All The Big Ones Are Dead

by Christopher A. Gray

  ALL THE BIG ONES ARE DEAD

  By

  Christopher A. Gray

  &

  Howard E. Carson

  ISBN 978-1-926433-14-1

  Copyright © 2018 Sunbow Press

  All rights reserved.

  sunbow.press@gmail.com

  For Catalog in Publication information and full copyright notice see Acknowledgments section at end of book.

  “Look deep into nature and you will understand everything.”

  −Albert Einstein

  “The purpose of life is undoubtedly to know oneself. We cannot do it unless we learn to identify ourselves with all that lives.”

  −Mahatma Gandhi

  Prologue

  William Ling slowly rose from a crouching position on the top step of the rickety wooden stepladder. He needed to dust the top shelves of his shop displays. All the curio, objets d’art and specialty shops along Cat Street and Hollywood Road in Hong Kong were located in old buildings originally put up during the generations-long British occupation. The ceilings on all the main floors were nine feet high. As much as William liked his own shop displays, he was always nervous about standing on the old ladder. As he straightened his body he reached out and gripped the solidly mounted shelving to steady himself. He had promised his late wife Grace many times that he would replace the old ladder with something more stable. But since he only dusted the top shelves once a month he always put off the promise.

  The front door of the shop opened, triggering the bell. The late summer sunlight streamed through the open door and a gentle breeze wafted a bit of discarded paper litter onto the entrance mat, all overlaid by the delicious smell of fresh soup from Mr. Kee’s noodle shop across the narrow street. I must get over there for lunch today, William thought reflexively. By reflex also, William didn’t react to the customers right away, expecting his wife to greet them even though she was no longer there. She had passed away the month before from an undiagnosed heart defect. After the comfortable routine of his thirty-seven year marriage, he was not yet used to her absence. He slumped a bit as he remembered, then took a breath and turned to see two well-dressed men walking toward him. One was a black man, very dark skinned and quite possibly from somewhere in Africa. He was tall at six feet or slightly more, according to the height strip taped to the door frame. He was not looking at William, rather glancing around the shop as he walked. The other man was Chinese. He was wearing a hat that shaded his eyes and he was lean and hard looking, taller than William with his hands turned out and fingers slightly curled the way a lot of enforcers carried themselves. William remembered his long-past days of dealing with such men, and he could spot them quickly.

  “Nin Zao,” the Chinese one said as he approached the ladder. Not from around here then. That’s a friendly greeting in Beijing early in the morning, William thought. The African man (Congolese? Tanzanian? William guessed. I’ve had no truck at all with these people for too many years. I don’t recognize the types any more. Maybe Kenyan?). He was ignoring his partner, still scanning the shop, and had yet to even glance in William’s direction.

  “Welcome, gentlemen,” he said as cheerfully as he could while crouching down to grip the ladder as he descended. “What can I do for you today?”

  The one from Beijing also glanced around the dark shop. The shelves were lined with books, antique trinkets, curios and stuffed animals. The center of the shop contained a large table, crammed with various items. Kenya picked up an ivory carving of a Buddhist monk. The carving was about the same size as the disposable coffee cup the man was carrying in his other hand.

  “Mr. Ling,” Beijing said quietly. “We want you to resume your importing business.”

  “Importing? Yes, I do import goods, but things have been quiet lately.” Ling walked behind the counter and reached for a binder and pen. “What were you looking to import? If any of my contacts carries it, you could fill out your business information here.”

  The men looked at each other. Beijing snatched the pen from Ling’s grasp, startling him.

  “Stop being coy. Things have only been quiet because we did a little... reorganizing in our operation. And we have seen that you relocated since doing business with our people. We want the relationship to resume.”

  “Sir, I have been in this location on Cat Street for twenty-six years. I can assure you, I have not done business with you before,” Ling replied with sincerity. “I occasionally import rugs from India, furniture from Malaysia...” Kenya slowly placed the ivory carving on the glass counter in front of William as he turned slowly to stare at him.

  “Ivory,” Beijing said quietly. “Don’t make me say the word again. We have doubled our harvest, and you are needed once again.”

  “Sir,” Ling was becoming nervous at the man’s intense glare. He swallowed hard before continuing. “I have not traded in those goods for many years. And with all respect, I have not done business with you before.” Ling had dabbled in the ivory trade two decades earlier. It was a lucrative business, and had sometimes been worth the risk, despite being illegal. Now the fines had gone up, and serious prison terms were being meted out. And there was the terrorist financing connection, that was clear now. It scared everyone he knew. Besides, he had promised his wife he would never do that sort of business again.

  Grace Ling had been swayed over to the conservationist cause after seeing a documentary on the illegal hunting of protected wildlife. She had been horrified at the graphic images of the slaughter, and had made her husband promise to stay out of it.

  And so he had, for the past twenty years. These strangers could try to pressure him, but he would not dirty his memory of Grace by re-entering that gruesome trade.

  “What you propose would be illegal, sir. The few ivory carvings I have are antiques made before 1976, exempt from the ivory trade restriction. The provenance of the carvings is excellent. I have a very small collection I can show you, if you are truly interested.” Ling gestured to the locked glass cabinet on the opposite side of the shop. Beijing stared at him.

  “Ling,” Beijing said after a moment, “do not make this simple matter into a problem. You should know better than to refuse profit. It is exactly because you have been out of the business for so many years that you are safe from prying eyes. Prepare to receive a shipment next month.”

  “Bound for New York,” Kenya spoke for the first time. His voice was deeper than his lanky frame would have suggested. “You have dealt with our contacts there before, and you will again.”

  “Keep this on you at all times.” Beijing said as he placed a small flip phone on the countertop. “We will be in touch.”

  The men walked out of the shop, leaving Ling nervous and frightened. He stared at the flip phone as if it were a serpent.

  Besides the promise to his wife, the primary disincentive was the authorities, who were making an extra effort these days to make an example of people who dealt in illegal animal parts. The regional government’s efforts to stop any discernible avenue of terrorist financing even as it let many parts of the underground economy continue were laudable, if overly optimistic. He knew all too well that greed and the prospect of large profits could dull the sharpest wits and overcome morality and sanity in equal measure.

  Even if Ling paid off the local police and the authorities left him alone, getting into business with a crime gang carried its own risks. The gangs always wanted more, and would sometimes take over the business entirely, essentially stealing a family business that had taken years to build. He was near retirement and didn’t want to resume that dangerous game, and risk losing everything.

  Ling considered what to do. It wouldn’t be wise to con
tact the police to report the men. There was always the chance the local authorities were on the crime gang’s payroll. No matter what he did, he would be facing danger. He might not have any choice but to comply with the gang’s wishes.

  Ling placed the Closed sign on the front door, then walked back behind the counter. He reached for an address book. It was not the one he normally used, but an older, tattered book that he kept on the bottom shelf.

  There was an Interpol agent he had dealt with years ago concerning this very issue. What was his name? Darcy? I must be getting too old. I should be able to remember such an important name. William skimmed slowly through the book of old notes for a good ten minutes before he finally found the name he was looking for. DeCourcey!

  Interpol agent Richard DeCourcey had threatened William with prosecution, but he had also worked with the locals to arrest many gang members after William and Grace had come forward with information. He and DeCourcey had parted on good terms twelve years ago, and the Interpol agent had protected William’s identity as he’d promised. Perhaps if DeCourcey were still with Interpol he could help or at least offer advice. Ling continued to stare at the flip phone on the countertop as the call was connected.

  When he was still actively dealing in ivory objets d’art, Ling would never have used a phone someone had given him. In fact, in those days cell phones were rare. So he had not the slightest inkling that the phone the strangers had left him was a very special one. It was a simple device with a high capacity internal battery. It also contained an embedded tap that caught everything its sensitive noise-activated mic could pick up. Conversations were transmitted automatically to the illegal traders’ surveillance receiver.

  The number rang and rang. Finally, a voice answered. “Victor Imports, how may I direct your call?” The name of the shell company immediately triggered a memory in William. The code name of the particular branch of Interpol he had dealt with all those years ago was Victor Imports.

  “This is William Ling. I haven’t called this number for many years. I would like to speak to Mr. DeCourcey, please.” The man on the other end of the line paused. “One moment,” the man finally said. William thought the wait, and the time it took for the phone call to connect, might be due to the line being out of date.

  “The man you asked for is no longer at this location. I can put you in touch with his replacement if you like, sir.” William hesitated. He didn’t like the idea of dealing with someone new, someone who wouldn’t be aware of his past life.

  “Could you get a message to Mr. DeCourcey?”

  “Yes sir. But as I said, he is no longer at this location. It may take some time for him to get back to you.”

  “Yes, yes, fine. My name is William Ling. Please tell him to call me at this number, quickly.”

  “Sir, what is your situation please?”

  “Some men came into my shop, demanding that I resume... I... I’m sorry, I wish to tell my situation only to Mr. DeCourcey.”

  William hung up the phone and sat on his stool behind the cash register. The more he thought about the situation, the more nervous he became. However, his resolve never wavered. He would honor his wife’s memory and refuse to resume his illegal ivory importing. Agent DeCourcey had always treated him fairly. William was sure that the Interpol agent would protect him once again. But would it mean another forced identity change? And would those men return before DeCourcey could help him?

  ***

  The next day William overslept, opening his shop a half hour later than usual. He had tossed and turned all night, distressed at seeing those men, and worried that DeCourcey hadn’t gotten back to him yet. What could be keeping him?

  Almost as soon as he had turned the door sign to Open, the men from the previous day burst in.

  “Good morning, Ling,” Beijing said. William was startled at first, then he tried to present himself as unruffled, a man that would not be coerced.

  “Good morning. I have nothing to say to you, gentlemen. Good day.” As Ling turned to the counter, Kenya grabbed the back of Ling’s neck with his right hand while slamming his left fist into the middle Ling’s stomach. Ling doubled over, aided by the downward thrust of Kenya’s right arm, his face slamming into the glass countertop. The glass did not break, but the force was enough to break Ling’s nose. His blood spattered across the counter, a pattern of drops covering his address book and other papers. Beijing turned the door sign to Closed.

  “You made a phone call yesterday,” Beijing said, as he closed the door’s blinds and locked the deadbolt. Ling was breathing hard through his nose and mouth, still in shock from the blow to his face. Kenya turned Ling’s head so his right cheek was pressed firmly against the glass. With each breath, blood dripped out of his nose. Beijing walked slowly to the counter, so that he was facing Ling, who struggled vainly.

  “Ah,” Beijing smiled, holding up a finger. William made eye contact with the man. Dressed in a dark overcoat and hat, his movements slow and deliberate, he was even more terrifying than Kenya. Ling knew he was in deep trouble.

  “Last chance,” Beijing said while opening his briefcase. “We will be using your shop, with or without you.” Ling watched as the man extracted a neatly folded plastic sheet. He knew what was likely to happen next.

  “The… the Americans… the Europeans… they will protect me!”

  “Will they now,” Beijing said absently. He spread the heavy-duty plastic sheet on the floor, then stood and nodded at his partner. Kenya threw Ling down on the sheet and then pressed his left foot on Ling’s abdomen. He drew a silencer-equipped pistol and aimed it at Ling’s forehead. William stared up at the gun barrel in horror.

  “DeCourcey is my friend. He has sent many men to prison. He will come after you,” Ling threatened, in a last-ditch attempt to save his own life.

  “Maybe I will run into your friend. I look forward to the meeting.”

  William closed his eyes and thought of Grace as Kenya fired his weapon and shot him through the forehead.

  ***

  Interpol Superintendent Richard DeCourcey reacted to the news of Ling’s death with typical signs of anxiety. As the man responsible for most of the current European, central and north African projects in Interpol’s environment division, the pressure he normally received from governments, animal rights groups, environmental lobby groups, Greenpeace and many others was just barely manageable. When one of their own or someone who’d helped them, informant or otherwise, ended up dead at the hands of Interpol’s enemies, it affected him and all of his people. DeCourcey was at that moment leading a meeting with Inspector Diane Linders.

  DeCourcey was also frustrated enough to risk saying something in anger that he would later consider intemperate if not outright unhelpful. His sadness at Ling’s death was less an emotional reaction than it was an extra stab of stress, chipping at a delicately balanced stack of demands: resource requests, miscreants in every corner of his purview, field agents demanding attention, and the present mess. DeCourcey’s boss in the U.S., Deputy Director Martin Claes, was sitting to DeCourcey’s right.

  There were three other men and one woman in the room. Agent Michael Bishop and Case Officer Alexei Rector were on loan from the CIA and had both worked with Interpol and other U.S. friends before. Max Gauss was a civilian contractor, ex-U.S. Army intelligence, and a security and ciphers consultant specializing in telecommunications. The woman was a high-clearance administrative assistant responsible for recording the meeting.

  “Your rep precedes you, Agent Bishop,” DeCourcey said, opening the meeting. “But I don’t know you, Mr. Rector. I’m told you’ve worked with Interpol before, but I was unable to find any case files to read.”

  “You won’t find any case files containing my name, Superintendent,” Rector replied. “Even the admin here,” he pointed at the woman who was recording the meeting, “won’t be using my name. Officially, for the purposes of this project, I live in between agencies and I don’t exist as a project member. Unless I i
nitiate the contact, the only person who will have direct access to me after this meeting is Agent Bishop.”

  “I understand,” DeCourcey replied. “And what about you, Bishop? Are you up for this?”

  Bishop had been watching reactions and was coming to some rapid conclusions. Linders looked fully competent to him, DeCourcey was clearly right on the edge of self-control, and Max Gauss had the bit between his teeth and didn’t seem defeated in the slightest despite the lack of success so far on the current project. Gauss looked tense, but he was really just eager to get going on the next phase of a difficult case.

  “What I read in the binder is straightforward,” Bishop spoke clearly and a little slower than his usual moderate pace. “Boko Haram, al-Qaeda, Da’esh and several other players are financing illegal game hunting, and in return getting a heavy cut of the action from distributors down the line. Once elephant tusk ivory, rhino horn and other high-value animal parts are taken, they move up the line. The farther up the line the ivory and horn get, the bigger the profit as the shipment is stepped on by a succession of distributors, buyers and resellers. That about right so far?”

  DeCourcey nodded curtly.

  “In general,” Bishop went on, “you suspect that high-level business players and high-level political or senior civil servants are facilitating, but you haven’t got any direct evidence and you aren’t working on any solid leads.”

  DeCourcey and Linders glanced at each other for a moment, then nodded in unison at Bishop.

  “Some months ago,” Bishop continued, “or sometime during the early part of this year, all of the telecommunications, text messaging and tweeting that had been almost impenetrably riddled with code words, misdirection and mixtures of languages, suddenly went completely opaque. The communications had been difficult to crack before, but suddenly it all turned into complete hash. Indecipherable. You know they’re using satellite phones and cell phones. But the traffic being monitored—or what you think and hope is their traffic—is now encrypted in a way that Max and his teams inside and outside of Interpol, the FBI and NSA can’t crack.”