by Brian N. Cox
“Isn’t that a tropical city; won’t it be too hot in May?”
“No. The cool breeze coming off the South China Sea keeps the temperatures quite moderate. It is actually cooler in Sanya in July and August than in Chongqing,” replied Li Mei. “I guarantee you will like Sanya. It is Hawaii without all the tourist traps, although that will probably change eventually. Many Europeans, and even a few Americans and Canadians, go to Sanya in the winter. Most of the Europeans are Russian. In Sanya, you will be approached by local street vendors who will speak to you in Russian. They will assume we are a Russian couple.”
Sean and Li Mei went to bed early that night, but didn’t go to sleep until about four hours later. Despite the intense desire they had for each other, they made love slowly and repeatedly, both entirely uninhibited. If Sean had jet lag, he showed no sign of it although they both slept in the next day until eleven am, which was unusual for both of them. Although both Sean and Li Mei had worked many long nights throughout their respective careers, they were both actually morning persons who were usually ready to go at the crack of dawn.
They were too late for the hotel breakfast, but bought some jiaozi, dumplings filled with meat and vegetables, and baozi, pork filled white buns, from a street vendor before driving out to the old town of Ciqikou at the northwest outskirts of Chongqing.
“You are walking on a walkway that is probably a thousand years old,” said Li Mei. “All these buildings are hundreds of years old. Ciqikou is one of the few areas of Chongqing that escaped bombing by the Japanese during World War Two, or the War Against Japanese Aggression as it is known here.”
“I love the old style architecture,” said Sean. “It’s amazing that buildings that are hundreds of years old are still in use and in good shape.”
“Tomorrow I will take you to the museum honoring the American General Joe Stillwell. He is much beloved by the people of Chongqing as are the other Americans who helped us repel the Japanese. The famous Flying Tigers have a museum also, very close to the Stillwell museum. I won’t take you to the museum about the Japanese War however. I can’t bear to see those photos of Japanese soldiers playing catch with Chinese babies on their bayonets, and the beheading of grandfathers and grandmothers. I don’t want to talk about that era of our history.”
Sean didn’t pursue the conversation as he saw that Li Mei’s eyes were welling up with tears.
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That evening, Li Mei took Sean to a Hot Pot restaurant, famous in Chongqing as a mouth- watering delight in the region. Hot Pot, known in Chongqing as “Huo Guo”, is similar in style to fondue whereby vegetables and meat are put in a boiling hot, spicy broth. You can always tell if someone is from Chongqing or nearby Sichuan Province because they hold their chopsticks at the end so the boiling, bubbling hot pot broth doesn’t burn their hands.
After dinner, they sat on a bench together overlooking the Changjiang, which westerners call the Yangtze River. Although it was after dark, the opposite side of the river was brightly lit with numerous large, two and three story restaurants side by side for about a mile, each one so well lit the area looked like daylight. There were so many questions Sean had for Li Mei, he hardly knew where to start.
“There is so much more I want to know about you,” said Sean. “In some respects, you are very outgoing, but much of your life is secret.”
“That’s the nature of my job, as I’m sure you know. You too are not exactly an open book. You can ask me anything, Sean. As long as it is about me and not my job, I will answer truthfully.”
“I’ve often wanted to mention this, but I never did, probably because it is of little importance, just observations,” began Sean. “You are one of the most upbeat, positive persons I have ever met, always laughing and in good humor, yet when I see you walking down the street alone, you have a haughty, almost unfriendly look about you, as if you are sending a signal ‘Don’t approach me.’ I notice a lot of Chongqing women look this way.”
“I can’t speak for other women, but I don’t feel the way you describe my appearance,” replied Li Mei. “I am always in a good mood. I may be concerned or even worried about something, but I am never depressed.”
“Another thing I wanted to mention,” said Sean. “I have difficulty reading your face. When you are concerned about something, serious about a situation, or angry about something, I don’t see that reflected in your face. Is that part of your training as an Intelligence Officer, or have you always been like that?”
“Hiding my feelings and emotions is something I developed both from training and experience. There is no benefit in my line of work letting people around you know how you feel or what you are thinking.”
“I am not complaining,” replied Sean. “I love your normal look…rather sexy with a hint of a smile. I am sure I am not the first man whose heart you have melted.”
Li Mei just laughed at that remark but didn’t reply.
“All I can say,” continued Sean, “I sure wouldn’t want to play poker with you.”
“Poker. I have heard of that game. I hope you will teach me to play some day.”
“Ha! Now you are playing me,” Sean laughed. “Bill Dowey told me you wiped everyone out two evenings in a row at the meeting you were at when the assassination took place in Minneapolis.”
“Oh, oh! I guess I won’t be able to get you to contribute money to my vacation fund,” Li Mei laughed.
After they both stopped laughing, Sean said, “Let me change the subject a minute. You have told me that the language of Chongqing is Mandarin but it does not sound like the Mandarin I have heard you and Gary using. The language here is much harsher and people talk very loud.”
“Gary and I were talking the national dialect of Mandarin, which is called Putonghua. Here, they are talking in the Mandarin local dialect. It sounds different but it is all Mandarin so everyone can communicate well enough to be understood. Everyone in Chongqing can also speak Putonghua, but most people still retain the local accent. It is no different than America where the accents of Seattle, Boston and Alabama are quite different. There are probably hundreds of dialects of Mandarin throughout China differing primarily in pronunciation and a handful of phrases.”
“You are right,” continued Li Mei, “that the people here talk very loud. I didn’t notice it growing up here, but since I have lived in other places, I realize now how loud they talk. It is as if the person they are talking to is twenty yards away. I have no idea why they do this. The traditional urban dwellers don’t yell when they talk but it is quite pronounced amongst the migrant workers who move in from the rural areas.”
“I will never grow tired of listening to you,” said Sean. “There is so much I want to know about China and so much I want to know about you.”
“We have talked about me, now, how about you. I had previously assumed that FBI agents would be of the view that your country and your government could do no wrong, but having spent time with you and Gary, you both seem quite cynical.”
“I love my country but it is run by a bunch of idiots,” replied Sean. “I believe politicians are, for the most part, self-serving, incompetent liars. Of course I suppose they can’t be blamed for their incompetence and stupid decisions because there are no qualifications required for their jobs, other than getting more votes than the other guy.”
“I think there is no country that has discovered a system of government that actually works as well as it should,” said Li Mei.
“True, but the scary thing is that no one is looking to improve it. I’d feel a lot better if there was some think tank in the US researching to discover or create a better system. Anyway, I’m apolitical and will leave that to others. I love my job and always do it to the best of my ability.”
“Yes, I have observed that about you and that is one of the reasons I love you,” said Li Mei. “You have the integrity and fire in your system that I hope I have in myself.”
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The day after visiting the museums, they awoke to a dark cloud cover and light rain began to fall as they drove to the Jiangbei Airport. At eleven am their Airbus 711 took off and Sean and Li Mei flew down to the tropical resort city of Sanya on Hainan Island and booked into the Holiday Inn on Yalong Bay which was rated as a five star hotel. On the first day, Li Mei took Sean to see the giant white Buddha built offshore, and in the evening, they walked along the seaside boardwalk until they decided upon a restaurant from about fifty side-by-side outdoor restaurants on the boardwalk. Eating fresh seafood under the stars allowed them time to relax after walking almost all day. In the open-air restaurant they selected, a singer from the Philippines was the main entertainment and both Li Mei and Sean thought she was excellent.
“Even though this is a Chinese city,” said Sean, “I notice that most of the people on the beaches are white people. Where are the Chinese tourists?”
“Most of the people on beaches are Russians,” replied Li Mei. “The Chinese people don’t like exposure to the sun. Melanoma cancer is very rare here. I never go out in the sun for any length of time without a wide brimmed white hat, sometimes even long sleeves. I do love the warm weather however. I love to come here in the winter.”
“This is a place I could get used to living,” said Sean. “It is as beautiful at night as it is during the day, and if you love seafood, it would be hard to beat this place.”
“I love Hainan Island and have often thought of retiring here. It is as beautiful as Hawaii but much less expensive. Maybe we can retire together here,” said Li Mei with a big smile.
“Now that’s a plan I can go for, although retiring anywhere is OK as long as you are with me.”
The next day, after breakfast at the hotel, they joined a group practising Yang Style taijiquan near the seaside for forty minutes and then spent the morning walking on the water’s edge of the white sand beach. As noon hour approached dark clouds rolled in from the west and it started to drizzle. Subsequently, they chose a secluded little indoor restaurant where they could talk in privacy. Most Chinese restaurants are set up with tables for eight or ten people and the resulting noise from each table doesn’t allow for private conversations, but this restaurant had only tables for two and four.
Due to their occupations, whenever Li Mei or Sean ate in a restaurant, each wanted to sit with their back to the wall so they can see everyone entering the restaurant. When they first dated in Seattle, they both tried to take the seat with their back to the wall, which became a private joke between them. Subsequently, unless there was a specific reason for one of them needing this seat against the wall, they took turns. Today it was Li Mei’s turn to take the seat which allowed a view of the other patrons in the restaurant.
It wasn’t long before she noticed a man who was familiar to her sitting at a table in the corner talking to another man she did not know.
“Don’t turn around, Sean, but sitting at the far corner table to my right is one of the most corrupt politicians in the country. He is probably more the concern of the Ministry of Public Security, but we are all well aware of him at State Security,” said Li Mei.
“His name is Chan Meng and he is Deputy Party Secretary in Beijing,” she continued. “I don’t understand how he has survived this long without being arrested; he must have very powerful friends.”
“Is he sitting alone or is he with other people?” enquired Sean.
“He is sitting with a large middle-age man I have never seen before.”
“You’re on holidays, Li Mei. Besides why do you care about a corrupt politician? That is not your area of responsibility is it.”
“No, you’re right, Sean. I’m sorry; I will give you my undivided attention,” replied Li Mei with a big smile that almost melted Sean’s heart.
“Li Mei, I know you too well; once a cop, always a cop. You want to identify the man he is talking to, so let’s follow them when they leave. It will be easy; everyone will think we are a Russian couple of which there are thousands around here. Before coming here, I didn’t realize how many Russians there were who looked Chinese in their appearance.”
The previous evening while at the seaside outdoor restaurant, a group of what appeared to be six Chinese sat at a table nearby. When the waitress came to their table and asked them what they would like to order in Chinese, not one person at the table could speak Chinese, they all spoke only Russian.
“Yes, many eastern Russians look Chinese. A political border doesn’t change a person’s ethnicity,” said Li Mei. “Thanks, Sean. We won’t spend all day following him, but if we can identify him easily, I’ll pass on the information to my office by email.”
About thirty minutes later, when Li Mei and Sean were half through their meal, Chan Meng left the restaurant by himself. The other man, well dressed in designer clothes, who looked to be about fifty, a large man with a stocky build and a shaved head, sat looking impatient. About five minutes after Chan left, the man looked at his watch and then got up and left the restaurant.
Shortly thereafter, Sean and Li Mei left and followed him down the street which bordered the beach.
“It was quite obvious that they didn’t want to be seen together,” said Li Mei. “He was just waiting in the restaurant for sufficient time for Chan to leave the area.”
“I agree. That would be my guess,” said Sean.
At that moment the unknown man turned around very quickly and looked at the people who were behind him. Li Mei and Sean were too experienced at counter-surveillance to be caught looking suspicious. Besides, there were at least fifteen people between them and the man.
“Look he’s crossing the street and unlocking the door of that light blue Mercedes.”
Once again, the man looked around behind him to see if anyone was showing an undue interest in him.
“I got a couple of good shots of him when he looked around behind him,” said Li Mei. “Also got the license plate.”
Immediately thereafter, Li Mei and Sean hailed a taxi and went to the local police station. Sean remained outside while Li Mei entered the station and asked to speak to the officer in charge. About twenty minutes later, she emerged from the police station and met Sean on the sidewalk.
“Sorry to keep you waiting Sean. The man’s name is Fong Lei, and he lives in Beijing. He has no police record, and there is nothing on file about him. He owns a successful travel company; that’s about all they know about him. I have his photo and info on my phone.”
“I assume you have passed this info off to your office so now we can relax and enjoy the rest of the week here; maybe even two weeks. I could get used to living here with the palm trees, white sand beaches and warm weather.”
“Yes, my time is all yours now, Sean. Let’s go back to the hotel. You’re just too handsome to resist,” laughed Li Mei as she squeezed Sean’s hand.
Unfortunately for both of the lovers, they would not be together for long.
CHAPTER TWO
Deputy Party Secretary Chan Meng sat on the large white and gold sofa in his luxurious Beijing apartment. The living room was decorated in Louis XIV furnishings, with white marble tables, exquisite chandeliers and antique French ornaments.
“Have you packed my bags yet? Hurry up,” he yelled to his wife Zhang Mei.
“I am not your slave. They will be ready when they are ready,” replied Zhang Mei.
Chan Meng and Zhang Mei had been married for twenty years but the honeymoon was long over. Zhang Mei, a prominent lawyer, had long ago discovered that Chan Meng was a man she coul
d not love, respect or trust. He made no effort to hide his philandering lifestyle and one could not use the word “integrity” in the same sentence as Chan Meng. She often wondered how he had managed to climb so high in the Communist Party of China; did not his colleagues see his numerous shortcomings? She herself was a member of the CPC and admired many of the reformers who were rising in the Party, but she never discussed politics with her husband. In fact, they had very little dialogue. Like most members of the CPC, she was not a communist idealist but only joined the Party to enhance business opportunities. Their son was an adult now, studying at Harvard University in the USA, and Zhang Mei and her husband lead separate lives and had different interests. She had considered divorce, but the legal and financial complications involved put divorce on the back burner. Chan Meng did not want a divorce even though his home life was anything but ideal. His position in the Party depended, in part, on the appearance of a stable married life, and since his married life didn’t interfere with his freedom and his many lovers, he was quite content with the status quo.
