The Chinese Woman: Mystery Assassin: A Spy Mystery Thriller: Li Mei Spy Action Series (The Chinese Woman: Li Mei Spy Action Series Book 3)

by Brian N. Cox

  Paquette got on the elevator with the woman and they proceeded up to the third floor in silence. The building was very impressive as no expense had been spared in the décor and furnishings. The woman who identified herself as Rhona led him down a long hallway, through a glass door in the middle of the hallway and then into an office, that while very well appointed, had no windows and only one door.

  “My name is Rhona Lu, Mr. Paquette, and if you would be kind enough to tell me why you are here, I would be more than happy to help you.”

  “The reason I am here is very confidential and can only be discussed with a member of your State Security.”

  “We have State Security representatives in our Embassy in Washington, for the purposes of liaising with your CIA and FBI, but none assigned to our business Consulates.”

  Paquette was not put off by this roundabout conversation. It was exactly what he expected.

  “You told the receptionist you were FBI, do you mind showing me your credentials?”

  “Not at all,” replied Paquette, as he handed Ms. Lu his identification and badge.

  “And may I ask what you do in the FBI?”

  “I am the Supervisory Special Agent in charge of Counterintelligence in Seattle.”

  “Counterintelligence you say. I imagine that is very interesting work,” replied Ms. Lu as she returned the identification to Paquette with a smile.”

  “You realize, of course,” she continued, “that your FBI co-workers know you are here despite your casual clothing. We must assume the Consulate is under constant surveillance as the American government wrongly assumes we are some type of enemy or threat to them.”

  “Yes, they know I am here, at least I presume they do. My visit was cleared by Washington.”

  “So, what is your purpose Mr. Paquette? Are you here to pretend you want to help us but instead learn all our secrets?” laughed Ms. Lu.

  “Yes, that is exactly right,” replied Paquette beginning to assume that Rhona Lu was a State Security agent.

  “And do you think this plan will work?” Ms. Lu continued smiling.

  “No, of course not. The plan originated with me, but I have my own agenda.”

  “And what is that agenda Mr. Paquette?” she asked looking more serious.

  “I have a large gambling debt that I can’t pay off and I am in desperate need of money.”

  “And you think your plan will result in us giving you money?”

  “Yes I do,” replied Paquette, feeling less nervous and regaining some confidence.

  “Although I know nothing about security work, if I was to enter a foreign embassy and suggest I was prepared to provide secret information about my employer, I too would use the gambling debt ruse to justify the need for money because the debt cannot be traced,” said Ms. Lu.

  “That is exactly why I chose the gambling debt idea, even though it is true.”

  “It seems like we are at an impasse, Agent Paquette, but I am curious about your admitting to this rather obvious scenario.”

  “It will be very easy to determine if I am being truthful with no risk to you. You merely have to allow me to provide you with information about FBI Counterintelligence, and if it is not true, then we merely end our relationship. If you determine the information is of value then we can discuss financial rewards.”

  “And how do we determine if you information is genuine?” asked Ms. Lu.

  “Well I can only provide this information to a State Security agent.”

  “Have no fear,” Agent Paquette, “I am authorized by the Consul-General to deal with security matters.

  Paquette had no doubt now that Ms. Lu, although probably not her real name, was an Agent of the Chinese Ministry of State Security.

  “I’ll take you at your word, Ms. Lu,” said Paquette as he hesitated for a few seconds. “The second floor meeting room that faces west, where Consulate staff often hold meetings, is bugged by the FBI. We can hear and record everything that is said.”

  Paquette found it interesting that Ms. Lu showed no surprise, in fact, her face betrayed no emotion whatsoever.

  “We sweep that room regularly. I think we would have found a bug if one was present. Our staff are quite efficient in the field of electronics.”

  “I suspect the reason you have not found it,” continued Paquette, “is that it can be turned on and off remotely. When our surveillance people hear anything that could be de-bugging activity, the device is turned off; it is only turned on during meetings. It is placed near other metal fixtures so that a metal detector would be of no value.”

  “Agent Paquette; today is Wednesday, would it be convenient for you to return on Friday, perhaps 10am, for a further discussion?” said Ms. Lu, still betraying no emotion.

  “Excellent, I will see you then. I presume you will want to escort me to the front door; Oh, and by the way, if you discover one bug, don’t stop looking. There are two,” said Paquette.

  Although Ms. Lu still betrayed no surprise or any other emotion in her face, she was in fact surprised to hear this. Fourth Bureau agents had in fact found the bug in that room about six months ago. They did not remove it, but instead left it in place so the meetings could be used to supply the FBI with disinformation. After all, providing false information is more valuable than providing no information. How could the technicians have missed the second bug, if in fact it existed?

  If agent Paquette was trying to convince me of his potential value, thought Ms. Lu, he certainly succeeded, at least if a second bug is found in the room.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Li Mei, this is your favourite cousin from Beijing. Call me ASAP, Xiao Li is getting married,” was the recorded message on Li Mei’s land line in her apartment.

  This was an instruction to phone her boss, Wang Xu, in Washington on a secure line. Wang Xu was the Senior Supervisory Agent in the US for the Chinese Ministry of State Security. Li Mei liked him and moreover, respected his integrity and ability. When Wang Xu asked her to do something, she knew it was very important. It was Wang Xu who had interrupted her original assignment to abduct a Triad killer and return him for trial in Shanghai, and instead go to Barbados which turned out to be of much more importance, although not of more importance personally to Li Mei.

  Li Mei, using her specially designed secure cell phone, made the call immediately.

  “Wang Xu, this is Li Mei.”

  “Li Mei, there has been an interesting event in San Francisco. A FBI agent went to the Consulate and indicated he was prepared to provide us with secret information about FBI Counterintelligence operations.”

  “And what was his motivation to do this?” enquired Li Mei.

  “Money, of course.”

  “And do we trust him?”

  “No, of course not. You can never trust a traitor, however, his information may be of value to us if, in fact, it proves to be true.”

  “What do you want me to do, Wang Xu?”

  “He is stationed in Seattle where you are. I want to you to investigate his background and put him under constant surveillance. We want to determine if he is spying on us or is actually assisting us. As you know, knowledge is the most powerful weapon.”

  “My official assignment from Beijing was to gather intelligence on the Mei Hua Triad, and to assist the Americans in this regard. Am I to be reassigned to this Paquette?”

  “No, no Li Mei. The Mei Hua takes priority. You can assign your people to check out Paquette. You just oversee them.”

  “Do we know anything about him now?” said Li Mei.

  “As a matter of fact, we have a file on him. He has been assigned to FBI Counterintelligence for about seven years, and before that, to Criminal Investigations. At present, he is the Supervisory Special Agent in charge of Counterintelligence in Seattle. We have assessed him as being an untrustworthy person of limited integrity, so the fact he wants to betray his own country in return for money is not altogether surprising. He has been in contact with the Seattle Mafia from time
to time, so if he has gambling debts as he claimed, they are probably his creditors.”

  “OK, Wang Xu. I will get my people on this tomorrow. Did you send me Paquette’s file?”

  “It will be in your office tomorrow morning.”

  The company known as “CAC EnvironTech” in Seattle was located on the second floor of a fairly new building housing a Chinese restaurant on the first floor. The company, usually referred to only as “CAC”, had several interior offices with a staff of about twenty-five, most of who were out of the office most of the time. The CAC company didn’t do any environmental research as it was actually a front company for the Chinese Ministry of State Security, and all staff members, except for the receptionist, were trained secret agents, most with the Second Bureau involved in espionage and similar activities, and two with the Fourth Bureau, experts in technical and electronic research, surveillance and equipment.

  Li Mei had an office at CAC where she was senior agent in charge of the Economic Crime Department, which was primarily concerned with the operations of the more sophisticated Triads, in particular, the Mei Hua Triad, whose disarming name was translated into English as “The Plum Blossom Society”. The Chinese government was very concerned about the economic crime engaged in by the Mei Hua and other high-end Triads as they were powerful enough to actually harm the economy of China. In the last year or so, the government was also concerned about the harm they could do to the economies of China’s customers, like the USA. A country in recession or depression cannot buy Chinese products nor can they manufacture products that China needs. Ten years ago, there was no Economic Crime Department; now it was considered an important division of the State Security Apparatus.

  Sharon Toy, the receptionist at CAC was a very attractive young Chinese American woman, twenty-three years of age. She was a graduate of the University of Washington and was sufficiently fluent in Mandarin to converse with her co-workers. She was actually more fluent in Cantonese as her parents had emigrated from Hong Kong before she was born. She could not read or write Chinese, which applied to the majority of Chinese born in America, but preparing or filing reports was not part of her job. She actually thought CAC was involved in environmental research. She knew that Li Mei was in the U. of W. PhD program in Anthropology, and was told that her specialty was to study the effect of the environment on indigenous people. Li Mei had, in fact, a degree in Anthropology from Yale and was working on her PhD at the University of Washington, however, her duties left little time for research and studies. Nevertheless, it provided an excellent cover while she travelled frequently to conduct “research”.

  The building consisted of two stories and the Ministry of State Security owned the building including the restaurant on the first floor. Subsequently, there was no chance of electronic surveillance penetrating their office and attempts at physical surveillance would be detected immediately. Hidden surveillance cameras covered every square foot of the restaurant and the area outside the building on all sides.

  Li Mei studied the electronic file she had received from Wang Xu regarding FBI agent Gordon Paquette. There were several surveillance photos of him which she included in the paper file she created. She noted he was quite a handsome man but his face usually revealed an appearance of arrogance in most of the photos.

  She didn’t know if Sean and Gary knew him, as they worked in difference Divisions of the Seattle Field Office, on separate floors, but assumed they would have crossed paths, at least in the FBI cafeteria. Since Sean was now the ASAC, second in charge of the entire Field Office, there is no doubt that Paquette would know of him.

  Within a few minutes, she called in her assistants, Stan Wong and Jeff Feng, who headed up the Second Bureau surveillance team and explained that she wanted a background investigation on Paquette and to have him kept under constant surveillance 24-7 until further notice. Both the agents were eager for this assignment as they preferred the challenge of an investigation and mobile surveillance to the more mundane chore of sitting listening to phone taps or watching Mei Hua Triad members come and go from one of their front companies.

  Neither of these agents realized how important their surveillance would be, not only to Li Mei, but also to another large organization.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Hi Sean. This Al Watson from Seattle Homicide,” said the caller to the FBI Criminal Investigation Division office.

  “Hey Al, good to hear from you. What’s up?”

  “We have a homicide case where the offender has crossed State lines. He committed the same offence in Oregon and here, so we are going to turn it over to you.”

  “Are you sure about this or is this just another attempt to dump a case on us?” laughed Sean.

  “Now would I do that?” replied Captain Watson, also laughing. “Actually, it’s those three sexual assault killings we’ve had over the past month and a half. We just found out that about two months ago, he did the same thing near Portland.”

  “Yes, I saw those in your bulletins. Got a lot of newspaper coverage although no details.”

  “One thing Sean, the two detectives working the case want to stay on and work with you. Is that possible?”

  “How good are they Al?”

  “Probably my best team. They hate to drop a case unresolved.”

  “That’s a refreshing attitude. Well, I’d never turn down help from a couple of bright eager beavers. No problem; we can form a joint task force for the case.”

  “Thanks Sean. Is tomorrow morning convenient for you to meet with them? I can send them down to your office with a copy of the file. Their names are Rick Gonzalez and Rita Tessier.”

  “Tomorrow morning is good. I’ll have a couple of agents assigned to the case.”

  The next morning, Sean sat in one of the Board Rooms with Special Agent Diane Swanson, who had worked for Sean in New York on the Counterterrorism Division, and Special Agent Luke Zibotsky, a relative newcomer to the FBI, only out of the Academy a few months.

  Swanson had served six years on the Miami-Dade Police, including a couple of years as a self-defense instructor, before joining the FBI. She was a tall, very attractive woman with long blond hair, who kept herself very fit. She was one of the agents who had been assigned to the al-Qaeda case in New York under Sean’s supervision, and Sean had realized she was an above-average agent in every way. Originally, she had been a little too physically aggressive, but now that she had matured as an agent, she realized that successful results were almost always achieved using less aggressive more well-thought out methods. Although she had never actually met Li Mei, she certainly knew who she was and what she had accomplished in New York. Li Mei was almost a folk hero amongst certain agents in the FBI Counterterrorism Division but no one other than the agents working on the al-Qaeda case knew of her existence.

  Luke Zibotsky, born and raised in Los Angeles, was only three months out of the Academy so Sean had not yet formed an opinion as to his potential. So far, however, he hadn’t done anything stupid and appeared to be both methodical and conscientious in performing his duties. This would be a good case for him to develop his investigative skills and he undoubtedly could learn something from Swanson and the two Seattle Detectives. Zibotsky had a law degree from USC but didn’t wait to be called to the bar before joining the FBI. His father was retired from the LAPD and Luke had always dreamed of a career in law enforcement.

  Swanson had already had occasion to work with Seattle Police detectives, and with a few exceptions found them to be quite competent. Although she hadn’t worked with Gonzalez and Tessier, she knew of their reputation as innovative, hard-working investigators who had a solve rate much higher than the average on the Homicide Bureau. They also prepared their cases well and submitted reports that made it smooth going for the ADAs who prosecuted their cases.

  “Now that we’ve all been introduced,” said Sean, “and have our coffees in front of us, before I’ll ask one of our visitors from the Seattle P.D. to give us an overview of the case, I w
ant to lay down the ground rules.”

  “Since it’s now a FBI case, Special Agent Diane Swanson will be the lead investigator and I will be working only in an advisory capacity. This has been designated an official Joint Task Force, so Rick and Rita, I don’t want you to think you are working for Diane and the rest of us, but with us.” Sean emphasized the word “with”. We don’t have a spare office at the moment, so your desks are in the open office area with most of the other CID agents. You will have to sign confidentially agreements as you may overhear things that are classified.”

  “I’ll have some copies of your report made so we can all read them, but for now, let’s hear an overview of the case and the investigation,” continued Sean.