VENGEANCE WEARS BLACK (Jack Calder Crime Series #2)

by Seumas Gallacher

  He stretched his arms above his head and felt her tongue move from his nipples, down across his stomach before circling his upper thighs. Her lips and tongue continued their slow journey. He sensed the involuntary clenching of his buttocks and the arching of his lower back.

  Her mouth closed around him and bit up and down for several moments until she was ready. She mounted and eased down on him. As he penetrated and pushed upwards into her, she moved back and forward. The movement became faster, and with violent thrusts her orgasms began. It never mattered how many these were, it always left them both totally spent.

  “I love you, Jack Calder,” she murmured into his ear.

  “I would bloody well hope so, Mrs Calder,” he teased. “Otherwise that was the biggest con job in the world.”

  As she rolled to the side of him, May-Ling aimed a soft punch at his ribs. He caught her again and they held each other in a loose embrace.

  “What do you make of this stuff at the restaurant?” he asked her. “Donnie’s pal at the Met reckons a gang scene, maybe from the Near East, but they’re not sure.”

  “Well, I’ve no idea. I’m going to meet an old family friend tomorrow to ask him a couple of things. George Chu has the monopoly on the vegetable and fruit supplies in and around Soho. He’ll have some of the background on the owners of the Peking Garden. The other day at the police station something stirred in my memory, but wouldn’t surface.”

  “Good,” replied Jack.

  He rolled toward her and pulled her on top of him. “Tomorrow can wait, this can’t.”

  CHAPTER 8

  “Who sent you here?” the smallest man in the group barked at them. “Why are you poking your noses into other people’s business?”

  The wires biting into their wrists were bloodied since the first beatings several hours ago. Unconsciousness had been a merciful but short relief for both of them.

  The rough interrogation technique continued. With each question asked, another smash to the face from the thugs on either side twisted their heads backward against the wall behind them.

  Their captors rifled their wallets, but the fake identity cards told nothing of their real mission here in Krakow. Undercover agents for Interpol always carried bland aliases, matched with credit cards and driving licences.

  Some hours earlier they’d been compromised in a sting set up. When they arrived to meet their informer, a young woman intermediary, a group of seven armed men greeted them in this filthy downtown warehouse.

  They kept to their story. They were in Krakow to set up distribution channels for business interests from Berlin. They told their initial contacts a few days earlier they represented companies in electrical and other hardware goods, but left no doubt the real objective of hooking up with like-minded partners for the international movement of drugs and young women.

  The stocky interrogator concluded his two captors were unlikely to yield the information he sought. He lifted the telephone and spoke to his boss.

  “Nothing. Still no idea who sent them. The bastards are lying, but they’re not going to spit out anything we can use. Shall I finish them now?”

  He listened while his superior gave a few curt instructions.

  “Okay,” said the man, replacing the receiver.

  He turned to the group and nodded. Each of the Interpol agents was shot twice in the back of the head.

  “I think you should take them to their hotel now, don’t you?” He smiled. Mister Jozef certainly knew how to send a message.

  The chief concierge at the Hotel Kossak in Krakow was accustomed to the delivery of some strange packages over the years. Nothing would ever quite match those of today. The swing doors at the entrance parted and a group of men entered. The CCTV later showed they all wore balaclavas covering their faces. The gang carried two large sacks and two smaller sacks to the centre of the lobby and dumped them on the well-used carpet. They spoke no words and made their exit as unhurriedly as they came in.

  Three or four small groups of guests sat in various places around the lounge, observing the activity with some curiosity. A bellboy approached one of the smaller packages. He opened the loosely-tied end and dropped it with a scream. The bloodied head of a man rolled across the carpet. Wholesale screaming erupted, from men and women guests. To his eternal credit, the senior concierge did not panic.

  He dialled his direct emergency line. “Police? This is the Hotel Kossak. Please come quickly. I think a couple of our guests have been murdered.”

  Less than an hour after the concierge’s call, both the corpses and evidence of the canvas wrapping had disappeared. The group who committed the atrocity hadn’t discovered where the victims came from, but the Krakow police were in the loop on a prior need to know basis. Associates of the dead Interpol agents commandeered their bodies. No newspaper reports appeared the next day. Crime fighting agencies including Interpol made every effort to ensure undercover operations remained clandestine.

  CHAPTER 9

  The daily business at ISP continued as normal. Clients’ needs ranged from high value security deliveries to personal, in-close guarding briefs. The firm had expanded over its years of operation in selective global areas. Jules had clear ideas on how to keep focus.

  “We won’t try to be all things to all people,” he told Jack and Malky when he hired them on retirement from the SAS. “High value, with high risk, pays high returns.” This was pretty much a carryover from their military credo, ‘Who Dares Wins’. Presence in several main cities in Europe and the Far East paid healthy dividends. Excellent hand-picked senior management across the organisation ensured a recognised superior service to the expanding client base, with much of the day-to-day running of the business in the hands of second line executives.

  They were fighting buddies for over twenty years, and served under Jules for the majority of their SAS service. Now the three of them sat with Donnie Mullen in what they nicknamed the ‘thinking room’, which doubled as a boardroom and operations centre.

  Malky spoke first. “Donnie says there’s nothin’ comin’ out o’ his Met pals. Where do we look now, Jules?”

  Jules leaned back in his chair and stared across at his Irish partner. “For the moment, we do nothing.”

  The reply surprised Jack. This wasn’t like his boss. “Nothing? Chandra’s been taken down. He saved our asses in the restaurant. Shouldn’t we be getting into this?”

  A slight shake of the head. “We’ve no official reason to be involved. Chandra and we weren’t the targets. Gentlemen, we’ve a business to run. We’re not vigilantes.”

  His three companions stiffened and leant forward toward Jules, each wanting to respond first.

  He pre-empted them with an upturned palm. “However, if…” he paused, “…if we can be of assistance to the authorities in this, we might find a reason for involvement.” The other men eased back in their chairs. Better response.

  “I spoke with Mac up at Stirling Lines and he’s been his usual informative genius, but we’re not in a position to share any of his harvest with the police yet,” added Jules. “Donnie, what do you think?”

  “Agreed,” said the former cop. “They’ve got their own stuff going on, and they’re not gonna shove anything our way any time soon.”

  Jack interceded. “May-Ling has a meeting lined up today with an old family friend who might give us a heads-up on the Soho connections.”

  “Possibly helpful,” said Jules. “For the moment we’ve no formal part in any of this. Let’s keep it that way. Now, I think we’ve got a business to run, guys.” The meeting ended. A natural leader, the former major encouraged open debate on issues, but there were times when everyone knew when discussion was closed, meaning Jules already had his own game plan going.

  ***

  George Chu appeared from his office and greeted May-Ling with outstretched arms. “What a pleasure to see you. How’s your father and mama?”

  “All well, George, thanks.”

  The Chu family and Ma
y-Ling’s parents had grown up as neighbours in the same middle class enclave in Hong Kong forty years earlier. The strong bonds survived the parting of the ways as George moved overseas to London as a teenager. May-Ling’s father took the scholastic route to the capital, where he still taught Humanities at London University. A typical Chinese student, he applied himself to acquiring a normal degree, adding a PH.D in due course. His title of Professor Emeritus was granted fifteen years later.

  The Chu diaspora’s ties in the Chinese community covered most of England, with strong presence in London and the South East. George’s uncles built an efficient market produce supply chain to Chinese restaurants across London. This grew into an even broader customer base with reliability the catchword. George succeeded as the head of the family in his early forties, his contacts and inside knowledge of Chinese business in the metropolis second to none. Hence May-Ling’s request to drop by for a chat.

  Some Jasmine tea and a silver tray with Chinese biscuits sat on the table between them. George poured and came immediately to the point. “You had a narrow escape at the Peking Garden, my dear. How are you feeling now?”

  “Oh, we’re unharmed, George, a bit shaken. Our friend Chandra was so quick to react. He hadn’t a chance of surviving.”

  “I heard. A nasty piece of business.” He offered the plate to his guest.

  May-Ling took a bite from the biscuit. “Yes, and I wondered…”

  The Chinaman broke across her, “…and you wondered if I had any idea who might be involved, right?”

  “Something like that.” She laughed and smiled at her father’s friend. “You’re the likeliest person with the pulse on Soho.”

  George Chu sat back and looked at his visitor, knowing her background as well as anyone could. It was part of his business to know things. Information is knowledge. Knowledge is power. Power breeds profit. This young woman’s early stint in the Hong Kong police force preceded a marriage to an expatriate English detective, Ben Marshall. Both were highly regarded officers with a fast track career ahead of them. These plans ended abruptly for Ben in a botched stake out of a gangland shoot-out in Mongkok, where a wrong signal put the young policeman in the line of fire. Ben died of gunshot wounds from a misdirected fusillade from his own colleagues. Many expected May-Ling to quit the force. On the contrary, she resolved to continue working, but as an Anti-Triad undercover operative. Her contribution was invaluable. A female and a Chinese speaker, she penetrated areas undercover where other officers couldn’t. At the recommendation of her boss at that time, Donnie Mullen, she eventually resigned from the police and joined ISP as head of their Hong Kong office. Jack Calder and May-Ling became lovers, then spouses not long afterwards. The Hong Kong business now had a new chief, and the Calders settled in London with their only son, Tommy. Her old mentor, Mullen, had completed the circle by adding his expertise to the ISP Board.

  “This isn’t good for any of us in Soho,” George said, picking his words carefully. A frown dug across his brow. Whatever information he shared was unlikely to take sides. That’s not the Chinese way.

  “An assault on any of us in Chinatown impacts the entire community. The Peking Garden couldn’t be more central. No Chinese interests would take such stupid action against another Chinese business in London. We have an unspoken understanding amongst ourselves, the ethnic families, disputes come to a general meeting of the major players here.”

  With George Chu the leader of these formal deliberations, thought May-Ling.

  “We periodically have serious issues from local disputes. They rarely result in severe attacks,” he went on. “Isolated incidents do happen, of course, some of these deadly, but isolated nonetheless. Are you familiar with the owners of the restaurant?” He turned to look at her.

  “It escapes me, George. Something I can’t quite recall.”

  He pursed his lips, as if deciding to share with her. “The background’s a bit complicated. Do you remember the Ching family? They came to England about five years after my father arrived in London, before you were born?”

  “From South China, not Hong Kong, right?” May-Ling’s mind raced to drag the awareness into her head.

  “Correct. They’re distant relatives of my own family, but we never got close in business. Their reputation had a dark side, the bulk of it from innuendo and rumour. There were three brothers and a sister. One morning over thirty years ago, detectives found a burned-out car in Essex with the bodies of the brothers inside the car, scorched beyond recognition. Dental records identified the corpses. They’d been shot in the back of the head. Nobody ever got to the bottom of it. No-one was charged. The gossip of the time hinted because they were Chinese fatalities the police didn’t bother trying too hard.”

  “Of course,” said May-Ling. “It’s coming back to me. I remember my parents talking about this. What happened to the sister?”

  “Ah yes, the sister.” Chu drew a sip of his tea. “Madame Ching ventured out in public rarely after the incident. She took over the commercial interests. I met her a few times, mainly on business matters. She never married, but has an illegitimate son through whom she ran the affairs of the companies, and still does to this day.”

  May-Ling sensed George Chu had more to tell. She didn’t push, letting George’s story unfold at his speed.

  He continued, “The years rolled on, and the bamboo telegraph began to leak snippets pointing toward the sister as the one who had the brothers killed. No proof ever surfaced. What is common knowledge is certain other activities traced back to the Chings. A bit here. A piece there. Smuggled products. We all saw some of that in the early days, but the Chings were in it wholesale. They stepped up to become better organised and sophisticated. Some believe they’re among the main movers of drugs and imported illegal labour in the UK.”

  “Are they?” asked May-Ling.

  She was rewarded with a smile. “Oh, my dear, I’m unable to vouch for such a thing,” he replied, which was a strong confirmation to the contrary. Of course she understood a massive trade in heroin and meta existed across the Chinese community as in other communities. Her police career in Hong Kong had shown her that. This was the first time she had a direct name in London. George Chu would not and could not give this information to the local cops. Again, that was not the Chinese way.

  “Is the sister still active or not?” A non-committal question.

  “Yes. I understand so. I haven’t seen her myself in more than five years. Madam Ching Fan. She’s about eighty now, blind in one eye, and walks with a cane, the mind’s still as sharp as a needle. Her son, Ching Mak, is in his mid-fifties. He runs the empire from their main warehouse in Hounslow, out near Heathrow airport. Be careful if you ever meet him, he has his mother’s trait for unpleasantness.” Another veiled signal. “The family home is only about ten miles from the warehouse, but he seems to need armoured protection and bodyguards when he moves around.” Yet more signals.

  George Chu has a score to settle with these people.

  May-Ling had what she came for. She rose and moved toward her host. She kissed him on each cheek and said, “You’ve been more than helpful, George. Thanks.”

  “Give my regards to your dad,” he replied, showing her from his office.

  She had found out in half an hour more than her old boss Donnie Mullen gleaned in his evening with Assistant Commissioner Alan Rennie.

  CHAPTER 10

  The pickup loader turned right out of the cargo area at Heathrow and headed toward the westbound dual carriageway. Traffic flow was the usual trickle just after midnight. The slip road exit loomed fifty metres ahead when a black saloon overtook the loader and braked in front. Two men leapt from the car. Each held an Uzi machine gun. A spray of deadly fire shattered the pickup’s windscreen killing the occupants. A third man ran to the back of the pickup and crowbarred the lock in seconds. The killers joined him and transferred the vehicle’s cargo of drugs to the trunk of the first vehicle. The value taken was street merchandise worth two mi
llion dollars plus a couple of Armenian lives. Later, the authorities found no witnesses.

  ***

  The appointment with a Mister Stokes was set for mid-morning a week after the explosion in the Peking Garden. Jules asked Jack to join him in the meeting with the prospective new client, whose assistant had said her boss headed a pan-European business, interested in talking to ISP about their security needs. Stokes and his companion entered the boardroom, and to Townsend’s surprise, he recognised one of the visitors. This was no Mister Stokes.

  “Good morning, Jules,” said the European Head of Interpol, extending his hand in greeting. Marcel Benoit smiled. “Please forgive the alias, the reason for which I’ll explain. This is Brad Miles who handles some of our more delicate operational matters,” he continued, introducing the second man, whose African American features bore a faint scar from his left ear down under his chin.

  Jack Calder recognised Benoit from past press photographs. Neither had he met Miles but instantly registered the bearing of a seasoned field operator.

  “A pleasant surprise to see you again, Marcel,” said Jules. Jack had long since stopped trying to fathom the relationships his former commanding officer held with senior men in the highest law enforcement agencies across the world. “What can we do for you?”

  “You’re no stranger to issues of great delicacy,” began Benoit. “There’s a high sensitivity on the matter we’re here to discuss.” Jules nodded. Message received.

  “I was advised of your involvement in the grenade nonsense at the Chinese restaurant last week. My condolences on the loss of Chandra.” Jules nodded again.

  “It doesn’t take a genius to figure the wider crap going on around this stuff,” said Benoit. “Even with our resources, we’re being stymied in getting to the real bastards pulling the strings. What happened last Saturday’s only one link in a whole chain of events. We know the Chinese triads in England are at odds with an outfit that’s grown up in the past dozen years or so, out of the Balkans.”