Sheep Dog and the Wolf

by Douglass, Carl;

  “It goes without saying that we have to keep our surveillance up.”

  “We are not slacking off a bit, Mr. President,” the DCIA said.

  “Now, how about an update on the manhunt for the world’s public enemy number one? Gentlemen, the marshal’s service is represented by Director Colin McPherson; I’m sure you all know him. And we also have the DFBI Sinclair Thompson with us this afternoon. Let’s hear from Mr. McPherson first. Colin?”

  “Along with the FBI and everything the DOJ can provide, we have just about carpeted the world’s law enforcement agencies, the news media, and John Q Public with information about Hunter Caulfield. We are keeping up a relentless drive to get the public—and especially, the snitches—to keep a sharp lookout. It’s early yet, but he’ll turn up. Nobody can escape a dragnet of this magnitude and intensity for long.”

  “It’s a messy business. Let’s hope it ends soon. I tell you, I dread the man’s upcoming trial. What do you think the chances are of him allowing himself to be taken alive?”

  “Slim to none, and I mean, very slim, Mr. President,” Attorney General Gertrude Heimel answered. “I agree with Mr. McPherson that it will be over soon, and probably with a fatality.”

  “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy,” McPherson said.

  Sheep Dog walked south from the hotel on Le Loi Street to the Phú Xuán bridge across the Perfume River to the Citadel. He spent the morning wandering around the venerable old imperial capital buildings. He could not shake the bitter memories of having been there during the Battle of Tet, 1968. After a light lunch purchased from a street vendor, he hired a xy clo and took a leisurely sightseeing trip around Hué during the afternoon. His first stop was at the Thieves Market on Tran Thuc Nhan Street where he bought three Philippine Barongs for 191, 500 VND, then he had the driver take him to see the old imperial tombs

  On the south side of the Huong Giang lay the modern city with its fifty year old university, the university library, and the refurbished French style Provincial Capitol building, the country club, the Cercle Sportif with its well manicured wide green lawns stretching along the river, the Hué’ City Hospital at number 16 Le Loi Street, and a triangular shaped residential district. During the war, there had been the USN boat ramp directly across from the Citadel and the MACV compound, both long gone. The nation and the city had done a superb job to preserve the city’s history; the outskirts of the south side contained seven imperial tombs, the most splendid being the Minh Man, Tu Duc, and Khai Dinh which were all Sheep Dog had time to explore during that single afternoon.

  Over the next month, he worked on fleshing out his newest pseudo-identity as Jean-Luc Le Croix, importer/exporter and gentleman farmer. He kept out of the public’s eye as he grew a Van Dyke beard. He looked very much the role of an expatriate French planter, and found his French to be improving with every day in the country. He secured a reputable builder on advice from the members of the tong and commenced building. It was far easier to get things moving than it had ever been in the states where he did not have the clout afforded by the tong.

  He fell into a routine: up early for a run, followed by a hard contact workout at a martial arts studio that practiced a combination of two Vietnamese arts, Tay Son Binh Dinh, and Tay Son Nhan, which developed during the violent Tay Son Rebellion of 1771 to 1778. After several months in the studio and proving his bona fides as a martial artist, he was accepted enough to be able to introduce some elements of Krav Maqa, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and taekwondo, thus enabling him to learn some new skills and to hone his previous ones. Every day he spent an hour or two exploring Hué and its environs and some days ventured north to Hanoi or south to his old stomping grounds in Da Nang and as far as Hội An principle municipality. Afternoons were spent at the office and periodically at the wharf directing the loading of merchandise. He did not always check very closely on the contents of some boxes, usually the ones bound for Hong Kong.

  3 Months after the Israeli Raid on Iran’s WMD Facilities Interagency Fugitive Operations Office, Brooklyn Court Street Federal Building.

  USMS INTRA-AGENCY MEMO

  MEMO BEGINS

  Date and Time of Transmission: 12 March, 0800

  Recipients: All Offices, All Marshals

  See BOLO- CIA internal communication US9164-CT 4779, 0107TWEP

  Subject: Hunter (NMN) Caulfield, Capt. USN/AD. Fugitive Warrant

  World-wide fugitive apprehension effort has been extremely costly financially and in expenditure of man-hours. To date, tens of thousands of reported sightings of the fugitive have been investigated, thousands of interviews conducted, and hundreds of search warrants have been processed without useful results.

  Conclusion and Recommendations: The fugitive has eluded capture to date and there are currently no definite indications of the location of the fugitive. One definite lead involved his use of an alias, Stefan Danglois, French national, who is known to have fled Paris following the murder of a U.S. federal agent, en route to Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam. There has been no record of the suspect having left Viet Nam; but a high-profile search of that Southeast Asian nation has not borne fruit; and it is the conclusion of the USMS, FBI, CIA and others involved in that search that the fugitive has eluded law enforcement and has left the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam to a location or locations unknown in an unlawful effort to avoid prosecution. There is agreement among services to limit further efforts at apprehension to a routine basis.

  Marshals Linc Goodworth and Frank Jefferys read the message with the bored expressions of cops who had seen it all before.

  Linc said, “Hate to tell ya, but I told ya so.”

  “You did, but it was exciting to think about being really involved for a month. So it’s back to work-as-usual. I’ve got today’s takedowns. You can read them in the car.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  One Year After the Israeli Attack on Iran

  White House Oval Office: Conference, 1345

  Present: POTUS, VPOTUS, SECRETARY OF STATE, FULL CABINET, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE, CHAIRMAN JCS, DFBI, DCIA

  The discussion had been underway through lunch, and now focused on Swiss Ambassador-at-Large, Jeremy LeFevre.

  “I have probably said enough, already, Mr. President; but in conclusion, I would like to emphasize the significant change in attitude that we are seeing with the Iranians. They complain that you have not brought the head of the person they call “The Shadow”—who is likely to be the fugitive—Hunter Caulfield. However, they are satisfied that you have done all in your power to do so and have spared no expense. They express great satisfaction over how exactly you complied with the demands they presented a year ago; so, they would not have to “annihilate”—their words—the Zionist Entity. They note that terrorist attacks from all sides have declined dramatically.”

  “You asked for the meeting, Mr. LeFevre, what is it that they want now? They already got the sun and the moon; are they after the stars this time?”

  “In a figurative manner of speaking, that is exactly what they want. They have gained great confidence since the sanctions were lifted, and they want a seat at the world’s table. They pressed me to demand of you that relations between the United States and Iran be normalized within the year. They hinted at a “serious change” if the United States does not move along quickly to make that happen.”

  The president excused Ambassador-at-Large, LeFevre, with his thanks, then polled his cabinet. There was an hour’s discussion, but no significant difference of opinion: everyone was coming around to be agreeable to beginning the normalization process. The president concurred and instructed Jeremy Southem to light a fire under the Department of State to get the job done in less than eleven months.

  The DCIA raised a hand once the voting was complete, and the president had given his order.

  “Mr. President, we are glossing over one important issue that impacts on—and may derail—the normalization process. I have heard some opinions around the belt-way that Hunter Caulf
ield is likely dead since he cannot be located. I doubt that emphatically. He is an incredibly resourceful man; but he’ll have to resurface in a year or two, or make a mistake along the line and be imprisoned or executed. I’m afraid he’s just lying in a hole waiting for us to get into serious public education to convince Americans that a normalization process is important to us. Then—I predict—he will resurface and cause great trouble for the process. He has to hate us and to want revenge.”

  “Once the announcement of the plan to take Iran off the terrorist list is completed, we can make Captain Caulfield an offer he can’t refuse as the Godfather would say.”

  “I think we are going to have to find him and kill him,” the DCIA said.

  “Get on with it. No one in this room is opposed. You have a green light from me.”

  Sheep Dog stood at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital bedside of Roger Ward along with Yee Pang Hung, Nguyen Tran Ky, the three men who had become his best friends—if truth were told, his only friends. Roger was an emaciated shell of his former self, scarcely recognizable even by his closest associates. His skin was yellow to the point of being almost orange; the whites of his eyes were the color of a lemon. He was sweating profusely which made his cadaverous yellow-orange skin and yellow eyes something out of a horror movie. His abdomen was grotesquely bulging with ascites, and his doctors now only shrugged when asked about his condition, and shook their heads when asked about what they could do next. He had a dreadful body and breath odor—fetor hepaticus, the smell of fulminating liver failure—the smell of death.

  Roger was gradually going into shock, beginning to die by large leaps as opposed to the last three months when he was dying by inches. For a while he had been on renal dialysis because his kidneys had failed. Finally, the doctors gave it up because the suffering of the skeletal man far outweighed the benefit. Now—like hovering vultures—the three friends waited for Roger to die.

  Sheep Dog had spent as much time with his friend as was possible during the past four months which won him the admiration and trust of Hung and Ky and the hard men of the Chou Yen Lee Family tong. It was no longer Mr. Nguyen, but Ky; initial wariness had grown into mutual trust. That trust had grown exponentially when Sheep Dog had agreed to accompany their mutual friend to Hong Kong in the desperate final medical efforts.

  Sheep Dog had been deeply concerned about his friend since he arrived in Viet Nam—nearly a year and a half ago—and now he felt a deep emotional pain. However—he was, as ever—the ultimate pragmatist. He thought that the obviously impending death of Roger Ward put him in a less tenable position in Southeast Asia. During the last months, Roger had made sure that Sheep Dog had the names, addresses, e-mail addresses, business addresses, land-line, and mobile telephone numbers of everyone in the PRUC network. He laboriously wrote out a short and up-to-date bio on all of the former CIA men who had served with Roger and Sheep Dog in the Phoenix Program Viet Cong interdiction effort. He even contacted as many as he could before his illness rendered him incapable of real effort. In his final day of struggle, Roger told him to get to the man they had both known as Anders Bergstrom—the Viet Cong had known as con mau trang khong-lo [the white giant ghost]—and was now known to a very few, very trusted friends, as Steffan Johannson, citizen of Quesnel, British Columbia, Canada.

  In the last weeks, while Roger lay dying in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Sheep Dog began final preparations to leave Viet Nam. His first goal was to get to Canada with a quick stop in Moscow beforehand; and for that, he had to have Canadian and Russian passports, a couple of the few that he had not secured earlier. When Roger made one long last exhalation, the remaining three friends had him cremated—as the dying man had requested—and his ashes spread in the South China Sea off the Po Toi Islands. Hung went back to Saigon to run the business.

  Before Ky left for Hué, he took Sheep Dog to an obscure street in the New Territories where he could get seriously authentic documents for a serious price. They went by the MTR Island Line and Tseung Kwan O Line to the center of the new town [Chinese: Jiangiun’ao Xin Shizhen] and got off at Tseung Kwan O Station in the town center. The area had nothing but new buildings including skyscrapers—and further out—low rise apartments and shops on reclaimed land. They took a cab past huge green parks to the Tseung Kwan O Village at the northern tip of Junk Bay—or General’s Bay as the locals knew it. The village looked out across Victoria Harbor to Hong Kong Island from which they had come. On the train—and at every stop—Ky was obsessively security conscious, constantly looking over his shoulder to be sure they were not followed. The location and identity of the forger they were about to see was sacrosanct for the tong.

  The cab dropped them off on a neat two lane road paralleling a two lane bicycle and pedestrian road. When the taxi was out of sight, Ky led the way to a short line of new white stucco three story buildings with blue tile roofs. The lower floors contained various shops, and the upper two floors of the buildings were apartments. Ky and Sheep Dog entered a Chinese apothecary shop and pressed a button to summon the proprietor from a back work room.

  Ky and the man exchanged knowing nods, and Ky said, “Mr. Chun, this is my friend and a member of the tong, Mr. Jean-Luc Le Croix. He lives near me in Hué. I would be very pleased if you would honor his wishes.”

  Mr. Chun bowed politely and said, “Mr. Le Croix, it is my pleasure and honor to serve you.” He turned to Ky, “will you be staying?”

  Ky told him no, that he had to get back to Viet Nam to take care of pressing business matters. Ky and Sheep Dog made their farewells, and promised to keep in touch; but both men knew that would be a dangerous thing to do and would only happen in the case of an emergency.

  Sheep Dog followed Mr. Chun into the compounding lab of the apothecary shop with its tables laden with a dizzying assortment of roots, seeds, branches, horns, skins, and smells and walked to the back stairs. They climbed the short flights of steps to the third floor. Mr. Chun took out his ring of keys and opened the door with three separate keys for three separate locks. The door was far heavier than one would have expected for a residence apartment. On first glance, the room was a typical Chinese bachelor’s apartment littered with dirty dishes, cast aside clothing on a few simple pieces of furniture, and a worn carpet. The sink was full of dishes, and a microwave was the only apparatus for cooking. The room smelled of garlic, sesame oil, soy sauce, and fried pork. What struck Sheep Dog was that the rear wall of the apartment was obviously too close to the front wall inside in comparison to the depth of the building as seen from the outside—thus truncating the room. Mr. Chun, and Sheep Dog never knew him by any other title—he was not a personable man—tapped on the left hand of a figure on an intricately carved hard wood panel. As in the movies, a heretofore invisible door opened in the wall.

  Mr. Chun led Sheep Dog into a high-tech state-of-the-art photography and printing studio. There was a table with a comfortable chair and a large gem cutter’s magnifying lens on an articulated arm. The lights on the table were intense. X-Acto knives, fine white cotton and brown latex surgeons’ gloves, an assortment of fine-tipped pens, laminating sheets, vellum and bond paper, and neat boxes of blank identification cards and authentic appearing passport folders were set out on the table’s surface. In the center of the room sat an island of sophisticated professional photoshop equipment including an Epson B11b178061 Perfection V750-m Pro Flatbed scanner, a Continuous Color, Nonstop Productivity Xerox 490/980 Continuous Feed Printing System, an HP Color LaserJet Enterprise CP4520 Printer; an Agfa offset separation digital three-color photo engraver computer-to-plate [CTP] unit; a Fujifilm FinalProof digital color Luxel FinalProof 5600 halftone proofer; a VGA Capture-VGA2USB Frame Grabber with a Super VGA screen; and a world-class Spectra Digital Camera.

  “Sit here, please, Mr. Le Croix,” Mr. Chun directed.

  He took several front and side view photos and fed them into the computer. He and Sheep Dog examined the photos; they were professionally perfect and passport size. Mr. Chun supplied a
bald pate disguise and beard and repeated the photographs. The difference in his natural face and the new ones was incredible. Mr. Chun then set to work to produce driver’s licenses for the States of Utah, New Jersey, and Oklahoma and for the Provinces of British Columbia and Quebec, and drivers’ licenses and passports for all three states and Canada. The materials with which he worked were genuine laminates, bought from corrupted agents of the state, provincial, and national offices at exorbitant prices. Cultivating such suppliers had been the product of four decades of Mr. Chun’s professional life.

  He sat at the table with the photos, his X-Acto knife, and aerosol glue and affixed the new photos on driver’s licenses and passports he had pre-printed with all of the required information for individuals—dead children—with real current—parental—addresses taken from telephone books in the United States and Canada. Mr. Chun had rock-steady hands, and an intensity of focus that would have qualified him to be a currency plate engraver, precious gem cutter, or a brain surgeon had he ever been inclined to seek out legal employment. He took out a series of official stamps from a dozen countries and made entrance and exit date stamps on multiple pages for multiple dates that could not be distinguished from the real thing.

  $40,000 U.S. changed hands, and Sheep Dog became Richard Decatur from Salt Lake City, Utah, Peter Alan Webster from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Hyrum Edgar Poindexter from Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, Douglas Conroy Weaver from Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Pierre DeNeuve from Quebec City, Quebec—at least on official and genuine documents. He was five very different men on those documents, and the disguises would be simple to contrive when the time came. Sheep Dog thanked Mr. Chun and back-tracked to Hong Kong. He called a cab from the apothecary office, took the train from the Tseung Kwan O Station on the line of the same name to the Island Line and then to the Airport Express Line all the way to the Hong Kong International Airport. Mr. Chun had provided him with the materials for the first disguise, and Sheep Dog became a balding, stoop-shouldered minor bureaucrat from Canada. He was able to get a stand-by seat for a nonstop flight on Aeroflot to Moscow for later that night.