The Dark Root (41 page)

“There’s more,” I added. “I took a calculated risk that the car bomb had been a disaster for them, and that they’d assumed Da Wang had done it to pull the rug out from under them. Fingering Diep for it did the trick—Nguyen realized then we really were his only chance. Oh, and by the way, he gave us our second confirmation that Sonny and Truong are the same man.”

Spinney stared ahead at the road. “You think Diep—or Lo—is working for Da Wang?”

“That’s what I told Nguyen. He certainly used to, and we know he’s been to Montreal more than once. It would’ve been good insurance. No matter who won, Diep would’ve been on the winning side. Talk about killing two birds with one stone.

“Nguyen got downright chatty after the deal was done,” I went on, “and admitted that they’d been pretty upset by the home-invasion fiasco at the Leung residence. Turns out that was Diep’s idea, not Vu’s, but that Vu ran with it, being both dumb and greedy. Nguyen said flat out he never thought Vu had any brains. Diep probably set it up so it would fail, and made sure a hyped-up Vince Sharkey would appear at just the right moment to screw things up. Nguyen now thinks the plan was for Vince to kill at least Vu and maybe Henry Lam—either of which would have increased Diep’s importance to Truong—before getting killed in the process. The fact that we showed up was pure providence.”

“Did Diep get closer to Truong?”

“Nguyen says he’s now second-in-command. That’s another reason he spilled the beans.”

“So Diep was the one who popped Vu in West Lebanon,” Spinney said matter-of-factly.

“It fits. Vu was feeling the heat. He was capable of shooting his mouth off to us or Truong. He might’ve even rumbled to something specific about Diep—that would explain why he was so paranoid that day, trying to raise cash instead of returning to Truong like you’d expect. Diep probably heard Vu was in White River through his own grapevine, and was stalking him same time we were.”

“Man,” Spinney laughed in disbelief, “these folks are cutthroat.”

“I said something like that about Truong to Nguyen, but he says Truong is an ‘honorable man,’ that he’s out to right the wrongs that were done to his family. He gets high marks as a leader—got a few of his people off drugs, always made sure their needs were taken care of, held them responsible for their own families in the old country.”

“If Truong’s such a saint,” Spinney came back, “why does Nguyen feel his family might be toast if he talks?”

I shrugged. “I think that’s more of a cultural reaction. From what I was told, Truong never made any threats. Nguyen just knows that’s a traditional way of doing business—you do the boss dirt, he makes the penalty up close and personal. Besides, Nguyen did confirm that Truong iced all those people, from Johnny Xi onward. That kind of behavior lends itself to some serious loyalty.

“Speaking of which,” I continued, “it turns out we were right about the bank. That was Truong’s one pile, and he’s feeling the pinch without it. Nguyen agrees with us that Truong’s two best options now are to fold or try a massive border crossing. ’Course, he also said Truong was capable of anything—that vengeance is all he lives for—so who knows?”

The conversation ended there, the victim of a mutual need for reflection.

I made no pretense of understanding the rules of conduct that seemed to drive the dreaded Dark Root. I could see how it had come about, however, and why it was still so successful many generations later. Our own crooks and their spurts of chaotic, bloodthirsty mayhem were a reasonable reflection of our often careless, spontaneous society. Why shouldn’t the same be true for the Asians, rightly famous for their hard work, determination, family loyalty, and ambition?

· · ·

The Border Patrol’s sector headquarters are located in a solid brick building just south of Swanton center. Self-effacing physically, it is in fact the vessel of an impressively complex and well-managed communications center, linking it within the sector to substations stretching from New York State to Maine. Involved are almost a hundred and fifty highly sensitive infrared monitors, magnetic detectors, seismic sensors, and discreetly placed, low-light television cameras, all of which are strung strategically along the border, some so well camouflaged that they are literally invisible. In addition, several computer consoles, fax machines, and high-security, scrambled radio frequencies keep the center in touch with a coterie of other agencies with an ease I knew Dan Flynn would envy.

The building was also the home of the sector’s intelligence unit, as well as a relatively new brainchild called the Canadian Border Intelligence Center, or CBIC for short, which was the primary reason Spinney and I had made the trip.

CBIC had been created as a sort of informational lending library, along the same lines as Dan Flynn’s VCIN. But where Dan had to watch out for a small army of potentially fractious personalities—all worried that the other cop’s department might try to steal his case by using the system—CBIC was significantly less encumbered. More than a clearinghouse for information, it was an actual depository, where statistics gathered from both the U.S. and Canada could be crunched to form a better picture of who was moving what, or whom, across the border, and where.

Walt Frazier had preceded us to CBIC to see if the Sonny network had begun to leave any kind of recognizable—and predictable—fingerprint.

Spinney and I were logged in at the security window in the lobby, met by an escort on the other side of an electronically operated door, and led through the building to the CBIC office. On the way, we took a shortcut through the windowless dispatch center—the heart of all those various monitors and communications devices. Sitting at a semicircular console looking exactly like some space-age movie set, were two men on rubber-wheeled chairs, sliding back and forth with effortless, practiced ease, talking on radios, answering phones, entering data into computers, all in the eerie glow of some fifteen television monitors that were perched along the top of the console like silent witnesses to the world outside, mundanely observing roads, fields, and bridges, some of which were scores of miles away.

I was suitably impressed, all the more so when I realized that this northern border was by far the lesser of the two this agency was sworn to protect. In rough numbers, for every two illegal crossers each Border Patrol officer caught coming over from Canada, four to six hundred were collected by their southern-based colleagues.

We ended up in a room with a table covered in maps and charts, surrounded by six people: Walt Frazier; Judy Avery, the Border Patrol’s “Intel” officer and CBIC liaison; Bob Carter, the Border Patrol sector’s agent-in-charge; Abe Gross, one of the two INS investigators assigned to Vermont; Andy Marconi, from U.S. Customs; and Steve Moore, who headed up the Vermont State Police barracks in Derby. Since INS was interested in bodies, Customs in inanimate objects, and the Border Patrol in catching both as they slid in between ports of entry, these three particular agencies interacted on a routine basis, as did the state police when any one of them needed assistance. It was a congenial group, long past caring politically who worked for whom.

Carter, as host, rose when we entered and shook hands with both of us. “Gentlemen, come on in. Walt’s been stealing your thunder a bit with a sneak preview, but you’ll be glad to know we haven’t decided everything without you.”

The slightly forced laughter that generated told me how close it could cut to the truth. One egomaniac with clout in a group like this would be like the proverbial rolling grenade, sending all parties running for separate shelters.

“We’ve got one late arrival to go,” Carter continued. “Jacques Lucas is coming down from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Should be about another fifteen minutes. But we can get things started. Have a seat.”

I was pleased to hear Lucas’s name. He’d been recommended earlier by Lacoste in Montreal as someone with Frazier’s degree of generosity in interagency cooperation. Given the vastness of the RCMP—they were the Canadian equivalent of the DEA, FBI, Secret Service, Border Patrol, ATF, and most everything else, all rolled into one—a helpful, willing contact would be nice to have. Of course, the size of their organization tended to make the Mounties about as fast and flexible as a supertanker in mid-river, but it also endowed them with quasi-supernatural powers—and computers to match.

Judy Avery, still bearing the stylistic rigidity of a military background, began by curtly nodding in my direction when we’d all sat back down after formal introductions. “Nice job on your interrogation. From what Walter’s been telling us, your source sounds pretty reliable. We checked out what he told you of past crossings and found several corroborations with our own data.” She pulled a map out from under the other paperwork strewn across the table and laid it open. “Within the last month, here, west of Richford, and here, not far from the railroad tracks west of North Troy, we picked up probes from what we thought might be the Sonny network, and which your efforts have just confirmed. Those were individual crossings, probably made to test our reaction.”

“We know they’ve been successful elsewhere, though,” picked up Abe Gross, from INS, “because we talked to a couple of newcomers twelve days ago, and they were
not
professional crossers.”

“Right,” added Carter. “One of our agents took ’em near Highgate Springs, just north of here. They came in skirting the water, along a footpath where we had a mobile sensor just a few weeks before. It was dumb luck we caught ’em. One of our units drove up before their ride did, on routine patrol.”

“You got no information on who was supposed to pick them up?” I asked.

Gross answered for him, “They didn’t know. They’d been told where to go, and to wait for a ride—”

“Which we provided them,” Carter added, to general laughter again.

Judy Avery pointed to her map. “That’s another confirmation by your source, of course, since he mentioned Route 133, too. But apart from one other crosser who was caught wading along Mud Creek, just east of Province Hill Road, who did trigger one of our monitors, those were the only entries we knew about. These other spots you’ve identified are news to us, and some of them are located right where we have sensors.”

“Infrared units,” Carter mused, “which means if you know where they are, you can step around to their back.”

I had gotten to my feet by now, to gain a better perspective on the map. “Can we back up a little? I see a lot of roads that cross the border. Where exactly are the points of entry, and how’re the Border Patrol units deployed?”

Avery was across the round table from me and guided me from her seat, even though the map was upside down to her. “Here we are at sector headquarters, just below Swanton. Our substations in Vermont are east of Swanton on Route 78, and in Richford, Derby, and Beecher Falls, right next to New Hampshire.”

Andy Marcotti of Customs, looking slightly bored, was sitting next to her. He suddenly joined in, adding, “We’ve got twelve ports of entry altogether. Most of them aren’t manned twenty-four hours, though. They’re just little outposts—one-person operations that handle the odd car or pickup now and then. If there’re any immigration problems, they’ll either call for help or direct the vehicle to the nearest large port where INS has people working alongside ours, usually Highgate Springs or Derby Line, near Newport—those’re the two flagship ports.”

Steve Moore, the Vermont State Trooper, added, in direct answer to my implied question, “Which means that a lot of those roads you mentioned are just there, open for grabs.”

“Well,” Carter protested gently, “not exactly. Most of them have barriers across them, or will have soon.”

Moore laughed. “Right, and the others have little signs telling you to go to the nearest port and report in.”

“Those are monitored, though,” Avery explained, unamused, “for the most part with cameras, so if the crosser doesn’t show up at the nearest port, we know who to go after.”

There was a telling pause, during which a small element of embarrassment in the air told me that everyone had perhaps overstated their case just a little.

Avery, whose intelligence job allowed her the broadest overall view of reality, confirmed that impression. “It’s got its holes, and where we’ve tried to plug them, things aren’t always perfect. But our figures tell us our apprehension rate’s pretty high.” Here, she finally yielded to a self-deprecating smile. “But like they say—there are white lies, damn lies, and statistics.”

There was a knock on the door, and a small, gentle-looking, rather dapper man, wearing a suit and a mustache, was ushered in, looking more like a lost European tourist than one of the Mounties of lore. Carter stood up and waved him over. “Jacques—glad you could make it. You know everyone here, right? These two are Joe Gunther and Lester Spinney. They basically got this whole ball rolling in the first place.”

Jacques Lucas shook our hands, smiling softly, and murmured in a thick French accent, “I have spoken with Lacoste. You are to be congratulated.”

I smiled in return, my mind abruptly reaching back to when I’d been a boy, visiting my Uncle Buster in Vermont’s so-called Northeast Kingdom. The subject of Mounties had come up, as it did with a lot of boys near the border in those days, and my uncle had reacted impulsively as usual, piling me, my brother, and a cousin into his truck, and taking us across the border to the nearest RCMP outpost he knew of. We’d marched across the threshold with bated breath, fully expecting a room filled with scarlet-clad, blond-haired young gods, all standing at least six and a half feet tall, and were met instead by a single, older, slightly rotund corporal, sitting at a desk, dressed in a uniform about as colorful as a tree trunk. He’d been very kind, and had showed us recruiting posters of the ideal we’d come to meet—had even pulled out his dress uniform, hanging in a closet—but we’d never recovered, and it wasn’t until I was a cop myself when a variation of the same awe I’d once felt for them returned with the realization of just how huge and powerful their organization was.

As a result, despite his demure appearance, I shook Jacques Lucas’s hand with respect. I also responded to his praise. “I’m not sure compliments are in order. We may be zeroing in on a whole lot of nothing.”