by Ed Nelson
“The first step is to approach the bank and explain the need for financing. This is not a problem here because it will be the Bank of China underwriting it, at the Empresses orders.”
“Then a rating analysis needs to be performed. Again, no problem as this is Sovereign Debt against the Chinese government which is on the gold standard.”
“After that, there needs to be a presentation to investors, they call it a roadshow. This establishes if there is interest in the bonds. If there is enough interest, then they can go on the market.”
“How is interest shown?”
He answered, “If on the roadshow investors commit to buying ten percent of the bonds then we can proceed. To put the backbone of the interstate in we would need a billion dollars in bonds.”
“So, one hundred million would get the ball rolling?”
“Yes.”
“Consider the roadshow held successfully, I will make that commitment. Every time I give China money you insist on paying it back. My financial team is always on me to find places to park the money, this may find me peace for a while.”
He smiled and replied, “At least for the thirty-year life of these bonds.”
“What will the entire project cost?”
“Over ten billion is the closest we can figure. But as the project succeeds the global market will be happy to buy them.”
“Who will buy them now, besides me?”
“The Empress will let the one hundred wealthiest families in China know that it is in their best interest to invest. We just didn’t have anyone with enough to kick it off.”
“You should have come to me first.”
“The Empress forbade it, she said you have done more than enough for China.”
“I will have to speak sternly to her. I will help who I want.”
He got the most horrifying look at the thought of speaking sternly to the Empress.
“When I say speak sternly, first I will lay on my stomach and grovel and beg to underwrite the bonds.”
“Oh, your western humor, I never have been able to understand it.”
“My family says they can’t understand my humor either.”
I wanted to play some golf, but there were no golf courses in China. When I let it be known that I was flying to Hong Kong to play a round of golf, you would think the world was ending.
The Empress summoned me and wanted to know how one got a golf course constructed. I had never built one, but I knew someone who did. That is how Ben ended up in China laying out and building their first golf course. It was based on an Arnold Palmer design, which Arnold licensed to China.
The name of the course was The Royal Course of the Middle Kingdom. That meant it was the national golf course of China. The invitation-only club dues would be a hundred thousand US a year and have all the amenities.
They asked me if I knew how to run a golf club and of course, I didn’t but I knew who did and put them in contact with Augusta National. They ended up being reciprocal, which saved me a bundle.
It took a while, but I figured out that China was building a golf course so they wouldn’t lose face by me going to Hong Kong to play. At this point, I doubted there were a hundred people in China who could play golf.
I probably was correct in my initial thought, but it didn’t take long for several professional golf schools to open and other courses to be constructed. Why the communists thought they could succeed in this capitalist culture I will never know.
That all occurred in the near future. I did fly to Hong Kong to play golf. That is when I found out that someone still wanted to kill me. Haoran was on top of my list, but a disgruntled Soviet or member of the Stasi could have been on the list.
Whoever it was had good inside information on my movements. My car was approaching the Government House in Hong Kong when someone threw a Molotov cocktail at the car.
There weren’t aim wasn’t very good, because it hit high enough on the roof that most of the contents were spewed into the air. There weren’t many people around, so none were hit directly.
The bomb-thrower got away. The driver, my security guards, and I were all bailing out of the flaming vehicle. I was alert to the fact this might have been a ploy to get us out of the vehicle.
The driver had been trained well. He managed to get the car several blocks down the road before he had to stop. If there was an ambush, we had driven out of it.
A trailing police car was there immediately, and I was hustled into it. With lights flashing and siren blaring, we proceeded to the Government House.
When informed of events, the Governor told me that I wouldn’t be making any public appearances and that golf was out. What a waste of a trip.
I decided to check in on Jackson House East. I hadn’t been there in several months. Boris welcomed me at the door. I had called him from Government House, so he was current on events.
I asked him how he was liking life here.
“Much better than Poland. I am warm and getting fat, it is wonderful.”
We all have different expectations in life.
“Your Grace, I will now finally have a chance to show you the secrets of this house.”
“What have you found other than the secret passage down the hill, a hidden subbasement, and a wine cellar below that?”
After I said that I was sorry. He looked like his candy had been taken. He was looking forward to showing me these wonders.
“How did you know?”
“This house was built by the same man who built Jackson House in the US.”
“That explains it, would you like a tour?”
“I most certainly would.”
The escape passage was exactly as I thought it would be. It came out in the garage of a house several hundred yards down the hill from mine. It was on my property, but no one lived there at that time.
Boris had his suite of rooms so it wouldn’t do to move him there, I would have to give it some thought. In the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt it to sit empty if we maintained it.
The subbasement was reached by similar hidden staircases from the main bedrooms and the elevator system. There was some equipment in the subbasement that I had to explain to Boris. He was shocked.
He took me over to a large safe.
“We haven’t been able to find a combination and I didn’t want to bring a locksmith down here without your permission.”
“Let me try something.”
I remembered the combination of the safe in the US. I wonder if it would be the same. It certainly would be more convenient.
Chapter 36
The safe opened to the same combination as the US safe. Jason Talmadge probably did the wrong thing in having the same combination on both safes, but I wasn’t complaining.
The safe had a small fortune in gold and silver, a larger one in old one-hundred-dollar bills. What was amazing was a stack of one hundred notes from the Bank of England. They were each for one hundred million pounds. If they were real, they would be for ten billion pounds. A fortune no matter how you looked at it.
How did Talmadge get them if they are real? What would the Bank of England do if I turned up with them and they were real?
I quickly closed the safe before Boris who had wandered away could see what I had found. He had seen the gold and silver bullion. He would have no idea of the worth of the old one-hundred-dollar bills, my guess was several million at auction based on the last ones we had found in the other safe.
I went upstairs and placed a call to Mr. Norman at the Palace. It was the middle of the night there so I wouldn’t hear from him for some hours.
After that, I asked Boris to take me down to the hidden wine cellar. This one was full of old bottles of distilled spirits. I wonder what a true Napoleon brandy would sell for. I would let Dad take care of all this. He enjoyed it and could advise me on what I should keep for gifts.
There was no stolen artwork. My parents had the stuff found at Jackson House returned to the last legal owner or
insurance company if paid off. The rest had found its way into museums through anonymous donations. Talk about being hotter than a two-dollar pistol, most of those were well known and couldn’t be sold.
The museum donations had set off a frenzy in the art world. It is surprising that while my parents had hired experts to trace down the rightful owners those that ended up in museums would have several owners crop up. In one case seven people came forward telling how it had always been in grandma’s parlor.
For some reason I was very tired, it couldn’t have anything to do with being almost burned to death earlier in the day, then finding a fortune. That fortune didn’t even include the British banknotes.
Mr. Norman returned my call at a civil hour for both of us. I asked him if he could ask a question for me to the Bank of England.
He said he could, what was it about.
“Did they ever print one hundred-million-pound banknotes?”
On the line, I heard an intake of breath.
“Don’t tell me you have found the Titans.”
“What are the Titans?”
“Notes of that denomination were lost in the sacking of Bombay in 1897, it has been thought they were destroyed somehow, but we have never been able to account for them. As such the Bank of England has had to keep them on their books as a liability.”
“How many were lost?”
“One hundred of them, ten billion pounds worth. It represented the Banks treasury in India.”
“Well, if these aren’t fake the treasury can have them back. That or I could keep them and spend them. I can see it now at the checkout counter at Marks and Sparks.”
“Rick, how fast can you get these back here?”
“My plane is fueled and ready to go on short notice, so if it is that important, I could come right away. I will have to let the Empress know that I’m making a side trip, so she doesn’t worry, especially after yesterday.”
“What happened yesterday?”
“It hasn’t made the news. My car was firebombed here in Hong Kong. I won’t mind leaving here at all. They won’t even let me play a round of golf.
“If those are real, we will let you play free at St. Andrews old course for the rest of your life.”
I made the phone calls to the Forbidden City, the Governor's House, and my Chief Pilot. I asked Boris for a briefcase. The banknotes were A5 in size, so they were like a fifth of a ream of typewriter paper. No big deal to carry.
That is why I double-checked the load in my forty-five.
Boris excused himself to make certain my car and driver were there. I took the opportunity to retrieve the banknotes without him knowing.
It was a nervous ride to the airport. I had people trying to kill me and potentially ten billion pounds in a small briefcase.
While seeming an eternity it took the normal amount of time to safely arrive at the airport. The Governor was waiting for me and wanted to know why I had to go to England all of a sudden.
I wondered how he knew that since I had only told him I was leaving Hong Kong. When I asked him, he told me all he had to do was ask about the flight plan.
Silly me, almost getting worked up about nothing. I told him that it was a request from the Queen and that I couldn’t share the basis for the request. He took that with a stiff upper lip. What he actually did was say, “Oh, okay.” I just like the term.
When I boarded the plane, I immediately stuffed the notes in my small safe. I spent the rest of the flight fretting and fuming about what I should be doing next.
At least Harold had caught up with me. The poor guy had to fly commercial to Hong Kong from Beijing and almost taken a cab to Jackson House East when I asked for a trip to England. He was at Government House at the time, as that was my announced destination, so heard the revision of the plan in time to be on the 707.
As usual, anymore the flight was long and boring. I had a couple of fiction books and even some non-fiction on world economics but couldn’t get into them.
I did manage to get some sleep, so I wasn’t a total wreck. By the time I cleaned up, put on a suit, suitable for the Palace, and had my breakfast, I was ready to face the world. Almost twenty hours after leaving Hong Kong we were landing in London.
Normally I was met by a car and driver from the Palace. This time I was met by an armored truck in which I rode in the back with a police escort. I would have felt silly if it weren’t for the banknotes, I had with me.
I bypassed Palace security through a side door I didn’t even know existed. There was a group waiting for me in a conference room. Included were the Queen and the Prince.
I was introduced briefly to two men from the Bank of England who were experts on the notes in question. They even had a similar note with them for comparison.
I wondered aloud about how many of these there were. The answer was that there was a total of forty in the vault of the bank on Threadneedle Street.
There were drawn breaths all around. I may have the real thing. They felt the paper, they dripped some chemicals on a small corner of one of the notes and looked at them under a large magnifying glass.
The two experts mumbled back and forth for ten minutes. The crowd in the room holding their breath.
The lead expert, or at least the one to talk announced.
“It is the correct paper, the correct ink, and imperfections in the printing are the same as the known note. These are real.”
I had to ask, “Now what?”
The Queen countered with, “You found them, what are you going to do with them.”
“Oh no, Your Majesty, you aren’t going to dump these on me, they go back to England.”
“I know, Rick, but your Mum suggested the question, she thought it would be fun.”
“Was it?”
“Yes, the look on your face was priceless.”
She continued, “This is like found money for England. It is now carried as a liability; we can erase that and be ten billion pounds richer. If the politicians get wind of this, they will go on a spending frenzy like never seen before.”
“What we are going to do is lock them away and bring some out only at need, a rainy-day fund if you will. Since the money will be to settle an emergency, the Pols won’t be able to run our debt up as usual.”
“Can a secret this big be kept?”
“We have bigger. Now you can have no recognition for an event that has never happened, but I think the Crown can arrange a tee time at St. Andrews whenever you want.”
“More than enough, Your Majesty.”
I was taken to my suite at the Plaza as that would raise the fewest questions on my trip. I spent the ride wondering what other large secrets the Crown was keeping. If they were on the order of ten billion pounds, they had to be big.
Chapter 37
Now I was in England at loose ends. I was getting cynical recently and thought I would only be here until summoned back to either spirit May-ling to safety or attend her funeral.
There wasn’t much for me to do. If I went back to China I would have to stay in the Forbidden City for my safety. I wasn’t even safe in Hong Kong.
I decided that the only reasonable thing was to go visit my Grand Mum. A hotel limo took me to Oxford. Once at the Meadows I could use one of their cars.
Grand Mum was glad to see me, especially without any Eurotrash in tow. I decided for the 707 to be moved to Oxford so it would be available when I dashed off to China once more.
I spent several days with Grand Mum and Mr. Hamilton. They seemed to get along very well. I thought the more power to them.
I did call the Oxford boys and we met at our favorite pub. Things had changed between us. When I updated them on my most recent adventures, it was where I noticed that they held me with a certain reserve.
I asked what was wrong.
“Don’t take this bad, Rick, but I feel like I could be killed any minute just because I’m sitting next to you. The tabloids have taken to calling you the bloody duke.”
&nb
sp; I hadn’t known that because I had quit reading them a long time ago.
“While there is no direct evidence that you have done anything, where you go bodies turn up.”
I thought the assassination attempts had been covered up, but apparently not.
“There is this Chinese guy who wants to be Emperor, Haoran, who is one of Ping’s sons, but not in the direct line. He has been trying to kill May-ling. He has killed her father and older brother. She is the only heir to the throne before him.”
“Why don’t you go all bloody duke on him?”
“I would if we could find him, there are teams of professionals looking all over China for him.”
“Why don’t you give him an irresistible target to lure him out?”
Out of the mouth of a mildly drunk Oxonian.
“Thanks, guys, I have to make some phone calls, here's the money for my shout but I have to go.”
When back at the Meadows, I placed a call to China and asked for the Empress's Chief of Staff. It was one of my luckier days that I got put directly through, both the call and him.
I went right to the point.
“Can we find a double for May-ling so that we can lure Haoran out, or at least capture his hitmen to get them to lead us to him?”
“We have already tried that. We captured the hitman but the information we got didn’t pan out.”
“What did he have to say after the information failed.”
“He didn’t live that long.”
China is China.
I was discouraged after that. After lunch, the next day I placed a call to the White House. The Chief of Staff told me they were having no luck in tracking Haoran, it was as though he wasn’t in China at all.
Maybe he wasn’t, if not where would he go?
I made another call to China; Grand Mum would have a fit when she saw her phone bill. I would make sure to leave a couple of hundred quid with her for my portion of the bill.
This time I asked if Haoran had any country in particular he did business with or visited. It turned out he was one of the few Chinese that was free to come and go to North Korea.