Noble House by James Clavell
“Good God,” Sir Geoffrey exploded. “You mean the whole bloody mountainside’s going to collapse?”
“No sir. But if this rain keeps up another slip could start. This whole area’s got a history of them.” He pointed into the darkness. “In ’41 and ’50 it was along Bonham, ’59 was the major disaster on Robertson, Lytton Road, the lists’s endless, sir. I recommend evacuation.”
“Which buildings?”
The man handed the governor a list then waved into the dark at the three levels. “I’m afraid it’ll affect more than two thousand people.”
Everyone gasped. All eyes went to the governor. He read the list, glanced up at the hillside. The slide dominated everything, the mass of the mountain looming above. Then he said, “Very well, do it. But for God’s sake tell your fellows to make it an orderly withdrawal, we don’t want a panic.”
“Yes sir.” The man hurried away.
“Can’t we get more men and equipment, Donald?”
“Sorry, not at the moment, sir,” the police commissioner replied. He was a strong-faced man in his fifties. “We’re spread rather thinly, I’m afraid. There’s the massive slip over in Kowloon, another at Kwun Tong—eighty squatters huts’ve been swamped, we’ve already forty-four dead in that one so far, twenty children.”
Sir Geoffrey stared out at the hillside. “Christ!” he muttered. “With Dunross getting us Tiptop’s cooperation I thought our troubles were over, at least for tonight.”
The fire chief shook his head, his face drawn. “I’m afraid they’re just beginning, sir. Our estimates suggest there may be a hundred or more still buried in that mess.” He added heavily, “It’ll take us weeks to sift through that lot, if ever.”
“Yes.” Again the governor hesitated, then he said firmly, “I’m going to go up to Kotewall. I’ll monitor Channel 5.” He went to his car. His aide opened the door but Sir Geoffrey stopped. Roger Crosse and Sinders were coming back from the great gash across Sinclair Road where the roof of the tunnel culvert had been ripped off. “Any luck?”
“No sir. We managed to get into the culvert but it’s collapsed fifty yards in. We could never get into Rose Court that way,” Crosse said.
When Rose Court had collapsed and had torn the side from the top four stories of Sinclair Towers, Crosse had been near his own apartment block, seventy yards away. Once he had recovered his wits, his first thought had been for Plumm, the second Suslev. Suslev was closer. By the time he had got to the darkened Sinclair Towers foyer, terrified tenants were already pouring out. Shoving them aside he had pushed and cursed his way up the stairs to the top floor, lighting his way with a pencil flashlight. Apartment 32 had almost vanished, the adjoining back staircase carried away for three stories. As Crosse gaped down into the darkness, it was obvious that if Suslev had been caught here, or caught with Clinker, he was dead—the only possible escape place was the tunnel-culvert.
Back on the ground floor once more, he had gone around the back and slipped into the secret tunnel entrance. The water was a boiling torrent below. Quickly he had hurried to the roadway where the roof of the tunnel had been carried away. The gash was overflowing. More than a little satisfied, for he was certain now that Suslev was dead, he had gone to the nearest phone, called in the alarm, then asked for Sinders.
“Yes? Oh hello, Roger.”
He had told Sinders where he was and what had happened, adding, “Suslev was with Clinker. My people know he hasn’t come out, so he’s buried. Both of them must be buried. No chance they could be alive.”
“Damn!” A long pause. “I’ll come right away.”
Crosse had gone outside again and begun to organize the evacuation of Sinclair Towers and rescue attempts. Three families had been lost when the corner top stories went. By the time uniformed police and fire chiefs had arrived, the dead count was seven including two children and four others dying. When the governor and Sinders had arrived, they had gone back to the open part of the tunnel to see if they could obtain access.
“There’s no way we can get in from there, Sir Geoffrey. The whole culvert’s collapsed, I’d say gone forever, sir.” Crosse was suitably grave, though inwardly delighted with the divine solution that had presented itself.
Sinders was very sour. “Great pity! Yes, very bad luck indeed. We’ve lost a valuable asset.”
“Do you really think he’d’ve told you who this devil Arthur is?” Sir Geoffrey asked.
“Oh yes.” Sinders was very confident. “Don’t you agree, Roger?”
“Yes.” Crosse was hard put not to smile. “Yes, I’m sure of it.”
Sir Geoffrey sighed. “There’ll be the devil to pay on a diplomatic level when he doesn’t return to the Ivanov.”
“Not our fault, sir,” Sinders said. “That’s an act of God.”
“I agree, but you know how xenophobic the Soviets are. I’ll bet any money they’ll believe we have him locked up and under investigation. We’d better find him or his body rather quickly.”
“Yes sir.” Sinders turned his collar higher against the rain. “What about the departure of the Ivanov?”
“What do you suggest?”
“Roger?”
“I suggest we call them at once, sir, tell Boradinov what’s happened and that we’ll postpone their departure if they wish. I’ll send a car for him and whoever he wants to bring to help in the search.”
“Good. I’ll be up at Kotewall for a while.”
They watched Sir Geoffrey go, then went to the lee of the building. Sinders stared at the organized confusion. “No chance he’d still be alive, is there?”
“None.”
A harassed policeman hurried up. “Here’s the latest list, sir, dead and rescued.” The young man gave Crosse the paper and added quickly, “Radio Hong Kong’s got Venus Poon coming on any moment, sir. She’s up at Kotewall.”
“All right, thank you.” Rapidly Crosse scanned the list. “Christ!”
“They found Suslev?”
“No. Just a lot of old acquaintances’re dead.” He handed him the list. “I’ll take care of Boradinov then I’m going back to the Clinker area.”
Sinders nodded, looked at the paper. Twenty-eight rescued, seventeen dead, the names meaningless to him. Among the dead was Jason Plumm….
At the wharf in Kowloon where the Ivanov was tied up, coolies were trudging up and down the gangplanks, laden with last-minute cargo and equipment. Because of the emergency, police surveillance had been cut to a minimum and now there were only two police on each gangway. Suslev, disguised under a huge coolie hat and wearing a coolie smock and trousers, barefoot like the others, went past them unnoticed and up on deck. When Boradinov saw him, he hastily guided the way to Suslev’s cabin. Once the cabin door was shut, he burst out, “Kristos, Comrade Captain, I’d almost given you up for lost. We’re due to le—”
“Shut up and listen.” Suslev was panting, still very shaken. He tipped the vodka bottle and gulped the spirit, choking a little. “Is our radio equipment repaired?”
“Yes some of it, yes it is, except the top-security scrambler.”
“Good.” Shakily he related what had happened. “I don’t know how I got out, but the next thing I remember was I was halfway down the hill. I found a taxi and made my way here.” He took another swallow, the liquor helping him, the wonder of his escape from death and from Sinders enveloping him. “Listen, as far as everyone else is concerned, I’m still there, at Rose Court! I’m dead or missing presumed dead,” he said, the plan leaping into his head.
Boradinov stared at him. “But Com—”
“Get on to police headquarters and say that I’ve not returned—ask if you can delay departure. If they say no, good, we leave. If they say yes we can stay, we’ll stay for a token day, then regretfully leave. Understand?”
“Yes, Comrade Captain, but why?”
“Later. Meanwhile make sure everyone else aboard thinks I’m missing. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“No one is
“Yes, in the other cabin as you ordered.”
“Good.” Suslev considered her. He could put her back ashore, as he was “missing” and would stay missing. Or keep with his plan. “We stay with that plan. Safer. When the police report I’m missing—I had my usual SI followers so they’ll know I’m with Clinker—just tell her our departure’s delayed, to stay in the cabin ‘until I arrive.’ Off you go.”
Suslev locked the door, his relief almost overpowering, and switched on the radio. Now he could vanish. Sinders could never betray a dead man. Now he could easily persuade Center to allow him to pass over his duties in Asia to another and assume a different identity and get a different assignment. He could say that the various European security leaks documented in the AMG papers made it necessary for someone new to begin with Crosse and Plumm—if either of them is still alive, he thought. Better they’re both dead. No, not Roger. Roger’s too valuable.
Happier and more confident than he had been in years he went into the bathroom, found a razor and shaving brush, humming a Beatles tune along with the radio. Perhaps I should request a posting to Canada. Isn’t Canada one of our most vital and important posts—on a par with Mexico in importance?
He beamed at himself in the mirror. New places to go to, new assignments to achieve, with a new name and promotion, where a few hours ago there was only disaster ahead. Perhaps I’ll take Vertinskaya with me to Ottawa.
He began shaving. When Boradinov returned with police permission to delay their departure, he hardly recognized Gregor Suslev without his mustache and beard.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
11:40 P.M.:
Bartlett was twenty feet down under a cat’s cradle of girders that kept the wreckage from crushing him. When the avalanche had hit almost three hours ago he had been standing in the kitchen doorway sipping an ice-cold beer, staring out at the city. He was bathed, dressed and feeling wonderful, waiting for Orlanda to return. Then he was falling, the whole world wrong, unearthly, the floor coming up, the stars below, the city above. There had been a blinding, monstrous, soundless explosion and all air had rushed out of him and he had fallen into the upward pit forever.
Coming back to consciousness was a long process for him. It was dark within his tomb and he hurt everywhere. He could not grasp what had happened or where he was. When he truly awoke, he stared around trying to see where he was, his hands touching things he could not understand. The closed darkness nauseated him and he reeled in panic to his feet, smashing his head against a jutting chunk of concrete that was once part of the outside wall and fell back stunned, his fall protected by the debris of an easy chair. In a little while his mind cleared, but his head ached, arms ached, body ached. The phosphorescent figures on his watch attracted his attention. He peered at them. The time was 11:41.
I remember … what do I remember?
“Come on for chrissake,” he muttered, “get with it! Get yourself together. Where the hell was I?” His eyes traced the darkness with growing horror. Vague shapes of girders, broken concrete and the remains of a room. He could see little and recognized nothing. Light from somewhere glistened off a shiny surface. It was a wrecked oven. All at once his memory flooded back.
“I was standing in the kitchen,” he gasped out loud. “That’s it, and Orlanda had just left, about an hour, no less’n that, half an hour. That’d make it around nine when … when whatever happened happened. Was it an earthquake? What?”
Carefully he felt his limbs and face, a stab of pain from his right shoulder every time he moved. “Shit,” he muttered, knowing it was dislocated. His face and nose were burning and bruised. It was hard to breathe. Everything else seemed to be working, though every joint felt as though he had been racked and his head ached terribly. “You’re okay, you can breathe, you can see, you can …”
He stopped, then groped around and found a small piece of rubble, carefully raised his hand, then dropped it. He heard the sound the rubble made and his heart picked up. “And you can hear. Now, what the hell happened? Jesus, it’s like that time on Iwo Jima.”
He lay back to conserve his strength. “That’s the thing to do,” the old top sergeant had told them, “you lay back and use your goddamn loaf if you’re caught in an excavation or buried by a bomb. First make sure you can breathe safe. Then burrow a hole, do anything, but breathe any way you can, that’s first, then test your limbs and hearing, you’ll sure as hell know you can see but then lay back and get your goddamn head together and don’t panic. Panic’ll kill you. I’ve dug out guys after four days’n they’ve been like a pig in shit. So long’s you can breathe and see and hear, you can live a week easy. Shit, four days’s a piece of cake. But other guys we got to within’n hour’d drowned themselves in mud or crap or their own fear vomit or beaten their goddamn heads unconscious against a goddamn piece of iron when we was within a few feet of the knuckle-heads an’ if they’d just been lying there like I told you, nice’n easy, quiet like, they’d’ve heard us and they could’ve shouted. Shit! Any you bastards panic when you’re buried you’d better believe you’re dead men. Sure. Me I been buried fifty times. No panic!”
“No panic. No sir,” Bartlett said aloud and felt better, blessing that man. Once during the bad time on Iwo Jima, the hangar he had been building was bombed and blown up and he had been buried. When he had dug the earth out of his eyes and mouth and ears, panic had taken him and he had hurled himself at the tomb and then he had remembered, Don’t panic, and forced himself to stop. He had discovered himself shivering like a cowed dog under the threat of a lash but he had dominated the terror. Once over the terror and whole, he had looked around carefully. The bombing had been during the day so he could see well enough and noticed the beginning of a way out. But he had waited, cautiously, remembering instructions. Very soon he heard voices. He called out, conserving his voice.
“That’s another goddamn obvious thing, conserve your voice, huh? You don’t shout yourself hoarse the first time you hear help near. Be patient. Shit, some guys I know shouted themselves so goddamn hoarse they was goddamn dumb when we was within easy distance and we lost ’em. Get it through your goddamn heads, we gotta have help to find you. Don’t panic! If you can’t shout, tap, use anything, make a noise somehow, but give us a sign and we’ll get you out, so long’s you can breathe—a week’s easy, no sweat. You bastards should go on a diet anyways …”
Now Bartlett was using all his faculties. He could hear the wreckage shifting. Water was dripping nearby but no sounds of humans. Then, faintly, a police siren which died away. Reassured that help was on the way, he waited. His heart was controlled. He lay back and blessed that old top sergeant. His name was Spurgeon, Spurgeon Roach, and he was black.
It must’ve been an earthquake, he thought. Has the whole building collapsed or was it just our floor and the next above? Maybe an airplane crashed into … Hell, no, I’d’ve heard the incoming noise. Impossible for a building to collapse, not with building regs, but hey, this’s Hong Kong and we heard some contractors don’t always obey regulations, cheat a little, don’t use first-grade steel or concrete. Jesus if I get, no, when I get out…
That was another inviolate rule of the old man. “Never forget, so long’s you can breathe, you will get out, you will….”
Sure. When I get out I’m going to find old Spurgeon and thank him properly and I’m going to sue the ass out of someone. Casey’s sure to … ah Casey, I’m sure as hell glad she’s not in this shit, nor Orlanda. They’re both … Jesus, could Orlanda have been caught wh—
The wreckage began to settle again. He waited, his heart pounding. Now he could see just a little better. Above him was a twisted mass of steel beams, and pipes half imbedded in broken jagged concrete, pots and pans and broken furniture. The floor he was lying on was equally broken. His tomb was small, barely enough space to stand. Reaching up above with his good arm he could not touch the makeshift cei
Again the light glinting off the oven attracted him. If I’m near that, I’m still in the kitchen. Now where was the oven in relation to anything else? He sat down and tried to reconstruct the apartment in his mind. The oven had been set into a wall opposite the big cutting table, opposite the window, near the door and the big refrigerator was beside the door and across the w—
Shit, if I’m in the kitchen there’s food and beer and I can last out the week easy! Jesus, if I could only get some light. Was there a flash? Matches? Matches and a candle? Hey, wait a minute, sure, there was a flash on the wall near the refrigerator! She said they were always blowing fuses and sometimes the power failed and … and sure, there were matches in the kitchen drawer, lots of them, when she lit the gas. Gas.
Bartlett stopped and sniffed the air. His nose was bruised and stuffed and he tried to clear it. Again he sniffed. No smell of gas. Good, good he thought, reassured. Getting his bearings from the oven he groped around, inch by inch. He found nothing. After another half an hour his fingers touched some cans of food, then some beer. Soon he had four cans. They were still chilled. Opening one, he felt oh so much better, sipping it, conserving it—knowing that he might have to wait days, finding it eerie down there in the dark, the building creaking, not knowing exactly where he was, rubble falling from time to time, sirens from time to time, water dripping, strange chilling sounds everywhere. Abruptly a nearby tie-beam shrieked, tormented by the thousands of tons above. It settled an inch. Bartlett held his breath. Movement stopped. He sipped his beer again.
Now do I wait or try to get out? he asked himself uneasily. Remember how old Spurgeon’d always duck that one. “It depends, man. It depends,” he’d always say.