White Ghost

by Steven Gore

  “But could she identify the men who shot you?”

  “She knew them all. She worked in a massage parlor in Chinatown. Her boss had to pay for protection and the women—”

  “You mean she was a prostitute?”

  Gage nodded. “But she’d been saving her money and going to community college during the day.”

  “What about the three witnesses?”

  “They confessed in a heartbeat when Casey threatened to prosecute them as accessories after the fact. The gang paid them ten grand up front and they were supposed to get another ten after I was convicted.”

  Stern seemed transfixed as Gage came to the end of the story, lost in a final image of Ling, now Linda Sheridan, emerging from hiding to testify against those who’d shot Gage and murdered Snake Eyes, then fading away. Cut off from family and friends, alone and isolated by a secret defining her adult identity.

  “Did they let you see her?”

  “After her last day of testimony. Casey set up a meeting at the DA’s office in the Hall of Justice.”

  “What did you say? I mean what could you say?”

  Gage stiffened. “I’d rather not talk about that. Let’s just say I thanked her and hadn’t seen her since, until yesterday. Her son got involved with gangsters like those ones who shot me. He was killed. He was only sixteen years old. A confused and angry sixteen.”

  “Can’t anyone else . . . ?”

  “No.”

  Stern looked at Gage, weighing something in her mind.

  “Excuse me a moment,” Stern rose and left the room.

  Faith rose also, then crossed her arms across her chest and shivered. “Why do they keep these places so cold?”

  Stern returned a few minutes later carrying a prescription pad.

  “I still think you’re dead wrong to do this, but I looked at the CT scans and your blood work. You’re still under the thresholds we talked about.”

  She sat down at the desk and began writing.

  “Take your own syringes if you have any doubt about safety, particularly in China.” She tore off the prescription and handed it to him. “Use them to get some blood drawn and get it tested every week.”

  Stern looked down, thought for a moment, then wrote again.

  “This is for nausea. I’m not sure how much it’ll help, but it may a little. As for the dizziness, you’re going to have to live with it.” She slid over the prescription and started on another. “And if any of these symptoms interfere with your sleep, take one of these.”

  “What do you want me to do with the blood results?”

  “I’ll e-mail you a list of values and the range of increases or decreases for each one that we can accept. If the results exceed those parameters, I need you to come home. You understand?”

  “Yes,” Faith said, looking over at Gage. “He understands.”

  “I want to hear my patient say it.”

  Gage nodded. “I understand.”

  Then he felt Faith’s eyes on him. They both knew something Stern couldn’t know: that when he came home—or even whether he’d come home alive—wasn’t entirely in his hands.

  CHAPTER 30

  Joe,” Gage said walking up to Joe Casey in a booth in Denny’s in San Jose, “this is Sylvia Washington.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Casey stood and shook her hand. “I saw the news coverage when you went down.” He smiled. “At least you got the bad guy. How’s the shoulder?”

  “Good as new.”

  Gage knew it wasn’t, but that’s all she’d ever say about it.

  After the waitress poured them coffee, Gage laid out his theory about Ah Ming shipping the computer chips to China.

  “Tell me what you need,” Casey said, “and I’ll tell you if I can give it to you.”

  Gage slid over a list of the company names Alex Z had abstracted from the documents in Ah Tien’s briefcase and the papers Lester Hardiman had taken off his body.

  “The most important thing I need to know is whether there’s any criminal intelligence information on these companies.”

  Casey read down the list and set it aside. He then took a sip of coffee as he ordered his thoughts.

  “First, I know what you’re going to do next.” Casey raised his palms toward Gage. “But don’t tell me. I don’t want to end up in the middle of a diplomatic explosion if you get caught and are seen as a proxy for the FBI.

  “Second, since whatever I find may involve active cases and informants, all I’ll be able to tell you is whether or not the names of these companies have come up in other investigations and whether you’re on the right track. I won’t be able to give you details.

  “And third, if anyone asks, you’re just a guy I knew a very long time ago.”

  “How soon can you find out whether any of the local companies just shipped out a container?” Gage pointed at the list. “Especially Sunny Glory. It’s coded in Ah Tien’s address book. It has offices here and in Taiwan and shows up in some shipping documents.”

  “I’ll call ICE this afternoon. The rest will take a couple of days.” Casey paused for a moment, then said, “And there’s one more thing. Ah Ming’s been a crook for thirty years, maybe more. No one has even gotten close to getting him, and this may be the only chance for the next thirty years. Like my wife would say, it’s like the planets are aligned. You’re the only one I know who has the connections and savvy to maybe pull this off. But be careful; there are too many bad ways this can end.”

  GAGE’S CELL RANG as he and Sylvia drove out of the Denny’s parking lot. It was Casey.

  “Hey, man, is Sylvia okay? She said nothing during the whole lunch. I heard she was a pit bull when she was a cop, but today she was more like a lapdog.”

  “It’s nothing.” Gage glanced over at her in the passenger seat. “Just a complicated case and she’s new to the international angles. That’s all.”

  Gage disconnected, then pulled to the curb in front of a car lot and looked over.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “I don’t think you should be doing this.”

  “The other day you told me you really wanted to get this guy.”

  “That was the other day. This is now. I did some research. If they’re telling you to get treatment, you should do it, instead of—”

  “I got a note from the doctor and a hall pass, too.”

  “I’m being serious.”

  “So am I. I made a deal with one of the best oncologists in the country. If things start to go bad, I’ll come back.”

  “I still don’t like it.” Sylvia stared ahead at the cars driving by. “I never told you this because I thought you’d think I was a wimp, but when the department dumped me after I got shot, I went into a tailspin. They had guys over there who were too fat to get in and out of a patrol car without greasing up, and they dump me because my shoulder couldn’t do a 360. Being a cop was my whole life. If you hadn’t shown up . . . I mean, when you walked into my room in the physical therapy department, it was like I had something to hold on to, like I was worth something again.”

  “So you figure you owe me something?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And if I needed you to take a risk, you’d do it?”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  “And I owe Peter’s mother something. She went to the limit for me and I’m doing the same for her.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Gage got another call from Casey as he was parking his car behind his building. He was surprised he had gotten back to him so soon.

  “I need to see you,” Casey said. “I’m at First and Market. I’ll swing by and pick you up. Three minutes.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I’ll tell you when I get there.”

  Gage walked out to the sidewalk. Casey drove up a few minutes later and Gage got in.

  Casey gripped the wheel with both hands. He didn’t look at Gage. He hit the accelerator, pushing them back hard against the seats. He sped along the bay for two blocks,
then stopped in a red zone in front of a pier.

  Only then did he turn to face Gage. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There was something hinky about what happened at Denny’s. I just called Faith and told her I was worried about you and made her think I knew what was going on. And she spilled the diagnosis.”

  Gage felt his face flush. “You mean you tricked her.”

  “It was for your own good.”

  “It was not for my own good and it’s nothing to worry about.”

  “That’s not how I hear it.”

  “A little chemical dip. Not a big deal.”

  “And exactly when is that going to be? You’re asking me to help, but all you’re doing is making me a coconspirator in your suicide.”

  “It’s not suicide. It’s a risk, but it’s not any different than if they found it a month from now.”

  “The fact is that they didn’t find it a month from now and a month from now it could be a whole lot worse.” Casey threw up his hands. “I’ve never known you to deceive yourself like this.”

  “I’m not deceiving myself. The oncologist will monitor it the whole time.”

  “What, from half a world away?

  “The world’s gotten smaller. She’s a text message away.”

  “Yeah. Right. How long have you known?”

  “Not long.”

  “And when were you thinking of telling me? You didn’t tell me you had cancer, you didn’t tell me how bad it was, you recruited me to help you, and now you’re going out of the country despite what the doctors say. Did I miss anything?”

  “You said this is going to be the only chance to get this guy and I’m the only one who can do it. That hasn’t changed.”

  “I said chance and maybe. I never said one hundred percent. And you bet it’s changed. Tell me. You’re dying, aren’t you? Faith wouldn’t say it, but I could tell it in her voice.”

  “They can fix it, not permanently, but they can stop it for a while.”

  “Bullshit. Any stopping of it will be temporary. I called my own doctor and asked him.”

  “Temporary will have to do.”

  “So then take the dip. Don’t go running off. Ah Ming is just a crook. You don’t owe anybody anything.” Casey shot out his arguments as if from an automatic weapon. “So he gets away. That’s life. What’s so important about him?”

  “Ling.”

  Casey rolled his eyes. “Ling? What does she have to do with it? Are you into some kind of cosmic payback? Like you gotta balance the scales before you check out?”

  “There’s nothing cosmic about it. Now she calls herself Linda. Peter Sheridan was her son.”

  Casey stared at Gage. “But how . . .”

  “It’s a long story. I owe her. You know I do.”

  “But she can’t expect—”

  “She doesn’t know and she doesn’t need to know.”

  “What about Faith?”

  “There’s nothing more important to me than Faith, you know that. But if there hadn’t been Ling, there wouldn’t have been Faith. I would’ve bled out on the pavement. And if Faith can handle it, then you can, too.”

  “But—”

  “But what? If you don’t want to help, that’s up to you. I’m going. If all goes well, I’ll be back in a few weeks.” Gage reached for the door handle. “You don’t need to drive me back.”

  Gage stepped out onto the sidewalk, closed the door, and then walked away. He heard the passenger window lower and glanced back to see Casey rolling up toward him.

  “Get in.”

  They drove back to Gage’s office in silence. As Gage turned to get out, Casey reached over and gripped Gage’s shoulder.

  Gage looked back.

  “You always win these things,” Casey said. “Always. It started the first day we met. Damn you. I lost sleep worrying about you then, and I’m just about to start again.”

  “It’s just something I have to do.”

  “I know.” Casey lowered his gaze and shook his head. “I hope I’d do the same.”

  He then reached into his suit pocket and handed Gage an ICE database printout.

  Gage read it over.

  Sunny Glory had shipped a container from Oakland to the southern Taiwanese port of Kaohsiung twenty-four hours after the robbery.

  CHAPTER 32

  Gage was finished packing and was on the deck barbecuing salmon and vegetables when Faith arrived home from UC Berkeley. She spread place settings on the table, then shifted the canvas umbrella to block the setting sun. They gazed out over the oaks and through the pines and redwoods toward the San Francisco Bay as they ate. A young red-tailed hawk cruised the currents rising in the canyon below. A container ship sailed in under the Golden Gate Bridge, the wake rocking flocks of returning fishing boats before breaking against both anchorages. Along the near shoreline, Gage spotted the great white cranes lining the Oakland port that lifted a million containers a year and only days before might have lifted the stolen chips that had cost a boy his life.

  “What fake e-mail account did you set up for the trip?” Faith asked.

  “Doris Day.”

  She smiled. “That had to have been Alex Z’s idea. He loves those old movies.” She tapped her chin with her forefinger. “The question is, which one?” She thought for a moment, then smiles. “I got it. The Man Who Knew Too Much.”

  “Exactly.”

  Faith joined Gage in laughing, a little too long and a little too hard, which made the following silence all the more painful. They then felt an awkwardness that they’d never experienced together. They both sensed an emptiness in the still air surrounding them as they watched the soundless motion of ships moving on the bay and of traffic crossing the bridges. A breeze rustled oak leaves above them and broke the spell.

  “Graham,” Faith said, examining his uneaten salmon, “you need to eat a little more.”

  “Actually, I was just going to . . .” He shrugged. “Well, maybe I wasn’t.”

  Faith looked at him with loving disapproval.

  “But I will.”

  Gage picked up a mushroom with his fork and shook it free onto his plate.

  “You promise to come back right away if Dr. Stern says so?”

  Gage held out his left hand, and then tapped on his wedding ring.

  “I do.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Flying over the South China Sea toward Hong Kong, Gage remembered the old days when landing at Kai Tak Airport turned airline passengers into voyeurs. As the planes touched the runway, travelers gazing out of their windows would find themselves peeping into offices and apartments. They’d see televisions in crowded living rooms flickering with music videos, Chinese opera, or reruns of Baywatch; T-shirted men sitting in tiny kitchens, rice bowls poised at their lips, chopsticks digging and scooping.

  But that wasn’t what Gage saw as his plane swooped down over Lantau Island to land at Chek Lap Kok. The airport, which he knew old-timers and China hands would call new long into its fourth decade, was an architectural phenomenon of which any city in Asia or Europe or the Americas would be proud. In Gage’s mind, that was the problem. There was nothing Hong Kong about it.

  The plane jolted against the tarmac, and in that moment Gage realized what had prompted that thought. It wasn’t Hong Kong that had changed, it was him.

  “YOU DIDN’T NEED TO COME all the way out here,” Gage said to Jong Arng as he stepped into the arrivals hall. “I could’ve met you at the hotel.”

  Jong Arng, Thai for “Cobra,” had been waiting for Gage after he passed through Immigration and Customs.

  “Mai pen rai.”

  The Thai expression meaning “no problem” was Cobra’s response to just about everything: monsoons, flat tires, gunshot wounds, or an unexpected request to fly from Bangkok to Hong Kong.

  As Cobra drove them toward Kowloon, it struck Gage that throughout the years Cobra had retained the solid build he�
�d had in the 1980s as a young Taiwanese intelligence officer managing the heroin trade in the Golden Triangle. If Alan Lim had quick eyes that revealed an agile mind, Cobra had slow, steady ones that concealed it.

  It sometimes bothered Gage that Cobra played such a huge role in what was even then a dead fantasy: that the Nationalist Chinese Army could overthrow the mainland government. Cobra’s youth had made him prone to an unthinking patriotism, not all that different from the CIA agents who transported Golden Triangle heroin to fund its covert actions in Vietnam in the early 1960s before the United States acknowledged its involvement in the war.

  By the time Gage met him, Cobra had come to acknowledge to himself that it was all a fantasy. He realized that the Nationalist Third Army was never going back to China and that its heroin traffic had devolved from a political necessity into a matter of guns and money. He resigned his commission in the Taiwan Ministry of Justice Intelligence Bureau, married a Thai-Chinese teacher of English literature, and remained in Thailand.

  While Cobra abandoned the ideology and the lost cause, he took with him his connections from the lowest nak laeng tough guys on the streets and in the karaoke bars to the jao phor mafia godfathers in their office towers and armed and fortified compounds, from the chemists in the field to the heroin brokers playing mah-jongg at the Krung Thep Palace Hotel, and from the Royal Thai police officers and soldiers who drove the heroin south, to the generals and admirals who provided protection to the poppy fields, the labs, and the ports.

  It was that background that led Gage to ask him to fly to Hong Kong. Not only could Cobra help identify Ah Ming’s sources for Double UO Globe, 555, and Triple K heroin, but Sunny Glory’s link to Ah Ming meant that if the chips were in the container the company had sent out after the robbery, it would pass through the jurisdiction of his former colleagues at the MJIB.

  “If I’m right,” Gage told him, as the office towers of Central Hong Kong came into view, “the container carrying the chips is on its way to Kaohsiung.”