by David Liscio
“Only by sight. Many of the fishermen attend Mass on Sunday, but they aren’t among them.”
“Has the number of men guarding the ship increased over the past week?”
“Most definitely. They’re posted on the dock and aboard the ship at all hours. When I walked near the dock last week, one of the guards leveled his gun at me and shouted in Japanese. It didn’t take a translator to know what he was saying. Get away or I’ll shoot.”
“Have you seen any of the local police officers go aboard?”
“I’m glad to report that I haven’t. I’m sure the temptation to collect bribe money is strong.”
The priest handed Mashima the plate laden with motsiyas, a mixture of ground chicken, hot pepper leaves, mint and lemon juice.
“Ah, you are so kind to remember my favorite food from Rota. I’m afraid I have no culinary skills and must depend on the generosity of others like you.”
“Enjoy,” said the priest, backing toward the stairwell. “Stay here as long as you like and come any time. You don’t need to ask. The yakuza pay little attention to what goes on at the church.”
“Thank you, Father Garcia. It seems you’re always there when I need you.”
“My pleasure. You are an angel dressed as a police detective.”
Mashima suspected the rusting freighter was loaded with processed heroin and perhaps a shipment of stolen, military-grade weapons. But CNMI Police Chief Joe Napuna had ordered Mashima to use his time investigating the murder of popular Caucasian schoolteacher Mark Jensen and his Saipanese lover, the pretty social worker Maria Flores, instead of wasting time on the yakuza.
In the bars and restaurants, locals were outwardly accusing the island police of ineptitude and demanding the double homicide be solved. It was well publicized that the two had been shot to death while parked in Jensen’s truck after dark in a remote area. Flores had been beaten and raped before she was executed. The schoolteacher had been killed with a single bullet to the head. It didn’t look like a robbery. Jensen’s wallet remained in his back pocket and Flores’ straw purse was tucked beneath the truck’s bench seat.
Mashima had listened patiently to the many public complaints. Personally he had found the burly and bearded Jensen pompous, obnoxious and self-absorbed, a man whose voice was a continual stream of tales focused on his own greatness. It made him wonder what attracted the serene and generous Flores to such a man, but she had been reluctant to answer when he once asked and her reticence pained him.
The day Jensen arrived on Saipan to begin teaching would always be ingrained in Mashima’s memory. Jensen was tall, clean-shaven, and walked with the authority of Gen. Douglas MacArthur coming ashore on Leyte Island. This was months before the teacher grew what became his trademark gray beard and long, untamed hair.
Earlier that week, Mashima and Flores had enjoyed another picnic lunch on the beach, something they frequently did as friends. Mashima looked forward to those picnics, each one bringing him closer to the woman of his dreams. But that last picnic had been different. With a never-before-seen sparkle in her eyes, Flores had excitedly described Jensen as a typical American, friendly and smiling, very outgoing and entertaining. The schoolchildren loved him, she said, and two of the other women teachers commented on his tall frame, white teeth, and commanding presence. Mashima felt sick the first time he spotted them kissing in the school parking lot.
Mashima stopped at a market where the television was blaring near the checkout. A news reporter from the regional cable television station was broadcasting a story about the murder of CNMI Police Sgt. Alfred Torres whose body was discovered less than a week previous. A photograph to Torres in uniform flashed on the screen. As an addendum to her story the reporter emphasized that no arrests had been made in the Lover’s Lane case, insinuating corruption within the police force might be playing a role.
Mashima brushed aside the unflattering news stories that criticized the CNMI police and inferred that law enforcement authorities were generally untrustworthy. He had no intention of ignoring the investigation into the sergeant’s death, but the opportunity to disrupt the yakuza’s drug-smuggling operation had arisen and he felt compelled to take advantage of it.
Mashima knew the sergeant had a gambling addiction, but he wasn’t a drug trafficker. The detective was clutching a bottle of sake when early in the evening he gently knocked on the hotel room door where Hannah and Carrington were staying. When Hannah opened the door, the detective presented the bottle with both hands stretched outward as might a sommelier at an upscale restaurant table.
“What’s this for?”
“I thought the three of us could share a drink and talk about things we have in common.”
Carrington’s voice reached across the room, though Mashima could not see him because the door was only partially open. “And what might that be?”
“I don’t want to shout.”
Hannah fully opened the door. “Please come inside.” She closed the door and accepted the bottle, holding it up like a trophy. “Look here Jake, Detective Mashima has brought us a gift.”
Carrington had spent years in Southeast Asia and was well acquainted with the importance of ritual. He fingered three small glasses off the nightstand, quickly rinsed them in the bathroom sink, and poured a few ounces of sake into each.
Mashima nodded a mix of approval and appreciation. “I believe a large shipment of heroin has arrived by plane on Tinian. At least two local fishermen, maybe more, have been hired to bring the cargo to Saipan in their boat.”
“Is this fact, or speculation?”
“I know the fishermen on this island and most of them trust me. When they tell me things, they have no reason to lie, only to help.”
“So why would one fisherman tell you that another fishermen is helping the yakuza?”
“Because they are unhappy with that decision. They don’t like the yakuza, especially the aggressive kobun who try to order them around like servants. And they don’t like what’s happening here because of the drugs. They see what it’s doing to the young ones.”
Hannah held up her glass. “Enough talk. Let’s toast to things in common. An alliance.”
Mashima smiled for the first time, consciously exposing the right side of his face without the scars. “To an alliance.”
Carrington tapped his glass twice on the nightstand and raised it to meet the others. “An alliance.”
After two more sake drinks, Mashima unveiled the details of his surveillance, along with the names and descriptions of key yakuza players in Tanaka’s immediate crime family. Hannah and Carrington were surprised to learn that the freighter under surveillance at Sugar Dock was tied up just north of their hotel and within walking distance.
“I believe the cargo on board is processed heroin destined for the United States. Hundreds of pounds.”
Carrington raised his eyebrows. “You’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars in a single shipment.”
“That’s correct. From what I have been able to learn, Tanaka’s connections oversee the raw poppies as they are harvested in Thailand. Once liquid from the flowers is allowed to spill onto wooden boards, it dries into a paste. Then it’s collected for shipment to the Philippines by plane. I have calculated that flight at approximately 2,200 miles. The final processing takes place somewhere in the Philippines.”
Hannah rubbed her chin. “Do you know where the lab is located?”
“No. Presumably well hidden in the jungle. I was hoping one of your satellites might be able to provide some itel.”
Hannah glanced at Carrington. “We’ll see what we can do. If we knew what island the lab was on, it would make things easier.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have that detail.”
Carrington seemed perplexed. “There are over 7,000 islands in the Philippines. My guess would be somewhere on Luzon. Ever since Francis Ford Coppola filmed Apocalypse Now in the area the place has been fucked.”
Hannah shook her head. “I d
isagree. Luzon has too many prying eyes and it’s too close to Manila. I’d look south toward Davao, probably Mindanao. Lots of anti-government activity where an organized crime operation can flourish.”
Mashima stood and slightly bowed his head. “I shall leave those decisions in your hands. Thank you for listening.”
21
A Snake in the Grass
Saipan
Northern Mariana Islands
April 1990
A week after the murder of Sgt. Torres, Tanaka intensified his presence at The Lucky Carp where he could closely watch over the operation. He became, in Krill’s words, a fixture.
Mashima conveyed this information to Hannah and Carrington in order that they might ramp up the honey trap.
Carrington was sprawled across the hotel room bed, disassembling and cleaning the two Glock 9mm handguns Mashima had provided without request. The serial numbers on both weapons were obliterated. The gift was a gesture of professional respect because tourists were not allowed to bring firearms onto the island, which meant Hannah and Carrington had come through Customs unarmed.
Carrington studied Hannah as she moved about the room. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”
Hannah gazed at herself in the full-length wall mirror. She recognized her own beauty, though she seldom played that card. She preferred men who appreciated her intelligence, wit, and her occasionally dark sense of humor.
“What about this one?”
Carrington whistled when Hannah held up a spaghetti-strapped, gold-sequin mini dress. “I think that’ll get his attention.”
“Tanaka left a message at the hotel desk. He’d like to go sightseeing, show me around the island.”
“And?”
“Well. Why not?”
“It puts you out of range. How am I supposed to stay in contact?”
“You worry too much.”
“The guy’s a killer. I don’t want you to end up like Stevens and Cahill. You should take along one of the Glocks.”
“Nowhere to hide it, especially in this dress,” she said, doing a full twirl in front the mirror that left Carrington speechless.
Hannah tossed the sequin dress across the back of a chair. Carrington didn’t hesitate. In seconds he was kissing her ravenously and pulling her toward the bed where the guns were disassembled. He yanked back the covers, not caring that the metal parts were jumbled in the process, and gently eased Hannah onto the clean sheets.
“Would it bother you if I told you I loved you?” Carrington asked.
Hannah pressed a finger against his lips and waited until his eyes met hers. She kissed him deeply, tongues swirling, bodies writhing. And when they’d finished an hour later, glowing with sweat and short of breath, they lay back atop the pillows.
“Does that answer your question?”
Carrington smiled as though he owned the world. “I think it does,” he said, pulling her close.
Hannah enjoyed the warmth, the connection, and the back-to-back orgasms, but something about the relationship felt wrong. Sure, she cared about Carrington, but he wasn’t going to be her future, and that thought alone was enough to form a constant barrier. She didn’t want to be the one who broke up his marriage and left his kids to grow up without their father. When the time came, she’d muster the strength to keep him at arm’s length and eventually pull away.
Hannah deftly swirled out of bed. “I’m going to shower. Tanaka wants to take me on a picnic. Sushi and champagne. Fun, fun, fun.”
Carrington’s expression changed from relaxation to serious concern. “And when is this picnic date supposed to take place?”
“Later today. He’s sending a car.”
“Today? Didn’t you think to mention it until now?”
“I knew you’d pull a nutty. But we have to find a way to get to this guy. Remember what Stu said at Langley, if we don’t take him down, he becomes the shogun of heroin in the entire region. Besides, I won’t be alone with him. From what I’ve seen and heard, he always has two or three bodyguards.”
“Those guys are there to protect him, not you.”
“I know that. But having other people around reduces the likelihood that Tanaka will act inappropriately. He wouldn’t risk having witnesses in the case that his advances are rejected. With the Japanese, it’s all about face.”
“And now you’re an expert on Japanese culture?”
“Nope. Read it in our briefing file. I guess you skipped over that part.”
Carrington quickly reassembled one of the Glocks, slammed a full magazine into the handle and pulled back on the slide to load a round into the chamber. “I hate this fucking place. Even more than I hated Saigon.”
Hannah shot him a quick look of disapproval. “As you frequently remind me, William, we have to keep our heads.”
Carrington loaded an additional magazine and stuffed it into the front pocket of his shorts. “When Tanaka’s vehicle pulls up outside the hotel, I need you to distract him and the guards long enough for me to attach this,” he said, holding a military-grade GPS tracker. “It’ll only take a few seconds. Just get them to look at you. Trip, fall, pretend you’re about to faint from the heat. Whatever it takes.”
22
Return from Sand Land
Afghan-Pakistan Border
April 1990
Decker had barely moved his body in more than twenty-four hours. He lay beneath a dun-colored tarp further camouflaged with scoops of sand. Navy sniper Riley “Reb” Turner – a member of SEAL Team Six until the unit was disbanded in 1987 and reorganized under the name DEVGRU (Navy Special Warfare Development Group) — lay equally still beneath the tarp.
The target had not appeared as expected, but nothing was for certain in this waiting game. Snipers were trained in patience and endurance.
Both their hydration backpacks were nearly empty and the temperature beneath the tarp was pushing 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Decker had waited far longer on other missions, some of which disappointingly did not end in a kill. But he wanted this one. He was determined to snuff out what he saw as the hypocrisy of radical religion in the Middle East. The mullah on his hit list had radicalized dozens of young Afghani boys, shown them how to build roadside bombs and booby traps that would maim the Americans and their allies and slow their anticipated counter-invasion forces. Some of the booby traps exploded when touched, often hidden in the stomachs of sick children or dead dogs.
The mullah was an expert in destruction — truck bombs piloted by suicidal drivers, poison gasses, biological agents, nail bombs designed to explode inside restaurants or other gathering places of his enemies. The latter, called flechettes, were particularly effective at inciting terror because the shrapnel left behind such devastating wounds.
A religious zealot with a penchant for military tactics, he had studied the effectiveness of the flechettes that were frequently employed by the Irish Republican Army during The Troubles in Ireland in the 1970s. The war in Vietnam had added a new bag of tricks, like the so-called rubber band grenade. A rubber band was wrapped around a grenade with its pin already pulled. The band kept the grenade’s safety lever in place until the rubber melted. As American soldiers burned village huts to locate hidden tunnels or weapons, the grenades exploded.
The grenade-in-a-tin-can method was equally nasty and another of the mullah’s favorites. With the pin removed, the grenade was tucked into a tin can to keep the safety lever from opening. The can was attached to a trip string, so that when a door was opened or the string pulled by an unsuspecting soldier’s boot, the grenade detonated.
Decker had read the mullah’s extensive file at Langley. The man had many devout followers willing to lay down their lives for Allah in a war against the infidels.
Decker cursed the sand fleas beneath his uniform, which he had already treated with Permethrin. Two years prior, when he was still a sergeant in the U.S. Army Rangers, he’d heard plenty of jokes about how Permethrin was used to treat scabies and other sexually-transmitted di
seases. But he wasn’t laughing now.
It seemed a lifetime ago that he was a grunt eager to strut his stuff and get selected for sniper school. That special education translated to two months spent at Fort Benning, Georgia — a time he’d never forget. Bees, fire ants, insects of all sorts ready to bite, burrow, tickle or do any number of things that might cause a sniper to move and give away his position.
The instructors watched every recruit through powerful optics. If they couldn’t see the sniper, it was a job well done. But if they spotted movement and focused in on the recruit in the ghillie suit, it meant bye-bye, you just flunked out.
Decker could still hear his instructor shouting, “Snipers are force multipliers. A few good snipers can sometimes swing the momentum on the battlefield. That’s your job. Shoot straight and swing the momentum.”
Decker knew he could hit a target squarely from a half-mile away, and often at much longer distances with a .50-caliber round fired from his trusty Barrett M107 rifle. He’d done it dozens of times in Lebanon while listening to music through his headphones.
“Move like a sloth,” his instructor had said, over and over again. “Any faster, you’ll be seen.”
So Decker and Reb had moved like sloths to the crest of a sand dune that gave them an acceptable field of fire. It had taken hours of crawling to get into that position, but they’d done it, undetected. Reb – at thirty-five and about the same age as Decker — was right by his side, unmoving, unspeaking, but ready to lock in on the coordinates and tell the sniper where to adjust his aim.
Just as Decker was feeling as though luck had left them behind, the whine of a small truck engine caught his attention. Reb instinctively brushed his sweat-glistened black hair and beard with his fingers before nestling into his spotting scope.
In the crosshairs, two bearded men came into focus – the younger, lanky one in the driver’s seat looked about mid-twenties, the older man in the passenger seat, thickly bearded, and wearing the headdress of a mullah. Reb quickly computed the distance to the target and what effect gravity would have on the projectile once it left the barrel. He was thankful for the absence of wind, which would have added yet another factor.
