by Ty Patterson
She broke the task group into teams of five, allocated them pieces of work, and signaled the twins, and Chang and Pizaka to follow her. She led them to a walnut panelled office, and folded her arms.
‘What’s this about the Ohio plant?’ she asked Meghan. ‘And where’s Zeb?’
Zeb was visiting dojos in the city, with a printout of the ghost in hand. He was reasonably certain the ghost was highly proficient in martial arts. Those arts required practice. Practice meant dojos.
He didn’t go to the popular ones, he went to those where references were required. None of those had seen the ghost or had him as a member. Zeb stopped to take stock and recalibrate his thinking after visiting ten establishments and drawing a blank at each one.
I don’t go to the reference-required dojos. I go to one which almost no one knows of. Only masters come there to practice.
The ghost didn’t frequent his dojo, Zeb was sure of that. He knew all the members, and he played an active role in screening new ones.
There should be other such dojos.
He made a few calls to his contacts in the martial arts community, got a few leads and checked out the clubs – that’s what they were essentially – in Chinatown.
No dice. None of those had the ghost.
He went to a food truck and tucked into a burger and while he was doing so, he wondered why he hadn’t gotten Werner to help him.
Werner pointed out several secret dojos that he didn’t know existed – they were secret for a reason – in all the boroughs of the city. None of them took walk-in members. Joiners had to be referred by members who knew them very well.
It was evening by the time he walked into the one in Little Manila in Woodside, Queens, his hopes fading. He had made several calls and had leaned on several people before he got the number and the address of the dojo.
He had decided against calling; it was too easy to hang up mid-sentence. Visiting in person was better.
He spoke to the short man at the entrance who regarded him suspiciously. White men were seen very rarely in that neighborhood and someone who had Zeb’s bearing, were even rarer. Rare was not good.
Zeb cajoled and persuaded the man to allow him to enter, but the guard wasn’t budging. Zeb then switched to Tagalog and the man’s eyes widened. A white man who knew his language?
The man opened the gate and led him to the inside of the dojo. It was no more than a simple hall, wooden flooring with a few practice mats. The guard took him to an inside office where the manager sat, reading through a few papers.
Not manager, he’s a master, a practitioner, a teacher. Zeb recognized the man’s lean build, the calluses on his fingers, and came to a swift decision.
He bowed and spoke in the native language and, taking a leap of faith, he revealed who he was and why he was there.
The man regarded him for a few seconds and then dismissed the guard. He gestured to a wooden chair and when Zeb had seated himself, he rose and brought two cups of green tea.
‘Why?’ the man asked after taking a sip.
There was a TV running on mute, on a shelf, to the side of the desk. Zeb pointed to the news bars on its screen.
‘He’s behind that.’
He brought out the printout and slid it across the table to the Filipino. The master placed his cup down and nodded as if it confirmed something inside him.
‘He is bad. I threw him out.’
‘His name is Zho.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
More progress was made on identifying Zho when Beth got Werner to look into Peng Huang’s parents, and in one of the city’s obscure Chinese newspapers, in a very old online edition, the supercomputer found a faded family photograph.
The image was part of several others, taken at a prominent community member’s wedding. Werner discarded the rest of the pictures and ran an aging program on family portrait. It pulled up a facial recognition program and said one of the kids was likely to be Peng Huang.
The other boy could be Zho. ‘Face recog programs are not accurate and these are not ideal images,’ Werner typed on the screen.
‘I thought you were a supercomputer,’ Beth typed back.
‘That I am, however, I’m not a magician,’ came the snarky reply.
‘You’re too smart for your own good,’ she stuck her tongue out at the screen and looked around quickly to see if anyone had seen her. No one had.
‘I’m smart. That should be obvious,’ Werner smirked and went off to chat up his Swiss girl.
Zeb took the family portrait and went back to Chinatown; he met his snitches in a market stall and gave them copies of the picture. They promised to get back to him as soon as they could.
‘Later today, will be better,’ he urged.
He went to Brooklyn, to a cell phone store which was known to be a 41S front, one of many, and waited for paying customers to leave.
The Asian man behind the counter looked at him in expectation, ‘You want phone?’
‘No.’ Zeb let his eyes wander, assessing threat levels. He didn’t see any weapons or feel any danger. Zeb spotted a camera on the ceiling and presented his face to its lens.
‘You want SIM card? Minutes?’ the store clerk queried impatiently.
‘No.’ Zeb handed him the photograph and watched the clerk’s face go slack in puzzlement. ‘What’s that?’
‘Who, not what,’ Zeb corrected him. ‘That’s Zho. Give it to him. Tell him he’s no longer a ghost.’
‘Zho? I don’t know any Zho. We sell phones, man.’
‘Tell him,’ Zeb repeated and walked out of the store.
Beijing man was content as he watched the news from America unfold on his screen. The rumor that the U.S. government had ordered the printing of fake currency had been swiftly squashed; however, the damage had been done.
Trust in the Federal government was at an all-time low and a cynical citizenry believed the rumor. The lines outside and inside banks grew as people withdrew money from their accounts and demanded that the banks check them. There were small incidents of violence, nothing noteworthy, but they were directly linked to the counterfeiting fire, fueled by social media.
The dummy accounts in the internet worked overtime spewing out the same canned messages, questioning the government’s denial, wondering how many more fake bills were in circulation.
The stock markets had fallen a couple of basis points, the U.S. dollar had fallen another point. Various government officials had routinely taken to coming on TV to reassure the markets and the people. It didn’t seem to have any effect.
Beijing man knew the FBI and NYPD and many other agencies were investigating the origins of the social media postings. They wouldn’t get anywhere. The dummy accounts could be shut down, but more would open up. There were live users in different parts of the country, in fact in different parts of the world, who spent six or seven hours a day, just posting and reposting. No agency could tackle that kind of organization.
The US law enforcement agencies had probably discovered by now that there were more than the two containers. Beijing man reckoned the two plants had quietly printed close to three hundred million worth of bills over several years, which had been quietly put into circulation.
He marveled once again at himself, at the organization that had gone into getting the counterfeiting operation up and running. When he started, he had only a vague idea of how the fake bills would fit into his master plan, the end goal wasn’t clear. Nevertheless, he had gone ahead and put in resources and as time progressed, the plan took shape.
He sipped his St. George Single Malt, a Californian whiskey he had acquired a taste for when he had been studying in Yale, and put away the self-appreciation. There was more to come in the plan.
He looked at a calendar on his desk. One more container was on its way to New York, almost there. It would reach its destination in a few hours. Later that night a message would go out, and an event would happen the next day.
On the second day, the plan
would complete. He finished his glass in a gulp, refilled it, and called Hong Kong man with more instructions.
‘We seem to be in limbo, waiting for things to happen,’ Meghan growled and blew hair out of her face as she rose from her screen and wandered to the hoop. She bounced the ball a few times and practiced a few shots.
Beth was in the office with her, as was Zeb. Roger was lying on a couch, his hat over his face, while Bwana, rattled away in the kitchen and emerged with mugs of coffee.
‘We know who Zho is. We know the 41S is behind all this. We got all those bills, now it’s just a matter of finding this Peng Huang and Zho dudes,’ he said as he handed out their coffee.
‘Have you turned on your TV? Gone out and seen what’s happening for yourself?’ she challenged him. ‘Something more is brewing. This isn’t just about counterfeiting.’
‘Ma’am, Rog and I, Bear too, we’re just the trigger men. We don’t do any thinking,’ he said and ducked the cushion that came flying his way.
The container rolled to a halt inside the unloading yard in the large warehouse in Queens, just off Maspeth Avenue. The driver hopped out of his cab, stretched and yawned, and approached a bunch of men. All Chinese, he noted and didn’t give it much thought. He’d picked up the load from a printing press in California which too had several Chinese folks.
He gave the man in the front - a tall, lean man - his papers, and after conversing for a while, the unloading began.
The warehouse people were competent and quick and an hour later, he was away, the container on the bed of another truck.
Zho inspected the contents again and satisfied, got his men to seal it. The warehouse was arranged like a giant rectangle, with streets on two sides, on one of which was the entrance.
The other street lined one side of the concrete structure and in the nights, doubled up as parking for other trucks and transport vehicles. On the two other sides of the building were more industrial units and warehouses.
Opposite the warehouse were a couple of buildings, office complexes, that had a good view to its unloading yard, and across the side street were more buildings that had lines of sight to the approach street.
It was a good location for what Zho had planned. He watched as one of his hoods climbed into the truck and moved the container to the side street. He parked behind a well-known courier company’s truck and turned off the engine.
Another truck with a container rolled into the yard. A third truck with a third container got positioned in the approach street, behind other vehicles.
He gave his instructions, checked once again, and then pulled out his phone and typed, Send.
The message reached the NYPD the next day, through a snitch that they had cultivated over the years, an informer who had proven to be reliable over time. There’s a third container reaching the city. Packed with counterfeit bills. In a 41S warehouse in Queens. Tonight.
The detective who had cultivated the informer, a low level gang member, met him and questioned him closely. The man stuck to his story. He wasn’t a 41S member, but this was something he’d overheard from two hoods from the gang. The three of them, good buddies, had gone womanizing and had hit bars later. One of the hoods had been indiscreet and had spilled the news.
Neither of the two thugs realized their mistake and talked of getting sober before nightfall.
The snitch had made his own discreet enquiries and found out that the 41S owned that warehouse. They used it to stock or move product…such as powder.
‘Any specific time for this container to arrive?’ the detective asked. ‘Don’t know. It was to come after dark,’ the informer replied.
The task force got the message ten hours after Zho sent his text. The twins and Zeb received it ten minutes later.
Zeb and Broker spent the next hour working their phones talking to their underground network of informants spread across the city. Most of them didn’t know anything about any container.
A Chinese pawnbroker, who Zeb had rescued from muggers, confirmed that something big would happen, in the vicinity of the Queens warehouse. The pawnbroker sold guns to gangsters and was a trusted supplier. He had heard snatches of conversation when some 41S members thought he wasn’t around.
Chang and Pizaka got confirmation from their own contacts and that was enough for Burke to take action.
The task force convened just before midday; Chang, Pizaka, the twins, Zeb, and the rest of the Agency operatives, got together in a room with FBI agents and cops. The air was electric, everyone was expectant.
‘We’ll mount a watch in two hours,’ Burke brought up a map of Queens and zoomed into it till the warehouse was visible. ‘It’s owned by an Oriental import firm. They bring in silk and spices from Asia and sell them to retailers.’
She used a laser pointer to indicate the buildings surrounding the warehouse. ‘We’re in luck. The industrial unit right across the warehouse has one floor empty. A floor that looks into the yard.’
She discussed positioning and teams, surveillance tactics and tools. New invisible drones would be used that could see at night. One would cover the front, another would look down into the side street, and a third would cover the buildings to the side.
A couple of undercover officers would drive trucks and park them close to the warehouse and stay in them before dark. They would provide the human eyes. They would have legitimate bills of lading and delivery instructions.
They would bust the operation as the container was being unloaded. She would be with Chang and Pizaka in an unmarked vehicle, the command vehicle. The meeting broke up and when the officers and agents had left, she approached the twins.
‘You’ll have to sit out this one,’ she said apologetically. ‘Observers, but no active role.’
‘Sure. We understand,’ Meghan replied promptly.
Too promptly, Burke thought as she watched the sisters disappear along with Zeb. I bet they’re going to take a hand. It’s not like them to play the audience.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The tall, African American trucker hopped out of his vehicle at about three pm that afternoon and surveyed the street he was on. He had come up Maspeth Avenue carrying a load for a plastic container manufacturer, but clearly he was lost.
His GPS had died on him and his frantic calls to the shipper went unanswered. He spotted a warehouse in which he could detect a lot of activity and headed over to its entrance. Maybe they could direct him.
He walked loosely, casually, the red shirt with black checks, billowing around him, exposing the black Tee he wore underneath, revealing the strong upper body build. His arms were tattooed and his face had more ink just below his left eye.
‘Say,’ he hailed a smoker who was lounging against the warehouse, puffing away contentedly. ‘Are you guys Queens Plastics?’
The smoker spat and shook his head. ‘Wrong address, dude. This’s Oriental Import and Export. Which street are you looking for?’
‘59th Place and 56th Road.’
The smoker stubbed out his smoke and gestured at the driver who handed over a bunch of papers. ‘The address is right, but you’ve got the wrong name. What’re you carrying?’
‘Plastic sheets. A heck of a lot of them.’ The African American sighed gloomily and took his papers back. ‘I was thinking of making a quick getaway today. Ain’t going to happen is it? I get saddled with a wrong address.’
He thanked the smoker, started back, and turned as if he’d remembered something. ‘Hey, have you heard of them? Are they close by?’
The smoker laughed. ‘Dude, there must be hundreds of businesses in this neighborhood. I don’t know all of them.’
The driver waved in understanding and headed back to his truck, cursing all the while.
‘About ten people inside, maybe twelve. Hard to make out through the dimness,’ Meghan spoke in Bwana’s ear. ‘Three cameras at the front, all facing the yard. Electric gates, don’t seem to see any other alarms.’
Bwana, the driver, cont
inued swearing, without breaking a stride. There could be eyes on him, his cover had to be maintained. He stopped on the approach street and made a show of stopping passersby and showing them the address. All of them shook their heads. He wasn’t surprised. Such a business didn’t exist in that neighborhood.
The twins had come up with the idea of a surveillance run shortly after they had left Federal Plaza. Zeb had readily agreed since he was thinking on the same lines. He had already decided they would play a role in the bust – that of very interested spectators. That didn’t mean they would be sitting on the couches in their office; they would be on the scene, ready to intervene, if necessary.
Being interested spectators meant they had to get a lay of the land and hence the surveillance run. Bwana volunteered to be the trucker and got his arms and face inked with washable paint. The red shirt came from a wardrobe in their office that had several custom outfits. The buttons in the shirt had nano cameras that were wirelessly connected to a storage unit in the back of the truck.
The back of the truck had various gadgets that set up the WiFi network and recorded the feeds. It also had the twins who were seated at two consoles, their eyes and fingers moving continually, watching the images from the cameras. Broker was in their office, monitoring everything, keeping the lines open with the FBI and the NYPD.
The truck had been arranged by the sisters and Broker, who once had told Zeb he could procure an aircraft carrier within a few miles off the shores of Manhattan. Zeb hadn’t taken him up on it; he believed his friend.
Zeb and Roger had driven box trucks past the warehouse a couple of times and had conducted their own ‘eyes on.’ Their trucks had been fitted with cameras too, and Roger’s had a drone in it that would go up once night set in.
Bwana drove his truck to the approach street and eased into a vacant slot, parking between two Peterbilts. He sat in his cab awaiting a signal from the twins, who were monitoring the traffic around the truck through several cameras.