Hui-shan Temple, Taiwan
THE HUI-SHAN TEMPLE doesn’t appear on any tourist maps of Taiwan. Nor can it be found on Google Maps, since it has no internet URL. Tucked away in the Dasyueshan Forest, on the island’s Central Mountain Range, nestling in the shadow of a 3860-metre mountain, it is one of the least conspicuous of Taiwan’s fifteen thousand temples. No mass worship here, no public offerings of candles and prayers, no elaborate golden dragon motifs. Just a cluster of low, modest buildings, with a large bell in a stone courtyard and a well-watered garden, where a lone and trusted caretaker tends the school of colourful koi carp. Outsiders, casual visitors, of whom there are practically none, are politely told the temple is closed until further notice and they are gently but firmly sent on their way. Their nostrils might catch the faint scent of incense emanating from the wooden halls within but that is as close as they will get.
For the Hui-shan temple had good reason to guard its secrets.
All the outward trappings of religious worship – the stone lions and the glazed Buddhas – provided ample cover for the centre of operations for a criminal organization with tentacles that spread not just into the black economy but into the very heart of Taiwanese political life. Debt collection, gambling dens, hostess bars and brothels. And the man sitting right at the top, at the very pinnacle of power, had an extensive and feared pedigree. A veteran of the Celestial Alliance, one of the four major triads in Taiwan, he was known simply as ‘Bo’. Organized crime was in his blood. Drawn into the criminal underworld at an early age, he had joined Celestial Alliance while still in his teens and never looked back, kicking down his rivals, both metaphorically and physically, as well as anyone who challenged him as he clawed his way up the greasy pole of the triad hierarchy.
Very few people knew his full name but there was something apt and deeply sinister about the nickname they had for him in the underworld: Smiley Face. People assumed he had acquired this moniker because he knew he was untouchable. Bo had connections with local councillors and in the police, and he had almost lost count of the number of well-placed people, both in and out of government, who owed him favours. But those who had slighted or wronged him found it hard to forget his sickly grimace as he broke the bones of his victim with a hardened bamboo pole.
Bo was meticulous when it came to his own security and that of his trusted inner circle. His bodyguards, strategically placed around the temple and its grounds, were all American, all ex-Delta Force or Green Berets. He simply did not trust his own countrymen not to betray him. There had been little difficulty in making sure they were armed with their primary weapons of choice: Heckler & Koch MP7 submachine-pistols backed up by the larger calibre Mk16 SCAR-H carbine for greater hitting power, in case any of his rivals decided to have a go at eliminating his centre of operations.
It was while standing in the temple garden, deep in conversation with his grey-bearded groundsman, that Bo took the call he had been waiting for. It was a short conversation. The voice that spoke to him, barely audible through the rasp of wind at the other end, had a simple message to convey. ‘The cargo will be docking shortly.’