Noble House by James Clavell
“Come on in and make yourself at home,” P.B. said jovially. “The ladies’ bathroom’s on the left, gentlemen on the right, champagne in the anteroom … I’ll show you all around in a moment. Oh, Ian, you wanted to phone?”
“Yes.”
“Come along, you can use my study.” He led the way down a corridor lined with fine oils and a rare collection of icons. The apartment was spacious, four bedrooms, three anterooms, a dining room to seat twenty. His study was at the far end. Books lined three walls. Old leather, smell of good cigars, a fireplace. Brandy, whiskey and vodka in cut-glass decanters. And port. Once the door closed his concern deepened.
“How long will you be?” he asked.
“As quick as I can.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll entertain them—if you’re not back in time I’ll make your excuses. Is there anything else I can do?”
“Lean on Tiptop.” Dunross had told him earlier about the possible deal to exchange Brian Kwok, though nothing about the AMG papers and his problems with Sinders.
“Tomorrow I’ll call some friends in Peking and some more in Shanghai. Perhaps they would see the value in helping us.”
Dunross had been acquainted with P. B. White for many years though, along with everyone else, he knew very little about his real past, his family, whether he had been married and had children, where his money came from or his real involvement with the Victoria. “I’m just a sort of legal advisor though I retired years ago,” he would say vaguely and leave it at that. But Dunross knew him as a man of great charm with many equally discreet lady friends. “Casey’s quite a woman, P.B.,” he said with a grin. “I think you’re smitten.”
“I think so too. Yes. Ah, if I was only thirty years younger! And as for Riko!” P.B.’s eyebrows soared. “Delectable. Are you certain she’s a widow?”
“Pretty sure.”
“I would like three of those please, tai-pan.” He chuckled and went over to the bookcase and pressed a switch. Part of the bookcase swung open. A staircase led upward. Dunross had used it before to have private talks with the chief manager. As far as he knew he was the only outsider privy to the secret access—another of the many secrets that he could pass on only to his succeeding tai-pan. “The Hag arranged it,” Alastair Struan had told him the night he took over. “Along with this.” He had handed him the master passkey to the safety deposit boxes in the vaults. “It’s bank policy that Ch’ung Lien Loh Locksmiths Ltd. change locks. Only our tai-pans know we own that company.”
Dunross smiled back at P.B., praying that he could be so young when he was so old. “Thanks.”
“Take your time, Ian.” P. B. White handed him a key.
Dunross ran up the stairs softly to the chief manager’s landing. He unlocked a door which led to an elevator. The same key unlocked the elevator. There was only one button. He relocked the outside door and pressed the button. The machinery was well oiled and silent. At length it stopped and the inner door slid open. He pushed the outer door. He was in the chief manager’s office. Johnjohn got up wearily. “Now what the hell is all this about, Ian?”
Dunross shut the false door that fitted perfectly into the bookcase. “Didn’t P.B. tell you?” he asked, his voice mild, none of his tension showing.
“He said you had to get to the vaults tonight to fetch some papers, that I should please let you in and there was no need to bother Havergill. But why the cloak-and-dagger bit? Why not use the front door?”
“Now give over, Bruce. We both know you’ve got the necessary authority to open the vault for me.”
Johnjohn began to say something but changed his mind. The chief manager had said before he left, “Be kind enough to react favorably to whatever P.B. suggests, eh?” P.B. was on first-name terms with the governor, most of the visiting VVIPs and shared the chief manager’s direct line to their skeleton staff in the bank offices still operating in Shanghai and Peking.
“All right,” he said.
Their footsteps echoed on the vast, dimly lit main floor of the bank. Johnjohn nodded to one of the night watchmen making his rounds, then pressed the button for the elevator to the vaults, stifling a nervous yawn. “Christ, I’m bushed.”
“You architected the Ho-Pak takeover, didn’t you?”
“Yes, yes I did, but if it hadn’t been for your smashing coup with General Stores, I don’t think Paul’d … well, that certainly helped. Smashing coup, Ian, if you can pull it off.”
“It’s in the bag.”
“What Japanese bank’s backing you with the 2 million?”
“Why did you force Richard Kwang’s advance resignation?”
“Eh?” Johnjohn stared at him blankly. The elevator arrived. They got into it. “What?”
Dunross explained what Phillip Chen had told him. “That’s not exactly cricket. A director of the Victoria being made to sign an undated resignation like a two-cent operation? Eh?”
Johnjohn shook his head slowly. “No, that wasn’t part of my plan.” His tiredness had vanished. “I can see why you’d be concerned.”
“Pissed off would be the correct words.”
“Paul must have planned just a holding situation till the chief comes back. This whole operation’s precedent-setting so you c—”
“If I get Tiptop’s money for you, I want that torn up and a free vote guaranteed to Richard Kwang.”
After a pause, Johnjohn said, “I’ll support you on everything reasonable—till the chief comes back. Then he can decide.”
“Fair enough.”
“How much is the Royal Belgium-First Central backing you for?”
“I thought you said a Japanese bank?”
“Oh come on, old chum, everyone knows. How much?”
“Enough, enough for everything.”
“We still own most of your paper, Ian.”
Dunross shrugged. “It makes no difference. We still have a major say in the Victoria.”
“If we don’t get China’s money, First Central won’t save you from a crash.”
Again Dunross shrugged.
The elevator doors opened. Dim lights in the vaults cast hard shadows. The huge grille in front of them seemed like a cell door to Dunross. Johnjohn unlocked it.
“I’ll be about ten minutes,” Dunross said, a sheen to his forehead. “I’ve got to find a particular paper.”
“All right. I’ll unlock your box for y—” Johnjohn stopped, his face etched in the overhead light. “Oh, I forgot, you’ve your own master key.”
“I’ll be as quick as I can. Thanks.” Dunross walked into the gloom, turned the corner and went unerringly to the far bank of boxes. Once there he made sure he was not being followed. All his senses were honed now. He put the two keys into their locks. The locks clicked back.
His fingers reached into his pocket and he took out AMG’s letter that gave the numbers of the special pages spread throughout the files, then a flashlight, scissors and a butane Dunhill cigarette lighter that Penelope had given him when he still smoked. Quickly he lifted the false bottom of the box away and slid out the files.
I wish to Christ there was some way I could destroy them now and have done with it, he thought. I know everything that’s in them, everything important, but I have to be patient and wait. Sometime soon, they—whoever they are, along with SI, the CIA and the PRC—they won’t be following me. Then I can safely fetch the files and destroy them.
Following AMG’s instructions with great care, he flicked the lighter and waved it back and forth just under the bottom right quadrant of the first special page. In a moment, a meaningless jumble of symbols, letters and numbers began to appear. As the heat brought them forth, the type in this quadrant began to vanish. Soon all the lettering had gone, leaving just the code. With the scissors he cut off this quarter neatly and put that file aside. AMG had written: “The paper cannot be traced to the files, tai-pan, nor I believe, the information read by any but the highest in the land.”
A slight noise startled him and he looked off.
In a moment he was calm again. Now the next file. Again ciphers appeared and the lettering vanished.
Dunross worked steadily and efficiently. When the flame began to fade he was prepared. He refilled the lighter and continued. Now the last file. He cut out the quarter carefully and pocketed the eleven pieces of paper, then slid the files back into their hiding place.
Before he relocked the box he took out a deed for camouflage and laid it beside AMG’s letter. Another hesitation, then, shielding AMG’s letter with his body, he put the flame to it. The paper twisted as it flared and burned.
“What’re you doing?”
Dunross jerked around and stared at the silhouette. “Oh, it’s you.” He began breathing again. “Nothing, Bruce. Actually it’s just an ancient love letter that shouldn’t have been kept.” The flame died and Dunross pounded the ash to dust and scattered the remains.
“Ian, are you in trouble? Bad trouble?” Johnjohn asked gently.
“No, old chum. It’s just the Tiptop mess.”
“You’re sure?”
“Oh yes.” Wearily Dunross smiled back and took out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead and hands. “Sorry to put you to all this trouble.”
He walked off firmly, Johnjohn following. The gate clanged after them. In a moment the elevator sighed open and sighed closed and now there was silence but for the scurry of the rats and the slight hiss of the air conditioner. A shadow moved. Silently Roger Crosse came from behind a tall bank of boxes and stood in front of the tai-pan’s section. Unhurried, he took out a tiny Minox camera, a flashlight and a bunch of skeleton keys. In a moment, Dunross’s box was open. His long fingers reached into it, found the false compartment and brought out the files. Very satisfied he put them in a tidy pile, clipped the flashlight into its socket and, with practiced skill, began to photograph the files, page by page. When he came to one of the special pages he peered at it and the missing section. A grim smile flickered over him. Then he continued, making no sound.
Sunday
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
6:30 A.M.:
Koronski came out of the foyer of the Nine Dragons Hotel and hailed a taxi, giving the driver directions in passable Cantonese. He lit a cigarette and slouched back in the seat, keeping a professional watch behind him in the unlikely chance that he was being followed. There was no real risk. His papers as Hans Meikker were flawless, his cover as a sporadic foreign journalist for a West German magazine syndicate real, and he visited Hong Kong frequently as a routine. His eyes reassured him, then he turned to watch the multitudes, wondering who was to be chemically debriefed, and where. He was a short, well-fed, nondescript man, his glasses rimless.
Behind him, fifty yards or so, ducking in and out of the traffic was a small, battered Mini. Tom Connochie, the senior CIA agent, was in the back, one of his assistants, Roy Wong, driving.
“He’s going left.”
“Sure. I see him. Relax, Tom, you’re making me nervous for chrissake.” Roy Wong was third-generation American, a B.A. Lit., and CIA for four years, assigned to Hong Kong. He drove expertly, Connochie watching carefully—crumpled and very tired. He had been up most of the night with Rosemont trying to sort out the flood of top-secret instructions, requests and orders that the intercepted Thomas K. K. Lim’s letters had generated. Just after midnight they’d been tipped by one of their hotel informants that Hans Meikker had just checked in for two days from Bangkok. He had been on their list for years as a possible security risk.
“Son of a bitch!” Roy Wong said as a traffic jam blossomed in the narrow, screeching street near the bustling intersections of Mong Kok.
Connochie craned out of the side window. “He’s screwed too, Roy. About twenty cars ahead.”
In a moment the jam began to ease, then closed in again as an overladen truck stalled. By the time it had cranked up again, their prey had vanished.
“Shit!”
“Cruise. Maybe we’ll get lucky and pick him up.”
Two blocks ahead, Koronski got out of the taxi and went down a swarming alley, heading for another swarming road and another alley and Ginny Fu’s tenement. He went up the soiled stairs to the top floor. He knocked three times on a drab door. Suslev beckoned him in and locked the door behind him. “Welcome,” he said quietly in Russian. “Good trip?”
“Yes, Comrade Captain, very good,” Koronski replied, also keeping his voice down by habit.
“Come and sit down.” Suslev waved at the table that had coffee and two cups. The room was drab with little furniture. Dirty blinds covered the windows.
“Coffee’s good,” Koronski said politely, thinking it was hideous, nothing to compare with the French-style coffee of exquisite Bangkok, Saigon and Phnom Penh.
“It’s the whiskey,” Suslev said, his face hard.
“Center said I was to put myself at your disposal, Comrade Captain. What is it you want me to do?”
“A man here has a photographic memory. We need to know what’s in it.”
“Where is the client to be interrogated? Here?”
Suslev shook his head. “Aboard my ship.”
“How much time do we have?”
“All the time you need. We will take him with us to Vladivostok.”
“How important is it to get quality information?”
“Very.”
“In that case I would prefer to do the investigation in Vladivostok—I can give you special sedatives and instructions that will keep the client docile during the voyage there and begin the softening-up process.”
Suslev rethought the problem. He needed Dunross’s information before he arrived in Vladivostok. “Can’t you come with me on my ship? We leave at midnight, on the tide.”
Koronski hesitated. “My orders from Center are to assist you, so long as I do not jeopardize my cover. Going on your ship would certainly do that—the ship’s sure to be under surveillance. If I vanish from the hotel, eh?”
Suslev nodded. “I agree.” Never mind, he thought. I’m as well trained an interrogator as Koronski though I’ve never done an in-depth chemical. “How do you conduct a chemical debriefing?”
“It’s quite simple. Intravenous injections of a chemical agent we call Pentothal-V6, twice a day for ten days at twelve-hour intervals—once the client has been put into a suitably frightened, disoriented frame of mind, by the usual sleep-wake method, followed by four days of sleeplessness.”
“We’ve a doctor on the ship. Could he make the injections?”
“Oh yes, yes of course. May I suggest I write down the procedure and supply you with all the necessary chemicals. You will do the investigation?”
“Yes.”
“If you follow the procedure you should have no trouble. The only serious thing to remember is that once the Pentothal-V6 is administered the client’s mind is like a wet sponge. It requires great tenderness and even greater care to extract just the right amount of water, the information, at just the right tempo or the mind will be permanently damaged and all other information lost forever.” Koronski puffed at a cigarette. “It’s easy to lose a client.”
“It’s always easy to lose a client,” Suslev said. “How effective is this Pentothal-V6?”
“We’ve had great success, and some failures, Comrade Captain,” Koronski replied with care. “If the client is well prepared and initially healthy I’m sure you will be successful.”
Suslev did not answer, just let his mind reexamine the plan presented so enthusiastically by Plumm late last night, and agreed to reluctantly by Crosse. “It’s a cinch, Gregor, everything’s falling into place. Now that Dunross’s not going to Taipei he’s coming to my party. I’ll give him a doctored drink that’ll make him as sick as a dog—it’ll be easy to get him to lie down in one of the bedrooms—the same drug’ll put him to sleep. Once the others have left—and I’m keeping the party short and sweet, six to e
“That’s no trouble,” he had said. “Have it delivered to go-down 7 in the Kowloon Dockyard. We’re taking on all kinds of bulk supplies and stores, since our departure’s been speeded up, and outward bound there’s hardly any check.” Suslev had added with grim amusement, “There is even a coffin if we need it. Voranski’s body is coming from the morgue at 11:00 P.M., a special delivery. Bastards! Why hasn’t our friend caught the bastards who murdered him?”
“He’s doing what he can. He is, Gregor. I promise you. He’ll catch them soon—but more important, this plan will work!”
Suslev nodded to himself. Yes, it’s workable. And if the tai-pan’s intercepted and discovered? I know nothing, Boradinov knows nothing, though he’s responsible and I shall just sail away, leaving Boradinov to blame, if necessary. Roger will cover everything. Oh yes, he told himself grimly, this time it’s Roger’s neck on the British block if I’m not covered. Plumm’s right. The Werewolf kidnapping of the tai-pan will help to create complete chaos for a time, certainly for almost no risk—enough time to cover the Metkin disaster and the intercept of the guns.
He had called Banastasio tonight to make sure the Par-Con ploy was in operation and was shocked to hear of Bartlett’s response. “But, Mr. Banastasio, you guaranteed you’d be in control. What do you intend to do?”
“Pressure, Mr. Marshall,” Banastasio had told him placatingly, using the alias by which Banastasio knew him. “Pressure all the way. I’ll do my part, you do yours.”
“Good. Then proceed with your meeting in Macao. I guarantee a substitute shipment will be in Saigon within a week.”
“But these jokers here have already said they won’t deal without a shipment in their hands.”
“It’ll be delivered direct to our Viet Cong friends in Saigon. Just you make whatever arrangements you want for payment.”