by Brian N. Cox
“How did you get him to tell you that?” exclaimed Chen. “That’s very important news. Chang Kuai has never mentioned Cai’s name to me. The Organized Crime Division will be very impressed. Now they know who to concentrate on.”
“I just spoke about Cai Tianshan in a casual manner as if it was common knowledge,” said Li Mei, “and he confirmed it and told me of his standard twenty percent cut on everything. State Security suspected he was the boss only because he is so old yet still attends all the meetings. Now we know.”
Cai Tianshan was an eighty-three year old man who still practised Shaolin gong-fu every morning. He was as fit and healthy as a man in his fifties and mentally as sharp as he always was. He owned many properties and several legitimate businesses but lived a subdued lifestyle never flaunting his wealth. His neighbours just assumed he was scraping by on a couple of pensions. He had been arrested twice for murder and three times for fraud but never convicted. Witnesses disappeared and it was suspected that he had bribed both judges and prosecutors when necessary. Those police officers who had investigated him in the past were convinced he was a psychopath. His fifty year old son, Cai Tianlu , was his right hand man and had many of the characteristics of his father, in particular an above average intelligence and a vicious nature.
CHAPTER SIX
Three days after Li Mei’s meeting with Chang Kuai, she sat in the board room with Detectives Chen and Hu listening to a report by Detective Wang Sang who headed up the surveillance on Du Mi Rei, the Red Dragon thug who Chang had identified as part of the group who were abducting the young girls.
“Du Mi Rei hasn’t been doing anything unusual; just playing cards with friends, drinking and visiting a different brothel every night. He hasn’t met with anyone other than his drinking and gambling friends. No phone calls of interest. Three of them are known Red Dragons and the others just local thugs. He has been walking strangely, however, a bit of a limp and a bit bow-legged.”
“He’s probably the one who that tough farm girl kicked in the balls,” said Hu. “Should we bring him in for a line-up? The girl got a pretty good look at him.”
“Let’s give him a little more time. Our top priority is finding the girls and these Triads are not easy to interrogate. Telling the police about Triad operations is an automatic death sentence by one-thousand knife cuts,” said Chen. “We hope he can lead us to where the girls have been taken.”
“We may be running out of time,” said Li Mei. “We haven’t been able to locate Fong Lei, so I think it is worth our time to check Qing Dao airfields.”
“I agree, Li Mei,” said Chen. “We have surveillance teams on the Fairwind Travel Company, and even made a surreptitious search of the premises last night, but no sign of the girls. Of course, when we decide surveillance is no longer serving a purpose, we’ll send the Crime Scene Unit in there to look for trace evidence that the girls were held there.”
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Li Mei, Chen and Hu, along with six other detectives, flew down to Qing Dao in a State Security aircraft right after lunch. Since the flight took only an hour, there was plenty of daylight left to check out all the airfields so the investigators split up to start checking all airports and airfields regardless of size. About one and a half hours later, Detective Hu contacted Chen.
“I think we got lucky,” said Hu. “I’m at a secondary airport in the northeast called Da Hai Airport. “A bus came in here at night, allegedly with a tour group from Beijing, about three days ago. They left on a turbo-prop with a flight plan for Ho Chi Min city in Vietnam about twenty minutes after the bus arrived. No one saw the bus passengers unless people here were paid not to see. I did find one maintenance worker that remembers seeing the name Fairwind on the side of the bus.”
“OK,” said Chen. “I’ll send two teams to help you investigate this and interview everyone. Lean on them and get every detail you can, including the type and description of the plane and what its fuel range is. Someone must have seen the girls or any of the adults accompanying them. I’ll call Li Mei and the others to meet at the main Qing Dao Airport.”
After meeting with Li Mei and the remaining two detectives at the main Airport, he briefed them on what Hu had told him.
“I’ll call my office and have that plane tracked,” said Li Mei. “If we find it actually went to Ho Chi Min City, I’ll go there myself.”
While Li Mei was contacting her office, Detective Chen called the Inspector Sun Xing, officer in charge of the Task Force assembled for this case.
After he finished talking to the Inspector, Chen reported to the others, “Apparently there have been thirteen other young girls abducted within a few hundred miles of Beijing; a couple were only ten years old. Three in Tianjin and four in Shenyang. The others were grabbed in smaller cities. The Tianjin Police were just in the process of creating a Task Force to investigate the abductions. That was two days ago but they haven’t obtained any helpful information so far.”
“Another interesting piece of information about Fong Lei,” he continued. “He has been out of the country five times over the past twelve months….once to the Philippines, once to Mexico and three times to Seattle in America.”
“That’s a total of twenty girls,” said Li Mei, “certainly enough to set up a brothel if they were all abducted by the same gang.”
“They must know that they can charge big money to have sex with these young girls if they are going to all this trouble. They must have hundreds of adult women working for them as prostitutes now inside and outside China.”
“I think price is no object for wealthy pedophiles,” said Li Mei. “They not only feel they need to rape kids, but also their identity must be protected. That is where the big money comes in for the Red Dragons. They are probably too stupid to realize they will be blackmailed for life.”
“Yes,” said Chen. “The Red Dragons are going to make millions every year for as long as these perverts live.”
“If the girls are being taken out of the country, we have to ascertain their destination,” said Li Mei.
Within forty minutes, Li Mei received a call from State Security Headquarters. After a brief conversation, she told the others. “The plane never went to Vietnam. It went to Cebu City in the Philippines. The next day the plane flew back to Guangzhou empty. Although they could have stayed in Cebu, I think it is unlikely. I am assuming they put the girls on another plane and flew them somewhere else. I will take a take a flight to Cebu tonight. We have police liaison officers at our Embassy in Manila who will go to Cebu immediately and try to find out where the girls were taken, if they are not still there.”
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At Cebu City later that night, Li Mei met with Inspector Wang Dashan at the airport after the State Security private jet had landed.
“The passengers from the plane that arrived from Qing Dao were immediately transferred to another plane, a private charter Airbus A318, bound for Australia. We had the plane tracked and it stayed on a heading for Australia for almost two hours and then turned east. We are guessing it was actually destined for the southern US or Mexico at least that was its heading. Within an hour, the satellites lost it. They must have disengaged the GPS or something; either that or the plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean.”
“Thanks for the fast action Inspector. In view of their cargo, I strongly suspect the elimination of the GPS was intentional.”
“Yes, the Philippine Police assisted us in interviewing possible witnesses. They had a bus take the passengers from one plane to the other but that wasn’t considered unusual as that is often done with tour groups or private organizations,” said Inspector Wang.
“The driver of the bus must have seen the passengers,” said Li Mei. “What did he say?”
“As far as we know, he boarded the second plane because he is nowhere to be found. Either that or he was paid to leave the airfield im
mediately after he transferred the passengers. No one knew who drove the bus which was a charter. We’ll follow up on who rented the bus as it had to pass through security to get onto the airfield. Since this is a secondary field, the rules are a little lax here.”
“OK, Inspector, here is my card. When you have more information, please phone this office,” said Li Mei.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Airbus rolled to a stop at a small private airfield forty miles south-east of Ensenada on the west coast of Mexico about five miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. The teenage girls were herded off the plane by several Red Dragon thugs where they were joined by ten Mexicans in the employ of the Red Dragon Triad. All were armed with AK-47 automatic rifles. The girls look tired, haggard but most of all, scared. They were taken into an airplane hangar and told to sit on blankets laid out on the floor at the south end of the building. There was still enough daylight to see, but the landscape outside the hanger was inhospitable with very little vegetation and no landmarks. It was now time to intimidate the young teenage girls so they would not dare disobey, cause disruption or try to escape.
Fong Lei entered the hanger from a door on the west side, along with Chan Meng, Deputy Party Secretary in Beijing, and the third highest official of the Red Dragon Triad. Chan Meng stood unobtrusively in an adjacent room with the door just ajar so he could watch without being seen. Chan Meng knew what was about to happen as he had watched the same scenario several times before. These girls were about to learn to be obedient slaves, and Chan Meng enjoyed watching the process. Fong Lei, known to his fellow Red Dragons as Da Fong (Big Fong) strode to the front of the assembled girls and began his semi-rehearsed speech. He was an imposing figure, large and muscular with a shaven head and an extremely intimidating face.
“If you do as you are told, you will be taken back to your families in China after three years and can resume a normal life. If you do not do as you are told, you will be punished. You will keep quiet at all times and do what you are told. Some foreign gentlemen will be paying us for the pleasure you can give them. They will fuck you, maybe in the front or maybe in the back. If they want a blowjob, you will smile and gladly do that for them. They will not be allowed to beat you; there is no money to be made from girls who are bruised and cut.”
One tall, very attractive twelve year old girl named Zhang Xiaosha spoke up. She was determined not to put up with this.
“You can’t do this. We are not animals. My father is very important and you can be sure the police will find us soon,” she said.
“Did I not say to keep quiet and do as you are told at all times?” yelled Fong Lei in a rage. “Bring her out here. Everyone else stand up so you can see what happens to girls who don’t do as they are told.” All the girls looked frightened, some actually shaking with fear.
Zhang Xiaosha was dragged out by two Red Dragons and two Mexicans and laid out of the floor spread-eagled, face up. She still looked defiant but her eyes began to show fear.
Two of the men put their knees on her thighs and two other men did the same on her biceps. They then put all their weight on their knees and began rolling the thigh and bicep muscles under their knees. The pain was excruciating and Zhang Xiaosha screamed at them to stop but they continued for about ten minutes. After the men stood up, the girl laid limp on the floor sobbing in a semi-conscious state. Fong Lei then dragged her to an open toilet, half by her hair and half by the collar of her clothes. He put Zhang Xiaosha’s head in the toilet and held it there for almost a minute. When he pulled her head out by her hair, she gasped for air so loudly it alarmed the other girls. Fong Lei repeated this two more times and then instructed two of the other men to drag her back and throw her at the feet of the other girls. Zhang Xiaosha lay unconscious but alive.
“That will be your punishment for talking before you are spoken to,” said Fong. “For more serious offences, such as trying to escape or telling anyone about your situation, you will be hanged.”
“Bring out the least attractive girl,” Fong said to the Red Dragon, Wang Xicheng, who was standing at his right.
Wang replied, “Who would that be Da Fong? They all look very attractive.”
“Bring that short one then, on the end, and tie her hands behind her back.” Immediately Wang Xicheng and two Mexicans dragged the girl out to the front near Fong Lei. She did not fight as she was so scared her body went limp. This girl, Lu Qi, was very cute but shorter than all the other girls. She had been abducted on her way home from school in Tianjin and was not yet twelve years old.
A rope hung from a large eye hook bolted into a ceiling beam. Fong Lei tied a rope around her neck and then, along with Wang Xicheng and the two Mexicans, they hauled on the rope end and little Lu Qi was hung for all the girls to see. Her legs flopped and kicked for a minute or two and then she was dead.
“This is what will happen to anyone who doesn’t keep quiet and do exactly what they are told. We are your masters and you are our slaves. You will not forget this,” shouted Fong Lei.
Some of the girls fainted and fell to the floor; others covered their eyes and cried, while several vomited.
During this time, Deputy Party Secretary Chan Meng stood looking through the door opening with a slight smile on his face. He liked to see the girls terrified and prepared to obey without question.
This was routine procedure for Fong Lei and the Red Dragons. By killing one of the girls, they lost a certain amount of future profit, but it guaranteed their business enterprise would be trouble free. The girls would be docile, terrified sex slaves….just what Fong Lei wanted.
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For three days, the girls huddled together on the blankets on the floor, sobbing and being sick. They were fed twice a day, but other than that, their criminal masters paid little attention to them.
At about ten in the morning, the girls were herded on to a bus and driven on a desolate road to the coast where what appeared to be a US Coast Guard Cutter awaited them at a small dock. It was not a real Coast Guard Cutter but the crew were American, and the Captain, Mervin Taylor, had been a Chief Petty Officer in the Coast Guard before his dishonourable discharge. He narrowly avoided a lengthy prison sentence for smuggling drugs from Mexico into the US, but a team of brilliant lawyers hired by the Red Dragon Triad had succeeded in raising reasonable doubt about his guilt.
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“Hello Sean,” said the voice on the phone to Sean McNamara, Assistant Agent in Charge of the FBI Seattle Field Office.
“Li Mei, I wasn’t expecting to hear your voice this morning. It is great to hear from you. I can’t wait to go back to China.”
“I may be coming to Seattle soon, Sean. I have something very serious to talk to you about. It is probably premature because I am not sure Seattle is a place of involvement in the case I am working on.”
“Anything I can do to help, Li Mei; you have only to ask.”
“There have been twenty children abducted in Beijing and surrounding cities. They are all very attractive girls, mostly eleven to thirteen years old, some younger. They have been abducted by the Red Dragon Triad, a very powerful and violent Black Society in the Beijing area. I am assisting the Beijing Police in the investigation and we are fairly sure the girls have been taken out of China to a foreign country where they will be set up in a brothel for pedophiles…they will be sex slaves.”
“Oh god no,” said Sean. “That’s terrible. Why do you think Seattle is connected to this?” He was alarmed to hear this but not surprised as years of employment in law enforcement had prepared him for any human depravity.
“The apparent leader of the group responsible has been out of the country several times during the past year, including two trips to Mexico and three trips to Seattle. Since it would be difficult, if not impossible, to land at an American city airport with the girls, I suspect they would be taken to Mexico and
then brought up to the States. They could stay in Mexico but America is where the money is. I assume the Red Dragons have discovered a market of wealthy pedophiles, possibly in Seattle and the Northwest.”
“Do you think the Mei Hua Triad is involved?” said Sean.
“No, I doubt that very much. The Mei Hua are much more sophisticated than the Red Dragons and limit most of their activities to high profit economic crime. However, they would not be happy to have the Red Dragons in Seattle attracting law enforcement attention.”
“You have seen their leader, Sean. He was the big man with the shaved head in the Sanya restaurant.”
“That’s what I call a coincidence, and I don’t usually believe in coincidences.”
“Is there anything I can do right now, Li Mei?” he continued.