases—a big industry in those days—and swindlers, murderers, Green Dragon gang boys, and similar ilk.

  That was then. Now, Albert hadn’t changed much, apart from a chin lift. We spoke in his office. He had on a black suit with a red-star Communist China lapel pin. Didn’t mean a thing. Prominently placed on Albert’s desk was a photograph of him shaking hands with the vice president of the rival Chinese regime in Taiwan. Albert was a man who loved to please everyone. For a price, of course. Now he hummed happily as he sprinkled food into tanks, where goldfish big as porgies swam.

  “Albert? A question I’ve always meant to ask.”

  With a red curved pinky nail, Albert lifted a speck of mascara from his lid. “We old friends. Ask whatever you want, Mr. Benn.”

  My Chinese thieves call me Mr. Benn. The Colombian narcos call me Doctor. To my Puerto Rican bad guys, I’m the licenciado. My Jewish gonifs address me as Bennie. I don’t care. I’m averse to sticks and stones, but names don’t bother me.

  “The fish?” I said. “You eat them?”

  “Oh, Mr. Benn. They’re my pets.”

  “Tsk. I thought you invited me for dinner.”

  Albert’s giggle reminded me of a cheerleader I once had a crush on. The similarities stopped there. Now he leaned across his desk. From my side, I did the same, so his tilted eyes were locked on my round ones. I got a rush of excitement, knowing we were about to talk bad business.

  Albert’s voice was a susurrus. “Very important case. Very.”

  I nodded, said nothing.

  He said, “Uncle.”

  I hadn’t heard the name in years, but there was no forgetting Winston Lau, better known in the Chinatown precincts as “Uncle.” Albert had introduced me to him at a banquet some years ago—Jesus, Uncle was old then; how old is he now?—and we’d conversed pleasantly, much about nothing between two guys who maybe might do business. I had hoped so, because Uncle was the man in Chinatown.

  Nothing had come of our conversation back then. I’d assumed Uncle didn’t dig me. Now I realized he’d been sending me cases all along, via his man Albert.