The Devils Punchbowl pc-3

by Greg Iles

Gratitude shines in Caitlin’s eyes as she shakes hands with Carl and Danny.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I say. “Leaderless soldiers gathered to save a village.”

  “Well, I'm impressed,” Caitlin says. “An air force pilot, a marine sniper, a Texas Ranger, a Delta Force commando, and a doctor.”

  “You left out lawyer and reporter,” McDavitt points out.

  “Superfluous on any important mission, I'm sure,” she quips, getting a chuckle all around and putting everyone at ease.

  “Not these days,” Kelly says. “Even the army needs a legal department and a propaganda machine.”

  He unfolds three more chairs, and we sit in a tight circle, surrounded by chain saws and Weed Eaters and the oily smell of two-stroke engines. I look across the circle to Carl.

  “So, you made it out of the Punchbowl?”

  The sniper grins and shakes his head like a man who’s spent a week crossing a desert. “Took a while, but I finally did.”

  Danny McDavitt says, “I would have called and told you, but I figured you needed the sleep.”

  “Thank you,” says Caitlin. “He did.”

  “Did you find anything down there?” I ask.

  “Not a damn thing. Not in the car or around it. I grid-searched on my hands and knees. If there was anything down there, somebody else already got it.”

  “Do you think the car burned when it crashed, or somebody torched it and dumped it there?”

  “Somebody torched it, but I don'’t think they did it until yesterday. I think somebody else made the same climb I did, either to find something or to be sure they destroyed something.”

  As I recall the USB drive Tim concealed in his own body, Dad says, “So, where do we start? Is everybody on the same page, or whatever they say these days?”

  Walt leans back and speaks from beneath the brim of his hat. His voice has been roughened by years of cigarette smoke, and the clear eyes in the weathered face give him a natural authority that the others seem ready to defer to, at least for now.

  “Mr. Kelly was just telling me some things his company has learned in the past few hours. Reckon he ought to start us off.”

  “Everybody good with that?” Kelly asks.

  The group nods as one.

  “As most of you know, I work for Blackhawk Risk Manage

  ment. We have a research department, and they’ve been checking out Jonathan Sands. In some ways, our research people aren'’t much different from those at any other corporation. They use Google, Nexis, et cetera. But Blackhawk also employs former counterterror operators from the U.S., Britain, Israel, Germany, South Africa—basically every major military power. We also employ former government lawyers and retired line officers. So our informal network of sources is pretty good. The initial bio I got back is detailed, but it only goes back to February 1989, when Sands left the UK. Northern Ireland, to be exact. This was just after some of the worst fighting in the so-called Troubles over there. The Brits are stonewalling on exactly what Sands did before ’89, so we’ll have to be content with what we have for now.”

  “Why would they hold back?” I ask.

  Kelly shrugs. “We don'’t know that yet. But he has an amazing story, and I’'ve heard a few. When Sands left Northern Ireland—one step ahead of somebody, is my guess—he worked as a mercenary for almost a decade, then settled in Macao. He started in the security department of a casino owned by Edward Po. Po is a legend, a whole separate story, so let’s forget him for now. Suffice to say he’s a sixty-eight-year-old Chinese billionaire, utterly ruthless and notoriously kinky. The important thing is that Sands arrived just before Macao was returned to Chinese sovereignty. It was about to expand from a serious-gamblers-only city to a Vegas-style destination, and Sands proved a valuable asset to Po. He was white, he could pass for English, and he had the kind of skill set that rough boys develop in Northern Ireland, plus what he’d learned in the interim. That doesn’'t explain his meteoric rise within Po’s organization, though. He was promoted very quickly, and within three years he was often seen with Po at various public functions in China. And not as a security officer, but a corporate officer. Sands even seemed to overtake Po’s son, whose name is Chao.”

  “What explains that?” asks my father.

  “Dogfighting,” says Kelly. “That'’s what I think. It’s Po’s passion. He’s a famous breeder of Japanese Tosas, and he definitely fights them on a circuit.”

  “You think Sands picked up the taste for it there?” Carl asks.

  Kelly shakes his head. “My gut tells me Sands grew up around it.

  Specialized knowledge about the sport would have got him noticed by Po.”

  Caitlin says, “I found a lot online about dogfighting in England and Ireland, going back centuries.”

  Kelly nods sagely. “Let’s rewind a few years. Before Sands arrived on the scene, Edward Po had a younger brother named Yang, who died of cancer. Yang Po was a Christian, a Baptist converted by Scottish missionaries, and he ultimately married one of their daughters. Yang had a daughter named Jiao—half-caste, white blood. Very hot—in pictures, anyway.”

  “I met her,” I say. “She’s striking, all right.”

  Caitlin cuts her eyes at me. “Is she part of whatever’s going on here?”

  “I think so, yeah. That'’s the vibe I got.”

  “That'’s interesting,” says Kelly. “Because Yang Po had no involvement in his brother’s casinos or any other criminal activity. He was a professor—a

  law

  professor, if you can believe that. Edward, on the other hand, was neck-deep in every racket you can run in China, and that’s saying a lot. He’s since exported a lot of his operations to the U.S. and Europe, as well. What’s important for us is that Edward Po promised his dying brother that he’d not only take care of Jiao, but shield her from the sinful lifestyle. And he tried. He sent her to Cambridge, in fact. But when Jiao returned to Macao, she naturally fell for Sands, the Irish bad boy, much as her uncle seems to have done. Po hoped she’d grow out of it, but when she didn't, he told Sands to get out of town or else.”

  “Or else what?” asks Caitlin.

  “If Sands left China without Jiao, he’d get a nice severance package and the highest recommendation. If he stuck around or tried to take Jiao with him, they’d sever his genitals from his body, then his head from his neck.”

  Caitlin’s eyebrows arch with interest, if not surprise. “So what did he do? Jiao’s here now. Did Sands risk the reprisal and take her with him?”

  “He’s not the type to cave to threats,” I say.

  “Depends on who’s doing the threatening,” says Kelly. “The IRA thinks they know something about torture? Trust me, you have to go to Asia to learn about pain. Sands had seen Po’s organization

  from the inside, and he knew what would happen. He did exactly what the boss wanted. He left the girl

  and

  China. Anyone want to guess where he went?”

  “Land of opportunity?” prompts Danny McDavitt.

  “You got it. Las Vegas, to be exact. With Po’s recommendation, Sands got a top security job with the Palm Hotel group. Turned out his ambition was to own a casino himself. I think that’s what Sands was doing with the niece in Macao, trying to marry into the business. Fast-forward a few months, and enter Craig Weldon, a Los Angeles entertainment lawyer who liked to hang out at the Vegas Palm. Weldon owns a sports management agency, and he had the same dream as Sands, to own a casino. The difference was, Weldon had the money to build one. That'’s how Golden Parachute was born. They made a simple plan to go into secondary markets—like Mississippi—and beat out the competition. They wanted to clean up out in the sticks, then return to Vegas as conquering heroes ten years later. Not a bad plan. But while they were putting all this together, Jiao showed up in Vegas. Couldn’t stay away. True love, and all that. Now, did Sands try to send her back to China? Did he ask her to stay? We don'’t know. All we do know is that Po didn't send an unlicensed surgical team to castrate Sands. He let the Golden Parachute get completely unfurled, ready to catch wind, and then ”

&nbs
p; “What?” asks Caitlin.

  “He stole it,” says Walt. “Right?”

  Kelly smiles. “Lock, stock, and barrel. This is speculation, but probably very close to what happened. Right before Sands and Weldon applied for their license, Po showed up and said, ‘Hello, Jonathan, my faithful servant. I appreciate all the legwork, but Golden Parachute Gaming is about to become a subsidiary of Po Enterprises, Ltd. Unofficially, of course.’ And what could Sands do but grin and bear it? He knew he wouldn'’t live five minutes if Po decided otherwise. So, Po’s name went into the five-percent silent-partner pool as a token investor, but in reality, the bulk of the money that funded Golden Parachute was his. Craig Weldon became a figurehead, either bought off with massive payoffs or scared into silence. Chinese gangsters are pros at both. California still has Triad-affiliated youth gangs who can enforce whatever the higher-ups want. Forget Sands and Quinn—Craig Weldon owns a lot of L.A.

  real estate, and an L.A. youth gang could permanently fuck up his portfolio with one weekend’s arson and vandalism.”

  I wait for Kelly to go on, but he seems to have come to the end of his story. “So Golden Parachute is actually owned by a Chinese billionaire?”

  “That'’s what my employers think.”

  “Does the U.S. government know that?”

  “That I don'’t know.”

  After digesting this, I say, “What do you think Sands’s real position is with the company? Does he even have an equity stake?”

  Kelly shrugs. “Whatever his title is, he might as well be chief cook and bottle-washer. He’s under Po’s thumb. It’s like he never even left Macao.”

  “Except he has the girl,” Caitlin points out. “Jiao.”

  “How happy did he look to you?” Kelly asks me.

  “Not very. Which brings us to the question I’'ve been asking since Tim Jessup first came to me. What the hell is Sands really doing here? And is he doing it on his own, or for Edward Po?”

  “Your father told me about Jessup’s theory,” Kelly says. “Sands

  could

  be stealing from the city to try to make his own pile. Get a stake and haul ass, with or without the girl. But is he that stupid? The world’s not big enough to hide from Edward Po. If that’s Sands’s plan, he’s a moron.”

  “He’s no moron. The opposite, in fact.”

  Kelly stands and begins doing dips between two crossbars on the poles supporting the deer stand. His triceps flex like those of an Olympic gymnast. “So,” he says, “whatever game Sands is playing with his accounting, he’s doing it on orders from Po. Or at the very least, with Po’s blessing.”

  “That brings us back to my original question. Why risk a gaming license worth hundreds of millions of dollars to steal a few hundred thousand, or even a few million, from a small town in Mississippi? Edward Po can’t be that stupid.”

  “He’s not,” Walt Garrity says in the tone of someone who knows.

  “Are you familiar with Po?” Kelly asks.

  “Not by name,” says the old Ranger. “But from what you'’ve said so far, I think I’'ve got the picture. Po’s Chinese organized crime, right?”

  “Right.”

  “If he has U.S. operations, they’ll involve human-smuggling, prostitution, possibly drugs, and definitely money laundering.”

  “Right again,” says Kelly, looking slightly surprised.

  “I wondered about money laundering,” I think aloud.

  “Casinos are tailor-made for it,” Walt explains. “Casinos are just banks, really, without all the pesky regulations. Wherever you have casinos, you have large-scale money laundering. The feds have passed a lot of regulations, but there’s so much money to be made, crooks can bribe casino employees to ignore them.”

  Caitlin says, “Would the profit be enough to tempt someone as wealthy as Po?”

  “It’s not a matter of profit,” Walt says. “Not the way you think of it. The biggest problem any criminal has is what to

  do

  with his profits. Take drug dealers. Cash money weighs more than the product they sell. Cash is one big pain in the ass. A guy like Edward Po needs hundreds of legitimate businesses to lay off all the cash he takes in. Maybe thousands, if he’s that big in China. Import-export firms, currency exchanges, car dealerships, you name it. But casinos make the best laundries. Casinos and online gaming sites, based offshore.”

  Kelly, Carl, and Danny are looking at Walt with new respect. Apparently, they took the older man for what he appeared to be, a tired cowboy who might know his way around a horse and saddle, but not a computer.

  “So Tim might have been right about Sands manipulating the casino’s gross,” I reason. “But if I understand you correctly, they could be

  exaggerating

  the earnings of the casino rather than underreporting.”

  “They might run some dirty money through that way,” Walt says, “but they’d be paying county, state, and federal taxes on it, and that gets costly. The bulk of the operation would be handled by wiring large sums into the casino’s bank for gamblers who show up a day or a week later, then gamble for twenty minutes, and cash out their accounts in money that’s now legally clean. The casino makes false reports to the government to understate or misrepresent the wire transactions, and that’s it. It’s a dream setup. How many casinos does Golden Parachute own?”

  “Five in Mississippi alone.”

  Walt chuckles softly, then begins to laugh outright.

  “What is it?” asks my father, who seems to recognize Walt’s tone.

  “Those casinos ain’t casinos at all,” says the Ranger, his face reddening. “They’re goddamn Chinese laundries.”

  Kelly’s nodding thoughtfully. “That'’s got to be it.”

  “If you’re right,” I say, “then why would Sands risk such a sweet deal to do things like fight dogs and run whores?”

  Caitlin leans forward and speaks with cutting clarity. “The same reason a dog licks his balls.”

  There’s an awkward silence, then the men burst out laughing.

  “Because he can,” Carl says.

  “It may be just that simple,” Kelly reflects. “Men follow their compulsions wherever they are. I see it all the time overseas.”

  My father clears his throat and says, “This Freudian analysis is all fine and good, but what are we going to

  do

  ? My wife and granddaughter are sitting in Houston with strangers because of these bastards. I want to know how to resolve this situation—fast.”

  Everyone’s looking at Kelly. He stands motionless for a time, his eyes focused on the floor at the center of our circle with Zen-like calm. He’s thirty-nine years old, with not a spare ounce of fat on him. When he moves, his body ripples with corded muscle, yet his blue eyes seem mild, even amused most of the time. He may work for a security company, but when I see him like this, all I can think is

  Delta Force.

  “I'm tempted to pay Sands a personal visit,” he muses, still looking at the floor. “Before we do anything else.”

  “For what?” I ask.

  “To lay out some ground rules. He already threatened your family. He could strike at any time. He needs to know that any move against you will result in him being wiped from the board.”

  I hear a couple of audible swallows.

  “I can see that,” Walt says pragmatically. “The problem with going that way is you’re unzipping your fly the minute you talk to him. If Sands sees what he’s up against, he could pull in his horns and shut down for a while. That'’s the opposite of what we want. Right?”

  Kelly considers this argument, then nods with certainty. “That'’s

  why we’re going to end this thing tonight. Sands and Quinn are our immediate problem. We need to get them by the balls as fast as we can. Then the inevitable will happen.”

  “What’s that?” Caitlin asks.

  “Their hearts and minds will follow,” says McDavitt.

  Kelly looks at me. “You said dogfighting’s a felony, right?”

  “Right. Even attending one is a felony. And the sentences can be pretty stiff.”

  �
�Then tonight we’re going to run a quiet little op. A photographic expedition. We’ll shoot pictures of Sands, Quinn, and any local dignitaries who might be in attendance, plus the whores and anything else worth shooting. At that point, you’ll have evidence that could put Sands in jail for serious time. Your DA will have no choice but to cooperate. I’'ve seen dogfighting in Kabul. It’s brutal stuff. If Caitlin publishes one photo spread on the

  Examiner

  ’s Web site, the PETA people will be calling for the partners of Golden Parachute to be crucified on the Washington Mall.”

  Walt nods. “I’'ve been trying to find out where they fight. Nothing yet, but I'm on it.”

  “What do we use for equipment?” I ask.

  “I’'ve got night-vision optics in my gear bag,” Kelly says. “Scope, camera, range finder. Carl’s probably got some stuff too.”

  The sniper nods. “We got a new scope at the sheriff’s department. I can have it up from Athens Point by tonight.”

  “How do we get close to one of these fights without being detected?” I ask.

  Kelly smiles cagily. “Most of them happen by the river, right?”

  “That'’s what Jessup told me.”

  “Then we do a Huck Finn.”

  “A raft?”

  “Not exactly. didn't you tell me you'’ve done some kayaking with the guy who organizes that annual race here? The Fat something or other?”

  “The Phat Water Kayak Challenge.”

  “Right.” Kelly tries to puzzle this out. “Is he a rapper or something?”

  “No, he’s an ex-marine, force recon. He’s about fifty.”

  “Will he lend you a boat?”

  “Sure. He’d be happy to guide us to wherever we’re going.”

  “That'’s it, then. Danny will fly air support. He’ll be my eye in the sky, with Carl riding shotgun with his sniper rifle. Wherever the VIP boat docks, I'’ll slip into shore a hundred yards away, find the action, photograph it, then get out before they even know I'm there.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” says McDavitt. “I'’ll bet they go the same place they docked last night.”

  “Where was that?” asks Caitlin.

  “A spot down the river. Louisiana side. Looked like an old farm, maybe a deer camp now. I was pretty high up, but I saw what could have been a small crowd of men under some trees.”