***
Three years later, the reason that Rayna became part of the family was revealed to the devout Christian couple. They were unable to have natural children of their own.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Even though an awesome buffet breakfast was included in the price of the room at the Oceania, a pot of room service coffee was enough for Rayna and Henry this morning.
As they booted out the door, Rayna tried hard not to show her excitement.
“Rayna,” called out Henry.
“Yes?”
“It’s okay to be happy and excited.”
Rayna grabbed her dad and gave him a big kiss.
***
Fifteen minutes later, they were riding with Tex in the limo, witnessing the Guangzhou sunrise.
“Now I don’t want to disappoint you,” explained Tex, “but the first thing to know is that it is no longer called ‘Golden Corner.’ It is all grown up now and called ‘Golden City.’”
“Whatever.”
Henry had not been back to the home village since he and Vivian arrived as newlyweds and left as young parents. As Tex drove, Rayna’s father was both fascinated and dismayed by what he saw. Fascinated to see the changes from the bleak Communist country to a vibrant and thriving nation. Dismayed because urbanization, industrialization and commercialization had destroyed the quaint rural landscape.
“Look at China now. We’re no longer just rice and chicken farmers,” stated Tex proudly. “Chinese are now world leaders in everything. I will be, too, someday. I’m not going to be the driver of a car like this. I am going to own one! I have a plan.”
“Okay, I’ll bite,” said the bemused Rayna. “The real reason I’m in China is to find investments. Tell me in thirty seconds what your idea is and, if I like it, I’ll invest twenty-five thousand American dollars.”
“Let’s make a deal!” shouted Tex. The young wannabe cowboy couldn’t believe his good fortune. A quick glance in the rearview mirror showed Tex that Rayna was serious.
“I want to turn my passion into a business. I want to start a chain of Texas-style barbecue restaurants, the “Texas Rangers.” When you walk in, it’s going be like walking into a saloon from the Wild Wild West. We start with food. Chili, of course, and all kinds of ribs—cooked over mesquite, marinated and barbecued over hickory, rubbed with spices then cooked over indirect heat. Then we’re gonna have the clothes, hats, jeans, boots, lassoes. We’ll have big screen TVs to watch the Cowboys, the Oilers, the baseball teams…”
Rayna paused briefly, then announced, “It’s so crazy it might work. I’ll do it. And you’re gonna need a lot more than twenty-five thousand. Even in China, I think it will cost at least a hundred thousand dollars per restaurant to get going. We will start off with six restaurants in Beijing. If it works the way I think it can, who knows how far it can go?”
Tex asked timidly, “Um, what’s in it for me?”
“You get a straight ten percent of the profits.”
“But it’s my idea,” protested Tex. “You have nothing without an idea. Ten percent is nothing.”
“No, Tex. You are wrong. You have nothing without money and my group will finance everything. You are going to be the face of the restaurant. You will be everywhere.”
“Can we make it twenty percent?”
“Fifteen and we have a deal.”
“We have a deal!” yelled Tex. “I have so many great ideas. Do you think we can get John Wayne to come? He’s amazing!”
“Tex, John Wayne’s been dead for years.”
“I know that. I’m talking about a lookalike. We get a look-a-like John Wayne and Jesse James. Maybe the real Clint Eastwood and Chuck Norris will come!”
Rayna loved Tex’s enthusiasm. She had no doubt the Texas Rangers would be a colossal hit. Tex connected his Bluetooth to the ultra-smooth car stereo speakers. Greatest cowboy hits started blaring: Elvis with “Love Me Tender” and “Lonesome Cowboy.” Hank Williams crooning, “I’m so Lonesome I could Cry,” and “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” sung by Johnny Cash.
For the next hour, Rayna, Henry and Tex sang along to these moldy oldies, ignoring almost everything as Tex sped along. After an hour, Tex made a turnoff and flicked off the music. He announced, “We’ll be at Golden City in five minutes. What do you want to do first?”
“Let’s just cruise the town and see what’s happening.”
“Your wish is my command.”
Rayna winked at Tex. It’s funny how you get a lot of cooperation when you’ve just agreed to invest over half a million dollars into someone’s pipe dream.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The three brothers—Ponytail, Sting and Johnny—were second generation gangsters. Their father, Big Mouth, had led the Destroyers, a small but ferocious gang in Guangzhou that trafficked drugs, girls, organ parts, luxury cars and antiques.
From an early age, Big Mouth had his sons doing target practice, martial arts, boxing and pumping one hell of a lot of iron. By the time they finished their teenage years, they were key lieutenants in his organization. Big Mouth trusted them with everything from punishing anyone stupid enough to try to skip out on a debt to making sure that heroin shipments reached their overseas destinations.
But what the brothers really loved were the cars. Big Mouth had a big garage in an industrial park and he imported luxury cars from abroad or stole them from rich local Chinese, modifying them so that new buyers never knew they were not legit. The boys spent hundreds of hours learning the finer points of paint jobs, changing or erasing VIN numbers, and how to sell the vehicles for big bucks without being caught.
While the fine attributes of culture were foreign to them, the huge easy money availed of dealing in rare antiques was not. When Big Mouth got the boys to raid museums, temples and collections for Chinese artifacts, they were initially dumfounded. Yes, they could understand how someone would pay half a million plus for a Ferrari or Bentley, but to shell out dough for an old vase or small carving? That was insane… and highly profitable.
However, it was an easy adjunct to the car biz. There was lots of storage space in the garage. And besides, many home owners who bought cars that the boys stole had crazy artifacts in the gardens or the entrances to their homes that were irresistibly easy pickings.
When their father was gunned down in a hail of bullets during a gang turf war over drugs, the boys realized that, as macho as they were, they were no match for the big boys and were lucky not to get killed themselves. They approached their father’s rivals and made a deal—they would get out of all their family’s operations except for the car and artifact businesses.
It was a no-brainer deal. Modifying cars was difficult and their father’s enemies knew nothing about the art market. It took less than five minutes for the agreement to be struck.
***
Sting, the youngest brother, was the “chauffeur” who spotted the brand new Mercedes Maybach at the airport. He had been monitoring the vehicle, but the German car spent most of its time in busy parts of Guangzhou—not a good place to steal a car. The next day would have been perfect. The quiet powerful beast went on a long, largely rural road trip. It would have been ideal to snag the car then, but the brothers had to accompany their mother to their father’s graveside in their home village to honor his memory. Criminal or not, this was an obligation that all Chinese fulfilled if they could on the anniversary of a loved one’s death.
***
Big Mouth’s family stayed overnight in the father’s village where they were treated like royalty. While they didn’t have to pay for any meals or lodging, money gifts totaling ten thousand dollars were distributed.
They left early the next morning for the three-hour ride home, then dropped their mother off at her suburban home.
Now out on the open road, the China-manufactured Great Wall Motors SUV was crawling toward Guangzhou through the sea of motor vehicles. As Ponytail and Johnny dozed, Sting was fuming at yet another early morning traffic jam.
>
Suddenly, a loud honking sound emanated from Sting’s phone. “Yes! That’s the alarm telling us the Mercedes Maybach that I tagged at the airport has left the city.”
“Cool,” nodded Ponytail, the oldest brother and leader of the trio.
“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go.”
Ponytail shook his head. “Not quite so fast. Let’s drop off our stuff at the warehouse first. Then we can bring everything.”
“Do we really need to?” asked Johnny.
“Did you forget Dad? He was so excited about the huge score, he didn’t realize he was walking into a trap. For a car like this, I want to have enough firepower to get the job done and then some.”
No one argued with that logic.
Chapter Thirty
The Mandarin sat by himself staring at nothing in particular in his First Class pod on his return flight to China. He had spent less than sixteen hours in the United States, sixteen valuable hours he could not delegate to anyone.
Of course, he was almost overwhelmed by pain when he first heard about Jackson’s death. Pain transformed to fury as he heard the sheriff describe the events. His initial reaction was to liquidate his assets, hire as many thugs as he could and go ballistic on America. However, he knew that decisions made strictly in the heat of passion almost always backfired. He needed time to chill before evaluating and, ultimately, acting. There was no one he trusted except himself to do it.
And now that he had completed his investigation, he could formulate a plan.
The Mandarin would not grieve. Grieving was a sign of weakness—but anger was not.
And the Mandarin was very angry. Righteously angry.
The Mandarin was not going to forgive. Nor was he going to forget.
First, the facts:
1. His only son Jackson was dead. Victim of a combination of prescription drugs, illegal drugs and alcohol in California. Sure, he had two daughters from a prior mistress, but they didn’t count. Women, to the Mandarin, served one main purpose and that definitely was not running a multi-million dollar enterprise of the scope and complexity the Mandarin had built. He had counted on Jackson to do that.
2. The only person who died was Jackson. Sonny should have died, too. As should the bar staff that served the underage drinkers.
3. The town of San Roca was complicit in his son’s death by not providing adequate emergency services. As a small town, much of its funding for services came from the state. Therefore, by this connective tissue, the state of California was guilty as well. But it went even beyond the state level. With over a trillion dollars that the United States had spent on the war on drugs, it was still as easy to get a hit of smack as a bag of potato chips.
The sheriff’s death was at least a start.
The undertaker? His cavalier attitude was unforgivable. No one talked to the Mandarin like that.
The Uber driver and shipping clerk. Unfortunate collateral damage.
These were the facts as the Mandarin saw them.
And now it was time to determine the retribution. Who should be on the list?
Who else should be on the list?
Sonny. All the staff at Bangers. The president of Oceania College.
This small group would be easy. He would ask Mary to take care of it. He doubted that it would cost more than fifty thousand dollars to hire an assassin for two days’ work at most.
But was this enough? Of course not. Nothing would ever be enough. But something…
And then the clouds of his mind departed and the cold light of clarity shone brightly.
America, you took away my son. You will repay with the deaths of one million of your own children. One million. One million. ONE MILLION.
What the punishment should be was now established. The next question was How?
***
Timeframe, costs, method and personnel needed to be determined.
The Mandarin decided that the timeline was ASAP. Rationally, that meant at least a month for coordination. But that was too long. Punishment needed to be inflicted immediately.
The next questions were “how” and “how much?”
The “how much” question was fairly easy to answer. The Mandarin was worth over two hundred and fifty million dollars. About half of this was in cash or squirreled away in bank accounts around the world. Without Jackson, all this was meaningless. Not just for his late son, but also for himself, he needed to spend big—he would allocate up to half of his net worth to achieve his goal—half of two hundred and fifty million was one hundred and twenty five million.
Which meant the Mandarin was willing to spend up to a hundred and twenty-five dollars per death. Not that he expected to, but answering the question of “how much” would help answer “how?”
Hiring trained assassins with assault weapons and millions of rounds of ammo, and sending them into schools, theaters and malls, was not practical. He loved the idea but he just didn’t have the connections or American infrastructure to pull it off.
Of course, dropping bombs on LA, San Francisco, Chicago and New York would produce the desired result in the shortest period of time but that wasn’t going to happen either. Chances were that the planes would be blasted out of the sky long before they came close to an urban center. It was impractical but it gave him pleasure thinking of the havoc it would wreak.
As he pondered more, a cruel sneer formed across his face as a realistic plan began to form. His new partner in the American venture, Danny, could pull it off in a week. He had proven himself to the Mandarin and, while poisoning people with product was not what the gangster had in mind, the Mandarin figured that a ten million dollar payday plus expenses would be more than enticing.
The Mandarin had chosen the weapon. It was ironic because he would use the same instrument of death that killed Jackson. Drugs.
He could hardly wait until the plane landed.
Chapter Thirty-One
No longer a small village, the renamed Golden City was now a mid-sized industrial town. As the Mercedes drove up and down the streets, there was no sign of the old rural village that Henry’s family was once part of.
“This isn’t what I call a ‘quaint, idyllic village,’” commented Rayna, citing a description she found on TripAdvisor.
In fact, there was not the slightest evidence of remotely quaint, idyllic or village-like in sight. It was more like a sterile junior metropolis. During the past quarter century, Golden Corner’s population had mushroomed from a few hundred to a few hundred thousand. Shopping malls, busy streets and a spate of factories spewing smoke announced its arrival as part of the new China. There were zero older buildings and only slightly more people with gray hair in sight.
After the twentieth cookie-cutter street of characterless modernity, Tex asked, “What exactly are you looking for?”
An excellent question. Henry squinted, gritted his teeth and muttered, “Pull to the side and let me get my bearings.”
Tex obediently pulled to the side of the road.
“Let’s get out, Rayna, and go for a walk.”
Tex shook his head, “You’ll find every street is going to be the same. When the new companies take over, they bulldoze everything old and put up new buildings.”
Rayna didn’t know and Henry couldn’t argue—he had seen this movie before. The three got out of the car and looked down a long street that seemed to be just like the others.
“This is nothing like I remember. So big, nobody, nothing I recognize. Where did they all come from?” murmured Henry with a twinge of nostalgia that longed for yesteryear.
Tex shrugged. “It’s like Beijing or Shanghai or Guangzhou. Everyone goes there but no one is from there. Everyone comes for the jobs.”
“There used to be woods and rice paddies and less than a hundred homes,” Henry reminisced wistfully.
Rayna had been standing quietly, trying to get a handle on the tangle of feelings bombarding her. She had never been that interested in finding out about her birth p
arents. She always knew Henry was “Dad” and the late Vivian was “Mom.” That was all that was important. She also knew that her birth mother gave her up because she knew she was unable to look after a baby for whatever reason, so Rayna had peace about that.
However, when she was at CenCom and watching Julio and Helena and their entourage of adopted kids from difficult circumstances adopted from around the world, that sparked something in Rayna. She wanted answers, too. What were her birth parents up to? Were they part of the new Golden Corner or had they left? Were they even alive?
For sure, her romantic vision of coming back to a small rural village had been shot down. What other surprises lay in store? Looking at this industrial complex, it seemed probably the answers were not here.
“I guess we can go then, Dad. Not much here to see,” said Rayna nonchalantly.
Rayna’s seeming indifference might fool some but Henry knew his daughter too well. “We’re not going until we find something, Rayna. There has to be somebody who remembers something.”
Rayna hid a grateful look as they hopped back in the limo. “Drive until you see some old buildings, Tex.”
“No one wants to see that junk,” sniffed the thoroughly modern Asian young man.
“Shut up, Tex,” snapped Rayna.
Rayna’s brusqueness jolted Tex. “Sorry. Sorry… My family was around during the Cultural Revolution and anything that hints of that terrible ancient time… I just don’t want anything to do with it.”
It was another reminder of the contorted, complex and confusing history of China’s not-too-distant past, when Chairman Mao crushed a burgeoning capitalist and democratic growth. It resulted in families breaking apart with children accusing their parents of “bourgeois” activities. Books were burned, museums and artifacts destroyed. Students were ripped from schools to work in factories and farms. While it was ultimately unsuccessful, some felt the end of the Cultural Revolution began China’s one hundred eighty degree turn toward “communistic capitalism.”
The Mandarin's Vendetta (Rayna Tan Action Thriller Series Book 2) Page 11
