China Wife (19 page)

Left in the VIP car park awaiting the limousine that was to take her into Central London, Linda herself smiled sweetly at her own minder, confident in the knowledge that he, unlike Rose's attendant, was her man not her husband's.

And while Rose exhausted the spending allowance that she had been given, Linda recovered her UK mobile phone and made a number of transactions and searched a number of websites. The consequence was the evidence that she had been seeking that confirmed that Julie Kershawe had indeed gone to Australia under a cloud. It was a piece of unfinished business from Linda's previous visits to the UK that had left her dissatisfied.

‘Julie is as honest as any woman I know. There's something not right here.'

That she was making enquiries didn't go unnoticed and a number of rather more secret emails from the Border Agency and Security Services brought Linda not only to the continuing notice of the authorities in Britain but also now to those in Australia. With the protection of Julie Kershawe/Li being paramount, the reports on Linda were embargoed for transmission to the Chinese authorities.

30

The two women queuing at the check-in at Brisbane International Airport had the security officials scratching their heads. Muslim women were not unknown, although they were often students who tended towards a more corrupted and westernised form of their traditional dress. But these two women were absolutely traditional. However, a recent fracas with a Saudi princess gave the officials pause before they approached them.

‘We're supposed to be looking out for two Chinese women; how the hell can we tell what these are?'

The senior Federal Immigration officer was irritated enough by the instruction – watch out for the two women, verify them, don't make any fuss, just put them through the normal processes and let them carry on with their journey. He didn't have time for this; stopping people entering Australia was more his business.

The lesser immigration officer, who was of Chinese origin, grinned. The two women checking in were Chinese. The Chinese features and the Muslim dress would normally have simply said Uighur to him, but the instructions from Canberra were specific.

‘It's them,' the Chinese immigration officer said.

The check-in clerk showed him the passports.

The whole charade was being observed.

‘What now?'

There was nothing more for the immigration officers to do.

Mr Kim, trying unsuccessfully to look inconspicuous on the concourse, was uneasy. The Muslim dress wasn't his idea, but Julie Li was adamant that it was the best way to hide Alice's features. Looking around him he could see no other Muslim women; he felt that his objection was justified. They did stand out among the usual run of travellers.

However, from her experience during a student prank Julie knew that there would be a reluctance to interfere with them dressed as they were.

Alice, wearing a brown burka that reached to just above her ankles and pale trousers, led the way with Julie, in the all-embracing black so frequently seen on television, following. The impression of mistress and servant was implied by the definitions in the passports which the immigration officer took with him as he led the two women into a backroom. Kim noted that their luggage continued on its way to the aircraft. In recognition of the sensitivities of the Muslim community, their passports were clearly going to be checked in private.

Alice stood in the corner of the cramped immigration office, her senses dulled by the drugs that Mr Kim had given her; she was hardly aware of what was going on.

‘The Chinese authorities will let you through Hong Kong,' Alan had said.

Despite her earlier expectation of never seeing Alan again, Julie had been pleased to see her Security Service colleague; it gave her confidence that someone was watching over her. She'd always known that she was likely to have to go from Australia to China, but it was only as Mr Kim spelled out the arrangements for her that she understood that she would be going on her own with Alice. Kim made a point of telling her that she would be watched every step of the way and any variation from the plan would be noted and action taken.

Mr Kim's emphasis on action being taken left Julie in no doubt that the dreaded Mr Xu and his cohorts would have no
hesitation in killing her if they thought that she was creating problems for them.

‘We'll be met at Hong Kong and tickets will be available for us there to fly on to Shanghai.'

Julie filled Alan in on Kim's plan. She confirmed Shanghai as their stated ultimate destination and how things would be handled in Hong Kong, to be sure both that she had them clear and that the various authorities involved were fully in the picture. Alan undertook to update the Chinese.

‘What happened to the other girl you picked up at Lake Mulwala?'

Julie was surprised how well informed Alan was.

‘She was handed over to a couple of Chinese thugs at Warwick. I assume she'll be going separately.'

Julie noted Alan's lack of concern about Janice. It rather confirmed her feeling that there was something not quite right about Alice's erstwhile companion. Her confidence and her lack of the mind-numbing anxiety that afflicted Alice had impressed and surprised Julie.

‘All I know, Alan, is that Kim has different instructions about her from Xu.'

Even Mr Kim had seemed to sense something different about Janice.

‘Kim treats her far more respectfully. I guess it's because he doesn't frighten her like he does Alice.'

‘OK. We'll talk to the Chinese.'

When he did, he got nothing from them beyond the clear impression that they weren't telling him everything, but they also weren't surprised to hear how Janice was being treated.

The immigration officer took Julie and Alice back into the check-in area and then through to the departure lounge. It was an unnecessarily lengthy journey; Julie realised that their departure was being advertised to those watching.

Mr Kim noted the manoeuvre, as he was supposed to do, and left the airport.

With Julie and Alice now in transit and detached from the trafficking organisation in Australia, things were about to change dramatically for the Chinese groups running it. With information on the bulk of the chain now being available to the Federal Police, an endgame strategy was in place and awaited only a signal from Canberra for a four-state police operation to swing into action. The signal depended both on the confirmation by the Security Service that Alice was on her way, which had been given, and contact being made with Janice Liang and the party holding her. This had yet to occur.

‘At least we now know what this is all about,' Alan remarked to his superiors at a subsequent presentation. ‘And why our Chinese colleagues are soon keen to stamp it out.'

The residents of Coolangatta had never seen anything quite like it. Used to the boisterous and unruly surfing community, who were capable of raising a riot during the surfing season on almost any pretext, a car chase through their streets was definitely a novelty.

Mr Kim left Brisbane Airport and headed south on to the highway, initially unaware that anybody was taking any interest in him. But he was being tracked.

‘Oh, shit!'

The realisation that he was being followed first by an unmarked car that made no attempt to disguise itself turned to anger and then concern as the chase was taken up by a blue light-blazing patrol car. Kim accelerated. The police car accelerated. He was definitely being followed.

Cutting in on a family Holden bumbling along between Surfer's Paradise and Currumbin, Kim swerved then swerved again to correct his steering. The semi-trailer that he was trying to avoid honked loudly and the driver made an unmistakably angry gesture at the following police driver.

More used to driving on UK roads, Kim forced himself to ignore the shock of the near miss and push his vehicle harder.
However, the chase wasn't going to last long. Coming up behind a nine-axle truck, he was forced to slow down. This was something way beyond his experience; he had never encountered such a vehicle before, let alone attempted to get past something as long. Cramped by the police car, it soon became obvious that his only way of escape would be by taking the risk of passing the truck at a point where the police car couldn't follow him.

Mr Kim was sweating. The road curved. Vehicles roared along it from the opposite direction. He knew he had to take his chance. When it came, he was just too slow to accelerate. Cutting in on the truck before he impaled himself on a fast-approaching petrol tanker, he felt the slight nudge as his back wing grazed the truck's front bumper. The car spun.

Watching a blurred panorama of the road verge and the traffic passing in the other lane, Kim jerked at the steering wheel and for a moment the vehicle seemed to straighten itself out. But it was heading for the verge and a coppice of disorganised gum trees. The roadside embankment took the force out of the car's motion, Kim flew forward and then back as his seatbelt kept him from exiting the vehicle through the wind-screen. Stunned by the force that threw him back into his seat, his head crashed against the rest; he didn't move.

‘He's OK!'

The arriving patrolman's concern faded as he urged a groggy Mr Kim out of the car and to stand against its side. Kim's usual fight had gone. Handcuffed and arrested, he soon recognised the pointlessness of resistance when he had recovered himself.

Three days later Mr Kim was on a flight himself. The judge in the federal court in Melbourne, after hearing all the arguments, decided that the severity of the charges that had been laid against Mr Kim in Australia was marginally less than those that had accumulated in the UK, Canada and the US, and shipped him off to London. However, he did keep a lien
on Kim for when he had served his time in these other countries.

Janice Liang, whose hidden strengths had begun to emerge during her captivity at Lake Mulwala, had quickly worked out that Mr Xu's organisation was based on a cell system in which none of the individuals had direct contact with one other. Communication was only via the cell leaders to Mr Xu or one of his trusted lieutenants. Mr Kim, Kim Lee Sung, was one of these more trusted lieutenants.

However, for the moment there had been a setback as far as Janice was concerned. Despite the interruption at Lake Mulwala caused by local rivalries and the loss of face in Melbourne that resulted from Alice's seizure and her own, Janice had assumed that transferring her to Kim's group and joining Alice Hou was a part of the plan to get them both to Shanghai. That Shanghai was their destination was one of the positive things that had come out of her imprisonment by the lake. Seemingly, however, getting the two girls together was only an interim arrangement.

So what is this Kim guy's role then?

Despite the bouts of sex with her captors at the lake that she had signalled her willingness to take part in, she had learned very little. That Kim gave the orders in Australia, that he was away a lot in Europe and he was much feared amounted to very little useful intelligence.

All that shagging was for nothing!

Janice suppressed the notion that she had enjoyed a lot of the sex.

The two thugs who had collected her at Warwick were contemptuous of her and as a consequence lax in their security of her. At no time did they secure her feet and she easily loosened the ropes that bound her wrists.

What a bunch of useless amateur
s
!

As they headed back out of Warwick towards New South
Wales, Janice sensed that the two men were worried. Concentrating on the driver she realised that he was constantly checking his mirror.

We're being followed
, she thought.

Making an exaggerated series of movements that advertised that she couldn't use her hands, she pulled herself against the seatbelt until she could see in the passenger-side wing mirror.

They were being followed; and it wasn't by a police car.

In fact, as became clear when they reached a relatively straight and deserted stretch of road, they were being followed by two cars.

A sudden blast of noise as the first following car accelerated and pulled alongside alerted Janice to some impending action.

‘It's those bastards from Lake Mulwala,' she said aloud.

The car was trying to force them off the road. The second car was accelerating but not pulling out. The jarring crunch from behind told Janice, and her minders, that they were also being rammed. She slipped her hands free of the ropes that bound her wrists.

As she realised what was happening, it was clear to Janice that she didn't want to be captured by the Melbourne gang that were now pursuing them. That would be a major setback.

A consultation between driver and passenger that was so rapid that Janice couldn't catch what had been said at least told her that the two men realised the position they were in and were intending to fight back.

A violent jerk of the steering wheel at the approach to a bend forced the car alongside them off the road. Where it ended up and in what state Janice never knew and at the time really didn't care. They had shortened the odds. Thrown sideways by the driver's action, she stayed below the level of the back seat. It seemed to be the safest place until things sorted themselves out again.

It was a good decision. As the back window shattered above
her, the passenger let out a strangled grunt and pitched forward. It was an amazing piece of marksmanship. There wasn't much of the back of his head left. The odds had lengthened again.

A succession of laboured grunts attracted Janice's attention. The driver was taking desperate counteraction. As the car swerved all over the road to confuse the gunman in the following vehicle, the handgun of the Chinese thug in the passenger seat slithered down into the well at Janice's feet. She grabbed at it and released herself from her seatbelt. It was another change in the odds.

Nothing happened for a few moments. Unseen by Janice, the following car had drawn back to give the passenger a clearer and steadier target. The shot crashed into the back of the head-rest. The driver let out a scream and lost control of the car. It was another astonishingly accurate shot.

‘He's not dead,' Janice muttered as she realised that the driver was clawing at the steering wheel trying to get the vehicle under control.

He didn't succeed.

Janice threw herself up on to the back seat as the car failed to respond to the frantic efforts of the stunned driver. Out of the passenger side window she saw a densely packed line of gum trees. Shooting off the road into a partially cleared area of forest, the car careered down the slope. Janice swung around behind the driver and braced herself. Her movement wasn't any too soon.

Snagged on a tree stump the vehicle reared up and crashed over on to its roof. The scream from the driver Janice later realised occurred when he was catapulted through the wind-screen carrying the largely ineffective airbag with him. Crushed as the car then fell on him, he died instantly.

The second scream that Janice heard turned out to be herself as she was thrown against the back of the front seats, struck her head on the car roof and felt the tearing slashes of the
remaining shards of glass in the back window as she was thrown out.