Noble House

by James Clavell

  “Certainly,” Crosse said. “Wait here, Brian.”

  Suslev turned his back on Brian Kwok and led the way down the exit stairs onto the grass. Crosse followed. “What do you think of Noble Star’s chances?” Suslev asked genially.

  “Good. But she’s never raced in the wet.”

  “Pilot Fish?”

  “Look at him—you can see for yourself. He loves the wet. He’ll be the favorite. You plan to be here Saturday?”

  Suslev leaned on the railings. And smiled. “Why not?”

  Crosse laughed softly. “Why not indeed?” He was sure they were quite alone now. “You’re a good actor, Gregor, very good.”

  “So’re you, comrade.”

  “You’re taking a hell of a risk, aren’t you?” Crosse said, his lips hardly moving now as he talked.

  “Yes, but then all life’s a risk. Center told me to take over until Voranski’s replacement arrives—there are too many important contacts and decisions to be made on this trip. Not the least, Sevrin. And anyway, as you know, Arthur wanted it this way.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if he’s wise.”

  “He’s wise.” The lines around Suslev’s eyes crinkled with his smile. “Oh yes. Very wise. I’m pleased to see you. Center’s very very pleased with your year’s work. I’ve much to tell you.”

  “Who’s the bastard who leaked Sevrin to AMG?”

  “I don’t know. It was a defector. As soon as we know, he’s a dead man.”

  “Someone’s betrayed a group of my people to the PRC. The leak had to come from the AMG file. You read my copy. Who else on your ship did? Someone’s infiltrated your operation here!”

  Suslev blanched. “I’ll activate a security check immediately. It could have come from London, or Washington.”

  “I doubt it. Not in time. I think it came from here. And then there’s Voranski. You’re infiltrated.”

  “If the PRC … yes, it will be done. But who? I’d bet my life there’s no spy aboard.”

  Crosse was equally grim. “There’s always someone who can be subverted.”

  “You have an escape plan?”

  “Several.”

  “I’m ordered to assist in any way. Do you want a berth on the Ivanov?”

  Crosse hesitated. “I’ll wait until I’ve read the AMG files. It would be a pity after such a long time …”

  “I agree.”

  “It’s easy for you to agree. If you’re caught you just get deported and asked politely, please don’t come back. Me? I wouldn’t want to be caught alive.”

  “Of course.” Suslev lit a cigarette. “You won’t get caught, Roger. You’re much too clever. You have something for me?”

  “Look down there, along the rails. The tall man.”

  Casually Suslev put his binoculars to his eyes. He took his time about centering the man indicated, then looked away.

  “That’s Stanley Rosemont, CIA. You know they’re tailing you?”

  “Oh yes. I can lose them if I wish to.”

  “The man next to him’s Ed Langan, FBI. The bearded fellow’s Mishauer, American Naval Intelligence.”

  “Mishauer? That sounds familiar. Do you have files on them?”

  “Not yet but there’s a deviate in the consulate who’s having a jolly affair with the son of one of our prominent Chinese solicitors. By the time you’re back on your next trip he’ll be happy to oblige your slightest wish.”

  Suslev smiled grimly. “Good.” Again, casually, he glanced at Rosemont and the others, cementing their faces into his memory. “What’s his job?”

  “Deputy chief of station. CIA for fifteen years. OSS and all that. They’ve a dozen more cover businesses here and safe houses everywhere. I’ve sent a list in microdots to 32.”

  “Good. Center wants increased surveillance of all CIA movements.”

  “No problem. They’re careless but their funding’s big and growing.”

  “Vietnam?”

  “Of course Vietnam.”

  Suslev chuckled. “Those poor fools don’t know what they’ve been sucked into. They still think they can fight a jungle war with Korean or World War Two tactics.”

  “They’re not all fools,” Crosse said. “Rosemont’s good, very good. By the way, they know about the Iman Air Base.”

  Suslev cursed softly and leaned on one hand, casually keeping it near his mouth to prevent any lip-reading.

  “… Iman and almost all about Petropavlovsk, the new sub base at Korsakov on Sakhalin….”

  Suslev cursed again. “How do they do it?”

  “Traitors.” Crosse smiled thinly.

  “Why are you a double agent, Roger?”

  “Why do you ask me that every time we meet?”

  Suslev sighed. He had specific orders not to probe Crosse and to help him every way he could. And although he was KGB controller of all Far Eastern espionage activities, it was only last year that even he had been allowed into the secret of Crosse’s identity. Crosse, in KGB files, had the highest secret classification, an importance on the level of a Philby. But even Philby didn’t know that Crosse had been working for the KGB for the last seven years.

  “I ask because I’m curious,” he said.

  “Aren’t your orders not to be curious, comrade?”

  Suslev laughed. “Neither of us obeys orders all the time, no? Center enjoyed your last report so much I’ve been told to tell you your Swiss account will be credited with an extra bonus of $50,000 on the fifteenth of next month.”

  “Good. Thank you. But it’s not a bonus, it’s payment for value received.”

  “What does SI know about the visiting delegation of Parliament?”

  Crosse told him what he had told the governor. “Why the question?”

  “Routine check. Three are potentially very influential—Guthrie, Broadhurst and Grey.” Suslev offered a cigarette. “We’re maneuvering Grey and Broadhurst into our World Peace Council. Their anti-Chinese sentiments help us. Roger, would you please put a tail on Guthrie. Perhaps he has some bad habits. If he was compromised, perhaps photographed with a Wanchai girl, it might be useful later, eh?”

  Crosse nodded. “I’ll see what can be done.”

  “Can you find the scum who murdered poor Voranski?”

  “Eventually.” Crosse watched him. “He must have been marked for some time. And that’s ominous for all of us.”

  “Were they Kuomintang? Or Mao’s bandits?”

  “I don’t know.” Crosse smiled sardonically. “Russia isn’t very popular with any Chinese.”

  “Their leaders are traitors to communism. We should smash them before they get too strong.”

  “Is that policy?”

  “Since Genghis Khan.” Suslev laughed. “But now … now we have to be a little patient. You needn’t be.” He jerked a thumb backward at Brian Kwok. “Why not discredit that matyeryébyets? I don’t like him at all.”

  “Young Brian’s very good. I need good people. Inform Center that Sinders, of MI-6, arrives tomorrow from London to take delivery of the AMG papers. Both MI-6 and the CIA suspect AMG was murdered. Was he?”

  “I don’t know. He should have been, years ago. How will you get a copy?”

  “I don’t know. I’m fairly certain Sinders’ll let me read them before he goes back.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  Crosse shrugged. “We’ll get to look at them one way or another.”

  “Dunross?”

  “Only as a last resort. He’s too valuable where he is and I’d rather have him where I can see him. What about Travkin?”

  “Your information was invaluable. Everything checked.” Suslev told him the substance of their meeting, adding, “Now he’ll be our dog forever. He’ll do anything we want. Anything. I think he’d kill Dunross if necessary.”

  “Good. How much of what you told him was true?”

  Suslev smiled. “Not much.”

  “Is his wife alive?”

  “Oh yes, tovarich, she’s alive.”
<
br />   “But not in her own dacha?”

  “Now she is.”

  “And before?”

  Suslev shrugged. “I told him what I was told to tell him.”

  Crosse lit a cigarette. “What do you know about Iran?”

  Again Suslev looked at him sharply. “Quite a lot. It’s one of our eight remaining great targets and there’s a big operation going on right now.”

  “The Ninety-second U.S. Airborne’s on the Soviet-Iranian border right now!”

  Suslev gaped at him. “What?”

  Crosse related all that Rosemont had told him about Dry Run and when he came to the part about the U.S. forces having nuclear arms Suslev whitened palpably. “Mother of God! Those god-cursed Americans’ll make a mistake one day and then we’ll never be able to extricate ourselves! They’re fools to deploy such weapons.”

  “Can you combat them?”

  “Of course not, not yet,” Suslev said irritably. “The core of our strategy’s never to have a direct clash until America’s totally isolated and there’s no doubt about final victory. A direct clash would be suicide now. I’ll get on to Center at once.”

  “Impress on them the Americans consider it just a dry run. Get Center to take your forces away and cool everything. Do it at once or there will be trouble. Don’t give the U.S. forces any provocation. In a few days the Americans will go away. Don’t leak the invasion to your inward spies in Washington. Let it come first from your people in the CIA.”

  “The Ninety-second’s really there? That seems impossible.”

  “You’d better get your armies more airborne, more mobile with more firepower.”

  Suslev grunted. “The energies and resources of three hundred million Russians are channeled to solve that problem, tovarich. If we have twenty years … just twenty more years.”

  “Then?”

  “In the eighties we rule the world.”

  “I’ll be dead long since.”

  “Not you. You’ll rule whatever province or country you want. England?”

  “Sorry, the weather there’s dreadful. Except for one or two days a year, most years, when it’s the most beautiful place on earth.”

  “Ah, you should see my home in Georgia and the country around Tiflis.” Suslev’s eyes were sparkling. “That’s Eden.”

  Crosse was watching everywhere as they talked. He knew they could not be overheard. Brian Kwok was sitting in the stand waiting, half-asleep. Rosemont and the others were studying him covertly. Down by the winner’s circle Jacques deVille was strolling casually with Jason Plumm.

  “Have you talked to Jason yet?”

  “Of course, while we were in the stands.”

  “Good.”

  “What did he say about deVille?”

  “That he doubted, too, if Jacques’d ever be chosen as tai-pan. After my meeting last night I agree—he’s obviously too weak, or his resolve’s softened.” Suslev added, “It often happens with deep-cover assets who have nothing active to do but wait. That’s the hardest of all jobs.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s a good man but I’m afraid he won’t achieve his assignment.”

  “What do you plan for him?”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  “Convert him from an inward spy to a doomed spy?”

  “Only if you or the others of Sevrin are threatened.” For the benefit of any watchers Suslev tipped the flask to his lips and offered it to Crosse who shook his head. Both knew the flask contained only water. Suslev dropped his voice. “I have an idea. We’re increasing our effort in Canada. Clearly the French Separatist Movement is a tremendous opportunity for us. If Quebec was to split from Canada it would send the whole North American continent reeling into a completely new power structure. I was thinking that it would be perfect if deVille took over Struan’s in Canada. Eh?”

  Crosse smiled. “Very good. Very very good. I like Jacques too. It would be a pity to waste him. Yes, that would be very clever.”

  “It’s even better than that, Roger. He has some very important French-Canadian friends from his Paris days just after the war, all openly separatist, all left-wing inclined. A few of them are becoming a prominent national political force in Canada.”

  “You’d get him to drop his deep cover?”

  “No. Jacques could give the separatist issue a push without jeopardizing himself. As head of an important branch of Struan’s … and if one of his special friends became foreign minister or prime minister, eh?”

  “Is that possible?”

  “It’s possible.”

  Crosse whistled. “If Canada swung away from the U.S. that would be a coup of coups.”

  “Yes.”

  After a pause, Crosse said, “Once upon a time a Chinese sage was asked by a friend to bless his newly born son. His benediction was, ‘Let’s pray he lives in interesting times.’ Well, Gregor Petrovitch Suslev whose real name is Petr Oleg Mzytryk, we certainly live in interesting times. Don’t we?”

  Suslev was staring at him in shock. “Who told you my name?”

  “Your superiors.” Crosse watched him, his eyes suddenly pitiless. “You know me, I know you. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

  “Of … of course. I…” The man’s laugh was forced. “I haven’t used that name for so long I’d … I’d almost forgotten it.” He looked back at the eyes, fighting for control. “What’s the matter? Why are you so edgy, eh?”

  “AMG. I think we should close this meeting for now. Our cover’s that I tried to subvert you but you refused. Let’s meet tomorrow at seven.” Seven was the code number for the apartment next to Ginny Fu’s in Mong Kok. “Late. Eleven o’clock.”

  “Ten is better.”

  Crosse motioned carefully toward Rosemont and the others. “Before you go I need something for them.”

  “All right. Tomorrow I’ll ha—”

  “It must be now.” Crosse hardened. “Something special—in case I can’t get a look at Sinders’s copy, I’ll have to barter with them!”

  “You divulge to no one the source. No one.”

  “All right.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  Suslev thought a moment, weighing possibilities. “Tonight one of our agents takes delivery of some top-secret material from the carrier. Eh?”

  The Englishman’s face lit up. “Perfect! Is that why you came?”

  “One reason.”

  “When and where’s the drop?”

  Suslev told him, then added, “But I still want copies of everything.”

  “Of course. Good, that’ll do just fine. Rosemont will be really in my debt. How long’s your asset been aboard?”

  “Two years, at least that’s when he was first subverted.”

  “Does he give you good stuff?”

  “Anything off that whore’s valuable.”

  “What’s his fee?”

  “For this? $2,000. He’s not expensive, none of our assets are, except you.”

  Crosse smiled equally mirthlessly. “Ah, but I’m the best you have in Asia and I’ve proved my quality fifty times. Up to now I’ve been doing it practically for love, old chap.”

  “Your costs, old chap, are the highest we have! We buy the entire NATO battle plan, codes, everything, yearly for less than $8,000.”

  “Those amateur bastards are ruining our business. It is a business, isn’t it?”

  “Not to us.”

  “Balls! You KGB folk are more than well rewarded. Dachas, places in Tiflis, special stores to shop in. Mistresses. But I have to tell you, squeezing money out of your company gets worse yearly. I’ll expect a rather large increase for Dry Run and for the AMG matter when it’s concluded.”

  “Talk to them direct. I’ve no jurisdiction over money.”

  “Liar.”

  Suslev laughed. “It’s good—and safe—dealing with a professional. Prosit!” He raised his flask and drained it.

  Crosse said abruptly, “Please leave angrily. I can feel binoculars
!”

  At once Suslev began cursing him in Russian, softly but vehemently, then shook a fist in the policeman’s face and walked off.

  Crosse stared after him.

  On the Sha Tin Road Robert Armstrong was looking down at the corpse of John Chen as raincoated police rewrapped it in its blanket, then carried it through the gawking crowds to the waiting ambulance. Fingerprint experts and others were all around, searching for clues. The rain was falling more heavily now and there was a great deal of mud everywhere.

  “Everything’s messed up, sir,” Sergeant Lee said sourly. “There’re footprints but they could be anyone’s.”

  Armstrong nodded and used a handkerchief to dry his face. Many onlookers were behind the crude barriers that had been erected around the area. Passing traffic on the narrow road was slowed and almost jammed, everyone honking irritably. “Keep the men sweeping within a hundred-yard area. Get someone out to the nearest village, someone might have seen something.” He left Lee and went over to the police car. He got in, closing the door, and picked up the communicator. “This is Armstrong. Give me Chief Inspector Donald Smyth at East Aberdeen, please.” He began to wait, feeling dreadful.

  The driver was young and smart and still dry. “The rain’s wonderful, isn’t it, sir?”

  Armstrong looked across sourly. The young man blanched. “Do you smoke?”

  “Yes sir.” The young man took out his pack and offered it. Armstrong took the pack. “Why don’t you join the others? They need a nice smart fellow like yourself to help. Find some clues. Eh?”

  “Yes sir.” The young man fled into the rain.

  Carefully Armstrong took out a cigarette. He contemplated it. Grimly he put it back and the pack into a side pocket. Hunching down into his seat, he muttered, “Sod all cigarettes, sod the rain, sod that smart arse and most of all sod the sodding Werewolves!”

  In time the intercom came on crackling, “Chief Inspector Donald Smyth.”

  “Morning. I’m out at Sha Tin,” Armstrong began, and told him what had happened and about finding the body. “We’re covering the area but in this rain I don’t expect to find anything. When the papers hear about the corpse and the message we’ll be swamped. I think we’d better pick up the old amah right now. She’s the only lead we have. Do your fellows still have her under surveillance?”