Mark Gilleo - Sweat

“Please have a seat.”

“Is there a problem? I am a physician providing medical care for a sick patient.”

“Doctor, have a seat and I will be right with you.”

The doctor smelled trouble. He had traveled enough to know that either you get a stamp in your passport immediately, or you could be waiting as long as the authorities deemed necessary. And government bureaucracy could wait longer than any man.

“What are we waiting for? I have legal and medical documentation concerning this girl. I am her personal physician. She is a Chinese national, and I am taking her back to Beijing for medical care. Read the documents.”

The stout CBP Officer, phone now in his ear, raised his hand and silenced the doctor with his palm. The officer with the girth of a large oak was following orders to the letter.

The doctor refused to sit down and stood with military line-up posture, exchanging glances with the CBP Officer who was getting agitated. The officer made no effort to hide his focus on Wei Ling. The girl’s eyes were shut, her breathing heavy. She was dead to the world and, according to the doctor’s schedule, at least an hour away from consciousness. The doctor grew nervous.

The plane hired by C.F. Chang was fueled and ready for takeoff. The emergency flight, hired on ninety minutes’s notice, cost C.F. Chang twenty-five grand. The pilot, who stood to pocket most of that sum, waited in the plane for further instructions. He leaned back in the seat, checked the instruments and adjusted his sunglasses. When his sciatic nerve acted up, he came into to the terminal to check on his passengers. The doctor told him to wait, gave him a brief lesson in acupressure to alleviate the pain in his leg, and sent him back to the plane. “It will all be straightened out shortly,” the doctor assured him.

“I’m getting paid either way,” the pilot answered.

Forty minutes later, the doctor took a seat in a corner of the room, sulking over his detainment. He wheeled the still-sleeping Wei Ling to a spot beneath the television on the wall, and called C.F. Chang at fifteen-minute intervals.

The Chang family’s political contacts jolted into action. A call to the Chinese Embassy in Washington was received and passed along the chain of command. The son of a senator hung in the balance, information that under other circumstances would have brought immediate intervention. The lines were clogged with lies and threats, the Chang political machine chugging down the track, cutting between what they could and couldn’t say. Phone calls started trickling into the State Department’s Chief Liaison Office for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Island, Saipan. The man in charge looked at the ringing phone, checked the number on the display screen, and walked out the door. ***

Jake flew through the double doors first, Tony and the Castello brothers behind him, sweating as if they had been sprayed with a hose. The rushing bodies were like a tornado churning up the stale winds of inactivity in the small charter terminal. The stocky CBP Officer glanced at the new arrivals. Rush hour had just arrived.

“May I help you?” the young lady behind the counter asked, pushing her open textbook to the side.

“Yes,” Jake answered, not sure what the follow-up should be.

“How may I help you?” the lady answered, trying to lead Jake into supplying useful information.

Jake checked out the room. He glanced around, looking directly at Wei Ling in the wheelchair and then at the doctor. Then he improvised.

“We will be flying out in a couple of hours. Just wanted to check in.”

“We don’t really check in for charter flights, Mr. ……?”

“Jake Patrick.”

Still on the phone behind the lady at the counter, the CBP Officer’s eyes flinched. He nodded to the future bean counter and stepped toward Jake, his gold shield pinned through the white shirt of his uniform. Covering the phone in one hand, the cord stretched behind him, the CBP Officer offered Jake the same attitude and advice he had offered the doctor. “Yes, Mr. Patrick. Please have a seat. I’ll be with you shortly.”

Not knowing what to do, or what he was waiting for, Jake found a seat with his three bodyguards-for-hire. He looked at the doctor in the corner of the terminal who continually switched his attention between his phone and checking on the Asian girl in the wheelchair. Oblivious that the girl he had traveled halfway around the world to meet was sitting right in front of him, Jake shut his eyes, and said a small prayer. It was a prayer for guidance that was coming, but it wasn’t from the man upstairs. It was from a man who wore old clothes, ate at soup kitchens, and read more newspapers than any person on earth. ***

The suit was the only buttoned linen blend on the island on a sizzling July day. The sleek, frameless glasses, with flip-up dark lens attachments, added an exclamation point to the attire. Tom Foti, dressed for a meeting, strolled into the general aviation terminal office and was on the CBP Officer before he turned around. “Where is he?”

“Are you the Liaison Officer?”

“Yes. Tom Foti. Chief of the Liaison Office for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Saipan,” he said, using a title that put most people to sleep before he could finish spitting it out. He placed the manila folder in his hand on the counter and shook hands with the CBP Officer.

“It is a pleasure to meet you face-to-face,” the officer answered. “I received orders at the morning briefing directing me to contact you if either of these individuals showed up.” The CBP Officer explained the situation to the newest member of guess-who’s-in-the-charter terminal and slipped the paper to Tom Foti, who read the document with the dark lenses on his glasses still down.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what does the State Department want with him?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“I’m just following orders, but technically he hasn’t broken any law from the Department of Homeland Security’s perspective. We at Customs and Border Protection have no legal reason to hold either of them.”

“It isn’t a matter of DHS or CBS jurisdiction.”

“Sure. Sure. I just want to make it clear that there isn’t a DHS violation. Both of them have valid visas.”

“I understand that there is no DHS violation. The State Department is still interested in speaking with him. I assure you that CBP will not be held culpable in any way.”

A look of relief washed over the officer’s face. “Like I said, I am just following orders. The morning briefing asked for our cooperation.”

“I appreciate it.”

“He’s all yours,” the CBP Officer said gesturing toward the doctor before leaning into Tom and whispering. “Word to the wise…the old man is a little feisty”.

Tom Foti walked up to the doctor, flipped the dark lenses on his glasses up, and introduced himself with his full title. With no partner to take the role of the good cop, he took his turn at the bad cop side of his routine.

“What’s your name?”

“Martin Yu.”

Tom Foti flashed a skeptical don’t-try-to-bullshit-me look, and asked another question. “Real name?”

“Yu, Hao Kuang.”

“Occupation?”

“Physician.”

“Place of employment.”

“Beijing.”

“Do you work in a hospital?”

“No, I am a private physician.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I am here on Saipan as the temporary physician for Chang Industries. I am taking an ill patient home on a charter flight.”

“You are here on a tourist visa, not a work visa.”

“I am here as a favor to the Chang Family. I am not being paid and therefore do not need a work visa.” The doctor was confident in his reply. He was backed by a Chinese powerhouse. He had all the answers.