Zero Minus Ten

by Raymond Benson

  “Thackeray, who believed that Hong Kong would never leave British rule, laughed and agreed. The two men drew up official legal documents. James Thackeray signed them, and Li Wei Tam applied his chop, our official family seal, alongside the signature. It was maijiang of the highest order. Thus, EurAsia Enterprises was born.”

  My God, Bond thought, the roots of this whole mess went back a century and a half!

  Li continued. “Opium was legalized in 1856 as the Second Opium War began, and during the following years James Thackeray became one of Hong Kong’s wealthiest men. EurAsia Enterprises flourished, and even London recognized his and the company’s importance. The Kowloon peninsula was ceded to Britain in 1860, and finally, in 1898, the New Territories was leased to Britain for ninety-nine years. Little did anyone know at the time that this last Treaty, signed at the Second Convention of Peking, would have a direct effect on Hong Kong Island and Kowloon as well.”

  “What happened to Thackeray and your great-great-grandfather?” Bond asked.

  “James Thackeray died in 1871. His son Richard took over EurAsia Enterprises and continued to trade opium to Li Wei Tam, who had reached a ripe old age. The company expanded, opening branches all over the world. My great-great-grandfather finally succumbed to the gods in 1877, and the partnership between the Thackeray family and the Li family ended. My great-grandfather, Li’s only son, never approved of his father’s addiction to opium, nor of the gweilo who sold it to him. He did, however, make sure that the agreement signed by the elder Thackeray and his father remained intact and safe. Perhaps someday it would come in useful.”

  Li stood and refilled Bond’s glass, then resumed his place in the leather armchair to continue the story. “Now the tale gets a little complicated,” he said with a smile. “To cut a long story short, in 1911 civil war broke out in China. You may know that an ambitious, Western-educated revolutionary named Dr. Sun Yat-sen initiated a rebellion dedicated to establishing a republican government in China. He succeeded; by 1912, the Ch’ing Dynasty was no more.”

  Bond was quite familiar with China’s tortured twentieth-century history, but he allowed Li to tell it in his own words.

  “It was a period of great turmoil. During a skirmish in Guangzhou, my great-grandfather was killed, leaving his son Li Pei Wu, my grandfather, to look after the family fortune. Unfortunately, the republican government was extremely unstable; between 1912 and 1949 there were times when it didn’t exist at all and the country was a …” again he searched for the right word, and finally said in English “… a free-for-all!” Li smiled at his choice of phrase.

  Bond continued the history lesson. “As for Sun Yat-sen, he formed the Kuomintang party in an attempt to limit the republicans’ power. The government outlawed the Kuomintang and Sun Yat-sen was forced into exile.”

  “You are well informed, Mr. Bond,” Li said. “Ambitious warlords vied for leadership for more than a decade. In 1921, the Communists organized in Shanghai, with Mao Zedong among their original members. They made bids for power in the turbulent country, and in 1923, Sun Yat-sen agreed to admit them to Kuomintang membership. But after Sun’s death in 1925, the young general Chiang Kai-shek took over the leadership of the Kuomintang and set about reunifying China under its rule, ridding the country of imperialists and warlords, and exercising a bloody purge of the party’s Communist membership.”

  Bond wondered what all this had to do with Li’s family. In answer to his thought, Li said, “My grandfather’s family got caught up in the maelstrom that ravaged China during this period of unrest. The family fortune was lost to the Communists in 1926, and my grandfather was murdered for having “secret society” connections. My grandmother and her two young children became refugees and fled across the border into Kowloon. The eldest of the children was a boy of seven, named Li Chen Tam.”

  “Your father?”

  Li nodded. “The Communists had seized all of my family’s property, amongst which was the ancient document signed by James Thackeray and my great-great-grandfather, Li Wei Tam. The document was considered lost for all time. I’ve already told you a little about my father. Li Chen Tam fell into the hard life in which many Hong Kong Chinese refugees found themselves during the years between the two World Wars. He supported his mother and baby sister by selling food on the street. When he became a teenager, he made the acquaintance of several other young Chinese boys who belonged to a fraternal organization. They offered to help him financially and protect his family. In exchange, he had to pledge allegiance, as well as secrecy, to their organization. This organization was the San Yee On, which you know as one of the largest and most powerful Triads in Southeast Asia.

  “My father rose rapidly through the ranks, especially after entering the lucrative entertainment business in the 1950s. Along the way, like so many of the Triad leaders at the time, he made a few enemies even within his own organization. In the early 1960s, when he was approaching fifty, my father broke off from the San Yee On and formed his own Triad, the Dragon Wing Society.

  “He was quite aware of his great-grandfather’s agreement with EurAsia Enterprises but was unable to do anything about it. So, my father concocted an underhanded scheme to get his own back. By putting the squeeze on EurAsia’s shipping department heads, the Dragon Wing Society infiltrated the company’s inner workings. Nothing was shipped out of Hong Kong without the Triad’s intervention. Things came to a head, and eventually news of the squeeze went all the way to the top of the company.”

  “Who must have been, let’s see … James Thackeray’s greatgrandson?” Bond asked.

  “Correct. Thomas Thackeray, then the current taipan of EurAsia Enterprises, and Guy Thackeray’s father. While being a shrewd businessman, Thomas Thackeray had inherited his great-grandfather’s trait of greediness. If there was an opportunity to add to his fortune, then he would brush ethics aside and encourage the money-making to continue. It was with this attitude that Thomas Thackeray justified entering into a business alliance with my father. The two men met in person only once, and secretly, at one of my father’s nightclubs. It was agreed that EurAsia Enterprises would provide the means, the Dragon Wing Society would provide the goods and muscle, and together they would share in the profits. Thus, EurAsia Enterprises began distributing heroin all over the world as couriers for the Dragon Wing Society.”

  Bond noted, “It seems the story has come full circle, practically a reversal of the partnership that existed in the mid-nineteenth century.”

  “Ironically, that is true,” Li said. “There was, however, another piece of the alliance. The smuggled heroin had to come from somewhere, and that was the Golden Triangle. A certain young Chinese official in Guangzhou had influence over the operations of the poppy fields there. His name was Wong Tsu Kam. Extremely militaristic and a staunch Communist, Colonel Wong also happened to be even greedier than Thomas Thackeray! He was the unseen, silent partner of Thackeray and my father. He maintained the poppy fields. He refined the opium into heroin in his own laboratories located on site in the Golden Triangle. He cleared the way for the heroin to be safely smuggled into Hong Kong so that the Dragon Wing Society could get it onto EurAsia’s ships. For his efforts, Wong received a tremendous kickback. A man with those kinds of assets in China wielded great power, and he used it to advance within the Communist party until he became a fully fledged general in 1978.

  “A year before Wong Tsu Kam became a general, Guy Thackeray took over EurAsia Enterprises. I had succeeded my father as Cho Ku of the Dragon Wing Society. Our uneasy partnership continued through the eighties and into the nineties. All along, my father knew of the ancient agreement that would have given us control of EurAsia Enterprises should the Hong Kong colony ever be handed back to China. In 1984, the speculation came to an end when the treaty was signed to do that very thing in 1997. The rage that my father felt at the Thackeray family, and at the Communists who had stolen his father’s assets, eventually killed him. He died of heart failure shortly after the news was mad
e public. I carried on, but now a bitter rift existed between me and Guy Thackeray. Our partnership continued, but it was purely a business transaction. It had ceased being personal long ago.

  “It was in 1985 that General Wong made his move. One afternoon, his people made an appointment to see Guy Thackeray at EurAsia Enterprises’ corporate headquarters in Central. With a Chinese lawyer in tow, General Wong met Thackeray in the company’s luxurious boardroom and pulled out a tattered document written in both English and Chinese. General Wong was in possession of the original agreement made between James Thackeray and my great-greatgrandfather! According to Chinese law, the state now owned the document and what it represented. Li Wei Tam’s heirs had fled China and their assets were seized by the Communist government. Therefore, as the representative of that Chinese government, General Wong informed Guy Thackeray that the 59 per cent of stock owned by Thackeray would automatically transfer to China at midnight on 30 June, 1997, just as the colony itself would be handed over after a hundred and fifty years of British rule. General Wong had been given full authority to execute the transition and implement whatever new management system he desired. Whatever he decided to do, Guy Thackeray was out. In essence, not only would General Wong gain control of a multi-billion dollar corporation, but he would also increase his profit margin in the drug smuggling operation by onethird. He would have the upper hand over me and the Society, too! General Wong would be able to call all the shots. As for Thackeray, he would be left high and dry. It made no difference that 41 per cent of the stock was owned by other British citizens. Wong implicitly made it clear that they would be persuaded to sell their shares and leave Hong Kong forever.”

  “What happened?” Bond asked.

  “Guy Thackeray never told a soul about this meeting apart from his own English solicitor, Gregory Donaldson. He spent the following five years consulting Donaldson about the matter. Donaldson was sworn to secrecy, and they searched for a way out. But it was hopeless. Once China took over the colony, their law would reign supreme and the original agreement would be deemed legal. For the next seven years, Guy Thackeray lived with the knowledge that he would have to give up his family’s company and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. He became a bitter, unhappy man—a friendless recluse prone to gambling for high stakes in Macau.”

  Bond realized that this explained the man’s eccentric behaviour and his alcoholism.

  “Thackeray arranged a meeting with me one rainy night in 1995 and told me the news. At first, I was ecstatic that my great-greatgrandfather’s agreement still existed. Then, as the truth of the matter sank in, I was filled with hatred and the desire for revenge. I hated the Thackeray family for their role in the history of the mess, and I detested General Wong for stealing what was rightfully mine.”

  Li smiled wryly as he ended the extraordinary story. “Since then, the drug-smuggling partnership has kept operating—it was business as usual. After all, a profit could still be made until things changed in 1997.”

  James Bond had listened to Li Xu Nan’s story, fascinated and repelled at the same time. It was a classic case of injustice and irony. A vicious criminal was being cheated out of something of great value that was rightfully his, and Bond found himself feeling the man’s outrage, too.

  “So you see, Mr. Bond,” Li said, “Mr. Thackeray and I had a mutual interest in keeping Wong from taking over the company. Thackeray and I were not friends. We were enemies, but we had a common goal. I did not kill him.”

  “But why would General Wong kill him?” Bond asked. “If he was going to gain control of the company on July the first anyway, why murder Thackeray?”

  Li shrugged. “I do not know. You will have to ask him.”

  “And why was the solicitor, Donaldson, also killed? And the other Directors?”

  “Perhaps they were going to get in the way legally,” Li suggested. “Maybe there was a loophole, and that was the only way Wong could close it. General Wong may be a Communist, but he is one of the most corrupt capitalist pigs I know.”

  It made sense. It was Thackeray’s murder that was the big question mark.

  “The other night we were in Macau. Some Triads chopped up a mahjong game at the Lisboa Casino. Were they your men?”

  “No. I give you my word,” Li said.

  Bond sat in thought. A big piece of the puzzle was still missing.

  “Now we come to the task I must ask you to do, Mr. Bond,” Li said. “As I mentioned earlier, you are in my debt. If you perform this task for me and succeed, I will release you from my debt and also spare your life.”

  “I don’t know what it is you want me to do, Li,” Bond said, “but I can tell you right now I don’t work for criminals. You can kill me now. I’ve lived my entire life with the prospect of death coming at any moment.”

  Li nodded. “Brave words, Mr. Bond. Why don’t you hear me out first?”

  Bond sighed. “All right. What is it you want?”

  “I want you to go to Guangzhou and pay a little visit to General Wong.”

  “And then what?”

  “Steal my great-great-grandfather’s agreement. Wong keeps it in a safe in his office. Bring it back to me. If you have to eliminate the good general in the process …” Li shrugged his shoulders.

  Bond laughed. “You must be joking, Li! How the hell do you think a gweilo like me could get anywhere near this general, much less break into his bloody safe? Don’t you think I would stick out like a sore thumb in China?”

  “Hear me out, Mr. Bond. I have a plan.” Bond raised his hand, gesturing for Li to continue, but he knew the very thought was absurd. “You are sceptical, Mr. Bond, I see that, but listen to me. We have learned that a new lawyer from London will be arriving in Hong Kong later this morning after the sun rises. He is Gregory Donaldson’s replacement as EurAsia Enterprises’ solicitor. Since Mr. Thackeray’s untimely demise, this new lawyer will be handling things. He has an appointment in Guangzhou the next day with General Wong himself. I propose that you go to Guangzhou in his place. My organization has contacts at the airport. We can do a switch before the man even enters Immigration. You will be hand-delivered to General Wong by EurAsia executives. You will meet Wong privately. He will most certainly show you the original document. You will have the perfect, and probably the only, chance to get it. Then my brothers will help you get out of Guangzhou and back to Hong Kong.”

  “Not on your life, Li.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to die, then.”

  “I’ve heard worse threats.”

  Li said, “Very well, I will offer you another incentive—the life of that girl, the traitor. She can leave with you, and I will cancel the death warrant on her head.”

  Bond closed his eyes. The man had played the trump card.

  FIFTEEN

  DAY TRIP TO CHINA

  10:30 A.M.

  The British Airways flight that carried James Pickard, Esquire, of Fitch, Donaldson and Patrick, arrived on time at Kai Tak Airport. “Representatives” from EurAsia Enterprises were waiting, not in the gate area or in the Greeting Hall beyond Immigration, but right in the movable airbridge that attached to the door of the aircraft.

  Two Chinese men in business suits stopped Pickard as he stepped off the aircraft.

  “Mr. Pickard?”

  “Yes?”

  “Come with us, please. We take you to hotel.”

  The men opened a service door in the airbridge and gestured towards a set of metal steps leading down to the tarmac. Pickard was confused.

  “Don’t I have to go through Immigration?” he asked.

  “That already taken care of,” one of the men said in broken English.

  Pickard shrugged, chalked it up to Chinese efficiency, and was pleased he was getting the VIP treatment. He happily walked down the steps and into a waiting limousine. As soon as the car was away, James Bond ascended the same set of steps and entered the jetbridge. He walked through it and into the terminal. As he had not got much s
leep the night before anyway, he looked and felt as if he really had just flown the long haul from London. He was dressed in an Armani suit borrowed from Li Xu Nan, and carried a briefcase full of law books. He was unarmed, having reluctantly left his Walther PPK with Li.

  The passport and travel documents with which Li’s people provided him were top-notch forgeries. As James Pickard, British citizen, he sailed through Immigration and Customs, and was met in the Greeting Hall by an attractive blonde woman and a Chinese man, both in their thirties.

  “Mr. Pickard?” the woman said. She was English.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Corinne Bates from the Public Relations office at EurAsia Enterprises.” She held out her hand.

  Bond shook it. “Hello. James Pickard.”

  “How was your flight?”

  “Long.”

  “Isn’t it though? I find it dreadful. This is Johnny Leung, assistant to the interim General Manager.”

  “How do you do?” Bond said, and shook the man’s hand.

  “Fine, thank you,” Leung said. “We have a car waiting.”

  Bond allowed himself to be guided outside and into a Rolls-Royce. So far, the operation was going smoothly.

  “All the hotels were booked because of the July the first transition,” Corinne Bates said. “We’re putting you up for the night in a corporate flat in the Mid-Levels. Is that all right?”

  “Sounds fine,” Bond said.

  The car drove through the Cross-Harbour Tunnel to the island, made its way through Central and up into the Mid-Levels, an area of some social prominence but just a step down from the elite Victoria Peak. It finally entered a complex on Po Shan Road, just off Conduit Road.

  They let him into the flat, a lovely two-bedroomed affair with a parquet floor and a view of Central.

  “We’ll pick you up at 6:30 in the morning, Mr. Pickard. The train leaves from Kowloon at 7:50,” Ms. Bates said.