Noble House

by James Clavell

  “So I heard Struan’s have only 1.3 million in cash, with no cash reserves and not enough cash flow to make payment. They’re not expecting a significant block of income until they get 17 million as their share of one of Kowloon Investments’ property deals, not due until November, and they’re 20 percent overextended at the Victoria Bank.”

  “That’s … that’s very intimate knowledge,” Gornt gasped, his heart thumping in his chest, his collar feeling tight. He knew about the 20 percent overdraft—Plumm had told him—all the directors of the bank would know. But not the details of their cash, or their cash flow.

  “Why’re you telling me this, Mr. Bartlett?”

  “How liquid are you?”

  “I’ve already told you, I’m twenty times stronger than Struan’s,” he said automatically, the lie coming easily, his mind churning the marvelous opportunities all this information unlocked. “Why?”

  “If I go through with the Struan deal he’ll be using my cash down payment to get off the Toda and Orlin hooks—if his bank doesn’t extend his credit.”

  “Yes.”

  “Will the Vic support him?”

  “They always have. Why?”

  “If they don’t, then he’s in big trouble.”

  “Struan’s are substantial stockholders. The bank is obliged to support them.”

  “But he’s overdrawn there and Havergill hates him. Between Chen’s stock, Struan’s and their nominees, they’ve 21 percent….”

  Gornt almost dropped the phone. “Where the hell did you get that information? No outsider could possibly know that!”

  “That’s right,” he heard the American say calmly, “but that’s a fact. Could you muster the other 79 percent?”

  “What?”

  “If I had a partner who could put the bank against him just this once and he couldn’t get credit elsewhere … bluntly: it’s a matter of timing. Dunross’s mortally overextended and that means he’s vulnerable. If his bank won’t give him credit, he’s got to sell something—or get a new line of credit. In either case he’s wide open for an attack and ripe for a takeover at a fire-sale price.”

  Gornt mopped his brow, his brain reeling. “Where the hell did you get all this information?”

  “Later, not now.”

  “When?”

  “When we’re down to the short strokes.”

  “How … how sure are you your figures are correct?”

  “Very. We’ve his balance sheets for the last seven years.”

  In spite of his resolve Gornt gasped. “That’s impossible!”

  “Want to bet?”

  Gornt was really shaken now and he tried to get his mind working. Be cautious, he admonished himself. For chrissake control yourself. “If … if you’ve all that, if you know that and get one last thing … their interlocking corporate structure, if you knew that we could do anything we want with Struan’s.”

  “We’ve got that too. You want in?”

  Gornt heard himself say calmly, not feeling calm at all, “Of course. When could we meet? Lunch?”

  “How about now? But not here, and not at your office. This has to be kept very quiet.”

  Gornt’s heart hurt in his chest. There was a rotten taste in his mouth and he wondered very much how far he could trust Bartlett. “I’ll … I’ll send a car for you. We could chat in the car.”

  “Good idea, but why don’t I meet you Hong Kong side. The Golden Ferry Terminal in an hour.”

  “Excellent. My car’s a Jag—license’s 8888. I’ll be by the taxi rank.”

  He hung up and stared at the phone a moment, then went back to his table.

  “Not bad news I hope, Mr. Gornt?”

  “Er, no, no not at all. Thank you.”

  “Some more of your special coffee? It’s freshly made.”

  “No, no thank you. I’d like a half bottle of the Taittinger Blanc de Blancs. The ’55.” He sat back feeling very strange. His enemy was almost in his grasp—if the American’s facts were true and if the American was to be trusted and not in some devious plot with Dunross.

  The wine came but he hardly tasted it. His whole being was concentrated, sifting, preparing.

  Gornt saw the tall American come through the crowds and, for a moment, he envied him his lean, trim figure and the easy, careless dress—jeans, open-neck shirt, sports coat—and his obvious confidence. He saw the elaborate camera, smiled sardonically, then looked for Casey. When it was obvious Bartlett was alone he was disappointed. But this disappointment did not touch the glorious anticipation that had possessed him ever since he had put the phone down.

  Gornt leaned over and opened the side door. “Welcome Hong Kong side, Mr. Bartlett,” he said with forced joviality, starting the engine. He drove off along Gloucester Road toward Glessing’s Point and the Yacht Club. “Your inside information’s astonishing.”

  “Without spies you can’t operate, can you?”

  “You can, but then that’s amateur. How’s Miss Casey? I thought she’d be with you.”

  “She’s not in this. Not yet.”

  “Oh?”

  “No. No, she’s not in on the initial attack. She’s more valuable if she knows nothing.”

  “She knows nothing of this? Not even your call to me?”

  “No. Nothing at all.”

  After a pause he said, “I thought she was your executive VP … your right arm you called her.”

  “She is, but I’m boss of Par-Con, Mr. Gornt.”

  Gornt saw the level eyes and, for the first time, felt that that was true and that his original estimation was wrong. “I’ve never doubted it,” he said, waiting, his senses honed, waiting him out.

  Then Bartlett said, “Is there somewhere we can park—I’ve got something I want to show you.”

  “Certainly.” Gornt was driving along the sea front on Gloucester Road in the usual heavy traffic. In a moment he found a parking place near Causeway Bay typhoon shelter with its massed, floating islands of boats of all sizes.

  “Here.” Bartlett handed him a typed folder. It was a detailed copy of Struan’s balance sheet for the year before the company went public. Gornt’s eyes raced over the figures. “Christ,” he muttered. “So Lasting Cloud’s cost them 12 million?”

  “It almost broke them. Seems they had all sorts of wild-assed cargo aboard. Jet engines for China, uninsured.”

  “Of course they’d be uninsured—how the hell can you insure contraband?” Gornt was trying to take in all the complicated figures. His mind was dazed. “If I’d known half of this I’d’ve got them the last time. Can I keep it?”

  “When we’ve made a deal I’ll give you a copy.” Bartlett took the folder back and gave him a paper. “Try this one on for size.” It showed, graphically, Struan’s stockholdings in Kowloon Investments and detailed how, through nominee companies, the tai-pan of Struan’s exercised complete control over the huge insurance-property-wharfing company that was supposedly a completely separate company and quoted as such on the stock exchange.

  “Marvelous,” Gornt said with a sigh, awed by the beauty of it. “Struan’s have only a tiny proportion of the stock publicly held but retain 100 percent control, and perpetual secrecy.”

  “In the States whoever figured this out’d be in jail.”

  “Thank God Hong Kong laws aren’t the same, and that this’s all perfectly legal, if a trifle devious.” The two men laughed.

  Bartlett pocketed the paper. “I’ve got similar details of the rest of their holdings.”

  “Bluntly, what have you in mind, Mr. Bartlett?”

  “A joint attack on Struan’s, starting today. A blitzkrieg. We go 50–50 on all spoils. You get the Great House on the Peak, the prestige, his yacht—and 100 percent of the box at the Turf Club including his stewardship.”

  Gornt glanced at him keenly. Bartlett smiled. “We know that’s kind of special to you. But everything else right down the middle.”

  “Except their Kai Tak operations. I need that for my airlin
e.”

  “All right. But then I want Kowloon Investments.”

  “No,” Gornt said, immediately on guard. “We should split that 50–50, and everything 50–50.”

  “No. You need Kai Tak, I need Kowloon Investments. It’ll be a great nucleus for Par-Con’s jump into Asia.”

  “Why?”

  “Because all great fortunes in Hong Kong are based on property. K. I. will give me a perfect base.”

  “For further raids?”

  “Sure,” Bartlett said easily. “Your friend Jason Plumm’s next on the list. We could swallow his Asian Properties easy. 50–50. Right?”

  Gornt said nothing for a long time. “And after him?”

  “Hong Kong and Lan Tao Farms.”

  Again Gornt’s heart leapt. He had always hated Dunstan Barre and that hatred was tripled last year when Barre had been given a knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honors List—an honor maneuvered, Gornt was sure, with judicious contributions to the Conservative Party fund. “And how would you swallow him?”

  “There’s always a time when any army, any country, any company’s vulnerable. Every general or company president has to take chances, sometime, to stay ahead. You’ve got to, to stay ahead. There’s always some enemy snapping at your heels, wanting yours, wanting your place in the sun, wanting your territory. You’ve got to be careful when you’re vulnerable.”

  “Are you vulnerable now?”

  “No. I was two years ago but not now. Now I’ve the muscle I need—we need. If you’re in.”

  A flock of seabirds were dipping and weaving and cawing overhead. “What do you want me to do?”

  “You’re the pathfinder, the spearhead. I defend the rear. Once you’ve punched a hole through his defense, I’ll deliver the knockout. We sell Struan’s short—I guess you’ve already taken a position on the Ho-Pak?”

  “I’ve sold short, yes. Modestly.” Gornt told the lie easily.

  “Good. In the States you could get their own accountants to leak the cash flow facts to the right big mouth. That’d soon be all over town. Could the same ploy work here?”

  “Probably. But you’d never get their accountants to do that.”

  “Not for the right fee?”

  “No. But rumors could be started.” Gornt smiled grimly. “It’s very bad of Dunross to hide his inept position from his shareholders. Yes. That’s possible. And then?”

  “You sell Struan’s short, as soon as the market opens. Big.”

  Gornt lit a cigarette. “I sell short, and what do you do?”

  “Nothing openly. That’s our ace in the hole.”

  “Perhaps it really is, and I’m being set up,” Gornt said.

  “What if I cover all losses? Would that be proof enough I’m with you?”

  “What?”

  “I pay all losses and take half the profit for today, tomorrow and Friday. If we haven’t got him on the run by Friday afternoon you buy back in, just before closing, and we’ve failed. If it looks like we’ve got him, we sell heavily, to the limit, just before closing. That’ll sweat him out over the weekend. Monday I jerk the rug and our blitzkrieg’s on. It’s infallible.”

  “Yes. If you’re to be trusted.”

  “I’ll put $2 million in any Swiss bank you name by ten o’clock today. That’s 10 million HK which sure as hell’s enough to cover any shorting losses you might have. $2 million with no strings, no paper, no promissory note, just your word it’s to cover any losses, that if we win we split profits and the rest of the deal as it’s been laid out—50–50 except Kowloon Investments for me, Struan’s at Kai Tak Airport for you, and for Casey and me, voting membership at the Turf Club. We’ll put it to paper Tuesday—after he’s crashed.”

  “You’ll put up 2 million U.S., and it’s my decision as to when I buy to cover any losses?” Gornt was incredulous.

  “Yes. 2 million’s the extent of my gamble. So how can you get hurt? You can’t. And because he knows how you feel about him, if you mount the attack he won’t be suspicious, won’t be prepared for a flanking blitz from me.”

  “This all depends on whether your figures are correct—the amounts and the dates.”

  “Check them out. There must be a way you can do that—enough to convince yourself.”

  “Why the sudden change, Mr. Bartlett? You said you’d wait till Tuesday—perhaps later.”

  “We’ve done some checking and I don’t like the figures I’ve come up with. We owe Dunross nothing. We’d be crazy to go with him when he’s so weak. As it is, what I’m offering you is a great gamble, great odds: the Noble House against 2 lousy millions. If we win that’d be parlayed into hundreds of millions.”

  “And if we fail?”

  Bartlett shrugged. “Maybe I’ll go home. Maybe we’ll work out a Rothwell-Gornt-Par-Con deal. You win sometimes and you lose a lot more times. But this raid’s too good not to try it. Without you it’d never work. I’ve seen enough of Hong Kong to know it has its own special rules. I’ve no time to learn them. Why should I—when I’ve got you.”

  “Or Dunross?”

  Bartlett laughed and Gornt read no guile in him. “You’re not stretched, you’re not vulnerable, he is—that’s his bad luck. What d’you say? Is the raid on?”

  “I’d say you’re very persuasive. Who gave you the information—and the document?”

  “Tuesday I’ll tell you. When Struan’s have crashed.”

  “Ah, there’s a payoff to Mister X?”

  “There’s always a payoff. It’ll come off the top, but no more than 5 percent—any more comes out of my share.”

  “Two o’clock Friday, Mr. Bartlett? That’s when I decide to buy back in and perhaps lose your 2 million—or we confer and continue the surge?”

  “Friday at two.”

  “If we continue over the weekend you’ll cover any further risk with further funds?”

  “No. You won’t need any more. 2 million’s tops. By Friday afternoon either his stock will be way down and we’ll have him running scared, or not. This’s no long-term, well-organized raid. It’s a once, er, a onetime attempt to fool’s mate an opponent.” Bartlett grinned happily. “I risk 2 lousy million for a game that will go down in history books. In less than a week we knock off the Noble House of Asia!”

  Gornt nodded, torn. How far can I trust you, Mr. Bloody Raider, you with the key to Devil Dunross? He glanced out of the window and watched a child skulling a boat among the junks, the sea as safe and familiar to her as dry land. “I’ll think about what you said.”

  “How long?”

  “Till eleven.”

  “Sorry, this’s a raid, not a business deal. It’s now—or not at all!”

  “Why?”

  “There’s a lot to do, Mr. Gornt. I want this settled now or not at all.”

  Gornt glanced at his watch. There was plenty of time. A call to the right Chinese newspaper and whatever he told them would be on the stands in an hour. He smiled grimly to himself. His own ace in the hole was Havergill. Everything dovetailed perfectly.

  A seabird cawed and flew inland, riding some thermals toward the Peak. He watched it. Then his eyes noticed the Great House on the crest, white against the green of the slopes.

  “It’s a deal,” he said and stuck out his hand.

  Bartlett shook. “Great. This is strictly between us?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where d’you want the 2 million?”

  “The Bank of Switzerland and Zurich, in Zurich, account number 181819.” Gornt reached into his pocket, noticing his fingers were trembling. “I’ll write it down for you.”

  “No need. The account’s in your name?”

  “Good God, no! Canberra Limited.”

  “Canberra Limited’s 2 million richer! And in three days with any luck, you’ll be tai-pan of the Noble House. How about that!” Bartlett opened the door and got out. “See you.”

  “Wait,” Gornt said, startled, “I’ll drop you wh—”

  “No thanks. I’ve go
t to get to a phone. Then at 9:15 I’ve an interview with your friend Orlanda, Miss Ramos—thought there was no harm in it. After that maybe I’ll take a few pictures.” He waved cheerily and walked off.

  Gornt wiped the sweat off his hands. Before leaving the club he had phoned Orlanda to phone Bartlett and make the date. That’s very good, he thought, still in shock. She’ll keep an eye on him once they’re lovers, and they will be, Casey or not. Orlanda has too much to gain.

  He watched Bartlett, envying him. In a few moments the American had vanished into the crowds of Wanchai.

  Suddenly he was very tired. It’s all too pat, too fine, too easy, he told himself. And yet … and yet! Shakily he lit a cigarette. Where did Bartlett get those papers?

  Inexorably his eyes went back to the Great House on the Peak. He was possessed by it and by a hatred so vast that it swept his mind back to his ancestors, to Sir Morgan Brock whom the Struans broke, to Gorth Brock whom Dirk Struan murdered, to Tyler Brock whom his daughter betrayed. Without wishing it, he renewed the oath of vengeance that he had sworn to his father, that his father had sworn to his—back to Sir Morgan Brock who, penniless, destroyed by his sister, Hag Struan, paralyzed, a shell of a man, had begged for vengeance on behalf of all the Brock ghosts on the Noble House and all the descendents of the most evil man who had ever lived.

  Oh gods give me strength, Quillan Gornt prayed. Let the American be telling the truth. I will have vengeance.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  10:50 A.M.:

  The sun bore down on Aberdeen through a slight overcast. The air was sultry, ninety-two degrees Fahrenheit with ninety percent humidity. It was low tide. The smell of rotting kelp and offal and exposed mudflats added to the oppressive weight of the day.

  There were five hundred or more sullen impatient people jamming against one another, trying to surge through the bottleneck of barriers ahead that the police had erected outside this branch of Ho-Pak. The barriers allowed only one person through at a time. Men and women of all ages, some with infants, were constantly jostling each other, no one waiting a turn, everyone trying to inch forward to get to the head of the line.

  “Look at the bloody fools,” Chief Inspector Donald C. C. Smyth said. “If they’d stretch out and not crowd they’d all get through quicker, and we could leave one copper here to keep order and the rest of us could go to lunch instead of getting the riot squad ready. Do it!”