Medusa

CHAPTER 21

JOE ZAVALA SAT BEHIND THE WHEEL OF HIS 1961 CHEVROLET Corvette, cruising along Interstate 95 to Quantico, Virginia, at a safe ten miles over the speed limit. The convertible top was down, the powerful V-8 engine under the hood purred like a contented tiger, a CD of Ana Gabriel was playing, the wind was blowing in his dark brown hair, he was on the NUMA payroll, and he was about to meet a beautiful woman. Life was sweet.

Around forty miles southwest of Washington, he turned off the highway onto a tree-shaded road and drove through countryside that first offered glimpses of military vehicles and structures, then led to a checkpoint manned by an armed guard. He showed the guard his NUMA credentials, had his name matched against a visitors’ list, and followed the signs to the main building of the FBI Academy.

Surrounded by three hundred eighty-five acres of woods, the Academy was built on the Marine Corps base in the 1970s under the reign of J. Edgar Hoover. The campus-style complex consisted of twenty-one buildings of a soothing honey color connected by a network of glass-enclosed corridors.

Zavala went through the front entrance of the main building and walked past a bubbling fountain into the atrium lobby. He checked in at the reception desk, and said he had an appointment with Agent Caitlin Lyons. He was given a security badge with his name on it to wear. A young woman was assigned to guide him through the maze of buildings and corridors.

He heard a commotion that sounded like a gunfight at the O.K. Corral and knew that he was near the shooting range. The guide ushered him in and pointed to a row of booths.

“Number ten,” she said. “I’ll wait outside for you. Gets a little noisy in here. Take your time.”

Zavala nodded his thanks, and took some ear protectors from an attendant. Then he went over to a booth and stood behind a woman who was firing at a silhouette of a man. She stood with her pistol in both hands, slowly and methodically pumping bullets into the target, hitting it in spots that would have proved fatal had the bullets been perforating human flesh instead of paper.

Zavala had no desire to startle a trained FBI agent while she had a gun in her hand. He stood behind her patiently until she turned and saw him. She beckoned for him to step into the booth. She replaced the spent magazine with a full one, handed him the pistol, and pointed toward the target.

The Walther PPK was a favorite of Zavala’s, and the grip felt comfortable in his hand. He raised it to eye level, flicked the safety off, and let off six shots in rapid succession. Every squeeze of the trigger found the center circle of the bull’s-eye over the heart.

He flicked the safety back on and handed the gun back to the woman. She pressed a button that brought the target to the front of the booth. She stuck her finger through one of the holes Zavala’s bullets had made and said something he couldn’t hear. He removed his ear protectors, and she said it again.

“Show-off.”

She placed the pistol in a hip holster and pointed to her wristwatch. They made their way to the door, first dropping off their ear protectors. The guide was waiting in the hallway, but Caitlin said she would show Zavala to the lobby when their meeting was over.

“Let’s go for a walk,” she said.

They strolled along a shady path that was a world away from the sound of gunfire and the smell of cordite in the shooting range.

Caitlin Lyons was an attractive woman in her thirties, and if she hadn’t been wearing black, short-sleeved coveralls with a sidearm on her belt she could have passed for a member of Celtic Women, the musical ensemble. She had a peaches-and-cream complexion, and the brows over her remarkable blue-green eyes were high and arched. Her dark blond hair was tucked under a black baseball cap with FBI on the front.

“Not bad shooting, Joe. Ever think of joining the FBI?”

“As soon as they have a navy,” Zavala said.

Caitlin laughed. “You were very brave to come up to me when I had a gun in my hand.”

“Should I have been worried?”

“You know what they say about a woman scorned . . .”

Zavala winced. His dark good looks and unassuming manner made him popular with many women around Washington. He had gone out with Caitlin, but their budding romance was interrupted by a mission for the Special Assignments Team. He had not gotten back to her until now.

“Scorned is an ugly word, Cate. I was planning to get in touch with you after my last job.”

“How about abandoned, then? Jilted? Left in the lurch. Forsaken.” She saw the distress on his face. “Don’t worry, Joe,” she said with a smile, “I’m not angry at you for leaving me to run off on another NUMA mission. I’m a cop, I might have done the same. And I wasn’t looking for anything permanent anyhow. The FBI is as demanding as NUMA. Besides, if I need you, all I have to do is turn on the TV and I’ll see those Latin good looks. I watched the bathysphere dive. Very exciting.”

“The most exciting part was what you didn’t see.”

Caitlin gave him a quizzical look, and he pointed to a park bench alongside the walkway. They sat down, and Zavala told her about the attack on the bathysphere, Austin’s close call, and the connection to the Pyramid Trading Company. When he was done talking, she took his hand and squeezed it.

“You’re a cad and a bounder, Joe, but I would have been devastated if anything had happened to you.” She gave him a peck on the cheek. “Now, how can I be of help in solving an ocean crime? As you pointed out, I’m a landlubber.”

“You’re also an expert on Asian crime, which I’m not.” Zavala described the triangular mark Austin had discovered on the AUV’s blade and the connection between the underwater robot that attacked the bathysphere and the fishing company owned by Pyramid Trading.

She let out a low whistle.

“Pyramid. The baddest of the bad. You couldn’t have chosen a worse bunch to tangle with, if that’s the case. You and Kurt are damned lucky to be alive.”

“What do you know about Pyramid?”

“Let me give you some perspective,” Caitlin said. “My job is to keep Asian crime as far from U.S. shores as possible and to solve crimes when they do occur. It’s a losing battle. We’ve had Asian criminal enterprises in this country since the early 1900s, starting with the Chinese tongs.”

“Didn’t the tongs originate the term hatchet man?” Zavala asked.

“The hatchet men were the Chinese thugs who fought one another during the tong wars. The tongs started as social clubs but then became gangs. They are still thriving today as part of an international network that’s dominated by the big criminal organizations known as Triads. That’s why the triangle you described is so interesting.”

“In what way?”

“The term Triad was coined by the British, who saw that the Chinese symbol for secret society was a triangle.”

Zavala’s eyes narrowed.

“You’re right,” he said, “that is interesting.”

“The triangle symbolized the unity of heaven, earth, and man,” Caitlin said. “Pyramid uses it as a trademark for its legitimate enterprises. But it’s still involved with extortion, murder, prostitution, drugs, loan-sharking, and money laundering.”

“The tried and true,” Zavala said.

“It’s also got a worldwide network of gangs in every city. The names all start with Ghost: the Ghost Devils, the Ghost Shadows, the Ghost Dragons. You get the picture. They do the dirty work: intimidation, enforcement, murder. They’re ready to go at a moment’s notice.”

“What about the legal side?”

“The criminal stuff is the bedrock, but it has evolved into a nontraditional organization with foreign affiliates and legitimate businesses: manufacturing, real estate, movies, phamaceuticals. And, as you discovered, commercial fishing. Some of its divisions have gotten into trouble for producing contaminated, dangerous products.”

“Does the Pyramid leadership have a human face?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, it has three. The company is said to be run by a set of triplets.”

“That’s an unusual arrangement.”

“Not when you consider the extent of their empire. Pyramid is like a country unto itself. It has a huge treasury, an army of thugs at its command, and a diplomatic corps that interacts with the Chinese government, which traditionally has supported the Triads. It has gangs in every major country, including the U.S. It’s the biggest criminal organization in China, possibly in the world.”

“How do you fight something like that?” Zavala asked.

“With great difficulty. Asian criminal groups are smart, rich, multilingual, and flexible. Advances in travel and communications have allowed them to operate on a global scale. We can make life tough for their street gangs and nibble around the edges of their financial empire, but they’ve been impervious up to now.”

“What has changed?”

“They are up against the only enemy who could do them harm: the Chinese government. It’s trying to put Pyramid out of business.”

“Wait a second, didn’t you say the government supported the Triads?”

“That’s history. There’s a huge gray area between what is legal and what is criminal in China. That’s where the Triads operate. The government hadn’t clamped down before this because the Triads produce money, keep order, and are patriotic.”

“Why the sudden change of heart?”

“The Chinese military has been in business with the Triads for years. Pyramid is particularly tight with the Army, giving it political muscle to defend its criminal interests, but the government is worried this cozy arrangement has given Pyramid too much power. They’ve put thousands of corrupt officials from the National People’s Congress in jail, but they really began to push after the safety scandals. China lives on its exports. And anything that threatens them threatens the stability of the country and therefore its rulers.

“Tell me about the triplets,” Zavala said.

“Not much to tell. Triads give their people numbers, according to rank rather than names. But they usually have someone to serve as their public face. Pyramid’s front man is an immensely rich guy named Wen Lo. No one has ever seen the other two triplets. Triads are usually decentralized, but Pyramid has been strengthening its leadership, which also has the government worried.” She paused. “Now it’s my turn, Joe. Why would a Chinese Triad want to sabotage the bathysphere?”

“Kurt thinks they were after Dr. Kane because of a secret research project he was involved in. Does that sound plausible?”

“Anything is possible with this gang. What would you like me to do?”

“I was hoping you might poke around and see what you can dig up.”

Caitlin cocked her head. “Not to be coy, but what can you offer me in return?”

“A ride in my ’Vette, a romantic dinner at an old inn in the Virginia countryside.”

“Been there, done that, senor. Tell you what, Joe, if Pyramid is involved in anything, it’s part of something very big. Pyramid doesn’t do things in half measures.”

“Would the government crackdown have anything to do with what we’ve talked about?”

“Possibly. Pyramid has reacted like a wounded snake since the purge began. They’ve killed cops, judges, and top officials as a warning to the government to keep its hands off, but I don’t see the connection with your Dr. Kane.”

“Neither do I. Can you help?”

“I’ll put you in touch with Charlie Yoo. He’s an agent that the Chinese security agency sent over to work with the FBI. He’s a specialist in gangs. Pyramid made a mistake underestimating you and Kurt. But a few words of advice . . .”

“We always listen to advice from a pro, Cate.”

Caitlin put her hand on her holster, a reflexive gesture, as if she sensed danger.

“That’s good, Joe, because if I know Pyramid, you and Kurt are in their sights. And they won’t miss a second time.”

THOUSANDS OF MILES FROM Virginia, Pyramid Trading was also on the lips of Colonel Ming. The slender, soft-spoken man with the thick head of silver hair stood outside a dilapidated building in the slums of Shanghai. There had apparently been an attempt to burn the building, but the firefighters called in to keep the blaze from spreading to the nearby slums had nipped the fire in the bud.

The smoke still burned the colonel’s eyes, even though he stood several hundred feet from the building. He didn’t want the ash floating in the air to settle on his razor-creased Army uniform. Even if he had wished to get closer, he would have been prevented by the cordon of decontamination trucks and ring of armed police.

He turned to the Ministry of Health official, who had called him.

“I’m not sure why you asked me to come here,” Ming said. “It appears that the city has the situation well in hand. There seems little need for crowd control by the military.”

“This was no ordinary building and this was no ordinary fire,” said the minister, whose name was Fong. “There were medical tests of some sort going on here.”

“This seems an unlikely place for that sort of thing. Are you sure?”

Fong nodded.

“We found a number of people locked in cells,” he said. “They had been left there to burn, but, fortunately, even though they were in poor condition, they were able to talk. They said they had been kidnapped, and that many people had been taken from their cells, never to return. We believe they were moved to labs, and, from the equipment we found, it seems they were the subjects of experiments.”

“What kind of experiments, Fong?”

“We don’t know specifically. But we did find traces of a virus strain that is of some concern to our ministry. It is the same virus that caused an outbreak in a village to the north. The person who caused that epidemic was from Shanghai.”

“Quite the coincidence,” said Ming.

“Even more, the person was employed in a security capacity by Pyramid Trading based here in the city. And, almost unbelievably, Pyramid owns this building.”

“I think I know where you are going with this, Fong. It’s well known that the Army operates a string of brothels in partnership with Pyramid. But there’s no connection to this,” he said with a wave of his hand.

“I understand that, Colonel, but perhaps you might want to reexamine your partnership when I tell you what else we found in the building: the remains of dozens of human beings, discovered in a crematory. We think they had been used in the experiments.”

Ming’s reaction was one of combined fear and revulsion, fear that his name had been linked to Pyramid, revulsion over the experiments.

He stared at the building, trying without success to imagine the horrors within its four walls.

“Thank you, Minister,” he said. “I shall look into it and take the appropriate steps.”

“I hope so,” Fong said. “This is not good for China. Whoever is responsible must be brought to account, but it must be done quietly.”

“I am in complete agreement with the need for discretion,” Colonel Ming said. “And I think I know exactly where to begin.”