He walked to the front of the board and stopped beside the column that listed Golden Ferry. He wrote down the combined Chang and Fung holdings in the sell column. It was a minor offering.
"I'll buy at 30 cents off listing," a broker said.
"There's no run on Golden Ferry," he said sharply.
"No, but it's a Struan company. Yes or no?"
"You know very well Golden Ferry's profits are up this quarter."
"Tough titty! Christ, isn't it bloody hot? Don't you think we could afford air conditioning in the exchange? Is it yes or no, old chap?"
Joseph Stern thought a moment. He did not want to fuel the nervousness. Only yesterday Golden Ferry had soared a dollar because all the business world knew their annual meeting was next week, it had been a good year and it was rumoured there was going to be a stock split. But he knew the first rule of all exchanges: yesterday has nothing to do with today. The client had said, Sell.
"20 cents off market?" he asked.
"30. Last offer. What the hell do you care, you still get paid. Is it 30 off?"
"All right." Stern worked his way down the board, selling most of their stocks without trouble though each time he had to concede on price. With difficulty he borrowed the Ho-Pak stock. Now he stopped at the column listing the bank. There were many sell orders. Most of them were small figures. He wrote 200,000 at the bottom of the list in the sell column. A shock wave went through the room. He paid no attention, just looked at Forsythe, who was Richard Kwang's broker. Today he was the only buyer of Ho-Pak.
"Is Quillan trying to wreck the Ho-Pak?" a broker asked. "It's already under siege. Do you want to buy the shares?"
"Not on your bloody life! Are you selling Struan short too?"
"No. No I'm not."
"Christ, I don't like this at all."
"Keep calm, Harry," someone else said. "The market's come alive for once, that's all that counts."
"Great day, what?" another broker said to him. "Is the crash on? I'm totally liquid myself, sold out this morning. Is it going to be a crash?"
"I don't know."
"Shocking about Struan's, isn't it?"
"Do you believe all the rumours?"
"No, of course not, but one word to the wise is sufficient they say, what?"
"I don't believe it."
"Struan's off 3 1/2 points in one day, old boy, a lot of people believe it," another broker said. "I sold out my Struan's this morning. Will Richard sustain the run?"
"That's in the hands of..." Joseph Stern was going to say God but he knew that Richard Kwang's future was in the hands of his depositors and that they had already decided. "Joss," he said sadly.
"Yes. Thank God we get our commissions either way, feast or famine, jolly good, what?"
"Jolly good," Stern echoed, privately loathing, the smug, self-satisfied upper-class English accent of the exclusive British public schools, schools that, because he was Jewish, he had never been able to attend. He saw Forsythe put the phone down and look at the board. Once more he tapped his offering. Forsythe beckoned him. He walked through the throng, eyes watching him.
"Are you buying?" he asked.
"In due course, Joseph, old boy!" Forsythe added softly. "Between you and me, can't you get Quillan off our backs? I've reason to believe he's in cahoots with that berk Southerby."
"Is that a public accusation?"
"Oh come on, it's a private opinion, for chrissake! Haven't you read Haply's column? Tai-pans and a big bank spreading rumours? You know Richard's sound. Richard's as sound as... as the Rothschilds! You know Richard's got over a billion in res—"
"I saw the crash of '29, old chap. There were trillions in reserve then but even so everyone went broke. It's a matter of cash, credit and liquidity. And confidence. You'll buy our offering, yes or no?"
"Probably."
"How long can you keep this up?"
Forsythe looked at him. "Forever. I'm just a stockbroker. I just follow orders. Buy or sell I make a quarter of one percent."
"If the client pays."
"He has to. We have his stock, eh? We have rules. But while I think of it, go to hell."
Stern laughed. "I'm British, I'm going to heaven, didn't you know." Uneasily, he walked back to his desk. "I think he'll buy before the market closes."
It was a quarter to three. "Good," Gornt said. "Now I wa—" He stopped. They both looked back as there was an undercurrent. Dunross was escorting Casey and Linc Bartlett to the desk of Alan Holdbrook—Struan's in-house broker—on the other side of the hall.
"I thought he'd left for the day," Gornt said with a sneer.
"The tai-pan never runs away from trouble. It's not in his nature." Stern watched them thoughtfully. "They look pretty friendly. Perhaps the rumours are all wrong and Ian'll make the Par-Con deal and make the payments."
"He can't. That deal's going to fall through," Gornt said. "Bartlett's no fool. Bartlett'd be mad to throw in with that tottering empire."
"I didn't even know until a few hours ago that Struan's were indebted to the Orlin Bank. Or that the Toda payments were due in a week or so.
Or the even more nonsensical rumour that the Vic won't support the Noble House. Lot of nonsense. I called Havergill and that's what he said."
"What else would he say?"
After a pause, Stern said, "Curious that all that news surfaced today."
"Very. Sell 200,000 Struan's."
Stern's eyes widened and he plucked at his bushy eyebrows. "Mr. Gornt, don't you think th—"
"No. Please do as I ask."
"I think you're wrong this time. The tai-pan's too clever. He'll get all the support he needs. You'll get burned."
"Times change. People change. If Struan's have extended themselves and can't pay... Well, my dear fellow, this's Hong Kong and I hope the buggers go to the wall. Make it 300,000."
"Sell at what figure, Mr. Gornt?"
"At market."
"It'll take time to borrow the shares. I'll have to sell in much smaller lots. I'll hav—"
"Are you suggesting my credit's not good enough or you can't perform normal stockbroking functions?"
"No. No of course not," Stern replied, not wanting to offend his biggest customer.
"Good, then sell Struan's short. Now."
Gornt watched him walk away. His heart was beating nicely.
Stern went to Sir Luis Basilio of the old stockbroking firm of Basilio and Sons, who had a great block of Struan's personally, as well as many substantial clients with more. He borrowed the stock then walked to the board and wrote the huge offering in the sell column. The chalk scraped loudly. Gradually the room fell silent. Eyes switched to Dunross and Alan Holdbrook and the Americans, then to Gornt and back to Dunross again. Gornt saw Linc Bartlett and Casey watching him and he was glad she was there. Casey was wearing a yellow silk skirt and blouse, very Californian, a green scarf tying her golden hair back. Why is she so sexual, Gornt asked himself absently. A strange invitation seemed to surround her. Why? Is it because no man yet has ever satisfied her?
He smiled at her, nodding slightly. She half-smiled back and he thought he noticed a shadow there. His greeting to Bartlett was polite and returned equally politely. His eyes held Dunross and the two men stared at each other.
The silence mounted. Someone coughed nervously. Everyone was conscious of the immensity of the offering and the implications of it.
Stern tapped his offering again. Holdbrook leaned forward and consulted with Dunross who half shrugged and shook his head, then began talking quietly to Bartlett and Casey.
Joseph Stern waited. Then someone offered to buy a portion and they haggled back and forth. Soon 50,000 shares had changed hands and the new market price was 24.90. He changed the 300,000 to 250,000 and again waited. He sold a few more but the bulk remained. Then, as there were no takers, he came back to his seat. He was sweating.
"If that number stays there overnight it'll do Struan's no good at all."
"Yes." Gornt still watched Casey. She was listening intently to Dunross. He sat back and thought a moment. "Sell another 100,000 Ho-Pak—and 200,000 Struan's."
"Good God, Mr. Gornt, if Struan's gets brought down the whole market'll totter, even your own company'll lose."
"There'll be an adjustment, lots of adjustments, certainly."
"There'll be a bloodbath. If Struan's go, so will other companies, thousands of investors'll be wiped out an—"
"I really don't need a lecture on Hong Kong economics, Mr. Stern," Gornt said coldly. "If you don't want to follow instructions I'll take my business elsewhere."
Stern flushed. "I'll... I'll have to round up the shares first. That number... to get that sum..."
"Then I suggest you hurry up! I want that on the board today!" Gornt watched him go, enjoying the moment immensely. Cocky bastard, he was thinking. Stockbrokers are just parasites, every one of them. He felt quite safe. Bartlett's money was in his account. He could buy back Ho-Pak and Struan's even now and be millions ahead. Contentedly his eyes strayed back to Casey. She was watching him. He could read nothing in her expression.
Joseph Stern was weaving through the brokers. Again he stopped at the Basilio desk. Sir Luis Basilio looked away from the board and smiled up at him. "So, Joseph? You want to borrow more Noble House shares?"
"Yes, please."
"For Quillan?" Sir Luis asked. He was a fine old man, small, elegant, very thin, and in his seventies—this year's chairman of the committee that ran the exchange.
"Yes."
"Come, sit down, let's talk a moment, old friend. How many do you want now?"
"200,000."
Sir Luis frowned, "300,000 on the board—another 2? Is this an all-out attack?"
"He... he didn't say that but I think it is."
"It's a great pity those two can't make peace with one another."
"Yes."
The older man thought a moment, then said even more quietly, "I'm considering suspending dealing in Ho-Pak shares, and, since lunch, Noble House shares. I'm very worried. At this precise moment a Ho-Pak crash, coupled with a Noble House crash, could wreck the whole market. Madonna, it's unthinkable for the Noble House to crash, it would pull down hundreds of us, perhaps all Hong Kong, unthinkable!"
"Perhaps the Noble House needs overhauling. Can I borrow 200,000 shares?"
"First answer me this, yes or no, and if yes when: Should we suspend the Ho-Pak? Should we suspend Struan's? I've polled all the other members of the committee except you. They're divided almost equally."
"Neither have ever been suspended. It would be bad to suspend either. This's a free society—in its best sense, I think. You should let it work itself out, let them sort themselves out, the Struans, and the Gornts and all the rest, let the best get to the top and the worst..." Stern shook his head wearily. "Ah but it's easy for me to say that, Luis, I'm not a big investor in either."
"Where's your money?"
"Diamonds. All Jews need small things, things you can carry and things you can hide, things you can convert easily."
"There's no need for you to be afraid here, Joseph. How many years has your family been here and prospered? Look at Solomon—surely he and his family are the richest in all Asia."
"For Jews fear is a way of life. And being hated." Again the old man sighed. "Ah this world, this lovely world, how lovely it should be." A phone rang and he picked it up delicately, his hands tiny, his Portuguese sounding sweet and liquid to Stern though he understood none of it. He only caught "Senor Mata" said deferentially several times but the name meant nothing to him. In a moment Sir Luis replaced the receiver very thoughtfully. "The financial secretary called just after lunch, greatly perturbed. There's a deputation from Parliament here and a bank crash would look extremely bad for all of us," he said. He smiled a pixyish smile. "I suggested he introduce legislation for the governor's signature to govern banks like they had in England and the poor fellow almost had a fit. I really mustn't pull his leg so much." Stern smiled with him. "As if we need government interference here!" The eyes sharpened. "So Joseph, do you vote to let well alone—or suspend either or both of the stocks, if so when?"
Stern glanced at the clock. If he went to the board now he would have plenty of time to write up both sell offerings and still be able to challenge Forsythe. It was a good feeling to know that he held the fate of both houses in his hands, if only temporarily. "Perhaps it would be very good, perhaps bad. What's the voting so far?"
"I said, almost equal." There was another burst of excitement and both men looked up. Some more Struan shares were changing hands. The new market price dropped to 24.70. Now Phillip Chen was leaning over Holdbrook's desk.
"Poor Phillip, he doesn't look well at all," Sir Luis said compassionately.
"No. Pity about John. I liked him. What about the Werewolves? Do you think the papers are overplaying it?"
"No. No, I don't." The old eyes twinkled. "No more than you, Joseph."
"What?"
"You've decided to pass. You want to let today's time run out, don't you? That's what you want, isn't it?"
"What better solution could there be?"
"If I wasn't so old I'd agree with you. But being so old and not knowing about tomorrow, or if I shall live to see tomorrow, I prefer my drama today. Very well. I'll discount your vote this time and now the committee's deadlocked so I will decide, as I'm allowed to do. You can borrow 200,000 Noble House shares until Friday, Friday at two. Then I may ask for them back—I have to think of my own House, eh?" The sharp but kindly eyes in the lined face urged Stern to his feet. "What are you going to do now, my friend?"
Joseph Stern smiled sadly. "I'm a stockbroker."
He went to the board and wrote in the Ho-Pak sell column with a firm hand. Then in the new silence he went to the Struan column and wrote the figure clearly, conscious that he was on centre stage now. He could feel the hate and the envy. More than 500,000 Noble House shares were now on offer, more than at any one time in the history of the exchange. He waited, wanting the clock to run out. There was a flurry of interest as Soorjani, the Parsee, bought some blocks of shares but it was well known he was nominee for many of the Struan and Dunross family and supporters. And though he bought 150,000, it made little difference to the enormity of Gornt's offering. The quiet was hurting. One minute to go now.
"We buy!" The tai-pan's voice shattered the silence.
"All my shares?" Stern asked hoarsely, his heart racing.
"Yes. Yours and all the rest. At market!"
Gornt was on his feet. "With what?" he asked sardonically. "That's almost 9 million cash."
Dunross was on his feet too, a taunting half-smile on his face. "The Noble House is good for that—and millions more. Has anyone ever doubted it?"
"I doubt it—and I sell short tomorrow!"
At that moment the finish bell sounded shrilly, the tension broke and there was a roar of approval.
"Christ what a day...."
"Good old tai-pan...."
"Couldn't stand much more of that..."
"Is Gornt going to beat him this time...?"
"Maybe those rumours are all nonsense..."
"Christ I made a bloody fortune in commissions..."
"I think Ian's running scared...."
"Don't forget he's got five days to pay for the shares..."
"He can't buy like that tomorrow..."
"Christ, tomorrow! What's going to happen tomorrow..."
Casey shifted in her seat, her heart thumping. She pried her eyes off Gornt and Dunross and looked back at Bartlett, who sat staring at the board, whistling tonelessly. She was awed—awed and a little frightened.
Just before coming here to meet Dunross, Linc Bartlett had told her his plan, about his call to Gornt and all about the meeting with him. "Now you know it all, Casey," he had said softly, grinning at her. "Now they're both set up and we control the battlefield, all for 2 million. Both're at each other's throats, both going for the jugular, each ready to cannibalise the other. Now we wait. Monday's D Day. If Gornt wins, we win. If Dunross wins, we win. Either way we become the Noble House."
3:03 PM
Alexi Travkin who trained the racehorses of the Noble House went up the busy alley off Nathan Road in Kowloon and into the Green Dragon Restaurant. He wore a small.38 under his left arm and his walk was light for a man of his age.
The restaurant was small, ordinary and drab, with no tablecloths on the dozen or so tables. At one of them, four Chinese were noisily eating soup and noodles, and, as he came in, a bored waiter by the cash register looked up from his racing form and began to get up with a menu. Travkin shook his head and walked through the archway that led to the back.
The little room contained four tables. It was empty but for one man.
"Zdrastvuytye," Suslev said lazily, his light clothes well cut.
"Zdrastvuytye," Travkin replied, his Slavic eyes narrowing even more. Then he continued in Russian, "Who're you?"
"A friend, Highness."
"Please don't call me that, I'm not a highness. Who're you?"
"Still a friend. Once you were a prince. Will you join me?" Suslev politely motioned to a chair. There was an opened bottle of vodka on his table and two glasses. "Your father Nicoli Petrovitch was a prince too, like his father and back for generations, Prince of Kurgan and even Tobol."
"You talk in ciphers, friend," Travkin said, outwardly calm, and sat opposite him. The feel of the.38 took away some of his apprehension. "From your accent you're Muscovite—and Georgian."
Suslev laughed. "Your ear is very good, Prince Kurgan. Yes I'm Muscovite but I was born in Georgia. My name's unimportant but I'm a friend wh—"
"Of me, Russia or the Soviets?"
"Of all three. Vodka?" Suslev asked, lifting the bottle.
"Why not?" Travkin watched the other man pour the two glasses, then without hesitation he picked up the wrong glass, the one farthest from him, and lifted it. "Health!"
Without hesitation Suslev picked up the other, touched glasses, drained it and poured again. "Health!"
"You're the man who wrote to me?"
"I have news of your wife."
"I have no wife. What do you want from me, friend?" The way Travkin used the word it was an insult. He saw the flash of anger as Suslev looked up from his glass and he readied.
"I excuse your rudeness this once, Alexi Ivanovitch," Suslev said with dignity. "You've no cause to be rude to me. None. Have I insulted you?"
"Who are you?"
"Your wife's name is Nestorova Mikail and her father was Prince Anotoli Zergeyev whose lands straddle Karaganda, which is not so far away from your own family lands east of the Urals. He was a Kazaki, wasn't he, a great prince of the Kazaki, whom some people call Cossacks?"
Travkin kept his gnarled hands still and his face impassive, but he could not keep the blood from draining from his face. He reached out and poured two more glasses, the bottle still half full. He sipped the spirit. "This's good vodka, not like the piss in Hong Kong. Where did you get it?"
"Vladivostok."
"Ah. Once I was there. It's a flat dirty town but the vodka's good. Now, what's your real name and what do you want?"
"You know Ian Dunross well?"
Travkin was startled. "I train his horses... I've... this is my third year, why?"
"Would you like to see the Princess Nestor—"
"Good sweet Christ Jesus whoever you are, I told you I have no wife. Now, for the last time, what do you want from me?"
Suslev filled his glass and his voice was even more kindly. "Alexi Ivanovitch Travkin, your wife the princess today is sixty-three. She lives in Yakutsk on th—"
"On the Lena? In Siberia?" Travkin felt his heart about to explode. "What gulag is that, you turd?"
Through the archway in the other room, which was empty now, the waiter looked up momentarily, then yawned and went on reading.
"It's not a gulag, why should it be a gulag?" Suslev said, his voice hardening. "The princess went there of her own accord. She's lived there since she left Kurgan. Her..." Suslev's hand went into his pocket and he brought out his wallet. "This is her dacha in Yakutsk," he said, putting down a photograph. "It belonged to her family, I believe." The cottage was snowbound, within a nice glade of trees, the fences well kept, and it was pretty with good smoke coming out of the chimney. A tiny bundled-up figure waved gaily at the camera—too far away for the face to be seen clearly.
"And that's my wife?" Travkin said, his voice raw.
"Yes."
"I don't believe you!"
Suslev put down a new snapshot. A portrait. The lady was white-haired and in her fifties or sixties and though the cares of a whole world marked her, her face was still elegant, still patrician. The warmth of her smile reached out and broke him.
"You... you KGB turd," he said hoarsely, sure that he recognised her. "You filthy rotten mother-eating..."
"To have found her?" Suslev said angrily. "To have seen that she was looked after and left in peace and not troubled and not sent to... to the correction places she and your whole class deserved?" Irritably he poured himself another drink. "I'm Russian and proud of it—you're emigre and you left. My father and his were owned by one of your class. My father died at the barricades in 1916, and my mother—and before they died they were starving. They..." With an effort he stopped. Then he said in a different voice, "I agree there's much to forgive and much to forget on both sides, and that's all past now but I tell you we Soviets, we're not all animals—not all of us. We're not all like Bloody Beria and the murdering archfiend Stalin.... Not everyone." He found his pack of cigarettes. "Do you smoke?"
"No. Are you KGB or GRU?" KGB stood for the Committee for State Security; GRU for the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff. This was not the first time Travkin had been approached by one of them. Before, he had always been able to slough them off with his drab, unimportant cover story. But now he was trapped. This one knew too much about him, too much truth. Who are you, bastard? And what do you really want? he thought as he watched Suslev light a cigarette.
"Your wife knows you're alive."
"Impossible. She's dead. She was murdered by mobs when our pal—when our house in Kurgan was sacked, put to the torch, torn apart—the prettiest, most unarmed mansion within a hundred miles."
"The masses had the right t—"
"Those weren't my people and they were led by imported Trotskyites who afterwards murdered my peasants by the thousands—until they themselves were all purged by more of their own vermin."
"Perhaps, perhaps not," Suslev said coldly. "Even so, Prince of Kurgan and Tobol, she escaped with one old servant and fled east thinking she could find you, could escape after you through Siberia to Manchuria. The servant came originally from Austria. Pavchen was her name."
The breath seemed to have vanished from Travkin's lungs. "More lies," he heard himself say, no longer believing it, his spirit ripped apart by her lovely smile. "My wife's dead. She'd never go so far north."
"Ah but she did. Her escape train was diverted northwards. It was autumn. Already the first snows had come so she decided to wait the winter out in Yakutsk. She had to...." Suslev put down another snapshot. "... she was with child. This is your son and his family. It was taken last year." The man was good-looking, in his forties, wearing a Soviet major's air force uniform, self-consciously smiling at the camera, his arm around a fine woman in her thirties with three happy children, a babe, a beaming girl of six or seven missing front teeth, a boy of about ten trying to be serious. "Your wife called him Pietor Ivanovitch after your grandfather."
Travkin did not touch the photo. He just stared at it, his face chalky. Then he pried his eyes away and poured a drink for himself, and as an afterthought, one for Suslev. "It's... it's all a brilliant reconstruction," he said, trying to sound convincing. "Brilliant."
"The child's name is Victoria, the girl is Nichola after your grandmother. The boy is Alexi. Major Ivanovitch is a bomber pilot."
Travkin said nothing. His eyes went back to the portrait of the beautiful old lady and he was near tears but his voice was still controlled. "She knows I'm alive, eh?"
"Yes."
"For how long?"
"Three months. About three months ago. One of our people told her."
"Who're they?"
"Do you want to see her?"
"Why only three months—why not a year—three years?"
"It was only six months ago we discovered who you were."
"How did you do that?"
"Did you expect to remain anonymous forever?"
"If she knows I'm alive and one of your people told her then she'd've written.... Yes. They would have asked her to do that if..." Travkin's voice was strange. He felt out of himself, in a nightmare, as he tried to think clearly. "She would have written a letter."
"She has. I will give it to you within the next few days. Do you want to see her?"
Travkin forced his agony down. He motioned at the family portrait. "And... and he knows I'm alive too?"
"No. None of them do. That was not at our suggestion, Alexi Ivanovitch. It was your wife's idea. For safety—to protect him, she thought. As if we would wreak vengeance for the sins of the fathers on the sons! She waited out two winters in Yakutsk. By that time peace had come to Russia so she stayed. By that time she presumed you dead, though she hoped you were alive. The boy was brought up believing you dead, and knew nothing of you. He still doesn't. As you can see, he's a credit to you both. He was head of his local school, then went to university as all gifted children do nowadays.... Do you know, Alexi Ivanovitch, in my day I was the first of my whole province ever to get to a university, the very first, ever from a peasant family. We're fair in Russia today."
"How many corpses have you made to become what you are now?"
"A few," Suslev said darkly, "all of them criminals or enemies of Russia."
"Tell me about them."
"I will. One day."
"Did you fight the last war—or were you a commissar?"
"Sixteenth Tank Corp, Forty-fifth Army. I was at Sebastopol... and at Berlin. Tank commander. Do you want to see your wife?"
"More than my whole life is worth, if this really is my wife and if she's alive."
"She is. I can arrange it."
"Where?"
"Vladivostok."
"No, here in Hong Kong."
"Sorry, that's impossible."
"Of course." Travkin laughed without mirth. "Of course, friend. Drink?" He poured the last of the vodka, splitting it equally. "Health!"
Suslev stared at him. Then he looked down at the portrait and the snapshot of the air force major and his family and picked them up, lost in thought. The silence grew. He scratched his beard. Then he said decisively, "All right. Here in Hong Kong," and Travkin's heart leapt.
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