Snake Eye (24 page)

“The dump,” as Tolley referred to it, was marked by an ancient neon sign. It was yellow and consisted of a grizzled prospector leaning on a shovel. “Good,” Rossi answered. “Have we got some sort of diagram?”

“Right here,” a uniformed sergeant said, as he slapped a sheet of graph paper on the hood of her car. The map was hand-drawn but clear. A blob of light from a flashlight was sufficient to illuminate it. The motel was shaped like a capital “L.” The rooms lay along the long axis with the office down at the end. Someone had marked the box labeled “Unit 3” with a large “X.” “We have an officer with the owners,” the policeman continued. “They say the room in question is registered to a man named Martinez. But they did see a male matching Chow’s description enter the unit earlier today. An Asian female and two other men were with him.”

“That sounds like our favorite snakehead alright,” the FBI agent agreed. “Have we got the search warrant?”

“Right here.”

“Good. What about the other guests? Have they been secured?”

“There are four of them,” Tolley replied. “One works nights and the rest have been evacuated by plainclothes personnel. There’s lots of action around here at night—so we’re hoping that the evacuation went unnoticed.”

“That would be nice,” Rossi agreed. “Okay, let’s get this done.”

Thanks to the fact that a perimeter had been established, and the rest of the units had been secured, it was relatively easy to move in on unit three. Once Rossi had received confirmation that the bathroom window had been covered by the SPD she edged up to the door. Tolley took his position on the opposite side of the entryway. Like the FBI agent, his weapon was up and ready.

Rossi could feel her heart try to pound its way through her chest wall as she prepared to knock on the door. Would Chow put up a fight? Not if he was asleep—and they could enter quickly enough. The FBI agent took a deep breath as she rapped on the door. “This is the manager. Did you report a plumbing problem?” There was silence as Rossi counted off the seconds in her head. “Okay,” she said loud enough for those around her to hear, “hit it!”

Two heavily armored members of the SPD stepped around the agent and positioned themselves in front of the door. Once they had their boots planted they pulled their tubular battering ram back before swinging it toward the door. There was a loud
bang
, followed by the sound of splintering wood, and a
thud
as what remained of the obstacle slammed into one of the walls.

It was dark inside. Rossi went through the opening first, weapon at the ready, with Tolley close behind. He hit the lights, and although both were prepared to fire, there was no one to shoot at, just a shabby room, a bed with clothes piled on it, and a laptop computer. A quick check confirmed that the bathroom and closet were empty, too. “So,” Tolley said, as he returned from the bathroom. “What do you think?”

“I think we missed the bastard,” Rossi said, as she made use of a ballpoint pen to touch the computer’s mouse pad. “But not by much.”

The computer, which had long since gone to standby, came back to life. The FBI agent watched as the picture of a young Asian woman reassembled itself on the screen. “Don’t let anyone mess with the laptop until we get a warrant and the techies have a chance to examine it,” Rossi instructed as she stared at the screen. “Odds are that Chow was just surfing porn sites but you never know. Maybe he’s connected to this girl somehow. And let’s get the forensics folks in here. Who knows what they left behind.”

It was more than an hour later when Little Chow, plus three of his bodyguards, left the strip club they had spent the evening in, and cruised north along 99. They were a block away form the motel when Paco spotted the police cars. “Holy shit, boss! Look at that! The cops are all over the place.”

“Keep it cool,” the snakehead advised. “And slow down. That’s what most people would do.”

The order made sense, even if it was counter intuitive, and Paco complied. Chow, who was seated in the rear on the passenger’s side, had an excellent view of the sidewalk as the newly acquired car slowed to fifteen mph. He could see the cop cars, followed by an official-looking van, and two people standing directly below the motel’s yellow neon sign. One was a black male and the other was a white female—an FBI agent judging from the letters on the back of her jacket. And not just
any
agent, but the one he’d seen on TV. The one who had been sleeping with Dexter.

The snakehead felt a rising sense of anger as he stared out through the glass. It was starting to
look like the FBI bitch was determined to get up his ass. Well, two could play
that
game. “Hey, Paco,” Chow said as the black caddy pulled away.

“Yeah, boss?”

“Have someone get me the down-low on that FBI bitch. You know the one. Ross, Rosso, or something like that. I want to know where she lives, who she hangs with, and what she had for dinner last night.”

“Sure, boss,” Paco said, as he eyed the rearview mirror for any sign of pursuit. “I’ll put my cousin Tony on it. He’s into computers and shit like that.”

“Good,” Chow said. “And one more thing. I figure they have Ling. But what if she got away? See what you can pick up from the media. If she’s out there we need to find her before the cops do.”

“I’ll put the word out,” Paco assured him. “So what about Big Chow? Are you going to tell him?”

“Hell no,” the snakehead replied dismissively. “They have taps on his phone by now. No, we’re on our own until that ship comes in. Shanghai could be a drag—but you’ll like Hong Kong. That’s where Jackie Chan hangs out.”

Paco, who wasn’t of Chinese ancestry, and didn’t speak Spanish much less Mandarin, wasn’t all that eager to live in Hong Kong. But the train had left the station, he was on it, and there was no way off. “Yeah, boss. That sounds good.”

Meanwhile, back at the Prospector’s Palace, Rossi was getting into her car and pulling away. The raid had been a disappointment, but not a disaster, since it was bound to turn the heat up on the Chow family. So why did she feel such a sense of impending doom? As if something really bad was about to happen? There was no logical reason for it—and logic is what counted. “Merry Christmas!” the sign on a store front read, but she had her doubts.

The Toyotas headlights bored twin tunnels into the night as Dexter guided the four-by-four down Ebey Road to the visitor’s area where Stanton’s truck was parked. The businessman heard the boat trailer rattle as he turned into the parking lot, brought the rig to a halt, and killed the engine. A rectangle of buttery light appeared then vanished as Stanton peeked through a window before leaving the comparative warmth of his camper for the cold night air. Petey raced ahead and barked a greeting as Dexter made his way back to the boat trailer. “Well, it looks like you found one,” the ex-trucker commented, as he played the beam from his flashlight across the old aluminum boat. A pair of wooden oars lay lengthwise on the seats.

“Yeah,” Dexter replied. “It belongs to the cook at the restaurant where we had dinner. I paid him fifty bucks to let me use it.”

“He should have paid
you
,” Stanton observed, as he eyed the much-abused hull. “It looks heavy. How are we going to get this monster down to the water?”

“With
this
,” the businessman replied, and hoisted a metal contraption out of the boat’s stern. The device consisted of a U-shaped tubular framework, a pair of set screws, and two wheels. “It clamps onto the stern right where an outboard would go,” Dexter explained. “Once it’s in position you flip the boat over, grab onto the bow, and tow it down to the water.”

“I can hardly wait,” the older man said dryly. “Why did I let you talk me into this insanity anyway?”

“Because you have a weakness for steak dinners,” Dexter replied lightly. “Come on. You aim the flashlight while I release the tie-downs.”

Ten minutes later the boat had been freed, the wheels had been attached, and Dexter was ready to go. The idea for the excursion had come to him shortly after Stanton had described the mysterious doings at Ebey’s Landing. Had illegals been brought ashore that night? And if so, had they been warehoused aboard the
Zhou Spring
. Dexter felt sure that the answer to both questions was yes.

But given the fact that his credibility was at an all-time low, and having failed to view the wreck first hand, the ex-SEAL needed some tangible proof before taking his theory to the authorities. The most obvious thing to do was to attempt another dive, and the businessman had been toying with that idea when an alternative came to mind. The subsurface habitat was similar to a submarine in many respects, and having been trained to operate from submarines, Dexter knew that a good air supply would be critical. And that raised an interesting question. How did the underwater facility renew its air supply? Could the bad guys manufacture oxygen? The way modern subs did? Or were they reliant on something low-tech? Something they could release during the hours of darkness? His guess was yes, and pictures of such a device would go a long way toward supporting his story. And Stanton, bless his soul, had volunteered to help.

All of which explained why the two men swore and Petey barked excitedly as they struggled to drag the twelve-foot aluminum boat through a maze of driftwood and onto the rocky beach. Once they reached the edge of the water there was a pause while Stanton took Petey back to the camper. When the ex-trucker returned he found a pair of tall rubber boots and an orange life jacket waiting for him. The price tags were still on them. “Put those on,” the ex-naval officer instructed. “But, if the boat tips over, kick the boots off. Otherwise they will fill with water and take you down.”

Stanton nodded as he sat on a corner of the boat’s stern and pulled his hiking boots off. “But
maybe he was wrong. it’s dark out there. How are we going to find our way back?”

“This will act as our beacon,” Dexter explained, as he thumbed the switch on a portable spotlight. “I’ll place both it and the transporter above the tide-line. And, if that fails, I have a compass.”

“Good thinking,” the older man replied. “Here, put my boots next to the other stuff. I’ll be able to find them again that way.”

Dexter did and ten minutes later metal scraped on gravel as the men pushed the rowboat out into the low waves. The surf was light but made regular smacking sounds when it hit the bow and threw droplets of cold water back over the gunwales. Dexter entered the boat first, grabbed hold of the pre-positioned oars, and pulled as Stanton came in over the stern.

The boat bucked and scraped bottom before finally breaking free of the land. Spray hit his back, and Dexter gave thanks for his parka as he braced his boots against Stanton’s seat and pulled harder. The artificial leg was working well, the beacon was visible over the ex-trucker’s left shoulder, and the moon was playing hide ‘n’ seek behind the quickly scudding clouds. The oarlocks made a regular
clacking
sound, but no one was present to hear them, and there wasn’t much he could do about the problem anyway.

Finally, when the beacon was little more than a pinpoint of light, and the ex-naval officer estimated that they were over the wreck, he began to ship his oars. But the waves started to push the boat around forcing Dexter to row in order to remain in position. “Okay,” the ex-SEAL announced, “let’s take a look around.”

Stanton, who was armed with a flashlight, switched it on. Then, mindful of how easy it would be to miss what they were looking for, the ex-trucker established what he hoped was an effective search pattern.

Dexter alternated pushing and pulling on his oars as a way to keep the bow into the wind-blown waves—and watched the beam of light sweep back and forth across the oily looking water. The whole thing was absurd. He realized that now and wondered how he could have been so stupid. Even if he was correct, and the people in the habitat below sent some sort of snorkel up to the surface, who was to say when that would occur? Perhaps the process took an hour, or even less, and occurred every forty-eight hours. It could take days if not weeks to catch the smugglers in the act. Stanton completed the search, turned the light off in order to conserve his batteries, and shook his head. “Sorry, Jack. I didn’t see a thing.”

“Me neither,” Dexter agreed soberly. “Are you okay? Should we go in?

“I’m fine,” the older man confirmed. “Here, see if you can rest those oars long enough to take a pull from this. And watch out—it’s hot.”

Dexter brought one oar inboard and made use of the other to keep the boat positioned. Then, having accepted the aluminum thermos bottle, he took a tentative sip. The coffee had been laced with whiskey and warmed his stomach. “Thanks,” Dexter said gratefully as he returned the flask to its owner. “That hit the spot.”

Stanton nodded, took a swig, and screwed the top back on as the ex-naval officer went back to rowing. A gentle but persistent current seemed determined to push the boat north relative to the shore beacon. Dexter was pulling against the flow when Stanton touched his leg. “Hold on, Jack. What the hell is that noise? Can you hear it?”

Dexter stopped pulling and turned an ear into the wind. That was when he heard something akin to a groan. It seemed to originate from the west, although it was hard to tell, given all the other noise. Dexter pulled on the starboard oar until the bow was lined up with the sound. Then, pulling with both oars, the ex-SEAL rowed out to sea. It didn’t feel right, not if the wreck was
where he thought it was, but maybe he was wrong. “There!” Stanton said excitedly, as his flashlight pointed forward. “I see something in the water!”

Dexter turned to look back over his shoulder, but that made it difficult to row, and he was forced to watch Stanton as one of the larger waves momentarily lifted the boat up prior to letting it drop again. “We’re almost there!” the ex-trucker exclaimed, his face alight with excitement. “Go left a bit.”

The ex-naval officer could hear the sound more clearly by then—and realized it was more like a roar than a groan. And then they were right next to the brightly lit object. The “snorkel” looked like a big black inner tube, and Dexter would have been convinced that it was one, had it not been for the noise generated by sub-surface machinery and the fact that it was stationary. Some quick work with the oars was required to bring the float alongside where Stanton managed to get a grip on the structure. “It’s inflatable!” he exclaimed. “All they have to do is fill it with air and it will float to the surface.”

“Along with a flexible hose that leads down to the wreck,” the businessman added. “Hang onto that hummer while I snap some pictures.”

The ex-naval officer was equipped with two disposable cameras—both having been purchased in Coupeville. There was a sequence of bright flashes as Dexter shot the snorkel from a variety of angles, even going so far as to half-stand in order to hold the camera out over what he thought was the blow-hole, and click away. “Okay,” the ex-SEAL said, as he thumped back onto his seat and took hold of the oars. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Works for me,” Stanton agreed, and took a long satisfying pull from his thermos as Dexter pushed the boat stern-first toward the beach beacon. “So,” the older man continued conversationally. “What have you got planned for tomorrow?”

“Well,” Dexter replied, “I need to get this film developed and deliver it to the right people.”

“
And
?”

The businessman frowned. “’And’ what?”

“Tomorrow is Christmas,” Stanton said patiently.

“I’m Jewish,” Dexter replied. “We don’t do Christmas.”

“You’re full of shit,” the ex-trucker replied. “My daughter lives in Renton. She makes one helluva Christmas dinner and you’re coming.”

“I think you should check with her before you invite additional guests,” Dexter suggested. “Besides, I’ve had some legal problems of late, and all things considered, I’m not the sort of guy you should bring home to your daughter.”

“You mean that voyeur stuff?”

“You knew about that?”

“Yeah, but what the hell. I had a subscription to
Playboy
back in the seventies.”

“So you understand why the Christmas thing is a bad idea.”

“I spoke with Linda earlier today,” Stanton replied stubbornly. “She said any friend of mine is a friend of hers! Oh, and she wants you to bring a bottle of white wine.”

Metal grated on gravel as the stern hit the bottom. The boat shuddered as a wave split itself against the bow and the mission was complete. Both men got out and waded ashore. Dexter checked his watch. It read 12:17. “Merry Christmas, Hank.”

Stanton smiled. “Merry Christmas, Jack.”

It took the better part of an hour to get the boat back on its trailer, reorganize the gear in the back of his SUV, and crawl into his sleeping bag. It took a while to fall asleep, but once he did, Dexter began to dream. They were bad dreams, but none of them were new, and that was all he
could hope for.

In marked contrast to the long string of rainy holidays that Rossi considered to be typical, December 25 dawned bright, clear, and cold. It would have been nice to sleep in but that was impossible since she had a lot of presents to wrap before going to her ex-husband’s home later that day. Still, it was pleasant to light a fire, listen to Christmas music, and sip hot chocolate while wrestling with paper, scotch tape, and stick-on bows, a process that Snowball found to be a lot more interesting than she did. The FBI agent noticed that while the first presents came out looking pretty good, the quality of her efforts began to deteriorate after a while, which meant that the last objects wrapped looked like hell, something that would become even more obvious once they were viewed side-by-side with those that Vanessa had been working on since September.

But there was no way to compete with perfection, and no reason to, since Vanessa had already taken possession of that dubious prize. Or was that sour grapes as Ed was everything that a lot of women wanted. Hell, he was what
she
wanted until he said goodbye and the custody battle began.

Later, once the presents had been loaded into shopping bags, Rossi ate some rewarmed pizza, half an apple, and one of the Christmas cookies that she had purchased for Missy. And, as with most days since the shoot-out in her home, there was a miserable moment when she was reminded of Dexter, the rotten bastard who had parachuted into her life, made it momentarily worth living, and trashed it on the way out.

As she prepared to leave Rossi wondered what
he
was doing for Christmas, came to the conclusion that it didn’t matter, and opened a can of stinky food for Snowball. “At least I can count on
you
,” the FBI agent said, and could do little more than hope that the feeling was reciprocal as the cat went nose-down in her bowl.

Though somewhat lighter than normal there was still plenty of traffic as Rossi followed 45th east toward Laurelhurst. And, because FedEx trucks are so ubiquitous, the FBI agent didn’t notice the one that followed behind her.

The house, which had originally been a rather undistinguished rambler on a larger-than-average lot, had painstakingly been transformed into something twice as big. It managed to be sleek and modern without seeming stark, still another example of Vanessa’s endless talents. As for Ed, his taste had blossomed under his new wife’s tutelage, miraculously transforming himself from a man who knew nothing about interior design into an expert on Charles and Ray Eames, Mies van der Rohe, and Frank Alvah Parsons, a transformation that Rossi found to be both amusing and absurd.

The heavily loaded FBI agent was only halfway up the stairs that led to the front door when it swung open and Missy burst out. “Mom! What took you so long?” the ten-year-old demanded excitedly, and rushed down the steps. She was dressed in a bright green dress and was clearly delighted to see her mother, a fact that countered at least some of the misgivings that Rossi had regarding the rest of the afternoon and evening.

Meanwhile, Vanessa, who looked serenely elegant, emerged to watch the first scene in what promised to be a well-choreographed play. She was pleased to see that Rossi had not only taken the time and effort required to dress for the occasion, but had found time to wrap her gifts. A Christmas miracle if there ever was one. None of them noticed the FedEx truck as it passed by.