The Monkey Howled at Midnight (13 page)
W
hen The Chameleon did not get a response from his chief contact in Brazil, he knew that things had gone sour. He had to move quickly or agents would soon be knocking on his door, ready to escort him to jail.
He grabbed a large tote bag. It was the one that matched his shoes that were adorned with the heads of cane toads. He unzipped the bag.
The Chameleon held it up, stared for a moment, and then threw it down with a snort. He couldn't carry something like that around. He went to his closet and chose a plain black duffel bag. He found a pair of plain black boots stashed in a corner. Now he had to work out a disguise.
The Chameleon was angry and frustrated, but he wasn't worried. He had been in difficult situations like this before. All he had to do was go undercover for a while. Then he could start all over again.
He smiled to himself. Federal agents had been looking for him for years. He wasn't going to be brought down by some kids.
W
ith the password he had gotten from Cody, Captain Montez searched Santos's computer. He found the information and the evidence he needed to crack the animal-trafficking operation wide open.
He didn't waste any time. Captain Montez moved fast, calling agents all over the world. They arranged for raids on warehouses at 9:00 a.m. the following day.
That was a lot of phone calls. They paid off. At 9:00 a.m. the next morning, police raided every one of The Chameleon's locations. The long arm of the law reached into many airports and captured an impressive number of smugglers.
While the raids were going on, one of The Chameleon's most trusted smugglers walked into an airport carrying a suitcase. He posed as a computer salesman based in Hong Kong who regularly traveled between that country and the United States. His name was Ron Carter.
Mr. Carter knew all of the customs agents. One was being paid off by The Chameleon to wave him through. His flights were always arranged to land when that agent was working. For two years, everything had gone smoothly.
That day Mr. Carter entered the airport as usual. When he approached Customs, he looked around for his agent. He wasn't there. Someone else was in his place and waving him over.
Carter didn't like the look of things. Still, he had no choice but to do as he was told. He only hoped that this agent, too, had been paid off. He took a deep breath and headed over to the agent.
Usually he'd be waved on with “have a nice day.” Not this time. Instead the agent said something he dreaded hearing. “Please unzip the suitcase.”
Ron Carter knew he was busted. He unzipped the suitcase and watched as the agent stared at a dozen sock balls.
“What have you got in there?” the agent asked.
“Turtles.”
“Clay turtles? Wooden turtles?”
“No ⦠real turtles.”
The agent unwrapped the socks and found a dozen rare Arakan turtles from Myanmar. They were a critically endangered species once thought to be extinct. He shook his head as he took Ron Carter into custody.
Similar busts were taking place all over the worldâin Hong Kong, Paris, Los Angeles, and other cities. In Singapore, a woman waiting in an airport departure lounge began acting strangely. First she began to squirm in her seat. Then she began touching her hair again and again.
The woman was wearing her hair in a large bun on top of her head. As other horrified passengers looked on, they heard a shrieking sound coming from inside the bun. Then it began to jump and twist. The woman began shrieking, jumping, and twisting, too.
Her hairdo began to unravel. Then a baby monkey jumped out and began running down the aisle as onlookers stared in shock.
Officials caught the monkey ⦠and the woman. The baby monkey had been sedated but woke up earlier than expected.
When Otis heard about it through Captain Montez, he couldn't help laughing. “That woman sure had a
bad hair day
,” he said, digging his brother in the ribs with an elbow. Cody just rolled his eyes.
But the high point of the entire bust was catching The Chameleon himself. He was traveling in Europe when the raids took place. Amazingly, he was totally unaware of what was going on.
In New York's LaGuardia Airport, agents were ready and waiting for him. He was coming in from Italy, landing at 10:00 a.m.
Officials had been shown several pictures of the man. They were shocked by how different he could appear from one photo to the next.
One picture showed him as slightly plump, with short blond hair and blue eyes. In another photo he was darkly tanned with cold gray eyes and a greasy gray pony tail. In a third photo he was taller, with pale skin and black hair. He even looked younger than in the other pictures. But in a fourth photo he looked older, with a long white beard. They knew they had to keep a sharp eye out for this man, or they'd miss him.
They nearly
did
miss him. They'd been on the lookout for a passenger on Flight 151. They didn't know that The Chameleon always changed his flight arrangements at least twice, and always at the last minute.
The agents waited ⦠and waited ⦠and waited. There were quite a few, stationed along checkpoints all over the airport. Someone would spot their target, wouldn't they?
They almost didn't. Who would expect an international smuggler worth millions of dollars to be dressed as an ordinary businessman?
The Chameleon walked right past ten agents. He was wearing a plain gray business suit. He even waved at one of the agents. He thought he was smarter than everyone else.
As he got nearer the doorway, he began to walk faster. He was sure he had done it again. He enjoyed outsmarting the airport agents.
But then a tall, broad-shouldered man with a brown mustache stepped in front of him. He took The Chameleon completely by surprise.
“Excuse me, sir, I need to see your passport,” the officer said.
Surprised as he was, The Chameleon didn't show it. He smiled at the officer. “Of course,” he said. He began to reach into his pocket. Then he ran.
The Chameleon sprinted for the doorway, sending people scattering out of his way. He pushed past people who were wheeling their luggage or using hand trucks. He knocked people down.
Then The Chameleon spotted a moving platform that sped people along toward the exit. He jumped on it and began elbowing people out of the way.
“Everybody stand aside,” yelled the agent who had first spotted The Chameleon. He had already called for backup. Agents had radioed ahead and others were blocking all the doors.
Soon six other agents were racing down the moving platform after The Chameleon. But he was fast! And he was determined, too. He had never been caught before, and he didn't intend for this to be the first time.
But his luck had run out. As he jumped off the platform, two agents stepped in front of him, blocking his way. Then the one who had spotted him stopped him from turning around. Agents swarmed in from everywhere, and he was surrounded. He was only twenty feet from the doorway.
The Chameleon didn't give up easily. He hadn't gotten to be the biggest, wealthiest animal smuggler in the world by caving in.
When the agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sat him down in an office and questioned him, he pretended not to know what they were talking about. He claimed to be an honest businessman on a holiday.
“The warehouses you are telling me about are breeding farms. I am exporting animals bred and raised in captivity. They are not wild animals.”
“Nice try,” said Sam Snell, senior agent. “We have an old friend of yours ready to testify that you smuggled wild animals. You hired people to grab them right where they live. Sometimes you even hired poachers to pose as tourists to go to other countries to transport them.”
A sleazy, self-satisfied smile spread across The Chameleon's face. “I can guarantee that none of my people would tell you that.”
Agent Snell's next words wiped the smile off The Chameleon's face. “What about your old pal Aldo? He had plenty to say when we caught him red-handed. He sang like a canary when he wanted to help save his own skin.”
Snell clicked his teeth with his tongue. “It's too bad you didn't try exporting canaries. Now there's a nice legal business. But that probably wouldn't suit you, would it?” he said as he leaned toward The Chameleon.
“You know, I've been in this line of work a long time. I'm tired of seeing guys like you who think they can get away with whatever they want to. Rules don't apply to them. Aldo was like that, too. Then they find out that they can get caught just like anybody else.”
“I don't believe he said anything against me.” The Chameleon laughed nervously. “Besides, what could he say? I run breeding farms.”
Snell snorted again. “Any time you want to quit lying, just feel free. Please make it soon because I'm tired of fooling around. I'd like to get home to my wife and kids by dinnertime.”
But Snell didn't get home before dinner. He was lucky that he made it in time for a late-night snack. The Chameleon didn't give up easily. He kept saying that what he was doing was perfectly legal.
Finally Agent Snell made a call to Captain Montez in Manaus. He told him that he had arrested The ChameleonâWaldo Lou. Then he told The Chameleon what he had learned from Captain Montez.
The police had taken the computers and found e-mails between him and Aldo about trapping animals. They had e-mails about customers who wanted wild animals, too. And they had orders and invoices.
The Chameleon never confessed. But Waldo Lou knew that with all the evidence against him, they had him. And it made him really, really mad. But what made him even madder was hearing Snell tell him that his whole operation had been brought down by three 12-year-olds.
M
axim rustled the newspaper and sighed. “Can a leopard change his spots? Can a chameleon change his ways?”
“Not if you're talking about
The
Chameleon, Waldo Lou,” said Otis. He was reading the same newspaper online. “At least the case against him is getting attention.”
“Yeah, we've all been asked for our autograph at least once,” said Rae. “It's like we're movie stars.”
“Yeah, it's kind of awesome,” said Cody. He was reading the newspaper online, too. “It says that Waldo Lou will go to prison for three years and pay a fine of five hundred thousand dollars.”
“I'm glad things will work out for Pino,” Otis said after a moment. “He'll have to do some public service as a penalty for getting involved in animal trafficking. It's a good thing the judge took his age and the circumstances into account.”
“Right,” said Cody. “Pino seemed pretty eager to do the public service, too. I think he's really sorry for what he did. He learned his lesson.”
“But then Mr. Estevez will let him go to Amazonas College of Art. I think he learned some lessons himself.”
“Well, I'm glad that Pino didn't go to jail. But Waldo Lou's penalty doesn't seem to be enough to me,” said Rae. “He did awful things and made plenty of money from doing them.”
They were gathered in the Carson home, in the den. Their parrot, Pauly, a legally bred parrot that they had bought at a friend's pet shop, was sitting quietly on his perch. He was looking down at the family dog, Dude, a Labrador who was dozing on the floor. As usual, he was waiting for a chance to tease the dog.
Mr. Carson was standing in front of his easel in the far corner of the room. He was checking his progress on his latest painting. It was a picture of some monkeys playing in a tree. He had made the sketch for the painting on a trip into the rain forest that he made after The Chameleon was arrested.
He stepped back from the canvas. “No, it's not enough, but it's a start,” he said. “Years ago he would have gotten off more easily. Animal smuggling is being taken more and more seriously. Waldo Lou was the biggest smuggler in the world, but there are other big ones still out there.”