"They're that smart?"
"No. But they're Asian, they belong here. Here the saying is, 'T'ien hsia wu ya i pan hei'—all crows under heaven are black—meaning that all the tai-pans are the same and they'll all stick together to destroy the outsider."
"So neither Ian nor Quillan would welcome a partner?" She hesitated. "I think I'm getting out of my depth, Linc. I don't know about business things. It's just that I've never heard of an American who's come here and made it big."
"What about Biltzmann, Superfoods and their takeover of H. K. General Stores? "
"Biltzmann's a joke. Everyone hates him and hopes he'll fall on his face, even Pug... Pugmire. Quillan's sure he will. No, even Cooper and Tillman didn't make it. They were Yankee traders in the first days, Linc, opium traders—they were even under Dirk Struan's protection. They're even related, the Struans and the Coopers. Hag Struan married her eldest daughter, Emma, to old Jeff Cooper; Old Hook Nose was his nickname when he was in his dotage. The story is that the marriage was payment for his helping her destroy Tyler Brock. Have you heard about them, Linc? The Brocks, Sir Morgan and his father Tyler, and the Hag?"
"Peter Marlowe told us some of the stories."
"If you want to know about the real Hong Kong, you should talk to Auntie Bright Eyes—that's Sarah Chen, Phillip Chen's maiden aunt! She's a great character, Linc, and sharp as a needle. She says she's eighty-eight. I think she's older. Her father was Sir Gordon Chen, Dirk Struan's illegitimate son by his mistress Kai-Sung, and her mother was the famous beauty Karen Yuan."
"Who's she?"
"Karen Yuan was Robb Struan's granddaughter. Robb was Dirk's half-brother and he had a mistress called Yau Ming Soo with whom he had a daughter Isobel. Isobel married John Yuan, an illegitimate son of Jeff Cooper. John Yuan became a well-known pirate and opium smuggler, and Isobel died quite notorious as an enormous gambler who had lost two of her husbands' fortunes playing mah-jong. So it was Isobel and John's daughter, Karen, who married Sir Gordon Chen—actually she was his second wife, more like a concubine really, though it was a perfectly legal marriage. Here, even today, if you're Chinese you can legally have as many wives as you like."
"That's convenient!"
"For a man!" Orlanda smiled. "So this tiny branch of the Yuans are Cooper descendents—the T'Chungs and Chens are from Dirk Struan, the Sungs, Tups and Tongs from Aristotle Quance the painter—here in Hong Kong it's the custom for the children to take the name of their mother, usually an insignificant girl who was sold to the pillow by her parents."
"By the parents?"
"Almost always," she told him casually. " 'T'ung t'ien yu ming'
—listen to heaven and follow fate. Particularly when you're starving." She shrugged. "There's no shame in that, Linc, no loss of face, not in Asia."
"How come you know so much about the Struans and Coopers and mistresses and so on?"
"This is a small place and we all love secrets but there are no real secrets in Hong Kong. Insiders—true insiders—know almost everything about the others. As I said, our roots go deep here. And don't forget that the Chens, Yuans and Sungs are Eurasian. As I told you, Eurasians marry Eurasians, so we should know who we're from. We're not desired by British or Chinese as wives or husbands, only as mistresses or lovers. " She sipped her wine and he was awed by the delicacy of her movements, her grace. "It's custom for Chinese families to have their genealogy written down in the village book, that's the only legality they have—that gives them continuity, they've never had birth certificates. " She smiled up at him. "To go back to your question. Both Ian Dunross and Quillan would welcome your money and your inside track into the U. S. market. And with either one you'd make a profit here—if you were content to be a silent partner."
Thoughtfully Bartlett let his eyes stray to the view.
She waited patiently, allowing him his thoughts, staying motionless. I'm very glad Quillan was such a good teacher and such a clever man, she thought. And oh so wise. He was right again.
This morning she had called him in tears on his private line to report what had happened and, "Oh Quillan, I think I've ruined everything...."
"What did you say and what did he say?"
She had told him exactly and he had reassured her. "I don't think you've any need to worry, Orlanda. He'll come back. If not tonight, tomorrow."
"Oh are you sure?" she had said so gratefully.
"Yes. Now dry those tears and listen." Then he had told her what to do and what to wear and above all to be a woman.
Ah how happy I am to be a woman, she thought, and remembered with sadness now the old days when they were happy together, she and Quillan, she nineteen, already his mistress for two years and no longer shy or afraid—of the pillow or him or of herself—how sometimes they would go on his yacht for a midnight cruise, just the two of them and he would lecture her. "You're a woman and Hong Kong yan so if you want to have a good life and pretty things, to be cherished and loved and pillowed and safe in this world be female."
"How, my darling?"
"Think only of my satisfaction and pleasure. Give me passion when I need it, quiet when I need it, privacy when I need it, and happiness and discretion all the time. Cook as a gourmet, know great wine, be discreet always, protect my face always and never nag."
"But Quillan, you make it sound all so one-sided."
"Yes. It is, of course it is. In return I do my part with equal passion.
But that's what I want from you, nothing less. You wanted to be my mistress. I put it to you before we began and you agreed."
"I know I did and I love being your mistress but... but sometimes I'm worried about the future."
"Ah, my pet, you have nothing to worry about. You know our rules were set in advance. We will renew our arrangement yearly, providing you want to until you're twenty-four, and then, if you choose to leave me I will give you the flat, money enough for reasonable needs and a handsome dowry for a suitable husband. We agreed and your parents approved...."
Yes they did. Orlanda remembered how her mother and father had enthusiastically approved the liaison—had even suggested it to her when she had just come back from school in America when they told her that Quillan had asked if he might approach her, saying that he had fallen in love with her. "He's a good man," her father had said, "and he's promised to provide well for you, if you agree. It's your choice, Orlanda. We think we would recommend it."
"But Father, I won't be eighteen until next month, and besides I want to go back to the States to live. I'm sure I can get a Green Card to remain there."
"Yes, you can go, child," her mother had said, "but you will be poor. We can give you nothing, no help. What job will you get? Who will support you? This way in a little while you can go with an income, with property here to support you."
"But he's so old. He's..."
"A man doesn't wear age like a woman," both had told her. "He's strong and respected and he's been good to us for years. He's promised to cherish you and the financial arrangements are generous, however long you stay with him."
"But I don't love him."
"You talk nonsense in eight directions! Without the protection of the lips the teeth grow cold!" her mother had said angrily. "This opportunity you are being offered is like the hair of the phoenix and the heart of the dragon! What do you have to do in return? Just be a woman and honour and obey a good man for a few years—renewable yearly—and even after that there's no end to the years if you choose and are faithful and clever. Who knows? His wife is an invalid and wasting. If you satisfy him and cherish him enough why wouldn't he marry you?"
"Marry a Eurasian? Quillan Gornt?" she had burst out.
"Why not? You're not just Eurasian, you're Portuguese. He has British sons and daughters already, heya? Times are changing, even here in Hong Kong. If you do your best, who knows? Bear him a son, in a year or two, with his permission, and who knows? Gods are gods and if they want they can make thunder from a clear sky. Don't be stupid! Love? What is that word to you?"
Orlanda Ramos was staring down at the city now, not seeing it. How stupid and naive I was then, she thought. Naive and very stupid. But now I know better. Quillan taught me very well.
She glanced up at Linc Bartlett, moving just her eyes, not wanting to disturb him.
Yes, I'm trained very well, she told herself. I'm trained to be the best wife any man could ever have, that Bartlett will ever have. No mistakes this time. Oh no, no mistakes. Quillan will guide me. He will help remove Casey. I will be Mrs. Linc Bartlett. All gods and all devils bear witness; that is what must happen....
Soon he took his eyes off the city, having thought through what she had said. She was watching him, wearing a little smile that he could not read. "What is it?"
"I was thinking how lucky I was to meet you."
"Do you always compliment a man?"
"No, just the ones who please me—and they're as rare as the hair of the phoenix or the heart of a dragon. Pate?"
"Thanks." He accepted it. "You're not eating?"
"I'm saving for dinner. I have to watch my diet, I'm not like you."
"I work out daily. Tennis when I can, golf. You?"
"I play a little tennis, I'm a good walker but I'm still taking golf lessons." Yes, she thought, I try very hard to be the best at everything I do and I'm the best for you, Linc Bartlett, in the whole wide world. Her tennis was very good and golf quite good because Quillan had insisted she be adept at both—because he enjoyed them. "Are you hungry?"
"Starving."
"You said Chinese food. Is that what you really want?"
He shrugged. "It doesn't matter to me. Whatever you want."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive. Why, what would you like?"
"Come in a moment."
He followed her. She opened the dining room door. The table was set exquisitely for two. Flowers, and a bottle of Verdicchio on ice. "Linc, I haven't cooked for anyone for such a long time," she said in her breathless rush that he found so pleasing. "But I wanted to cook for you. If you'd like it, I have an Italian dinner all set to go. Fresh pasta aglio e olio—garlic and oil—vealpiccata, a green salad, zabaglione, espresso, and brandy. How does that sound? It will only take me twenty minutes and you can read the paper while you wait. Then afterwards we can leave everything for when the amah comes back and go dancing or drive. What do you say?"
"Italian's my favourite food, Orlanda!" he told her enthusiastically. Then a vagrant memory surfaced, and for a moment he wondered whom he had told about Italian being his favourite. Was it Casey—or was it Orlanda this morning?
8:32 PM
Brian Kwok jerked out of sleep. One moment he was in a nightmare, the next awake but somehow still in the deep dark pit of sleep, his heart pounding, his mind disordered and no change between sleep and awake. Panic swamped him. Then he realised he was naked and still in the same warm darkness of the cell and remembered who he was and where he was.
They must have drugged me, he thought. His mouth was parched, his head ached, and he lay back on the mattress that was slimy to his touch and tried to collect himself. Vaguely he remembered being in Armstrong's office and before that with Crosse discussing the 16/2 but after that not much, just waking in this darkness, groping for the walls to get his bearings, feeling them close by, biting back the terror of knowing he was betrayed and defenceless in the bowels of Central Police HQ within a box with no windows and a door somewhere. Then, exhaustedly sleeping and waking and angry voices—or did I dream that—and then sleeping again... no, eating first, didn't I eat first... yes, slop they called dinner and cold tea... Come on, think! It's important to think and to remember... Yes, I remember, it was bedraggled stew and cold tea then, later, breakfast. Eggs. Was it eggs first or the stew first and... yes the lights came'on for a moment each time I ate, just enough time to eat... no, the lights went off and each time I finished in darkness, I remember finishing in darkness and hating to eat in darkness and then I peed in the pail in darkness, got back onto the mattress and lay down again.
How long have I been here? Must count the days.
Wearily he swung his legs off the cot and stumbled to a wall, his limbs aching to match his head. Got to exercise, he thought, got to help work the drugs out of my system and get my head clear and ready for the interrogation. Must get my mind ready for when they go at me, really begin—when they think I've softened up—then they'll keep me awake until they break me.
No, they won't break me. I'm strong and prepared and I know some of the pitfalls.
Who gave me away?
The effort to solve that was too much for him so he mustered his strength and did a few weak knee bends. Then he heard muffled footsteps approaching. Hastily he groped back for the cot and lay down, pretending sleep, his heart hurting in his chest as he held down his terror.
The footsteps stopped. A sudden bolt clanged back and a trapdoor opened. A shaft of light came into the cell and a half-seen hand put down a metal plate and a metal cup.
"Eat your breakfast and hurry up," the voice said in Cantonese. "You're due for more interrogation shortly."
"Listen, I want..." Brian Kwok called out but the trapdoor had already clanged back and he was alone in the darkness with the echo of his own words.
Keep calm, he ordered himself. Calm yourself and think.
Abruptly the cell flooded with light. The light hurt his eyes. When he had adjusted he saw that the light came from fixtures in the ceiling high above, and he remembered seeing them before. The walls were dark, almost black, and seemed to be pressing inward on him. Don't worry about them, he thought. You've seen the dark cells before and though you've never been part of an in-depth interrogation you know the principles and some of the tricks.
A surge of nausea came into his mouth at the thought of the ordeal ahead.
The door was hardly discernible and the trapdoor equally hidden. He could feel eyes though he could see no spyholes. On the plate were two fried eggs and a thick piece of rough bread. The bread was a little toasted. The eggs were cold and greasy and unappetizing. In the cup was cold tea. There were no utensils.
He drank the tea thirstily, trying to make it last, but it was finished before he knew it and the small amount had not quenched his thirst. Dew neh loh moh what I wouldn't give for a toothbrush and a bottle of beer an— The lights went out as suddenly as they had come on. It took him much time to adjust again to the darkness. Be calm, it's just darkness and light, light and darkness. It's just to confuse and disorient. Be calm. Take each day as it conies, each interrogation as it comes. His terror returned. He knew he was not really prepared, not experienced enough, though he had had some survival training against capture, what to do if the enemy captured you, the PRC Communist enemy. But the PRC's not the enemy. The real enemy are the British and Canadians who've pretended to be friend and teacher, they're the real enemy.
Don't think about that, don't try to convince yourself, just try to convince them.
I have to hold fast. Have to pretend it's a mistake for as long as I can and then, then I tell the story I've woven over the years and confuse them. That's duty. His thirst was overpowering. And his hunger. Brian Kwok wanted to hurl the empty cup against the wall and the plate against the wall and shout and call for help but that would be a mistake. He knew he must have great control and keep every particle of strength he could muster to fight back.
Use your head. Use your training. Put theory into practice. Think about the survival course last year in England. Now what do I do? He remembered that part of the survival theory was that you must eat and drink and sleep whenever you can for you never know when they will cut off food and drink and sleep from you. And to use your eyes and nose and touch and intelligence to keep track of time in the dark and remember that your captors will always make a mistake sometime, and if you can catch the mistake you can relate to time, and if you can relate to time then you can keep in balance and then you can twist them and not divulge that which must not be divulged—exact names and real contacts. Pit your mind against them was the rule. Keep active, force yourself to observe.
Have they made any mistakes? Have these devil barbarian British slipped yet? Only once, he thought excitedly. The eggs! The stupid British and their eggs for breakfast!
Feeling better now and wide awake, he eased off the cot and groped his way to the metal plate and put the cup down gently beside it. The eggs were cold and the grease congealed but he chewed them and finished the bread and felt a little better for the food. Eating with his fingers in darkness was strange and uncomfortable especially with nothing to wipe his fingers on except his own nakedness.
A shudder went through him. He felt abandoned and unclean. His bladder was uncomfortable and he felt his way to the pail that was attached to the wall. The pail stank.
With an index finger he deftly measured the level in the pail. It was partially full. He emptied himself into it and measured the new level. His mind calculated the difference. If they haven't added to it to confuse me, I've peed three or four times. Twice a day? Or four times a day?
He rubbed his soiled finger against his chest and that made him feel dirtier but it was important to use everything and anything to keep balanced and time related. He lay down again. Out of touch with light or dark or day or night was nauseating. A wave of sickness came from his stomach but he dominated it and forced himself to remember the Brian Kwok who they, the enemy, thought was Brian Kar-shun Kwok and not the other man, the almost forgotten man whose parentage was Wu, his generation name Pah and his adult name Chu-toy.
He remembered Ning-tok and his father and mother and being sent to school to Hong Kong on his sixth birthday, wanting to learn and to grow up to become a patriot like his parents and the uncle he had seen flogged to death in his village square for being a patriot. He had learned from his Hong Kong relations that patriot and Communist were the same and not enemies of the State. That the Kuomintang overlords were just as evil as the foreign devils who had forced the unequal treaties on China, and the only true patriot was he who followed the teachings of Mao Tse-tung. Being sworn into the first of many secret Brotherhoods, working to be the best for the cause of China and Mao which was the cause of China, learning from secret teachers, knowing he was part of the new great wave of revolution that would take back control of China from foreign devils and their lackeys, and sweep them into the sea forever.
Winning that scholarship! At twelve!
Oh how proud his secret teachers had been. Then going to barbarian lands, now perfect in their language and safe against their evil thoughts and ways, going to London, the capital of the greatest empire the world has ever seen, knowing it was going to be humbled and laid waste someday, but then in 1937, still in its last flowering.
Two years there. Hating the English school and the English boys... Chinkee Chinkee Chinaman sitting on his tail... but hiding it and hiding his tears, his new Brotherhood teachers helping him, guiding him, putting questions and answers into context, showing him the wonder of dialectic, of being part of the true real unquestioned revolution. Never questioning, never a need to question.
Then the German war and being evacuated with all the other school boys and girls to safety in Canada, all that wonderful time in Vancouver, British Columbia, on the Pacific shore, all that immensity, mountains and sea and a thriving Chinatown with good Ning-tok cooking—and a new branch of the world Brotherhood and more teachers, always someone wise to talk to, always someone ready to explain and advise... not accepted by his schoolmates but still beating them scholastically, in the gym with gloves and at their sports, being a prefect, playing cricket well and tennis well—part of his training. "Excel, Chu-toy, my son, excel and be patient for the glory of the Party, for the glory of Mao Tse-tung who is China," the last words his father had said to him, secret words engraved since he was six—and repeated on his deathbed.
Joining the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had been part of the plan. It was easy to excel in the RCMP, assigned to Chinatown and the wharves and the byways, speaking English and Mandarin and Cantonese—his Ning-tok dialect buried deep—easy to become a fine policeman in that sprawling beautiful city port. Soon he became unique, Vancouver's Chinese expert, trusted, excelling and implacably against the crimes that the triad gangsters of Chinatown fed off—opium, morphine, heroin, prostitution and the ever-constant illegal gambling.
His work had been commended by his superiors and by Brotherhood leaders alike—they equally against gang rule and drug traffic and crime, assisting him to arrest and uncover, their only secret interest the inner workings of the RCMP, how the RCMP hire and fire and promote and collate and investigate and watch, and who controls what, where and how. Sent from Vancouver to Ottawa for six months, loaned by a grateful chief of police to assist in an undercover investigation of a Chinese drug ring there, making new important Canadian contacts and Brotherhood contacts, learning more and more and breaking the ring and getting promotion. Easy to control crime and get promotion if you work and if you have secret friends by the hundreds, with secret eyes everywhere.
Then the war ending and applying for a transfer for the Hong Kong Police—the final part of the plan.
But not wanting to go, not wanting to leave, loving Canada, and loving her. Jeannette. Jeannette deBois. She was nineteen, French-Canadian from Montreal, speaking French and English, her parents French-Canadians of many generations and them liking him and not disapproving, not against him because he was the Chinois, as they jokingly called him. He was twenty-one then, already known as commandant material with a great career ahead of him, marriage ahead, a year or so ahead...
Brian Kwok shifted on the mattress in misery. His skin felt clammy and the dark was pressing down. He closed his leaden eyelids and let his mind roam back to her and that time, that bad time in his life. He remembered how he had argued with the Brotherhood, the leader, saying he could serve better in Canada than in Hong Kong where he would be only one of many. Here in Canada he was unique. In a few years he would be in Vancouver's police hierarchy.
But all his arguments had failed. Sadly he knew that they were right. He knew that if he had stayed, eventually he would have gone over to the other side, would have broken with the Party. There were too many unanswered questions now, thanks to reading RMCQ reports on the Soviets, the KGB, the gulags, too many friends, Canadian and Nationalist, now. Hong Kong and China were remote, his past remote. Jeannette was here, loving her and their life, his souped-up car and prestige among his peers, seeing them as equals, no longer barbarians.
The leader had reminded him of his past, that barbarians are only barbarians, that he was needed in Hong Kong where the battle was just beginning, where Mao was still not yet Chairman Mao, not yet victorious, still embattled with Chiang Kai-shek.
Bitterly he had obeyed, hating being forced, knowing he was in their power and obeying because of their power. But then the heady four years till 1949, and Mao's incredible, unbelievable total victory. Then burrowing deep again, using his brilliant skills to fight the crime that was anathema to him and a disgrace to Hong Kong and a blot on the face of China.
Life was very good again now. He was picked for high promotion, the British bound to him, respecting him because he was from a fine English public school with a fine upper-class English accent and an English sportsman like the elite of the Empire before him.
And now it's 1963 and I'm thirty-nine and tomorrow... no, not tomorrow, on Sunday, on Sunday it's the hill climb and on Saturday there are the races and Noble Star—will it be Noble Star or Gornt's Pilot Fish or Richard Kwok's, no Richard Kwang's Butterscotch Lass or John Chen's outsider, Golden Lady? I think I'd put my money on Golden Lady—every penny I have, yes, all my life's savings and I'm also gambling the Porsche as well even though that's stupid but I have to. I have to because Crosse said so and Robert agrees and they both said I've got to put up my life as well but Jesus Christ now Golden Lady's limping in the paddock but the gamble's settled and now they're off and running, come on Golden Lady, come on for the love of Mao, don't mind the storm clouds and the lightning come on, all my savings and my life's riding on your rotten lousy god-cursed oh Jesus Chairman don't fail me....
He was deep in dreams now, bad dreams, drug-assisted dreams, and Happy Valley was the Valley of Death. His eyes did not feel the lights come up gently nor the door swing open.
It was time to begin again.
Armstrong looked down at his friend, pitying him. The lights were carefully dimmed. Beside him was Senior Agent Malcolm Sun, an SI guard and the SI doctor. Dr. Dorn was a small, dapper, slightly bald specialist with an animated, birdlike intensity. He took Brian Kwok's pulse and measured his blood pressure and listened to his heartbeat.
"The client's in fine shape, Superintendent, physically," he said with a faint smile. "His blood pressure and heart beat're nicely up but that's to be expected." He noted his readings on the chart, handed it to Armstrong, who glanced at his watch, wrote down the time and signed the chart also.
"You can carry on," he said.
The doctor filled the syringe carefully. With great care he gave Brian Kwok the injection in the rump with a new needle. There was almost no mark, just a tiny spot of blood that he wiped away. "Dinner time whenever you want," he said with a smile.
Armstrong just nodded. The SI guard had added a measure of urine to the pail and that was noted on the chart as well. "Very smart of him to measure the level, didn't think he'd do that,"
Malcolm Sun commented. Infrared rays made it easy to monitor a client's most tiny movement from spyholes set into the ceiling lights. "Dew neh loh moh, who'd've imagined he'd be the mole? Smart, he always was so fornicating smart."
"Let's hope the poor bugger's not too fornicating smart," Armstrong told him sourly. "The sooner he talks the better. The Old Man won't give up on him."
The others looked at him. The young SI guard shivered.
Dr. Dorn broke the uneasy silence. "Should we still maintain the two-hour cycle, sir?"
Armstrong glanced at his friend. The first drug in the beer had been about 1:30 this afternoon. Since then, Brian Kwok had been on a Classification Two—a chemical sleep-wake-sleep-wake schedule. Every two hours. Wake up injections just before 4:30 P.M., 6:30, 8:30, and this would continue until 6:30 A.M. when the first serious interrogation would begin. Within ten minutes of each injection the client would be artificially pulled out of sleep, his thirst and his hunger increased by the drugs. Food would be wolfed and the cold tea gulped and the drugs therein would quickly take effect. Deep sleep, very deep very quick assisted by another injection. Darkness and harsh light alternated, metallic voices and silence alternated. Then wake-up. Breakfast. And two hours later, dinner, and two hours later breakfast. To an increasingly disoriented mind twelve hours would become six days—more if the client could stand it, twelve days, every hour on the hour. No need for physical torture, just darkness and disorientation, enough to discover that which you wish to discover from the enemy client, or to make your enemy client sign what you want him to sign, soon believing your truth to be his truth.
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