Peter May - Snakehead

‘Hey!’ One of the INS men rattled the door handle.

Li pulled him roughly aside and threw his right shoulder squarely against the door. There was the sound of splintering wood, but the door remained intact.

‘For Christ’s sake, Li, what are you doing?’ Hrycyk screamed.

Li ignored him and threw himself at the door again. This time it burst open, in time for them to see the girl climbing out of the bathroom window. Li shouted at her, but none of them knew what it was he said.

The girl dropped from view, and they heard her land on a tin roof below. Li was across the bathroom in two strides. He put his foot through the glass, smashing the frame and started climbing out after her.

‘Li, if you don’t stop, I’ll fucking shoot you,’ Hrycyk bawled after him. ‘You’re just an observer here.’

But like the girl before him, Li dropped from view and clattered on to the tin roof below. Hrycyk ran across the bathroom and peered out after him. Margaret followed and craned to see over his shoulder. The tin roof covered a small outbuilding that housed the bins. The girl had jumped down into the alleyway at the rear, kicked off her shoes, and was running barefoot toward high mesh gates at the end, caught in the full glare of security lights which had snapped on. Li was going after her like a man demented.

Hrycyk turned to Margaret. ‘What the hell’s he doing?’ he hissed.

Margaret was at a loss. ‘Damned if I know.’

‘Jees…!’ He turned and ran back down the stairs, breathing heavily, Margaret following in his wake.

Out back they saw that the girl had reached the gates. But they were locked. She turned, her back pressed against the mesh, and watched Li approach. He had slowed to a strange, almost loping gait. Hrycyk, his breath coming now in stertorous gasps, ran after them.

As Li finally approached the girl, she seemed to cower below him. He stood for a long moment, then lifted his open hand as if about to strike her.

‘Li!’ Margaret screamed. She overtook Hrycyk and drew level with Li. ‘What are you doing?’ She looked at the strange, almost twisted expression on his face. She had never seen him look that way before. He stood breathing hard, unable to take his eyes off the girl. Margaret turned her gaze toward her and for the first time thought that there was something vaguely familiar about her.

Hrycyk caught up with them, several INS men running up behind him. His gun was in his hand, but hanging loosely at his side. Years of smoking and the strain of being a hundred pounds overweight, had taken their toll. Gasping for breath, he said, ‘For fuck’s sake, what is going on…?’

Li still had his eyes fixed on the girl, something like hatred burning in them now. He said, ‘She is Xiao Ling. My sister.’

Margaret looked quickly from one to the other in astonishment. She had met Xiao Ling only once, in a tearoom in Beijing two years ago. She doubted if she would have recognised her.

Hrycyk was unmoved. He nodded to his men. ‘Take her away.’

Li stepped in front of them. ‘I don’t think you understand,’ he said with a dangerous intensity. ‘She is my sister .’

‘I don’t care if she’s your sex-change uncle,’ Hrycyk told him happily. ‘She’s an illegal-fucking-Chinese-alien-prostitute, and she’s going to jail!’

The lights of Huntsville were spread out below like clusters of fireflies dancing in the warm Texas night. Margaret could follow the line of the Interstate snaking north by the headlights of the cars. But at this time it was not busy and there was little traffic. She saw the landing lights of the tiny Huntsville airfield, and on the other side of the highway the blaze of light around the perimeter of the Holliday Unit, where the Texas Department of Criminal Justice processed criminals also suspected of being illegal aliens. Some comedian had nicknamed it the Holliday Inn, and the name had stuck. Now the facility had been turned over exclusively for the use of the task force.

The small army helicopter touched down gently on the tarmac. A journey that would normally have taken an hour had been accomplished in less than fifteen minutes. Ducking under the downdraught, Margaret ran toward the lights of the terminal building, little more than a shed with windows. She crossed through the headlights of the car that was waiting for her and climbed in the back. The army driver turned and nodded. ‘Ma’am,’ he said, ‘you wanna go straight there?’

‘Please.’

He engaged the shift and as he turned the car, its lights raked across the runway, illuminating rows of tiny single-engined aircraft lined up along either side. They drove slowly over a pitted road past playing fields, rows of bleachers erected to accommodate the faithful who came to watch the Huntsville Hornets on a Saturday.

They turned right past a filling station and the lights of the Hitchin’ Post restaurant before making a left and passing under Interstate 45. In less than two minutes they were on the access road to the Holliday Inn, which shimmered silver under the floodlights raised around its perimeter, light glinting on miles of shiny razor wire curled around the top of high mesh fencing. As they pulled into the brightly lit car park out front, Margaret could see the guard in the watchtower above the main gate following their progress. She stepped out into the glare of lights that bathed the prison in what felt like permanent day and walked toward the gate.

The guard called from the tower. ‘Stand below.’ Margaret did as she was told, and watched as he lowered a red plastic bucket on the end of a rope. ‘Put your ID in the bucket,’ he shouted. She dropped in her plastic photocard from the Medical Examiner’s Office, and he drew the bucket back up the tower. He took several moments to examine the ID before making a phone call. ‘You’ll get it back on the way out,’ he called. ‘Stand by the gate.’

As she reached the gate, she saw a black female officer approaching it through a corridor of fencing that led from the administration offices in H block. She unlocked an inner gate, before opening the outer gate to let Margaret in. They shook hands.

‘I’m Deputy Warden Macleod,’ the officer said. ‘You gonna have to get in one of these white suits to go in back. But I guess there ain’t much I have to tell you about that.’ She locked the gates behind them, and as they walked toward H block she said, ‘You people don’t hang around. They tell me they’re going to have the first hearings tomorrow morning. Usually it’s a week before we’re processing people over to Goree.’

Margaret said, ‘They’re not going to Goree. The Immigration Court there’s too small, and we can’t exactly evacuate a whole prison unit to keep these prisoners isolated.’

Deputy Warden Macleod looked surprised. ‘Where you taking them then?’

Margaret said, ‘The dean at the College of Criminal Justice has agreed to let us use their courtroom. It’s bigger, and they’re just going to shut down the college for the day.’

The deputy warden raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, that’s a new one on me.’

Margaret said, ‘They used it once for a real-life capital murder trial. Some guy from Conroe with financial problems. Kidnapped his neighbours’ kid for ransom, but ended up killing the child. They found him guilty and gave him the death penalty.’

The deputy warden whistled softly. ‘You know, I ain’t never been too sure that we got the right to take a man’s life, no matter what he’s done. I figure the Big Man’s the only one with the right to make that judgment.’

‘Then you’re in the wrong job, in the wrong town,’ Margaret said. ‘They say it’s going to be a record year for executions over at the Walls Unit.’