James clavell

"The minister agrees to this, sir?"

"If you agree, Roger." Again it was said politely but the undercurrent said You'd better agree, Roger.

"Very well, sir. Has Mr. Sinders agreed to the plan?"

"He will be here on Friday, BOAC willing."

"Yes sir." Roger Crosse glanced at Dunross. "I'd better keep the files then until then. You can give me a sealed pa—"

Dunross shook his head. "They're safe until I deliver them."

Crosse shook his head. "No. If we know, others'd know. The others're not so clean-handed as we are. We must know where they are—we'd better have a guard, around the clock."

Sir Geoffrey nodded. "That's fair enough, Ian?"

Dunross thought a moment. "Very well. I've put them in a vault at the Victoria Bank." Crosse's neck became pink as Dunross produced a key and laid it on the desk. The numbers were carefully defaced. "There're about a thousand safety deposit boxes. I alone know the number. This's the only key. If you'll keep it, Sir Geoffrey. Then... well, that's about the best I can do to avoid risks."

"Roger?"

"They're certainly safe there. Certainly not possible to break open all of them. Good, then that's all settled. Ian, the warrant's cancelled. You do promise, Ian, to deliver them to Sinders the moment he arrives?" Again the eyes became piercing. "I have really gone to a lot of trouble over this."

"Good. Then that's settled. Nothing yet on poor John Chen, Roger?"

"No sir, we're trying everything."

"Terrible business. Ian, what's all this about the Ho-Pak? Are they really in trouble?"

"Yes sir."

"Will they go under?"

"I don't know. The word seems to be they will."

"Damnable! I don't like that at all. Very bad for our image. And the Par-Con deal?"

"It looks good. I hope to have a favourable report for you next week, sir."

"Excellent. We could use some big American firms here." He smiled. "I understand the girl's a stunner! By the way, the Parliamentary Trade Delegation's due from Peking tomorrow. I'll entertain them Thursday—you'll come of course."

"Yes sir. Will the dinner be stag?"

"Yes, good idea."

"I'll invite them to the races Saturday—the overflow can go into the bank's box, sir."

"Good. Thank you, Ian. Roger, if you'll spare me a moment."

Dunross got up and shook hands and left. Though he had come with Crosse in the police car, his own Rolls was waiting for him. Brian Kwok intercepted him. "What's the poop, Ian?"

"I was asked to let your boss tell you," he said.

"Fair enough. Is he going to be long?"

"I don't know. Everything's all right, Brian. No need to worry. I think I dealt with the dilemma correctly."

"Hope so. Sorry—bloody business."

"Yes." Dunross got into the back of the Silver Cloud. "Golden Ferry," he said crisply.

Sir Geoffrey was pouring the fine sherry into two exquisite, eggshell porcelain cups. "This AMG business is quite frightening, Roger," he said. "I'm afraid I'm still not inured to treachery, betrayal and the rotten lengths the enemy will go to—even after all this time." Sir Geoffrey had been in the Diplomatic Corps all of his working life, except for the war years when he was a staff officer in the British Army. He spoke Russian, Mandarin, French and Italian. "Dreadful."

"Yes sir." Crosse watched him. "You're sure you can trust Ian?"

"On Friday you won't need London's clearance to proceed. You have an Order in Council. On Friday we take possession."

"Yes sir." Crosse accepted the porcelain cup, its fragility bothering him. "Thank you, sir."

"I suggest you have two men in the bank vaults at all times, one SI, one CID for safety, and a plainclothes guard on the tai-pan—quietly, of course."

"I'll arrange about the bank before I leave. I've already put him under blanket surveillance."

"You've already done it?"

"On him? Yes sir. I presumed he'd manipulate the situation to suit his purposes. Ian's a very tricky fellow. After all, the tai-pan of the Noble House is never a fool."

"No. Health!" They touched glasses delicately. The ring of the pottery was beautiful. "This tai-pan's the best I've dealt with."

"Did Ian mention if he'd reread all the files recently, sir? Last night, for instance?"

Sir Geoffrey frowned, rethinking their conversation this morning. "I don't think so. Wait a minute, he did say... exactly he said, 'When I first read the reports I thought some of AMG's ideas were too farfetched. But now—and now that he's dead, I've changed my mind...' That could imply he's reread them recently. Why?"

Crosse was examining the paper-thin porcelain cup against the light. "I've often heard he's got a remarkable memory. If the files in the vaults are untouchable... well, I wouldn't want the KGB tempted to snatch him."

"Good God, you don't think they'd be that stupid, do you? The tai-pan?"

"It depends what importance they put on the reports, sir," Crosse said dispassionately. "Perhaps our surveillance should be relatively open—that should scare them off if they happen to have that in mind. Would you mention it to him, sir?"

"Certainly." Sir Geoffrey made a note on his pad. "Good idea. Damnable business. Could the Werewolves... could there be a link between the smuggled guns and the John Chen kidnapping?"

"I don't know, sir. Yet. I've put Armstrong and Brian Kwok on to the case. If there's a connection they'll find it." He watched the dying sunlight on the pale, powder blue translucence of the porcelain that seemed to enhance the golden sheen of the dry La Ina sherry. "Interesting, the play of colours."

"Yes. They're T'ang Ying—named after the director of the Emperor's factory in 1736. Emperor Ch'en Leung actually." Sir Geoffrey looked up at Crosse. "A deep-cover spy in my police, in my Colonial Office, my Treasury Department, the naval base, the Victoria, telephone company, and even the Noble House. They could paralyse us and create untold mischief between us and the PRC."

"Yes sir." Crosse peered at the cup. "Seems impossible that it should be so thin. I've never seen such a cup before."

"You're a collector?"

"No sir. Afraid I don't know anything about them."

"These're my favourites, Roger, quite rare. They're called t'o t'ai—without body. They're so thin that the glazes, inside and out, seem to touch."

"I'm almost afraid to hold it."

"Oh, they're quite strong. Delicate of course but strong. Who could be Arthur?"

Crosse sighed. "There's no clue in this report. None. I've read it fifty times. There must be something in the others, whatever Dunross thinks."

"Possibly."

The delicate cup seemed to fascinate Crosse. "Porcelain's a clay, isn't it?"

"Yes. But this type is actually made from a mixture of two clays, Roger, kaolin—after the hilly district of Kingtehchen where it's found—and pan tun tse, the so-called little white blocks. Chinese call these the flesh and the bones of porcelain." Sir Geoffrey walked over to the ornate leather-topped table that served as a bar and brought back the decanter. It was about eight inches high and quite translucent, almost transparent. "The blue's remarkable too. When the body's quite dry, cobalt in powder form's blown onto the porcelain with a bamboo pipe. Actually the color's thousands of individual tiny specks of blue. Then it's glazed and fired—at about 1300 degrees." He put it back on the bar, the touch of the workmanship and the sight of it pleasing him.

"Remarkable."

"There was always an Imperial Edict against their export. We quai loh were only entitled to articles made out ofhua shih, slippery stone, or tun ni—brick mud." He looked at his cup again, as a connoisseur.

"The genius who made this probably earned 100 dollars a year."

"Perhaps he was overpaid," Crosse said and the two men smiled with one another.

"Perhaps."

"I'll find Arthur, sir, and the others. You can depend on it."

"I'm afraid I have to, Roger. Both the minister and I agree. He will have to inform the Prime Minister—and the Chiefs of Staff."

"Then the information has to go through all sorts of hands and tongues and the enemy'll be bound to find out that we may be on to them."

"Yes. So we'll have to work fast. I bought you four days' grace, Roger. The minister won't pass anything on for that time."

"Bought, sir?"

"Figuratively speaking. In life one acquires and gives lOUs—even in the Diplomatic Corps."

"Yes sir. Thank you."

"Nothing on Bartlett and Miss Casey?"

"No sir. Rosemont and Langan have asked for up-to-date dossiers. There seems to be some connection between Bartlett and Banastasio—we're not sure yet what it is. Both he and Miss Tcholok were in Moscow last month."

"Ah!" Sir Geoffrey replenished the cups. "What did you do about that poor fellow Voranski?"

"I sent the body back to his ship, sir." Crosse told him the gist of his meeting with Rosemont and Langan and about the photographs.

"That's a stroke of luck! Our cousins are getting quite smart," the governor said. "You'd better find those assassins before the KGB do—or the CIA, eh?"

"I have teams around the house now. As soon as they appear we'll grab them. We'll hold them incommunicado of course. I've tightened security all around the Ivanov. No one else'll slip through the net, I promise you. No one."

"Good. The police commissioner said he'd ordered CID to be more alert too." Sir Geoffrey thought a moment. "I'll send a minute to the secretary about your not complying with the l-4a. American liaison in London's sure to be very upset, but under the circumstances, how could you obey?"

"If I might suggest, it might be better to ask him not to mention we haven't got the files yet, sir. That information might also get into the wrong hands. Leave well alone, as long as we can."

"Yes, I agree." The governor sipped his sherry. "There's lots of wisdom in laissez-faire, isn't there?"

"Yes sir."

Sir Geoffrey glanced at his watch. "I'll phone him in a few minutes, catch him before lunch. Good. But there's one problem I can't leave alone: the Ivanov. This morning I heard from our unofficial intermediary that Peking views that ship's presence here with the greatest concern." The quite unofficial spokesman for the PRC in Hong Kong and the ranking Communist appointment was believed to be, presently, one of the deputy chairmen of the Bank of China, China's central bank through which passed all foreign exchange and all the billion U.S. dollars earned by supplying consumer goods and almost all Hong Kong's food and water. Britain had always maintained, bluntly, that Hong Kong was British soil, a Crown Colony. In all of Hong Kong's history, since 1841, Britain had never allowed any official Chinese representative to reside in the Colony. None.

"He went out of his way to jiggle me about the Ivanov," Sir Geoffrey continued, "and he wanted to register Peking's extreme displeasure that a Soviet spy ship was here. He even suggested I might think it wise to expel it.... After all, he said, we hear one of the Soviet KGB spies posing as a seaman had actually got himself killed on our soil. I thanked him for his interest and told him I'd advise my superiors—in due course." Sir Geoffrey sipped some sherry. "Curiously, he didn't appear irritated that the nuclear carrier was here."

"That's strange!" Crosse was equally surprised.

"Does that indicate another policy shift—a distinct significant foreign-policy change, a desire for peace with the U. S.? I can't believe that. Everything indicates pathological hatred of the U. S. A."

The governor sighed and refilled the cups. "If it leaked that Sevrin's in existence, that we're undermined here... God almighty, they'd go into convulsions, and rightly so!"

"We'll find the traitors, sir, don't worry. We'll find them!"

"Will we? I wonder." Sir Geoffrey sat down at the window seat and stared out at the manicured lawns and English garden, shrubs, flower beds surrounded by the high white wall, the sunset good. His wife was cutting flowers, wandering among the beds at the far end of the gardens, followed by a sour-faced, disapproving Chinese gardener. Sir Geoffrey watched her a moment. They had been married thirty years and had three children, all married now, and they were content and at peace with each other. "Always traitors," he said sadly. "The Soviets are past masters in their use. So easy for the Sevrin traitors to agitate, to spread a little poison here and there, so easy to get China upset, poor China who's xenophobic anyway!

Oh how easy it is to rock our boat here! Worst of all, who's your spy? The police spy? He must be at least a chief inspector to have access to that information."

"I've no idea. If I had, he'd've been neutralised long since."

"What are you going to do about General Jen and his Nationalist undercover agents?"

"I'm going to leave them alone—they've been pegged for months. Much better to leave known enemy agents in situ than to have to ferret out their replacements."

"I agree—they'd certainly all be replaced. Theirs, and ours. Sad, so sad! We do it and they do it. So sad and so stupid—this world's such a paradise, could be such a paradise."

A bee hummed in the bay windows then flew back to the garden again as Sir Geoffrey eased the curtain aside. "The minister asked me to make sure our visiting MPs—our trade delegation to China that returns tomorrow—to make sure their security was optimum, judicious, though totally discreet."

"Yes sir. I understand."

"It appears that one or two of them might be future cabinet ministers if the Labour Party get in. It'd be good for the Colony to create a fine impression on them."

"Do you think they've a chance next time? The Labour Party?"

"I don't comment on those sort of questions, Roger." The governor's voice was flat, and reproving. "I'm not concerned with party politics—-I represent Her Majesty the Queen—but personally I really do wish some of their extremists would go away and leave us to our own devices for clearly much of their left wing socialist philosophy is alien to our English way of life." Sir Geoffrey hardened. "It's quite obvious some of them do assist the enemy, willingly—or as dupes. Since we're on the subject, are any of our guests security risks?"

"It depends what you mean, sir. Two are left-wing trades unionists back-benchers, fire-eaters—Robin Grey and Lochin Donald McLean. McLean openly flaunts his B. C. P.—British Communist Party—affiliations. He's fairly high on our S-list. All the other Socialists are moderates. The Conservative members are moderate, middle-class, all ex-service. One's rather imperialist, the Liberal Party representative, Hugh Guthrie."

"And the fire-eaters? They're ex-service?"

"McLean was a miner, at least his father was. Most of his Communist life's been as a shop steward and unionist in the Scottish coalfields. Robin Grey was army, a captain, infantry."

Sir Geoffrey looked up. "You don't usually associate ex-captains with being fire-eating trades unionists, do you?"

"No sir." Crosse sipped his sherry, appreciating it, savouring his knowledge more. "Nor with being related to a tai-pan."

"Eh?"

"Good God!" Sir Geoffrey stared at him, astounded. "Are you sure?"

"Yes sir."

"But why hasn't, why hasn't Ian mentioned it before?"

"I don't know, sir. Perhaps he's ashamed of him. Mr. Grey is certainly the complete opposite of Mrs. Dunross."

"But... Bless my soul, you're sure?"

"Yes sir. Actually, it was Brian Kwok who spotted the connection. Just by chance. The MPs had to furnish the usual personal information to the PRC to get their visas, date of birth, profession, next of kin, etcetera. Brian was doing a routine check to make sure all the visas were in order to avoid any problem at the border. Brian happened to notice Mr. Grey had put 'sister, Penelope Grey' as his next of kin, with an address, Castle Avisyard in Ayr. Brian remembered that that was the Dunross family home address." Crosse pulled out his silver cigarette case. "Do you mind if I smoke, sir?"

"No, please go ahead."

"Thank you. That was a month or so ago. I thought it important enough for him to follow up the information. It took us relatively little time to establish that Mrs. Dunross really was his sister and next of kin. As far as we know now, Mrs. Dunross quarrelled with her brother just after the war. Captain Grey was a POW in Changi, caught in Singapore in 1942. He got home in the later part of 1945—by the way their parents were killed in the London blitz in '43. At that time she was already married to Dunross—they'd married in 1943, sir, just after he was shot down—she was a WAAF. We know brother and sister met when Grey was released. As far as we can tell now, they've never met again. Of course it's none of our affair anyway, but the quarrel must have been—"

Crosse stopped as there was a discreet knock and Sir Geoffrey called out testily, "Yes?"

The door opened. "Excuse me, sir," his aide said politely, "Lady Allison asked me to tell you that the water's just gone on."

"Oh, marvellous! Thank you." The door closed. At once Crosse got up but the governor waved him back to his seat. "No, please finish, Roger. A few minutes won't matter, though I must confess I can hardly wait. Would you like to shower before you go?"

"Thank you, sir, but we've our own water tanks at police HQ."

"Oh yes. I forgot. Go on. You were saying—the quarrel?"

"The quarrel must have been pretty serious because it seems to have been final. A close friend of Grey told one of our people a few days ago that as far as he knew, Robin Grey had no living relatives. They really must hate each other."

Sir Geoffrey stared at his cup, not seeing it. Suddenly he was remembering his own rotten childhood and how he had hated his father, hated him so much that for thirty years he had never called him, or written to him, and, when he was dying last year, had not bothered to go to him, to make peace with the man who had given him life. "People are terrible to each other," he muttered sadly. "I know. Yes. Family quarrels are too easy. And then, when it's too late, you regret it, yes, you really regret it. People are terrible to each other..."

Crosse watched and waited, letting him ramble, letting him reveal himself, cautious not to make the slightest movement to distract him, wanting to know the man's secrets, and skeletons. Like Alan Medford Grant, Crosse collected secrets. Goddamn that bastard and his god-cursed files! God curse Dunross and his devilry! How in the name of Christ can I get those files before Sinders?

Sir Geoffrey was staring into space. Then the water gurgled delightedly in the pipes somewhere in the walls and he came back into himself. He saw Crosse watching him. "Hmmm, thinking aloud! Bad habit for a governor, eh?"

Crosse smiled and did not fall into the trap. "Sir?"

"Well. As you said, it's really none of our business." The governor finished his drink with finality and Crosse knew that he was dismissed. He got up. "Thank you, sir."

When he was alone the governor sighed. He thought a moment then picked up the special phone and gave the operator the minister's private number in London.

"This is Geoffrey Allison. Is he in please?"

"Hello, Geoffrey!"

"Hello, sir. I've just seen Roger. He assures me that the hiding place and Dunross will be completely guarded. Is Mr. Sinders en route?"

"He'll be there on Friday. I presume there have been no repercussions from that seaman's unfortunate accident?"

"No sir. Everything seems to be under control."

"The P. M. was most concerned."

"Yes sir." The governor added, "About the l-4a... perhaps we shouldn't mention anything to our friends, yet."

"I've already heard from them. They were distressingly irritated. So were our fellows. All right, Geoffrey. Fortunately it's a long weekend this week so I'll inform them Monday and draught his reprimand then."

"Thank you, sir."

"Geoffrey, that American senator you have with you at the moment. I think he should be guided."

The governor frowned. Guided was a code word between them, meaning "watched very carefully." Senator Wilf Tillman, a presidential hopeful, was visiting Hong Kong en route to Saigon for a well-publicised fact-finding mission.

"I'll take care of it as soon as I'm off the phone. Was there anything else, sir?" he asked, impatient now to bathe.

"No, just give me a private minute on what the senator's program has been." Program was another code which meant to furnish the Colonial Office with detailed information. "When you've time."

"I'll have it on your desk Friday."

"Thank you, Geoffrey. We'll chat at the usual time tomorrow." The line went dead.

The governor replaced the phone thoughtfully. Their conversation would have been electronically scrambled and, at either end, unscrambled. Even so, they were guarded. They knew the enemy had the most advanced and sophisticated eavesdropping equipment in the world. For any really classified conversation or meeting he would go to the permanently guarded, concrete, cell-like room in the basement that was meticulously rechecked by security experts for possible electronic bugs every week.

Bloody nuisance, Sir Geoffrey thought. Bloody nuisance all this cloak-and-dagger stuff! Roger? Unthinkable, even so, once there was Philby.

The taxi went along Chatham Road in the usual heavy traffic, southward, skirting the railway line, then turned west along Salisbury Road on the southmost tip of Kowloon, passing the railway terminus, near the Golden Ferry Terminal. There it stopped. Suslev paid it off and ran up the steps of the Victoria and Albert Hotel. Sergeant Lee followed him as the other detective parked the police Jag.

Suslev walked with an easy stride and he stood for a moment in the immense, crowded foyer with its high ceilings, lovely and ornate, and old-fashioned electric fans overhead, and looked for an empty table among the multitude of tables. The whole room was alive with the clink of ice in cocktail glasses and conversation. Mostly Europeans. A few Chinese couples. Suslev wandered through the people, found a table, loudly ordered a double vodka, sat and began to read his paper. Then the girl was standing near him.

"Hello," she said.

"Ginny, doragaya!" he said with a great beam and hugged her, lifting her off her little feet to the shocked disapproval of every woman in the place and the covert envy of every man. "It's been a long time, golubchik. "

"Ayeeyah," she said with a toss of her head, her short hair dancing, and sat down, conscious of the stares, enjoying them, hating them. "You late. Wat for you keep me wait? A lady no like wait in Victoria by her self, heya?"

"You're right, golubchik!" Suslev pulled out a slim package and gave it to her with another beam. "Here, all the way from Vladivostok!"

"Oh! How thank you?" Ginny Fu was twenty-eight and most nights she worked at the Happy Drinkers Bar in an alley off Mong Kok, half a mile or so to the north. Some nights she went to the Good Luck Ballroom. Most days she would pinch-hit for her friends behind the counter of tiny shops within shops when they were with a client. White teeth and jet eyes and jet hair and golden skin, her gaudy chong-sam slit high on her long, stockinged thighs. She looked at the present excitedly. "Oh thank, Gregor, thank very much!" She put it in her large purse and grinned at him. Then her eyes went to the waiter who was strolling up with Suslev's vodka, along with the smug, open contempt reserved by all Chinese for all young Chinese women who sat with quai loh. They must of course be third-class whores—who else would sit with a quai loh in a public place, particularly in the foyer of the Vic? He set down the drink with practised insolence and stared back at her.