The Princeling of Nanjing

by Ian Hamilton

  She sat directly across from him. “My name is Ava Lee,” she said and held out her hand.

  “I know who you are,” he said, his hands folded in his lap.

  Xu sat next to her and Tsai Men sank into the couch beside his father.

  “Do you want anything to drink?” Men said.

  “We’re fine,” Xu said.

  “Good, then we can start.” Men glanced at his father and then leaned towards Xu. “My main reason for meeting with you is to mend the relationship we’ve had for so many years, first with your father and then with you.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “After our unfortunate meeting in Nanjing, I saw my father and my uncle. They had already been told about what happened between the woman and the men they had sent, and they weren’t happy with the outcome.”

  “By ‘woman,’ you mean Ava?” Xu said.

  Tsai Men nodded.

  “Then respect her by using her name.”

  “Of course,” he said.

  “And please explain why those men were sent there in the first place.”

  “There was no sinister intent,” Men said. “They just wanted to clarify why she had such a keen interest in our family and our businesses.”

  “I told you that she had no interest.”

  “Yes, and you did so quite forcefully. When I explained that to my father, he said it was stupid of me to confront you so directly. In hindsight, I think he’s right.”

  “Was he being critical of your approach or of the reasoning behind it?”

  Men shrugged, and shook his head as if he was frustrated or confused. “Look, our two families have been friends and allies for many years. It’s obvious to us that this current unpleasantness started with my request that you get into that new business. I think that request was mistimed, and maybe misjudged.”

  “It was.”

  “But your reaction wasn’t that of a friend. You could have reasoned with me. Instead, you chose to stall and dig in your heels. I knew you weren’t being honest with me. I knew you didn’t want to do it and were trying to find a way around it.”

  “I can’t deny that.”

  “My father told me that I should never have pushed you so hard,” Men said. “He said I should have laid it out as a business proposition and then let you decide if you wanted to pursue it.”

  “That would have saved us all a lot of time and trouble.”

  “Would it have stopped the woman from prying?” The question came from Tsai Lian.

  “I’m not sure what it is that I’m supposed to have done that has caused so much offence,” Ava said.

  “Some of our banks and businesses were quite suddenly being pestered about things that should concern only our family,” Men said.

  “When we met in Nanjing, you said you thought I was responsible for that,” Xu said.

  “I meant that I thought you had asked her to do it, or she was doing it in some misguided effort to help you. Either way, I didn’t have much doubt that she was the perpetrator.”

  “Based on what facts?” Ava said.

  “The calls originated from Toronto and Hong Kong.”

  “That leaves you with only several million candidates,” she said.

  “Don’t treat us like fools,” Men said sharply. “We don’t believe in coincidence, and you were too much of one. We did some further checking and found out about the old business you had with the man named Chow. We also discovered that you are an accountant with the kind of special skills that can direct the types of inquiries that were being made.”

  “Are you going to tell us you didn’t know of her background?” Lian said to Xu.

  “Ava has been a friend for some time, and she and I shared the friendship of the man you call Chow for more than ten years. Of course I knew what she did for a living, but that’s not why she was in Shanghai.”

  “Maybe not initially,” Men said.

  “Look, we can go around in circles, but you can’t prove anything and we can’t disprove such broad suppositions,” Xu said.

  “And there is one more supposition, one more development, that we haven’t discussed yet,” Men said, glancing sideways at his father.

  “I wasn’t going to come here today. My plan was to leave it to my son to repair the relationship that you and he have built over so many years,” Lian said, slowly and deliberately. “That changed early this morning, when my sister called me. Do you know her, Wu Wai Wai?”

  “I certainly know the name, but we’ve never met,” Xu said.

  “She is a remarkable woman — well-educated, smart, and strong in every way. She owns and manages several large businesses, none of which have anything to do with you.”

  “I’m sure she is formidable.”

  “Yes, that’s a good word to describe her,” Lian said. “She isn’t a woman given to panic, but when she called me this morning, she wasn’t quite herself. I wouldn’t go so far as to say she was alarmed, but she certainly was concerned — concerned enough to phone me.”

  “You have me at a complete disadvantage,” Xu said. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about the Wall Street Tribune,” Lian said.

  ( 46 )

  Ava felt her face flush, but she didn’t react in any other way that might indicate surprise. Beside her, Xu was completely still.

  “Again, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Xu said.

  “My sister received a phone call late last night from one of her partners, Patriot Insurance in the United States. They told her they had been contacted by a reporter at the Tribune who asked a number of questions about their business relationships in China. According to them, none of it was particularly specific or threatening. Still, they thought they should give her a heads-up in case the same paper tried to contact her.”

  “Did it?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “So why is she concerned?”

  “She’s as cautious as I am, maybe even more so, and she is very sensitive to changes in her environment. I had told her about the inquiries made about our banks and businesses. She thinks the Tribune article could somehow be related.”

  “If her American partner isn’t worried about the article in the Tribune, why should she be? And why should you?” Xu said.

  “We can be overly sensitive, but that’s what’s helped keep me in office for so many years, and it’s what has helped her build a business,” Lian said. “When we see shadows, we assume the worst. There are a lot of shadows following you and your friend sitting next to you. My son has tried to minimize how bad the relations between us are right now and has kept reminding me of how many years our two families have been interdependent. I told him that is the only reason I am still prepared to talk to you.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Xu said.

  “Not to me. The threat is very real,” Lian said. “If the woman isn’t snooping, then someone else is. Find them and deal with them.”

  “And if I can’t find that someone?”

  “Then, unfortunately, I’m going to assume it’s her,” Lian said, and then shifted his gaze from Xu to Ava. “Young woman, you have to stop your meddling. If it persists, you will regret it, and there is nothing that Xu can do to prevent what might happen.”

  “I have done nothing,” Ava said, returning his gaze.

  “I won’t believe that until my entire world becomes quiet and peaceful again.”

  “If it does?” she said.

  Lian shrugged.

  “In the meantime,” Men interceded, “let’s forget any plans to get into that new business.”

  “Thank you,” Xu said.

  “I just hope it isn’t a wasted concession on our part,” Lian said as he started to rise.

  Everyone else stood too. Lian stared at Ava again,
his eyes blinking behind the large glasses. He was even shorter than she had thought, only an inch or two taller than her, and his torso was so thick he looked almost square. He would have seemed comical if he didn’t radiate such power.

  With a shake of his head, he walked past them and out of the library. Men lingered for a moment, his attention on Xu.

  “My father means what he says,” Men said.

  “I believe you.”

  “He won’t be easily placated.”

  “I believe that too.”

  “In the car on the way here, he was angrier. I think I calmed him a little, but it won’t take much to set him off again. Don’t give him any reason.”

  “We’ll make every effort not to,” Xu said.

  Men turned to Ava. “He thinks you’re the problem. He said to me in the car, ‘What’s one woman more or less? Xu can always find himself another.’”

  “I won’t let myself be held responsible for his active imagination,” she said. “And I’m not intimidated by your threats.”

  Men reached out to Xu and they shook hands. “I have to go. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.”

  Xu and Ava stood side by side. After a minute, Xu went to the door and looked out into the hallway. “They’re gone,” he said.

  Ava collapsed onto the couch.

  Xu had his back turned to Ava. She couldn’t remember a heavier silence. It lasted only five seconds, or maybe ten, but it felt like someone was sitting on her chest and she could hardly breathe.

  “If they had dropped their demand that we get into the drug business two days ago, we wouldn’t be in this situation,” he finally said.

  “It’s too late to turn back,” Ava said, sensing a question in Xu’s comment.

  He walked to the couches and sat in the seat Men had occupied. When she looked across the table, she saw a trace of doubt on his face. There had been times with Uncle — not many, but some — when she and he had reached a crossroads where decisions had to be made that were a test of their trust and loyalty. What would one sacrifice for the other? What value did each place on their relationship? Neither of them had ever failed the other; neither of them had come even remotely close to doing that.

  “I know,” Xu said, his voice low and calm. “So what we have to do now is plan for the fallout from the newspaper stories.”

  “How bad do you think it could be?”

  “I expect he’s capable of closing down all my businesses and putting me in jail, or worse. As for you, I don’t think you would have much chance of getting out of China.”

  “That’s assuming he retains the power to do all those things.”

  “I suspect you’re thinking along the same lines as I am.”

  “We need to damage him so badly that he can’t come after us,” Ava blurted.

  “And extend that thinking to the entire family. We need them under siege. The attack has to be so forceful that they’ll be preoccupied with surviving and they’ll forget about us for a while,” Xu said. “How big and ugly are those newspaper stories going to be?”

  “I’m confident that the Calhoun story will be huge, and it won’t be restricted to the Herald. Once it breaks, every media outlet in the U.K. is going to pick it up.”

  “And New York?”

  “I don’t know, although Sam Curry did indicate we’d be front page.”

  “You said they might publish as early as tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you asked the Herald to hold off until Yin was back in the U.K.”

  “I did.”

  “Can you ask them to speed things up?”

  “I don’t see why not. The plane has left and the Tsais don’t know he’s on it,” she said, looking at her watch. “It’s four in the morning in London. I’ll call my contact in a few hours and urge him to move at full speed. I’ll tell him the Tribune is going to go with a story tonight.”

  Xu sat back and closed his eyes for a few seconds. “That fucking family is so hard to stay ahead of,” he mumbled.

  “Yes, you’re right. They are a handful.”

  “That sounded negative on my part,” he said, sitting upright. “Don’t take it that way.”

  “I didn’t. I’m just thinking about something else.”

  “What?”

  “How many high-level political contacts do you have here and in Beijing?”

  “Quite a few.”

  “So does May Ling, in Wuhan and Beijing.”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “Well, your remark about making an impact made an impact on me,” Ava said. “I’ve been so busy trying to orchestrate these stories that I may have forgotten something crucial.”

  “What?”

  “People have to read them — people who matter, and people who live in China, not just in the U.K. and the U.S. That’s the only way they’ll have any effect.”

  “How do you propose to make that happen?”

  “We have to prime the pump. We need to hype the stories before they come out so that the power brokers in Beijing and in other provinces are desperate to read them.”

  “That would warn the family in advance. I’m not sure that’s wise.”

  “We don’t have to name the Tsais. In fact, it would generate more interest if we didn’t.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Well, how many senior government officials are corrupt?”

  “Most of them. It’s all a matter of degree.”

  “So, what if we let it be known that two major international English-language newspapers are about to name one of them as the world’s most corrupt and wealthiest public servant?”

  “We let it be known?”

  “Yes, one by one, confidential phone call by confidential phone call. You and May contact your friends to tell them to be wary, that this story is coming. You tell them you don’t know who’s going to be identified, but they had better be prepared just in case they have some connection to the person who is. Do you think that might grab their interest?”

  “Heads would definitely reel.”

  “And how much gossip and buzz would it generate before the story broke?”

  “I can imagine that everyone we’d contact would make a ton of phone calls themselves. It wouldn’t take long before every governor of every province, every provincial party secretary, and every member of the standing committee would be anxious, maybe even frantic, to find out who’s going to be named,” Xu said, and then hesitated. “We have to assume that someone would contact the Tsais or a person close to them.”

  “I know, but what choice do we have? I think it’s a risk we have to take,” Ava said. “It’s crucial that we catch the interest of as many people as possible. The more we can engage, the safer we’ll be, and the more vulnerable the Tsais should be.”

  “We will certainly generate interest,” Xu said.

  “And how will that interest be transformed when the people you contact see that it’s Tsai Lian who’s named and the deals he’s cut and the money he’s made?”

  “They’ll be relieved at first, but I can imagine that for some of them, relief will turn into anger.”

  “And not just anger because of what he did, but anger in part because, for at least a few hours, they were made to feel vulnerable.”

  “There’s also the chance that some of them might be afraid of ending up in the glare of the spotlight that’s being shone on the Tsais,” Xu said. “They won’t want that to linger. Taking down the Tsais as fast as possible could be in many people’s self-interest.”

  “And it can be done under the legitimate guise of weeding out corruption.”

  “Which some of them might actually care about,” Xu said. “Not that that matters.”

  “Not in the least.”

  “I need to talk to Lop,” Xu s
aid suddenly.

  “Did something happen that I didn’t notice?” Ava said, looking towards the door.

  “No, but he has a wide range of contacts in the PLA and security forces. It might be useful to fill them in too. They have their own interests to serve.”

  “I think we need to start making some phone calls,” Ava said.

  ( 47 )

  Lop rode with them from the hotel back to the house. He sat in the front, but his head was turned towards the back seat for the entire trip as Xu explained to him what he wanted him to do. Lop responded with an enthusiasm that, from anyone else, Ava would have considered over the top, but she was beginning to realize that this was his normal state.

  “I’ll start making calls as soon as our defensive perimeter is set,” Lop said. “I know five or six senior officers who are fed up with this level of corruption. They’ll pass the word.”

  “But make sure not to mention the Tsai family,” Xu said.

  “I understand.”

  “And what’s this about a defensive perimeter?” Ava asked.

  “We’re going to have men posted around the broader neighbourhood. We don’t want to be caught off guard, and if there is any action, we want to be prepared for it,” Xu said.

  “I see.”

  “Don’t be alarmed. I’m not expecting them to do anything stupid, but it would be careless of us not to accept it as a possibility — however far-fetched.”

  When they reached the alley, Ava saw that the fruit vendor was now accompanied by two other men. They sat on stools on either side of the cart. They didn’t look armed, but Ava assumed that weapons weren’t far away.

  Lop got out of the car at the cart, and as the Mercedes crawled along the alley, Ava saw him talking to the men.

  “I know he’s a bit manic,” Ava said, “but having him on our side does provide a sense of comfort.”

  “I’ve been lucky to have him and Suen,” Xu said. “They’re both loyal to an almost irrational degree.”

  “It takes a special kind of person to inspire that kind of loyalty.”