by Ian Hamilton
There was no sign of Auntie Grace when Ava went back into the house. In the cool interior of the kitchen, she drank two large glasses of cold water and then wrapped a towel around her shoulders to absorb the sweat. She knew that it would take at least fifteen minutes for her to cool down sufficiently to be able to shower. She sat at the kitchen table and waited, her mind drawn to London and New York, to Sam Curry and Michael Dillman.
As Ava left the kitchen to go to the bathroom, Auntie Grace was coming out of her own bedroom. “It was my turn to nap,” she said.
“Did you hear from Xu?”
“Not yet, but that’s not unusual. He’s not a man who’s married to time when business is concerned.”
“I’m going to shower.”
“He could be back by the time you’re finished,” she said.
Ava adjusted the shower head to its most powerful setting, turned the water temperature as high as she could bear, and stepped into the stall. For ten minutes she let the water batter her, and as it did, her thoughts, for the first time that entire day, drifted away from the Tsai family. When she finished, she found that the combination of the run and the shower had actually relaxed her.
She took her time drying her hair and then muddled around with clothes before predictably putting on a T-shirt and her Adidas pants. She checked her phone and computer and saw nothing indicating that anything had changed. With a sigh, she wandered into the kitchen to make another coffee.
Auntie Grace was working at the sink, but stopped when she saw Ava. “He’s back,” she said. “He’s sitting by the fish pond.”
Ava walked into the courtyard with a mug of coffee in her hand. Xu was sitting in a wooden chair, his cigarette pack and lighter resting on a small table next to him. It was becoming a familiar scene to her.
“Come and sit,” he said, rising to unfold another chair that was leaning against a brick wall near the pond.
“How was your afternoon?” she asked.
“Less strenuous than yours, evidently. The men aren’t accustomed to seeing someone running up and down the alley.”
“I needed to work off some tension. I’m not good at waiting.”
“There are a lot of people in this city, in this province, and in Beijing who are doing some anxious waiting themselves right now.”
“Your phone calls went well?”
“It was almost ridiculously easy to get some of them wound up.”
“May had the same kind of success.”
“Lop too, but in his case the reaction was a bit different.”
“How so?”
“The people he spoke to weren’t that worried about themselves. They were keen, though, to get a name.”
“To go after?”
“You would like to think so, but Lop says that isn’t necessarily the case. If the person or persons named are in a position to benefit the military or are currently allies of the military, they might move to defend them rather than prosecute them.”
“Does he think that Tsai Lian has that kind of influence?”
“No, but that’s only a guess on his part.”
“Oh,” Ava said.
“There’s no reason to be disappointed,” Xu said. “We’ve all done what we can. We’ve supplied the ammunition — now it’s up to the newspapers to load the guns, and the people we’ve spoken to to fire them.”
“There has to be something else we can do,” Ava said.
Xu lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and blew the smoke in the direction of the gate. As he did, one of the guards took a step forward and pressed a bud into his ear. He listened intently for a few seconds and then trotted towards Ava and Xu.
“There are some unmarked military vehicles circling the neighbourhood,” he said.
“Close to us?” Xu said.
“Not yet.”
“Does Lop know?”
“He’s checking them out.”
“Does it appear they’re headed in any specific direction?”
“No, sir.”
“Keep me posted,” Xu said, and then turned to Ava. “This isn’t that unusual.”
“How do you know they’re military if they’re unmarked?”
“They drive ordinary Jeeps and Range Rovers and they don’t all wear uniforms, but they use a series of licence plates that is reserved for them.”
“That’s careless.”
“Not many people know.”
“How do you?”
“We’ve hired them from time to time.”
“Lop was a former colleague of theirs?”
“Once or twice removed, but they’re still part of the same band of brothers. That said, they don’t take orders from him anymore.”
“That isn’t comforting.”
“I’m not particularly worried.”
“Oh god, I just want —” Ava began, but was cut off by her phone.
“This is Michael Dillman,” the now familiar voice said.
“I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon,” she said.
“I thought you’d like to know that I had a talk with Dennis Calhoun, and that Tamara and our lawyer just got off the phone with his lawyer.”
“I see,” Ava said, not pleased with his neutral tone.
“It has been a most eventful couple of hours.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You sound almost alarmed,” Dillman said.
“I’ve been worried about your caveat. I kept thinking that Calhoun would throw smoke and mirrors at you and that your lawyer would buy in to some of it.”
“If I had given Calhoun a chance to dance around the subject, he might have. But I didn’t.”
“So it went well?” Ava said, rising from the chair.
“It went wonderfully well,” Dillman said.
Ava smiled, clenched a fist, and punched it in the air. Xu looked up at her, a grin now splitting his face.
“Tell me about it,” she said.
“I reached him at his home. He was happy enough to take my call, and when I said I wanted to talk about doing business in China, he was immediately garrulous. I let him run on for a bit and then mentioned that what I really wanted to discuss was Mega Metals’ connections to senior levels of the Jiangsu provincial government. He hemmed and hawed and made some general meaningless remark about how it was important for any business to maintain some kind of relationship with government authorities in China,” Dillman said. “That’s when I said I was referring to a relationship that appeared to be corrupt.”
“You were that direct?”
“Yes. Tamara saw no reason for us to be coy.”
“How did he react?”
“He said he had no idea what I was talking about, so I told him.”
“Specifically?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Our talk went straight downhill. I listened to several minutes of blustery denials mixed in with libel threats. When I didn’t back down, he hung up on me.”
“That’s it? He hung up on you?”
“Yes.”
“So where does that leave things?”
“Normally we would have waited and then gone back to give him another chance to respond, but he — or rather his lawyer — decided to get aggressive. The lawyer put in a call to us half an hour after I’d talked to Calhoun, and our lawyer and Tamara took it. Without even asking what information we had or how we came to have it, he went directly into attack mode. He threatened to sue the paper, the company that owns the paper, and every one of us individually. That was a huge mistake. Tamara responds to facts and reasoned logic. You don’t ever threaten or try to bully her. As soon as she hung up the phone, she said, ‘That story runs today.’”
“Today?”
“Front page, centre.”
&n
bsp; “That’s just great.”
“Tamara is working with some other editors on the headline. They’re trying for something dramatic.”
“Please thank her for me.”
“I will.”
“Michael, one last thing. The Tribune story is going to break online before it appears in print. Is your paper going to use the same approach?”
“Indeed it is, and with any luck the story should be up in a few hours.”
( 49 )
Ava paced back and forth across the courtyard. Xu watched her from his chair, another cigarette balanced between his fingers and a quizzical look on his face.
“It was good news,” she had said as she hung up from Dillman. “But I’m too hyper to sit. Give me a few minutes.”
He didn’t speak until she finally sat down again. “Explain what you mean by good news,” he said.
“First, I forgot to ask you to text or leave a voicemail for Suen. He needs to know that the Herald will be sending someone to Heathrow to meet him and Yin. The paper will look after their accommodation and help Yin handle the other media.”
“I’ll do it after you tell me what you mean by good news.”
“Sorry,” Ava said, taking a deep breath. “The Herald story will be online in a short while, and in print by tonight. They spoke to Dennis Calhoun. He went legal on them and it didn’t work in his favour.”
“Calhoun will undoubtedly call Tsai Men, and maybe even the Governor.”
“I imagine that’s exactly what he will do.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“There was no other way to handle it.”
“I know,” Xu said, taking his phone from his jacket pocket.
“Are you calling Tsai Men?” Ava asked.
“I have the ring volume turned down. I was just checking to see if he has tried to call me. He hasn’t.”
“That’s a surprise.”
“Maybe Calhoun hasn’t contacted him yet. Maybe Calhoun and his lawyer are trying to come up with some kind of story they can spin to cover his butt.”
“Do you think so?”
“Not really.”
“So why haven’t you heard from Men?”
“If they know, they only just know. They could still be digesting the news and planning some kind of strategic response.”
“Maybe there isn’t that much to digest. I mean, Calhoun hasn’t actually seen the story.”
“And the Tsais have no idea how deeply they’re implicated. They might figure that it’s only Calhoun who has the problem. They might want to sit back and do nothing until they know what they’re actually dealing with.”
“They haven’t sat back up till now.”
“Yes, but it has only been between me and them, and then them and us. A small circle that they can contain and control. A respectable British newspaper with an international readership is a different animal.”
“Do you think they might help Calhoun?”
“Perhaps they’ll think about it if there isn’t any risk and it doesn’t cost them anything.”
“If the newspaper story is as hard-hitting and sensational as Dillman hints it is, I think Calhoun is toast. The British tabloids and online media will have a field day with this.”
“Then the Tsai family won’t want to be anywhere near him. They’ll want him to go under by himself, and as quickly and quietly as possible. And Ava, they’re smart enough to give him an extra shove out the door to make it look like he is the villain and they were just one of his victims.”
Ava shook her head. “All this conjecture is starting to make me a little crazy. We need to see that story.”
“Well, there isn’t anything we can do from here,” Xu said. “Why don’t we go inside? I feel like some comfort food and I asked Auntie Grace to make some fresh congee. You can set up your computer in the kitchen and we’ll track the newspapers from there.”
Auntie Grace was standing at the stove when they entered the kitchen.
“We’ll eat now,” Xu said.
“I’ll get my computer,” Ava said, and went to the bedroom. When she returned, the table was set with two large, steaming bowls of congee and side plates with duck eggs, chopped spring onions, and diced Chinese ham. She put her computer on the counter and sat at the table.
Xu filled his bowl with some of everything. Ava just sprinkled onions and white pepper on her congee. She hadn’t felt hungry all afternoon, but now the aroma wafting from her bowl released her appetite. She skimmed a layer off the top with her spoon and then kept eating until the bowl was empty and she was ready for another.
“I’d like more, please,” she said to Auntie Grace.
“You eat like a man,” Xu said.
“What kind of thing is that to say to Ava?” Auntie said.
“I meant it as a compliment. She eats as much as I do and stays so damn thin and fit. I don’t know how she does it.”
“My mother says it’s going to catch up with me one day, that I’ll wake up and have gained twenty pounds overnight.”
Clucking her tongue at Xu, the old woman refilled both bowls and then stood to one side and watched as they dug in.
When they finished, Ava took her computer from the counter and put it on the table. She found the Economic Herald online and opened it.
“There’s nothing yet,” she said to Xu as she scanned the front page. “The lead story is from yesterday’s edition.”
“It’s early.”
“I know, but I was hoping.”
“Check the Tribune.”
“Same thing,” Ava said a few minutes later.
“I’m going back outside for a smoke,” Xu said.
“Have you sent the text to Suen?”
“I’ll do it right away.”
She thought about going outside with him but didn’t want to leave the computer. She flitted back and forth between the two websites, her impatience growing. Give it a break, she thought, and pushed herself away from the table. As she did, her phone rang and she saw the country code for the U.K.
“Yes?” she almost shouted.
“It’s Dillman again. Sorry if I’m pestering you,” he said.
“Hardly.”
“I thought you’d like to know that the story will be up on our site in about half an hour.”
Ava drew a deep breath. “Will it be prominent?”
“The headline is front page centre. It reads, ‘Chairman Calhoun Bribed Chairman Tsai,’ and underneath, ‘How Dennis Calhoun Really Made His Money and Reputation in China.’”
“That’s quite harsh, and very direct.”
“His lawyer shouldn’t have threatened Tamara.”
“I like the chairman connection.”
“Calhoun won’t.”
“Tsai Lian won’t like it any better, particularly since he isn’t a chairman and the party has been rather careful about avoiding that title.”
“What he may like even less is the sidebar story we’re running. It details the Tsai empire using your chart, except that we ran out of space and couldn’t get all the companies onto it. We ended up listing them separately. It’s still impressive.”
“Thank you for that,” Ava said.
“You have to expect that the Calhoun story will be the one that’s going to get the big play here. The other papers are going to be all over it,” Dillman said. “Does anyone else know when Vincent Yin is arriving?”
“No, you’re the only one.”
“And you’ll let them know we’ll be meeting them and that we can be trusted?”
“It’s being done now.”
“Okay, then good luck to you.”
Ava ended the call and glanced at her computer. Despite what Dillman had said, she couldn’t resist looking at the Herald’s website. It was still the same day-old h
eadline. She switched to the Tribune and found herself staring at an enlarged photo of Tsai Lian wearing his aviator glasses. She read the headline and then stopped, stood up, and ran towards the door.
“Xu, get in here,” she shouted. “Things are starting to move.”
( 50 )
They sat side by side at the kitchen table, Ava’s computer screen filled with the front page of the Tribune.The headline on the right side of the page read: “Meet Tsai Lian: The Princeling of Nanjing and His Royal Chinese Family.” Underneath it read: “From Son of Communist Peasant Leader to Twenty-Billion-Dollar Man in One Generation.”
The story began:
If you want to conduct business successfully in Jiangsu, one of China’s most populous and wealthiest provinces, there is only one path to follow, and that’s to the door of any member of the Tsai family.
It is a lesson that Patriot General Insurance of Hartford, Connecticut, learned after ten years of trying and failing to get a foothold in China. One phone call to a senior family member led to a meeting with another. Six months later, Patriot funnelled $150 million to a company called AKG Consulting, officially owned by a man named Zhu Huan. Zhu is the husband of Ying Jie, who is the daughter of Ying Fa, the Communist Party secretary in Jiangsu and cousin to Tsai Lian, the governor of Jiangsu. AKG promptly transferred the $150 million to another firm, Mother of Pearl Investments, which is controlled by Wu Wai Wai, the sister of Tsai Lian. Mother of Pearl used the $150 million to buy all of Jiangsu Insurance. Patriot was given a 49 percent stake for putting up 100 percent of the money used to buy the local insurance company.
Why was Patriot so generous? Why were they willing to settle for a minority share after putting up all of the money?
Within a year, nearly all of the provincial government’s insurance business was flowing through Jiangsu Insurance, and the company’s value had increased fourfold. Within three years, other American and European companies that wanted to do business in the province found it wise to have their insurance needs met by Jiangsu. The company’s value rose to close to ten times the original purchase price, and Patriot’s $150 million investment had turned into nearly half a billion in equity. Moreover, Jiangsu was churning out profits about 30 percent higher than the industry norm. Why? Because it didn’t have to worry about competition.