Chapter 151 - Game Over

"I spoke to Everett Pang last night. I thought I'd catch him off guard before he contacted his little scapegoat and told him what to do. But, that guy is pretty useless and sloppy. I'm surprised he hasn't been caught already. Why don't we just swoop in and arrest him instead of putting on this entire act?" Alexander asked impatiently.

"Because Everett Pang's not the one we are after," Jackson explained.

Sean looked at Jackson and nodded his head, "That's right. During my investigation, I discovered that this entire operation is like an onion with multiple layers. Thomas may be the scapegoat for Everett, but Everett's every move is actually being orchestrated by his wife, Carol Pang. Meanwhile, Carol Pang is taking orders from her godfather, Rawson Zhang, a gangster that was released from prison a year ago. And, it just so happens that Rawson was actually Jackson's gangster boss in Shanghai..."

Alexander looked at the two men in confusion. This case was a lot more complex than he originally thought. No wonder they had to fly him all the way from France.

"So, my mission is to lure Rawson Zhang into a deal with me and capture him?" Alexander concluded.

Sean began to nod his head, "Y--"

But, before he got to say yes, Jackson suddenly cut in, "No."

Everyone turned and looked at the man in confusion. Even Halia, who had been working on the case all along was puzzled by his response.

"If it was that simple, don't you think they would have been caught by now?" Jackson asked.

He then pulled out his phone and showed the group some photos he had taken. They were photos of the case files he had been studying the day before. Before he returned the wooden box of files to Trisha that morning, he had taken photos of a few particular pages of interest.

"This is a case that Hong Kong Interpol has been working on for the last 5 years," he explained. "It was actually stemmed off Marcus' work in Beijing."

"Marcus? Marcus Chin?" Halia questioned. She hadn't heard this name for a while. How was this case related to Jackson's dead undercover friend from the anti-corruption bureau?

"Initially, Marcus was investigating an anti-corruption case in Beijing, but he didn't realize that he had actually uncovered an entire 'triangle' of corruption between China, Hong Kong and Macau. Of course, Marcus only had jurisdiction in China, so when he began to find leads to Hong Kong and Macau, the ACB (anti-corruption bureau) had to contact Interpol for help. After Marcus died, the entire case was handed over to Interpol," Jackson explained. "But, as they began to look further into the case, they dug up suspicious activity that traced as far back as 15 years ago! In fact, they found 25 incidences in total that could be related."

"Which brings us to this money laundering case. We have reason to believe that Everett, Carol and Rawson haven't been caught because someone in the police force is helping them," Jackson frowned. "And, we believe that this person is involved in an organization of corrupt police officers that are linked to a series of crimes around China, Hong Kong and Macau, including forgery, fraud...and even murder!"

"It's this organization that we are ultimately after!"

Halia glanced at Jackson. She remembered him mentioning that there were some confidential files related to his mother's death. Were these the files he was talking about? Did that mean, his mother was murdered and covered up by an organization of corrupt police officers? But why?

Halia felt her heart break as she looked at the man with concern.

"Don't worry, we will definitely catch them," she said with determination.

...

At this time, inside an office in Shanghai, a particular policeman received a message on his phone.

[50 million has been wired to your account. Don't fail this time]

Attached to the message was a photo. The policeman opened up the photo and saw a beautiful young woman with long black hair. He recognized her. Many of the socialite families had been talking about her recently. 

She was the mysterious daughter of Henry Feng; the director of Fengtai Corporation, Haili Feng.

With a smirk, he picked up his phone and made a call. "I want you to stage a kidnapping..." he instructed. He then forwarded the photo of Halia and said, "This is Haili Feng, director of the alcohol empire, Fengtai Corporation, and daughter of Henry Feng. She is currently in Macau, staying in the hotel at the Golden Dream Casino. Kidnap her, demand for ransom and kill her before the ransom arrives. Make it look like an accident. I'll make sure to give you enough time to escape and I'll get someone to cover all bases for you. Don't make any mistakes. I've already wired you 5 million. Finish the job and I'll send you another 5."

On the other end of the phone, the man looked at the photo and smiled. The woman in the photo was young and beautiful; completely his type. If he didn't have to kill her, he would have definitely pursued her. But, this was his job and 10 million at the end of the day was enough to buy him plenty of women of the same caliber. So, he snickered and replied, "OK."

He then pushed some ch.i.p.s into the middle of a poker table in front of him and smirked, "I'm all in."

The card dealer leaned forward and brushed all the ch.i.p.s into a pile. He then counted all the ch.i.p.s and announced the total to the other players. As he stood up straight and waited for a response, his golden uniform caught the man's eye. Embroidered neatly across the dealer's left pocket, were the words - Golden Dream Casino. 

The man laughed to himself.

What a coincidence, he was already at the right place. It seemed, luck was on his side.

He glanced at the photo of Halia one last time and deleted it from his phone. He had a good memory for faces, especially when it came to women, so there was no need to keep any potential evidence on his phone. 

After the other players followed his bet, the dealer flipped the last card in the river and asked for each player to reveal their hand.

The man flipped over his cards and snickered as he whispered, "Game over."