by P. D. Martin
“Oh, I see.”
“Yup, there are loads of Kims.” She crosses her arms. “I still can’t believe that our operation was taking pictures of the son of the legendary Saito.” She seems to be genuinely excited by the victim’s identity. I probably don’t fully appreciate the enormity of the victim’s ID, because unlike Petrov, De Luca, Kim and perhaps the rest of L.A., I haven’t been living and breathing organized crime and gangs for years.
“Take a seat.” Petrov motions to the chair next to Agent Kim.
I put my case file and notebook on the table before sitting down. The room is large and has been set up in typical briefing style with one long table at the front and then single chairs with flip-out desks attached. This is my first time in this particular room, but I guess it’s used by the Gang Impact Team and other task forces on a regular basis.
“How many coming in for the briefing?” I ask, looking at the number of seats.
“Thirty.”
I nod several times. “Wow.”
Petrov extends both arms out, hands up. “What can I say, L.A.’s got a lot of organized crime and gangs.”
“Obviously.”
“We’ve got twenty-four people in the L.A. Gang Impact Team and I’ve also invited some of our Long Beach counterparts.”
When Ramos arrives, I introduce him to Agent Kim before he takes out his flash drive and starts setting up on the laptop. By eight o’clock Ramos is ready to go and the room is full of law-enforcement personnel from FBI, LAPD, LASD, ATF, DEA, Customs, the City Attorney’s Office, the D.A. and the US Attorney’s Office—enough acronyms to confuse the best of us. Some are in casual clothes, and some wear uniforms or informal attire branded with their agency’s logo. There are also a few men and women dressed in suits, and I peg them as the local, state and federal prosecutors. Lawyers always wear suits, right? The Gang Impact Team has been operational for several years, and the task force is well and truly commingled; no one sits in agency cliques.
Petrov kicks off the briefing. “Good morning, everyone. And thanks for your punctuality.” Petrov nods at a few of the faces before continuing. “Four days ago a body was found in Little Tokyo, in the parking lot bordered by Second Street, South Los Angeles Drive and South San Pedro Drive. Yesterday, the male victim was identified as one Jun Saito, a forty-five-year-old Japanese national. Saito arrived in the States on November 24, and was caught on film by members of this task force entering what we believe is a Long Beach meth lab. The property in question has been under surveillance for several weeks now and we’ve made initial links to the Asian Boyz, with several of the males frequenting the house being identified as members of the Long Beach arm of the gang.
“I don’t know if any of you have heard the name Saito before, but Jun Saito’s death is significant to us not only because of his involvement with the Asian Boyz, but also because he’s the son of key Yakuza figure Hisayuki Saito. Hisayuki Saito was the first Korean to make his mark in the Yakuza. Korea was under Japanese rule from 1910 to 1945, and while most Koreans hated their occupiers, Saito embraced the opportunities presented to him, namely becoming part of the Japanese Mafia. He moved to Tokyo and founded one of the Yakuza’s most notorious gangs. From 1946 to 1958 he was arrested ten times and although he received three prison sentences, all were minor convictions and his time in prison was limited to less than two years. He was linked to murder, fraud, extortion, prostitution, illegal gambling and the booming meth trade in Tokyo in the fifties.
“Hisayuki Saito married a Japanese woman and had three sons and one daughter. His wife died while giving birth to their fourth child, and while Saito did remarry two years later, he didn’t have any more children. His eldest son was killed by the police during a raid, and his second son was murdered a couple of years later.
“Jun, Hisayuki’s youngest son, got into trouble early, and his first recorded offence was drug possession at the age of fourteen. For that offence he didn’t get jail time but in 1984 he was charged with moving stolen goods and spent four years in prison. From 1988 to 1993 he was suspected of drug trafficking and even linked to a couple of underworld murders, but the police were unable to get any charges to stick. He was also linked to the death of his girlfriend, who was found stabbed to death in the apartment they shared in Tokyo. The last known sighting of Jun Saito was 1993, the night his girlfriend was murdered…until his body turned up in Little Tokyo four days ago.”
A petite redhead wearing an FBI T-shirt raises her hand. “Do they have the equivalent of our Witness Protection Program? Is it possible he turned on the Yakuza and was relocated?”
“Japan doesn’t have a formal witness protection program, but it’s possible he cooperated and officials helped him disappear.”
Another agent asks if Jun had any children.
“Not that we know of. However, we visited a young woman last night who Saito was making regular payments to, and she would be about the right age to be his daughter.”
Saito would have been nineteen years old when Mee was born.
“Was she born here?”
“Yes,” Petrov says. “I’m getting a complete dossier on her this morning, including copies of her birth certificate to see if paternity is disclosed. We’re also tracing her mother. This was Jun Saito’s first time in the States, so we’re looking into the movements of Mee Kim’s mother. Perhaps she vacationed in Japan or in a third country where they met.” Petrov pauses. “Another possibility is that Mee Kim was blackmailing Saito, but we should know more when we get the full file on Ms. Kim.”
Petrov looks around the room, waiting for any more questions on Mee Kim before moving on. “As Special Agent Ronaldo alluded to, it is possible Jun Saito turned informant and was given a new identity by his government. However, he would have needed to offer up some significant information for that to take place and we haven’t been able to track down any references to Saito as a prosecution witness.” Petrov takes a breath. “Another possibility is that Saito wanted out and went on the run from the Yakuza or that he actually managed to convince his father to let him leave the organization. It’s possible, given his father’s standing, that his exit was allowed.”
“So what are the Japanese police saying?”
“They had two theories. One was that he murdered his girlfriend and then went on the run. The other was that he was dead. Killed by the Yakuza. If they know any different, they’re not talking. At least, not to us.”
When no other questions come Petrov’s way, he introduces Ramos and me, explaining our roles and involvement in the case, before handing over to Ramos.
Ramos’s part of the briefing takes fifteen minutes, as he takes the task force through the key elements of the case, using the projection system to show a selection of crime-scene photos and Hart’s computer-generated re-creation regarding the parking-lot lights. He also shows them photos of Saito’s hotel room and takes them through some of the bank statements recovered from Saito’s laptop.
Once Ramos is done, it’s time to assemble the Saito “mini” task force and start dishing out the leads. Obviously not everyone in the L.A. Gang Impact Team will be working on Saito’s murder. In fact, Petrov will probably choose only a few. The others will continue with their current assignments, but now they’ll be aware of another layer of organized crime in L.A….and what might be about to happen. Payback in crime syndicates can go on for months, bouncing back and forth between the families or organizations. Even Melbourne, which is about one-third the size of L.A. County in terms of population and with one-fifth the homicide rate, had a spate of more than ten organized crime “hits” over a six-year period. And until these gangland hits, your average Melbournian was pretty much unaware that their city had such a thriving organized crime trade. While I doubt L.A. residents will be unaware of a war on the streets if that does come to pass, let’s hope that no innocent bystanders are hit in the cross fire.
Petrov singles out De Luca, Agent Kim and an ATF agent called Louis Williams before dismis
sing the rest of the group. The six of us make our way into a smaller meeting room to begin the real work. As we sit around the table I can’t help but notice that the group represents the racial diversity of L.A. While everyone except Petrov and I was born here, we’ve got the Italian background in Joe De Luca, Asians represented by Agent Kim, the Latino by Ramos and Louis Williams is African-American.
“Okay,” Petrov says. “I’ll be officially in charge of the Saito investigation from now on. De Luca, Kim and Williams, you know where we’re at from the briefing—any further questions?”
The three shake their heads.
“Agent Anderson, I presume you don’t mind doing some regular investigative work on top of your behavioral analysis?”
“Not at all. I’m still gathering data for the profile anyway.” Even though we now presume Saito’s killer is a hit man, I’ll still be able to draft an individual profile. Some elements will be characteristics of professional assassins, and some will be individual traits about our killer. The profile won’t be as useful as it is in some cases, but it should still help the investigation. At least now I’ll have access to enough information to complete a detailed victimology. I’d prefer not to have a fifteen-year gap in the victim’s history, but it’s a lot better than not even knowing his name.
“I’ll get you to work on the victimology first, okay?” Petrov must be reading my mind.
“Sure. I want to complete that broader ViCAP search as a priority but after that I’ll concentrate on the victimology. I’d like to look over that info on Mee Kim, too. And I might pay her another visit.”
Petrov writes it down in his notebook. “I’ll e-mail the file through as soon as it comes in.” He looks up. “And take Agent Kim when you visit Mee. It might help to have a fellow Korean-American there.”
“Great idea.” I give Agent Kim a little nod and she smiles.
Petrov moves to Ramos. “Where are you at?”
“I’ve got Singapore Airlines calling me back today. Call’s scheduled for ten-thirty.”
“Anything else?”
“Lab. We should have the final fingerprints lifted from the fence, bricks, mortar and loose bits of wood that were found around the body. Hopefully we’ll have some prints other than the victim’s that I can follow up, maybe even an AFIS match.”
“Okay.” Petrov looks up at De Luca, Kim and Williams. “I want you three to spend the morning going over the case file. Then you can team up with Anderson on the victimology, Kim. And De Luca and Williams can join me.” He turns to Ramos and me. “The three of us are going to concentrate on possible scenarios. We need to have a closer look at who might be behind the hit and why they targeted Saito. Then we can project the potential repercussions.”
De Luca, Kim and Williams all accept their assignments with a nod.
Petrov lays his pen down. “Any questions?”
We all shake our heads.
“Okay, I’ll leave you three here to work on the file.” He looks at Ramos. “Detective Ramos, you okay with working from a spare desk here?”
“Sure.”
“What about you, Anderson?”
“I’ll head downstairs for the moment, if that’s okay. I’ve got everything set up at my desk.”
Petrov nods. “Okay, but I’ll get two workstations set up here. Going forward, we should be together, and it’ll be useful to be working alongside the rest of the Gang Impact Team so we can easily pass on information. Particularly if this case takes a while.”
Back on the twelfth floor, I move quickly to my desk, barely stopping for a sociable nod as I pass my colleagues. Even Melissa and Mercedes only get a few seconds out of me. I want to talk to Mee at her school. Maybe interviewing her in a different environment will reap rewards. Certainly the FBI showing up at your workplace can be embarrassing, or at the very least dramatic. It might work to our advantage, with Mee wanting to give us more information just to get us out of there.
Once my computer’s fired up, I open up the ViCAP database and type my first set of parameters into the search boxes. This time I leave the MO and cause of death blank, focusing on the victim characteristics.
State: All
Victim race: Asian
Victim sex: Male
Victim age: 20–60
MO: Unknown
Signature: Unknown
Timeframe: Last 10 years
Keywords: Organized crime, gangs
I keep the victim age range large, wanting to cast a wide net, but the keywords will help narrow down the search. After about a minute, the ViCAP software comes back to me with one hundred matches. So we’re probably talking every Asian male killed in the past ten years who had ties or suspected ties to organized crime or gangs. It’s a large result, but not too overwhelming. I scan through the summary information for my first page of results. At page ten, I decide caffeine is in order. I don’t want to take the time out for a trip to the Westwood Village Starbucks for my favored caramel macchiato, so I settle with coffee from the floor’s kitchen.
I resume the search with fresh eyes and a cup of brewed coffee in hand. It’s not until I hit the seventy-sixth result that I find something that intrigues me. In New York in 2004, a high-ranking gang member by the name of Li Chow was killed. His face had been badly beaten, but the cause of death was asphyxiation. Saito also showed signs of asphyxiation, even though it wasn’t the cause of death. I click on the entry to see the full case details the New York cops entered into the system. They’ve taken the time to fill out most of the standard ViCAP questionnaire, and uploaded photos, so I’m working on a solid ViCAP entry, which is great.
When the first photo comes up, I’m shocked by his facial injuries. The man’s cheekbones and eye sockets have been so badly smashed that his eyes are no longer contained by his bone structures. Rather, they hang over his face, connected only by the optic nerve. Even though the wounds are different to Saito’s, the forensic pathologist was unable to determine what sort of weapon was used in the beating, just as in our case. Nor was he able to make an exact determination on what caused the asphyxiation, with no sign of strangulation. I look at the photo again, with a mixture of repulsion and curiosity. The damage to the facial bones is catastrophic. Yet the forensic pathologist noted the bruising was extremely localized as if maybe the damage was done with only one or two strikes, not repeated blows to the face.
Then it hits me—break the face, take the breath away…kung fu’s Ten Killing Hands.
Oh, no.
Eleven
I sit back in my chair and shake my head, processing the validity of my hypothesis. The Ten Killing Hands are a set of strikes developed by Wong Fei Hung in China as the most effective killing strikes. It boils down to ten principles: strike the eyes; stop the breath; break the face; explode the ears; crush the groin; twist the tendons; break the fingers; dislocate the joints; break the elbow; attack the nerve points. It’s nasty, but effective. And, in the hands of a trained practitioner, deadly.
One of the strikes used to break the face is the Double Back-fist targeted directly below the eyes—the aim is to blind your opponent by shattering their eye sockets so their eyeballs literally collapse over their face structure. Another option is a direct strike to the eyeballs, which usually causes permanent blindness. I look again at the photo of the New York victim, Li Chow—it fits.
And then we have the principle of taking the breath away, something that can be done in several ways. One of the Ten Killing Hands is the Dan Gwai, in which the attacker stops the blood flow to the brain by squeezing the neck and then dislocates or breaks the neck. In Jun Saito’s case, there was no dislocation or break in the neck, but the killer may have used a tiger strike to literally rip his throat out, after he’d already blocked the blood flow along the carotid artery.
If I’m right, we’re looking at a kung fu master, someone who’s skilled enough and creative enough to adapt the Ten Killing Hands. He’s deadly, and while his performance at the Little Tokyo scene tells us he’
s relatively skilled with a gun, he has no need for a weapon. He can kill in many different ways with his bare hands.
A small snippet of my dream from last night comes back…I was fighting someone trained in kung fu. Perhaps in the dream I was Jun Saito. Did Saito know any martial arts? He could have taken up his native tae kwon do or karate in honor of his Japanese heritage. In the dream I was punched in the ribs, and Saito’s rib was broken.
I bring my focus back to the killer…someone who’s trained in kung fu to an extremely high level—at least first or second dan, and probably sifu stage. Another idea pops into my head. Hollywood’s just around the corner—we could be talking about someone who’s a stunt double or even a choreographer on set. I punch Petrov’s cell number into my landline, but then hang up before it rings. It’s too early to run this by Petrov, or anyone else for that matter. I need to make sure this isn’t a coincidence and the best way to do that is to search ViCAP again, this time focusing on injuries that would be present if someone was using the Ten Killing Hands. More matches would substantiate my theory enough to present it to Petrov.
I start the new search, this time searching only on cause of death and injuries. I start with the first of the Ten Killing Hands, the Side Tiger Claw. In this technique the throat is crushed and the eyes are poked simultaneously. Out of the twenty matches I get, only one looks related—the 2004 murder in Chicago of Shen Chan. After I’ve printed out the full details of Chan’s murder, I move on to the next technique, the Double Back-fist. The technique is used to severely damage the opponent, to soften them up for the kill. It’s obviously something our killer could use to his advantage whenever he wanted, but Li Chow is the only result that matches the injuries a victim would sustain from this type of strike.
Next I search for indications of the Heaven Piercing Fist. This time I get two matches, one from 1996 and New York, and one from here in L.A. in 2002. To my shock, I notice that the New York victim survived, even though he also suffered one of the other Ten Killing Hands, the Tiger Leopard Fist, which bursts an opponent’s eardrums. The 2002 L.A. victim, Bao Tran, had two cracked ribs and a ruptured spleen. I print out both files and, despite my excitement about maybe finding a victim who lived to tell the tale, I put the files aside to continue with the search. I can’t afford to get sidetracked, not when I’ve got so much to do before visiting Mee this afternoon.