Taking the Tunnel

by James Adams

  The architecture of the area is typical of many parts of London’s suburbia: Victorian terrace houses built on two, three and occasionally four storeys. Attractive when cleaned up and modernized, they simply look old and tired in most parts of Ealing. But the streets have a sameness to them, big and little, tall or squat they look what they were: home to thousands of bank clerks, shopkeepers and artisans who formed the middle class in London at the turn of the century and who used Ealing as a dormitory before their commute to the West End and the City each day. That sameness made it attractive to White Lotus and particularly to those who sought the anonymity of the few among the many.

  It was here that the real work of the Triad went on. Goods were moved in and out, deals done, rules enforced while the police concentrated their efforts ten miles away in Soho. The police had simply no understanding of the way the Triads worked and the contained Chinese community had made it virtually impossible for them to gather any hard information with which to counter the growing influence of the criminals.

  This was Michael Leung’s patch. As the Hung Kwan, Leung was responsible for the muscle in the Third Lodge of the White Lotus Triad. The term Hung Kwan literally translates as “strong arm” and it was his job to make sure that those who broke the Triad’s laws were punished. It was also his job to train and keep disciplined the Triad’s four fighting sections of twenty men each. It was a job rich in status and honour and placed him number three in the British hierarchy of the Triad.

  Model Cottages was actually a small dead-end street tucked between Occupation and Loveday Roads. The northern end of the street faced on to a small common known locally as The Hop after some long-lost tradition of holding a dance there every summer. Sometime in the 1950s three of the cottages at that end of the row had been knocked down after the effects of a near miss by the Luftwaffe finally took their toll. In their place had been built three double garages; Michael Leung owned the two closest to The Hop, or rather White Lotus owned them in the name of the AI Repairs company. This was where the local Chinese community brought their cars for repair. They were guaranteed a decent job at a fair price and they also knew that if the insurance company was difficult AI Repairs would change the odd sum here or a description there.

  For the past week, AI Repairs had been turning away business. Indeed no bookings had been taken for the next three weeks and, as he walked through the door, Leung could see why. Around him was ordered chaos. There was the crash of hammer on metal, the whine of a drill, and to one side the deep red glow of a furnace made the men working by it appear dark and sinister. He supposed this might be what people meant by the fires of hell.

  To his left a British Leyland Sherpa van had been stripped. Without the covering of side panels, doors, roof and bonnet, the van looked strangely primeval. It was as if some professor a hundred years ago had devised a mechanical beast without any consideration for aesthetics. The vehicle was all angles and joints, bare metal and rust.

  To the right a VW Kamper had its tailgate up while a mechanic worked on the engine. The car’s main battery and its spare (the Kamper has an auxiliary battery fitted to run the electrics) were lying on a bench. One of the batteries had been taken apart so that plastic container, lead mounts and the central container for both the water and the acid were exposed.

  In the centre, a standard black Ford Granada sat alone. There was nothing mechanical to do to this car aside from a check of the engine to make sure it ran on the day.

  Michael Leung walked over to an older Chinese dressed in the oily blue coveralls that are the uniform of mechanics all over the world. “Are we on schedule?” he asked.

  The mechanic nodded. “The Ford is in good shape. We bought it last week. Only 5,000 miles on the clock, so there should be no trouble.

  “Your idea for the VW was clever. We can make the electrics all work off the one battery and so the second will appear part of the system when in fact it will do nothing. The second battery seems pretty pointless to me.” He sniffed derisively. “Some bright idea of the sales people probably. Anyway, it will do what you want.”

  “And what about the Sherpa?” Leung asked.

  “Well, the van itself is fine. And the respray is just a standard job.” They paused by a plastic-lined booth down which streaks of paint had dried. The mechanic picked up a panel that would fit the side of the truck. He pointed to the lettering: “Security” and, underneath, “Brussels, Par” stencilled in black on a white background.

  “Good. That seems fine.”

  “Well, that’s all the basic stuff. The real tricky bit is what you want to go inside. We have had to construct a small furnace and a couple of moulds over here.”

  They went over to the comer of the garage and, as they approached, Leung could feel the fierce glow from the furnace which was heating what appeared to be a vat of oil.

  “In there is the lead,” the mechanic said, pointing to the oil. “We can pour it out using the hoist and it will then go into the moulds over here.” Leung saw the square moulds which were in three different sizes, each one designed to fit inside the other. “It’s been difficult getting the lead to the right temperature but we cast one this morning and it seems to have cooled all right, so maybe we’ve solved the problem.”

  “Good. So you’ll be ready on time?” Leung asked.

  The mechanic nodded, determined not to give this man any reason to doubt his professional ability or his commitment to the White Lotus. Michael Leung’s reputation was enough to ensure both loyalty and devoted labour.

  Only twenty-five, he was part of the young guard who had risen on the back of the influx of new blood from Hong Kong in the previous ten years. Unusually for a senior official in the organization, he had been born where he now lived in Ealing. But he had broken through the natural bias towards Hong Kong immigrants by the application of ambition and initiative in equal measure.

  In 1989, Chinatown had been racked by gang warfare as the White Lotus attempted to fight off an attack by the Sap Kau Yau, or Nineteen Brothers Triad from Taiwan. Waiting in the wings were the 14K Triad from Hong Kong who hoped to emerge from the strife between the other two undamaged and dominant.

  It was a struggle that went on unobserved by the British police. The Chinese were used to looking after their own affairs. The Triads were judge and jury for the local community and there was no appeal to an outsider whether the verdict was fair or not. So the dead were quietly buried or thrown into the river, the injured tended by Chinese doctors and the innocent were looked after by whichever Triad exacted tribute each week.

  At the time Michael Leung was leader of a fighting section that defended the network of restaurants and shops along Gerrard Street from any interloper trying to take over the protection rackets or the food distribution, both of which were run by White Lotus. There is a traditional, even ritualistic, way of fighting these turf battles where both sides use chains, machetes and daggers, but on this occasion, Michael Leung sought out the Hung Kwan of the Nineteen Brothers in his house in Hampstead. He broke in with his team, killed the guards and captured the Hung Kwan. He was strung up naked from his Nordiflex exercise machine in the basement so that arms and legs were stretched out in the form of a cross. Leung then proceeded to beat him, not with a whip or a chain but with a long length of bamboo cane which he had carefully cut at the end. Each time the cane sang through the air to strike the flesh, the separate lengths of the cane parted until they came together with the impact. With each blow, a long portion of flesh was pinched by the bamboo and then as he drew back for another swing, the flesh stretched and broke. After ten blows the Hung Kwan’s back was a mass of blood. After fifty, his back was red meat with strings of white flesh hanging loose.

  A blow from a chopper, the traditional Triad weapon which is similar to a machete, severed the man’s neck from his body. When he left the house, Michael Leung left behind the red and green flag of the 14K as a message to the Nineteen Brothers. The result was a retaliatory strike against the 14K
who then became part of the struggle. There was now likely to be no benefit to any of those involved without a great deal of bloodshed. The Nineteen Brothers sued for peace and the earlier status quo prevailed.

  Michael Leung had acted with great courage and his use of the bamboo torture had showed a suitable respect for Triad history, a respect unusual in one not born in the East. Promotion followed and with it the power he sought.

  Leung was no intellectual but he was clever, with an intuitive understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of his fellow man. He was not sadistic but saw force as a tool to apply in measures equal to the circumstances. He believed that one day he could rise to the very top of the organization that had given him the status he now enjoyed. To his followers, men and women alike, he was a chilling leader. His ruthlessness was respected, even admired, as they all knew that as he rose so would they.

  But they had all seen how he treated others and worried that one day they might merit the same. To them all, he was known as Chui Kan or The Red Club, a traditional Triad symbol of punishment.

  When the word had come from Hong Kong that a big operation was planned, it had fallen to him to coordinate the British end. He had called a meeting of his four deputies and delegated the research tasks. One group had gone to the British newspaper library at Colindale, another had hit the phones to talk to journalists and academics. One enterprising young woman was given a card which described her as a reporter for the Xinhua News Agency and she was given access to the cuttings files of The Times and the Independent. The British were so trusting.

  The result was a surprising amount of detailed information on the target selected by Stanley Kung and Dai Choi. They had drawings; the safety precautions against fire and flooding. There was even a remarkable amount of detail about the security systems that were going to be installed.

  For a week, Leung and his team had pored over the plans, dissected the maps and toyed with different ideas until finally a plan of attack evolved. With a few minor modifications it had been approved by the Leader in Hong Kong and now they were almost ready to go.

  CHAPTER VI

  Jonny always found eating with Lin Yung a truly disgusting experience. Lin Yung had the Chinese habit of leaning over and almost into his food and then using the chopsticks to shovel rice, noodles or fish directly into his mouth. It wasn’t so much the shovelling that was so offensive but the accompanying slurping noises. Also, every time Lin Yung broke off to talk, he did so with a mouth full of half-chewed food. It was a ridiculous prejudice to retain after so many years of living in the East but somehow he could never shake off his mother’s voice echoing down the decades exhorting him not to talk with his mouth full.

  “You spend too much time on this Dai Choi, Jonny. There are bigger fish swimming in the waters of Hong Kong. Why go for the minnow when you can catch sharks like Stanley Rung?” Lin Yung asked.

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Jonny replied. “You may not have to worry about the law, but I do. Kung is too big, too well-connected and too rich for me. I reckon that when you come in and I’m back pounding the pavement in England you’ll just pick Kung up and stick him in jail. We can’t do that and for the moment I aim where I think my shots will hit.”

  The two men were old sparring partners, one charged with upholding the law in Hong Kong, the other doing his best to weaken the hold of the British in preparation

  for the Chinese takeover. Lin Yung was the head of the Guojia anquanbu or Chinese Ministry of State Security in Hong Kong. Officially, he was the Chinese representative on the Hong Kong and Macao Workers Committee, but in the hall of mirrors that is Hong Kong, everyone who needed to knew what his real job was.

  There were in fact two branches of Chinese intelligence operating in Hong Kong. The Gonganbu, or Ministry of Public Security, was the traditional intelligence gathering unit of the Chinese Foreign Ministry. It is run by Li Chuwen, whose official job is deputy director of the Xinhua News Agency in the colony. Li Chuwen, a former clergyman in his late sixties, comes from Shanghai and speaks fluent Cantonese, French and English and has become a familiar figure on the social circuit, even appearing in the society pages chatting to British officials.

  Lin Yung is a different breed, part of the “Chaozhou Mafia”, the group of Young Turks from a small region south of Canton who in recent years have gained so much influence in the second tier of government in Beijing. The Guojia anquanbu was formed by Deng Xiaoping in June 1983 to gather intelligence abroad and carry out repression at home. By forming the new organization Deng wanted to create a rival for the old spy network and introduce some young radicals into the new group to make Chinese intelligence more effective.

  By 1983 Lin Yung had already carved out a career in intelligence and would probably have stayed in the Gonganbu. But he had come to Deng’s attention after a spectacular outcome to one of his operations.

  Many years previously, soon after he had been recruited into the Gonganbu, he had been given the normally mundane task of watching diplomats in Beijing, which included the file on Bernard Boursicot, a French diplomat working in the Embassy’s archive section. Lin noticed his admiration for opera and arranged for him to be introduced to Shi Pei-pu, a well-known Chinese singer.

  As Lin hoped, the two fell in love but prospects for a match were dashed when the young diplomat was posted to Saudi Arabia. Lin encouraged Shi Pei-pu to write a letter to her lover saying that she had given birth to a boy and that he was the father. Boursicot arrived back in Beijing in the middle of the cultural revolution, found his lover and tried to flee the country when they were arrested. Lin then offered the diplomat the choice of leaving the country with his family and spying for China or being expelled, leaving his wife and child to rot in jail.

  Boursicot spied for China for nearly fifteen years until he was arrested in 1982 along with his wife. Under interrogation, the French were astonished to discover that his “wife” was in fact a man who had somehow managed to fool his husband for fifteen years. Embarrassed, the French tried to cover up the scandal but Lin arranged for the story to be leaked to a friendly correspondent at Le Monde. This coup de theatre and espionage triumph appealed to Deng. Not only had the young Lin Yung managed to recruit a spy who had proved a valuable asset but he had also managed to ridicule a feared and respected foreign intelligence service.

  On Deng’s orders, Lin Yung was transferred to the Guojia anquanbu specifically to get the technology to make the spy network competitive. Lin Yung travelled all over Europe and America and at every stop found people eager to sell him the equipment he wanted. He bought tape recorders in Switzerland and encryption devices in Britain, but the greatest coup came in the United States. There Lin dangled before the US National Security Agency the chance of building a listening post at Lop Nor in the Xinjiang Uygur region on the border with the Soviet Union. From there, the NSA could listen to Soviet military communications and monitor missile launches. This carrot was enough to encourage the CIA and the NSA to bypass restrictions on transfers of high technology systems to China and a steady flow of modem computers, software and other high-tech equipment followed.

  Ironically, it was this equipment that allowed Lin Yung to do such an effective job in putting down the rebels in the aftermath of the massacre at Tiananmen Square in June 1989.

  In many ways Lin Yung and Turnbull were the original odd couple. But they had a secret relationship born out of necessity which had been nurtured on the back of successes each could bring back to their respective masters. Jonny enjoyed feeling he was on the inside track, having access to information, and Lin Yung saw Jonny as a source, an agent to be run. In a classic intelligence exchange, both saw the other as the spy.

  Now Jonny was probing for information on Dai Choi’s trip to Britain that Lin Yung might have picked up from his extensive network operating in the colony and particularly within the Triads.

  “I want Dai Choi and so do you. This trip to England may be the chance I have been waiting for. And for you
it is an opportunity to stop an expansion of the Triads into Europe,” said Jonny. “The last thing you want is the Triads with a new outlet, with new opportunities for making money — money which they will plough back here and then into China, subverting the last bastion of Communism with their Mercedes cars and videos.”

  Jonny knew the buttons to press and he was pushing them all. The Triads were the single largest source of Western goods in China. In the last decade, whole regions had become marketing opportunities, and the corruption had spread outwards from Guangdong province across the border from the New Territories north to Shanghai and Beijing like some horrible weed covering the clear waters of a spring-fed lake. Few were immune; most party officials now drove Mercedes limousines, none in Lin Yung’s generation were without television and many had acquired a coveted satellite dish and access to Western television programmes.

  It was an insidious process, which the senior party officials watched with alarm. They had seen how Western television had raised the expectations of the people in Poland, East Germany and Czechoslovakia and contributed to the collapse of Soviet-style Communism. They were now grappling with the problem by allowing the elite to get some of the perks of leadership but preventing those perks trickling down to the masses to undermine the very system that created the opportunities in the first place. It was a fine line that saw Lin Yung being chauffeured in his own Mercedes in Hong Kong and enjoying his lunch with Turnbull at the Yung Kee restaurant, once rated by Fortune magazine as one of the world’s fifteen best restaurants. At the same time he was doing his utmost to control the expansion of the Triads whose corrupting influence threatened them all.