The Dark Root (36 page)

His head lifted and he stared at me.

I kept going, encouraged. “Since then, one of the three men who did that has died. The others are feeling the heat. But you’re not being squeezed by those people anymore, are you? You’re back under the control of Da Wang. Only now, instead of just harboring illegal aliens now and then, or turning a blind eye to the occasional dope deal in the kitchen, you’re being turned into a full-fledged crook. They claimed you’d been disloyal. That they didn’t trust you anymore. That you’d have to do more for them. And that Amy would be their guarantee of your cooperation. Am I wrong, Mr. Lee?”

He shook his head slightly. “No.” I could hear Spinney audibly releasing his breath, acknowledging the risk I’d just taken. “What makes you think the first bunch won’t come back—with a vengeance—and maybe do the same thing with your wife?”

He didn’t answer but took a deep breath and shuddered.

“You know they will, to save face if nothing else. Unless you help us change things, that’s the fix you’ll be in forever—being kicked back and forth, staying silent for the sake of your family, and watching them all die anyway.”

I gave my words time to sink in.

“I do not know what to do,” he finally whispered.

“You’re worried we’ll ask too much—that you’ll be exposed and cause Amy’s death.”

He nodded.

“If you tell us what we need to know, that’ll be the end of it. You won’t see us again. Nobody’ll ever know we made contact.”

A small furrow appeared between his eyebrows as he looked at me. “What is it?”

“My guess is that you’re pretty much doing what you did before, with a few additions and in bigger numbers—processing aliens, credit-card receipts, laundering money, maybe some drugs… Right?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s what you did for Michael Vu’s gang?”

“Yes.”

“How was the contraband moved through your place, when you were cooperating with Vu?”

He looked puzzled. “With Vu?”

“Look,” I said, delivering my pitch. “I don’t want to put your daughter further at risk. Remember, I said we need to go after at least one of the rocks you’re stuck between? Let’s go after the lesser of the two—the one that’s not controlling you at the moment. It’s a way we can further disguise the fact that we ever had this conversation.”

He nodded slowly. “I see.”

“So how was it handled?”

“The aliens came and went in cars or small buses, as they do now. All I did, and all I still do, is hold them for a little while.”

“And the money laundering? The drugs?”

“A man in a van would come by sometimes—I never knew when—and would pick up receipts and packages. Members of my staff—gang members—did all of that. I was just to run the restaurant. It is a good restaurant… An honest restaurant.”

“I know that, Mr. Lee—you supplied the cover only. Did this man have a name?”

“I was not told it. I did not want to know.”

“How ’bout the van? Was it always the same? A delivery truck, maybe carrying legitimate supplies as well?”

“No—that was the old way, and the way it is now. In between, Vu used a camping van. Blue… And a black top. It had a painting on its side, of the mountains and a setting sun. Very colorful.”

“Did you ever see the license plate?”

“No.”

“Did you get the impression that its driver made stops all over the state—like a delivery boy?”

“I do not know.”

“One last question. When Vu’s gang took over Da Wang’s territory—right after your home invasion—did you discuss what was happening with any other restaurant owners? Were any other owners forced to join like you?”

“I never discussed it, but I know it happened to others.”

“Who?”

“I do not know. They told me it was so—the people who worked for Vu.”

“How ’bout your friends in other restaurants? You must keep in touch, compare prices or whatever…”

But he was shaking his head. “We never talk about the Dark Root. It is not wise.”

I glanced back at Spinney, who tilted his head slightly to one side. We both knew we’d gotten all we could hope to get.

We opened our doors and got out. I leaned back in before slamming mine shut. “Thanks, Mr. Lee. Go back to work and try not to worry. We’ll do everything possible to get Amy back.”

· · ·

“That must’ve filled him with confidence,” Spinney said as we retraced our route down the Old Guilford Road.

I was in a sour mood, despite the lead we’d been provided. “Can’t do what he won’t do for himself.”

But Spinney was feeling expansive. “Considering where they come from, and what they’ve been through, it doesn’t surprise me they don’t cozy right up to us.”

“Lots of people don’t cozy up to us. That doesn’t mean they roll over and play dead. She’s his own daughter, for Christ’s sake.” I reached South Main Street and drove to the cemetery where Dennis was buried. There I pulled over and dialed Dan Flynn’s number on the mobile phone. I understood the source of my rage. Amy Lee was someone who up till now had been spared the exploitation and cruelty we were rallying against, and in short order I’d seen her terrorized, assaulted, humiliated, and now kidnapped. Spinney was right about Thomas Lee—he’d been conditioned to react the way he had. But it wasn’t in my nature to stand by and hope for the best.

“Got a hot one,” I told Frazier when he got on the line. “Put a statewide BOL out on a blue van, black top, with a setting-sun-behind-the-mountains scene painted on the side—probably out-of-state plates. If we’re lucky, that’s the runner connecting all or some of Truong’s properties.”

“No shit.”

“Right.” I hung up and turned to Spinney, aware of the staggered rows of monuments beyond him—and the one, now along with Amy Lee, that stood as an icon for what was driving me on. “I don’t argue with what you’re saying, Les. I’ve just never been where nobody—not the community, not the victims, not the casual observers—will let us in. I know they have their reasons, but I’m on target with this thing, and it makes me nuts they won’t let us set things right.”

· · ·

I spent the rest of the day at the Municipal Building, while Spinney went off to touch base with his state police buddies at their West Brattleboro barracks. I caught up on the local gossip, shuffled the paperwork enough to make it look disturbed, and found out what my squad had been up to. But my heart wasn’t in it, and I had a hard time concentrating. Despite the frustration I’d voiced to Spinney earlier, I’d been bitten by Thomas Lee’s misery and wanted desperately to make good my pledge to return his daughter safely. And somehow, I wanted to prove also that the system I’d worked for my entire adult life was a fundamentally fair and decent thing, despite its many flaws.

Relief came later that night, with the bleating of my pager coming for once as a blessing.

Flynn picked up my return call on the first ring. “We found the van. Outside a motel in Springfield. The driver’s checked in, I guess for the night. We got a plainclothes unit sitting on it. I don’t know where he’s headed or what he’s up to.”

“But it is a single Asian male driving it, right?”

“Yup, and with Mass. plates. If I was a betting man, I’d say we just got lucky. I’m not, of course,” he added, after a slight pause. “You want us to tag him tomorrow? See where he leads us?”

“Yeah, but I want to use a plane, too—Al Hammond’s got one down here. He can stay up for six hours at a time. That way, your boys only need to get close every once in a while. If this character is making the rounds, he’s going to be cruising all over the place. I don’t want him wondering what all those dark-green Caprices are doing hanging onto his ass.”

“Hey—we got sportier models. I like the plane, though. Who do you want where?”

“If Hammond’s available, I’ll go with him in the air. We could put Spinney in charge of three or four rotating cars, and connect us all with closed-frequency radios.”

Al Hammond was a tall and laconic sheriff in the old mold, who knew everyone necessary to ensure his hold on his job, and yet who ran enough of a hands-off operation that his men were imbued with the self reliance that makes for a good department. But Al was no mere paper shuffler. He’d been a police officer all his life, all over the state, and at one time or another had done business, it seemed, with every other cop in Vermont. He was so unflappable as to appear lethargic at times, a misperception that had cost many a crook or fledgling defense lawyer dearly.

We sat together in the predawn darkness, on the edge of the all but empty Springfield airport, in the cockpit of his small Cessna—a single-engine, high-winged four-seater equipped with long-distance fuel tanks. We had flown here earlier from the grass field in Dummerston, where he normally kept the plane. Not a man much given to idle chatter, he’d been content to sit in silence ever since we’d arrived a half-hour earlier, watching the eastern horizon’s slow-motion appearance as it was touched by the sun’s first glimmerings. That was fine with me. I’d taken advantage of the quiet to catch a long-awaited nap.

“Good morning, sports fans.” Spinney’s obnoxiously cheery voice came over the portable radio in my lap like some metal-toned jack-in-the-box.

I opened my eyes and brought the radio to my mouth. “You better have more than that.”

Al laughed quietly beside me.

“I have a stirring from an early riser.”

“Recognize him from any of our mug shots?”

“Yup, but not one of the ones with a name under it. You people took it in Bratt.”

That made it pretty likely he was connected to Truong. “What’s he up to?”

“Crossed the street for breakfast about fifteen minutes ago. I thought I’d let you sleep in.”

“Lester hasn’t changed much,” Al murmured.

“Al says you’re still a pain in the ass.”

There was a brief burst of laughter before the radio went dead.

“Nice boy,” Al said softly, the white of his hair beginning to gleam in the dawn light.

The radio came to life again five minutes later. “Zulu from Tango One. You might want to start your engines.”

Spinney had become official—the serious work was about to begin. We were Zulu—reflecting the aircraft’s official handle of N-for-November 4265 Z-for-Zulu—the tail cars were Tango One through Four.

“Where’s he headed?” I asked, foregoing the formalities.

“North on 91.”

Al began calmly hitting switches on the equipment-packed console before him. Springfield’s airport was a “noncontrolled” facility, meaning there was no control tower, and no personnel to man one. We taxied silently to the foot of the field like the only dancers in a dimly lit ballroom, and Al turned up the engine speed in preparation for takeoff. We both put on sound-deadening headsets, plugged into both the plane’s radio and the portable in my lap. The headsets had mouthpieces that hung on wire brackets directly before our lips.

Al keyed the airplane’s mike button three times to electronically light up the runway, and announced to any other pilots who might be flying nearby, “Cessna November 4265 Zulu departing Springfield for the northwest.” He then turned up the throttle and eased off on the brakes.

Moments later, I called Spinney. “Tango One from Zulu. We’re in the air.”

“Roger that.” Hammond took the plane up about four thousand feet, cut back on the power, and began lazily floating above the interstate.

“What’s your 20, Tango One?” I asked.

“’Bout ten miles north of the exit.”

Without comment, Al straightened us out, ran along the pale cement ribbon far below for a couple of minutes, and then cut back his speed again. The black roof of the van was as clear as if it had been marked with a bull’s-eye.

“Okay, Tango One, you can lay back. We’re in visual contact.”

“You got it.”

· · ·

The surveillance of the camper van went on for the entire day. In the towns, where traffic was heavier, Al handed it over to Spinney and his rotation of four cars; in the countryside, where any vehicle hanging back would’ve stuck out, the roles were reversed. Only once, halfway to Burlington, during a two-hour lunch stop by the van driver, did we land to refuel and stretch our legs. And during the whole process, the van did what we’d hoped it would—stopping at Asian-owned restaurants, laundries, nightclubs, and rooming houses in Springfield, Ludlow, Lebanon, Woodstock, West Fairlee, St. Johnsbury, Montpelier, and places in between—slowly but surely working its way toward Burlington. At every stop, Spinney reported to Dan Flynn, who consulted his records and then contacted Walt Frazier, who in turn checked his.

Town after town, the unwitting driver caused the wires and airwaves to hum in his wake. Each business he called on prompted a look into the owner’s past criminal history, his financial records, and immigrant status. Name by name, Flynn and Frazier put together family histories, found out how many properties were owned by whom, identified whatever links connected the players, and found out if any of them were on file with the DEA, ATF, the Secret Service, INS, the Border Patrol, Customs, the IRS, Interpol, any state agencies from here to California, the Québec and Ontario Provincial Police, the Toronto Police and the MUC, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and of course the FBI.

My job, however, involved little of that. For hours, I sat high above the state I was born and brought up in, lost in its comforting contours. Looking down across the spectacularly broken land—the rounded pastures and deep-cut gullies, the streams and lakes and forested mountains—all washed in the verdure that had given the state its name—I felt a return of the inner calm I longed for, and which recent events had so riled.

I took the time to reflect on the losses I’d been refusing to acknowledge, to bury the dead and make a grudging peace with my mistakes. But while that helped to a certain extent, it also allowed me to focus on one of the truly innocent victims of this whole bloody mess. Surrounded by some of the most beautiful landscapes this country has to offer, my mind’s eye could only see the troubled face of Amy Lee.

By late afternoon, when the van pulled out of Burlington and headed toward St. Albans, we thought we’d connected all but one of the dots north of Springfield, and that St. Albans would likely be the last stop. There, however, we were in for a surprise.