Dynasty

by Elegant, Robert;

  “Your Excellency,” the driver said, “I am abjectly sorry. I have erred deeply, but the steering is worn.”

  Harry impatiently dismissed the apologies. Though the driver’s voice and bearing were vaguely familiar, the provisional Prime Minister was concerned with more important matters than a smashed fender or a truck driver’s fears. The driver came closer, still expostulating. When he was shielded from the policemen’s gaze by the limousine’s open door, he drew a Beretta pistol whose muzzle was elongated by a tubular silencer.

  The pistol cracked three times. Harry felt each bullet’s impact, marveling that the shots were quieter than the tapping of a woman’s high heels. He fell to the grimy cobbles, and, looking up at his executioner, he saw his own face as it had been twenty-five years earlier.

  “For China!” Colonel James Sekloong said tonelessly. “For China’s sake, traitors must die!”

  “But …” Harry rasped. “But … James … James, my own …”

  James fired again. The impact pushed Harry Sekloong to the verge of death. But he clung desperately to life. There was so much to explain—and to justify. James knew neither his true father nor his father’s reasons for collaborating. It was supremely important that he should understand.

  “James … James, you don’t know, you don’t understand. James, my own …”

  The Prime Minister’s voice dwindled to a gabble of unintelligible syllables. Neither bitter nor resentful, but sadly welcoming death, Harry Sekloong died trying to justify his life to one of the two human beings he had deeply loved—his own son, his own executioner.

  August 24, 1939–June 10, 1940

  The shell from the six-pounder arched high into the cloud-flecked sky over Sekkong in the New Territories. Through his Zeiss binoculars, Lieutenant Jonathan Osgood Sekloong marked the impact two miles distant. The earth erupted in a fountain of red mud, and six khaki-uniformed figures dropped.

  “Three points lower,” Jonnie ordered. “Traverse left four points.”

  Stripped to the waist in the 95 percent humidity, the sweating, beer-bellied gun crew fumbled another shell into the breach. The Hong Kong Volunteer Defense Force, chiefly Europeans and Eurasians with a leavening of Chinese, had taken the field in full force. Despite the artillery fire, the enemy ranks were encircling their positions and attacking their flanks.

  “They’d be all over you,” Charles Sekloong laughed when the second shell fell short. “With you fellows shooting like that, my God, it’d be over before it began. I remember once in France …”

  “Pater, this isn’t France,” Jonnie deliberately exaggerated his Stonyhurst drawl. “It’s only poor old Hong Kong, and my chaps haven’t fired more than ten rounds in their lives.”

  “That’s obvious,” Charles smiled. “They’d better pull themselves together.”

  Gray-haired and self-assured in the uniform of a full colonel bedecked with two rows of medal ribbons, Charles Sekloong flourished his walking-stick like a field marshal’s baton. Although he was a staff observer, the veteran of battles more than two decades past was gripped by a sense of urgency alien to the younger civilian-soldiers. On August 24, 1939, they lightheartedly went through the maneuvers ordered by the newly established Hong Kong Defense Headquarters, which was itself dubious regarding the exercise’s necessity. The Japanese held major strategic pockets through East China; having taken Canton ten months earlier, the Imperial Army had stationed its sentries along the twenty-two-mile-long border between the New Territories and Kwangtung Province. But Hong Kong felt itself still secure on the rim of the cauldron. British Hong Kong knew the Japanese would never defy the might of the British Empire and the Royal Navy by attacking the Crown Colony.

  “It’s a waste of time, Jonnie,” his Sergeant Major confided. “Our chaps’ll never learn to shoot straight, and the Japanese’ll never attack.”

  Jonnie grinned at the informality. The Sergeant Major was a junior director of Derwent’s and his favorite tennis partner. At thirty-seven, Jonnie was himself still breezily informal, though his height, his aquiline nose, and his wide hazel eyes gave him an air of command hardly justified by the three casual years in the Stonyhurst Cadet Force that had won him his commission.

  “Probably not, Bill,” he said. “Anyway, let’s pack it up for today. We’re down to three rounds, and I’ve got to get back. Will you take over?”

  Father and son mounted Jonnie’s massive fire-engine-red 450K Mercedes roadster for a fast run through the open New Territories on the only Hong Kong roads where he could use even half the car’s brute power. The twelve-cylinder model, designed to prove the supremacy of Adolf Hitler’s super-race on the motor-racing circuit, had been in production less than a year, each vehicle painstakingly hand-built by proud master-craftsmen in Stuttgart. Jonnie had secured his 450K at an inflated price through unabashed pressure. Agonizing over the persecution of her fellow Jews in Germany, his wife Sarah refused to ride in the vehicle she called “the blood-red monster.” She had earlier tried to dissuade him from buying the 450K.

  “Look,” he’d argued, “the Reichsmarks were blocked anyway. You could say I’m depriving the Nazis of the foreign exchange they’d otherwise get for the beast. Anyway, the German Jews aren’t really your people. That kefuffle is just a fight between different kinds of Germans. Besides, the German Jews certainly aren’t my people.”

  “Jonnie,” Sarah had replied, “they may not be yours, but they are my people. Britain must fight the Nazis sooner or later. Then the Germans will be your enemies too.”

  “No bloody fear,” he’d laughed. “I see now that Chamberlain can handle the little paper-hanger. You had me panicked last year, you and the Old Gentleman. The danger, if any, is from Japan.”

  Knowing the argument futile, Sarah had pressed her full lips together in silent dissent. It was the only major disagreement they had had in fourteen years of a marriage cushioned by secure wealth, blessed by two children, and sustained by mutual trust that was breached by only one omission.

  Jonnie had never told Sarah of his son by Tanya Kerelenkova, who lived in Sydney married to an Australian barrister. Jonnie knew that the boy, called Jonathan Stone Roberts after his adoption by Tanya’s husband, was fair-haired and hazel-eyed. He was called “Chink” by his schoolmates, just as Jonnie himself had been called “Chink” at Stonyhurst, because of the almost imperceptible tilt of his eyes—though none suspected his son’s Chinese blood.

  Tanya and Jonathan were his secret—his only secret. A man was entitled to one secret from his wife, particularly when it was for her own good. Besides, his present behavior was so blameless that his father, remembering his own philandering, occasionally raised an astonished eyebrow. “But,” Jonnie told himself, “rank has its responsibilities.” In the same spirit, he murmured ritually, “Rank has its privileges.” Then he stepped into the 450K and left his section the dirty work of disassembling the field-piece for its return to the gun park.

  Remembering the long, dizzying ride by sedan chair in his youth, Jonnie slewed the heavy roadster through winding, narrow Peak Road to Sekloong Manor. He stamped on the brakes before each curve, then tramped heavily on the accelerator to pull the two-ton 450K through the turn.

  “You’ll probably kill a poor coolie one of these days,” Charles muttered darkly. “You’ll surely kill yourself.”

  Nonetheless, the older man also reveled in the rush of wind past the red roadster. Regarding the panorama beneath them, Charles felt that neither Hong Kong nor he himself had altered materially since he’d maneuvered the black Rolls-Royce through the same curves when the road opened in 1924. Coolies still trotted up and down hill on their daily errands, and the green expanse of the foreshore was marred by only a few new structures. Most of the crenellated buildings along the waterfront were exactly as they had been in 1900 almost four decades earlier. The Hong Kong Club still stood in aloof state, looking across a grassy mall at Prince’s Building. Beyond, St. George’s Building was the domain of the Sekloongs, w
ho were still barred from membership in the all-European Hong Kong Club. But time had mellowed Charles’s resentment of the exclusion. Besides, in the wider world outside Hong Kong, the Sekloongs were not merely accepted, but were courted for their wealth and power. Charles Sekloong touched the crown and two stars on his shoulder strap. At sixty-three, he was well content with his life.

  The 450K’s wheels rolled under the winged-dragon arch, side-slipped on the circular driveway, and threw up a spatter of gravel as Jonnie braked the roadster to a skidding halt before the brass-bound teak doors of The Castle.

  “I’ll drop you here, Father, if you want to see Grandfather,” Jonnie said. “I must get back. Sarah was fussing about Albert’s sore throat. You’d think he was six months old, not six years. With Henry at boarding school, he’s her only chick, and she does make a fuss. Thank God I didn’t have a Jewish mother!”

  “Your mother always took excellent care of you,” Charles said stiffly. “Why I remember …”

  Sarah Haleevie Sekloong’s emergence from the open doors interrupted her father-in-law’s reminiscences. Her dark vivacity was set off by a simply cut cream-linen summer dress tied at the waist with a rainbow-striped scarf; the hem, four inches below her knees, set off her finely molded calves. She offered her lips to Jonnie before speaking.

  “You’re both wanted. The Old Gentleman wants to talk with all of us.”

  “I thought the old boy was fully occupied with his new lady friend,” Charles laughed. “Please God, I’m half as hale at eighty-six.”

  Sarah smiled at her father-in-law’s reference to the relationship between the aged Eurasian knight and the lush sixteen-year-old Polynesian girl who had returned with him from Tahiti on Regina Pacis the preceding year. Opal, he called her, the dark jewel. She was obviously hot-blooded, though by Polynesian standards slightly past her prime. Above all, Mary and Sarah were delighted by the Old Gentleman’s revitalization. Nurtured by Opal’s constant attentions, he was once again peppery and decisive.

  Mary waited in the circular entrance hall. The marble floor cast back a shimmering, blurred reflection of her blue georgette dress embroidered with tiny golden winged dragons. The whirling ceiling fans stirred the still air and ruffled her hair. But the inescapable humidity was as oppressive on the cooler Peak as in the valley.

  Charles Sekloong glanced warily at his wife. He ascribed her mercurial moods to “post-menopausal depression,” the glib diagnosis of the portly English physician who had replaced Dr. Moncriefe. It did not occur to him that Harry’s assassination distressed her more deeply than the other members of the family.

  Mary Sekloong still grieved profoundly and silently for the man she had loved above all others. Emotionally detached from China, she had not condemned Harry’s defection to the Japanese. She had understood his reasons and had sympathized with his vain hopes of making peace. She could no more express those sentiments to the Sekloongs than she could admit her embittered resentment of the Chinese, resentment sharply intensified by Harry’s murder. It did not really matter who had killed her lover, the Communists or the Nationalists. Both were Chinese, and she had come to despise the Chinese race.

  “Good evening, Gentlemen. Did you have a good time playing Boy Scouts?” she teased.

  “Mary, dammit! It’s no joke,” Charles exploded, then smiled when he realized his wife was baiting him.

  “Sorry, Charles,” Mary apologized. “I know it’s no joke. Certainly the gallant knight thinks it no joke. He wants to see us all in the study. And he’s up in the air.”

  “Not again,” Jonnie groaned. “What now? Everyone would be much happier if he’d just tend to his venery—and let the three of us run the firm.”

  “Jonnie!” Mary automatically rebuked her thirty-seven-year-old eldest son. “How can you talk so about your grandfather?”

  “It’s true, isn’t it, Mother?”

  “Well,” she smiled, “let’s say it isn’t wholly untrue.”

  Wearing a blue-cotton long-gown, Sir Jonathan Sekloong was seated in his favorite red-leather chair beside the granite fireplace banked with flowers. His white beard bristled with vitality while his hazel eyes scrutinized his descendants. His son and grandson barely glanced at the vigorous patriarch. The figure standing behind his chair drew their eyes irresistibly.

  Despite her youth, Opal was totally self-confident. Almost six feet tall, her sturdy body was voluptuous in a scarlet muumuu patterned with frangipani flowers. The jasmine lei around her columnar neck set off her generously carved features, transforming her into a South Seas temple sculpture come to life. She was proudly aware of her sexuality, since the Polynesians, unlike some civilizations in theory more advanced, honored both women and the act of sex. She felt it no stigma, but a cause for pride, that the aged multimillionaire had bought her from the French planter with whom she was living when Regina Pacis sailed into Tahiti atoll. He was not only kind, but tolerant of her discreet forays in search of more robust love-making than he could offer. In return, she gave him total devotion.

  “Well, the balloon’s going up.” Sir Jonathan delighted in keeping up with the latest slang. “Hitler and Stalin have signed a nonaggression pact.”

  “And I hoped the vermin would kill each other,” Sarah said bitterly.

  “So did we all, my love,” Jonnie agreed. “But, Grandfather, what difference does it make?”

  “It means war!” Charles offered. “His greatest enemy is neutralized. The little clown Hitler can strike where he wishes.”

  “Don’t forget Stalin,” Sir Jonathan reminded them. “His ambition is unlimited.”

  “Oh, Father, you’ve always made too much of the Bolshevik menace,” Mary interjected. “They didn’t do well in China … haven’t after fifteen years. They’re not that great a threat to your money-bags.”

  Sir Jonathan lifted his hand, and Opal placed a panatella between his slender fingers. He had been obsessed with the Communists since Harry’s assassination. Despite the great rewards he offered, his network of informants had not discovered the assassin’s identity. Yet he was certain the Communists had ordered the killing, and his previous distaste for them had become pathological hatred.

  “War with who?” Jonnie asked. “I’ve been so busy drilling for a war that may never come, I’m out of touch.”

  “With Poland,” Sir Jonathan replied. “Hitler’s been threatening the Poles for months … trumping up excuses for invasion. Now he can divide Poland with Stalin.”

  “Britain and France must come in,” Sarah breathed. “Hitler will be defeated—and the Jews will be saved.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Mary advised. “The Poles can’t hold long, and England is miserably unprepared.”

  “I think England will fight,” Sir Jonathan said. “But what of the effect on China … and on ourselves?”

  “I haven’t thought it out,” Mary confessed.

  “Damn it, Mary,” Charles exploded. “He’s right—again. How can the Nationalists and the Communists cooperate now, really cooperate?”

  “What do you mean, Father?” Jonnie asked while Sir Jonathan nodded approval of Charles’s reasoning. “How does a pact between two European bandits change the anti-Japanese struggle?”

  “Mao Tse-tung and his Communists owe primary loyalty to Moscow, not to China,” Charles explained. “Berlin and Tokyo were already allies. Now Moscow and Berlin are practically allies. The enemy of my enemy is my enemy, and the friend of my friend is my friend. The new friends of the Nazis, who are old friends of the Japanese, are the Russians, who are the best friends of the Chinese Communists. So our Communists and the Japanese could become friends.”

  “Not that bad, surely,” Mary objected. “The Communists would lose almost all popular support if they turned around and helped the Japanese.”

  “You’re half right, Mary,” Sir Jonathan said. “It won’t go that far. But far enough: Mao Tse-tung’s already told his men to give ten percent of their efforts to fighting the Japanese and the res
t to expanding their power and fighting the Nationalists. Ten percent will now become five or two percent.”

  “You mean the United Front will break up?” asked Jonnie.

  “Not immediately, not formally,” his grandfather answered dryly. “But the Communists and the Nationalists will fight each other tooth and claw. Perhaps they’ll fight the Japanese in their spare time.”

  “The Nationalists won’t do a deal with the Japanese, will they?” Mary asked. “The Generalissimo and Hitler have been friends of a sort for years.”

  “No, not that,” Sir Jonathan answered thoughtfully. “Sun Tze, the great strategist, advised princes to make alliances with the distant enemy against the nearby enemy. But both the Japanese and the Communists are nearby. The Generalissimo may be tempted to deal with the Japs, but he can’t. He’d lose control over his people. He’s not chairman of the board. Just executive secretary—and there is no chairman.”

  “Besides,” Charles added, “Wang Ching-wei’s preempted that line and …”

  “And much good it’s done him,” Jonnie filled in bitterly. “Just Uncle Harry’s murder.”

  The study was still with the silence of mourning for half a minute. The Sekloongs did not often talk about Harry.

  “If fighting between Mao Tse-tung and Chiang Kai-shek becomes so fierce,” Mary finally broke in, “they’ll have no soldiers to fight the Japs.”

  “And, both sides, both Communists and Nationalists, will fight a holding battle,” Charles summed up. “They’ll wait for their own allies to win and then carry them to total power in China. The Generalissimo’s thinking that way. He’s sending Thomas to raise money and support in Paris and London.”

  “Good job for Uncle Tom,” Jonnie said. “But what about us? I know Mother insisted we buy up commodities in 1914. The same drill this time?”

  “God forbid,” Sir Jonathan answered. “Anything but that. No commodities to buy in China and no way to ship them. This time we invest in America—sell oil and tin to America. These may be the last days of the British Raj. Enjoy them while you can. But invest in America.”