The continuing story, City of Churches - OWLS Club Chapter 5
You don't have to have read the original OWLS Club to appreciate this new storyline. But it does include many of the original characters.
This Chapter starts to incorporate two other stories, An Evil Woman and A Stella & Margarita Story and it may seem confusing if you haven't read those stories. This Chapter begins where Part 6 of a Stella & Margarita Story ended.
It is a mystery, there is murder, some gore and violence and some sex between consenting adults, who happen to be gay or Bi women. You will notice some old familiar names and many new ones.
***WARNING***
The story starts to get a little dark. There is some EXTREME VIOLENCE so if you are sensitive to such things, 'look away now'.
The Chinese Unit.
Lui Wang AKA Madam Lai (Real name Josephine Clements - Ref: City of Churches Pt 4)
Lui Wang was a 30-year-old Chinese operative, the CCP's most prized asset in Australia. A promiscuous gay woman, who had more dirty secrets about her own government than any other. This gave her a certain amount of freedom. She had set up a very secret and profitable sideline, dealing with mainly white teenagers from Australia and making them available, at some cost, to certain individuals in places of influence in key regions around the world. It had provided her with some wealth as well as some pleasure along the way.
Grace Kai Soo Lin
Grace Kai Soo Lin was in her mid-40s a trained killer and had worked her way up both on her knees and on her back to answer solely to the General Secretary of the CCP. She was there to keep the Chinese Government informed and Madam Lai, as she was known, in line. Her orders were simple, do not let Lui Wang or their Australian situation fall into their enemy's hands.
The small group of fifteen specially selected soldiers from the PLA were there to assist, as required and were hand-picked by Lui Wang. She was somewhat disappointed that a mere civilian had easily disposed of 5 of her select team. They had become soft and complacent she thought to herself. More than once they had shown their lack of professionalism. Only eleven remained of her small group of armed soldiers who landed on a stretch of the South Australian coast known as the Coorong. The journey from the southern ocean took no time at all, but the briefing from her Chinese and Russian masters took much longer. The Russian submarine had laid dormant on the ocean floor to avoid the searching American and Australian sub-chasers and hunters. Because of their proximity to the Australian coastline, the time to disembark was limited to twelve minutes. The Russian crew and the Chinese group were well-trained, it wouldn't take them any longer than that.
Their mission was straightforward prepare the groundwork for a mole to be instilled into the Advisory Committee. This meant that an existing member had to be eliminated or compromised. The AUKUS Advisory Committee meeting at the Osborne Submarine Construction Yard was due to commence on the last weekend of May and run for four days. The Advisory Committee was the group that actually does all the hard work, there were no politicians seeking to grandstand or military types wanting to make a name for themselves. Just a group of a dozen hardworking public servants. These 12 people were in fact so unseen that they were almost invisible. Four from each nation making up the treaty group. Plus a smaller sub-group for each nation to put forward their planning ideas in the unlikely event that hostile actions break out. All were very low-key and highly professional. They were trained to work together. To put aside any petty differences as each government knew that the war clouds were gathering on the horizon.
Lui Wang or AKA Madam Lai had two plans, but before she could implement either of them, she had to find out who these invisible people on the committee were. The first of the two plans was to infiltrate a planned social gathering (The British and Americans always held a function at these sorts of events) and try to obtain some indiscrete moment that may be used to compromise one of the committee members. Failing that she would have to eliminate, one of them, discretely, of course, said member would have a heart attack at some inconvenient moment.
She knew that the security at the base would be at the highest level and that a confrontation or assault upon the group was out of the question, this wasn't or couldn't even look like an act of war, even though technically it was. All nations play these silly games and nothing ever sees the light of day.
Once the group were put ashore, they were told to get to their base in Adelaide and to meet at their 'safe house' in Port Adelaide. Be careful and discrete they were told and to avoid any conflict. Grace and Madam Lai travelled together. First to Goolwa, then to Victor Harbor before catching a bus to Adelaide.
They found separate seats and ignored each other, not being overtly rude but so as not to draw any undue attention to themselves. They were the only Asian people on the bus. Grace read a book, a cheap R King erotic novel, while the younger Lui Wang put on her earphones and played music. The 3-hour bus trip went slowly and they continued to stay clear of each other once they arrived at the Franklin Street depot in the heart of the CBD. Neither of them noticed any surveillance teams, because there weren't any in the intrastate depot, they were though in the interstate depot.
Grace caught a tram down to the entertainment centre, while Lui Wang sat in a coffee shop watching, waiting to see a face she might have seen once before that day. She took her time. She didn't recognise anyone. She walked until she found what she was looking for, a phone shop, she casually walked in and bought a cheap phone and a twenty-dollar sim card. She paid in cash and found the busy Macdonald's at the end of Rundle Mall, she sat and assembled the phone then made a call. It was answered immediately. She spoke in Chinese briefly and told the person on the other end of the phone to come and collect her. She was told it would take 20 minutes. She grunted her reply. She left the phone on a seat after deleting the call info, she took the sim card out and then walked to a coffee shop further down the street to escape the noise from the madhouse that was called MacDonald's, dropping the sim card into a stormwater drain in the gutter.
She ordered her coffee and a glass of water, then sat outside under an awning she was looking at the passing people. Waiting to see a familiar face. Being paranoid comes with the profession. She saw the black van coming towards her, moving slowly, caught in the city traffic, she smiled to herself, all the hard work of keeping a low profile could be undone by one simple silly mistake, like using the same vehicle for everything. She stood up, finished her coffee and started walking towards the van. Moving along the street was easy enough the traffic was hardly moving, she walked up to it, opened the door and got straight in while the van didn't even need to stop.
The first thing she told the driver while glaring at him, was, "Get rid of the van, today. Get three four-seater vehicles, no get SUVs in different colours. Why do I even have to tell you to do this? Fuck, you are all fucking idiots," She spoke exclusively in Chinese when with she was with her own people, even though they could all speak English. "She continued, "This van is known to the authorities, fuck even that stupid fucking girl followed you," She kept shaking her head and banging on the dashboard. "Go to the tram stop at the entertainment centre and pick Grace up,"