The Stone Monkey

sir,” Sung replied.
    “Then I’m afraid we’re going to have to detain you for illegally entering United States territory.”
    “I’m seeking political asylum.”
    “That’s fine,” the agent said wearily. “But we’re still going to have to detain you until the bond hearing.”
    “I understand,” Sung said.
    The agent asked the medic, “How is he?”
    “He’ll be all right. But we need to get him to a trauma center. Where’s he being processed?”
    Sachs interrupted to ask the INS agent, “Can he go to your Manhattan detention center? He’s a witness in the case and we’ve got a task force working there.”
    The INS agent shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me. I’ll do the paperwork.”
    Sachs rocked from one leg to the other and winced as the pain shot through her knee and hip. Still absently clutching the amulet around his neck, Sung studied her and said in a low, heartfelt voice, “Thank you, miss.”
    “For what?”
    “You saved my life.”
    She nodded, holding his dark eyes for a moment. Then the medic replaced the oxygen mask.
    A flash of white from nearby caught her eye and Amelia Sachs looked up to see that she’d left the door of the Camaro open and that the wind was blowing her notes on the crime scene out to sea. Wincing, she trotted back to her car.

II
    The Beautiful Country

    Tuesday, the Hour of the Dragon, 8 A.M .,
    to the Hour of the Rooster, 6:30 P.M .
    The battle is won by the player who sees the furthest—the one, that is, who can see through his opponent’s move, can guess his plan and counter it, and who, when attacking, anticipates all the defensive moves of his opponent.
    —The Game of Wei-Chi

Chapter Nine
    The life of a tollbooth operator guarding the portals to New York City is not particularly glamorous.
    Occasionally there’s a little excitement—like the time a thief stuck up a toll taker and netted a clean $312, the only problem being that the robber struck at the entrance to the Triborough Bridge, at the other end of which a dozen bemused cops were waiting for him at the only possible exit he could take.
    But the operator sitting in a Queens Midtown Tunnel booth this stormy morning, just after 8 A.M .—a retired NYC transit cop working part-time as a toll taker—hadn’t seen any serious trouble in years and he was excited that something had happened to break the monotony: all the tollbooth operators in Manhattan had gotten a priority call from Port Authority headquarters about a ship that’d sunk off the coast of Long Island, one of those illegal immigrant ships. The word was that some of the Chinese on board were now headed into town, as was the smuggler himself. They were in a white van bearing the name of a church and in a red Honda. Some or all of them were reportedly armed.
    There were several ways to get into the city from Long Island by surface transportation: bridges or tunnels. Some of these were free—no tolls were charged at the Queensboroor the Brooklyn bridges, for instance—but the most direct route from the end of Long Island was through the Queens Midtown Tunnel. The police and FBI had gotten permission to shut down all of the express pass and exact change lanes, so that the perps would have to go through a manned booth.
    The ex-cop had never thought that he’d be the one to spot the immigrants.
    But it looked like that was the way things were going to fall out. He was now wiping his sweaty palms on his slacks and watching a white van, some writing on the side, driven by a Chinese guy, easing toward his booth.
    Ten cars away, nine . . .
    He pulled his old service piece from its holster, a Smith & Wesson .357 with a four-inch barrel and rested the pistol on the far side of the cash register, wondering how to handle the situation. He’d call it in but what if the guys in the van acted funny or evasive? He decided he’d draw down on them and order them out of the van.
    But what if one of them reached under the dash or between the seats?
    Hell, here he was in an exposed glass booth, no backup, with a vanload of Chinese gangsters heading toward him. They might even be armed with Russia’s crowning contribution to small arms: AK-47 machine guns.
    Fuck it, he’d shoot.
    The operator ignored a woman complaining about the E-ZPass lanes’ being closed and looked at the line of traffic. The van was three cars away.
    He reached onto his belt and pulled off his Speed-loader, a metal ring holding six bullets, with which he could reload his