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

  “This fits in with yesterday’s killing of Lucy Furlong,” said Tessier. “When we talked to the neighbours, at least the two that knew her, they both said she would never open her door to a stranger and always kept the chain on. She was from a small town in Montana and was a quite nervous about security in the big city.”

  “So why are these women letting this guy in? Is he posing as a maintenance worker, a building manager, a delivery guy needing a signature, a government employee, a building inspector? He’s got to have a good ruse in order to get into their apartment. Not only is there no sign of forced entry, but no neighbours heard any noise.”

  “So we don’t know how he gets into the block without being seen on the CCTV cameras, and we don’t know how he gets into the victims apartments,” said Tessier, “unless, as I suggested, he’s waiting for them inside the apartment.

  “And there are no CCTV cameras in the area so we can’t get a look at walking traffic on the street or back lane.”

  “Yah, there’s no doubt he scouts his territory very efficiently.

  “The strangest thing of all; and I don’t know how significant it is; is that there isn’t a shred of evidence found in the apartments, except for two receipts and a business card, all indicating they originated in Portland. I called Donny Tourenne at Portland Homicide and they don’t have any record of a similar case.”

  “There’s no doubt the killer is planting that evidence intentionally,” said Rita. “He couldn’t leave a crime scene in pristine condition with no trace evidence, yet be so sloppy as to drop pieces of paper at the scene.”

  “And of course there were no fingerprints or trace evidence on the papers he left on the floor,” added Rick.

  “So to recap,” continued Tessier, “we don’t know how he gets into the building or into the victims’ apartments. The victims don’t scream or put up a fight. He ties them to the headboard by the wrists with nylon rope, kneels astride them and fucks them in the mouth, or demands a blowjob, while holding a handgun to their head. Before or after that act, he strangles them to death. He then washes out their mouth with booze, mouthwash and bleach, and also cleans their face of any potential trace evidence. He probably uses alcohol and mouthwash he finds in the apartments but probably brings the bleach and the nylon rope with him. No one sees him entering or leaving the apartments. Have I missed anything?”

  “No, that sounds about right,” replied Gonzalez.

  “Excuse me, Detectives, can I interrupt you?” said Acting Detective Richard Bonnan who had just arrived at the Homicide Office from canvassing restaurants.

  “Oh, Hi Bonnan, find anything for us?” said Gonzalez.

  “We canvassed seven restaurants in the area and the employees at the Starbucks said they think they had seen Lucy Furlong in there many times, although her hair was different than the photos we have. She was occasionally with friends but usually alone with a book. Very friendly and very attractive. Here’s the CCTV video.”

  “Thanks Bonnan. Good job. We’ll call on you if we need any more help,” said Rick.

  “Any time. I like this work much better than uniform patrol.”

  “Good. We’ll probably want you and your partner to go over the videos. We’ll point out the victims for you. We’re looking for males who may be paying special attention to them and/or leaving shortly after the victims leave. In fact if you can start doing that after lunch it would be very helpful.”

  “No problem. We’ll see you then.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Washington has approved your project Gord. You can fly to San Francisco on Monday and approach the Chinese Consulate on Wednesday morning. I want to go on record as disagreeing with the plan not to use cover people or back up; this could be dangerous, but I understand your point that it could blow the deal with cover people in the area if they’re spotted. The Chinese State Security are not a gang of amateurs, they’ll watch your every move,” said Jim Bridges, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Seattle Field Office.

  “Sir, Washington assures us that the Chinese Ministry of State Security has an office in every major city on the west coast. It is essential that we identify the offices, the agents, and just as important, to find out exactly what they are doing; what their missions are. Posing as a traitor is probably the best, maybe the only way to penetrate their organization,” replied Gordon Paquette.

  Supervisory Special Agent, Gordon Paquette, was the senior agent in charge of the Counter-intelligence Division at the Seattle Field Office. The Counterintelligence Division had been considerably downsized since the end of the Cold War, but it was still an important part of the FBI’s duties in protecting the United States of America. They had lost a lot of their staff to the Counterterrorism Division over the past ten to fifteen years, but they still had twenty agents working Counterintelligence in the Seattle Field Office.

  Paquette was a very handsome, confident and intelligent agent, thirty-nine years of age, with twelve years in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He had obtained a law degree at UCLA and played for the Bruins football team for two years as a tight end before ending his football career with a broken ankle. He was known as a “player” at UCLA and there were no shortage of young female students trying to attract his interest, which wasn’t difficult.

  He got called to the bar in San Francisco, his home town, and worked as a defense lawyer in a large firm for two years before deciding the FBI offered a more challenging and exciting career. He rose through the ranks quite rapidly, not only because of exceptional performance, but also because he knew how to manipulate his superiors and gain their support and admiration. Although his superiors generally thought very highly of him during his service in the FBI, his co-workers weren’t quite as enthusiastic. The most common term used to describe Special Agent Paquette by his fellow agents was “suck-hole”. The Seattle Field Office SAC, Jim Bridges, hadn’t made up his mind about Paquette, but it was obvious to him that he was a manipulative person who was always trying to gain favouritism.

  Paquette had developed the plan to offer himself to the Chinese as a disenchanted and malcontent FBI agent who was in need of money. He had, in fact, accumulated a large gambling debt over the past five years, a debt he was finding difficult to repay, but the FBI were not aware of this. They had manufactured bogus gambling debts as part of his cover story, but he in fact was desperately in need of money as he actually had huge gambling debts that were not at all bogus. It was this need for money that motivated him to concoct this undercover scheme in order to obtain money from the Chinese. After all, who had more money than the Chinese, and Paquette was convinced they would be very generous. He was supposed to feed them false information, which he planned to do, but if the money was generous enough, providing them with genuine secrets was not out of the question. Despite his exemplary image within the FBI, he knew that his position as an agent wouldn’t prevent his knee caps being broken by a baseball bat if he failed to pay his debt. The Seattle mob never tolerated unpaid debts.

  On the second floor of the Field Office, in the Criminal Investigation Division office, Supervisory Special Agent, Sean McNamara, sat at his desk talking to his long-time partner, SA Gary Webster as they had done countless times in the past discussing the various cases they had been working on.

  Supervisory Special Agent McNamara had a rather unique background for a member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was born in Boston of Canadian parents, both of whom worked at Harvard University, his father a professor and his mother a clinical psychologist. Sean’s grandfather, who lived in the Canadian prairie city of Winnipeg, was a retired Staff-Sergeant in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Sean grew up idolizing his grandfather and always looked forward to visiting Winnipeg and hearing his grandfather’s stories of when he was a Canadian Mountie. After graduating from Boston College, Sean returned to Winnipeg and enrolled in Northwest Law Enforcement Academy. After graduation, Sean and his best friend at the Academy, Bill Dowey, both applied and were accep
ted into the RCMP. Upon completing their training at Depot Division in Regina, they were both posted to the northern Manitoba town of Thompson. Following two years service in the far north, Sean was transferred to Surrey, a large detachment adjacent to the City of Vancouver, where he was assigned to municipal law enforcement duties. Although he loved his service in the RCMP, Sean yearned to return home to the country in which he was born, so he left the Mounted Police and entered Law at Harvard University. The challenge and action of law enforcement was in his blood however, and immediately upon graduating near the top of his class, Sean joined the FBI.

  Sean was very cynical of government in general and politicians in particular. His definition of democracy was “people who don’t know what’s going on voting for people who don’t know what they are doing.” Although Sean couldn’t be labelled a “liberal”, at least not in the political sense, he had great sympathy for the poor and unfortunate in society who were more often the victims of crime rather than the perpetrators.

  “Sean, the guys we’ve identified as Mei Hua Triad, or at least we think they are Mei Hua, keep such a low profile it’s difficult to believe they are even involved in criminal activity,” said Gary. “They frequent the East Wind Company, and sometimes visit the Transpacific Import-Export Company, where our friend Paul Chan has an office. They never seem to have meetings outside of either of those company buildings and due to their technical counter-surveillance techniques, we can’t bug the offices. They never talk on the phone, at least nothing of interest to us. Our informants aren’t close enough to them to provide us with anything solid but we think they have bought a bank. There are so many cut-outs between the bank and the money behind them that it would be difficult to prove ownership in court, but I’m convinced they do own it.”

  “Can’t beat a bank for laundering money,” said Sean.

  “We’ve got to improve our sources. We’re almost running blind with these guys.”

  “Well I got some good news the day before yesterday, Gary, both personally and professionally. I got a call from Li Mei. She’s arriving in Seattle tomorrow evening and wants to see me right away on a business matter she couldn’t discuss on the phone. Apparently she has been re-assigned to the Triad intelligence, so I’m sure she can help us.”

  “That’s great news, Sean. The Ministry of State Security knows more about the Mei Hua than we will ever know and they have been in close contact with the Shanghai Police. Li Mei told me that no one knows more about the Mei Hua Triad than Inspector Gao Hui of the Shanghai Police, in fact, he may be coming to Seattle in the near future. He could be a goldmine of information.”

  “I hope he comes here. We could use his help.”

  “Just to change the subject a minute, Sean, what do you think of your taking over as Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the office here? You’ve been in the Acting position for two months now; have you made a decision?”

  “I think I’ll probably take it. Jim said he doesn’t care if I sit at a desk or monitor my people on the street, as long as I can oversee the operations and submit the monthly reports. So far, I haven’t had a problem doing this. In any other Field Office, I think the ASAC would be tied to a desk ninety percent of the time, but Jim has given me free reign. He’s overseeing Intelligence and Counterintelligence while I have Counterterrorism and Criminal Investigation, which includes Organized Crime.”

  “I’m really glad to hear that, Sean; I think we’ll be more efficient than we’ve ever been considering some of the useless ASACs we’ve had here in the past, and yes, I am particularly referring to Ross Benoit, moron extraordinaire. Have you heard what’s happened to him since his father and benefactor met his untimely demise?”

  “He’s still in Washington as far as I know. As long as Director Hawthorne is running the show, I don’t think our pasty-faced friend will be moving up the ladder, but don’t count him out. I think he still has some friends amongst the power elite.”

  Sean’s old friend and partner, Gary Webster, was very happy to hear that Li Mei was returning to Seattle. Besides being in love with Li Mei, they had a great deal in common because he spent most of his formative years in China when his father was an official in the Foreign Service. Gary was not only familiar with Chinese culture and customs, he was fluent in several Mandarin dialects as well as Cantonese and Shanghaihua. He could even speak to Li Mei in her native dialect from Chongqing where his father had been posted for several years as the Trade Commissioner.

  Upon Gary’s return to the States, he obtained a Commerce Degree at the University of Minnesota, following which he worked at a wide variety of jobs, none of which were related to his university training. In fact, most of his jobs were of the outdoor variety; he even worked as a lumberjack at one point in time. Eventually Gary joined the New York Police Department, but after four years, left and joined the FBI. He had loved working in the NYPD, but didn’t have enough service to become a detective, so the FBI seemed like a faster track to the type of law enforcement work he had his heart set on.

  While both Sean and Gary were tall, fit and intelligent, they were very different in other ways. Sean was early forties, and often described by women as “ruggedly handsome”, with a face that appeared to have suffered the ravages of working in the Canadian north. Sean paid little attention to his wardrobe, viewing clothes primarily for their comfort. Gary, who was almost ten years younger and more traditionally handsome, with blond, wavy hair, looked more like a male model. His expensive suits were made to measure, and even in casual clothes, he looked like he was ready for a photo shoot.

  Since Sean was Gary’s mentor, he too had become the ultimate cynic. Like Sean, he had first become a law enforcement officer for the usual reasons, i.e., to protect society’s victims and make the community a safer place to live; he now viewed those goals as unrealistic and probably unattainable. Nevertheless, he found the work interesting, challenging and exciting, and if he was actually serving a purpose for good, so much the better. Ten years ago, Gary was much more idealistic, but now his views on life and law enforcement were much the same as Sean’s.

  In the weeks ahead, both Sean and Gary would be walking the tightrope between what their duty as FBI agents demanded of them, and what they felt was the right thing to do. Usually, this provided no conflict, but soon there would be a wide divide between the two courses of action.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “McNamara here,” said Sean as he answered his desk phone, noticing that the call came from the security desk at the main entrance of the FBI Seattle Field Office.

  “There is someone here to see you Sir…a Ms. Li.”

  “Have her brought up Stan, I’ll meet her at the elevator.” This was a surprise to Sean. He had planned to go to the airport to meet Li Mei but she wasn’t supposed to arrive until this evening.

  As Li Mei stepped off the elevator it took all Sean’s self-control not to meet her with a passionate embrace, however, considering the location and the many people in the hallway he knew it wouldn’t be the best idea.

  Li Mei was an extremely beautiful woman with long black hair more than half-way down her back. Although she was thirty-eight years of age, she looked like a woman in her twenties, five foot six, with rock-hard muscles in her arms and legs that didn’t detract in any way from her feminine shape. After graduating from university she joined the Chongqing Police where she served for seven years. There was never any doubt that Li Mei would enter the law enforcement field since both her parents had been murdered by Triad killers and hatred of the Triads was a driving force in her life. She was later recruited by the Ministry of State Security that had created an Organized Crime Department. The Chinese government had recognized that the Triads were powerful enough to hijack the economy of China, and even adversely affect the global economy, and it was the job of State Security to ensure this didn’t happen.

  When she was only twelve years old, Li Mei had watched both her parents murdered by Triad killer, Wu Xing, while hiding in a closet
in the family grocery shop. She had loved her parents so much that witnessing this tragic event had caused her to cry herself to sleep for many years. Even as an adult, she still occasionally cried when reliving the horrible day, but abducting Wu Xing and returning him to Shanghai to stand trial had given her some degree of closure. Sean and Li Mei were deeply in love, something they seldom talked about but both expressed at their last meeting in New York after they had succeeded in preventing a nuclear holocaust in the city.

  Sean did not know where Li Mei had gone after the New York investigation; as an Intelligence Officer with the Chinese Ministry of State Security, she moved around quite a bit and never revealed her plans to Sean or anyone else. Sean used to be quite uneasy about his relationship with Li Mei. Fraternizing with a Chinese spy was not only a fast track to the unemployment line for an FBI agent, it could be a fast track to jail. After the New York case, where Li Mei and another Chinese agent had assisted the FBI in averting an al-Qaeda plot to destroy most of the city, he no longer felt this apprehension. In fact, John Hawthorne, Director of the FBI, and Assistant Director Harding, commander of the New York Field Office, had both become admirers of Li Mei. Neither would be alive if it wasn’t for Li Mei’s successful undercover operation.