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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
More than martial arts
» Kaneohe
Quinn Ah Sun thought of himself as pretty akamai. He and his HPD colleagues kept their fingers on the pulse of the city. They knew where the trouble spots were, like that festering bit of Baghdad on the shores of Pearl Harbor, the Puuwai Momi housing area from which Kahealani Indreginal was taken and killed.
But now as Quinn listened to Kamasami Khan's tale of the Chinese secret police Te-Wu operating under auspices of the Bank of Lhasa, and of the clandestine Free Tibet Warrior Society's efforts to protect the second Lama Jey Tsong Khapa from Te-Wu, he realized there was a layer of life in Honolulu he'd known nothing about. And which he'd promised, for the time being, to ignore with the cop part of his brain.
"To do otherwise," Khan said, "would put the lama's health in severe jeapordy."
As Khan explained how Bodhicita Guzman accidentally met a Chinese banker, become his lover and, when she learned he was the leader of Te-Wu, fed Khan information on Te-Wu's activities, particularly their anger that the young lama was returning to Hawaii after 16 years in the Himalayas, Quinn understood why keeping this out of the HPD apparatus made sense, for now.
"This Free Tibet Warrior Society," Quinn said, "you do more than martial arts, I'm guessing."
Khan paused before answering, thus giving his answer without detailing it.
"Martial arts," he said momentarily, "have been enough so far."
Quinn nodded. They didn't call it the Free Tibet Warrior Society for nothing. Hawaii was their training ground for bigger operations elsewhere. A shiver shot up Quinn's back. What these Tibetans were thinking was crazy.
He'd noticed that while terrorists attacked America and Russia, Israel and Spain, the Philippines and Bali, nobody messed with China. They were ruthless, came at perceived enemies hard and cruel with overwhelming force, and didn't worry about offending anyone. Merely taking offense was reason enough to be crushed, as the citizens of Hong Kong were in danger of finding.
"One more thing," Khan continued. "Yesterday was the second attempt on the life of the lama's stand-in. The first night at the hotel, two members of Te-Wu dressed as room-service waiters brought tea and fruit, 'a gift from the employees.' Clever, eh? It was poisoned, all of it. Two of our guys took it to the park, fed it to a couple of pigeons. They keeled over almost instantly.
"Beyond that, the Chinese are conducting an aggressive campaign to eradicate Buddhism from Tibet. As we speak, Chinese soldiers are beating monks and nuns in Tibetan prisons, raping as suits their particular tastes. For simple possession of a photo of the Dalai Lama, you can be imprisoned for 12 years. And, officer Ah Sun, the Communists fear this boy sitting before you more than the Dalai Lama. They're not going away. Are you?"
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Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek. His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin. He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com