The Chinese Woman: The Barbados Conspiracy Page 4

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  Only one hour to go and the giant Air China 747 would be landing in Seattle, the beautiful west coast city in the USA. Agent Li Mei was surprised how fast the time had passed. She had been dreading this eleven hour flight from Beijing, but it was actually quite pleasant. With two meals and a snack, two movies, one of which she actually watched, and a little nap, the flight was drawing to a close before she had time to be bored. Of course the flight had been made more interesting since she discovered that the woman sitting next to her was a pleasant companion. They had introduced themselves within a few minutes of taking their seats and had engaged in somewhat stimulating conversation without either boring or annoying the other.

  Li Mei had known she had eleven hours to ingratiate herself with the woman sitting next to her as she was a potential lead to Wu Xing, possibly the only lead. By maintaining close contact with this woman, it may be quite easy to identify and locate Wu.

  Li Mei’s companion was three months younger than she was, although Han Xia looked a few years older than Li Mei. Li Mei had turned thirty-six this past summer, but looked almost ten years younger in most people’s estimation. Han Xia, a very attractive woman, was slightly taller than Li Mei at five foot seven inches with long black hair worn in a similar style to Li Mei. She was of slim build with a small waist but kept herself very fit, a carry over from the days she had been an army officer. Han Xia had disclosed a great deal of personal information about herself, but why not, as her life had been quite interesting. She was from Shenyang, the daughter of dress shop owners who had died when she was quite young. Following the death of her parents, whose passing away she would not discuss, she moved to southwest China and was raised by an aunt and uncle in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. Han Xia obtained a university degree in journalism and then entered the officer corps of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) where she was stationed in Chongqing, a city quite close to Chengdu. For the past two years she had been working as a copywriter in Shanghai. Han Xia had been with a special operations unit in the military and was quite knowledgeable about firearms and hand-to-hand combat. She also claimed to be an expert in several styles of gong-fu and very adapt at taiji.

  Basically everything Han Xia said had been confirmed in the dossier prepared by Inspector Gao. She was well spoken and confident and had knowledge of a great many things that ordinary people knew little about. For example, Han Xia knew how, why and when each section of the Great Wall was constructed. Li Mei was quite mystified as to why an intelligent, educated and charming woman like Han Xia would accept the company of a social degenerate like Wu Xing. Maybe she was impressed by power and money as many people are. Maybe she naively viewed Wu Xing as some kind of rebellious hero, similar to the Robin Hood of western folklore. It was also possible, of course, that she didn’t believe the rumors of Wu Xing’s notorious past.

  “I must apologize for talking so much about myself, Li Mei. My friends have often told me that I don’t know when to keep quiet,” Han Xia said with a laugh.

  “No, no. I find your stories to be very interesting. You have lead a rather exciting life, beside which my life seems routine and dull.”

  “I’m sure it is neither routine nor dull, Li Mei. You are obviously well educated and perceptive. It would greatly please me if you told me about yourself.”

  Li Mei told Han Xia about her own life, as laid out in her cover story, but it seemed quite mundane and boring compared to the adventures related by her new companion. She was born and raised in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing. Her father had been an elementary school teacher and her mother had worked as a seamstress in the home. Li Mei had obtained a Bachelor of Anthropology Degree at Chongqing’s Southwest University, but the only work she could find after graduation was that of a hostess in a high-class restaurant. Luckily, a wealthy aunt had great confidence in her and she was sent to the USA where she was enrolled in Yale University for Masters studies. Like most good cover stories, much of the background was actually true. She was born in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing, the world’s largest municipality, and her Masters Degree from Yale was in fact genuine.

  Chongqing had once been the largest city in Sichuan province before being awarded separate municipality or city-state status by the Central Government. Since both women were from Sichuan, they carried on their conversation in the southwestern dialect of Mandarin instead of the official language of Putonghua, and since both women had lived in Chongqing, they spoke in the particular dialect of that city, a dialect called Chongqinghua.

  “I am very impressed, Li Mei, that you have attended Yale University in America. The reputation of Yale is known throughout the world. I thought my English was quite good, but compared to you, I have much to learn,” said Han Xia.

  Naturally, the conversations between the two new friends resulted in each woman telling the other why she was going to America. Han Xia was going to Seattle to live with her uncle and aunt who owned several businesses including a restaurant. The uncle, Han Li, had left China three years ago to make a new life in America and his older sister followed a year later. Although they talked on the phone once or twice a week, she had not seen either of them since they departed from Shenyang where they had lived. The uncle was her deceased father’s brother and not the uncle who had helped raise her in Chengdu. She had not decided if she would work for her uncle, possibly as an accountant or even as a restaurant hostess. She could also teach gong-fu or taiji, but she would decide later. She did not know if women would be accepted as martial arts instructors in America. There was much she did not know about this country with its strange culture.

  Li Mei told Han Xia that she was enrolled in a PhD program at Washington State University, which seemed to impress Han Xia very much, but Li Mei did not elaborate on her future plans, other than to say they involved a great deal of research and study. She hoped, at some point in time, to do field research with indigenous people in South America and possibly land a job as a professor.

  Both women were fluent in English, and as Han Xia had speculated, Li Mei’s English was much better due to her former residence in the USA as a student at Yale although she still retained a hint of a Chinese accent. Being a Mandarin speaker, her accent was much different than the Cantonese accent more commonly heard in the USA amongst Chinese immigrants.

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  The sun was nowhere to be found and the dark clouds hung low over the peaks of Seattle’s skyscrapers. The temperature remained steady that afternoon at 76 degrees so the day was quite pleasant, a big improvement over the excessive heat and humidity that Seattle had experienced the previous week.

  When the large aircraft finally arrived at the Seattle airport and the passengers started deplaning, Li Mei and Han Xia remained in their seats. They were of similar minds when it came to standing amongst the jostling crowds, squashed like sardines in a jar, for no greater purpose than to leave the aircraft a few minutes before those who remained seated, besides, everyone had to eventually wait at the baggage carousels anyway. As the crowds thinned out, Li Mei and Han Xia left the plane together and followed the stream of people to the Customs and Immigration area and took their place in line waiting to be processed by the unsmiling officials.

  Han Xia seemed somewhat nervous. “Law enforcement and government officials always make me nervous. For some reason, I always feel guilty when there is nothing to feel guilty about. Just like when I was a junior officer in the PLA; senior officers used to terrify me.”

  “I know what you mean,” replied Li Mei. “They always seem unfriendly, even suspicious, but I suspect it’s just that their job becomes so routine, it’s difficult for them to engage everyone in pleasant conversation.”

  Although Han Xia stumbled with the answers to the Customs and Immigration official’s questions, and was sure she looked very guilty of something, she was waved through and directed towards the baggage pick up area. The feeling of relief was so great, she looked at Li Mei and smiled, and then they began to laugh together.

  After locating their bags, with much difficulty, because almost all the bags were black, just like theirs, they walked together towards the exit into the receiving area where friends and relatives were lined up ten deep awaiting the new arrivals. Almost simultaneously, they looked at each other and realized they had not exchanged phone numbers or addresses. Han Xia believed they had established a lasting friendship, despite the different paths their lives were about to take, and wished to maintain contact. Besides, except for Han Xia’s uncle and aunt, neither of the women knew any countrymen in Seattle. Li Mei had not made arrangements for accommodations other than the university dorm, but Han Xia gave Li Mei the phone number of her uncle’s restaurant; perhaps he could be of help in locating an apartment for her. Although the uncle apparently owned a large house in the suburbs, she had always phoned her uncle and aunt at the restaurant as it seemed they worked twenty-four hours a day. As a PhD student, and the payment of a higher fee, Li Mei had been able to obtain a single room at the University. Providing there were secure places to hide confidential material, she thought it may suffice for a while. She did not yet have a firearm so hiding that in her dorm room would not be a problem.

  Han Xia spotted her uncle and aunt and gave a quick “Zaijian” (goodbye) to Li Mei as they exchanged genuine smiles. Li Mei hailed a cab and asked to be taken to the University of Washington campus.

  Li Mei had loved her life as a police officer in Chongqing and felt that she was meeting her need to help people who had been preyed upon by the criminal element in society. After seven years on the job, however, she began to wonder if she could continue.

 
For the last year with the Chongqing Police, Li Mei had been assigned to the Abused and Exploited Children Division. Although this was a Division within the Criminal Investigation Department, and Li Mei held the rank of Detective, officers within this Division generally wore uniforms. The job gave her great satisfaction, but it also took a personal toll. The event that finally made her decide to leave the police, or at least contributed to the decision, was the case of the Lu children. A neighbor of the Lu family decided to call the police three days after hearing the father in a rage and much noise coming from their small, filthy apartment. Li Mei and her female partner, Officer Wang Xiaoli, knocked on the door which was eventually opened by a small girl who looked to be about six years old. The little girl had a black eye, dirty matted hair and a filthy, torn dress. The stench emanating from the small apartment was almost overpowering. The floor was bare concrete as were the walls. A few cheap chairs, a table covered with dirty dishes and left over food scraps, and some dirty straw mattresses were the only furniture Li Mei could see in the apartment.

  “Is your ma ma or ba ba home?” Li Mei asked.

  “Are you going to hurt me?” the little girl, whose name was Lu Xi, replied while cringing back and holding her arm up across her face to protect herself.

  After kneeling down, smiling at the little girl and assuring her they were friends, Li Mei and Xiaoli entered the dirty apartment to find, besides broken furniture, was a small dead dog on the floor and no food anywhere including the small refrigerator. Li Mei entered a bedroom and there on the mattress was Lu Xi’s five year old brother. His body was covered in welts and cigarette burns and his face was so beaten he was hardly recognizable as a human being. He was alive, but barely. Lying on a dirty, green sheet in the corner was a young baby, less than a year old, also with several cigarette burns on her body, but also alive. Li Mei had encountered many horrible sights since being assigned to the AEC Division, but nothing like this. What kind of person could do this to infants and young children? Li Mei tried to maintain her composure, but it was too much. She held little Lu Xi in her arms and began to cry. At first the tears slowly rolled down her cheeks, but as she held the little girl, and looked at the other two children, her crying became uncontrollable. Xiaoli was also visibly upset, and although her eyes were moist and red, she was able to maintain her composure. Li Mei, who was the senior officer of the team, couldn’t follow Xiaoli’s example. She desperately wanted to hold the young, battered boy in her arms, but knew she shouldn’t move him until the paramedics arrived. She cried uncontrollably in the filthy apartment, and later at home. In fact, she cried for several weeks whenever she visualized this scene.

  Apparently the mother had abandoned the family several weeks before. The drunken, unemployed, abusive father came home occasionally and the children were able to eat scraps left over from the father’s dinner. On every occasion that he did come home, however, he physically abused his children, sexually assaulting Lu Xi, torturing his five year old son and burning the baby with cigarettes. The young boy died in hospital four days later and little Lu Xi and the baby eventually became wards of the state. Li Mei wanted to find the father herself, but another team found him first and took him into custody and he was not treated gently. Li Mei was never sure, to this day, if she would have arrested the father or killed him. She was glad she never had to find out.

  Li Mei always had mixed emotions about the second career path she had chosen as an intelligence officer with the Ministry of State Security. China had become a free enterprise country in recent years and its main interest was building a vibrant economy. There was still a big gap between the poor and the middle class, but at least there was now plenty of food for everyone. The very poor were not yet sharing in the benefits of China’s booming economy, but at least they weren’t starving. The security of the state, in Li Mei’s eyes, was to prevent organized crime from high-jacking the economy, as had happened in Russia, and to ensure that China was not drawn into military conflicts, the result of which would be devastating to the growing economy and the welfare of the people.

  Being an intelligence officer, or secret agent as the occupation was often called, however, meant to constantly live a lie, like being a movie actor full time. If you forgot your lines, or became confused about the plot, it could cost you your life. The real attraction of the job however was the challenge and the excitement. Sure, she had been assigned some mundane intelligence gathering tasks when she was a junior agent, many of which just involved collecting trade papers and magazines in a foreign country. Since graduating into the elite level of intelligence operations, however, she never spent a boring minute. She hesitated to admit, but suspected it was true, that she got an adrenalin rush from the dangerous assignments. Possibly the most attractive thing about her new job was the fact that she no longer had to see and experience the plight of the beaten and abused young children on a day to day basis. Li Mei was not squeamish and had hardened herself to the realities of life, as every police officer must do, but she had reached a point where her emotional defenses could not protect her from the horrible realities she had encountered, especially when it involved children.

  Although she had grown to relish the excitement, challenge and even the danger of an intelligence agent’s job, there was also a side of her that was attracted to the life of a wife and mother; taking the children to pre-school and attending school concerts. Even trying her hand at cooking was on her future “to do” list. She would like a good man in her life, however that could be defined, but personal relationships were to be avoided when employed with the Ministry of State Security, Second Bureau. All these dreams were pushed to the back of her mind; that was all for the future, if of course she survived.

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  Sean McNamara looked at his watch and decided it was time to put aside his office work and meet his friend, Lucas Shultz for a late afternoon coffee.

  Sean McNamara had been Lucas’ roommate when they both attended Harvard Law School. Sean, at forty-two, was three years older than Lucas. Everyone marveled at their friendship in view of the fact they were about as different as two persons could be. Lucas had been viewed as a nerd during high school and had never participated in any sports, even at the intramural level. He had, however, always gone for a daily jog so his cardiovascular system was fairly fit, but there was no sign of muscles on Lucas’ slim body except for his sinewy legs. Lucas ate a healthier diet than the average American, but he couldn’t get rid of his pot belly, which wasn’t nearly as large as he was convinced it was.

  Sean, on the other hand, had been labeled a jock in both high school and college, even though he objected to the description. He had played both football and ice hockey in high school, and was a first string forward on the Harvard hockey team. Sean had been born in Boston of Canadian parents, both of whom were employed at Harvard University. His father, Brian, was a professor in the Faculty of Law, while his mother, Shirley, worked as a clinical psychologist. Sean’s parents were from Winnipeg, the capital of the prairie province of Manitoba in western Canada. He had visited relatives in Winnipeg almost every year as a young child, but the visits grew less frequent in the latter years of his youth as his parents became bogged down with heavy work loads that allowed little time off for recreation. Sean loved those visits to Winnipeg, primarily because he idolized his grandfather who had retired as a Staff-Sergeant in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Listening to his grandpa’s stories was the highlight of the year for Sean; better than any movie. He loved the stories about life in the Arctic where his grandfather actually conducted his patrols by dog sled. He also loved the stories about solving murders and robberies when he was a criminal investigator in Winnipeg. One of the things he enjoyed most, was grandpa’s sense of humor. Life in the RCMP seemed to involve hundreds of funny incidents and his grandfather would always end up laughing at the end of almost all his stories. He was amused and amazed at the stories his grandpa would tell about arresting people by phoning them and telling them to meet him at the police detachment. You never saw that happen in a cops and robbers movie.