China Dolls

by Rob Wood

  “So?”

  “So, that’s why I want to be close to the pipeline and pumping station,” said Purdy. “If the oil is offloaded, that’s the most feasible place to stop it—before it gets into the SPR.”

  “But basically, we’re just going to race down to a spit of sand in Louisiana and watch?”

  “Yeah.”

  They drove on in silence, saying nothing as they passed the billboard greeting, “Louisiana: Sportsman’s Paradise Welcomes You.” The Dodge van pushed through the heat and humidity until they pulled up on a beach road between Port Fourchon and Grand Isle, with a tiny marina and a cluster of fast food stands and equipment rentals. A vintage mobile home, with a gap for customer orders, boasted, “Clarisse’s Best Po’Boys,” also “Beer” and “Cocktails.”

  Purdy unfolded the tripod and set up the spotting scope. “There’s a big black tanker broadside to us. The Altomorro. I’m betting that’s our boy; it’s flying a Venezuelan flag. Purdy turned to Lily, “What time have you got on your cell phone.”

  “Eleven a.m. on the 14th. What’s the significance of that, Lieutenant?”

  “It ties with the airline tickets. And, it’s lunchtime in God’s country—EST. Hungry?”

  “No,” said Cochrane pointedly. “What about the tanker?”

  “It’s still on approach. This is going to take a while. I think better on a full stomach.”

  “Count me out,” she said shaking her head in disgust. She turned, steadied the scope with her hand, and gazed out at the tanker.

  “How’s our money holding out?” asked Lily.

  “We’ve got enough for a last supper. Ever had an oyster po’boy? They’re cheap.”

  “I’d love to. What is it?”

  Together they walked up to Clarisse’s, the trailer wearing old signs like a snake wears scales. Lily stumbled and Purdy took her hand. Lily was pleased to see this irritated Cochrane.

  “So, Clarisse, you got cocktails, then?” asked Purdy.

  “No.”

  “Beer?”

  “No.”

  “Oysters?”

  “Oh, yeah. The best.”

  “Give me a po’boy. The lady and I will split it.”

  “You want that dressed?’

  “Tomatoes, lettuce, mayo—and a lot of comeback sauce.” Purdy turned to Lily to explain. “That’s a kind of remoulade.”

  “I’m still lost,” she shook her head laughing.

  “A po’boy” is a local delicacy. There was a big streetcar strike in New Orleans at the start of the Depression. A couple of former streetcar drivers had a restaurant, and they didn’t hesitate to make up sandwiches for the strikers. When one of the strikers came by for a sandwich, the kitchen help would call out, “Here comes another poor boy—or ‘po’boy! ‘

  “We tend to name our food after famous generals and poets,” said Lily.

  “Like General Tso’s chicken? Well we’re very democratic over here—even about food.”

  “So, what’s in it?”

  “You want fresh oysters,” explained Purdy. “You soak them in milk. This kind of leavens the taste. Then you dip them into a mixture of egg, milk, oyster liquor and hot sauce. Then you shake them in a paper bag full of corn meal and a little cayenne. Fry them and serve them on a slice of baguette. It has to be a French baguette, because this is Louisiana. I mean it has to be baked in a stone oven, golden and crispy on the outside, light, warm, and fluffy as cotton candy on the inside.”

  Lily smiled and leaned against the counter lip on Clarisse’s trailer. “This is like street food in China,” she said.

  “Yeah, but here they change the grease. How do you like your oysters in China?”

  “I like golden oysters, where the outside is sun dried but the inside is still creamy. You bake them in rice or roast them with honey.”

  “Sun dried? Sounds dangerous.”

  “I’m still here.”

  “Are you guys done over there?” called Cochrane, who was definitely getting cranky.

  “Cuz if you are, this tanker is about to hit something!”

  Purdy, still chewing on his po’boy, looked through the scope. “That round-top cylinder low in the water? That’s the profile of the mooring buoy. The tanker hooks up and discharges oil via a subsea pipeline.”

  “Can’t you stop it?”

  “Only Mother Nature can stop it. If the weather’s rough and the seas are running high, that might do it.”

  Lily flicked out her phone and started talking in quick, short bursts.

  Cochrane cut her eyes at her, hot and disgusted. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to talk with your mouth full?”

  “Well,” said Purdy. “This means we better move to the pumping station. It looks like it’s over there,“ he said pointing northeast.

  “What about that boat over there?” asked Cochrane, pointing.

  “That’s the Lucky Lady,” said Lily flatly.

  “And that one!” Cochrane pointed in the other direction.

  Purdy had missed it because he had the scope zeroed in on the mooring buoy. But with his naked eye, he could tell the ship was bearing down rapidly, the splay of water at the bow visible even at this distance.

  “Hold on,” said Purdy. He swiveled the scope toward the oncoming ship. “Well, I’ll be. That’s Coast Guard, making way like a sumbitch.”

  “You don’t suppose our phone call worked and somebody at Suitland actually believed us.”

  “Maybe. The question is: Are they in time?”

  All eyes strained toward the brilliant white cutter closing on the tanker. Purdy’s eyes, however, were still glued to the scope. “What I can’t understand,” he said, “is what’s happening at the mooring buoy. That thing’s hopping up and down like it’s in boiling water. The Vens can’t tie on.”

  “Torpedoes from the Lucky Lady are exploding below the buoy, but at depth,” said Lily. She smiled and folded her arms across her chest. “It’s not Mother Nature. It’s Mother China.”

  Purdy smiled back. “With any luck, the good guys will catch and board her with the ‘hot rocks’ sitting there like a sign that says, ‘Go directly to jail. Do not collect $200.”

  “It’s more than $200,” said Lily frowning.

  “What’s that?” Cochrane was pointing again. This time, she pointed at the sky over the tanker.

  47

  THIBEAULT AND MAUDE

  “Damn. He’s getting away.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “That’s a helicopter lifting off from the tanker.”

  A good-size chopper, glistening in the sun, had lifted off from the tanker. At this distance, it looked like a moth fluttering up from a log. But it was a helicopter. And it was heading shoreward.

  “Can’t the cutter do something?”

  “They can’t fire—not knowing who’s on board and just guessing at the motive. They can’t pursue. But they can fix coordinates and call it in.”

  “But we know who’s on board.”

  “And we know where he’s going. My bet is that he has an assault team with the means to tap into the pipeline where it’s exposed near the pumping station or, failing that, into the salt dome where the oil is stored at the terminal. His idea all along was to use the nuke material to poison the well. This is just a different way to do it.”

  “And how, exactly, will he do it?”

  “He’ll need to force a hole through the pipeline wall, with a pressure cuff to keep everything in the line—and not spewing out. It shouldn’t be that difficult—assuming he saw this as a contingency worth preparing for.”

  “How is he going to get out? The Coast Guard will have the tanker covered like white on rice. Assuming they do alert shore-based authorities, standard practice is to contain and control—throw up road blocks, call in the cops, National Guard—a dozen different things.”

  “I don’t know what he’s going to do, but I bet he’s got a plan.”

  “Do we have a plan?”


  “Nope. Make it up as we go.”

  “Go?”

  “Pipeline station. Better to catch them and stop them now than to hope there’ll be a second chance. Cao Kai is essentially a terrorist with a nuke, and he’s on American soil. We’ll chase them to hell and back if we have to.”

  “Into the marsh? With our car?”

  “With that.” Purdy’s gaze shifted up the road, and he pointed to five mud-daubed chairs bolted to a deck that sat grandly astride four enormous, ribbed tires. The odd vehicle was parked, or was the term ‘docked?’ outside a beach shack. The buggy looked as though a farm tractor had slammed into the judge’s stand at a county fair, carrying off a part of the dais. Still, it beckoned, festooned as it was with a hand-painted sign that said, “Thibeault’s Hog Catcher. Go anywhere. Hunt anything.”

  Thibeault himself was quite a character: balding, brawny, and a talker.

  “Built it myself,” he said proudly. We can do hogs, gators, anything you want. Rate is $500 a day.

  “I’ll give you the car,” Purdy said simply. “I’m a United States Naval officer in pursuit of terrorists with nuclear material. We’ve gotta move now.”

  Thibeault responded in the only logical way possible: “You’re shittin’ me.”

  “Believe what you want, but the title to the car is real, and my girlfriend here is ready to sign it over to you.”

  “Hi,” smiled Lily, and in that warm, moist moment, she did some of her best acting ever.

  “We’re chasing that chopper that just flew overhead, moving north.”

  “I got a good look at it,” said Thibeault, as if nothing much escaped his attention out here.

  “So?’ said Purdy.

  “So, the name’s Thibeault: T h i b e a u l t. Michael.” He handed Lily a pen. “T-bow, like the Florida football player. Only it’s Cajun. Mount up. I’ll be right back.”

  Purdy, Cochrane, and Lily had barely buckled into their lofty seats when Thibeault was back, tossing up a machete with a cork handle, a duffle and a rifle bag.”

  “What’s that?”

  “All my customers get to use it,” he said. “A Remington 700 30-06, a box of Hornady Super Performance bullets . . . and bug spray.”

  Thibeault bounded up and took the wheel, and the swamp buggy lumbered off. He wasted no time turning north into the marsh.

  With its camo-paint job, bug-eye headlamps, and muddy, bent steel struts, the buggy wasn’t going to win any beauty contests.

  “Has this thing got a name?” Cody asked.

  “It’s a swamp buggy,” said Purdy.

  “Name’s Maude,” Thibeault corrected.

  “A child only a mother could love,” said Purdy.

  “If the mother was Mies van der Rohe,” replied Cochrane.

  Thibeault frowned. “Who?”

  “A guy who said, ‘Form follows function.’”

  “Right,” said Thibeault, as if he’d been asked a question. “That there’s a dog box in the middle. The big one in back is a hog box.”

  It was hot. It was humid. It was a bumpy ride. They rode mostly in silence, interrupted by the squeak and groan of the buggy negotiating deep holes, the whine of mosquitoes, and the occasional conversational spurt from Thiebeault.

  “Maude’s got an aluminum deck, a torque-rich 350, Chevy running gear and 49-inch tractor tires.”

  “Good,” said Cochrane in what she hoped was an interested, socially graceful manner.

  “Outside of north, where we goin’?” asked Thibeault.

  “Near the Clovelly Dome terminal and pipeline station,” said Purdy.

  “I know it,” said Thiebeault. “There’s only a couple of holes where that chopper could have put down without tearing up the rotors on the trees.”

  “Holes?” asked Cochrane.

  “That chopper was riding on pontoons,” said Thiebeault. “She’s gonna put down on some open water between here and Bay Champagne.”

  “Why would Cao Kai do that?” asked Lily.

  “Stealth,” said Purdy. “From the lake, they’ll go in through the marsh on foot. If they’re going to punch into the pipeline or take the station by assault—either way, I doubt that they want the helicopter announcing their presence.”

  “So, mister. . . .” Thibeault paused and looked at Purdy hard. “You really are Navy?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  48

  STAY OUT OF THE DUCKWEED

  The swamp buggy took to trails or ran down water channels as it slogged its way north. Up on the aluminum deck, its passengers were constantly tormented by mosquitoes and raked by branches sprouting leathery green leaves.

  “Lord, I feel like I’m embedded in a Christmas wreath. Too much green! It’s like a bad movie from the 1950s—“Attack of the killer kudzu vine!” Cody flailed her arms, eggbeater-fashion, to ward off the insects and the leaves.

  “Attack of the Killer Kudzu? I don’t know that one,” said Lily matter-of-factly.

  “Well, it’s not kudzu,” said Thibeault over his shoulder. “Out here it’s mostly cordgrass and mangrove. Different species depending on the water depth and salinity. Pretty amazing that anything can grow here. The mangrove is salt tolerant and has roots that can breathe in water-logged soil. It’s helping to save our wetlands. It harbors bird life and serves as a nursery for lots of different goodies on the lower part of the food chain.”

  “If we get out of this alive, we can all raise a toast to the mangrove,” smiled Purdy.

  “Toast it? I can still taste it,” muttered Cochrane, spitting out some of the leaves.

  Thibeault raised his right hand, palm up, to signal, “Stop!”

  “Here we are.” Thiebeault’s voice dropped into a husky whisper. “I can see the helicopter bubble twinkling in the bend of the lake up ahead. And look at how the water changes color—that’s because something out there is casting a shadow. Something big. That’d be the copter.”

  Purdy was down in a flash, stealing up to the last break in the mangrove and peering out at the lake. He came back, nodding to the team, and rotating his hand to get them to circle up around him.

  “We need that helicopter,” said Purdy.

  “More than stealth?” asked Lily.

  “More than anything. It’ll take us faster and further than anything we’ve got. Time is of the essence now. And he’s unlikely to shoot at his own chopper. Hopefully, his team will think there’s a good reason his pilot is dropping down on top of them.”

  “His pilot?” Cochrane peered at Purdy over her sunglasses.

  “Yeah, Cao Kai left someone behind, strapped in, probably with at least a side arm.”

  “So how are we gonna take him?”

  “By surprise. If the chopper is anchored like a little steel island in the middle of this hidden lake…don’t you think the guy’s gonna get smug and let his guard down a little?”

  “Actually, I’d say the guard has reason to be downright cocky. There’s no way we can reach him from shore. I’m not sure there’s a clear line of sight anywhere, and the sound of gunshots would tip off Cao Kai.”

  “So, we get him hand-to-hand. By surprise. We have all the advantages,” returned Purdy.

  “You think wading through this muck all the way out to that chopper is an advantage?”

  “Actually, I wouldn’t wade,” put in Thibeault. “You might step on one of the alligators sliding around on the bottom. They don’t like that.”

  Cochrane looked at him as if he had just grown a second head.

  “Come on,” said Purdy stripping off his clothes. “We’ll swim.” Seeing him, Lily Zhang did likewise, without hesitation, her jaw set firm.

  “Thibeault,” said Purdy. “You take that 30-06. If you see the pilot come out…. If he so much as raises a firearm in our direction, you open up on that chopper like there’s no tomorrow. At that point, we don’t care who hears the shots.

  Purdy looked at Lily. “I’ll take him on the left side.”

  “I’ll take . . .”
She hesitated. “After we get Cao’s helicopter, what then?”

  “Then we go after Cao Kai and whoever he’s got with him.”

  “The three of us?”

  “You see any other way?”

  Lily turned to Cody. “You take the right side. I’m going to call the Lucky Lady.”

  “No!” said Purdy. “You can’t have your Chinese crew cross into Louisiana with firearms, for Christ sake. Not even for good reason.” Purdy shook his head vehemently. “You’ll either start a war or spend the rest of your life spelling ‘illegal alien’ in your dreams—in prison.”

  “I understand. Don’t worry. Trust me.” Lily Zhang reached out and touched Purdy’s face. She repeated the words, “Trust me. I know what I’m doing. And . . . and I’m not Navy, I don’t take orders from you.”

  When she touched Purdy’s cheek, Cochrane shook like an electric current had shot through her. She whipped off her shirt and slipped out of her jeans.

  “I’ve got the right side,” she said. “And I’m not letting you go alone, Purdy. Let’s do this.”

  Thibeault considered her, knowing she was determined, but knowing she was frightened, too. He passed her the machete.

  “Here, take this. If a gator gets too close, just nudge him away. He’s just curious, that’s all. Most of these guys, they eat once and that holds ‘em for weeks. It ain’t like in the movies, Miss.”

  “Right,” said Cochrane, taking the machete and sliding into the dark, brackish water.

  “Stay out of the duckweed!” Thibeault called after her.

  Fat chance. It seemed to Cochrane that there was duckweed everywhere. The small petals parted and slipped down around her arms and thighs as she swam, gliding down her body and clinging like spangles on a sheer gown.

  Purdy was several lengths ahead of her, swimming quietly in a modified sidestroke so he could reconnoiter as he went, his head above water. Cochrane did the same. Although she was swimming smoothly, the lapping water seemed to echo with each stroke, so loud she was sure the chopper pilot could hear their approach. Her heart was racing.

  For the longest time, nothing changed, save that the chopper grew incrementally closer. Then, Cochrane heard the unmistakable sound of rain. That was strange. The sky was a sheer metallic blue, shimmering in the heat. Was this a hallucination? Purdy kept going, but Cochrane slowed, startled and awed by what she saw.