by Peter Tonkin
High Wind in Java
Peter Tonkin
Copyright © Peter Tonkin 2007
Peter Tonkin has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 2010 by Severn House Publishers.
This edition published in 2019 by Sharpe Books.
For Cham, Guy and Mark, as always
Chapter 1: Angel Passing
When the silence fell so suddenly the peanut shells began to scuttle soundlessly across the juddering tabletop and something almost spectrally put a little storm of ripples into the teacup in their midst, Robin Mariner looked up at Richard her husband with a frown of worry. He grinned at her reassuringly, sparkling with energy and excitement, seeming to have missed the tremor that was stirring the shells and the tea. His smiling lips moved. Angel passing, he mouthed silently, and turned back to his other companion.
Robin glanced at her watch automatically: twenty past the hour. Just like her mother had told her in childhood. Angels pass at twenty past and twenty to the hour. And everything goes silent then. Perhaps Richard was right, she thought. And perhaps the stirring of the tabletop was nothing more than the traffic on Beach Road or Stamford, or the passing of an MTR train bound in from Raffles Place. That would explain why the shells were marching across the floor just as they were skittering over the tabletop. Why the surfaces of the Singapore Sling and the Perrier beside her fragrant tea were also astir with tiny ripples.
But then the breathless, magically silent, air of the Long Bar within the cloistered confines of the Raffles Hotel itself was abruptly stirred by a rumble of thunder. And that almost put Robin’s mind at rest. For thunder to be audible in here, even in a sudden silence, it must have been quite deafeningly cataclysmic out over the hills of Serangoon or the Singapore Strait itself.
The deep exhaustion and lingering disorientation of jet-lag were making Robin almost preternaturally sensitive to her unsettlingly strange surroundings. That and the mild but pleasant confusion born of Richard’s steadfast refusal to tell her precisely where they were going or precisely what he was up to. He knew she loved surprises and this one was clearly going to be memorable. But the interim of travelling, even travelling first class on Hong Kong Airlines out of Heathrow, even travelling that alighted in places such as the Raffles Hotel in Singapore within a day of having left the Heritage Mariner offices in London, remained distractingly dreamlike. The resurgent bustle and banter in the Long Bar seemed to flow over her, as vivid but insubstantial as a vision. The animated conversation between Richard and their unexpected companion, the business magnate and eco-warrior Nicolas Greenbaum, babbled like a brook. Her psyche seemed to stretch into the fabric of the building, into the over built rocks of the island itself, seeking for the source of that tiny tremor that made the peanut shells migrate a centimetre or so across the tabletop. But there was nothing.
The thunder rumbled again, more loudly. Perhaps Robin should have sent her imagination up into the black storm clouds she had seen towering away to the south three hours since, as their plane was settling out of the lower sky towards the runway at Changi Airport. Automatically, she raised her eyes as though she could see past the lazily beating fans that only kept the humid, storm-heavy air breathable with the aid of icy air-conditioning.
‘So,’ said Nic, swinging round to fix her with his piercing stare. ‘Richard hasn’t told you anything at all?’
‘Not a word.’ She lowered her steady gaze to meet that of her overpowering interrogator. But she was used to dealing with overpowering men. Her equanimity remained as unruffled as one of Jane Austen’s calmest heroines. ‘It’s going to be a surprise.’
‘You must be an unusually trusting woman, Robin. To let him drag you halfway round the world without any warning or explanation.’
‘Richard’s always been a little impulsive. In everything except his business dealings.’
Nic Greenbaum gave a brief shout of laughter. ‘An inspired afterthought. Just in case a part of the surprise involves some kind of a deal with me!’
‘Does it?’ Robin’s golden brows arched above the still grey gaze of her unruffled eyes.
The big American’s own eyes narrowed. Lost none of their teasing sparkle. ‘It’s just too much of a coincidence, you mean, that two men such as Richard and I should just happen to be passing through the Long Bar at the Raffles Hotel at exactly the same moment in time?’
‘Heading in the same direction, into the bargain. Up to the same business. You’re either making some kind of a deal or you’re rivals in some kind of a deal, I should guess. But then again, keeping some travel plans secret from me is one thing. Keeping a deal with Greenbaum International or Texas Oil secret is something else again. Richard’s good but he’s not that good. So you’re likely to be rivals. And that’s pretty damn interesting in itself. Because I’m just gasping to find out what on God’s green earth is so uniquely desirable that it would set you two at each other’s throats. And at each other’s throats in person. I’ll bet it’s something that really is worth coming halfway round the world to see.’
‘And even if the surprise isn’t worth it,’ added Nic cheerfully, with just the tiniest edge in his voice, ‘maybe the fight will be.’
‘Oh, it’ll be worth it,’ rumbled Richard. ‘It’ll be worth it either way.’
Another little silence fell, giving Robin an instant to compare her husband and his rival. Both were big men. Richard’s Celtic genes were overwhelmed by some Viking giant in his Scottish Border ancestry so that nothing remained except the blue-black hair above the ice-blue wave-wanderer’s eyes. Nic Greenbaum’s Texan drawl reminded her unsettlingly of John Wayne at his most western, while his white hair and neat beard made him resemble a very large, surprisingly lean and very tough-looking Santa Claus.
There must have been little more than five years between them, Robin thought, but Nic looked a generation older. His white locks were beginning to thin. Richard’s remained thick and black except above the ears. Nic’s eyebrows were becoming wiry; Richard’s perhaps were beginning to lengthen into devilish points at his temples. Nic’s face was just beginning to lose definition. Richard’s remained angular. Chiselled. Especially down the broken blade of his hatchet nose and the lean line of his square, determined jaw.
But Nic’s five years in age were reflected in well over five billions in fortune - even calculating in pounds sterling. Nic was super-rich. Personally super-rich, not just in terms of corporate interests and company shares. And at least five million pounds more than even Richard was. He was up there with Bill Gates just as his business empire was up with Microsoft - in oil, shipping, transport and real estate. And, latterly, in the burgeoning worldwide green economy, where Greenbaum was a name with universal respect and credibility.
But, since his groundbreaking deal to sell decommissioned supertankers to Russia for ecologically profitable recycling, Richard’s star was on the rise again. The Financial Times in London and Forbes in New York spoke of him in the same breath as they spoke of Richard Branson. And Heritage Mariner was fast becoming the Virgin of the seaways. And after all, Richard was the kind of man who learned dazzlingly quickly. By the time he was Nic Greenbaum’s age, Robin knew he planned to be much more than five million pounds richer; well up with Nic’s five billion overall.
It might, indeed, be interesting to see these two go mano a mano, as the Italians had it - head to head like two bull elephants fighting for control of the same great herd. As long as no one really got hurt, of course, either personally or financially.
Robin stirred herself out of her reverie, suddenly aware that the silence that had caused it was lasting far longer than she might have expected. And it contained unsettling undertones almost as fundamental as the stirring that had moved the peanut shells. Even at her own table, she had ceased to be the centre of attention. The whole of the Long Bar was focused on a newcomer who had silenced them as surely as the threat of
a thunderbolt, tsunami or earth tremor.
She stood six feet tall, or would have done so had her determined stride faltered. From the crown of her head to the shoulders of her silk jacket, her hair fell in an ash-blonde cascade saved from being utterly white by the slightest tint of gold. There was no question of ‘Maybe she’s born with it, maybe...’ Born with it she was. The perfect oval of her face was widened almost imperceptibly by the angles of her cheekbones and the squareness of her jaw. Above the cheekbones sat eyes that were exactly the same shade as a summer sky at moonrise. Above the line of her jaw there rested a pair of carmine lips whose depth and sheen struck the only false note in the Nordic perfection of her Ice Queen countenance. The breath-taking head sat on a long neck lengthened in turn by the fact that she wore no blouse beneath the black silk of her severely tailored jacket. The cleft of her chin was echoed much lower and much more arrestingly by fifteen centimetres or so of power cleavage, which was all that kept the lapels of the jacket apart. And gave a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘double breasted’. The waist of the fastened jacket was at once impossibly slim and obviously loose. And yet the clinging material was pulled out into fullness almost at once by the flare of her hips. The line of the jacket ended exactly level with the tops of her thighs, but the suit itself extended down in a perfectly cut pair of trousers weighted with turn-ups where the impossibly long legs just brushed against the insteps of her high-heeled, open-toed business sandals.
As the vision moved through the Long Bar, every eye seemed to rest upon her, every head to move in unison as though the patrons were all watching some kind of an angel passing.
My God, thought Robin, reaching automatically towards the suddenly garish-seeming jumble of golden ringlets on her head even as she tried to readjust the rubbery brushed silk of her travelling blouse, which suddenly now seemed as crushed and wrinkled as used tissue paper, I hope she’s not coming anywhere near our table!
But no sooner had Robin’s desperate prayer formed than the vision became even more breath-taking as she smiled - no, beamed - and waved. ‘Nic!’ she called in a Scandinavian contralto deep enough to cause shivers. ‘And Richard! I have both of you together! What luck! At the very least that will save on one Rolls-Royce.’ She stopped with her thighs scant centimetres from the table edge; close enough for Robin to see that there were broad white pinstripes in the absolute black of the cloth; broad ones, almost wide enough to be chalk stripes but not quite wide enough to balance the black itself. Of course, she thought; it was the stripes that helped define so perfectly the outward swells on either side of the power cleavage, the casual drape of excess material around that wasplike waist, the generous flare beneath. The newcomer frowned suddenly, as though picking up on the atmosphere Robin had been lazily preparing to enjoy. ‘As long as you don’t mind sharing,’ she said, uncertainly.
‘I don’t,’ said Richard at once. ‘Robin. Do you mind?’
It was only when Richard turned to speak to Robin that the Ice Queen seemed to see her. Midnight-blue eyes met a grey stare that was suddenly almost steely. ‘Fine with me, darling,’ answered Robin equably. ‘If Nic’s amenable.’
‘Well,’ drawled Nic, ‘I guess I am amenable at that.’ He grinned suddenly, the same wide boyish excited grin that Richard used on occasion. He exploded to his feet, seeming to spark with restless energy, and the other two rose with him, pulled erect almost by his personal magnetism. Peanut shells scattered hither and yon as they moved. ‘On the one hand I simply couldn’t drag myself away from two such lovely companions. Robin Mariner, may I introduce Inge Nordberg, the daughter of our host, who, I assume, awaits us. Inge, Robin Mariner, director and co-owner of the Heritage Mariner shipping company.’ He drew breath as the two women shook hands like duellists standing on form.
‘And on the other hand, Robin my dear,’ he continued with overwhelming cheeriness, ‘I want to be there to see the look on your face when Richard shows you his next surprise.’
Chapter 2: Landing Site
There were two new green Rolls-Royce Phantom limousines waiting at the Grand Entrance. Although designed as coupés, the cars had their hard tops firmly in place. And they needed them, for the storm Robin had first seen more than three hours ago as she had landed at Changi Airport as a black line of thunderheads over the Singapore Strait had well and truly arrived. The thunder was now a continuous cannonade overhead, and rain was pounding down in a truly tropical deluge. The two great cars, scant metres outside the tiled portico, seemed to be on the point of melting beneath the relentless pounding of the rain and washing away towards Beach Road; their outlines blurred by spray, seemingly only hanging on to their paintwork by a very temporary miracle. As the little group hesitated under the great awning outside the main doors like explorers trapped behind a waterfall, a uniformed doorman approached with a golf umbrella. Without thinking, Nic and Inge stooped beneath its protection and hurried outwards towards the nearest Rolls. They had taken perhaps three steps before the wind and rain destroyed the bright waterproof canopy and left them defenceless against the deluge.
Another doorman approached and Richard grabbed the umbrella himself. With one hand high on the shaft right up by the straining spokes and the other tightly round Robin’s shoulders, he clasped the umbrella handle firmly in his armpit and threw them forward. But Inge had slammed the door of the first Phantom as soon as she was in it and the driver was already easing forward while the soaking doorman with his wrecked umbrella was turning away, his feet washed by the spray from the immaculate black tyres.
Richard headed for the second Rolls, therefore, and Robin pulled the back door wide. So they tumbled inwards, Richard swinging back at the last moment to hand the umbrella to the drenched doorman, who took it with every sign of relief. Then the door slammed shut with that satisfying sound that only the most expensive car doors make.
Robin was settling back luxuriously, making the calfskin seat-covering groan ecstatically. ‘I love this car,’ she said as the Phantom surged forward like a jet on a runway.
‘You want one?’ asked Richard, settling into the fragrant warmth of the passenger compartment beside her. ‘MNO.’
MNO was a term that Nic had introduced them to when Robin reacted with simple horror to the price of the Texan’s Singapore Sling. ‘You could get a room in a decent hotel for less than that!’ she had said.
‘True. But I don’t want one of those. I want one of these,’ he had countered, raising the glass and winking at her over the rim. ‘And there are times when I just have to have what I want, MNO.’
She raised her eyebrows. He sipped and put his glass down grinning.
‘MNO,’ he repeated. ‘Money No Object. I guess that’s a technical term that you and Richard will have to get used to using, if what Forbes and the Wall Street Journal say about Heritage Mariner can be believed.’
Robin opened her mouth to give him a piece of her Puritan conservative, socially responsible mind. But shut it again without saying anything. Questioning any decision Nic Greenbaum made about money, morals or social responsibility would be childish arrogance, if what The Economist, the Ecologist and the Archbishop of Canterbury had all said recently about his funding of work in the developing world could be believed.
‘MNO,’ she echoed now, raising her voice over the throbbing roar of the rain on the roof. The way she said it was every bit as sensuous as the manner in which she settled into the pale hide of the seat. ‘That is a dangerously seductive concept, Richard.’
‘Only to the super-rich,’ he countered. ‘We have lots of calls upon the income that Heritage Mariner generates for us. Independently of the reinvestment programmes into the business itself.’
Robin glanced up, her grey eyes limpid beneath the dark gold of her lashes. ‘And what is this little jaunt, then, my darling? Reinvestment or MNO?’
‘It’s a surprise,’ he countered. ‘Wait and see.’
The Phantom followed its mate out of the hotel’s gates and on to Beach Road, swin
ging right down the hill towards the river.
‘You’ve earned a rest,’ he persisted, able to speak more gently because the rain began to ease. ‘Your adventure in Archangel was hard on you, even if the outcome was good for the company.’
‘One night alone on a derelict hulk with four assassins licensed to kill by various governments and a freezer-full of corpses,’ she countered lightly. ‘Every girl should try it. Especially if it’s going to turn into a money-making machine for her doting hubby.’
‘And it’s not as if you’ve had much of a chance to catch your breath since,’ persisted Richard, frowning with genuine concern. ‘What with your father and stepmother moving off to that ramshackle old place of hers in Grimaud and inviting my mum and dad out there with them. Leaving us to sort things out in Cold Fell and Summersend. Two bloody great houses at either end of the country; neither of them anywhere near our own home. And yes. By us I mean you. Staying on top of one house is quite enough. Staying on top of three...’
‘And the flat in town,’ she reminded him. ‘Ashenden may be easy enough to run - that’s why we bought it. But Summersend is a Grade Two listed country mansion and I think Cold Fell actually counts as a castle. What I need is staff not holidays, Victorian though that sounds. If we’re going to make use of the houses for corporate entertaining, and turn them into a kind of Chequers, Chevening and Dorneywood like the British Cabinet does, or like Windsor, Balmoral and Buckingham Palace, then I really will need staff. A decent butler or two. Or three, in fact. God, what I’d give for just one Jeeves.’
‘Jeeves was Bertie Wooster’s gentleman’s personal gentleman,’ said Richard at his most pompous, straying dangerously where angels might fear to tread. ‘A valet, not a butler.’