Smoke and Shadow

by Gamal Hennessy

  “I need to know who she is and why she’s so important.”

  “Are you jealous?”

  The question hit him like a slap across the face. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Does the idea of me throwing money and effort into a woman and ignoring you piss you off? You feel like I’m rejecting you for some random pussy?”

  Chu couldn’t stop his upper lip from trembling as he lashed out. “Fuck you, Warren. Don’t try to turn this into some homophobic bullshit. I don’t give a damn who you fuck or what your crippled ass does when I’m not around. If you don’t have the balls to tell me the truth about this op, fine. But don’t try to flip this on me and try to turn your bad op into my desperate boy crush. You’re not nearly as cute as you think you are.”

  Baker couldn’t stop shaking his head. “You don’t want to know the truth.”

  “Don’t tell me what I want. Answer my fucking question. I deserve to know who this is about.”

  Baker’s face twisted into a grimace, as if he’d swallowed something sour or choked back bile in his throat. “This is about me.”

  “Don’t give me riddles, Warren. Give me answers.”

  Baker gave him a question instead. “Did you know I grew up in Darien, Connecticut?”

  “I know you were a spoiled brat who went to private school, drove around in a Mercedes and generally lived like an over privileged douchebag. What does any of that have to do with my fucking question?”

  “How do you think my family got its money? How do you think we paid for our entitlement?”

  “I have no idea. Did your grandfather invent the douchebag?”

  “No. My family was in the shipping business. We were one of the largest and most influential private fleets in England since the sixteenth century.”

  “That’s nice. But so the fuck what?”

  “And what do you think we shipped back and forth during America’s early days?”

  “How the fuck am I supposed to know? Coffee? Wood? Who gives a fuck?”

  “I’m sure the slaves gave a fuck.”

  Chu couldn’t form a response in words, but the look on his face must have revealed his confusion.

  “My family helped start the Ivory Trading Group. We captured slaves in Western Africa, traded them for wood and shit in the Caribbean, and America and then sold the raw materials in England and Spain for a profit.”

  Chu sat down in a chair opposite Baker’s desk. His knees felt unstable beneath him. “Your family bought and sold slaves?”

  Baker’s shrug had none of the relaxed nonchalance of his normal movements. “A lot of families were in the slave trade. My family just happened to be particularly good at it.”

  “When did you find out?”

  “After I joined the CIA I did an extensive background check to make sure I didn’t have any incidents in my past someone could use against me. I found out about the Ivory Trading Group in the British archives.”

  “Does the rest of your family know?”

  “I took the records to my father. He didn’t deny the connection.”

  “What did he say?”

  Warren Baker looked away from Chu. His eyes seemed to stare at a painful past event. “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his fortune depends on his not understanding it.”

  “So what did you decide to do?”

  “I decided to do something about it. I stopped talking about it. I put my head down and focused on being a case officer. I collected information and assets to find, fix, and neutralize modern slave trading operations as I found them.

  Chu couldn’t find anything to do with his hands and he couldn’t look Baker in the face. “Fine, but the Ivory Group was around three hundred years ago. It’s fucked up, but you can’t hold yourself responsible for stuff that ended after the Civil War.”

  “What makes you think the Ivory Group folded after the Civil War?”

  “Slavery was outlawed and…”

  “Slavery was officially abolished in America in 1865, but it didn’t end. It flourished in the West during the building of the railroads. It continued in Africa and India during the Imperialist period in Europe. It was a staple in Asia long before Marco Polo got to China and became the origins of the shetou. Based on who you listen to, slavery is bigger now than it was before the Civil War.”

  Chu saw the pieces falling together. “And the Ivory Group is still a part of it?”

  Baker shook his head. “The Ivory Group doesn’t exist anymore as an official corporation. It’s broken up into regional organizations.”

  “Like the Fuk Ching in New York…”

  “Like the Fuk Ching. You remember the Golden Venture?”

  “You mean the ship all those people died on?”

  “Yeah, the one that lead to the arrest of Sister Ping. That ship was registered to a Macau subsidiary once owned by the Ivory Group.”

  “So the Fuk Ching took over where the Ivory Group left off, and you want to take them out to get back at your family for…”

  Baker held up his hand to correct Chu. “I want to stop the cycle of brutality my family started. Revenge isn’t doing anything to help anyone. This op is about economics. If we can make the cost of doing business high enough, a lot of these regional groups will close up shop and move onto other things.”

  Chu took a moment to soak it all in. The revelation swirled around him like a tornado. He looked back up at Baker and saw his friend staring off into the middle distance with his head in his hand. How did it feel for him to know his wealth and prosperity came from the suffering of a dozen generations? What kind of isolation did he feel when his family rejected the truth? What would Chu do in Baker’s shoes? Would he have the determination and independence to try and change things on his own? Would he be able to hide the secret from everyone and project Warren’s image of relaxed confidence? Chu didn’t think he could do what Baker did. But he knew what he could do.

  He gathered up his gear and headed for the door. “We’ll be ready when the op goes live. No worries.”

  Baker nodded back to him and Chu thought he saw a smile, but the far away pain in Baker’s eyes overpowered his attempts to reduce the stress between them.

  Chapter Nine: Late Night Delivery

  Chu found purity in movement. He didn’t have to struggle with the motivations of his handlers or the morality of his mission. He didn’t have to think about rich kids living in Connecticut or their ties to colonial slave traders. He didn’t have to wonder why. Once his mission started, his world boiled down to who, what, where and when. He only had to worry about three things, insertion, execution and extraction.

  The tiny, environmentally friendly, electric bike he rode felt flimsy and comical as he puttered down through the streets of Chinatown, but it served as an important part of his disguise. No one would question one more Asian man riding an electric bike and wearing the orange safety vest of a Chinese food delivery worker. Hundreds of similar men buzzed all through Manhattan on any given night.

  The bike and his vest gave him perfect cover to weave through the operational area and ensure he wasn’t being followed. Where a casual observer would see yet another late night delivery, Chu had a chance to compare the environment to previous nights, scan for possible opposition and confirm his second and third escape routes. The restaurant emblazoned on the back of the vest didn’t exist, and his covered delivery basket held tactical gear instead of fried rice, but the little bike ensured Chu’s cover as he turned into the alley near the Red Crane.

  Chu shut off the bike and listened for signs of danger. The steady pounding of music pulsed from the opposite wall and the roar of an accelerating bus echoed in the distance, but he didn’t hear any reaction to his presence to make him uneasy. In the corner of the alley, near a rusting dumpster Chu saw three beer bottles. The ones on the left and the right sat in a straight line. The bottle in the middle had been smashed into shards. Recognizing Trent’s signal, Chu reached into his bik
e bag and pulled out his gear. He stripped off his neon safety vest, so only his drab nondescript jacket remained. He replaced his safety helmet with a black watch cap and pulled it low over his forehead. After taking one last glance towards the alley behind him, he hoisted the pack onto his back, climbed onto the dumpster and up the tenement fire escape.

  Chapter Ten: Contact with Reality

  Trent sat perched in the darkness. His outline was only visible because Chu knew where to look. As he hoisted himself onto the roof, he could make out the barrel of Trent’s gun aimed in his direction. Chu held up the hand signal designating himself as a friendly. He didn’t make any sudden movements until Trent responded with the appropriate signal. Only then did he approach and get close enough to whisper.

  “We’re clear” Trent said in a hiss Chu struggled to hear “but there’s an after party on the rooftop next door. We need to wait to give ourselves a clear jump.”

  Chu nodded, checking his weapon and pulling the bandana over his face to match Trent’s movements. Then they waited. It was more than an hour before the music died down, and a half an hour more before the laughter faded. Chu wondered how many of the late night party crowd paid for their pleasure with money made from slavery. How many of them knew where the money came from? How many of them would care? Chu let his mind chew on the implications of such embedded corruption until the lights on the rooftop went out and a deeper darkness enveloped their space.

  Without a word or wasted motion, the two operators hustled towards the edge of the building and launched themselves off the roof. , Chu tried not to remember all the errors he made with the practice jumps. He concentrated on bending his knees in the air, pointing his toes where he wanted to land and making impact with the ball of his feet. He focused on a quiet landing, distributing his weight across his body with an even roll designed to bring him back to his feet. The feeling of weightlessness didn’t last long enough for his conscious mind to run through all the steps. The weight of his tactical belt and weapons hampered his movements, but Chu touched down on the roof of the Red Crane with little noise and room to spare.

  Trent landed beside him with the sound of a delicate breeze. He had his weapon up and ready when he came out of his roll, but Chu didn’t waste time with envy or amazement at his friend’s skill. He drew his own gun, stacked up on the door and prepared to enter the building.

  With one hand aiming the muzzle of his weapon down and away, Chu reached for his belt and unspooled the fiber optic cable wrapped around his waist. He didn’t look across the rooftop or back the way he came. He trusted Trent to watch his back and could feel his partner move his head and shoulders to scan the area around them. Chu concentrated on slipping the thin pinhole lens underneath the door and glancing at the small monitor attached to the inside of his wrist.

  The dull grey stone of the stairwell had a weak naked bulb providing more shadow than light. Chu didn’t see any movement and he couldn’t hear any voices or other noise from the other side of the door. He was about to give Trent the signal to breach the door when he noticed the small box near the upper hinge.

  It had the look of a cheap plastic toy and the wire connecting it to the door looked flimsy and insignificant, but Chu recognized the door alarm as a lethal deterrent to their insertion. He didn’t know if the alarm would be a blaring wail loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear or a silent signal to a security room or the front desk. It probably served as a deterrent to the slaves escaping through the roof, but it could keep them out just as well as keeping the girls inside.

  Chu gave Trent the hand signal for alarm and no opposition. Trent crouched down next to him and made a cutting motion with his fingers, suggesting they might cut the alarm somehow. Chu shook his head. The position of the alarm on the other side of the door made it impossible to access from their side. Chu scanned the roof, wondering how Baker would react if they gave up on the mission. They all knew no plan survives contact with reality, but aborting at the first sign of resistance would only reinforce Chu’s opposition to the op. Frustration began to burn the back of his throat when he noticed the handle of Trent’s knife in his shoulder harness.

  Chu led his partner away from the door and toward the fire escape on the side of the building. Scanning the metal walkway for opposition, the dark figures crept down the stairs until they reached the fourth floor window. The glass was painted black and covered with dust. The old inner lock was wedged in tight. But Chu motioned at Trent’s knife and twisted his wrist in a sliding motion near the top of the window.

  The two men crouched opposite a faceless brick wall, so Chu only had to scan the rooftop above and the alley below as Trent worked. After a few seconds of quiet scraping, Trent stopped and inserted his snake cam in the space he cut away with the knife. Chu didn’t hear any movement on the other side of the window and Trent confirmed the room was empty with the camera. He also confirmed the absence of an alarm on the window glass.

  It took him another minute to force the ancient lock open with his knife, but before anyone ventured into the alley or looked over the edge of the roof, Smoke and Shadow inserted themselves into the Red Crane through the window they forced open.

  Chapter Eleven: Ruthless Memories

  Once their eyes adjusted from the street lamp gloom to the unlit darkness of the storeroom, Chu took the point and led them through stacked piles of battered furniture to the door leading out of the abandoned apartment. He slipped the cam under the door without a sound and scanned the hallway for signs of life. He flashed signals over his shoulder before drawing his gun.

  Two hostiles, both armed but guns not drawn, one incoming.

  The double squeeze on his shoulder as he drew his weapon told Chu everything he needed to know about their next move. The welcome familiar warmth of adrenalin in his system moved his hand in a smooth graceful motion as the shadow of footsteps passed by their door.

  Chu swung the door open and slid back behind the door frame. The startled sentry only had time to flinch in surprise and gasp before Trent reached out and plunged his knife into his victim’s clavicle. The dying body collapsed into the room as Trent dragged him out of the doorway, allowing Chu space to step into the hall. In a low crouch, braced against the door frame, Chu put two rounds down range, hitting his target in the shoulder and the head. The two men went down in less than three seconds without any sounds of alarm raised on the floor.

  Chu scanned the hall with his weapon held up at eye level while he waited for Trent. He knew his partner searched for cellphones, keys or other personal effects Baker could use as intel later. When the soft squeeze pressed into his shoulder, Chu moved to the next door in the corridor, positioned far enough away to avoid dragging his clothing on the rough wood panel wall.

  The lens on the snake cam revealed a scene of destitution and despair. Chu saw a dozen women of various ages huddled on thin dirty cots. The ones who were asleep tossed and turned in their nightmares. Several of them rocked back and forth, crying without tears. Two girls held each other in the corner. The smaller one trying to stop the bleeding on the other girl’s nose and lip. The image brought back memories of his mother’s suffering at the hands of his father. The urge to rush into the room and sweep the girls out of the building tightened Chu’s jaw, but he looked away from the cam and forced the image of his mother from his mind. He motioned for Trent to move on and continued to the next door.

  Chu found two more rooms with similar scenes and counted about thirty women on the fourth floor. He guessed the Fuk Ching kept the slaves on the top floor because the layout matched the intel Baker had from other raids. He made a mental note to corroborate the previous information in his own report when a rhythmic slapping sound caught his attention. When he figured out where the noise came from, he motioned Trent to follow him around the corner to the last door in the corridor.