The Snakeheads

by Mary Moylum

  Grace stared directly at Nick. “Mr. Sing is tired. Not to mention he’s suffering from bad jet lag. He’s going to need a doctor if he doesn’t get some rest. If you look at his feet, they’re already swollen with edema from sitting on a plane too long.”

  “She’s right. You have to release my client now,” ordered Mr. Mulcahy.

  “I’ll post bond,” said Grace, looking at Nick. “We’ll take him to any hotel that you have in mind. We’ll continue this again tomorrow.”

  Nick and Dubois reluctantly assented. They could see the prisoner was very fatigued.

  Grace sat in the back of a police cruiser with Nick and Wa Sing. The lawyer had gone home. A second cruiser followed behind the prisoner’s.

  They rode in silence. Grace’s mind was racing. The information Wa Sing had provided about Sun Sui had stunned her. If Sun was a Red Prince, how could he think he would get away with claiming the Chinese government as his agent of persecution.

  Their first stop was at a nearby hotel. When Nick got out of the car to check with hotel management, Wa Sing quickly said, “Listen to me, Grace. There isn’t much time. Do you have a pen and paper? I’m going to give you a phone number. Call him and tell him about my situation.”

  Grace looked at him questioningly.

  “Never mind who the number belongs to. Write it down, quickly, before he returns.”

  After jotting down the number he told her and slipping the piece of paper into her shirt pocket, Grace looked out the window, keeping her eyes on Nick, who appeared to be having a heated exchange with the front desk clerk. She took the opportunity to ask a few questions of her own.

  “When we talked that day at the yacht club, were you doing it for yourself or for Sun?”

  “For you, Grace. This man is the lord of the Flying Dragons. He asked me to pass the message on. And Sun is a dangerous man. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill you.”

  Grace felt a sudden chill. She was silent for a long moment. So many thoughts were firing inside her head at once.

  “I wanted to protect you, Grace.”

  “Why did you get involved with criminals like Sun in the first place? Why did you do it?”

  The question seemed to take Wa Sing by surprise. He leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes. She thought she had lost him, but a moment later, he began to speak.

  “I knew what I was getting into, in a way. And in a way, I didn’t. You must understand, Grace, things are done differently in China. You can’t do business there or in Hong Kong until you find the right person. Or make the right contact. In Hong Kong, I knew I had met the right contact in Sun. He’d only been there for about a year, but you could tell that he was a real operator. I was very impressed with him. And he had the right contacts inside China.”

  “Did you know then that he was a triad member?”

  “Yes. When I met him, I had heard through various sources, that he was being groomed to take over the organization. Since he was anointed the Don, the tentacles of the Dragons now circle right around the globe. And they have legitimized themselves by partnering with clean companies.”

  Grace looked at him and nodded a little encouragement. “Back then when you met him, didn’t you realize that he was reeling you in?”

  “I wanted to be reeled in. The joint venture deals were huge. No way I could get them on my own. I was seduced by all that money that kept pouring in. For the first time in my life it started to sink in how much power is derived from the amount of money you have. After I signed the $145 million deal on that office tower in Hong Kong, and the British governor threw a party in my honour, I was hooked. The British prime minister was there. So was the French prime minister. Hollywood celebrities came out to shake my hands. The more I got, the more I wanted. It became a drug. And guess what?”

  Grace shook her head, keeping her eye on Nick.

  “The more deals I got, and the more money I made, the more he wanted. He started to expect big things from it.”

  “Like funnelling campaign contributions to political parties?”

  “Yes, I cooperated. And I did some other things for Sun that I’m not going to talk about right now. Not with you, Grace.”

  “Shhhh,” said Grace. “Nick’s coming back.”

  As Nick approached the car, Wa Sing suddenly squeezed her hand hard. “Grace,” he said in an urgent whisper. “If anything happens to me, look inside the red dragon in my house.” She darted a questioning look at him, but he had turned his head away.

  Leaning down to the car window, Nick said, “No deal here. Apparently they don’t want our business if it comes with round-the-clock security guards. The hotel’s under new management, trying to go upscale. We’re not the kind of business they’re trying to attract.”

  He gave the driver another address and got into the passenger seat beside him. The driver put the car in gear and they moved out into the evening traffic.

  Grace tried to think, but all she heard in her head was the roar of motorcycles in the distance.

  She loved the old man. He had worked with Sun Sui. He hadn’t known that the price to be paid for the gifts received would be so high. Neither had she. She gave Wa Sing’s hand a comforting squeeze.

  At the intersection, Grace turned toward the old man, and spoke in Mandarin.

  “The number you want me to call. Is that Sun’s number?”

  He turned and looked at her severely, silencing her with a sharp look of his eyes. Grace knew that he was telling her with his eyes that he was afraid for them both, and that some things were better left unsaid in the company of others. Even in a language their escort didn’t know. She could tell from the slight turn of Nick’s head in the seat in front that he had seen the exchange in the rear-view mirror. Not much was lost on him.

  At the next hotel on the list, Nick abruptly told Grace to get out of the car and accompany him. Wa Sing was left in the car, handcuffed to the door. The police officer got out from behind the wheel and walked away a few paces, lighting a cigarette.

  After the night manager of the hotel agreed to accept a guest who would be under armed guard, Grace and Nick walked out of the lobby together. Grace turned to him and said in a low, angry tone, “You know, there’s no need for you and your RCMP friend to belittle him like this. Treating him like a common criminal.”

  “We’re treating him the way we treat everyone,” said Nick, in a neutral tone.

  “Oh? He hasn’t been charged with anything. He’s got no criminal record, but you guys demeaned him. You took him down for fingerprinting. And if one set wasn’t bad enough you had to get two copies of his fingerprints. Talk about extreme humiliation, Nick.”

  “He should have thought of that before he ran like a common criminal.”

  The explosion knocked them flat on their backs on the sidewalk. For a minute they lay on concrete and bricks, stunned. Slowly they became aware of a ferocious fire in the prisoner’s car. The force of the explosion had shattered the glass panels at the front of the hotel and nearby buildings. As well, it shattered the car windows and windshield of the second police cruiser, and several cars parked nearby. An empty tour bus was also caught in the fiery explosion. It was like a scene out of Dante’s Inferno.

  Grace gaped in horror at the flames licking the first cruiser, Wa Sing was trapped inside. She screamed for him, ran towards the car, trying to save him. Nick pulled her back from the flames and the heat.

  “Call 911!” someone yelled.

  Nick dragged her back to the sidewalk, away from the acrid smoke. Dazed-looking survivors lay on the ground, covered in blood. A crowd was beginning to appear. The fire trucks were the first to arrive, but there was little they could do. In a matter of minutes, several police cruisers were on the scene followed by the wail of an ambulance. A cop shoved his way through the crowd of onlookers. Nick approached him with information. Grace remained sitting on the ground, too shocked to stand. A policewoman sat beside her, and attempted to comfort her.

  There was debris
spread over a fifty-metre radius. The entire crime scene took on a different personality when Nick became part of it. Within an hour, two RCMP officers had assembled several facts from witnesses in the area. The parking lot attendant next to the hotel described seeing a car and motorcycle parked across the street just before the explosion. When the lot attendant saw the flames shooting towards the sky, he simultaneously heard the roar of a motorcycle engine. The car and motorcycle turned eastward. Two passers-by also noticed the car and motorcycle. That was all the witnesses remembered. No distinguishing characteristics, no plate numbers.

  Nick approached the blanketed form of the chauffeur’s body, and knelt beside it. Then he slowly rose and walked toward the smoking wreckage of what was left of the car. He stood studying the wreckage for a long time before walking away.

  Finally he came over to Grace and put his arms around her. Her shock gave way to grief and she wept uncontrollably. Nick tried to comfort her. He felt her body tremble against his. Reporters were milling around them. He pushed them away, and led her into a car. She insisted that there was no need for her to go to the hospital but Nick could see that she was in no shape to take herself home. Instead, he took her back to his hotel room.

  Nick sat next to Grace on the bed and held her. “Do you know what this is all about, Grace?”

  “I thought I did. But now …” Her voice trailed off.

  “It’s about power. It’s about winning elections by fair means or foul,” said Nick. He stood and began pacing across the room, from the door to the window and back. “It’s about money,” he said in a tight, angry monotone. His voice rising, he went on, “Those with the big bucks to run a campaign win the elections. This is the great tradition of politics in the free world. It’s cloaked in fancy dinners, campaign contributions, owing favours to supporters and money men. It’s no longer about the best man winning. It’s those with the best connections who can reach those with the deepest pockets. We’re no better than Iran or Russia. Do you know what happens when we let rich men buy politicians, Grace?”

  She didn’t speak.

  He continued with his tirade. “Then they own them. The real bosses are the ones who funded their political campaigns. In this case, Wa Sing was killed because they wanted to keep him quiet. But it’s not about whose campaign he funded. That information is in the public record somewhere.” He turned to look at her. “I think, he was killed to keep quiet on what political favours were received in exchange for the money.”

  “Do you think he fronted for people like Sun?”

  “Yes. And for foreign governments like China and Russia. Probably did it through shell companies.”

  “Now we’ll never know what information died with him.”

  Grace thought of Wa Sing’s last words to her, not really sure what he had meant, but resolved to try and find out. She owed him that. She shuddered as she remembered his words that Sun Sui wouldn’t hesitate to kill her too, and she didn’t want to die. Wa Sing didn’t deserve to die like that.

  Nick watched a tear run down her cheek. He squeezed her hand and brushed it away with his lips, then kissed her. She returned the kiss, and they fell back together on the bed. The connection between them was immediate. His hands were in her hair, on her breasts, pushing up her dress. After they made love, Grace wept again for her old friend, as Nick held her in a tight embrace. Gradually she relaxed, and they fell asleep, entwined and exhausted.

  chapter twenty-seven

  The day after the bombing was day three of the hearing. Sun was dressed for victory in an expensive blue-grey tailored suit, gaudy diamond cufflinks, and a Rolex. He exuded confidence as he took his seat in the witness chair.

  Grace was angry and vengeful. She felt like an actor playing the part of a judge. No way she could forget what Wa Sing had told her about Sun before he died. Much of what he had told her was confirmed in Nick’s package of evidence. Her mind was made up as she took her seat on the bench, but she had to be careful about revealing her hand. Her strategy was to allow Verster to open with his examination-in-chief before she hijacked the examination from him. As Sun took the oath to tell the truth, Grace wondered how much coaching he’d had. He picked up his story where he had left off, describing his escape from his prison guards. But after last night, sitting in a hearing room and listening to Sun portraying his younger self as an idealistic young student seemed unreal. Her mind floated as if she was travelling through a dark tunnel. It was dangerous to do this, she could lose the thread of questioning.

  “Counsel, I’ve several questions of clarification to put to Mr. Sui before we move on to his time in Hong Kong.”

  Verster gave his consent reluctantly.

  Grace changed the tempo of the questions so that Sun wouldn’t have time to remember everything he’d said in the previous two hearings.

  “Mr. Sui, I want to take you back to the day of your escape while you were being transferred from one prison to another. In your narrative, your wife found the driver to drive the getaway car.”

  Sun Sui relaxed his posture, he nodded his head.

  “The driver of the getaway car stayed with you for a long time. Why did he risk his own safety to do that?”

  “I paid him well. Actually my family and my wife’s family paid him well.”

  “Still, money is one thing. And freedom from jail or capital punishment for abetting a felon is another. What’s his name?”

  “Li Mann Vu.”

  The man who had tried to kill her that night on the Parkway! Grace wondered if he had played a role in Wa Sing’s murder. She was sure that Sun Sui had ordered his death. The trick was to keep bias out of her language, tone of voice, and demeanour. She quickly jotted a few notes on the legal pad.

  “How did your wife find this Li Mann?”

  “I don’t know. I never asked her. I was just grateful that she found someone to help,” said Sun, studying his nails.

  Liar. Keeping an even tone she asked, “Li Mann Vu stayed with you in China and fled with you to Hong Kong. Am I right?”

  “Yes.” He shot her an angry look. He did not want to go through this door.

  Too bad. On the record she established his criminality through his association with Li Mann Vu.

  “I can understand why your wife would want to hide from the PSB. But why did she go to Fujian to be with her brother? Why not Shanghai?”

  “She’s only my wife in name. We’ve been estranged too long and divorce is frowned upon in my family. Jiang stayed with her brother in Fujian. As head of the port authority there, she thought he could protect her against other high level government officials.”

  Bingo! The Fujian connection was another nail in the coffin to his illegal smuggling activities.

  Verster quickly bent toward Sun to silence him. Turning to Grace, he asked, “Your Honour, may I ask where you are going with these questions?”

  “Bear with me, counsel.” Turning her attention back to Sun, Grace said, “On question 15 of your asylum application, you state your father-in-law’s occupation as army. You mean, the People’s Liberation Army?”

  “Yes.”

  Grace furiously leafed through pages of evidence. “In exhibit package 9, fourth paragraph down, it states that the corruption inside the People’s Liberation Army is terrible. In many regions, the army leaders and troops live in nice houses, drive new cars, and are flush with cash. Care to comment on that, Mr. Sui?”

  “It’s not that China is corrupt.”

  “No?” asked Grace, raising one eyebrow at him.

  “China has merely reverted to the old system of doing business. Everything is done on personal relationship and commission.”

  That jibed with what Wa Sing had told her. She reached for exhibit package 21 of Nick’s documentary evidence. “Given your family history, the documentary evidence states that you’re a Red Prince. You belong to that special class of children of well-connected former revolutionaries. In the new China, there is an emerging axis of power between Communis
t party officials, the army, the Red Princes, the taipans in Hong Kong, and triads. Would you agree with that?”

  “Yes, that’s quite true,” said Sun in a flash of arrogance.

  Obviously he enjoyed being a Red Prince. It was starting to jell. “That being the case, did you belong to the Flying Dragons at any time when you lived in Hong Kong or here in Canada?”

  “No.”

  “What the hell?” shouted Verster, jumping up from his seat. “Sun, don’t answer any more questions.”

  Grace had no intention of asking any more questions about triads. It was enough that she had opened the door for Nick. At the same time, Sun had perjured himself under oath. Gottcha on credibility. If Nick failed to make his case for whatever reason, she could always turn his asylum claim down, citing his failure to pass the credibility test. Wa Sing deserved that.

  Preparing a trap for Verster, she said, “Regarding the issue of exclusion, I’d hate to waste Mr. Slovak’s time by having him fly to Ottawa to canvas the claimant on his alleged criminal links to the Flying Dragons.” She paused.

  “I totally agree with you,” replied Verster.

  Good. Now she had him. “That being the case, I’d like Mr. Sui to submit his phone records going back to his arrival in Canada.”

  “What? Why should we submit phone records?” demanded Verster, nervously tapping a pencil on the table.

  Meeting Verster’s gaze, she answered, “The court needs to be satisfied that Mr. Sui doesn’t have criminal links with the Flying Dragons or with any other criminal organization. What better way than to produce phone records and examine who he communicates with. After all, we all want to save Mr. Slovak a trip up here.”

  When Verster realized that he had made an oversight, he said in a bullying tone, “I want it noted on the record that I strenuously object to this.”

  “So noted,” replied Grace, watching the busy movements while trying to eavesdrop on the constant whispered interchanges between Sun and his lawyer.

  After some time, Verster barked from his table, “Your Honour, phone records have nothing to do with this asylum case. Therefore we won’t be submitting any phone records.”