Smoke and Shadow

by Gamal Hennessy

  Trent’s grim chuckle gave bass to the long treble of Chu’s sigh. “So you need this off the books because the potential blowback could be monumental if this thing goes sideways?”

  “Correct.”

  “There’s a lot of ways something could go wrong, Ghost.” Again Trent gave voice to Chu’s unease. “Innocents in the line of fire, uncertainty of the terrain, the likely police response… plus we’re sure to wind up on surveillance cameras and God knows how many iPhones. There’s a lot of moving parts.”

  “Maybe,” Baker had no doubt in his voice. “But you just pulled off a similar job uptown by yourself...”

  “And it was a shit show. Trent got himself shot and broke his leg. The cops showed up, the whole thing turned into a blood bath and he was only after one target.” Chu shook his head and tossed his fruit onto a dryer. “You’re talking about going into a denser neighborhood to take out more targets and only adding one more operator. Forget a lot of moving parts. This is just fucking stupid.”

  Baker shook his head like a disappointed school teacher. “Gentlemen, we have snatched high value targets from nests of insurgents with an hour’s prep time in broad daylight. We have taken out terrorist cells in crowded bazaars with zero civilian casualties. This job is not easy, but it is not beyond your skill set or above your pay grade. Our client needs a surgical solution to this problem and we can provide it.”

  Chu rubbed his eyes and continued to shake his head. “You can’t just blow smoke up our ass and expect us to do something that can’t be done. We can’t just run in some spot and kill a group of shooters”

  Baker shrugged. “It’s hard to know what can’t be done, isn’t it. I mean, who knew you could kill two dudes in an airport parking lot and get away without anyone seeing you?”

  “That was in spontaneous defense of a principal. This is premeditated murder.”

  “And who knew you could cripple a potential asset right under the nose of his surveillance team on a heavily populated Brooklyn street?

  “That was different…”

  “Really? Tell me how it was different, Smoke.”

  “Shit.” Chu focused so much on his objections to this mission he confirmed suspicions Baker already had about his deception in the Erich Maas job. He decided to stop talking before he got himself into any more trouble.

  Trent still had the ability to push back. “Is this kind of trash removal necessary? Can’t we just expose them to the police or the press and let the system take care of these guys?”

  Baker pursed his lips as if the question insulted him. “Unfortunately, this particular group of slavers has enough political influence to keep the police and DA off the case. Exposure in the press will only force them to change location. It won’t solve the real problem. If we don’t go in then nobody goes in and women will remain there to be raped until they die and replaced with other victims.”

  Trent gave a single dismissive nod. “I figured you’d say something like that. OK. I’m in.”

  Baker returned Trent’s affirmation like he expected nothing less. He turned to Chu with a similar confidence in his eye. “Answer the call Smoke. Are you in or out?”

  Chu thought back to the choice of neighborhood, the references to Nightwatch and the overall flow of the conversation. Baker had answers for every opposing viewpoint and strategies to cover any resistance. He knew exactly how this would go. Chu knew he could refuse, but he knew Trent would go in alone. He’d just recovered from a similar job. Chu couldn’t let him go into this alone and Baker knew it. The outcome of this meeting was never in doubt. All Chu could do now was offer some token resistance to preserve the illusion of independence.

  “We have to do some initial recon before we agree. We need to know what we’re getting into.”

  Baker raised his free hand in affirmation. “I expect nothing less. We’ve got two weeks to make this happen. You can spend the next seventy two hours getting familiar with the target.”

  “And we get our per diem plus?”

  “You get your per diem, plus expenses, equipment and training; all top of the line and state of the art. No worries there.”

  “And we’ll get full RSVP support?”

  “I’ll provide logistics, plus necessary medical and legal, although we’ll have to work under the cover of a legitimate op.”

  “Whatever. I just want to make sure we’re covered.”

  “You’re covered. No worries.”

  Trent clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Well all righty then. Let’s get started…”

  Baker began laying out the details of the target building. Chu tossed his pomegranates into the trash. He knew he wouldn’t be relaxing at home any time soon.

  Chapter Two: Just Take a Look

  Target analysis started with a thoughtful historical review and ended with Chu throwing things.

  Chu and Trent spent the first couple of days reviewing Baker’s files on the target group so they could understand the origins of the shetou, or snakeheads, in New York. They read about the rise of an immigrant named Sister Ping who rose from a little old lady with a knick knack store on Hester Street to the head of an international smuggling operation making nearly forty million dollars. They found out about her on again off again conflict with the upstart Ah Kay of the Fuk Ching gang and her eventual imprisonment in connection with the sinking of the Golden Venture. By the time they turned their attention to the Fuk Ching as successors to Sister Ping, they had a good grasp of the background and the players of New York’s snakehead community.

  The gang went underground after the media attention of Ping’s trial, but they resurfaced in the new decade with a more aggressive style. They stopped wearing wild colors in their hair and adopted a clean shaven look. They continued to use claw hammers and ice picks as their weapons of choice, but they’d also dipped into the black market to acquire everything from AR15 to AK47 rifles. They still made their money smuggling Chinese and other Asians into America by boat, but they’d also branched out into money laundering, extortion and sex slavery. Baker didn’t know who replaced Ah Kay as the head of the Fuk Ching, but he or she had a lot more ice in their veins than Sister Ping ever did.

  Next, they turned to the physical terrain to understand how the geography could both help and hinder their efforts. The target building sat near the corner of Hester Street and Ludlow, crammed between the last of the worn down tenements and ultra-modern low rise condos trying to replace them. The main floor housed a small restaurant called the Red Crane and the basement had a storefront massage parlor with the same name. According to official records, the building and both establishments were owned by the same holding company. All the licenses and permits were in order. According to Baker, the Red Crane was the front for the slave trade. Patrons with the right connections and enough cash could skip the fried rice and foot rubs and head upstairs for more specialized services.

  Trent sat at Chu’s kitchen table and gestured to the map pinned to the wall with his chopsticks. “The bad news is there’s a school right around the corner. The good news is we can go in at night and eliminate the risk of child casualties.”

  Chu checked Google maps on his laptop and tipped a Beck’s to his lip with a free hand. “I’m not worried about the kids. I’m worried about the drunks. There’s got to be thirty to forty bars in a six block radius. Most of them don’t close until 4 a.m. There’s never going to be a time when the street will be clear of foot or vehicle traffic. If this spills into the street, we’re gonna have bodies everywhere. The internet will know about it five minutes later and we won’t be able to hit Union Square before the whole area gets locked down.”

  There was no humor in Trent’s laugh. “You’re being optimistic, Smoke. The Fifth precinct is right there on Elizabeth and there’s another police station a few blocks away on Pitt. Not to mention One Police Plaza is only about three minutes away with sirens on and no traffic. Response times are going to be near zero with helicopter and auxiliary support on
both bridges. Spilling this into the street is not an option.”

  “So I think it’s safe to say this mission qualifies as FUBAR, even on paper.” Chu set down his bottle and shook his head. “I don’t want to see women forced to fuck, but this mission is more likely to kill them than save them. I think we need to tell Baker this is a no-go. Give him a chance to explore other options to get this done.”

  Trent nodded in false agreement. “It looks FUBAR on paper, but we don’t run ops on paper. We need to take a look at the Red Crane on the ground. We might be able to see some opportunities we can’t see on Google Maps.”

  “What opportunities do you think we’re going to see? The police stations aren’t gonna move farther away. All the bars won’t suddenly close. We know what we’re going to see based on the remote analysis. Taking a walk through will only confirm what we already know.”

  “Maybe, but if we don’t do a walkthrough, our evaluation is incomplete.” Trent stood up, grabbed some ice from Chu’s freezer and dropped them into his empty glass. He picked up the half empty bottle of Elijah Craig and focused on pouring as he spoke. “Baker’s not going to abort a mission based on the way it looks on paper. If you want to convince him, we’re going to need a complete analysis.”

  Chu and contemplated tossing the empty bottle at his friend. “I know what you’re trying to do.”

  Trent held up his hands in denial, but the smile on his face gave it away. “What?”

  “You don’t give a damn about complete analysis and you’re not interested in shutting this thing down. You just want us out in the field so you can fucking laugh at me.”

  Trent started laughing at him in the kitchen. “You’ve got to do it, Smoke. It’s part of the job.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Don’t be like that. How many people get paid so much to piss in their pants?”

  “Fuck you with a broken bottle.” Chu tossed the bottle underhand across the kitchen towards Trent’s head. The operator caught the projectile and kept on laughing.

  Chapter Three: Seeing is Believing

  Homelessness gave Chu a special kind of invisibility.

  People saw him sitting on the corner of Ludlow Street. The subconscious New York radar of the frat boys, party girls and wannabe hustlers steered them away from him without looking in his direction. A few of the random partiers slumming it from uptown put money in his cup, but guilt prevented them from looking into his face. One or two drunken women managed to overcome their nervous revulsion and tried to start a conversation with him. That’s when the stink of his urine soaked clothing came in handy. The well intentioned women made a swift exit on their high heels and no one was able to see Chu’s face long enough to identify him.

  Chu did more to complete his disguise than just sit on a street corner and pee on himself. The three layers of clothes he wore were caked with mud and grime until they attained the dull brownish gray of urban poverty. His position next to a grimy dumpster made rats more inclined to keep him company than people. Finally, several shopping bags full of half eaten food and odd pieces of junk created a barrier the members of polite society weren’t willing to cross. Like thousands of other New Yorkers, Chu gained the ability to hide in plain sight on a busy street corner in the middle of Manhattan. Unlike real homeless people, Chu could go home and take a shower after he finished his stakeout of the Red Crane.

  The building and surrounding area looked similar to the pictures he’d seen online, but the cover of darkness, the constant hum of liquor fueled chatter and the energy of people in motion gave the scene life. Chu watched the people come and go from the Red Crane, looking for reasons to abort the mission.

  He collected information with his eyes, his ears and electronic tools to augment his perception. Wedged between his threadbare coat and tattered jacket he kept a waterproof, hands free DV micro camera. He kept it trained on the front of the building, its one hundred and seventy degree lens able to catch both doors and most of the street in front. He only had about an hour and a half of battery life, so he couldn’t leave it on all night, and the camera wasn’t designed to zoom in, so he couldn’t focus it on faces or license plates, but the video it captured would reinforce all the bad news Chu saw and heard for two chilly nights next to the dumpster.

  On the first night, the Fuk Ching were out in force. The gang used BMW’s as their status symbols and Chu counted at least four different ones parked in front of or around the Red Crane at various times of the night. All the male drivers and passengers sported bald heads, steroid induced broad shoulders and bad attitudes. Twice Chu saw a couple of them come out of the massage parlor leading a young woman by the arm. Neither of the women dressed like stereotypical hookers, but the nervous look in their eyes and the identical backpacks they carried raised questions for Chu. He didn't know if their bags held massage oils or sex toys. He couldn't tell if they went to a private outcall massage or sold to some sex maniac on a permanent basis. He could only watch and wait.

  One girl came back in a different BMW a few hours later. Her hair was a tangled mess. She walked with a limp and she clutched her arms around her body as if she was trying to comfort herself. Chu felt his jaw clench at the thought of the suffering she might have suffered. His anger became a pit in his stomach when he realized the second woman never came back at all.

  The second night of surveillance made things much worse. Around three in the morning, when the crowds began to thin and the energy of the street began to ebb, two men walked up to the Red Crane and into the massage parlor. The basement business took its last official client at eleven and closed at midnight. The sign on the door said ‘We’re closed, please come again’ but these two ignored the sign and the official hours. They didn’t even bother to knock. They walked right in, knowing the door would be unlocked. They carried themselves like frequent customers.

  Chu also noticed their look. Both had their hair cut military short. Neither wore any jewelry. The fanny packs hanging low across their stomachs offered the most telling detail. The two new patrons to the club were cops.

  Chu captured all of it on video when the men went into the Red Crane. He took their pictures again when they came out of the restaurant three hours later. Their faces were flushed and they carried the same smiles Chu recognized from his early days of hooking up in the men’s room of Splash. They weren’t basking in the afterglow of a late night sesame chicken feast. Chu forced himself to stay in position until the cops turned the corner before he moved. The temptation to pack up and move was hard to overcome. He finally understood why he had such a bad feeling about this job. Now Baker would have to see it too.

  Chapter Four: Why Don't We Just...

  “I really don’t see any reason to abort.”

  Chu rubbed his eyes and fought the urge to bang his forehead on the steering wheel. The three men sat in a car inching along in traffic going downtown on Ninth Avenue, hidden among the throng of honking cars trying to get to the Lincoln Tunnel at rush hour. Driving in a bumper to bumper mess felt more soothing than listening to Baker’s rationalizations.

  “I mean, it all makes sense, right? If the cops are patrons of the Crane, it explains why the police won’t go in and raid the place. It could also explain how the place can operate in the middle of three police stations. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Crane wasn’t common knowledge for everyone working all three precincts.”

  Chu shrugged his shoulders and honked the horn. “So if they might be in there on any given night, why would we want go in there too?”

  “Are you saying the client’s giving us a green light to take down cops?” Trent sounded eager, as if he was looking for a reason to attack authority.

  “Absolutely not,” Baker glanced out his window to scan for threats without being obvious. “The client does not have that kind of authorization and under no circumstances are you cleared to engage any law enforcement officers.”

  Chu leaned on the horn again. “So how are we supposed to clear out a nest o
f slave traders if the cops might be in there protecting them?”