Part 58

The next morning after their arrival, blonde, blue-eyed Betty and dark-haired, brown-eyed Harriet headed toward the Miramar Hotel arcade to find Mr. Chu. They were window-shopping in the arcade when a voice said politely, “Excuse me, please. I am Mr. Chu. Are you Miss Warren and Miss Davis?”

The two women exclaimed in surprise. Betty said, “Yes. But how in the world did you know who we are?”

Chu, a smiling, dapper, middle-aged man, said, “Lieutenant Bess and Lieutenant Marge were here last week. They said you would be in Hong Kong soon. So I have been watching for you. I would be happy to show you around Hong Kong if you wish.”

The next morning, Chu called at the Grand Hotel with a chauffeur-driven car. Obviously to make the girls feel more at ease, he had with him his three-year-old son--a cute, button-eyed boy who stared at the two American women as though they were creatures from another planet.

Soon the four of them were touring Kowloon and the New Territories, the farm land stretching from Kowloon to the border of Red China. Chu entertained them as they went along with a history of the countryside and of the people. They even stood at one end of the bridge at the border, looking into Red China and watching the impassive Red soldier standing guard at the other end with a Russian-made machinegun slung from his shoulder.

Before their Hong Kong stay had ended, Betty and Harriet were as much impressed by Chu’s courtesy and helpfulness as other military personnel had been in years past. Chu had concentrated on building good will among the American military people, with the result that he knew scores of Army, Navy and Air Force men and women throughout the Far East. He carried on a lively correspondence with them, acting as their agent in buying gifts to be shipped to friends and relatives in all parts of the United States. His reputation for fair dealing was impeccable.

On the last day of their stay, Chu called at the Grand Hotel to bid the nurses goodbye. They thanked him profusely for his kindnesses and asked if there was anything that they could do for him.

“If you would be so kind,” Chu said, “I would like for you to deliver some gifts to a relative in Japan.”

He explained that he would have a seaman deliver two suitcases to them at Yokosuka. The cases, which they would be free to open if they wished, would contain a few shirts, some dolls for his relative’s children, and a few other inexpensive gifts. The nurses would not have to bother about delivering them, because his relative would call for them at their quarters. The nurses said they would be delighted to do him a favor. And they bid one another goodbye.

Betty and Harriet were not the only Americans who had sought the services of Mr. Chu that week of February, 1958. Air Force Captain Bob Hampton, a tall, slim young jet fighter pilot, also was one of his customers. Hampton had hitched a ride from Japan to Hong Kong aboard an Air Force transport. He had called on Chu to help him purchase several tailored suits and shirts, a camera, a watch and other gifts.

Before they parted Chu also asked Hampton if he would mind carrying a suitcase back to Japan for his relative, a Mr. Lee. The captain said he would be glad to do him a favor, whereupon Chu brought out a suitcase from the shop where he worked. He opened it to show his friend that it contained only a few dolls, several shirts, ties, and other inexpensive small gifts. Hampton bid Chu goodbye, carrying the suitcase with him as he hurried to catch his plane back to Tokyo.

Soon afterward, Chu once more ran into a friend, Seaman Leslie Brown, a broad-shouldered young native of Los Angeles who had come ashore from the SS President Cleveland when the big liner docked with its load of ’round-the-world tourists. Chu had met Brown on a previous visit, introducing himself to the lonely sailor he had noticed wandering through the streets of Kowloon and inviting him on a tour of the colony. Brown had repaid Chu by introducing him to other crew members on shopping expeditions.

When they met once again, Chu invited Brown to lunch at a restaurant where waiters brought to the table the most bewildering variety of Chinese food Brown had ever eaten. “This is the best and cheapest food in all Hong Kong,” Chu said.

During the meal, Chu asked Brown if he would do him the favor of delivering a suitcase to a relative, Mr. Lee, in Los Angeles. He explained, as he had to the other Americans, that the suitcase contained only a few gifts.

“Sure,” Brown said, “if there is nothing in it to cause me any trouble.”

Chu assured Brown there would be no trouble. He took him to the home of a friend, Ting Ching-Tsoi, where Mrs. Ting brought out a suitcase. Chu opened it to show Brown that it contained nothing but the gifts he had described. And then he gave Brown $20 for his trouble in delivering the luggage.

That night, Chu also delivered two suitcases to a seaman aboard the USS Kearsarge, to be taken to Betty Warren and Harriet Davis in Yokosuka.

Unknowingly, these Americans were innocents in a plot to smuggle millions of dollars worth of narcotics into the United States, either directly or by way of Japan. Each of the suitcases contained a false bottom in which packets of heroin were concealed.

As American and British agents later pieced together the story, Chu himself was unaware that the luggage contained heroin, or that he was being used as a pawn merely because he had so many friends among the military people and seamen who visited Hong Kong.

The plot had its beginning when Chu’s friend, Ting Ching-Tsoi, conceived the idea of using Chu as an unwitting agent in a heroin-smuggling ring. Ting approached Chu with a proposition that they could make a big profit by sending watch parts to the United States, hidden in the false bottoms of suitcases carried by Chu’s American friends. Ting knew that Chu would have nothing to do with narcotics but that his code of ethics would not be violated if he thought he was having his friends smuggle a few watch parts.

Chu agreed to a deal. Ting sent a confederate, Kung Kee-Sun, to nearby Macao, where anything can be bought if one has the cash--and where heroin can be purchased by the pound as easily as a woman can be bought for the night.

Kung smuggled the heroin past the British customs patrol. Then Ting bought several good-quality leather suitcases. He took them to a friend in Kowloon, who inserted false bottoms, fashioned of thin plywood covered with leather. The packages of heroin literally were built into the luggage. The job was so well done that only a careful inspection by an expert would disclose anything wrong.

Then, quite by chance, the system broke down because an Air Force wife became suspicious. When Captain Hampton returned to his home near the Tachikawa air base outside Tokyo, he found that his wife was on a shopping trip into town. He put the suitcase Chu had given him in a closet and promptly forgot about it. He also forgot to inform his wife that a Chinese would be calling for the suitcase later. Then he was suddenly called away from home on a training mission.

While he was gone, a Chinese called at the Hampton home. When Mrs. Hampton opened the door, the Chinese introduced himself as Mr. Ling. He inquired about the gifts which Captain Hampton had brought from Hong Kong from his relative, Mr. Chu. He said he had come for them and would appreciate it if Mrs. Hampton would give him the suitcase.

But Mrs. Hampton knew nothing about gifts in a suitcase. She knew nothing about a Mr. Ling and nothing about a Mr. Chu. “I’m very sorry,” she said, “but you will have to return when my husband is home. He has said nothing to me about it.”

Mr. Ling was visibly upset and seemed not to understand why Mrs. Hampton would not give him the suitcase. But he left, promising to return.

When Hampton returned home, his wife told him of the strange Chinese who had called and how upset he had been when she had refused to turn over a suitcase to him.

“I’m sorry,” Hampton laughed. “I put the suitcase in the closet and forgot all about it.” He explained he had brought it home and was to deliver it to Ling as a favor to Chu. “There’s nothing in it except a few cheap gifts,” he said.