The Chinese Woman: Red Dragons: A Spy Mystery Thriller: Li Mei Spy Action Series (The Chinese Woman: Li Mei Spy Action Series Book 4) Read online

  THE CHINESE WOMAN

  RED DRAGONS

  Protected by Copyright

  @ 2013 All rights reserved

  Copying or publishing this book, or any part thereof, is prohibited except with the express written permission by the author.

  Novels by Brian N. Cox

  The Chinese Woman: The Barbados Conspiracy

  The Chinese Woman: Operation Fox Den

  The Chinese Woman: The Mystery Assassin

  The Barbados Conspiracy – Book Reviews

  The criminal element in our society does not discriminate between borders, local or international. The Chinese Woman: The Barbados Conspiracy, while a fiction novel, allows us to see first hand how corruption and brutality weaves its sinister agenda across vast global distances: And the events that unfold gives us insight into what could very well be based on true events of organized crime. The narrative gives the reader awareness of the cooperation required between international law enforcement agencies to bring to justice those criminals who operate and function daily outside the law. Interesting and exciting, and full of twists and turns – well worth the read.

  Lucien B.

  Federal Competition Law Officer, Retired

  I started to read this story late one night when I was unable to sleep, what a mistake that was. I had to shut it down as it was time to get ready to go to work. I thought about that story all day and continued to read it until I was done. This story was exciting all the way through, it was easy to tell that the writer had some sort of criminal background probably a cop, he put such truth in the story that it gives you the feeling that you are right there, this is one of the best books I have read in a very long time and I look forward to many more from this writer.

  Don N.

  Calgary

  Brian knows police investigations, surveillance tactics, intelligence gathering, the criminal element and their environs. He understands Chinese organized crime, the Triads and their various "modus operandi"; and he has intimate knowledge of the Chinese culture and people. Brian has done a masterful job of creating this tale of conspiracy and intrigue that will keep the reader involved to the last page. I wouldn't have guessed at his creative side during those long nights of surveillance during our time on the Heroin Detail.

  Jim H.

  Former federal law enforcement officer

  I really enjoyed this first "The Chinese Woman" novel and look forward to reading the next one. I found it, from a woman's point of view, very descriptive as far as the policing methods of the Canadians, Americans and the working methods of the Triads. Because I have travelled to China, and particularly Hong Kong, the descriptions of the country brought back a flood of memories. Good story woven well together making a good read.

  Helen P.

  Banff, Alberta

  A great first novel! This book moves forward at lightning speed with lots of action, interesting characters and a roller coaster plot. I look forward to Mr. Cox’s next book and the further adventures of Xiaomei.

  Gordon O.

  Winnipeg

  Non-Fiction

  How to Look Younger and Live Longer:

  The Ancient Chinese Art of Rejuvenation.

  Co-authored with Grand Master Tian Yong

  For further info go to:

  Website: www.bcoxbooks.com

  Blog: http://brianssecretworld.blogspot.com

  Other Books by Brian N. Cox

  How to Solve a Case: Criminal Investigation for Police Officers

  Safety Crusaders: Child Safety & Protection Manual

  Thank you for purchasing my books. I hope I can provide you with enjoyable entertainment and even excitement with my suspense-thriller novels, or provide you with valuable information with my non-fiction manuals.

  Brian N. Cox

  This book is dedicated to my loving wife, Tian Yong, who taught me to accept the past and look forward to the future.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The noise level at the Beijing Haidian street market was almost deafening. Grandmas from the migrant worker families seemed to yell the loudest as they bargained over the price of vegetables, fruits and pork. Music piped into the streets from every direction and motor vehicles honked their horns incessantly. Only the Chongqing street markets were more noisy than this, thought Zhen Xiaomei as she looked over the numerous varieties of green vegetables. She wouldn’t buy any vegetables from this vendor because the vegetables were in too pristine condition. Xiaomei had a personal rule; if the insects would not eat the vegetables neither would she. This was a sign that too much pesticide was sprayed on the crop during growing season.

  There were many attractive young women haggling with the food vendors at the very large Haidian street market, but all the men, and even most women, noticed Zhen Xiaomei. She was extremely beautiful with pronounced cheek bones, bright almond shaped eyes and long black hair flowing down her back almost reaching her slim waist. Like many of the young women during the warming May season, she wore shorts and a T-shirt both of which failed to conceal her muscular limbs. Her skin was a light bronze color that American women thought of as the perfect tan, but in China, it was considered slightly too dark to be considered a perfect skin color.

  Except for Director Duan Shumin and a handful of senior officers in the Ministry of State Security, no one knew Zhen Xiaomei was her real name. To everyone else, she was Li Mei, an experienced intelligence officer with the State Security Service, Second Bureau. The Second Bureau was the branch of the State Security Service that served overseas gathering intelligence. In other words, Li Mei was a spy.

  In another part of the street market, another attractive female was looking over the fruit at several of the stands specializing in fruits imported from the tropical island of Hainan. This woman, or rather girl, was much younger than Li Mei. She was Duan Xiaowei, granddaughter of the Director of State Security Second Bureau, the elite Bureau of the Ministry. Although she was only two weeks past her twelfth birthday, Duan Xiaowei, was obviously going to be a stunning looking adult, and like Li Mei, she attracted the attention of those around her.

  Duan Xiaowei was with her two best friends, Wang Li and Zu Tang. Wang Li was a plain looking girl, slightly overweight, who had an outgoing personality and a great sense of humor. Everyone liked to be around Wang Li as she was both fun and kind-hearted. Zu Tang, known to her friends and family as Tang Tang, was very attractive, tall and slim. All three girls, who had been friends for many years, were twelve years of age, in the same middle school class and earned top marks year after year; their only competition was with each other.

  Duan Xiaowei didn’t know it but someone was watching her very closely. In such a crowded venue, it was very easy to watch someone without being noticed, and the watchers were two well dressed men who liked what they saw. Both wore dark suits and ties, an attire not common at the street market, but not noteworthy as it was not unusual for some businessmen to stop off at the street market on their way home from the office.

  Xiaowei, Tang Tang and Wang Li were planning to walk the two kilometres to Wang Li’s family apartment, after they bought some fruit, in order to study together. None of them would reach Wang Li’s home.

  ***************************************************************************

  Li Mei looked at least ten years younger than her thirty-eight years. Whether it was genetic or because she was so dedicated to keeping fit and eating a healthy diet, sh
e did not know. Li Mei’s home town, Chongqing, is famous within China for its beautiful women and many looked much younger than their chronological age. Perhaps that was because Chongqing was the center of the ancient Chinese art of rejuvenation, anti-aging and extending lifespan.

  Li Mei had been a police officer in Chongqing for seven years before being recruited into the Ministry of State Security. Her parents had both been murdered by Triad thugs in Shanghai when she was twelve years of age, a horrible incident that she had witnessed while hiding in a closet. It was shortly thereafter that Li Mei had decided to dedicate her life to combatting organized crime, in particular, the dreaded Mei Hua Triad who had killed her dear parents.

  Li Mei had cried herself to sleep, probably thousands of times, as she envisioned the murder of her parents. It wasn’t until she caught up with the two killers many years later that she began to sleep without experiencing these nightmares. She shot and killed Meng Fong, the man who had slit her mother’s throat, on the island of Barbados seconds after he had assassinated an American General with a sniper rifle. The other killer, Wu Xing, who had put a bullet in her father’s brain, she abducted in Seattle and took back to China for trial, which resulted in his execution. It was only after the death of both these killers that Li Mei was able to find peace.

  The Ministry of State Security had formed an Economic Crime Division, usually referred to within the agency as the Triad Division. This Division was created following the realization that the higher-end, sophisticated Triads were engaged in economic crime that threatened the very existence of China as a wealthy nation with a healthy economy. The Mei Hua Triad under the leadership of an older, more experienced Wu Xing, had abandoned most of the traditional gangland activities, i.e., extortion, prostitution, protection rackets, robbery and other organized crime undertakings. As their membership attracted men, and even women, with higher education, they took up new pursuits that were far more lucrative than the old methods of earning illegal money. The Mei Hua had even abandoned the traffic in illicit drugs and now limited that activity to supplying drugs to international drug trafficking gangs. They themselves never sold drugs within any country. With their new found wealth, the Mei Hua expanded into the USA, Canada and Western Europe as these markets were much more lucrative than China due to the lower risk of their illegal activities being discovered. The law enforcement agencies in these countries had neither the power nor the experience of China’s Ministry of Public Security which oversaw all Chinese police.

  The Chinese Ministry of State Security was very concerned about the Mei Hua Triad’s economic crime in America and other foreign countries as it was these countries that were China’s customers and suppliers of raw materials. If the economies of these countries faltered or weakened, it put China’s economic growth at risk also. Subsequently, the State Security agency recruited some of the most brilliant detectives from within the various police agencies to staff the Triad Division, and it was to this Division that Li Mei had been assigned.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Deputy Party Secretary Chan Meng sat on the large white and gold sofa in his luxurious Beijing apartment. The living room was decorated in Louis XIV furnishings, with white marble tables, exquisite chandeliers and antique French ornaments.

  “Have you packed my bags yet? Hurry up,” he yelled to his wife Zhang Mei.

  “I am not your slave. They will be ready when they are ready,” replied Zhang Mei.

  Chan Meng and Zhang Mei had been married for twenty years but the honeymoon was long over. Zhang Mei, a prominent lawyer, had long ago discovered that Chan Meng was a man she could not love, respect or trust. He made no effort to hide his philandering lifestyle and one could not use the word “integrity” in the same sentence as Chan Meng. She often wondered how he had managed to climb so high in the Communist Party of China; did not his colleagues see his numerous shortcomings? She herself was a member of the CPC and admired many of the reformers who were rising in the Party, but she never discussed politics with her husband. In fact, they had very little dialogue. Like most members of the CPC, she was not a communist idealist but only joined the Party to enhance business opportunities. Their son was an adult now, studying at Harvard University in the USA, and Zhang Mei and her husband lead separate lives and had different interests. She had considered divorce, but the legal and financial complications involved put divorce on the back burner. Chan Meng did not want a divorce even though his home life was anything but ideal. His position in the Party depended, in part, on the appearance of a stable married life, and since his married life didn’t interfere with his freedom and his many lovers, he was quite content with the status quo.

  Chan Meng was by no means an attractive man. He almost seemed to have no chin, over which was a long pointed nose, very uncharacteristic of Chinese people. He wore thick glasses with thick black rims and his ears seemed too large for his face. He was, however, a smooth talking man with good social skills and his many lovers were attracted by his wealth and power, not his physical appearance.

  “How long will you be gone?” enquired Zhang Mei, a slim, attractive women of forty-three years whose shiny black hair was always worn long and straight.

  “About five days or a week. I’ll see you on the weekend.”

  Zhang Mei never asked where he was going, not only because he would lie to her, but also because she didn’t care. Although Chan Meng and Zhang Mei didn’t love each other, they weren’t enemies and seldom quarreled. They were comfortable living independent lives within the same household as it served both their purposes.

  ****************************************************************************

  Zhen Xiaomei was very excited to have a two week holiday in her home town of Chongqing. Not only because she could visit her grandmother and her aunt, but also because the man she loved, Sean McNamara, was coming to visit her. Sean was an American FBI agent stationed in Seattle and this was his first trip to China. She had decided not to take him to her home and introduce her to her family even though she desperately wanted to do so. Her grandmother and her aunt knew she had fallen in love with an American policeman, and were anxious to meet him, but she could not take the chance. If either she or Sean were being followed, and both were a possibility, it could expose her family to great risk. Sean did not even know Xiaomei’s real name, but she intended to tell him very soon. How could they plan a future together if he didn’t even know her name? Sean had always known Zhen Xiaomei by her cover name, Li Mei. On the other hand, the less people who knew her real name, the safer she and her family were. At some point in time she would have to tell Sean but it was not urgent.

  Chongqing was the largest municipality in China with a population of about thirty-four million but few people in the west had ever heard of it. Those who did often called it by the Anglicised name of Chungking.

  *************************************************************************

  Air China Flight 94 from Beijing began its decent into Chongqing International Airport. It had been a long flight across the Pacific from Vancouver to Beijing, a four hour wait in the Beijing Airport, and then a two and a half hour flight to Chongqing. FBI Special Agent Sean McNamara had decided to go up to Vancouver to fly to China in order to visit some friends in Vancouver before departing. Sean, who held dual American and Canadian citizenship, had been a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for five years and still had many RCMP friends in the Vancouver area. He had left the RCMP to attend Harvard Law School and then joined the FBI. He often wondered if he did the right thing by leaving the RCMP and pursuing a career in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He loved his job as Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) of the Seattle Field Office, but he still missed life in the RCMP, and in particular, his best friend, Bill Dowey, who was a member of the RCMP now stationed in Vancouver. They had often got together over the almost twenty years or so since they had first met as students at Northwest Law Enforcement Academy in Winnipeg.

  After lea
ving the plane and collecting his single suitcase, he entered the arrival area but didn’t see Li Mei….although he didn’t expect to. As he walked towards the exit, Li Mei suddenly appeared walking beside him with a big smile on her face. They wanted to hug each other, but not only was this not the custom in this traditional region of China, but they didn’t want anyone watching to suspect their relationship was anything other than a business acquaintanceship.

  “I have a car in the parking lot,” said Li Mei. “I will take you downtown to Jeifangbei, which is the center of town, where I have booked a room at the Yangtze Island Hotel.”

  “I am in your hands Li Mei,” replied Sean. “Without you I would be totally lost. I can’t speak the language and can’t read one word. I hope they have the silhouette drawings of a man and woman on the washroom doors,” he added with a chuckle.

  “It is my pleasure to be your guide,” laughed Li Mei. “My plan is to show you around my great city for two or three days. After that, they are forecasting heavy rains for a week, so I thought we would fly to Sanya on Hainan Island.”