family. His wife and children would have the choice of remaining in Canada or going with him into exile in whatever country would accept them.
Every day, Grace sat on the bench and listened to the terrible stories of the persecuted, and the elaborate lies of the ambitious. Secretly, she rooted for the genuine asylum seekers, hoping their lawyers would not be too incompetent, and delighted whenever their right to stay in the country could be proved. Every day, she was torn between emotions and intellect. On bad days she separated fathers from their children. Other days, she was merely interpreting and enforcing the law. So much depended on the merits of each case; when claimants were charged with crimes in Canada and abroad, she knew, though she tried to be fair, that their fate depended on how hard-hearted she was feeling on that particular day. Sometimes the press lambasted her for cruel, inhumane decisions. At other times she received death threats for her left-leaning sympathies and being too soft on crime.
Grace had long given up trying to please everyone.
chapter three
Walter Martin had been given a funeral befitting a well-respected peace officer. Hundreds of law enforcement officers attended, many on motorcycles. Traffic was snarled up for a good two hours in uptown Toronto. When it was over, Nick headed back to the office. The mood there was grim. He spent the rest of the morning on the phone, talking to his immigration and law enforcement counterparts around the world, seeking information.
When Officer Philip Wong appeared at his door, Nick, still on the phone, held up two fingers. Wong impatiently paced the hall until Nick hung up.
“What is it?” snapped Nick.
“I’ve got an informant who’ll talk about the snakeheads from the Martin operation. He owns a travel agency in Chinatown.”
“Which Chinatown?”
“Little Chinatown, Gerrard and Broadview. I made kind of an informal deal. He’s been charged with trying to bribe an immigration officer for the purposes of buying entry and exit visas. I told him if he talks we drop the charge.”
Shortly after one in the afternoon, Nick and Philip Wong were heading east through the city. Wong navigated the van through heavy traffic and crazy jaywalkers before turning down a side street and stopping in front of a travel agency with a sign reading Adventures to Go. They parked in front of a produce and fish shop; the odour that greeted them bluntly announced that fact.
Gerrard Street East attracted Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, Chinese, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, and Caribbean immigrants. Nick didn’t belong to any ethnic minority group in this neighbourhood. “Philip, I’m counting on you to do most of the talking if English is a problem.”
The travel agency was empty except for a middleaged man who sat behind a pile of brochures. He rose from his chair and bowed when they entered.
“Hum Byng,” said Officer Wong, speaking Mandarin, “I want you to give my boss a full explanation, everything you told me. Remember, this is your chance to save yourself three years in the slammer.”
Hum Byng bowed again and nodded nervously. “We work on commission. As brokers or salesmen. In Mandarin, we’re called shetou, agent of snakehead …”
Wong translated for Nick. “He’s a genuine travel agent, but he makes a little money on the side moonlighting as a broker to a snakehead. He’s sure that his contact works for a huge smuggling syndicate. Nick, the way he describes it, it’s like an Amway pyramid scheme. He has no idea who the big players are. He only knows the name of his contact and what he looks like. Contact goes by the name of Tu.”
“Chinese?” asked Nick.
“No, Tu’s Vietnamese,” translated Philip.
“How did Hum find this Tu?”
Wong spoke to Hum Byng, then told Nick, “Tu found him. But he hasn’t seen Tu in almost a month. Tu’s the one who always initiates contact. No one knows where he lives. Tu is a big-time people smuggler. But this Tu is not the kingpin in the people smuggling pyramid.”
The travel agent spoke in rapid Mandarin to Philip, who translated to Nick. “He said this is Tu’s territory. When he’s in town, the smuggler hangs out at several of the noodle houses on this strip.”
Nick, watching the man nod and smile, said, “Tell him we won’t charge him with breaking any laws if he continues to cooperate. Tell him we want him to come down to our offices and look at the photos of snakeheads and smugglers we’ve accumulated. Maybe Tu’s in there.”
Wong translated, then turned to Nick. “He said he’ll come after work tomorrow. I gave him our address.”
Back in the van, Wong asked, “What do you think?”
Nick looked out the window as he spoke. “He really hasn’t told us anything new. Except now we know for sure that we’re dealing with a multimillion or even billion-dollar illegal empire that looks like a huge pyramid scheme. With a Vietnamese connection recruiting legitimate business people to work as brokers. It says a lot for human ingenuity. What we don’t know is whether we’re looking for one ringleader or several. It may be one huge operation, or a network of independent agents or cells. There’s still a lot of questions we don’t have answers to.”
Nick paused. Philip did nothing to fill the pause until they were midtown at Bloor and Bay. “I’m not holding out much optimism that we’ve got a mugshot of this Tu character.”
“You never know,” answered Nick, “sometimes you just get lucky.”
“I’ve got to head out to Regional War Crimes in Etobicoke. Is it okay if I let you off here?” asked Philip.
“No problemo. I’m on home turf here. I’ll stroll through the university and grab a bite to eat.”
Lunch was a street-vendor hotdog dripping with mustard and relish. As he passed a storefront window, Nick checked his reflection. No obvious mustard and relish stains on his shirt or face. But there was the unmistakable shadow of stubble on his face. It had been over twenty-four hours since he shaved. That would be his excuse for his pathetic appearance these days. His faded black chinos and dark shirt with the bleach stain on the left cuff reminded him that he was also on the slippery slope of the dress code.
When he first joined Immigration and Citizenship he wore a suit and tie every day — until he learned, first-hand, that a tie could become a lethal weapon in the hands of an uncooperative deportee. Now he wore casual clothes to work. What was the use of throwing good money away on a suit only to have it damaged in a scuffle? His mother always said she’d never heard of a high-flying department head who dressed the way he did, but fortunately, his aging parents still lived in Rochester, New York, where Nick had grown up, so he didn’t have to pass his mother’s inspection often. Sure, he should probably dress in a manner befitting his position, but since the budget cutbacks in his department, which had been downsized to half its investigators, he had become a quick-change artist. He had one set of clothes for meetings and paperwork, and another set for confronting death in the field. It was standard department policy for all field investigators to wear body armour, but sometimes even a bullet-proof vest didn’t help. Like the time he went to deport a Somali warlord and found himself being clubbed with assorted kitchen utensils and household furniture by the warlord’s four wives and many children. Then they tried to push him out a twenty-first-storey window. Working in pairs was no guarantee of safety either.
