“Ninety-five feet above us, to be precise.”
“How long has this facade been going on?” asked Sandecker.
“Since the Clinton administration,” answered Laird.
Gunn stared thoughtfully at the steel door. “When you consider the current situation at home and abroad, I guess now you see him, now you don't, does seem a practical solution.”
“It seems a shame,” said Sandecker solemnly, “to learn that what was once the revered home of our presidents has now been reduced to little more than a reception facility.”
Sandecker and Gunn followed Laird out of the elevator across a circular reception room guarded by a Secret Service agent and into a library whose four walls were packed from floor to ceiling with over a thousand books. As the door was closed behind him, Sandecker saw the President standing in the center of the room, his eyes fixed on the admiral but showing no trace of recognition. There were three other men in the room. One Sandecker knew, the other two were unfamiliar. The President held a coffee cup in his left hand as Laird made the introductions.
“Mr. President, Admiral James Sandecker and Commander Rudi Gunn.”
The President gave the impression of being older than he was. He looked sixty-five but was still in his late fifties. The premature gray hair, red veins streaming through his facial skin, the beady eyes that always seemed reddened, inspired political cartoonists often to caricature him as a wino, when in fact he rarely drank anything more than an occasional glass of beer. He was an intense man with a round face and low forehead and thin eyebrows. He was the consummate politician. Within days of replacing his ailing boss, no decision regarding his lifestyle or the state of the union was made without considering the potential for gathering votes for his run for office in the next election.
Dean Cooper Wallace would not become one of Sandecker's favorite presidents. It was no secret that Wallace detested Washington and refused to play the required social games. He and the Congress pulled in harness together like a lion and a bear, both wanting to eat the other. He was not an intellectual, but was adept at cutting deals and acting on intuition. Since replacing the man who had been duly elected, he had quickly surrounded himself with aides and advisers who shared his distrust of the entrenched bureaucracy and were always looking for innovative ways to circumvent tradition.
The President extended his free hand while still holding the coffee cup. “Admiral Sandecker, a pleasure to finally meet you.”
Sandecker involuntarily blinked. The President's grip was anything but hardy, not what he expected from a politician who pressed flesh year in and year out. “Mr. President. I hope this will be only the first of many times we meet face-to-face.”
“I expect so, since the prognosis for my predecessor is not good for a full recovery.”
“I'm sorry to hear it. He is a good man.” Wallace did not reply. He merely nodded at Gunn, acknowledging his presence, as Laird continued playing host. The chief of staff took the admiral by the arm and led him over to the three men standing in front of a gas fire that burned in a stone fireplace.
“Duncan Monroe, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and his executive associate commissioner for field operations, Peter Harper.” Monroe had a tough, no-nonsense look about him. Harper seemed as if he melted into the bookcase behind him. Laird turned to the third man. “Admiral Dale Ferguson, commandant of the Coast Guard.” “Dale and I are old friends,” said Sandecker. A large ruddy man with a ready smile, Ferguson gripped Sandecker by the shoulder. “Good to see you, Jim.”
“How are Sally and the kids? I haven't seen them since we took that cruise together around Indonesia.”
“Sally is still saving the forests, and the boys are wiping out my pension with their college expenses.” Impatient with the small talk, the President gathered them all around a conference table and kicked off the meeting. “I apologize for asking you to leave your beds on a rainy night, but Duncan has brought to my attention a crisis that is exploding on our doorstep that involves illegal immigration. I'm counting on you gentlemen to come up with a viable program to cut the flow of aliens, particularly the Chinese who are being smuggled across our shorelines in vast numbers.”
Sandecker raised his eyebrows, puzzled. “I can certainly see, Mr. President, where INS and the Coast Guard fit into the picture, but what does unlawful immigration have to do with the National Underwater and Marine Agency? Our work is based on underwater research. Chasing down Chinese smugglers is out of our territory.”
“We're in dire need of any source that can help us,” said Duncan Monroe. “With congressional budget cuts, INS is overstretched far beyond our capacity. Congress appropriated a sixty-percent increase in INS border-patrol agents, but provided no funds for expanding our investigations division. Our entire department has only eighteen hundred special agents to cover the entire United States and foreign investigations. The FBI has eleven hundred agents in New York City alone. Here in Washington twelve hundred Capitol police patrol an area that is measured in city blocks. Simply put, there are nowhere near enough INS criminal investigative assets to put a dent in the flow of illegal immigrants.”
“Sounds like you're operating with an army of patrolmen on the beat but few detectives to back them up,” said Sandecker.
“We fight a losing battle as it is with illegals pouring across our border with Mexico, many who come from as far away as Chile and Argentina,” Monroe continued. “We might as well hold back ocean surf with kitchen sieves. People-smuggling has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry that rivals arms and drug smuggling. Moving human cargo in an underworld apathetic to borders and political ideologies, people-smuggling will be the major crime of the twenty-first century.”
Harper inclined his head. “To make matters worse, large-scale alien smuggling from the People's Republic of China is reaching epidemic proportions. Smugglers, with the blessing and support of their government, who are looking to decrease their tremendous population any way they can, have launched a program to export tens of millions of their people to every corner of the globe, especially to Japan, the U.S. and Canada, Europe and South America. Strange as it sounds, they're even infiltrating the whole of Africa from Capetown to Algiers.”
Harper continued for his boss. “The smuggling syndicates have organized a complex labyrinth of transportation routes. Air, sea, and land are all used to smuggle human cargo. Over forty advanced staging and dispersion areas have been set up throughout Eastern Europe, Central America and Africa.”
“The Russians are especially hard hit,” added Monroe. “They see massive, uncontrolled migration of Chinese nationals into Mongolia and Siberia as a threat to their security. The intelligence directorate of the Russian Defense Ministry has warned their leaders that Russia is on the verge of losing its Far Eastern territories because the flow of Chinese is already accounting for a greater part of the population in the region.”
“Mongolia is already a lost cause,” said the President. “Russia has allowed her power base to slip through her fingers. Siberia is next.”
As if reading lines from a play, Harper chimed in again. “Before Russia forfeits her ports in the Pacific, with rich deposits of gold, oil and gas, all vital for her entry into the exploding Asia-Pacific economy, her president and his parliament may out of desperation declare war on China. That would make for an impossible situation for the United States to choose sides.”
“There is also another cataclysm in the making,” said the President. “The gradual takeover of eastern Russia is only the tip of the iceberg. The Chinese think in the long term. Besides the impoverished peasants being rounded up and loaded aboard ships, a great many migrants are by no means poor. Many have the financial means to buy property and launch businesses in whichever country they settle. Given enough time this can lead to enormous changes in political and economic influence, particularly if their culture and loyalty remain tied to the mother country.”
“If the tide of Chinese
migration goes unchecked,” said Laird, “there is no predicting the enormous upheaval the world will experience in the next hundred years.”
“It sounds to me like you're implying the People's Republic of China is engaged in a Machiavellian scheme to take over the world,” said Sandecker.
Monroe nodded. “They're in it up to their necks. China's mass of humanity is growing by twenty-one million people a year. Their population of one-point-two billion represents twenty-two percent of the world's total people. Yet their land area is only seven percent. Starvation is a fact of life over there. Laws enacted to allow couples only one child to slow the birthrate are a drop in the bucket. Poverty breeds children despite threats of prison. China's leaders see illegal immigration as a simple and inexpensive solution to their population problem. By literally licensing criminal syndicates that specialize in smuggling, they capitalize on both ends of the spectrum. The profits can be nearly as high as trafficking in drugs, and they decrease the numbers of those who drain their economy.”
Gunn looked across the table at the INS commissioners. “It was always my impression that organized-crime syndicates directed the smuggling operations.”
Monroe nodded toward Harper. “I'll let Peter reply, since he is our expert on Asian organized crime and transnational criminal groups.”
“There are two sides to the smuggling,” explained Harper. "One is operated by an alliance of criminal groups that also deals in drugs, extortion, prostitution and international car theft. They account for nearly thirty percent of aliens smuggled into Europe and the Western Hemisphere. The second is legitimate business fronts that engage in the traffic from behind the cloak of respectability, licensed and supported by their governments. This part of the activity accounts for seventy percent of all aliens run across world borders.
“Although many illegal Chinese immigrants come hi by air, the great mass cross into foreign countries by sea. Air requires passports and heavy bribery. The use of ships to smuggle aliens has become more widespread. The overhead costs are lower, many more bodies can be transported in one operation, the logistics are simpler and the profits are higher.”
Admiral Ferguson cleared his throat and said, “When the flood was a trickle, old dilapidated and run-down tramp freighters were used to transport the immigrants before sending them ashore in leaky boats and rafts. Many were given life jackets and thrown over the side. Hundreds drowned before reaching the beach. Now, the smugglers have become far more sophisticated, secreting the immigrants in commercial shipping and, in an increasing number of cases, the smugglers sail brazenly into port before sneaking them past immigration agents.”
“What happens after the immigrants safely arrive in the country?” asked Gunn.
“Local Asian crime gangs take over,” Harper answered. “Those immigrants lucky enough to have money or relatives already living in the U.S. are released directly into their destination community. Most, however, cannot pay the fee for entry. Consequently, they are forced to remain concealed, generally in remote warehouses. Here, they're locked away for weeks or even months, and threatened by being told that if they try to escape they will be turned over to American law enforcement and imprisoned for half their lives merely because they are illegal entrants. The gangs frequently use torture, beatings and rape to frighten the captives into signing their lives away as indentured servants. Once the aliens cave in they are forced to work for the crime syndicates in drug dealing, prostitution, in illegal sweatshops and other gang-related activities. Those in good physical condition, usually the younger men, must sign a contract requiring them to repay their smuggling fee at high rates of interest. Then they are found jobs in laundries, restaurants or manufacturing working fourteen hours a day, seven days a week. It takes from six to eight years for the illegal immigrant to pay off his debt.”
“After obtaining the necessary forged documents, many of them become bona fide American citizens,” Monroe continued. “As long as the United States has a demand for cheap labor, efficient smuggling enterprises will exploit it with illegal immigration that is already increasing to epidemic proportions.”
“There must be any number of ways to cut off the flow,” Sandecker said, helping himself to a cup of coffee from a silver urn on a nearby cart.
“Short of throwing up an international blockade around the Chinese mainland, how can you stop them?” asked Gunn.
“The answer is simple,” replied Laird. “We can't, certainly not under international law. Our hands are tied. All any nation can do, including the United States, is recognize the threat as a major international security concern and take whatever emergency measures that are required to protect its borders.”
“Like calling out the Army and Marines to defend the beaches and repel invaders,” suggested Sandecker wryly.
The President gave Sandecker a sharp look. “You seemed to have missed the point, Admiral. What we're facing is a peaceful invasion. I simply can't whistle up a curtain of missiles against unarmed men, women and children.”
Sandecker pressed on. “Then what's stopping you, Mr. President, from directing a joint operation by the armed forces to effectively seal our borders? By doing so, you'd probably cut the flow of illegal drugs into the country as well.”
The President shrugged. “The thought has crossed smarter minds than mine.”
“Stopping illegals is not the mission of the Pentagon,” said Laird firmly.
“Perhaps I've been misinformed. But I've always been under the impression that the mission of our armed forces was to protect and defend the security of the United States. Peaceful or not, I still read this as an invasion of our sovereign shores. I see no reason why Army infantry and Marine divisions can't help Mr. Monroe's understaffed border patrolmen, why the Navy can't back up Admiral Ferguson's overextended Coast Guard and why the Air Force can't fly aerial reconnaissance missions.”
“There are political considerations beyond my control,” the President said, a certain hardness creeping into his voice.
“Like not retaliating with tough trade sanctions on Chinese imports because they buy billions of dollars' worth of industrial and agricultural products from us every year?”
“While you're on that subject, Admiral,” said Laird with emphasis, “you should be aware that the Chinese have replaced the Japanese as the biggest purchaser of U.S. Treasury bonds. It is not in our best interest to harass them.”
Gunn could see the anger reddening his chief's face, while the President's was turning pale. He stepped into the debate quietly. “I'm sure Admiral Sandecker understands your difficulties, Mr. President, but I believe we're both in the dark as to how NUMA can help.”
“I'll be happy to brief you on your involvement, Jim,” said Ferguson to his old friend.
“Please do,” Sandecker said testily.
“It's no secret the Coast Guard is stretched too thin. Over the past year we've seized thirty-two vessels and intercepted over four thousand illegal Chinese aliens off Hawaii and the East and West coasts. NUMA has a small fleet of research vessels—”
“Stop right there,” interrupted Sandecker. "There is no way
I will permit my ships and scientists to stop and board vessels suspected of carrying illegal immigrants."
“Not our intention to put weapons in the hands of marine biologists,” Ferguson assured the admiral, his voice calm and unperturbed. “What we need from NUMA is information on possible alien landing sites, undersea conditions and geology along our coastlines, bays and inlets that the smugglers can take advantage of. Put your best people on it, Jim. Where would they offload their human cargo if they were the smugglers?”
“Also,” added Monroe, “your people and vessels can act as intelligence gatherers. NUMA's turquoise-painted ships are known and respected throughout the world as ocean-science research vessels. Any one of them could sail within a hundred yards of a suspected ship filled with aliens without arousing the suspicions of the smugglers. They can report what they observe and cont
inue on with their research.”
“You must understand,” said the President wearily to San-decker, “I'm not asking you to drop your agency's priorities. But I am ordering you and NUMA to give whatever assistance possible to Mr. Monroe and Admiral Ferguson to reduce the flow of illegal aliens from China into the United States.”
“There are two particular areas we'd like your people to investigate,” said Harper.
“I'm listening,” muttered Sandecker, beginning to show a famt trace of curiosity.
“Are you familiar with a man by the name of Qin Shang?” asked Harper.
“I am,” answered Sandecker. "He owns a shipping empire called Qin Shang Maritime Limited out of Hong Kong that operates a fleet of over a hundred cargo ships, oil tankers and cruise ships. He once made a personal request through a Chinese historian to search our data files for a shipwreck he was interested in finding.
“If it floats, Shang probably owns it, including dockside facilities and warehouses in nearly every major port city in the world. He is as shrewd and canny as they come.”
“Isn't Shang the Chinese mogul who built that huge port facility in Louisiana?” asked Gunn.
“One and the same,” answered Ferguson. “On Atchafalaya Bay near Morgan City. Nothing but marshlands and bayous. According to every developer we questioned, there is absolutely no logic in pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a shipping port eighty miles from the nearest major city and with no transportation network leading from it.”
“Has it got a name?” inquired Gunn.
“The port is called Sungari.”
“Shang must have a damned good reason for throwing big money into a swamp,” said Sandecker.
“Whatever his logic, we've yet to learn what it is,” Monroe admitted. “That's one of two areas where NUMA can help us.”
“You'd like to use a NUMA research ship and its technology to nose around Shang's newly constructed shipping port,” assumed Gunn.
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