A/N: Don't own Chuck or Mei-Ling, but now that I'm writing this version of Mei-Ling, I'm hoping to see a spinoff from the people who do own her.
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The debacle on the beach was, as to be expected, extensively covered in the morning news. Dramatic footage showed men and women struggling ashore in the dark through the surf and later, in the first gray light of dawn, wet and bedraggled blanket-clad men and women being escorted onto Los Angeles city buses by police officers. Wo, the Triad man in charge of the beach pick-up, had been right to have put Lo Pan's departure plans in motion. His guidance was, as usual, prudent. Lo Pan had not heard from him since his message and assumed he was in the custody of the American authorities. The thought didn't overly concern him, though. The authorities would not be able to prove much beyond one actual shipload of cargo. The captain of the ship would have destroyed the hard drive containing the only real evidence of the ship's connection to the White Dragons.
Nevertheless, it was fortuitous timing to take this opportunity to visit colleagues overseas. Lo Pan intended to stay away until the press coverage regarding the grounding of the Golden Voyage had died down. Perhaps a month. Perhaps two. It was of no concern. Given the communications facilities now available to him, he could control his operations from almost anywhere. He smiled slightly to himself. He would, as the young people said, 'work from home.'
The Gulfstream S650 twin engine private jet stood gleaming white on the tarmac of Van Nuys Airport, the crew already on board and preparing the aircraft for departure. Lo Pan's limo stopped at the foot of the stairs and his attendants carried him up to the cabin, placing him gently into one of the comfortable cabin seats. His luggage and wheelchair followed. The jet was an indulgence, but given that he was no longer ambulatory, he felt entitled to it. Commercial air travel would have been a difficult ordeal for him.
In addition to the three bodyguards, he was accompanied by Muan, his Triad man inside the Chinese Consulate, the man who had brought Lee Cho's investigation to Lo Pan's attention in the first place. With Cho now free, it was also prudent to arrange for Muan to leave Los Angeles for a while. The man could return once it was clear that he was not at risk of arrest from the Chinese authorities.
They all settled down in the seats and belted themselves in. The pilot announced the flight information and directed the passengers to stay seated with seatbelts fastened until notified otherwise. The plane began to taxi. Lo Pan had made it very clear that he wanted to be airborne without delay.
No one spoke while the plane made its way from the taxiway toward the runway. It stopped for a moment on the edge of the runway while the pilot changed frequencies from ground control to the tower and obtained the necessary clearance to proceed onto the active runway. The jet moved forward, performed a hard left hand turn and stopped for a moment. The engines roared, the brakes were disengaged and the plane rolled down the runway, picking up speed as it went.
A few seconds later they were in the air and leaving Los Angeles behind and below. Unconsciously, Lo Pan let out a breath. He told himself that he had not been terribly concerned, but it was still a relief to leave the jurisdiction of California. He knew he would likely be subject to the same concern when they stopped to refuel in Hawaii, but this was an important step on the journey.
After a couple of minutes, he watched the land fall away behind his jet and give way to the sparkling blue waters of the Pacific. The plane banked to the right and he saw Catalina Island off to his left. Minutes passed as they left the coast behind and began the journey to Hawaii. Once the pilot indicated that they had reached the requisite altitude over the ocean and turned off the seatbelt sign, Lo Pan realized that the flight crew had been absent during the take off. Motioning to one of his men he said, in Mandarin, "Find the stupid girl and get me some tea."
The man moved forward to the galley. He shouted in English, "Hey, where are you?" as he pulled back the sliding door to the galley.
Mei-Ling punched him three times before he even realized that she was in the galley. The man staggered back against the bulkhead. Mei-Ling lunged towards Lo Pan, but the man she'd hit was tough. He pulled himself off the wall of the cabin and reached for her. Grabbing her around her torso, pinning her arms to her sides, he lifted her off the ground and slammed the top of her head into the ceiling of the jet. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she went limp in his arms. Satisfied, he dropped her into one of the empty seats in the cabin.
Muan looked shocked. "What the hell? Who is that? What's going on?"
"Unless I am mistaken, Muan, this is Mei-Ling Cho. The sister of the man you betrayed to me. She works for the MSS."
"She's a spy?" asked Muan with amazement in his voice.
"She is. And this is a fortuitous development. The government of Taiwan will be delighted to have me hand her over to them. In the unlikely event that the Americans were to pressure them for my return, this will give them sufficient motivation to resist such requests. Don't you think they will be eager to interrogate a Mainland spy? Maybe I'll get a medal." He began to laugh mirthlessly.
Turning to the man who knocked her unconscious, Lo Pan said, "Bind her hands, then wake her." Lo Pan looked at her carefully and calmly as the sunlight from the cabin window shined on her young face….well, young to me, he thought. An attractive woman. He considered with distaste of what would happen to that pretty face during interrogation and put the notion aside as unpalatable. After all, she had attacked him and would now suffer the consequences of such foolishness.
When her hands were bound, the man slapped her none too gently several times. Slowly, her eyes opened. She bucked in her seat as she realized where she was and what position she was in. She lunged out of her seat towards Lo Pan, bound hands outstretched with fingers curved like claws, but the man standing over her punched her in the face before she had made it too far. She was slammed onto the floor of the plane by the force of the punch. He picked her up roughly by an arm. She tried to headbutt him, but he threw her off balance by jerking the arm he held and backhanded her to the floor of the plane a second time. He picked her up one more time and dropped her into the seat, her shoulders slumped in defeat. The man moved around to stand behind her seat, keeping a wary eye on her.
"Lo Pan," she said, in a dead voice.
"Good morning, Ms. Cho," he replied with studious calm in his somewhat high-pitched voice. "Although I seriously doubt it will, in fact, be a good morning for you. You are bound and outnumbered on my jet. You have already seen what just one of my men is capable of and I have two more guards with me. We are now flying to Taiwan, where you will be delivered to the Taiwanese government as a Mainland spy. It is a sad day for your espionage career, Ms. Cho. Perhaps, after a few years, your government will trade you for a Taiwanese spy they have caught. Or perhaps they will not and you will live the rest of your life in a cell. I am curious, though. How did you find me? How did you know I would be on this aircraft?"
"Not too difficult. One of my American friends saw the text message. It was pretty clear. You, number 489 in your Triad numerology, were leaving Van Nuys Airport - VNY - and heading to Hualien Airport, Taiwan - HUN - with a refueling stop in Dillingham Field, Hawaii - HDH. Leaving at 8am. You should have used a code or something to make it harder to figure out."
"Perhaps we will next time, Ms. Cho. Where are your American friends now?"
"Behind us. They helped sneak me aboard the plane, then they had to stay behind. They lack the jurisdiction to come with me."
"That is unfortunate for you."
"So, you are fleeing Los Angeles, Lo Pan? That fiasco on the beach, the Golden Voyage, that was enough to drive you out?"
"That was merely a temporary set back. One ship is stopped. One cargo lost. They cannot tie the ship to me or to my men. It is no matter. There are hundreds of other ships and thousands upon thousands of people eager to pay the White Dragon for passage to America. The golden land of opportunity, don't you know. I came over penniless and I am now worth hundreds of millions of American dollars."
"Through crime, Lo Pan," she said, disdainfully. "You are nothing but a common criminal."
"I may be a criminal, Ms. Cho, but I am anything but common. I have operated in Los Angeles for over fifty years and the stupid police have never arrested me. I have committed murder, robbery, extortion, bribery and all manner of crimes and they have never even come close to me. I have sold narcotics and stolen goods, run gambling dens and houses of prostitution. Lately, medical insurance fraud is very profitable. And yet I live comfortably in Beverly Hills."
"Murder?" she scoffed. "You haven't committed murder. Maybe your men have, but not you personally. Not too many murderers in wheelchairs, Lo Pan. You need the tough guys to do your dirty work for you. You'd never get your own hands dirty."
"You are attempting to anger me, Ms. Cho, but it will not work. You are right that I would not commit violence today and that I am more comfortable ordering my men to do so, and trust me, they are more than eager to do so. But, I was not always so. I was young once myself, with the use of my legs, and was forced by circumstances to participate in violence...lethal violence."
"I do not find you an impressive man, Lo Pan. I don't believe you have ever killed anyone. Not personally."
"Believe what you will. It is of no importance to me. But you may choose to ask the widow of Min Poon Ran what happened to her husband. Or the children of Ho Shen where their father is."
"You killed both of them? Yourself? Why?" she asked with obvious surprise.
"I will be pleased to tell you," he said. Lo Pan began a long story about Min Poon Ran and his stubborn recalcitrance in seeing the wisdom of cooperation with the White Dragons. The story ended with Lo Pan strangling the man in an alleyway on the orders of the then Mountain Master.
"And the other one? Ho Shen? What did he do to deserve to die at your hands?" asked Mei-Ling.
Again, Lo Pan told a long story involving disrespect by a Red Pole to the Mountain Master and the price to be paid for it. That man was knifed by Lo Pan and his body deliberately left for his family to find.
"So, that is the way you operate. The Mountain Master just points and you would kill someone? Is that still the way the White Dragons conduct business? You tell the soldiers who to kill and they do it?"
"Ms. Cho, please. I am a businessman. I abhor violence. Unfortunately, it may be required from time to time. If I order that a person be killed or hurt, or that other action be taken, that will happen. Your line of work is similar, from what I understand."
"Are you the only one who can issue such an order? Are you that important? How do you control your organization? After all, you are only one man. An important man, but only one. Surely you can't be everywhere at once. As wise as you may be, you cannot make every decision."
"Of course not. You clearly have no grasp of history. I am but a general. The strength of any general is not in his arms but in his army." He squinted against the sunlight from the cabin window and pulled the shade closed, blocking his view of the Pacific. One of his men had gotten him some tea, and he took a sip of the hot liquid. "I have many strong leaders to rely on. Men who have dedicated their lives to the brotherhood. Wo, who was at the beach last night and is probably in the hands of the authorities by now is one of my top lieutenants. A very wise man. I have tasked him with the coordination of our entire human trafficking operation. Hanwa, who owns a construction company in Chinatown, is a very reliable Triad member. He is particularly helpful in the distribution of narcotics from his construction sites. Bo Ran runs our prostitution businesses from a chain of massage parlors throughout Los Angeles. The banker Peter Wan is crucial in moving our money from here to there and back again." Lo Pan clearly enjoyed the sound of his own voice. He talked for quite a while about the structure of the White Dragon Triad and its members and activities. Mei-Ling listened with rapt attention and the occasional question or comment. She seemed enthralled by his stories, eager to learn more about his life and business.
"But you are just local to Los Angeles, Lo Pan. Some Triads are transnational, but not the White Dragons. You just operate in Los Angeles. Why is that?"
"That is ironic coming from a Mainland spy. Now that Hong Kong belongs to you, we operate in your country as well. Your 'two systems' nonsense makes no difference to us. Some of our most lucrative ventures originate from Hong Kong."
"No, no, no, Lo Pan. My colleagues with the People's Armed Police are much too effective to allow such activities. It's not like the capitalist countries surrounding us. We don't have a crime problem back home"
"Is that right? Well, it seems your faith in the police might be mistaken. No less than one tenth of all the drugs in Asia pass through my distribution center in a warehouse in Kowloon owned by one of my Filipino shell companies. No one even suspects, especially not your stupid PAP goons."
"But how? All the cargo is searched into and out of the Port of Hong Kong."
"All the cargo?" He laughed. "A pipe dream, Ms. Cho. Your country wishes it had that power. In fact…" he proceeded to tell a long story involving inspectors, shipping containers, Hong Kong bankers and Filipino sailors.
"It's shocking to me that you haven't been caught yet. Either by the Americans or by my people," said Mei-Ling. "How do you do that? Have you bribed the American police?"
"Of course, I have. The Americans are greedy, selfish children. A few pieces of gold and they would sell out their own mothers. They have no sense of honor. LAPD, Homeland Security, CHiPs, all of them have Triad money in their pockets. There is an FBI agent on their so-called organized crime task force and all that I have to do is supply him with a fresh harem of underage girls for his bed. In return, I am given prior warning of anything the Americans have planned for me. It's a simple business."
"Is the man Chinese? Is that how you got to him with the girls?"
"Ha. Flannigan? He is the least Chinese man you will meet. A red-faced Irishman. As ugly as a slab of meat."
"Is that what happened with Muan here? Did he betray his country for your money? Betray my brother?"
At the sound of his name, Muan started and looked away from the window, "No, you stupid cow. You fail to understand at all," he said. "The Triads are hundreds of years old. I am a sworn member of the White Dragon, as was my father and grandfather. The present regime in Beijing wasn't even an idea when my ancestors pledged their loyalty to their brothers in the Triad. And this brotherhood will outlast the politicians. I wasn't bribed to betray Lee, I did it willingly, serving a higher loyalty."
"How very noble of you, Muan. I'm sure my brother would have appreciated your motives while he was being beaten by your fellow brothers in the Triad."
"He involved himself in our business. That was his mistake."
"Loyalty and money. A powerful combination, Lo Pan. It's no wonder you have managed to survive as long as you have," she said, squinting against the bright sunlight. "How do you launder the money you make?"
Lo Pan said, "It is….." He stopped, puzzled. Suddenly, his eyes widened with alarm and his finger jabbed at the man behind Mei-Ling. His normally calm voice was harsh and panicked, he screeched, "The cockpit...the cockpit..find out why we are circling."
"What?" asked the man, somewhat slow on the uptake.
"The sunlight, you idiot. It's moved around the plane…."
As the man began to catch on to what Lo Pan was saying, Mei-Ling said, "Chuck, Casey," jammed her elbow into the groin of the man standing behind her and threw both feet over her head to knock him backwards.
Behind Lo Pan, the door to the sleeping cabin opened and Casey stepped out. He wrapped his left arm around the neck of one of Lo Pan's bodyguards and picked the man up from his seat.
In the front of the cabin, Chuck stepped out of the cockpit and grabbed the man Mei-Ling had kicked by his shoulder. Chuck was wearing the stun glove on his left hand and the man twitched and collapsed.
Lo Pan's other bodyguard leaped from his seat only to be grabbed by Casey's right hand, similarly equipped with a stun glove. The man collapsed.
Chuck said, "Wow. I always wanted to learn the Vulcan neck pinch. Cool."
"As usual, Moron, I have no idea what you're talking about," said Casey.
Mei-Ling, now standing over Muan, said, "It's from Star Trek, Casey. What? Were you hatched?" She heard Chuck's laughter and Casey's grunt. She said to Muan, "Please try to fight me, Muan. Please, resist me. For the honor of the White Dragons. No? Pity," she said as the man slumped in his seat, wisely choosing to avoid physical engagement with Mei-Ling.
"Hey, Casey, are you strangling that guy?" asked Chuck.
"No, kid. It's a sleeper hold. My forearm and bicep are nowhere near his trachea. See? Look, they're on either side of his neck. He can breath just fine." Casey easily moved the struggling man around in his arms to give Chuck a better view of the hold. With his gloved right hand he pointed out the area on the side of the man's neck. "I'm cutting off the blood flow to his brain. He'll pass out in a few more seconds. Takes a little longer, but it's very effective. The hard part is knowing not to leave it in place too long. You can kill the guy like this if you're not careful."
"Oh. You ever kill a guy with that hold?" Chuck asked.
The man was kicking and flailing uselessly. "Not accidentally," said Casey as his victim went limp and collapsed. Turning to Mei-Ling he asked, "How'd we do?" The conversation had been entirely in Mandarin, so other than Mei-Ling they had no idea what the discussion entailed.
"Structure of the Triad, a corrupt FBI agent, the Golden Voyage, and two murders for Lo Pan personally. Drug transshipment operation in Hong Kong. Muan totally implicated. Seems pretty good to me."
"You record it all, kid?"
"Every word. Three separate recordings, in case one or two went bad. Those cameras you set up were great too, Case," said Chuck. He bent down to Lo Pan and said, "You are very photogenic, Mr. Lo Pan. Ever think of getting a job in Hollywood?" Lo Pan was sitting in sullen silence. He had put the shade up again and was looking out the window at the blue water below.
Casey used a pocket knife to free Mei-Ling's hands and the spies began to search and secure the prisoners. Casey called Chuck over to watch and learn how to search a prisoner.
When it was Lo Pan's turn, Casey said, "Ok, Ironsides. Your turn."
"Surely that is not necessary, Agent Casey. As you know, I cannot walk."
"Didn't know walking was necessary to pull a trigger, numbnuts."
As Casey's hands made their way up Lo Pan's useless legs, Lo Pan said, "Please leave an old man his dignity, Agent Casey, and do not grope my genitals." Casey looked at him strangely for a moment and jammed his hand into Lo Pan's groin.
"Oh, come one. Really? And you just had to tell me about it? I mean I'd have found it anyway, but to just announce it like that, Jeez." He began to undo Lo Pan's belt and trousers. Jerking down the waistband of his briefs he pointed to the handle of a pistol which had been concealed beneath Lo Pan's underwear adjacent to the man's genitals. "Here, kid. Grab that."
"I'm not grabbing that. Look where it is. I'm not gonna touch that."
"Come on, don't be all squeamish and stuff. Just grab it," said Casey.
"No. You grab it," said Chuck.
"No, you," said Casey.
"Oh, for God's sake," said Mei-Ling with exasperation as she reached between them to remove the gun from Lo Pan's crotch. It was a 32 caliber Colt detective special six-shot revolver with a bobbed hammer, a small gun made for concealment, but with a great deal of stopping power. "What is the matter with men?" She put the gun with the growing pile of weapons from the prisoners.
Muan said to Casey, "You can't arrest me. I have diplomatic immunity."
"Sure," said Casey. "You are free to go." He waved his hand around the plane's cabin. "Oh, wait, I guess that doesn't do you much good at the moment, now does it? Whatever. No worries, though, pal. We aren't arresting you when we land. We are delivering you into the custody of a representative of your government. Aren't we Mei-Ling?"
Mei-Ling smiled at Muan with all the warmth of a lioness eyeing a goat and said, "Yes, I will take custody of Muan, Casey. I'm looking forward to that." The man looked at Mei-Ling and his eyes widened with sudden fear.
All the prisoners had been searched and restrained. Mei-Ling made her way forward to the cockpit. Chuck followed her.
Sarah sat in the pilot's seat wearing the light green headphones routinely worn by pilots. She smiled when she saw Mei-Ling and removed one of the headphones so she could hear the Chinese spy.
Mei-Ling took one look at her and said, "You seem to be enjoying yourself."
Sarah said, with an enormous grin, "I love flying. Love it. And I don't get to do it nearly enough. Seriously, this is the most fun you can possibly have with your clothes on. And this is a beautiful plane. When I win the lottery, I'm getting one of these for each day of the week."
"You certainly do seem to love it. You're glowing."
"You want to try?" Sarah gestured to the co-pilot's seat. "Take a seat and I'll give you control for a while. See how much you like it. But it's addictive, so be warned, girlfriend," she said with a huge laugh.
"Thanks, but I'll pass for the moment. Something else I have in mind," said Mei-Ling.
"Work? Are we all good?" she asked.
"Yes. Success. We'll certainly wrap up Lo Pan and maybe a significant portion of the entire Triad, both in Los Angeles and in Hong Kong."
"Excellent. We didn't do too bad for freelancing, huh?" asked Sarah.
"Not too bad at all. What now?"
"Well, I guess we head back and turn over Lo Pan and the recordings to the cops. You can take your copy to help close down the Hong Kong operation."
"So we are heading back to the airport now?" asked Mei-Ling.
"Yeah, why?"
"Any chance of circling out here for a bit longer?" asked Mei Ling.
"Sure. We are in uncontrolled airspace out here. We can stay out as long as we want. We needed to be far enough away from the coast that Lo Pan and his goons wouldn't see land at any time as we circled, so we are pretty far out. As we head back into LA, we'll start encountering controlled airspace. There are a shitload of airports around there and almost all of them have flight restrictions controlling where we can go. But out here? We can mess around up here freely."
"Are we a mile high?" she asked.
Her eyes sparkling with amusement and a smile playing on her lips, Sarah said, "Why yes we are, as a matter of fact."
"Oh, good," said Mei-Ling, also smiling. "Circle a few more times, will you?" She turned away from Sarah in the cockpit and started to move back into the cabin. "Hey, Casey, come with me. I have a bucket list thing I need your help with."
She moved through the cabin to the enclosed sleeping compartment at the aft of the plane. Casey rushed to follow, but he turned around and said, "Hey, Bartowski. Keep an eye on the prisoners, ok?"
"I got it, Case. No worries."
With a grunt, Casey followed Mei-Ling into the back of the plane, almost stumbling over a prisoner's foot in his eagerness.
Chuck and Sarah looked at each other and started to laugh. While standing in the cockpit door watching the prisoners, he reached out and held her hand.
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A/N2: Thanks to atcDave for his guidance about the airspace regulations. How cool is it that we have readers and friends who are experts in all kinds of awesome stuff and we can ask for help.
A/N3: One more chapter in this arc and we go on to meet Mr. Lazlo Mahnovski. As usual, thanks to everyone for their feedback. That's what makes this whole thing incredibly fun.