The Chinese Woman: Red Dragons: A Spy Mystery Thriller: Li Mei Spy Action Series (The Chinese Woman: Li Mei Spy Action Series Book 4)

by Brian N. Cox

  “Yes Master,” said the frightened young girl as she got on her knees, fully aware of the consequences if she refused. She still could visualize the horrible memory of little eleven year old Lu Qi being hung by her neck from the rafters in Mexico.

  After it was over Chan Meng said, “You did a very good job. Now that wasn’t so bad was it?”

  “No Master,” said Xiaowei as she tried not to be sick and vomit on Chan Meng.

  **************************************************************************

  “Sean,” said Gary on the phone, “Facial recognition came up with a Mervin Taylor, a former career Coast Guard member who was dishonorably discharged. He was caught trying to smuggle in a load of meth from Mexico on a boat three years ago. Here’s the interesting part; he was found not guilty primarily because he had the highest priced lawyers on the west coast. In fact there were four of them appearing on his behalf at his trial. The DEA wondered how a shmuck like Taylor could afford such legal talent but they never found out.”

  “Obviously someone or some group with money and connections was looking after him,” said Sean. “I’m betting it’s the Red Dragons, and what an easy way to get those kids into the States.”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” added Gary. “I think that ‘Lounge’ is a good place to start this investigation.”

  ******************************************************************************

  Li Mei sat in a dark brown leather covered easy chair in Sean’s office, with Gary and Sean sitting on a matching sofa.

  “Li Mei, maybe it would be safer to try and put a female FBI undercover agent into the Lounge. We have an experienced agent here who speaks Mandarin. She’s very attractive and likely to be hired as a hostess.”

  “Sean, I realize you have to make that suggestion, not only to cover your ass, as you American’s say, but also to show in your report that you tried to make this an FBI operation,” said Li Mei. “The truth is, I live an undercover life in the MSS, Second Bureau, and the Red Dragons will discover your agent immediately and kill her. The cover story must be backed up in China, and only I can do that.”

  “Well Gary is fluent in Chinese; I’d like to put him in there as your backup. He could become a regular customer.”

  “Becoming a regular customer might be helpful to gather evidence but I can’t have backup; I’m on my own. Besides, I plan to get into the brothel wherever it is. Working at the Lounge will be of limited help.”

  “How do you plan to do that, Li Mei?” said Gary.

  “My cover story as a Triad will get me in the door, but I have a plan to get beyond the Lounge to the brothel,” replied Li Mei.

  “How to you expect to do that?” asked Sean.

  “They’ve got a bunch of young children. It won’t be long before they look bedraggled and unattractive, hardly worth the big money the Red Dragons expect to charge. My cover story will be as a Triad and include working as a make-up artist in New York. Once they hear this, they’ll be begging me to go to the brothel to teach the children, assuming I have established credibility with them. If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to rely on surveillance to locate the brothel, but that will take time.”

  “I’ve got to hand it to you Li Mei; your plan sounds like it might work,” said Sean. “I’m just worried about you getting accepted into their confidence. You said yourself, they will kill anyone they are suspicious of, even without complete evidence.”

  “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t also concerned about that. However, we have to locate those children and get them out of that brothel,” said Li Mei.

  “And make sure we take all those responsible into custody,” added Gary.

  “We can talk about that if and when we locate the brothel,” said Li Mei.

  ****************************************************************************

  Sir,” said Special Agent Andy Farrier. There is no sign saying the Lounge is open, however, it seems to have already been in operation judging from the activity around the place. Shall we expand the surveillance to twenty-four hours?”

  “Yes, I’ll set that up,” said Gary. “We’re not even sure if we have the right place, but it’s the only potential lead we’ve got. Even if it’s not the Red Dragons, there is something criminal going on there. I’m going to pencil myself in for the evening shift tomorrow. Anything going on?”

  “Possibly. We are looking for Chinese, and three different Chinese have been in and out of the place during the renovations,” said Farrier.

  “We might have lucked out here, Andy. Meet me at the office tomorrow morning at seven am and bring anyone who saw those Chinese. We have two photos to look at.”

  “Yes Sir. We will see you then.”

  ****************************************************************************

  The brothel had been in operation for three days before the FBI believed they had located the real estate transaction they believed to be relevant to the Fong Lei investigation. This time, Sean and Gary met with Li Mei at a FBI safe house. The American, Mervin Taylor, using the name Mervin Forsythe had purchased the bar on behalf of a numbered company. The owners of the numbered company could not be traced as it disappeared into a web of company transactions in China that were not available to the FBI. With Li Mei’s help, they had contacted Senior Detective Chen Fu of the Beijing Police who would try to trace the ownership of the company. Chen was certain, however, that it would not be owned by the Red Dragon Triad officially, but the owner would somehow be connected to them, possibly a blood relative of an associate.

  “Once we confirm that the lounge is the meeting place for the clients, we should have no trouble locating the brothel. Then we may be faced with a moral dilemma,” said Sean. “On one hand, we should raid both the lounge and the brothel as soon as possible before those girls are abused any further. On the other hand, if we do, we are unlikely to get Fong Lei. It is unlikely he spends much time at the brothel except to occasionally sexually abuse a few of the children. I doubt he holds any meetings on the premises when the girls are active.”

  “Give me one or two more days. I must not only locate Fong Lei, but connect him to the brothel,” said Li Mei. “We cannot wait longer than that. We have to rescue the girls if we can locate the brothel.”

  “OK, Li Mei,” said Sean. “It’s certainly a dilemma, but a raid will only get us a few low ranking thugs. The person or persons responsible for this must pay and we must have a solid case so they don’t walk away.”

  “Li Mei,” Sean continued. “We have found Chan Meng, the crooked politician, staying at the Hilton Hotel downtown.”

  “Excellent,” said Li Mei. “We did not know he was involved, but it does not surprise me. I would love to return him to China to stand trial and be executed but I fear he may have too many powerful friends in the Central Government. Better to seek justice here.”

  “Gary, any more news on the phone taps?” asked Sean.

  “Fong Lei doesn’t talk on his hotel room phone. He is probably using a burner cellphone but I doubt he would say anything incriminating. He is a real pro.”

  “How about Chan Meng?”

  “He doesn’t have Fong’s street smarts; he is talking on the phone all the time. He hasn’t said anything incriminating but most of his conversations are with a Ma Bao in Vancouver who seems to be an official with the Chinese Consulate. They talked about meeting in Vancouver very soon. He even gave Ma his cellphone number. We are monitoring it also but nothing about the Red Dragons’ operation.”

  “If he is here in Seattle,” said Li Mei, “you can be sure he is involved in the Red Dragons’ crimes.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Gary knocked on Sean’s office door at seven-thirty am and asked “Do you have a minute Sean?”

  “Sure, come on in. What have you got?”

  “I don’t know if you’ve met Andy Farrier,” said Gary. “He was transferred in from Oregon to CID a month ago.”

>   “I read of your transfer Farrier. Glad to have you on board.”

  “Very happy to be here, Sir. I was on White Collar in Oregon but have been trying to get on Organized Crime for some time.

  “Tell the ASAC what you saw at the Lounge yesterday,” Gary interjected.

  “There was still some exterior construction underway yesterday, Sir, but they have been in business for a few days. During the construction, there were two Chinese men coming and going regularly. It was obvious that they were in charge as you could see them pointing at the building and talking to the foreman about the construction job. I should mention that the job foreman was also Chinese or at least East Asian. We have photos of all of them. Here they are, Sir.” Farrier laid ten photo prints on Sean’s desk and spread them out.

  “Tell him about the third Chinese man,” said Gary.

  “There was a third Chinese man, and big nasty looking guy with a shaved head, who came once yesterday and once the day before. He went in both times and stayed for about fifteen minutes. Never saw him talking to anyone outside the building, although he did look it over.”

  “I assume you have a photo of this man,” said Sean.

  “Yes Sir. We could never get a good look at him; he moved fast and kept his head down but we finally got some shots. Here are four shots and one has a pretty good face-on view. We were lucky to be able to snap it as he quickly exited the building yesterday. It looks like he may be the man in the photo I was given.”

  “We’re on the right track,” exclaimed Gary. “That’s Fong Lei for sure.”

  “I agree. Good work Farrier; very good work,” said Sean. “We’ll expand the surveillance immediately. Front and back of the building plus at least two mobile units. If there’s activity, we’ll bring in the watchers.”

  “Farrier, if you will excuse us, I want to talk to Webster in private.”

  “Thank you, Sir, and a pleasure meeting you,” said Andy Farrier as he left Sean’s office.

  “Gary, get Diane Swanson up here. I want you and her to drop into the Lounge this evening. Dress casually; don’t go for the male model look, OK?” said Sean with a laugh. “If Fong shows up at the lounge, I don’t want him followed. He’s street smart and if he burns our surveillance, our chance of finding the brothel with the kids is diminished.”

  “If you can sit near where the two Chinese staff members locate themselves, it would be interesting if you could overhear something,” Sean continued. “I am guessing that the two Chinese men overseeing the construction are managers. Don’t take chances….no photos….don’t get caught eavesdropping; not even the suspicion of trying to overhear them. Most important, get the layout. Are there any men coming in there that are taken to another room, for example. I’ll brief you and Diane this afternoon.”

  “Good idea, Sean. I can’t wait to get started on this.”

  “I’ll call Li Mei and see if she got a job there yet,” said Sean. “Just a minute, she’s answering her cell.”

  “Hi Li Mei, were you able to get a job at the lounge?” asked Sean.

  “I dropped in a few times but was told to come back this afternoon because the manager wasn’t there. I’m just getting ready to leave for the lounge now.”

  ****************************************************************************

  Li Mei, dressed in smart business casual clothes with long pants and a matching charcoal jacket casually walked by the front of the Lounge, looked at her watch, moved her sunglasses to the top of her head and entered the premises.

  As her eyes adjusted to the relatively dark interior lighting, she saw a well dressed East Asian man standing in front of the bar.

  “Excuse me Sir,” she said in English, “Are you the manager?”

  “Yes I am. What can I do for you?” he said, looking intently at Li Mei but with no change of facial expression.

  “May I ask if you are Chinese?” Li Mei enquired.

  “Yes,” he replied curtly.

  “I would like to apply for a job,” Li Mei continued.

  “How did you know about us?” the manager asked, still not warming up.

  “A guy I’ve been seeing drives by here on his way to work and told me about this place.”

  “What kind of job are you looking for,” asked the manager, this time in Mandarin.

  “I can do accounting and bookkeeping. I’ve also been a hostess and waitress. I’ve also done some bartending but I’m not exactly an expert yet,” said Li Mei, also in Mandarin.

  “Sounds like there is nothing you can’t do,” said the manager, smiling for the first time. He wasn’t exactly looking for anyone at the moment, but this woman was more beautiful than any of the other women he had hired, so she could probably attract business as a hostess. Of course, attracting customers wasn’t his highest priority.

  “My name is Wei Jun,” said the manager. “Tell me about yourself.”

  “My name is Tan Xiaotian and I was born and raised in Chongqing. I worked for my father for several years until he sent me to America to go to school. I got my MBA at Yale. After graduating, I was recruited as a model in New York. I did that for six months. I hated the work but the money was quite good. After I quit modelling, I set up my own business teaching make-up and hairstyling to would-be models. I made pretty good money at that also, but it’s not exactly mentally stimulating work.”

  The fact that Tan Xiaotian taught make-up and hairstyling immediately attracted Wei Jun’s interest. “What brings you to Seattle?”

  “I have a number of business interests I would like to develop, and living in a west coast port city suits my purpose,” said Li Mei.

  “And what interests are those?” asked Wei Jun.

  “That’s confidential information at this time,” she replied smiling coyly.

  “OK, fill out this application form, Xiaotian. Make sure we have a number to contact you.”

  “Thank you, Wei Jun. I hope to hear from you.”

  Li Mei was confident she would hear from Wei Jun, not only because men always wanted to hire her when she applied for a job…any job…but she knew her alleged skill at teaching make-up and hair styling would appeal to Wei Jun and his co-conspirators.

  *****************************************************************************

  Later that evening, Wei Jun called Fong Lei on his encrypted cell phone.

  “Big Brother, we may have got lucky,” Wei Jun said over the phone to Fong Lei. “We got an applicant you will be interested in. She is Chinese, speaks Putonghua and taught hairstyling and make-up.”

  “Don’t talk on the phone,” Wei Jun. “I am just pulling into the parking lot and will see you in a few minutes.

  As Fong Lei walked through the front door, he nodded to Wei Jun to go back to his office. Once both men were in the office and the door closed, Fong Lei said, “We can’t just have some young woman go to the brothel and teach these kids how to look attractive. She’ll be calling the police the minute she leaves.”

  “I don’t think so. I checked her out, she’s Triad. Her father was Dragonhead of the Hui Shan Triad in Chongqing. His name was Tan Bai. He was executed a few years ago when Wang Li Jun had declared war on the Chongqing Triads.”

  “How do you know this? She sure as hell didn’t tell you that, unless she is a very stupid undercover cop.”

  “No, I have contacts in Chongqing. They confirmed this. There is one problem…Tan Xiaotian was apparently killed in a car accident. Her Mercedes went off a mountain road and burned up.”

  “Sounds suspicious,” said Fong. “Call her to come in tomorrow morning.”

  *****************************************************************************

  At eleven am the next day, Li Mei went to the Lounge as a result of a phone call from Wei Jun.

  She was taken to Wei Jun’s office where she was introduced to Fong Lei who was sitting in a green leather easy chair. Fong just nodded and looked anything but friendly. Li Mei sat on a matching green sofa while We
i Jun sat behind his desk.

  “I will get right to the point,” said Wei Jun. “Let me see your passport or Chinese photo ID so I can confirm your identity.”

  Li Mei complied and handed Wei Jun her passport, prepared by the Ministry of State Security in the name of Tan Xiaotian.

  “Your father is Tan Bai?” asked Fong Lei, still looking unfriendly and intimidating. “What did he do for a living?”

  “He owned a couple of restaurants,” said Li Mei.