Aaron parked and checked his watch as he walked to the gym’s registration. He had ten minutes so he was on time, but then he felt like the world’s worst “spy” when he had to show identification to apply for a guest pass. Aaron shook his head as he filled out the form and handed his license over. He took a little solace in the thought that if someone checked the records to find out he met with Xiaowan, that person might leave behind a record of being there too.
Aaron went into the locker room carrying his swimsuit in his hand. He changed and folded his clothes into a pile with his shoes on top. With no lock, he had to bring everything with him out to the pool. He saw dozens of kids with their parents on the deck and in the pool. The swimming lanes were mostly full of lap swimmers and there were six people in the hot tub.
Aaron surveyed the deck for a place to put his belongings and frowned at how full the hot tub was. Not exactly ideal for a private conversation regarding potential international espionage.
Aaron felt the stress of his poor meeting location build up in his back as he set his belongings down under a bench and stepped into the hot tub. He received a few glances, a nod, and a “hello” from an elderly gentleman.
He looked around and saw no one that raised suspicion as someone who was following him. Aaron looked at his waterproof watch for the first time at 2:01pm. Forty watch checks and twenty minutes later, Aaron was starting to get nervous and overheated.
He looked around to see if there was a lane that he could join for a few laps. It would be good to test out his chest muscle’s recovery after the deep stab wound. He flexed his pec and ran his right hand across the scar on his chest.
After looking at his watch again, he decided against laps and would just sit on the deck to try off. When Xiaowan came, they would make sure she wasn’t followed then find a different place to talk. Aaron recalled the numerous times that James would complain Xiaowan ran late; even going to the airport on a trip to New Zealand, she almost caused them to miss their flight. This was not out of character so Aaron urged himself to be more patient.
Even still, she was a half hour late so he walked up the stairs of the hot tub and slowly walked to the deck where he placed his belongings.
As he approached, he read a sign, “NO CELL PHONES IN THE POOL AREA.” He attempted to use his hands to squeegee water off of his shoulders and arms. He tried on his legs but realized quite quickly it was futile as his swimsuit dripped fresh water down his legs. Aaron shook off his hands and reached into the pocket of his shorts to grab his phone.
Aaron had one new text message. It wasn’t from Xiaowan. It was from Tina wishing him a safe and good meeting.
Aaron couldn’t help but smile as he texted back. Aaron didn’t know Xiaowan’s phone number so he sent a text message to James in hopes that he was with her. “What are you up to today James? It’s Aaron. I’m in town and going out to dinner tonight, can you make it?”
Aaron snapped the phone shut and looked at his watch. Xiaowan was now thirty-five minutes late and he didn’t get notice that she would be late. He sat crouched down holding the phone in his right hand willing James to send him a text message back to this number. After a long ten seconds, he put the phone back in his pocket and looked over his shoulder at the deck again.
Aaron didn’t know what to do. He sat down on a bench abutting the wall. He leaned his head back against the wall and sat thinking about what he could disclose to Aurora tonight without breaking attorney-client privilege. The more Aaron thought about it, the more he realized he didn’t know anything.
Aaron thought back to sitting at the pool in the YMCA last month when he met with the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, who was now dead. He snapped back to the present and looked at his watch again. He looked over his surroundings. Still no sign of Xiaowan.
More brazen in violating the cell phone rule, Aaron retrieved it and sat with it in his hand. No messages. He looked at the time on his phone, then the time on his watch; they were consistent. Xiaowan wasn’t there and Aaron couldn’t get in touch with her. Time to pack up and go.
As he walked out of the gym in wet socks and his shirt and underwear clinging to his body, he looked around the parking lot to see if he could recognize Xiaowan’s car. He glanced up and down the rows and couldn’t even be sure what kind of car she drove. He thought it was a small blue BMW, but nothing matched his memory. Aaron turned around and went back into the gym to inquire at the front desk. The young woman up front wouldn’t tell him if she checked-in so he asked for paper and a pen to leave a note.
“Xiaowan, missed you at the swim. Hope you get a good workout in. Have James call me and let’s grab dinner tonight.” He included his cell number then thanked the woman at the reception desk and dialed James Lerma’s telephone number as he walked to his car.
As opened his car door, James’ voicemail finally picked up. Without leaving a message, Aaron shut his flip phone, his angst ratcheting up a notch. He sat down in the car with the door left open, reopened his phone, and typed a text message to James. “Dinner tonight while I’m in town? You and Xiaowan should meet me and Tina out if at all possible since I’m moving tomorrow.”
Aaron held the phone in his hand for ten incredibly long seconds then tossed it on his passenger seat and pulled the front door shut so hard that he realized how tense he was. He had been holding his breath since he had sent the text message to James.
Driving over to James’ house might compromise him and the situation. And what was he going to find there? He thought about asking Aurora to go over there, but that wouldn’t work because she didn’t know James or Xiaowan. His mind settled on a mutual friend of theirs, a police officer named Josh. Aaron last saw Josh a month ago in Paso Robles at the party celebrating his and Tina’s return from Washington D.C. Josh specifically told Aaron to call if he ever needed anything.
Aaron picked up his phone and looked down the contacts list feeling a surge of exasperation. He only programmed a few phone numbers into his dumb phone whenever he changed to a new one and he didn’t have Josh’s number memorized. Aaron would have to get online and retrieve the phone number from his address book in his email account.
Instead, Aaron dialed Tina’s phone number, then took one last look around the parking lot while he drove out. The new phone didn’t sync with his Bluetooth so he held it to his ear in violation of California’s hands-free cell phone law.
“You missed me too much?” Tina answered.
Aaron tried to smile at Tina, but the stress of Xiaowan missing the meeting and James not responding to the text message he sent wore so heavily on him that he couldn’t.
“I’m worried about someone.”
“What’s going on?”
“Can’t really talk about anything yet. Do you have Josh’s number?”
“Josh? Cleveland Josh?”
“Yeah, Josh Ruyle.”
“Hold on.” Tina scrolled down through the hundreds of contacts in her iPhone. “I don’t have his number but have his Facebook thingy in my phone. Want me to send him your number and see if he can call you?”
“That would be great. Call me right back after you message him?”
“K.”
Aaron made it onto the highway when the phone rang. For the first time since he met Tina, he hoped it was someone besides her. He saw the caller ID and answered. “Thanks.”
Tina felt Aaron’s disheartenment and her training as an emergency room physician sent her into problem-solving mode. She knew one of the best ways to deal with the stress of a trauma was to talk about it. Simply sharing the burden with another person is incredibly cathartic. “Can you tell me about any of it?”
“My client never showed up and I can’t get in touch.”
“So you’re concerned something might have happened, this person might be in trouble?” Tina diagnosed.
Aaron nodded while driving with one hand on the phone and the other on the steering wheel. “Yeah.”
Tina guessed Aaron wanted to talk
to Josh, a San Diego police officer, to ask a cop to check in on his client. “Do you want Aurora’s number?”
“Thanks, I have hers already and don’t know that it would be right to call her in on this for a couple of reasons. Sometimes I forget just how smart and quick you are.”
“Just come to Kor’s place and we’ll figure it out.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes. How has your time been?”
“Good, just talking with Jess about her bachelorette party and wedding stuff. She wants to go to Europe for the bachelorette party and then Australia for her honeymoon. I’m excited for her and excited to think about ours too…” she trailed off wondering if he was paying attention.
“I can’t wait to be on our honeymoon, in a hotel with you. No cell phones. No worries, just us…” Aaron trailed off in return.
“Can you bring James in on this and talk to him about your case?” Tina knew that Aaron and James had worked together on a dozen or so cases over the years and helped each other out in court when the other would be out of town. She also suspected that the client was James’ wife, Xiaowan, and she wanted to know what was weighing on Aaron so much.
Aaron thought that she was guessing exactly this. “I called him today but haven’t heard back. Will look forward to talking with him about it soon.”
His response could neither confirm nor assuage her fear that this new client with a serious problem was the wife of one of his closest friends. “Not sure what I can do, Aaron. But I love you and want to help if I can.”
“I love you too. Just stay there until I get there. I don’t want to think about getting you in any more danger.”
“I’m safe. And thanks for your concern.”
“You know, I’m thinking of buying Peter a trip to Europe with his partner.”
“What?”
“He was there for you when I wasn’t.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary, but I think it’s a great idea.”
They caught up for a few minutes then said their goodbyes. Aaron hung up his phone then looked at the screen. No missed calls and no text messages. Nothing from Xiaowan or James, and Tina’s Facebook message didn’t prompt a phone call from Josh. Aaron made it up to Kor and Jessica’s apartment, took hugs and hellos from Jess and Kor, and held Tina tight, unsure of what to do next. He wondered where James and Xiaowan could be right now.
Chapter 10
“Oww. That hurts,” James Lerma mumbled aloud when he felt a rock pressed hard against him. The pain took his mind away from the hot oil he felt all over his body.
The small four-wall room was nearly pitch-black and he was lying naked on a table in the middle of it as he had for the past hour. He wondered how his wife, Xiaowan, was doing right now.
James felt another rock press up along his back again; the woman adjusted the pressure down a notch and it felt fantastic. He was in the middle of a two-hour massage. He said through a face-hole in the chair, “Xie xie… That’s great.”
With a thick Chinese accent, a woman replied, “Welcome.” She was happy because many of the customers of this spa reach out to grope her during the massage in hopes of receiving special treatment. She learned that even police officers will reach out and grope her legs and breasts and then ask her to give them a happy ending so that they can then arrest her for acting inappropriately.
James relaxed on the table, happy his wife was getting a massage in the other room. He had noticed Xiaowan was extra stressed during the past few weeks. Apparently there was a project at work that was confidential, so he tried to be the supportive husband without questioning her. When her cousin Zhou offered to get them a deal on massages a few hours ago, even at this massage barn and not a fancy spa, James pressed her to accept.
While the three had lunch, Zhou called the owner of Lele’s Spa to set up a massage for James because he wanted an environment that he could control. He wanted time to speak to Xiaowan alone, with James in another room. The three drove to the massage parlor together so Xiaowan didn’t have a chance to tell Aaron she couldn’t make the appointment at the gym.
Lele’s Spa was owned by a Chinese American, known as Kimbo, who owned several properties where massage parlors and other small businesses operated in Southern California. Despite his parlors being known as happy ending spas, Kimbo went out of his way to prevent the masseuses from providing sexual favors to customers to avoid problems with the police. With the individual shop owners paying the girls nearly nothing, sometimes the girls would literally take matters into their own hands to make a few extra dollars. In those case there was really nothing Kimbo, or anyone else, could do about that.
Every once in a while a business could not pay the rent and Kimbo would take ownership of it for a while to help ensure the workers kept their jobs. He would try to streamline and improve the business then sell it but keep ownership of the property. Lele’s Spa was one of these business takeovers for Kimbo.
Kimbo was born in China fifty years ago and was born with the first name of Kenji, typically a Japanese name meaning second son of intelligence. With his last name being Bo, Kimbo was a nickname given to him when the internet fighting sensation Kimbo Slice arrived on the scene ten years ago.
Kimbo was one of the first children sent to the United States at the age of fourteen to be raised in the United States and expected to provide information and intelligence to the Chinese government. He was a small kid in high school, very bright, and spent his time living in Los Angeles’ Chinatown. He only partially assimilated to the American lifestyle as a youngster.
After graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles with both his bachelor’s and master’s degree in Architecture, Kimbo went to work for a large developer with the intent of supplying the Chinese handlers with secret building techniques and information. While Kimbo absorbed information like a sponge, it turned out that American and European firms would freely contract out to develop buildings in China so there was almost no need to steal plans or secrets.
Kimbo wasn’t needed for the spy program and he had little desire to slave away in an office for his salary, even though it was quite generous. He lived in spartan conditions while saving every penny he earned. With his first main investment, he bought the property that leased out space to a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. Within a year, he bought the property for a massage parlor and another restaurant. Within two years, he bought a duplex and his first massage parlor.
As time passed, Kimbo became more aggressive with raising rents but then offering discounts if the employers of the various businesses would lease his ever expanding portfolio of cheap apartments for their employees. Eventually Kimbo obtained equity in several of the businesses and set up a series of shell corporations to hold his various investments that were focused in the Chinese communities of Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties.
Kimbo was well aware that many of the tenants and employees of the businesses he controlled were illegal immigrants. He tried to avoid extra attention and discouraged the use of his establishments for trafficking and criminal activity whenever possible. Always keeping tabs on their investments, the program would call upon him to help steal hardware and software from customers and his tenants.
In the past few years his handlers had been more aggressive with using his network. They even brought in members of organized Chinese criminals to help teach the masseuses and servers how to swipe cell phones without being noticed. Kimbo hated the gang members hanging around his businesses because shady begat shady. He felt everyone was so short-sighted. Sure you can make a few thousand selling sex, drugs, or stolen goods. But over time, he was able to amass a few million in cash and tens of millions of dollars’ worth of property, for the most part, within the laws of the United States.
Kimbo was nearly certain that the more the program dealt with thugs and low-level criminals, the more certain it was to be exposed. As a result, he had been stashing money and gold bullion every time he took a vacation out of the country. H
is liquid insurance policy consisted of one and a half million dollars in the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, and Cabo San Lucas. That 1.5 was his emergency lifeline and he was afraid the more aggressive his new handler became the more likely he would have to cut ties and use his failsafe.
Kimbo first met Zhou two years ago when Zhou made contact to inform him that he would be his new handler. It was at that first meeting, at one of his restaurants in Los Angeles, where Kimbo asked when he will have done enough for his country so that he can retire. He was feeling old in his sixties, working non-stop ever since he could remember. Kimbo made his fortune and wanted to enjoy it in peace.
Zhou told him that he would have to check with his superiors, but as far as he understood, no one left the program. Ever. Kimbo acquiesced to his fate but implored Zhou to ask if he could buy his way out if ever possible.
A month prior to today, Zhou sat at a conference table in Beijing with the Head of their Intelligence Program, the Deputy Prime Minister, a Military General, and the Minister of Health. He confirmed that Kimbo would be willing to do anything for the program if he could end his official debt to the program.
At the meeting, the Deputy Prime Minister said, “It could be beneficial to use Kimbo to show others they can in fact leave the program.”
The General piped up, “Or it may be beneficial to show others that there is no way out.”
The Head of the Program, over seventy years old, nodded at both men. “Times have changed. I remember Kenji Bo and talking with his parents about the program. They were so proud and happy to help our country that they gave us their second son. More people in the program are there because of fear. It shouldn’t be that way. We started the program with the goal of getting information to help and protect our people, where the sacrifice of one thousand might benefit one billion.”
The Minister of Health put his hands on the table. “I understand that they are ready for human trials but have not requested them because the FDA is holding them back. If we had their research we could save tens of thousands of lives. We can save billions of dollars in lost livestock. If we wait for their FDA to approve research in the United States before they progress, the cost will be enormous. Many deaths could be prevented.”
Sunshine or Lead Page 8
