The Stone Monkey

A call was patched through from the radio of the Coast Guard cutter closing in on the Dragon. Thom put it on the speakerphone.

"Agent Dellray? This is Captain Ransom on the Evan Brigant."

"I'm readin' you, Captain."

"We think they've spotted us – they had better radar than we thought. The ship's turned hard for shore. We need some direction on the assault plan. There's some concern that if we board, there'll be a firefight. I mean, considering who this particular individual is. We're worried about casualties. Over."

"Among who?" Coe asked. "The undocumenteds?" The disdain in his voice when he used the word that described the immigrants was clear.

"Right. We were thinking we should just make the ship come about and wait until the Ghost surrenders. Over."

Dellray reached up and squeezed the cigarette he kept behind his ear, a memento from his smoking days. "Negative on that. Follow your original rules of engagement. Stop the ship, board it and arrest the Ghost. The use of deadly force is authorized. You copy that?"

After a moment of hesitation the young man responded, "Five by five, sir. Out."

The line went dead and Thom disco

A moment later Rhyme's private line rang. Thom took the call in the corner of the room. He listened for a moment then looked up. "It's Dr. Weaver, Lincoln. About the surgery." He glanced at the roomful of tense law enforcers. "I'll tell her you'll call her back."

"No," Rhyme answered firmly. "I'll take it."

Chapter Three

The winds were stronger now, the waves arcing high over the sides of the intrepid Fuzhou Dragon.

The Ghost hated water crossings. He was a man used to luxury hotels, to being pampered. Human smuggling voyages were dirty, oily, cold, dangerous. Man has not tamed the sea, he thought, and never will. It is an icy blanket of death.

He sca

Sen pulled a knit cap on his head and dutifully walked outside into the rain.

"The Coast Guard will be here soon," the Ghost shouted over the raging wind.

"No," Sen replied, "I can get close enough to off-load before they intercept us. I'm sure I can."

But the Ghost turned his still eyes on the captain and said, "You will do this. Leave those men on the bridge and you and the rest of the crew go below with the piglets. Hide with them, get everyone out of sight in the hold."

"But why?"

"Because," the Ghost explained, "you're a good man. Too good to lie.

I'll pretend to be the captain. I can look a man in the eye and he will believe what I tell him. You ca

The Ghost grabbed Sen's cap. In reaction the man started to reach for it but then lowered his hand. The Ghost put it on. "There," he said humorlessly. "Do I look like a captain? I think I make a good captain."

"This is my ship."

"No," the Ghost shot back. "On this voyage the Dragon is my ship. I'm paying you in one-color cash." U.S. dollars were far more valuable and negotiable than Chinese yuan, the currency many low-level snakeheads paid in.

"You are not going to fight with them are you? The Coast Guard?"

The Ghost gave an impatient laugh. "How could I fight them? They have dozens of sailors, right?" A nod toward the crewmen on the bridge. "Tell your men to follow my orders." When Sen hesitated the Ghost leaned forward with the placid, yet chilling gaze that so unsettled everyone who looked into his eyes. "Is there something you want to say?"

Sen looked away then stepped onto the bridge to give the instructions to the crewmen.

The Ghost turned back to the stern of the ship, looking again for his assistant. He then pulled the captain's cap tighter over his head and strode onto the bridge to take command of the rocking ship.

The ten judges of hell…

The man crawled along the main deck to the stern of the ship, stuck his head over the side of the Fuzhou Dragon and began retching again.

He'd been lying beside a life raft all night long, ever since the storm picked up and he'd fled from the stinking hold to purge his body of the disharmony wrought by the rocking sea.

The ten judges of hell, he thought again. His gut was in agony because of the dry heaving and he was as cold and miserable as he'd ever been in his life. Slumping against the rusty railing, he closed his eyes.

He was called So

True to the character after whom he was named, So

Judges of hell…

Li was ready for the infernal beings to take him. He'd own up to everything bad he'd done in life, all the shame he'd brought to his father, all the foolishness, all the harm. Let the god T'ai'shan assign me a place in hell. Just stop this fucking sickness! Light-headed from nearly two weeks of meager food, dizzy from the vertigo, he fantasized that the sea was in turmoil thanks to a dragon gone mad; he wanted to rip his heavy pistol from his pocket and fire bullet after bullet into the beast.

Li glanced behind him – toward the bridge of the ship – and he thought he saw the Ghost but suddenly his stomach lurched and he had to turn back to the railing. So

He began heaving once again.

The tall woman leaned against her car, the contrasts stark: her red hair tossed by the fierce wind, the yellow of the old Chevy Camaro, the black nylon utility belt securing a black pistol to her hip.

Amelia Sachs, in jeans and a hooded windbreaker on the back of which were the words nypd crime scene, looked out over the turbulent water of the harbor near Port Jefferson, on the north shore of Long Island. She surveyed the staging area around her. Immigration and Naturalization, the FBI, the Suffolk County Police and her own shop had cordoned off a parking lot that on an average day in August would normally have been packed with families and teenagers here to catch some rays. The tropical storm, however, had kept vacationers far away from the shore.

Parked nearby were two large Department of Corrections prisoner buses the INS had borrowed, a half-dozen ambulances and four vans filled with tactical officers from the various agencies. In theory, by the time the Dragon arrived here, it would be under the control of the crew of the cutter Evan Brigant and the Ghost and his assistant would be in custody. But there would be a certain period of time after the Ghost had spotted the Coast Guard cutter and before the actual boarding by the crew – perhaps as much as forty minutes. That would give the Ghost and his bangshou plenty of time to masquerade as immigrants and hide weapons, a tactic that snakeheads frequently used. The Coast Guard might not be able to effectively search the immigrants and the ship before it arrived at the harbor here and the snakehead and any assistants might try to shoot their way to freedom.