Jeffery Deaver - The Stone Monkey

"You take one more step toward that airplane," the fat policeman said to him, "and these officers're authorized to arrest you."

"Me?" Webley muttered angrily.

Peabody gave a sharp laugh and looked at the black agent. "Dellray, what is this crap?"

"Probably oughta listen to my friend here, Harold. In your best innerest, believe you me."

Peabody said, "Five minutes."

A regretful frown crossed Lincoln Rhyme's face. "Oh, I'm afraid it may take a little longer than that."

The snakehead was far smaller and more compact than Lincoln Rhyme had expected. This was a phenomenon he recalled from his days running the NYPD forensics unit; the perpetrators he pursued took on disproportionate stature in his mind and when he saw them in person for the first time – usually at trial – he was often surprised at how diminutive they were.

The Ghost stood shackled and surrounded by law enforcers. Concerned, yes, but still in control, serene, shoulders and arms relaxed. The criminalist understood immediately how Sachs could have been suckered by him: the Ghost's eyes were those of a healer, a doctor, a spiritual man. They would dole out apparent comfort and invite sharing confidences. But, knowing the man now, Rhyme could see in the placid gaze evidence of a relentless ego and ruthlessness.

"Okay, sir, what's this all about?" asked Peabody's friend – Webley from State, as Rhyme now thought of him, echoing the man's own pompous identification of himself in Rhyme's living room the other day.

Rhyme said to the two men, "You know what happens sometimes in our line of work, gentlemen? I mean, forensic science."

Webley from State started to speak but Peabody waved him silent. Rhyme wouldn't have let anyone rush him anyway. Nobody hurried Lincoln Rhyme when he didn't wish to be hurried.

"We sometimes lose sight of the big picture. All right, I admit I'm the one who loses sight more than, say, my Sachs here. She looks at motive, she looks at why people do what they do. But that's not my nature. My nature is to study each piece of evidence and put it where it belongs." He glanced at the Ghost with a smile. "Like placing a stone on a wei-chi board."

The snakehead who had brought so much sorrow to so many lives said nothing, gave no acknowledgment. The gate agent announced preboarding of the Northwest Airlines flight to Los Angeles.

"We figured out the clues just fine." A nod toward the Ghost. "After all, here he is, caught, right? Thanks to us. And we've got enough evidence to convict him and sentence him to death. But what happens? He's going free."

"He's not going free," Peabody rejoined. "He's going back to stand trial in China."

"Free from the jurisdiction where he's committed a number of serious felonies in the past few days," Rhyme corrected sharply. "Do we have to squabble?"

This was too much for Webley from State. "Get to the point or I'm putting him on that plane."

Rhyme continued to ignore the man. He had the stage and wasn't relinquishing it. "The big picture… big picture… I was thinking how bad I felt. Here, I'd found out where the Fuzhou Dragon was and sent the Coast Guard after her but – what happens? – he scuttles it, killing all those people."

Peabody shook his head. "Of course you'd feel bad," he said with some sympathy. "We all felt bad. But – "

Rhyme kept steaming forward. "Big picture… Let's think about it. It's Tuesday, just before dawn, on board the Dragon. You're the Ghost, a wanted man – wanted for capital offenses – and the Coast Guard is a half hour away from interdicting your smuggling ship. What would you have done?"

The gate agent continued with the boarding of the flight.

Peabody sighed. Webley from State muttered something sotto voce; Rhyme knew it was not complimentary. The Ghost stirred but he remained silent.

Since no one was helping him out Rhyme continued, "I personally would've taken my money, ordered the Dragon back out to sea full speed ahead and escaped to shore in one of the life rafts. The Coast Guard and cops and INS would've been so busy with the crew and immigrants I could easily've gotten to land and been halfway to Chinatown before they realized I was gone. But what'd the Ghost do?"

Rhyme glanced at Sachs, who said, "He locked the immigrants in the hold, sank the ship and then hunted down the survivors. And he risked getting caught or killed to do it."

"And when he didn't kill them all on the shore," Rhyme took over the narrative, "he followed them to the city and tried to murder them there. Why on earth would he do that?"

"Well, they were witnesses," Peabody said. "He had to kill them."

"Ah, why? That's the question that nobody's asking." Rhyme asked, "What would it gain him?"

Peabody and Webley from State were silent.

Rhyme continued, "All that the passengers on the ship could do is to testify in one case of human smuggling. But there were already a dozen warrants against him for smuggling around the world. Homicide charges too – look at the Interpol Red Notice. It made no sense to go to all that trouble to murder them just because they were witnesses." He paused a histrionic few seconds. "But killing them makes perfect sense if the passengers were his intended victims."

Rhyme could see two different reactions in their faces. Peabody was perplexed and surprised. In Webley from State's eyes there was a different look. He knew exactly where Rhyme was going.

"Victims," Rhyme continued. "That's a key word. See, my Sachs found a letter when she went for her little swim in the Dragon."

The Ghost, who'd been staring at Sachs, turned slowly toward Rhyme when he heard this.

"A letter?" Peabody asked.

"It said, more or less, here's your money and a list of the victims you'll be taking to America… Are we catching on to the big picture, gentlemen? The letter didn't say 'passengers' or 'immigrants' or 'piglets' – or your own indelicate term, Peabody, 'undocumenteds.' The letter said quote 'victims.' I didn't realize at first when I had the letter translated that that was the exact word the writer used. And the big picture becomes a lot clearer when we look at who those victims were – they were all Chinese dissidents and their families. The Ghost isn't just a snakehead. He's also a professional killer. He was hired to murder them."

"This man is crazy," the Ghost snapped. "He's desperate. I want to leave now."

But Rhyme said, "The Ghost was planning all along to scuttle the Dragon. He was only waiting until the ship was close enough to shore so that he and his bangshou could make it to land safely. But a few things went wrong – we found the ship and sent the Coast Guard in, so he had to act sooner than he'd planned; some of the immigrants escaped. Then the explosive was too powerful and the ship sank before he could get his guns and money and find his assistant."

"That's absurd," muttered Webley from State. " Beijing wouldn't hire anybody to kill dissidents. It's not the 1960s anymore."

" Beijing didn't do it," Rhyme responded, "as I suspect you probably know, Webley. No, we found out who sent the Ghost his instructions and his money. Ling Shui-bian is his name."

The Ghost glanced desperately at the boarding gate.

Rhyme continued, "I sent the Fuzhou police an email with Ling's name and address and told them that I thought he was one of the Ghost's partners. But they sent back a message saying I must be mistaken. His address was a government building in Fuzhou. Ling is the Fujian governor's assistant in charge of trade development."

"What's that mean?" Peabody asked.

"That he's a corrupt warlord," Rhyme snapped. "Isn't it obvious? He and his people're getting millions in kickbacks from businesses all along the southeastern coast of China. He's probably working with the governor, but I don't have any evidence about that. Not yet, anyway."