The Snakeheads

by Mary Moylum

  “Ohhh. So, what do you want to do?” she asked innocently.

  “How about a tour of your bedroom?”

  The smell of her came back to him, overpowering him. He watched her undress. Her body still shocked him, as it had that very first time together in his condo — the smooth tone of her skin, the sleek muscles of her stomach and legs, and the triangle between her thighs could arouse him even if he were in a comatose state.

  His mouth on hers, his hands on her breasts. Soon their gropings dissolved on the living room floor, with him on top. They gasped and crushed each other as they came together.

  They made love again. Afterwards, they lay hugging, contented. The release, the two beers he had had with Jeremy Klein, the wine they’d had with dinner, along with his frustration over work had taken their toll. He closed his eyes and slept. In his sleep, he dreamt of many things, sometimes twitching like an animal in the throes of memory. He dreamt of his childhood, his mother’s stories of fleeing the old Czechoslovakia, of climbing up steep rock faces, of running surveillance missions in anonymous cities.

  But most of all, he dreamt of his friend and colleague, Walter Martin.

  chapter fourteen

  Nick flashed his way through John F. Kennedy Airport and hailed a cab for Elizabeth, New Jersey. Kelly Marcovich and Tom Bergen, the area port director for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, were on hand to meet him at the three-hundred-bed detention facility. He followed them down a long concrete corridor full of overhead television monitors. The sound of their footsteps echoed on the stone floors. He could remember when the place first opened in 1994 to handle the growing population of detained inadmissibles prior to their removal from the United States.

  “We’re getting your overflow. You seen the stats, Nick?” asked Kelly, picking up a stack of computer printouts. “Refugee smuggling is steadily climbing. The guys at JFK tell me that the numbers will soon surpass drug running as the numero uno illicit international business. In the past month alone, we netted a couple of thousand undocumented travellers.”

  “What about the alien smugglers? The snakeheads. Catch any of them?”

  Kelly shook her head briefly, and Bergen, who was preparing a visitor’s badge for Nick, released a dry laugh. “Boy, I’d like to get my hands on those creeps.” He lifted his hands and made a twisting motion. “But there is something you should check out. In the past couple of months alone, we’ve caught a lot of undocumented travellers carrying Canadian addresses. Some of them were even carrying the same address. A couple of them were definitely terrorists, wanted in their home country.”

  “The very same address?”

  “Go figure.” Bergen nodded and rolled his shoulders in one fluid motion. “We figure the Sri Lankan we got in detention might be useful to you. After you talk to him, we’re extraditing him back home for blowing up some minister with a home-made bomb.”

  “What tipped you off? One of your dogs sniff dope on his crotch?”

  “Nah, the officer at the inspection booth ran his passport through the scanner. The machine-readable portion was tampered with. It wouldn’t read.”

  “And he had a Canadian address on him?”

  “Two addresses and a complete set of fraudulent Canadian documents. Driver’s licence, health insurance card. Plus phony greenbacks.”

  “The other reason we called you,” said Kelly, “is the marks on the documents. Like I told you, they’re similar to the ones we found on the illegals we stopped at Akwesasne, where Martin got killed.”

  “Sounds interesting,” said Nick, trying not to get his hopes up high.

  “Even if he is, you people can’t have him,” said Bergen. “The Sri Lankan government’s expecting him back day after tomorrow.”

  He handed Nick a visitor’s badge.

  “Tom will take you to the interview room,” said Kelly, putting a sympathetic hand on Nick’s shoulder. “I hope you get something useful.”

  Bergen set off with quick precise strides down the hallway and into another wing. On the way there, he briefed Nick on the details of the interrogation that the customs officers had conducted at the airport.

  “His real name is Humair Subrathnam. He tried to pass himself off as Greek. Didn’t speak a word of it though.”

  Humair Subrathnam sat waiting in the visitors’ room. A confused look settled on his face at the sight of Nick and Bergen. He rose to meet them.

  “Sit down,” barked the guard standing behind Humair.

  The illegal alien sat down again.

  The guard said nothing more as he walked out of the room and took up his post outside the opened door.

  “I need a cigarette,” said the Sri Lankan illegal.

  “You’ll get a cigarette after you repeat the story you told us to this gentleman here,” said Bergen.

  “I don’t remember what I told you.”

  “Sure you do.”

  “I need a cigarette first to help me remember.”

  “No, you don’t. You’re doing just fine. But we’ll do one better. We’ll give you an entire pack of cigarettes if you repeat your story.”

  “What part of the story you want to hear?”

  “Tell us about the bombings.”

  “Which bombings? Blowing up of the minister’s Mercedes with him inside? Or the bombing of the police station?”

  “Why did you do it?” asked Nick speaking for the first time.

  “Why? Because we want a separate homeland.”

  “Terrorism isn’t the way to go. You know, the Tamil Tigers have done a lot of damage over the years. Last year, there was a series of car bomb attacks. This year, you guys bombed a military minibus.” Nick shook his head.

  Silence.

  “Tell Nick about the stuff we found in your luggage at the airport? The bomb-making manual? The garrotte and the maps? What were those for?” asked the INS director.

  Silence.

  Nick picked up the police dossier Bergen had placed on the table. “Interpol described you as a university-educated man who is suspected of killing at least twenty-nine people over more than a decade of car-bombings and machine-gun attacks. This Toronto address you had in your wallet, I’m guessing now, that this is the address of the Tamil Tigers operation in Canada?” asked Nick, leaning forward.

  “Yes. I’m supposed to hook up with them in Toronto. They’re expecting me.”

  Nick didn’t say anything for a minute as Subrathnam’s words registered in his brain. When he spoke, his voice was softer, his manner friendly as his fingers riffled through the pages of the dossier.

  “How the hell did the Tigers get you out of the country so fast? The airport cordoned off. Every road had checkpoints.”

  Subrathnam, still looking pleased about the cleverness of the plan, said, “The travel agency that looks after the Tamil Tigers got me out on somebody else’s passport. In transit, I was given the Greek passport that was taken away from me here in New York. I’d like to have that cigarette now.”

  “Just a few minutes more,” replied Nick. “What about the money in your suitcase? Who’s that for?”

  “They told me in Colombo to deliver the money to the Tamil Tigers’ office in Toronto. I think the money is to buy weapons. My job was just to carry the money.”

  “What about the bomb-making manual? The garrotte and the maps?” asked Nick.

  “For a training camp in Canada. Since there’s no bomb-making manual, I was told to bring one. The same with the garrotte. The map of Sri Lanka pinpoints all the possible target locations back home.”

  “Fucking terrorist. Last thing we need is another World Trade Center bombing. After you’re finished with him, he’s on the first damn plane out of here.” Bergen handed Nick a slip of paper. “This address was found with the phony money. Your people can check it out.”

  “Were you intent on committing any terrorist acts in the United States or Canada?”

  “My job is to carry out orders. If those orders came, I wouldn’t question
them.”

  Nick knew about the suicide bombers inside the Tamil Tigers. The illegal alien’s answer did not surprise him. Instead, he concentrated on the telephone number in his hands.

  “This is a Montreal address. Who were you meeting there?” Nick looked at the illegal alien curiously.

  “A man who was supposed to meet me at the airport here in New York. I was told that if I missed him, to call that number.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Someone who would give me a new identity, and transport me to my new home.”

  “What about his name?” asked Nick, as he burnt the Montreal address into his brain.

  “I was not told his name. The address and number belongs only to him. All I know is, he’s Vietnamese.”

  Could it be the elusive Li Mann? Nick levelled his gaze at the illegal, eyeball to eyeball. “You say that you don’t know his name. Do you know what he looks like?”

  He shook his head wearily. “I’ve never met him in person. I’ve only seen a photograph of him once. At the travel agency.”

  Nick turned to Bergen. “You got a cigarette on ya? Dangle it in front of him.”

  Bergen pulled out a pack of cigarettes that was rolled up his left sleeve.

  Nick took the police artist’s sketch of Li Mann out of his briefcase and showed it to the prisoner. Subrathnam held the sketch in his hands for a long moment before he spoke.

  “It could be him. It could not be him.”

  “What the hell kind of answer is that?” demanded Bergen.

  Nick lowered his voice. “Take another good look at the sketch. Jog your memory.”

  The illegal alien’s mouth fell open. “I don’t know. I’m not sure. It looks like him. A sketch isn’t the same thing as a photograph.”

  That was the frustrating thing about black-and-white sketches. No wonder they couldn’t locate this Li Mann. Still, it was a lead. “Light the cigarette and give it to him,” said Nick.

  Outside the concrete block of corridors, Bergen turned to Nick, “He pretty much sticks to the same story.” “Thanks. I owe you one.”

  Nick made his way down to the boarding gate for the commuter flight back to Canada. There was bounce in his step all the way home.

  Grace passed through a lobby filled with surveillance technology before coming to a bank of elevators. Before stepping into an elevator, she quietly flashed her orange and black name tag to desk security. Without waiting for clearance, she hit the elevator button for the penthouse. On the top floor she was released into a posh lobby of richly stained wood and French period pieces. A large, dour receptionist in beige pointed her towards an Italian leather sofa.

  “I’ll let the commissioner know you’re here.”

  Jean Cadeux was the head of the Immigration and Refugee Commission. She had only met him twice. What she knew about him could fit onto a rolodex card. He had been an obscure professor at a small university before landing the crowning patronage plum at one of the highest-profile agencies in the country. However, his claim to fame was largely based on his networking skills and francophone lineage. If race was the issue that defined the United States, then the separatism in Quebec was the one that defined Canada. And Cadeux had benefited handsomely from the debate over the issue of Quebec sovereignty. Grace found it ironic that someone who couldn’t even find Algiers on a map was anointed as head of an institution that determined the fate of Third World peoples. But such was the world of political patronage.

  “The Commissioner is ready to see you,” announced the receptionist, a slavish woman who oozed loyalty and deference for her master from her every pore.

  Grace followed her through a richly stained glass door and into another palatial space lined with extraordinary works of art.

  “Have a seat and the admin assistant will come out and collect you.”

  Collect her. Yes, indeed, the man was a collector. She absorbed her surroundings and noted the eighteenth-century French furniture and the Fragonard by the door. The last time she had been invited here was last year. If only she had a video camera. The accoutrements of wealth and pretension were everywhere. The taxpayers hadn’t skimped on any piece of furnishing. Every wall was covered in abstract paintings by artists more famous in Europe than in their native Canada. The Queen Anne cherry end table was laden with expensive coffee-table books, which had probably never been opened. But what did it matter, as long as Cadeux’s handpicked furnishings conveyed to the visitor that his tastes were several cuts above those of the average man on the street? That was his insecurity. Her superior had strived all his life to be several cuts above the average Joe. And so he was, though only because the average Joe would never conceive of dropping two hundred thousand dollars to furnish a single office.

  She had been summoned here on two previous occasions. First, to be formally greeted when she was appointed to the Commission. Second, when Cadeux requested that she preside on a case involving the ex-wife of a former Bulgarian diplomat. Her husband had left her for another woman, and she was claiming asylum on the basis of persecution at the hands of the new President of Bulgaria. The claim had been without basis; she simply wanted to stay in Canada. Since the woman came from a powerful family, and from a country that was one of Canada’s largest trading partners, the politicians on the Hill had suggested to Cadeux that the claim go forward on gender grounds. Behind the scenes, the feminists who controlled the gender standing committee in the House had done a quid pro quo with the boys on the standing committee on gun control. It was a win-win situation for the players on the Hill, the public had only been factored in by the spin doctors at the last minute in their press communique. If the public only knew half the shenanigans that went on up there!

  And now she was here for a third audience with the commissioner. She flipped through the current issue of the Economist and cynically wondered what case he was dumping on her this time.

  The door to the inner sanctum opened.

  “Grace, please come in.”

  The commissioner, waving away his assistant, was greeting her personally.

  “Hello, Jean,” she said in a neutral tone that conveyed nothing. For occasions such as these, she donned her Oriental mask of “inscrutability”.

  He led her towards the slab of handsome black marble that functioned as his desk. To reach it, she had to traverse several wool and silk rugs with unique Islamic designs. Facing the window she observed that he had one of the best views in the nation’s capital; a spectacular panorama of the Rideau River, the Parliament Buildings and the Gatineau Hills.

  He cleared his throat.

  She waited for him to speak. Why should she make conversation? He was the one who had summoned her here.

  “Coffee? Or would you prefer tea?”

  “Coffee’s fine, thank you.”

  “Coffee it is. Bring a pot,” Jean ordered the still-hovering secretary as he sat down opposite her in a leather wing chair that matched the one she sat in.

  “As you know,” he began, steepling his long fingers, “the issue of criminal non-citizens weighs heavily on the minds of the public. Given the recent headlines about human-smuggling operations, we’re in a bit of a hot spot.”

  That was an understatement, Grace thought.

  His secretary returned with a tray: silver coffee pot, sugar bowl, cream jug, and Limoges demitasses.

  “We’ve had quite a few upheavals in the past few weeks,” Cadeux continued. “I know you were to secondchair the deportation appeal case of that snakehead apprehended in that smuggling operation. Now we’ve learned from Immigration that there’s no case, because the snakehead’s dead.”

  “How?”

  “A home invasion, according to the police report.”

  Grace released a sigh. She was beginning to think all of these killings were the work of one crazy madman. But a home invasion of an Asian? Well, it was possible. The crime was becoming fairly commonplace.

  “However, it seemed that an appellant who recently won a stay of dep
ortation has decided to file an asylum claim. He feels that Immigration is conducting a vendetta against him, and he has a business to run. I might add that he’s a prominent and successful businessman. Not to mention, at least a hundred employees count on him for their livelihood. It would be a shame for him to be removed from the country, and to begin the process all over again.”

  Grace could guess where the conversation was going, but she had to ask anyway.

  “Who’s the appellant?”

  “His name is Sun Sui. The owner of the Mandarin Club. He’s become something of an entertainment mogul. Apparently, he’s also in the process of moving much of his movie-making operation to Canada from Hong Kong. I believe the Chinese are like the Indians, they have an enormous appetite for home-grown action films. I was contacted by one of the trade advisers over at International Trade and told that Mr. Sui adds a lot of value to our economy. If we don’t help him, he’ll simply move his entertainment empire down to L.A. And we don’t want that, do we?”

  “What good is economic value if he’s a criminal?”

  “On the contrary, Grace. Our embassy in Hong Kong ran extensive searches on all applicants wanting to emigrate. Mr. Sui came out squeaky clean. I’ve got the records on that.”

  “But he’s under the Immigration spotlight in a very big way.”

  “Our boys in Immigration are very zealous. Besides, when a case hits the fan, they must look as if they’re exerting themselves to bring justice. Else the public will lose all confidence in our institutions.”

  “If so, why doesn’t the claimant file in Toronto? Why another city?”

  “He intends to live in this city. And I assume his lawyer has advised him to put some distance between himself and a particular Immigration manager, though that’s speculation on my part. In any case, International Trade has pressed me to provide assurances that the case will be competently handled.”

  She knew what was coming: he was going to dump Sun Sui’s refugee claim in her lap. Now that she was back with Nick, she really shouldn’t take the case. Truth be told, just by resuming her relationship with Nick she was already committing judicial impropriety. To go further and actually preside on a case where he represented the state in an adversarial role would not just be improper but was a clear breach of judicial impartiality. Not to mention the fact that she’d met the claimant socially at the Yung Kee dinner, which, if not strictly her fault, still looked bad. But how could she refuse the case without disclosing her relationship with Nick? The repercussions might be severe if she was found out. Still, why should she ever be found out? No one knew about her earlier affair with Nick. At least, she hoped they didn’t.