“You’ve got to be joking.”
Melba shook her head. “I’m absolutely serious. Dried bear bile salts sell for anywhere between two hundred and fifty to seven hundred dollars a gram compared to three hundred dollars for heroin. Like any other contraband, price is determined by authenticity, availability, faith in the seller, and relative need.” She turned to one of the Customs inspectors. “What do you think we have here, Fred?”
“Depends on the weight,” the inspector answered, pulling out a pocket calculator. “But if we go conservative at five hundred dollars a gram for pure bile salts, you could maybe get about two thousand for each vial once it’s cut and adulterated. So, if you figure we’ve got about two dozen vials, that comes to forty-eight thousand dollars. Then thirty or forty grams in the Baggie—and that’s just a guess—puts us at between fifteen and twenty thousand dollars, if it’s pure. That translates to between sixty to eighty thousand dollars once it’s adulterated. Altogether, you’re looking at about a hundred twenty thousand dollars. Not bad for one trip.”
“Holy shit,” breathed Jack Campbell.
“I think we’d better take another look at Mr. Hu’s belongings,” David said.
A few minutes later, they had uncovered another cache of the dried bear bile in the rice steamer and thermos Hu Qichen had brought for his “relatives.” Customs inspectors then performed a more thorough search through both sets of baggage, tearing apart linings, opening up every bottle and container. In a jar that looked as if it might hold pomade, the inspectors found a dried piece of flesh about the size of a small pear. It was a whole dried gallbladder. Altogether, Customs had confiscated a minimum of $250,000 in bear products from the two Chinese men.
In all the excitement, Hu Qichen and Wang Yujen were temporarily forgotten. But once the evidence was taken away to be weighed and cataloged, attention turned back to the two men. Against all reason, Hu Qichen maintained his arrogance. Wang Yujen, however, seemed to sense how much trouble he was in. He hadn’t stopped shaking and mumbling to himself. Both men were arrested and taken to the Terminal Island detention facility.
Now David and Hulan sat in one of the holding rooms drinking coffee from paper cups. The case had just taken a 180-degree turn, and none of them seemed to know what to do next. “Well,” David said finally, “we’ve found our product and why the boys wanted Sammy Guang’s help. He easily could have unloaded the bile to his friends in Chinatown.”
“But a quarter of a million dollars’ worth?” Hulan said. She shook her head. “No, this was a lot bigger than that. The boys and whoever their other partners were must have brought in millions of dollars of the stuff.”
“Yeah, this is fucking big,” Campbell commented to no one in particular.
“Come on, everyone,” David said. “We’re going back to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. I want you to meet Laurie Martin.”
When the whole group trooped into Laurie’s office an hour later, she was bent over massaging her swollen ankles. As David—with Campbell and Hulan interrupting every chance they got—explained what they had just found, she regarded them sardonically. “The office has always laughed at these cases. Now you’re coming in here for help?”
“I never laughed.”
Laurie gave David a look that said otherwise, but let it go at that. “And this has something to do with the body you found on the immigrant ship?” she asked. This question launched the group into another long explanation of the Peony, the body in Beijing, the triads, and now this discovery. “It doesn’t sound weird to me,” she said, her hands folded over her pregnant belly. “It sounds like exactly the move the triads should be making.”
As her statement sank in, they all began talking at once. Finally, Laurie held up her hands for silence, then said, “According to Interpol, human beings do about ten billion dollars a year in the international wildlife trade. About five billion of that is illegal. In California, the illegal trade in bear parts alone is valued at about a hundred million dollars. Do you know where that puts this stuff?”
When everyone shook their heads, Laurie said, “It generates more profit than illegal arms sales and comes in second only to the narcotics trade. But you’re ten times more likely to find someone walking down the street with wildlife on their person in the form of wallets, shoe, or belts, than drugs. Think about it.”
“If that’s so, then why do we all have it?”
“Because,” Laurie answered, “it’s not illegal to possess wildlife. You could enter a parade with a panda bear—one of the most endangered species in the world—and nothing would happen to you. Try that with a machine gun or heroin and you’re looking at serious jail time. But as you know, David, we prosecute when we can.”
“The snails?”
“Right, but other cases, too. We had a case a couple of years ago involving bear bile. I don’t know if you were here then. Customs opens some guy’s bag at LAX and they find pills, vials, things that look like little turds. Turns out the perp has about eleven pounds of bear bile, worth about one million dollars in those days. The rest was various compounds, mostly harmless, but it was enough to get a conviction. Twenty-one months.”
“Go back to what you said earlier about the triads,” David urged Laurie. “Where do they fit in?”
“Haven’t you been listening?” she responded irritably. “This stuff is profitable. There’s practically no competition. The market is growing. And the risk is negligible. You don’t have a DEA agent hiding behind every corner, informants in every shadow, no competitors trying to take you out. And, if you’re caught, instead of twenty years in the federal penitentiary, you get a slap on the wrist. But it’s not just the triads. We’re seeing lots of different organized crime groups getting involved.”
“Like?”
“The white supremacists, the Freemen, the Vipers—all those nuts up in Montana and Idaho. Poaching American black bears and selling their gallbladders and paws is one of the primary fund-raisers for the militia groups. A dealer then sells the stuff in Koreatowns and Chinatowns around the country, as well as exporting it to Asia.”
“Billy and Henglai must have been buying fresh gallbladders from the cowboys,” Hulan said.
But David wasn’t so sure. “What if you aren’t a white supremacist?” he asked Laurie. “Might regular people still shoot bears to earn money?”
“Where have you been?” Laurie retorted. “We kill about forty thousand bears in this country each year, and most of them are killed legally—with permits and all. Even a weekend hunter can be tempted to earn back his license fees and gas money.”
“What kind of money are we talking about?”
“For a fresh gallbladder? I’ve heard a low of two thousand dollars to as high as eighty thousand,” Laurie answered.
“That’s a lot of money in Montana,” David said.
“That’s a lot of money anywhere,” Hulan amended.
“That’s why we’re finding bear carcasses around the world with nothing taken but their gallbladders,” Laurie continued. “In China, bag a bear, sell its gallbladder—or sell it live to a bear farm—for about five hundred dollars U.S.; that’s more than a year’s salary. A damn good incentive, if you ask me, except for one thing. China has the stiffest penalties in the world because its bears are under a greater threat of extinction than anywhere else. The sun bear, the Asiatic black bear, the panda—all of them are on the CITES I list, meaning they’re threatened by extinction. Kill a panda bear—which, by the way, doesn’t secrete the right kind of bile because it isn’t a true bear—you get the death sentence. Kill a moon bear, you’re looking at making sneakers in some prison factory for the next hundred years or so. Farming and selling bear bile? Totally illegal, but it’s happening in China.”
“What are bear farms?” Hulan asked.
“You don’t know? Scientists in your country have figured out some way to extract the bile without killing the bear. But other than that, we don’t know that much about them either,” Laurie co
nfessed.
Laurie stood and walked over to the window. Turning to the group, she held her arms out wide. “The world market for medicinal herbs—I’m talking the whole shebang now, the herbs, the animal derivatives, the roots, the patents, the raw drugs—is huge. In the U.S., between the people interested in holistic medicine and the Asian population, we’re spending like crazy. This stuff is cheap compared to Western medicine, and it seems to work in a lot of cases. But see, that’s what’s hard for us. We can go out and educate people not to wear fur coats or jewelry made from ivory, but how do you tell parents whose kid is dying from a strange form of liver cancer that they shouldn’t take a chance on bear bile? How do you ask a doctor—sworn to protect human life—not to prescribe rhino horn if he thinks it will save his patient?”
A hush fell over the conversation as David, Hulan, Jack Campbell, and Peter Sun tried to absorb all they’d heard.
“Our government has other concerns as well,” Laurie went on. “The Chinese manufacture thousands of different patent medicines. This stuff comes over here and shows up in Chinese herb shops, in acupuncturists’ offices, in health-food stores, in the Save-on down the street. Basically, they’re sold everywhere over the counter and they’re supposed to cure everything—headache, flu, the common cold, backache, cancer.”
“So what’s the problem?” David asked.
“Say a mother in Brentwood buys some Chinese cough syrup for her kid. The directions say one teaspoon twice a day. She thinks, Why not four times a day? Better yet, I’ll make it every four hours like Robitussin. She gives it to the kid and he goes into convulsions and almost dies. We send the syrup to the forensics lab and we get a call back that it has whatever herbs and minerals are advertised on the package, as well as arsenic or mercury. We’re talking about products with serious poisons in them that you can just buy over the counter.”
“David, this is starting to make sense,” Hulan said slowly.
He looked doubtful.
“We’ve got the cowboys and the bears up in Montana, right?”
He nodded.
“And now the patent medicines,” she said. “We’ve seen them before.”
“We have?”
“Oh, yes. We saw Panda Brand medicines in Cao Hua’s refrigerator.”
“Was it bear bile?”
“I don’t remember. It didn’t seem important at the time.” She ran her finger over her bottom lip, thinking. “We also saw Panda Brand one more place.”
David regarded her curiously as she ran back over it in her mind. “I know!” she said. “We saw it in the lobby of the China Land and Economics Building. Panda Brand is one of Guang Mingyun’s companies.”
“Aiya,” Peter groaned. This wasn’t going to be good for his career.
They should have stopped to play out this new information, but they were so caught up in the moment that David simply turned back to Laurie and asked, “Has Guang Mingyun’s name ever come up in any of your smuggling cases?” When Laurie shook her head, David sighed and said, “As much as I’d like to connect him to the Rising Phoenix we still don’t have a single piece of real evidence.”
“We’ve got the couriers,” Hulan reminded him.
“But you’ll never nail the triads with two uncooperative accomplices,” Laurie said.
“What we need is someone who can make the final link for us,” Hulan said. “We need someone to slip in, deliver the contraband, and ask some questions.”
“What about Investigator Sun?” Jack Campbell suggested. “Could he pose as Wang?”
All eyes turned to Peter, as they considered. He seemed perplexed at the idea. “If something happened to him…” David said.
“That’s not the problem.” Then realizing how that sounded, Hulan bowed her head in apology. “Forgive me, Investigator Sun.” She turned back to David. “The problem is he looks like he’s MPS. I look like MPS. Why do you think Wang Yujen ran away at the airport? He recognized me for what I am. No, we need someone different. You look at Hu Qichen, he’s arrogant. He tries to act like a big man, but he’s not. And Wang…” She snorted lightly. “He’s just a courier. Not smart, not educated.”
David brought his hands to his face and rubbed his forehead. Suddenly he felt very tired. When he looked up, they were all waiting for him. “I know who we can use.”
“Your Mr. Zhao,” Hulan said.
“Yes, my Mr. Zhao.” David’s voice was hoarse as he said, “Jack, you’d better call Noel. Have him grab Zhao during his next trip to the warehouse.”
15
FEBRUARY 5
The Green Jade Café
At eleven the next morning, Zhao stood in the middle of the electronics room at the FBI stripped to the waist as a technician taped a wire to the immigrant’s gaunt, hairless chest.
This time David had little to bargain with. The Rising Phoenix had picked Zhao up as soon as he left Terminal Island. They had provided him with a job and a place to sleep. He was little more than a slave, but his life was not in jeopardy. Now David was asking him to do something that was at best risky, and with nothing in return. David couldn’t promise Zhao a job, a place to sleep, food, or clothes. And yet Zhao had not hesitated. David correctly understood that Zhao’s cooperation was directly tied to the presence of the two Ministry of Public Security agents. He didn’t ask who they were because, as Hulan kept repeating, they were recognizable. Nor did Zhao question why the MPS was in the United States. Perhaps he simply didn’t know any better. Perhaps this was just one more example of his American dream shot to hell: You risk your life trying to go to the United States, hoping for a better future, and when you get there, all you find is more hard work and the MPS to boot. No matter, Zhao was between the proverbial rock and a hard place. From his position, he could live out his indentured servitude to the triad or face the wrath of the MPS. Neither was a choice David would have wanted to make.
Which was not to say that David’s conscience didn’t bother him. He was keenly aware of just how suspect his actions and those of the two U.S. government agencies were by not giving full disclosure to Zhao. He suspected that the FBI agents, like himself, were justifying the means with the ends they anticipated—the murders would be solved, the smugglers caught, and the triad exposed. Still, David worried that the Rising Phoenix would recognize that Zhao was not a courier but merely a man who owed them his passage to America. Noel Gardner, who’d been watching the sweatshop, reassured David that the gang leaders wouldn’t recognize a single face out of all their workers. In fact, as far as Gardner could tell, no one important from the Rising Phoenix had ever come by the shop. Zhao agreed with this assessment.
They tried to work calmly, quietly with the immigrant, but spirits were running high and everyone had an idea of what Zhao should or should not say, questions he should or should not ask, and how he should respond to those asked of him.
“Tell them we arrested Hu Qichen,” David said. “You were questioned, but we didn’t open your rice cooker or your thermos. When you were finally released, there was no one there to meet you. You didn’t know what to do. You waited in the terminal.”
“Finally you saw another of your countrymen.” Hulan picked it up. “You went up to him and said you were lost. This man was very kind. He told you to…”
“Take a bus, which you did.” David seemed momentarily stumped. “The money. How does he get money?”
“Wang Yujen had about fifty dollars on him. He had it exchanged at the airport, then got on the bus.”
“I’ll call RTD and find out about buses from LAX to Chinatown,” Gardner volunteered.
“No, wait,” David said. “Maybe he should go to Monterey Park. We know the Rising Phoenix has business in both cities. But where will Zhao end up? At someone’s house? At headquarters? We don’t know where any of those places are, but I’ll bet those guys aren’t living in Chinatown. They’re probably up on some hill above Monterey Park taking advantage of the feng shui.”
As Gardner disappeared to mak
e his call, David returned to his scenario. “You get to Monterey Park and you start asking questions…” David seemed at a loss again. “And then…and then…And then you’re on your own.”
“Say you’ve got a package for Spencer Lee or Yingyee Lee,” Hulan said. “Play dumb.”
“And when you get there, try to tell us where you are if you can,” Jack Campbell said. “We’re going to be listening. You won’t be able to hear us, but I promise you won’t be alone. If you need us, just shout. We’ll be right there.”
“And one more thing,” said Hulan. “Ask him about Guang Mingyun.”
For the first time, a shiver rippled through the immigrant’s body. Wordlessly, he shook his head. But Hulan was firm. “You ask how Guang Mingyun is involved, how much money he makes from this trade, and who he uses in China to send the products out of the country.”
By now her MPS colleague had caught on to what she was suggesting. Peter argued with her in Chinese, but she cut him off in English with fierce finality. “I will take full responsibility.” Then she put a gentle hand on Zhao’s bony shoulder. “You ask about Guang Mingyun if you think you can.”
They drove together in a surveillance van supplied by the FBI. During the long trek across the city, the seriousness of his position began to register with the immigrant. By the time they dropped Zhao off at an intersection two bus stops away from downtown Monterey Park, he looked pale and drained of all energy. He walked a few steps, then turned and grinned bravely. Noel Gardner called out one more time, “We’ll be with you the whole time. Don’t worry.” Then Gardner pulled the sliding door shut and the van pulled away.
The plan moved ahead with amazing accuracy and precision. Zhao had been a perfect choice, since he didn’t have to feign ignorance of the city in which he found himself. He walked along the streets of Monterey Park, which were quite different from the two blocks of Chinatown that he’d been allowed to see in the course of his deliveries. He recognized the Chinese characters on the shop signs, but the rest—the vast restaurants, the luxury cars, the bejeweled women—was foreign to him.