by Brian N. Cox
Fong and Wang seemed satisfied and put their guns back in the holsters, turned around and returned to the front gate.
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The girls were assembled when Li Mei arrived at the back room. The security guard, Li, was watching them looking as threatening as he was the previous two days. Fong followed Li Mei to the room and said,
“I hope the makeup won’t make the girls look older than they are. That is exactly what we don’t want.”
“I understand perfectly,” replied Li Mei. “If anything, the techniques I am teaching them will make them look younger….very attractive but definitely not older.
“Good, good. I will see you at lunch time,” said Fong as he turned and walked back to Wang’s office.
As Li Mei put her bag of beauty products on the table, she scanned the group of children and saw that number seven, Director Duan’s granddaughter, was not there.
She walked over to Li and said in a low voice, “Where is number seven? She is missing.”
“Chan Meng took her away,” said Li, not realizing that Li Mei had never been told of Chan Meng’s involvement in the brothel operation.
“When, where did they go?” said Li Mei.
“Mister high and mighty doesn’t confide in me,” said Li, showing his dislike for Chan Meng, the former Deputy Party Secretary of Beijing.
“He went into her room around ten o’clock to fuck her, then he took her away. That really pissed me off as it was number seven’s turn to give me a blowjob this morning. Now I guess it will be number eight’s lucky day,” Li said with a laugh.
Li Mei laughed at this, but thought at the same time, “You disgusting pig. You have just signed your own death warrant.”
Li Mei proceeded to teach the girls about hair styling until eleven ten, at which time she reached into her beauty bag with both hands. Out of sight in the bag, she held a Glock 12 handgun in her right hand and screwed on a noise suppressor with her left hand.
She drew the gun out of her bag unseen by Li as her body blocked his view. The girls, however, saw the gun and looked even more terrified than usual, but not one of them uttered a sound. Li Mei turned and pointed the gun at Li.
The muffled sound of two shots could only be heard by the girls in the room. Li dropped dead on the floor with a double tap in his forehead.
Li Mei turned to the girls and said, “Walk to your rooms quickly and lie on the floor under your beds. The police will be here soon to save you.”
No one moved until Li Mei said, “Go! Go!” Then all the girls quickly ran to their rooms without uttering a word, as Li Mei had instructed.
Now, Li Mei walked quickly down the hall to the front door of the brothel while removing the noise suppressor and putting it into the left pocket of her jacket. She walked noiselessly in her running shoes so she thought she could surprise the doorman.
When she arrived at the front door, the doorman turned to look at her. Whether he had ultra-sensitive hearing or it was just a coincidence, Li Mei did not know. She raised her gun and fired a shot into his chest. He tried to raise his AK47 but was unable to do so, but fired off a burst that went into the floor. Li Mei shot again, this time hitting him in the head. She then put her gun in her right pocket and slid the big deadbolt unlocking the front door.
She immediately turned and ran back down the hallway just as Fong and Wang emerged from the office in response to the gunfire, both with guns in their hands.
“The police! The police!” Li Mei yelled.
Upon hearing this, both Fong and Wang quickly turned, went in the office and into the closet and down the stairs to the escape route, with Li Mei following right behind.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Sean and Gary were very alarmed to hear the automatic gunfire and they ran for the gate as the SWAT agent blew the gate open with his anti-tank gun. They closed their eyes and shielded their faces as the blast obliterated the gate but didn’t break their pace. Both of them outpaced the SWAT officers, which was very unusual but they were highly motivated to reach the brothel door as fast as they could.
“Oh god,” thought Sean. “If Li Mei is dead that doorman is not going to live to see the inside of a courtroom.”
Gary was thinking the exact same thing, but like Sean, he said nothing aloud.
They found the front door unlocked so obviously Li Mei had been able to slide the deadbolt open. There was no sign of Li Mei, in fact there was no sign of anyone except for the dead doorman with blood on this chest and face.
Suddenly, three men came running down the stairs to the left from the second floor. All had guns in their hands. Two SWAT officers immediately shot the first man with a burst of automatic gunfire from their M4’s. Seeing this, the other two threw their guns down and raised their hands yelling something in Chinese that Sean could not understand.
A fourth man appeared at the top of the stairs, unarmed with his hands up and was quickly overpowered by SWAT agents who were running up the stairs.
The agents quickly checked every room on both floors and were declared “clear”, except for the children in their rooms, half of whom were lying on the floor under their beds. Gary and the two Mandarin speaking agents coaxed the girls out of the rooms with some difficulty, but they eventually all came out looking terrified, some crying uncontrollably.
Special Agent Zhang announced to the girls in Mandarin, “We are the American police and we are your friends. No one will hurt you. We will take you back to your families. They love you very much and want you to come home.”
The girls were apprehensive but the message was so welcome, the girls who were crying were able to stop or at least reduce it to quiet sobbing. All four female agents hugged the girls and told them in Mandarin “You are safe now,” a phrase that had been taught to the non-Chinese agents at the morning briefing. Gary held back as he believed it would be too traumatic being hugged by a male at this point in time.
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“Follow me,” yelled Li Mei. “There are a few houses over here. We may be able to steal a car.”
The nearest car was a gold Hyundai Elantra which all three ran for as fast as they could. Li Mei found the car unlocked and got in behind the wheel. Wang got in the front passenger seat and Fong into the back seat behind Li Mei. A key was in the ignition so she didn’t have to hot wire the car, and she sent stones flying to the rear as she sped away at top speed. There were a few large expensive houses, widely spaced apart, to their right and a forest to their left.
They had only gone about two-hundred yards when the road curved to the right and about a fifty yards ahead, the police had set up a road block. There was a Kings County Sheriffs car blocking the road with its roof lights flashing red and blue. Also blocking the road was a black sedan, obviously an unmarked police car with a red dash light flashing. Manning the road block were four uniform officers, two of whom held rifles in their hands.
Li Mei braked the car and slid to a stop while Fong immediately jumped out and ran into the forest. Li Mei had no intention of letting him get away so she jumped out of the driver’s seat and chased Fong into the wooded area.
As she chased Fong into the forest she realized that he probably didn’t know she was chasing him but assumed she is also trying to escape.
“Fong Lei! Wait! I know a way out of this forest. The cops won’t find us.”
Hearing this, Fong ground to a halt, breathing heavily from the unaccustomed exertion. He turned to Li Mei only to find her gun pointing at his chest.
“What’s going on? Who are you? What are you doing?” he said in a completely confused state.
“I am State Security and I am taking you back to China. They will know how to deal with you there.”
Fong looked both crestfallen and panic stricken. Returning to China in the custody of State Security was about the worst thing he could imagine.
Li
Mei disarmed Fong and made him walk ahead of her as they walked back to the road. As they emerged from the forest two Sheriff’s deputies saw them and pointed their firearms at Fong and Li Mei.
“I surrender,” yelled Fong in English. “I surrender,” his hands straight up over his head as he yelled for the second time. Fong knew this was a stroke of luck. He would much rather take his chances with the American criminal justice system than return to Beijing in the custody of State Security. He breathed a sigh of relief as the officers put both Fong and Li Mei in handcuffs.
The officers took them to the roadblock and put Fong in the unmarked police car where Wang was already sitting in handcuffs. As the black car drove away with their prisoners, one officer took the handcuffs off Li Mei, returned her gun without a word, got into the marked car, and drove off leaving Li Mei standing on the road.
At that moment, a man with a familiar face got out of the passenger side of a maroon colored car parked nearby.
“Greetings, Lao Wu,” said Li Mei. “Things seemed to have worked well today.”
Lao Wu appeared to be a man in his late fifties, muscular and solidly built with a salt and pepper crew-cut. Even though he was a senior member of the Mei Hua Triad, he and Li Mei had developed trust between them. He had saved Li Mei’s life in New York and she had not forgotten it. Of course he hadn’t done this due to his affection for Li Mei, but because her death would not have been in the best interests of the Mei Hua. Nevertheless, there was a tenuous bond between them.
“Were they real police officers?” Li Mei asked.
“It doesn’t matter. They were real enough to do the job,” replied Lao Wu with no expression on his face.
“Were they suspicious to find an unlocked car with a key in the ignition?” he continued.
“I think they were too anxious to escape the FBI to give it even a second thought.”
“We will be in touch with you, Li Mei, about these Red Dragons.”
“Good. Can I keep your car for awhile? I must locate a third senior Red Dragon, Chan Meng.”
“No problem as long as you deliver him to us.”
“Give me your cellphone number. I will contact you later.”
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“Sean, did everything go OK? Are the children safe?” said Li Mei on her cellphone.
“Li Mei. Thank god you are alright. I was scared to death when I heard the automatic gunfire. I was surprised to find you missing from the premises. The children are all safe; we have three Red Dragons in custody. Wei Jun and his brother who run the Lounge are being picked up right now. Did you follow Fong and Wang? What happened to them?
“I will talk to you later about that. The urgent thing is to find Chan Meng. He took one of the children away with him a few minutes before I arrived this morning after raping her in her room. I am going to his hotel right now. Can you meet me there? I have no identification to make enquiries with the desk clerk.”
“I’m on my way,” replied Sean.
CHAPTER TWENTY
At the Hilton Hotel, Gary and another agent quickly went up to Chan Meng’s room with a key obtained from the female desk clerk while Sean remained to question her.
“Have you seen this man this morning; is he one of your guests?” Sean asked the desk clerk holding up his smartphone photo of Chan Meng for her to see.
“Yes, he checked out about thirty or forty minutes ago. He was with a young girl he said was his daughter. A pretty but quiet little thing….never said a word and didn’t smile. In fact she looked quite sad.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“No but he did ask the best way to get to the I-5 highway”
“Did he have a vehicle registered with his room?”
“Yes,” the desk clerk replied after a pause to check a record book in front of her. “He was driving a late model Lincoln MKS, white colour. Here is the license number if you want to copy it down.”
After thanking the desk clerk, Sean and Li Mei stepped away from the desk so they could talk privately.
“That highway is the direct route to Canada,” said Sean. We have to stop him from entering Canada. If he enters their namby pamby justice system, he’ll probably only get about six months in jail, if that; maybe just a suspended sentence. We could apply for extradition but it could take years if he gets a good lawyer.”
“I will go after him,” said Li Mei.
“I’ll send a couple of agents with you.”
“No. I must do this alone. I will bring Xiaowei back to Seattle.”
“You are not going to kill Chan Meng, are you?”
“No. I promise that I will not kill him. I only want him brought to justice.
“OK. Good. I’d feel better if you had backup.”
“Don’t worry Sean. I can handle him alone.”
“Before you go, I have an idea. Wait while I call Bill Dowey in Vancouver.” Sean moved away so he could talk privately to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer, who was Sean’s best friend. Sean and Dowey trusted each other with their life, so arranging an unorthodox plan would not be a problem.”
“OK, Li Mei. Here is Bill Dowey’s cellphone number. Head up to the Canadian border. He will be waiting for your call. We’re not going to notify the Canadian Border Services as they will take him into custody and we’ll lose access to him. We want to avoid a long extradition fight with Chan’s lawyers.”
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Corporal Don Hudson of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police considered himself very lucky to be Inspector Dowey’s partner, or more accurately, his assistant. He had learned more about criminal investigation in the last five months with Dowey than he had in the last nine years on the Force. He liked the way that the Inspector thought outside the box and seldom followed protocol or approved procedures of the Force when there was a more logical or expedient way to do things.
Hudson drove the emerald green Dodge unmarked police car as fast as he dared to get down to the US border to intercept Chan Meng.
“I want to intercept him on the American side of the border if I can,” said Dowey. “It is a big risk to abduct someone in the US where we have no jurisdiction; it could cost us our jobs, maybe even some jail time, so if you don’t want to come with me I’ll drop you off at the border. No hard feelings; it won’t change my opinion of you in the slightest,” said Dowey.
“Where you go, Sir, I go,” replied Hudson.
“Leave the ‘Sir’ and rank stuff for the headquarters building Don. Just call me Bill.”
“Yes Sir….I mean Bill.” Inspector Dowey had mentioned this to him many times before but calling an Inspector “Sir” just seemed to be ingrained in him.
As they approached the border, they saw a white late model Lincoln just leaving the border station on the Canadian side, heading north towards Vancouver. As the two cars passed each other, they saw it was driven by a homely middle-age Chinese man. There appeared to be a child on the seat beside him but they could only see the top half of the child’s head.
“Shit. We’re too late,” said Dowey. “Do you know anyone at this border detachment you can trust completely?”
“Yes. My old partner, Louis Cyr, from my Drug Section days is a shift boss down here. I trust him one-hundred percent.”
“Call him on your cellphone. Tell him not to use the police radio. Tell him we are following a white Lincoln MKS north about a half mile from the border crossing. Tell him to come and join us and pull the Lincoln over in a clear area with no buildings or people.”
Within fifteen minutes, a RCMP Highway Patrol car fell in behind Dowey and Hudson’s unmarked car, then passed them as if they were standing still and signalled the Lincoln to pull over with flashing lights and a brief burst of the siren.
Chan pulled over on to the shoulder of the road while the patrol car parked close behind him. About a minute later, Hudson pulled the u
nmarked car ahead of Chan’s car and backed to within five feet of the Lincoln.
When Dowey and Hudson walked back, Chan and Corporal Cyr were standing at the right side of Chan’s vehicle so as not be exposed to highway traffic.
“What is the problem officer?” said Chan in perfect English. “I am an American citizen. Here is my passport.” He didn’t add that the passport was forged by the Red Dragon’s experts.
“You’re name is Chan Meng. Is that correct?” said Dowey.
“Yes, you can see that on my passport. This is my daughter Chan Ting. Here is her passport.”
