"How many shares, tai-pan?" Phillip Chen asked—his mind swamped by his own calculations of the possible profits.
"Maximum. But it has to be family only. Our stocks'll lead the boom."
Dianne gasped. "There's going to be a boom?"
"Yes. We'll lead it. The time's ripe, everyone in Hong Kong's ready. We'll supply the means, we'll be the leader, and with a judicious shove here and there, there'll be a stampede."
There was a great silence. Dunross watched the avarice on her face.
Her fingers clicked the jade beads. He saw Phillip staring into the distance and he knew that part of his compradore's mind was on the various notes that he, Phillip, had countersigned for Struan's that were due in thirteen to thirty days: $12 million U.S. to Toda Shipping Industries of Yokohama for the two super bulk cargo freighters, $6,800,000 to the Orlin International Merchant Bank, and $750,000 to Tsu-yan, who had covered another problem for him. But most of Phillip's mind would be on Bartlett's 20 million and the stock rise—the doubling that he had arbitrarily forecast.
Double?
No way—no not at all, not a chance in hell...
Unless there's a boom. Unless there's a boom!
Dunross felt his heart quicken. "If there's a boom... Christ, Phillip, we can do it!"
"Yes—yes, I agree, Hong Kong's ripe. Ah yes." Phillip Chen's eyes sparkled and his fingers drummed. "How many shares, tai-pan?"
"Every bl—"
Excitedly Dianne overrode Dunross, "Phillip, last week my astrologer said this was going to be an important month for us! A boom! That's what he must have meant."
"That's right, I remember you telling me, Dianne. Oh oh oh! How many shares, tai-pan?" he asked again.
"Every bloody penny! We'll make this the big one. But family only until Friday. Absolutely until Friday. Then, after the market closes I'll leak the Bartlett deal...."
"Eeeeee," Dianne hissed.
"Yes. Over the weekend I'll say 'no comment'—you make sure you're not available, Phillip—and come Monday morning, every-one'll be chomping at the bit. I'll still say 'no comment,' but Monday we buy openly. Then, just after close of business Monday, I'll announce the whole deal's confirmed. Then, come Tuesday..."
"The boom's on!"
"Yes."
"Oh happy day," Dianne croaked delightedly. "And every amah, houseboy, coolie, businessman, will decide their joss is perfect and out will come their savings and everything gets fed, all stocks will rocket. What a pity there won't be an editorial tomorrow... even better, an astrologer in one of the papers... say Hundred Year Fong... or..." Her eyes almost crossed with excitement. "What about the astrologer, Phillip?"
He stared at her, shocked. "Old Blind Tung?"
"Why not? Some h'eung yau in his palm... or the promise of a few shares of whatever stock you name. Heya?"
"Well, I—"
"Leave that one to me. Old Blind Tung owes me a favour or two, I've sent him enough clients! Yes. And he won't be far wrong announcing heavenly portents that herald the greatest boom in Hong Kong's history, will he?"
5:25 PM
The police pathologist, Dr. Meng, adjusted the focus of the microscope and studied the sliver of flesh that he had cut from the ear. Brian Kwok watched him impatiently. The doctor was a small pedantic little Cantonese with thick-lensed glasses perched on his forehead. At length he looked up and his glasses fell conveniently onto his nose. "Well, Brian, it could have been sliced from a living person and not a corpse... possibly. Possibly within the last eight or ten hours. The bruising... here, look at the back"—Dr. Meng motioned delicately at the discoloration at the back and at the top—"... that certainly indicates to me that the person was alive at the time."
"Why bruising, Dr. Meng? What caused it? The slash?"
"It could have been caused by someone holding the specimen tightly," Dr. Meng said cautiously, "while it was being removed."
"By what—knife, razor, zip knife, or Chinese chopper—cooking chopper?"
"By a sharp instrument."
Brian Kwok sighed. "Would that kill someone? The shock? Someone like John Chen?"
Dr. Meng steepled his fingers. "It could, possibly. Possibly not. Does he have a history of a weak heart?"
"His father said he hadn't—I haven't checked with his own doctor yet—the bugger's on holiday but John's never given any indication of being anything but healthy."
"This mutilation probably shouldn't kill a healthy man but he'd be very uncomfortable for a week or two." The doctor beamed. "Very uncomfortable indeed."
"Jesus!" Brian said. "Isn't there anything you can give me that'll help?"
"I'm a forensic pathologist, Brian, not a seer."
"Can you tell if the ear's Eurasian—or pure Chinese?"
"No. No, with this specimen that'd be almost impossible. But it's certainly not Anglo-Saxon, or Indian or Negroid." Dr. Meng took off his glasses and stared myopically up at the tall superintendent. "This could possibly cause quite a ripple in the House of Chen, heya?"
"Yes. And the Noble House." Brian Kwok thought a moment. "In your opinion, this Werewolf, this maniac, would you say he's Chinese?"
"The writing could have been a civilised person's, yes—equally it could have been done by a quai loh pretending to be a civilised person. But if he or she was a civilised person that doesn't necessarily mean that the same person who did the act wrote the letter."
"I know that. What are the odds that John Chen's dead?"
"From the mutilation?"
"From the fact that the Werewolf, or more probably Werewolves, sent the ear even before starting negotiations."
The little man smiled and said dryly, "You mean old Sun Tzu's 'kill one to terrorise ten thousand'? I don't know. I don't speculate on such imponderables. I only estimate odds on horses, Brian, or the stock market. What about John Chen's Golden Lady on Saturday?"
"She's got a great chance. Definitely. And Struan's Noble Star—Gornt's Pilot Fish and even more, Richard Kwang's Butterscotch Lass. She'll be the favourite I'll bet. But Golden Lady's a real goer. She'll start about three to one. She's a flier and the going'll be good for her. Dry. She's useless in the wet."
"Ah, any sign of rain?"
"Possible. They say there's a storm coming. Even a sprinkle could make all the difference."
"Then it better not rain till Sunday, heya?"
"It won't rain this month—not unless we're enormously lucky."
"Well if it rains it rains and if it doesn't it doesn't never mind! Winter's coming—then this cursed humidity will go away." Dr. Meng glanced at the wall clock. It was 5:35 P.M. "How about a quick one before we go home?"
"No thanks. I've still got a few things to do. Bloody nuisance this."
"Tomorrow I'll see what clues I can come up with from the cloth, or the wrapping paper or the other things. Perhaps fingerprinting will help you," the doctor added.
"I wouldn't bet on that. This whole operation is very smelly. Very smelly indeed."
Dr. Meng nodded and his voice lost its gentleness. "Anything to do with the Noble House and their puppet House of Chen's smelly. Isn't it?"
Brian Kwok switched to set yap, one of the main dialects of the Kwantung Province, spoken by many Hong Kong Cantonese. "Eh, Brother, don't you mean any and all capitalist running dogs are smelly, of which the Noble House and the House of Chen are chief and dung heavy?" he said banteringly.
"Ah, Brother, don't you know yet, deep in your head, that the winds of change are whirling throughout the world? And China under the immortal guidance of Chairman Mao, and Mao Thought, is the lead—"
"Keep your proselytising to yourself," Brian Kwok said coldly, switching back to English. "Most of the thoughts of Mao are out of the writings of Sun Tzu, Confucius, Marx, Lao Tsu and others. I know he's a poet—a great one—but he's usurped China and there's no freedom there now. None."
"Freedom?" the little man said defiantly. "What's freedom for a few years when, under the guidance of Chairman Mao, China's once more China and has taken back her rightful place in the world. Now China is feared by all filthy capitalists! Even by revisionist Russia."
"Yes. I agree. For that I thank him. Meanwhile if you don't like it here go home to Canton and sweat your balls off in your Communist paradise and dew neh loh moh on all Communists—and their fellow travellers!"
"You should go there, see for yourself. It's propaganda that communism's bad for China. Don't you read the newspapers? No one's starving now."
"What about the twenty-odd million who were murdered after the takeover? What about all the brainwashing?"
"More propaganda! Just because you've been to English and Canadian public schools and talk like a capitalist swine doesn't mean you're one of them. Remember your heritage."
"I do. I remember it very well."
"Your father was mistaken to send you away!" It was common knowledge that Brian Kwok had been born in Canton and, at the age of six, sent to school in Hong Kong. He was such a good student that in '37, when he was twelve, he had won a scholarship to a fine public school in England and had gone there, and then in '39, with the beginning of World War II, the whole school was evacuated to Canada. In '42, at eighteen, he had graduated top of his class, senior prefect, and had joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in their plainclothes branch in Vancouver's huge Chinatown. He spoke Cantonese, Mandarin, sei yap, and had served with distinction. In '45 he had requested a transfer to the Royal Hong Kong Police. With the reluctant approval of the RCMP, who had wanted him to stay on, he had returned. "You're wasted working for them, Brian," Dr. Meng continued. "You should serve the masses and work for the Party!"
"The Party murdered my father and my mother and most of my family in '43!"
"There was never proof of that! Never. It was hearsay. Perhaps the Kuomintang devils did it—there was chaos then in Canton. I was there, I know! Perhaps the Japanese swine were responsible—or triads—who knows?
How can you be certain?"
"I'm certain, by God."
"Was there a witness? No! You told me that yourself!" Meng's voice rasped and he peered up at him myopically. "Ayeeyah, you're Chinese, use your education for China, for the masses, not for the capitalist overlord."
"Up yours!"
Dr. Meng laughed and his glasses fell on to the top of his nose. "You wait, Superintendent Kar-shun Kwok. One day your eyes will open. One day you will see the beauty of it all."
"Meanwhile get me some bloody answers!" Brian Kwok strode out of the laboratory and went up the corridor to the elevator, his shirt sticking to his back. I wish it would rain, he thought.
He got into the elevator. Other policemen greeted him and he them. At the third floor he got out and walked along the corridor to his office. Armstrong was waiting for him, idly reading a Chinese newspaper. "Hi, Robert," he said, pleased to see him. "What's new?"
"Nothing. How about you?"
Brian Kwok told him what Dr. Meng had said.
"That little bugger and his 'could possiblys'! The only thing he's ever emphatic about's a corpse—and even then he'll have to check a couple of times."
"Yes—or about Chairman Mao."
"Oh, he was on that broken record again?"
"Yes." Brian Kwok grinned. "I told him to go back to China."
"He'll never leave."
"I know." Brian stared at the pile of papers in his in tray and sighed. Then he said, "It's not like a local to cut off an ear so soon."
"No, not if it's a proper kidnapping."
"What?"
"It could be a grudge and the kidnapping a cover," Armstrong said, his well-used face hardening. "I agree with you and Dunross. I think they did him in."
"But why?"
"Perhaps John was trying to escape, started a fight, and they or he panicked and before they or he knew what was happening, they or he'd knifed him, or bonked him with a blunt instrument." Armstrong sighed and stretched to ease the knot in his shoulders. "In any event, old chap, our Great White Father wants this solved quickly. He honoured me with a call to say the governor had phoned personally to express his concern."
Brian Kwok cursed softly. "Foul news travels quickly! Nothing in the press yet?"
"No, but it's all over Hong Kong and we'll have a red hot wind fanning our tails by morning. Mr. Bloody Werewolf Esquire—assisted by the pox-ridden, black-hearted, uncooperative Hong Kong press—will, I fear, cause us nothing but grief until we catch the bastard, or bastards."
"But catch him we will, oh yes, catch him we will!"
"Yes. How about a beer—or better, a very large gin and tonic? I could use one."
"Good idea. Your stomach off again?"
"Yes. Mary says it's all the good thoughts I keep bottled up." They laughed together and headed for the door and were in the corridor when the phone rang.
"Leave the bloody thing, don't answer it, it's only trouble," Armstrong said, knowing neither he nor Brian would ever leave it.
Brian Kwok picked up the phone and froze.
It was Roger Crosse, senior superintendent, director of Special Intelligence. "Yes sir?"
"Brian, would you please come up right away."
"Yes sir."
"Is Armstrong with you?"
"Yes sir."
"Bring him too." The phone clicked off.
"Yes sir." He replaced the receiver and felt the sweat on his back. "God wants us, on the double."
Armstrong's heart jumped a beat. "Eh? Me?" He caught up with Brian who was heading for the elevator. "What the hell does he want me for? I'm not in SI now."
"Ours not to reason why, ours just to shit when he murmurs." Brian Kwok pressed the up button. "What's up?"
"Got to be important. The Mainland perhaps?"
"Chou En-lai's ousted Mao and the moderates're in power?"
"Dreamer! Mao'll die in office—the Godhead of China."
"The only good thing you can say about Mao is that he's Chinese first and Commie second. God-cursed Commies!"
"Hey, Brian, maybe the Soviets are hotting up the border again. Another incident?"
"Could be. Yes. War's coming—yes, war's coming between Russia and China. Mao's right in that too."
"The Soviets aren't that stupid."
"Don't bet on it, old chum. I've said it before and I've said it again, the Soviets are the world enemy. There'll be war—you'll soon owe me a thousand dollars, Robert."
"I don't think I want to pay that bet. The killing'll be hideous."
"Yes. But it'll still happen. Again Mao's right in that. It'll be hideous all right—but not catastrophic." Irritably Brian Kwok punched the elevator button again. He looked up suddenly. "You don't think the invasion from Taiwan's launched at long last?"
"That old chestnut? That old pipe dream? Come off it, Brian! Chiang Kai-shek'll never get off Taiwan."
"If he doesn't the whole world's in the manure pile. If Mao gets thirty years to consolidate... Christ, you've no idea. A billion automatons? Chiang was so right to go after the Commie bastards—they're the real enemy of China. They're the plague of China. Christ, if they get time to Pavlov all the kids."
Armstrong said mildly, "Anyone'd think you're a running dog Nationalist. Simmer down, lad, everything's lousy in the world which is now and ever shall be normal—but you, capitalist dog, you can go racing Saturday, hill climbing Sunday and there're lots of birds ready to be plucked. Eh?"
"Sorry." They got into the elevator. "That little bastard Meng caught me off balance," Brian said, stabbing the top-floor button.
Armstrong switched to Cantonese. "Thy mother on your sorry, Brother."
"And thine was stuffed by a vagrant monkey with one testicle in a pail of pig's nightsoil. "
Armstrong beamed. "That's not bad, Brian," he said in English. "Not bad at all."
The elevator stopped. They walked along the drab corridor. At the door they prepared themselves. Brian knocked gently.
"Come in."
Roger Crosse was in his fifties, a thin tall man with pale blue eyes and fair thinning hair and small, long-fingered hands. His desk was meticulous, like his civilian clothes—his office spartan. He motioned to chairs. They sat. He continued to read a file. At length he closed it carefully and set it in front of him. The cover was drab, interoffice and ordinary. "An American millionaire arrives with smuggled guns, an ex-drug peddling, very suspect Shanghainese millionaire flees to Taiwan, and now a VIP kidnapping with, God help us, Werewolves and a mutilated ear. All in nineteen-odd hours. Where's the connection?"
Armstrong broke the silence. "Should there be one, sir?"
"Shouldn't there?"
"Sorry sir, I don't know. Yet."
"That's very boring, Robert, very boring indeed."
"Yes sir."
"Tedious in fact, particularly as the powers that be have already begun to breathe heavily down my neck. And when that happens..." He smiled at them and both suppressed a shudder. "Of course Robert, I did warn you yesterday that important names might be involved."
"Yes sir."
"Now Brian, we're grooming you for high office. Don't you think you could take your mind off horse racing, car racing and almost anything in skirts and apply some of your undoubted talents to solving this modest conundrum."
"Yes sir."
"Please do. Very quickly. You're assigned to the case with Robert because it might require your expertise—for the next few days. I want this out of the way very very quickly indeed because we've a slight problem. One of our American friends in the consulate called me last night. Privately." He motioned at the file. "This is the result. With his tip we intercepted the original in the bleak hours—of course this's a copy, the original was naturally returned and the..." He hesitated, choosing the correct word, "... the courier, an amateur by the way, left undisturbed. It's a report, a sort of newsletter with different headings. They're all rather interesting. Yes. One's headed, The KGB in Asia.' It claims that they've a deep-cover spy ring I've never even heard of before, code name 'Sevrin,' with high-level hostiles in key positions in government, police, business—at the tai-pan level—throughout Southeast Asia, particularly here in Hong Kong."
The air hissed out of Brian Kwok's mouth.
"Quite," Crosse said agreeably. "If it's true."
"You think it is, sir?" Armstrong said.
"Really, Robert, perhaps you're in need of early retirement on medical grounds: softening of the brain. If I wasn't perturbed do you think I'd endure the unhappy pleasure of having to petition the assistance of the CID Kowloon?"
"No sir, sorry sir."
Crosse turned the file to face them and opened it to the title page. Both men gasped. It read, "Confidential to Ian Dunross only. By hand, report 3/1963. One copy only."
"Yes," he continued. "Yes. This's the first time we've actual proof Struan's have their own intelligence system." He smiled at them and their flesh crawled. "I'd certainly like to know how tradesmen manage to be privy to all sorts of very intimate information we're supposed to know ages before them."
"Yes sir."
"The report's obviously one of a series. Oh yes, and this one's signed on behalf of Struan's Research Committee 16, by a certain A. M. Grant—dated in London three days ago."
Brian Kwok gasped again. "Grant? Would that be the Alan Medford Grant, the associate of the Institute for Strategic Planning in London?"
"Full marks, Brian, ten out of ten. Yes. Mr. AMG himself. Mr. VIP, Mr. Advisor to Her Majesty's Government for undercover affairs who really knows onions from leeks. You know him, Brian?"
Brian Kwok said, "I met him a couple of times in England last year, sir, when I was on the Senior Officers Course at the General Staff College. He gave a paper on advanced strategic considerations for the Far East. Brilliant. Quite brilliant."
"Fortunately he's English and on our side. Even so..." Crosse sighed again. "I certainly hope he's mistaken this time or we're in the mire deeper than even I imagined. It seems few of our secrets are secrets anymore. Tiring. Very. And as to this," he touched the file again, "I'm really quite shocked."
"Has the original been delivered, sir?" Armstrong asked.
"Yes. To Dunross personally at 4:18 this afternoon." His voice became even more silky. "Fortunately, thank God, my relations with our cousins across the water are first class. Like yours, Robert—unlike yours, Brian. You never did like America, did you, Brian?"
"No sir."
"Why, may I ask?"
"They talk too much, sir, you can't trust them with any secrets—they're loud, and I find them stupid."
Crosse smiled with his mouth. "That's no reason not to have good relations with them, Brian. Perhaps you're the stupid one."
"Yes sir."
"They're not all stupid, oh dear no." The director closed the file but left it facing them. Both men stared at it, mesmerised.
"Did the Americans say how they found out about the file, sir?" Armstrong asked without thinking.
"Robert, I really do believe your sinecure in Kowloon has addled your brain. Shall I recommend you for a medical retirement?"
The big man winced. "No sir, thank you sir."
"Would we reveal our sources to them?"
"No sir."
"Would they have told me if I'd been so crass as to ask them?"
"No sir."
"This whole business is very tedious and filled with loss of face. Mine. Don't you agree, Robert?"
"Yes sir."
"Good, that's something." Crosse leaned back in his chair, rocking it. His eyes ground into them. Both men were wondering who the tipster was, and why.
Can't be the CIA, Brian Kwok was thinking. They'd have done the intercept themselves, they don't need SI to do their dirty work for them. Those crazy bastards'll do anything, tread on any toes, he thought disgustedly. If not them, who?
Who?
Must be someone who's in Intelligence but who can't, or couldn't do the intercept, who's on good terms, safe terms with Crosse. A consular official? Possible. Johnny Mishauer, Naval Intelligence? Out of his channel. Who? There's not many... Ah, the FBI man, Crosse's protege! Ed Langan. Now, how would Langan know about this file? Information from London? Possible, but the FBI doesn't have an office there. If the tip came from London, probably MI-5 or -6 would know it first and they'd've arranged to get the material at the source and would have telexed it to us, and given us hell for being inept in our own backyard. Did the courier's aircraft land at Lebanon? There's an FBI man there I seem to recall. If not from London or Lebanon, the information must have come from the aircraft itself. Ah, an accompanying friendly informer who saw the file, or the cover? Crew? Ayeeyah! Was the aircraft TWA or Pan Am? The FBI has all sorts of links, close links—with all sorts of ordinary businesses, rightly so. Oh yes. Is there a Sunday flight? Yes. Pan Am, ETA 2030. Too late for a night delivery by the time you've got to the hotel. Perfect.
"Strange that the courier came Pan Am and not BOAC—it's a much better flight," he said, pleased with the oblique way his mind worked.
"Yes. I thought the same," Crosse said as evenly. "Terribly un-British of him. Of course, Pan Am does land on time whereas you never know with poor old BOAC these days—" He nodded at Brian agreeably. "Full marks again. Go to the head of the class."
"Thank you sir."
"What else do you deduce?"
After a pause Brian Kwok said, "In return for the tip, you agreed to provide Langan with an exact copy of the file."
"And?"
"And you regret having honoured that."
Crosse sighed. "Why?"
"I'll know only after I've read the file."
"Brian, you really are surpassing yourself this afternoon. Good." Absently the director fingered the file and both men knew he was titillating them, deliberately, but neither knew why. "There are one or two very curious coincidences in other sections of this. Names like Vincenzo Banastasio... meeting places like Sinclair Towers... Does Nelson Trading mean anything to either of you?"
They both shook their heads.
"All very curious. Commies to the right of us, commies to the left..." His eyes became even stonier. "It seems we even have a nasty in our own ranks, possibly at superintendent level."
"Impossible!" Armstrong said involuntarily. "How long were you with us in SI, dear boy?" Armstrong almost flinched. "Two tours, almost five years sir."
"The spy Sorge was impossible—Kim Philby was impossible—dear God Philby!" The sudden defection to Soviet Russia in January this year by this Englishman, this onetime top agent of MI-6—British military intelligence for overseas espionage and counterespionage—had sent shock waves throughout the Western world, particularly as, until recently, Philby had been first secretary at the British Embassy in Washington, responsible for liaison with U.S. Defence, State, and the CIA on all security matters at the highest level. "How in the name of all that's holy he could have been a Soviet agent for all those years and remain undetected is impossible, isn't it, Robert?"
"Yes sir."
"And yet he was, and privy to our innermost secrets for years. Certainly from '42 to '58. And where did he start spying? God save us, at Cambridge in 1931. Recruited into the Party by the other arch-traitor, Burgess, also of Cambridge, and his friend Maclean, may they both toast in hell for all eternity." Some years ago these two highly placed Foreign Office diplomats—both of whom had also been in Intelligence during the war—had abruptly fled to Russia only seconds ahead of British counterespionage agents and the ensuing scandal had rocked Britain and the whole of NATO. "Who else did they recruit?"
"I don't know, sir," Armstrong said carefully. "But you can bet that now they're all VIP's in government, the Foreign Office, education, the press, particularly the press—and, like Philby, all burrowed very bloody deep."
"With people nothing's impossible. Nothing. People are really very dreadful." Crosse sighed and straightened the file slightly. "Yes. But it's a privilege to be in SI, isn't it, Robert?"
"Yes sir."
"You have to be invited in, don't you? You can't volunteer, can you?"
"No sir."
"I never did ask why you didn't stay with us, did I?"
"No sir."
"Well?"
Armstrong groaned inwardly and took a deep breath. "It's because I like being a policeman, sir, not a cloak-and-dagger man. I like being in CID. I like pitting your wits against the villain, the chase and the capture and then the proving it in court, according to rules—to the law, sir."
"Ah but in SI we don't, eh? We're not concerned with courts or laws or anything, only results?"
"SI and SB have different rules, sir," Armstrong said carefully. "Without them the Colony'd be up the creek without a paddle."
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