The Stone Monkey (55 page)

The Ghost, who'd been staring at Sachs, turned slowly toward Rhyme when he heard this.

"A letter?" Peabody asked.

"It said, more or less, here's your money and a list of the victims you'll be taking to America. ... Are we catching on to the big picture, gentlemen? The letter didn't say 'passengers' or 'immigrants' or 'piglets'—or your own indelicate term, Peabody, 'undocumenteds.' The letter said quote 'victims.' I didn't realize at first when I had the letter translated that that was the exact word the writer used. And the big picture becomes a lot clearer when we look at who those victims were—they were all Chinese dissidents and their families. The Ghost isn't just a snakehead. He's also a professional killer. He was hired to murder them."

"This man is crazy," the Ghost snapped. "He's desperate. I want to leave now."

But Rhyme said, "The Ghost was planning all along to scuttle the
Dragon.
He was only waiting until the ship was close enough to shore so that he and his
bangshou
could make it to land safely. But a few things went wrong—we found the ship and sent the Coast Guard in, so he had to act sooner than he'd planned; some of the immigrants escaped. Then the explosive was too powerful and the ship sank before he could get his guns and money and find his assistant."

"That's absurd," muttered Webley from State. "Beijing wouldn't hire anybody to kill dissidents. It's not the 1960s anymore."

"Beijing
didn't
do it," Rhyme responded, "as I suspect
you
probably know, Webley. No, we found out who sent the Ghost his instructions and his money. Ling Shui-bian is his name."

The Ghost glanced desperately at the boarding gate.

Rhyme continued, "I sent the Fuzhou police an email with Ling's name and address and told them that I thought he was one of the Ghost's partners. But they sent back a message saying I must be mistaken. His address was a government building in Fuzhou. Ling is the Fujian governor's assistant in charge of trade development."

"What's that mean?" Peabody asked.

"That he's a corrupt warlord," Rhyme snapped. "Isn't it obvious? He and his people're getting millions in kickbacks from businesses all along the southeastern coast of China. He's probably working with the governor, but I don't have any evidence about that. Not yet, anyway."

"Impossible," offered Webley though with much less bluster than he'd displayed earlier.

Rhyme said, "Not at all. Sonny Li told me about Fujian Province. It's always been more independent than the central government likes. It has the most connections with the West and Taiwan—more money too. And the most active dissidents. Beijing is always threatening to crack down on the province, nationalize businesses again and put its own people in power. If that happens, Ling and his boys lose their income stream. So, how to keep Beijing happy? Kill the most vocal dissidents. And what better way to do it than by hiring a snakehead? If they die en route to another country it's their own fault, not the government's."

"And more likely than not," Sachs said, "nobody'd even know that they died. They'd be just one more shipload of the vanished." Nodding at Webley from State, she reminded, "Rhyme?"

"Oh, right. The last piece of the puzzle. Why's the Ghost going free?"

He said to Webley, "You're sending him back to keep Ling and his people in Fujian happy. To make sure our business interests aren't affected. Southeast China is the biggest site for U.S. investment in the world."

"That's bullshit," the man snapped in reply.

The Ghost said, "This is ridiculous. It's the lie of a desperate man." Nodding toward Rhyme. "Where's the proof?"

"Proof? Well, we have the letter from Ling. But if you want more ... Remember, Harold? You told me that other shiploads of the Ghost's immigrants disappeared in the past year or so. I checked the statements from their relatives in the Interpol database. Most of those victims were dissidents from Fujian too."

"That's not true," the Ghost said quickly.

"Then there's the money," Rhyme said, ignoring the snakehead.

"Money?"

"The smuggling fee. When Sachs went for her little paddle in the Atlantic she found 120,000 U.S. dollars and maybe 20,000 worth of old yuan. I invited a friend of mine from the INS over to my place to help me look at the evidence. He—"

"Who?" Peabody asked sharply. Then he understood. "Alan Coe? It was him, wasn't it?"

"A friend. Let's leave it at that." In fact, the friend
was
Agent Coe, who'd also spent the day stealing classified INS files, which would probably cost him his job, if not earn him a jail sentence. This was the risk that Rhyme had referred to earlier—and that Coe had been only too happy to assume.

"The first thing he noticed was the money. He told me that when immigrants contract with snakeheads they can't pay the down payment in dollars—because there
are
no dollars in China, not enough to pay for transit to the U.S. anyway. They always pay in yuan. With a shipload of twenty-five or so immigrants, that means Sachs should've found at least a half million in yuan—just for the down payment. So why was there so little Chinese money on board? Because the Ghost charged next to nothing—to make sure that the dissidents on the hit list could afford to make the trip. The Ghost was making his profit from the fee to kill them. The 120,000? Well,
that
was the down payment from Ling. I checked the serial numbers on some of the bills and, according to the Federal Reserve, that cash was last seen going into the Bank of South China in Singapore. Which happens to be used regularly by Fujianese government ministries."

More rows were boarding. The Ghost was truly desperate now.

Peabody had fallen silent and was considering all this. He seemed to be wavering. But the State Department official was resolute. "He's getting on that plane and that's all there is to it."

Rhyme squinted and cocked his head. "How high are we now on the ladder of evidence, Sachs?"

"How about the C4?"

"Right, the explosive used to blow up the ship. The FBI traced it to a North Korean arms dealer, who regularly sells to—guess who? People's Liberation Army bases in Fujian. The
government
gave the Ghost the C4." Rhyme closed his eyes for a brief moment. They sprang open. "Then there's the cell phone that Sachs found at the beach. ... It was a government-issue satellite phone. The network he used was based in Fuzhou."

"The trucks, Rhyme," Sachs reminded. "Tell them about the trucks."

Rhyme nodded, never able to resist delivering a lesson in his craft. "Interesting thing about crime scene work—sometimes what you
don't
find at a scene is as important as what you
do
find. I was looking at our evidence board and I realized that something was missing: Where was the evidence of the trucks for the
immigrants?
My INS friend told me that ground transport is part of the smuggling contract. But there weren't any trucks. The only vehicle at the beach was Jerry Tang's—to pick up the Ghost and his
bangshou.
Well, why no trucks. Because the Ghost knew the immigrants would never get to shore alive."

The line of boarding passengers was shrinking.

Webley from State leaned down and whispered viciously into Rhyme's face, "You're in way over your head here, mister. You don't know what you're doing."

Rhyme gazed back at him in mock contrition. "Nope, I don't know a thing. Not about world politics, not about
les affaires d'etat. ...
I'm just a simple scientist. My knowledge is woefully limited. To things like, say, fake dynamite."

Which shut up Webley from State instantly.

"This's where I come in," Dellray said. "Unfortunately for you folks."

Peabody cleared his throat uneasily. "What are you talking about?" he asked—but only because the script called for him to pose the question, the answer to which was the last thing in the world he wanted to hear.

"The bomb in Fred's car? Well, the results came back from the lab about the dynamite. Interesting—it wasn't dynamite at all. It was sawdust mixed with resin. Fake. Used for training. My INS friend told me that Immigration has its own bomb squad and bomb training facility in Manhattan and he stopped by the place this morning. They have dummy explosives on hand to teach rookies recognition and handling. The sticks in Fred's car match the samples from there. And the numbers on the detonator are similar to some he found in an INS evidence locker—they were confiscated last year when some agents arrested a dozen illegal Russian nationals in Coney Island."

Rhyme enjoyed the flicker of horror in Peabody's eyes. The criminalist was surprised that Webley from State could still manage to look so indignant. "If you're suggesting that anyone in the federal government would hurt a fellow agent—"

"Hurt? How could a small detonator hurt anyone? It was just a firecracker, really. No, the important criminal charge
I'd
think of would be felonious interference with an investigation—because it would
seem
to me that you might've wanted Fred off the case temporarily."

"And why?"

'"Cause," white-suited Dellray took over, stepping forward, driving Webley from State against the wall, "I was makin' waves. Gettin' together the SPEC-TAC team. Who woulda taken the Ghost out no nonsense, not pissin' around like the INS folk were doing. Hell, I think that's why
I
was on the case in the first place. I din't know beans 'bout human smugglin'. An' when I arranged for an expert—Dan Wong—to take over the case, next thing we know his butt's on a plane headin' west."

Rhyme summarized, "Fred had to go—so you could dispose of the Ghost the way you'd planned—catching him alive and getting him safely out of the country as part of a deal between the State Department and Ling in Fujian." A nod toward the plane. "Just like what's happened."

"I didn't know anything about killing dissidents," Peabody blurted. "That was never expressed to me. I swear!"

"Watch it," Webley from State muttered threateningly.

"All they said was that they needed to keep the Justice Department minimized. There were important national security issues at stake. Nobody mentioned business interests, nobody mentioned—"

"Harold!" Webley from State cracked the whip. Then he turned away from the sweaty bureaucrat to Rhyme and said in a reasonable voice, "Look, if—I'm saying
if
—any of this is true, you have to realize there's a lot more to it than just this one man, Lincoln. The Ghost's cover's been blown. He's not going to be sinking any more ships. Nobody'll hire him as a snakehead after this. But," the diplomat continued smoothly, "if we send him back, that'll keep the Chinese happy. Beijing won't crack down on the provinces and the end result'll be a better economy for the people there. And with more American influence there'll be improved human rights." He lifted his hands, palms up. "Sometimes we have to make hard choices."

Rhyme nodded. "So what you're saying is that it's essentially an issue of politics and diplomacy."

Webley from State smiled, pleased that Rhyme finally understood. "Exactly. For the good of both countries. It's a sacrifice, sure, but it's one that I think has to be made."

Rhyme considered this for a moment. Then he said to Sachs, "We could call it the Historically Unprecedented Great Sacrifice for the Beneficial Good of the People."

Webley from State's face twisted at Rhyme's sarcasm.

"See," the criminalist explained, "politics are complicated, diplomacy is complicated. But crime is simple. I don't like complicated things. So here's the deal: either you hand the Ghost over to us for prosecution in this country or you let him fly back home. And if you do that we go public with the fact you're releasing a perp in a multiple homicide—for political and economic reasons. And that you assaulted an FBI agent in the process." He added flippantly, "Your choice. Up to you."

"Don't threaten us. You're just fucking city cops," said Webley from State.

The gate agent announced the final boarding of the flight. Now the Ghost was scared. Sweat on his forehead, face dark with rage, he walked up to Webley and raised his hands, the shackles jangling. He whispered angrily to him. The bureaucrat ignored him and turned back to Rhyme. "How the hell're you going to go public? Nobody's going to be interested in a story like this. You think it's fucking Watergate? We're sending a Chinese national back to his homeland to stand trial for various crimes."

"Harold?" Rhyme asked.

Miserable, Peabody said, "I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do."

"So
that's
your answer," Rhyme replied, smiling faintly. "That's all I wanted. A decision. You made one. Good." He thought, with both amusement and sorrow, that this was very much like playing a game of
wei-chi.

"Thorn, could you please show him our handiwork?" Rhyme asked his aide.

The young man took an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Webley from State. He opened it. Inside was a long memo from Rhyme to Peter Hoddins, international desk reporter with
The New York Times.
It described in detail exactly what Rhyme had just told Peabody and Webley.

"Peter and I are good friends," Thorn said. "I told him we might have an exclusive about the
Fuzhou Dragon
sinking and that it had implications all the way to Washington. He was very intrigued."

"Peter's a good reporter," Rhyme said then added proudly, "He was short-listed for a Pulitzer."

Webley from State and Peabody looked at each other for a moment. Then they retired to the corner of the now-empty gate area and each made phone calls.

"We must have Mr. Kwan on board the aircraft now," the gate agent said.

Finally the two federal telephones were hung up and a moment later Rhyme had his answer: Webley from State turned without a word and stalked down the corridor to the main lobby.

"Wait!" the Ghost cried. "There was a deal! We had a deal!"

The man kept going, tearing up Rhyme's memo as he walked, not even pausing as he tossed it toward a trash container.