Noble House

by James Clavell

  “Sure sure, Mr. Marshall. Where you staying in Macao? Where do I get in touch?”

  “I’ll be at the same hotel,” he had told him, having no intention to make contact. In Macao another controller with the same alias would monitor that end of the operation.

  He smiled to himself. Just before he had left Vladivostok, Center had ordered him to be the controller of this independent operation, code name King Kong, that had been mounted by one of the Washington KGB cells. All he knew of the plan was that they were sending highly classified advance-arms delivery schedules to the VC. in Saigon through diplomatic pouch. In exchange and payment for the information, opium would be delivered FOB Hong Kong—the quantity depending on the numbers of arms hijacked. “Whoever thought of this one deserves immediate promotion,” he had told Center delightedly, and had chosen the alias Marshall after General Marshall and his plan that they all knew had ruined the immediate and total Soviet takeover of Europe in the late forties. This is revenge, our Marshall Plan in reverse, he thought.

  Abruptly he laughed out loud. Koronski waited attentively, far too practiced to ask what had been so amusing. But without thinking he had analyzed the laugh. There was fear in it. Fear was infectious. Frightened people make mistakes. Mistakes ensnare innocents.

  Yes, he thought uneasily, this man smells of cowardice. I shall mention this in my next report, but delicately, in case he’s important.

  He looked up and saw Suslev watching him and queasily wondered if the man had read his thoughts. “Yes, Comrade Captain?”

  “How long will the instructions take to write?”

  “A few minutes. I can do it now if you wish, but I will have to go back to the hotel for the chemicals.”

  “How many different chemicals are to be used?”

  “Three: one for sleep, one for wake-up and the last, the Pentothal-V6. By the way, it should be kept cool until used.”

  “Only the last intravenously?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, then write it all down. Now. You have paper?”

  Koronski nodded and pulled out a small notebook from his hip pocket. “Would you prefer Russian, English or shorthand?”

  “Russian. There’s no need to describe the wake-sleep-wake pattern. I’ve used that many times. Just the last phase and don’t name Pentothal-V6, just call it medicine. Understand?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Good. When it’s written, put it there.” He pointed to a small pile of used newspapers on the moth-eaten sofa. “Put it in the second one from the top. I’ll collect it later. As to the chemicals there’s a men’s room on the ground floor of the Nine Dragons Hotel. Tape them to the underside of the lid, the last booth on the right—and please be in your room at nine o’clock tonight in case I need some clarification. Everything clear?”

  “Certainly.”

  Suslev got up. At once Koronski did the same, offered his hand. “Good luck, Comrade Captain.”

  Suslev nodded politely as to an inferior and walked out. He went to the end of the corridor and through a bent door up a staircase to the roof. He felt better in the air on the roof. The room smell and Koronski’s smell had displeased him. The sea beckoned him, the wide clean ocean and salt-kelp smell. It will be good to be at sea again, away from the land. The sea and the ocean and the ship keep you sane.

  Like most roofs in Hong Kong this one was packed with a polyglot of makeshift dwellings, the space rented—the only alternative to the crude, packed mud slopes of the squatter settlements that were far in the New Territories or in the hills of Kowloon or Hong Kong. Every inch of space in the city had long since been taken by the vast influx of immigrants. Most squatters’ areas were illegal, like all roof dwellings, and as much as the authorities forbade it and deplored it, wisely they ignored these transgressions for where else were these unfortunates to go? There was no sanitation, no water, not even simple hygiene, but it was still better than on the streets. From the rooftops, the method of disposal was just to hurl it below. Hong Kong yan always walked in the center of the street and never on the sidewalk, even if there was one.

  Suslev ducked under clotheslines, stepped over the flotsam and jetsam of lifetimes, oblivious of the automatic obscenities that followed him, amused by the urchins who ran before him shrieking, “Quai loh … quai loh!,” laughing together, holding out their hands. He was too Hong Kong yan to give them any money though he was touched by them, their poverty and good humor, so he just cursed them genially and tousled a few crew-cut heads.

  On the far side of the roof the entrance to Ginny Fu’s tenement jutted like an ancient funnel. The door was ajar. He went down.

  “Halloa, Gregy,” Ginny Fu said, breathlessly opening her front door for him. She was dressed as he had ordered in a drab coolie outfit with a big straw conical hat hanging down her back, her face and hands dirtied. “How I look? Like film star, heya?”

  “Greta Garbo herself,” he said with a laugh as she ran into his arms and gave him a great hug.

  “You want jig-jig more ’fore go, heya?”

  “Nyet. Plenty of time in the next weeks. Plenty, heya?” He set her down. He had pillowed with her at dawn, more to prove his manhood than out of desire. That’s the problem, he thought. No desire. She’s boring. “Now, you understand plan, heya?”

  “Oh yes,” she said grandly. “I find go-down 7 and join coolies, carry bales to ship. Once on ship I go door opposite stairway, go in and give paper.” She pulled it out of her pocket to show that she had it safely. On the paper was written in Russian, “Cabin 3.” Boradinov would be expecting her. “In 3 cabin, can use bath, change to clothes you buy and wait.” Another big smile. “Heya?”

  “Excellent.” The clothes had cost little and the buying saved any baggage. Much more simple without baggage. Baggage would be noticed. Nothing about her should be noticed.

  “Sure no need bring anything, Gregy?” she asked anxiously.

  “No, only makeup things, woman things. Everything in pocket, understand?”

  “Of course,” she said haughtily. “Am I fool?”

  “Good. Then off you go.”

  Once more she embraced him. “Oh thanks holiday, Gregy—I be bestest ever.” She left.

  The meeting with Koronski had made him hungry. He went to the battered refrigerator and found the chocolates he sought. He munched on one, then lit the gas stove and began to fry some eggs. His anxiety began to return. Don’t worry, he ordered himself. The plan will work, you will get possession of the tai-pan and it will be routine at police headquarters.

  Put those things aside. Think of Ginny. Perhaps at sea she won’t be boring. She’ll divert the nights, some of the nights, the tai-pan the days until we dock. By then he’ll be empty and she’ll vanish into a new life and that danger will be gone forever and I’ll go to my dacha where the Zergeyev hellcat’ll be waiting and we’ll fight, she calling me every obscenity until I lose my temper and tear her clothes off, maybe use the whip again and she’ll fight back and fight back until I fight into her and explode, explode taking her with me sometimes, Kristos how I wish it was every time. Then sleeping, never knowing when she’ll kill me in my sleep. But she’s been warned. If anything happens to me my men will give her to lepers on the east side of Vladivostok with the rest of her family.

  The radio announced the seven o’clock news in English. “Good morning. This is Radio Hong Kong. More heavy rain is expected. The Victoria Bank has confirmed officially that it will assume all depositor debts of the Ho-Pak and asks depositors to line up peacefully if they require their money on Monday.

  “During the night there were numerous land and mud slides throughout the Colony. Worst hit were the squatters’ settlement area above Aberdeen, Sau Ming Ping, and Sui Fai Terrace in Wanchai where six major landslips affected buildings in the area. In all, thirty-three persons are known to have lost their lives and many are feared still buried in the slides.

  “There are no new developments in the foul murder and kidnapping of Mr. Joh
n Chen by the Werewolf gang. Rewards of $100,000 for information leading to their capture have been posted.

  “Reports from London confirm that this year’s harvest in the USSR has again failed …”

  Suslev didn’t hear the rest of the broadcast. He knew the report from London was true. Top-secret KGB forecasts had predicted the harvest would once more be below even that necessary for subsistence.

  Kristos, why the hell can’t we feed ourselves? he wanted to shout, knowing famine, knowing the bloatedness and pains in his own lifetime let alone the ghastly tales his father and mother would tell.

  So there’s to be famine once more, tightening the belt once more, having to buy wheat from abroad, using up our hard earned foreign currency, our future in danger, terrible danger, food our Achilles’ heel. Never enough. Never enough skill or tractors or fertilizers or wealth, all the real wealth going for arms and armies and airplanes and ships first, far more important to become strong enough to protect ourselves from capitalist swine and revisionist Chinese swine and carry the war to them and smash them before they smash us, but never enough food for us and our buffer lands—the Balkans, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, East Germany, the Baltic lands. Why is it those bastards could feed themselves most times? Why is it they falsify their harvests and cheat us and lie and steal from us? We protect them and what do they do? Brood and hate us and yet without our armies and the KGB to keep the filthy scum revisionist dissidents in thrall, they’ll foment rebellion—like East Germany and Hungary—and turn the stupid masses against us.

  But famine causes revolution. Always. Famine will always make the masses rise up against their government. So what can we do? Keep them chained—all of them—until we smash America and Canada and take their wheatlands for ourselves. Then our system will double their harvest.

  Don’t fool yourself, he thought, agonized. Our agricultural system doesn’t work. It never has. One day it will. Meanwhile we cannot feed ourselves. Those motherless turd farmers should …

  “Stop it,” Suslev muttered aloud, “you’re not responsible, it’s not your problem. Deal with your own problems, have faith in the Party and Marxist-Leninism!”

  The eggs were done now and he made toast. Rain spattered the open windows. An hour ago the all-night torrent had ceased, but across the street and above the opposite tenement there were the dark clouds. More rain there, he thought, lots more. It’s either god-cursed drought or god-cursed flood in this cesspit! A gust caught one of the sodden, cardboard makeshift lean-tos on the roof and collapsed it. At once stoic repairs began, children barely old enough to walk helping.

  With deft hands, liking neatness, he laid himself a place at the table, humming in time with the radio music. Everything’s fine, he reassured himself. Dunross will go to the party, Koronski will supply the means, Plumm the client, Roger the protection, and all I have to do is go to police headquarters for an hour or so, then leisurely board my ship. On the midnight tide I kiss my arse to Hong Kong, leaving the Werewolves to bury the dead….

  The hackles of his neck rose as he heard the screech of an approaching police siren. He stood, paralyzed. But the siren whined past and went away. Stoically he sat and began to eat. Then the secret phone rang.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  7:30 A.M.:

  The small Bell helicopter swung in over the city, just below the overcast, and continued climbing the slopes to ease past the Peak funicular and the multiple high-rises that dotted the steepness. Now the chopper was almost in the bottom layer of cloud.

  Warily the pilot climbed another hundred feet, slowed and hovered, then saw the misted helipad in the grounds of the Great House near a great jacaranda tree. Immediately he swooped to the landing. Dunross was already waiting there. He ducked low to avoid the swirling blades, got into the left side of the bubble and buckled on his safety belts and headphones. “Morning, Duncan,” he said into the mouth mike. “Didn’t think you’d make it.”

  “Nor me,” the older man said, and Dunross adjusted the headphone volume to hear better. “Doubt if we’ll be able to get back, tai-pan. The overcast’s dropping too fast again. Best leave if we’re leaving. You have control.”

  “Here we go.”

  Gently Dunross’s left hand twisted the throttle grip and increased the revs smoothly and eased the lever up, while his right hand moved the control stick right, left, forward, back, inching it in a gentle tiny circle, seeking and feeling for the air cushion that was building nicely—his left hand controlling speed, climbing or descending, his right hand direction, his feet on the rudder pedals keeping the whole unstable aircraft straight, preventing torque. Dunross loved to fly choppers. It was so much more of a challenge than fixed-wing flying. It required so much concentration and skill that he forgot his problems, the flying cleansing him. But he rarely flew alone. The sky was for professionals or for those who flew daily, so he would always have a pilot-instructor along with him, the presence of the other man not detracting from his pleasure.

  His hands felt the cushion building and then the craft was an inch airborne. Instantly he corrected the slight slide to the right as a wind gusted. He checked his instruments, feeling for dangers, eyes outside, ears tuned to the music of the engine. When all was stable, he increased revs as he raised the left lever, eased the stick forward and left an inch, feet compensating, and went into a skidding left turn, gaining altitude and speed to drop away down the mountainside.

  Once he was steady he pushed the transmit button on the stick, reporting in to Air Traffic Control at Kai Tak.

  “Watch your revs,” Mac said.

  “Got it. Sorry.” Dunross corrected just a fraction too hastily and cursed himself, then got the helicopter trimmed nicely, cruising sweetly, everything in the green, a thousand feet above sea level heading out across the harbor toward Kowloon, the New Territories and the hill-climb area.

  “You really going to do the hill climb, tai-pan?”

  “Doubt it, Duncan,” he said through the mike. “But I wanted our ride anyway. I’ve been looking forward to it all week.” Duncan MacIver ran this small helicopter business from the airport. Most of his business was local, most from government for surveys. The police hired him sometimes, the fire department, Customs. He was a short man, ex-RAF, with a lined face, very wide, sharp eyes that raked constantly.

  Once Dunross was settled and trimmed, MacIver leaned forward and put circles of cardboard over the instruments to force Dunross to fly by feel and sound only, to listen to the pitch and tone; slowing meant the engine was working harder so they were climbing—watch for stalling—and faster, that it was diving, losing altitude.

  “Tai-pan, look down there.” MacIver pointed at the scar on one of the mountainsides just outside Kowloon; it scored a path through one of the vast squatter hovel slums. “There’re mud slides all over. Did you hear the seven o’clock news?”

  “Yes, yes I did.”

  “Let me take her a minute.” Dunross took his hands and feet off the controls. MacIver went into a lovely diving turn to swoop nearer the settlement to examine the damage. The damage was great. Perhaps two hundred of the hovels were scattered and buried. Others near the slide were now even more precarious than before. Smoke from the fires that came with every slide still hung like a pall.

  “Christ! It looks terrible.”

  “I was up at dawn this morning. The fire department asked me to help them on Hill Three, over above Aberdeen. They had a slide there a couple of days ago, a child almost got buried. Last night there was another slip in the same area. Very dicey. The slip’s about two hundred feet by fifty. Two or three hundred hovels gone but only ten dead—bloody lucky!” MacIver circled for a moment, made a note on a pad, then gunned the ship back to altitude and to course. Once she was steady, level and trimmed he said, “She’s all yours.” Dunross took control.

  Sha Tin was coming up on their right-side horizon. When they were close, MacIver took off the cardboard instrument covers. “Good,” he said checking the read
ings. “Spot on.”

  “Had any interesting jobs recently?”

  “Just more of the same. Got a charter for Macao, weather permitting, tomorrow morning.”

  “Lando Mata?”

  “No, some American called Banastasio. Watch your revs! Oh, there’s your landfall.”

  The fishing village at Sha Tin was near tracks that led back into the hills where the hill climb was to be held. The course consisted of a crude dirt road bulldozed out of the mountainside. At the foot of the slopes were a few cars, some on trailers and trailer rigs, but almost no spectators. Normally there would be hundreds, Europeans mostly. It was the only car-racing event in the Colony. British law forbade using any part of the public road system for racing, and this was the reason that the annual amateur Grand Prix race at Macao had been organized under the joint banner of the Sportscar and Rally Club of Hong Kong and the Portuguese Municipal Council. Last year Guillo Rodriguez of the Hong Kong Police had won the sixty-lap race in three hours twenty-six minutes at an average speed of 72 mph, and Dunross, driving a Lotus, and Brian Kwok in a borrowed E-Type Jag had been neck and neck for second place until Dunross blew a tire, flat out, going into Fisherman’s Bend and nearly killed himself at the same spot where his engine blew in ’59, the year before he became tai-pan.

  Dunross was concentrating on his landing now, knowing that they would be watched.

  The chopper was lined up, revs correct for descent, wind ahead and to the right, swirling a little as they came closer to the ground. Dunross held her meticulously. At the exact spot, he corrected and stopped, hovering, in total control, then, keeping everything coordinated, eased off the throttle oh so gently, raising the left lever to change the pitch of the blades to cushion the landing. The landing skids touched the earth. Dunross took off the remaining throttle and smoothly lowered the lever to bottom. The landing was as good as he had ever done.

  MacIver said nothing, paying him a fine compliment by pretending to take it for granted, and watched while Dunross began the shutdown drill. “Tai-pan, why don’t you let me finish it for you,” he said. “Those fellows look somewhat anxious.”