by Mark Burnell
There were persistent rumours of a Triad connection. Many of them were fuelled by Lai's reluctance to deny them; he never spoke in public on any issue, a rule he'd maintained for over twenty years. He was a known associate of Lee Wing-fat, a money-launderer wanted by the FBI in San Francisco, and Yip Wai-fa, a heroin trafficker and immigrant smuggler busted by the DEA in New York in 2000, following a raid on one of his properties on Mott Street, Manhattan.
Lai himself had faced accusations of money-laundering on more than one occasion. Privately, according to S3 sources, this had always amused him greatly. 'Of course I launder money he'd been overheard to say, I'm a casino owner.' Running cash through casinos had always been one of the easiest methods of money-laundering. Lai's hotel-casino portfolio included properties in Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.
These were his legitimate business interests and formed the first third of the file. The last two thirds documented his 'known' criminal activity.
Lai owned two companies on the mainland that were shells for software counterfeiting. For a long while the global centre for illegal software manufacture had existed on a single block in the Sham Shui Po district of Hong Kong, at the junction of Fuk Wah Street and Pei Ho Street. At the time this illegal activity had been controlled by Triads, which was one of the reasons Lai decided to establish factories in the southern province of Fujian, on the Chinese mainland. The other reason was scale; supply was being swamped by demand. By 2000 the software counterfeiting business had been worth twelve billion dollars annually. Lai had pioneered the transformation from an anarchic criminal enterprise into a streamlined industry. Since then the two factories at Fuzhou had diversified into CDs and DVDs.
Lai was also involved with the counterfeiting of spare parts for commercial airliners and the theft and resale of luxury cars worldwide, both being trades that made use of his global shipping business. But, as Magenta House pointed out, Lai himself was legally insulated from these activities by an impenetrable web of companies created by the sharpest legal minds money could buy.
Stephanie looked out of the window and wondered why Lai hadn't taken care of Waxman and Cheung himself. Particularly if his reputation for insulating himself from the sharp end of his interests was justified.
Just after two the following afternoon Stephanie boarded the Star Ferry bound for Kowloon. She took a seat to the rear of the Upper Deck. Just before the ramp was raised, Raymond Chen appeared. When they'd first met, Stephanie had thought his pony-tail was a bad idea. Seeing his hair fall freely, she was no longer sure. Wispy and greasy, the wind blew it around his head.
Chen waited until the ferry had pulled away from the pier, then handed Stephanie a photograph. 'Alan Waxman, fifty-one, born and bred in San Diego.'
'Not much of a looker.'
'Not much of a character, either. Waxman's on the Limbo list. Apparently that means something to you.'
File SA/13/RM/2.1, also known as the Limbo list, was a database containing names that had cropped up during Magenta House preparatory investigations into targets. Although not yet targets themselves, where the evidence merited it they had been added to the file. Where they languished, never to be deleted, ready for some future transgression that would allow Alexander to promote them to the bullet.
'What did he do? Fail to pay a parking fine?'
'Waxman has been conducting business on behalf of Osama bin Laden since 1991, setting up financial screens. Ghost accounts, off-the-shelf companies. Over the years he's provided the same service for Chinese criminal organizations, the Russian Mafiya and, in a private capacity, for government officials in Malaysia and Singapore.'
'He sounds good. I must take his number.'
Chen laid out the details that had earned Waxman his place on the Limbo list. On 6 September 2001 investors on the Chicago exchange bought two thousand 'put' contracts on United Airlines. That represented about ninety times the usual trading activity. The deal cost $180,000. After 11 September it was worth $2.4 million. Through a tangled knot of companies Magenta House had traced the initial order back to Waxman. Subsequently other pieces of business had been placed next to him. There had been very high levels of short selling of Munich Reinsurance, which lost £1.3 billion after the Twin Towers attack. Swiss Reinsurance also suffered, as did Axa, not to mention American Airlines. In total it was estimated that Waxman's invisible clients made about twelve million dollars out of 11 September.
'How interesting.'
Chen missed Stephanie's sarcasm and said, 'Not as interesting as this: Milan Savic has been a client, too. Last year Waxman was involved in a property deal with Chinese clients of Felix Cheung's. Hotels, two in Shenzhen, one in Guangzhou, the fourth in Macao. The reason the deal came together was because both parties had a mutual business acquaintance from the past.'
'Savic?'
'Correct. Back in the days when he was doing business with the Chinese, Waxman brokered some of his deals. They made money together. Waxman knew Cheung and introduced Savic to Gilbert Lai. Lai acted like an old-fashioned comprador when Savic first started coming to Hong Kong and China.'
'What's Felix Cheung's story?'
'Cheung is Triad through and through. At least, he was. Started out as a fei jai – just a kid hanging around on street corners looking for trouble – before becoming a 49, when he joined a Triad street-gang. He used to do the whole nine yards: pimping for hookers, running protection, loan-sharking, debt collection, narcotics. Pretty slick with a chopper too, though that never stopped him getting cut.'
Traditionally, choppers were the Triad weapon of choice, especially for street violence; kitchen cleavers, up to thirty centimetres in length, normally with a wooden handle. Most choppings were not intended to kill and were usually administered to the arms or legs. It was not uncommon for victims to lose fingers. Where death was the intention, the victim was cut all over the body and left to bleed.
'Didn't take him long to become a Red Pole, overseeing his own group of 49s. That was when he first started to make serious money. The way it works is like this: 49s hand over the money they generate to a Red Pole, who then pays them their percentage, takes a larger percentage himself, before passing the rest onwards and upwards. During this period Cheung opened restaurants throughout Kowloon – good legitimate enterprises with lots of cash running through them. Since then he's diversified. Entirely self-made, he's no idiot. He's got a shrewd investment brain and an even shrewder team of advisors to back him up. These days he's got restaurants all over the territory, also in Shenzhen, Humen, Zhuhai and Guangzhou. He owns the transport companies that supply them and the farms that produce much of their food.
'Superficially he's cleaned up his act. A respected businessman, he's a minor celebrity. He gives a lot to local charities, sits on the boards of a couple of community projects – one of them an infant school – and throws parties that make the papers. Lives in a large house in a well-protected compound in Kowloon Tong, with his wife and three children; two sons and a daughter. He also owns an apartment on MacDonnell Road, which is where he keeps his mistress. He visits her three or four times a week, usually around lunch, or early afternoon. Often she imports a friend or two.'
'A busy man.'
'Very busy. Most of the ones who've made it the way he's made it like to leave the past behind. Not Felix. He still likes to get a little dirt under his finger nails.'
The ferry began to decelerate as they approached the pier at Tsim Sha Tsui.
Chen said, 'Magenta House would like to know how they're involved.'
Stephanie smiled. 'So would I.'
Chapter 7
Gilbert Lai sent a car for her: a black BMW X5 with black windows and a mute driver. They took the Aberdeen Tunnel to the South Side. Standing on concrete stilts, Lai's house at Deep Water Bay protruded from the hill behind, a sweep of pale pink set against dark green vegetation. The three storeys were staggered, the façade a curve. From the road there was a twisting drive that led to the rear of t
he house. Vehicles were parked along it, thirty or forty of them, gleaming and expensive. On the phone, Lai had mentioned that he would have guests. Stephanie had assumed that meant three or four.
The entrance was on the top floor, an open space with a wall of glass at the front, overlooking Deep Water Bay. A servant was waiting for her, dressed in black. Head bowed, eyes averted, he led Stephanie away from the steps that led to the terrace below, where Lai's guests had congregated. Instead she found herself being ushered into an enormous room with no windows.
'Mr. Lai will be with you as soon as he can.'
With that, the door closed and she was alone.
There were paintings on the walls, set well apart, each independently lit. Down the centre of the room were four glass display cases, two on either side of a sculpture that sat at the centre of the room: a smooth globe of a head by Constantin Brancusi, dated 1913, in bronze with gold leaf and dark brown patina.
Stephanie examined the paintings on the far wall: mostly Dutch, sixteenth and seventeenth century, they included works by Salomon van Ruysdael, Thomas de Keyser, Gerard Ter Borch and Johannes Lingelbach. The wall opposite contained only contemporary paintings; Karel Appel, Asger Jorn, Jean Dubuffet and Jean Michel Basquiat. The display cases were a mixture of porcelain, glass and silver, and also included two Fabergé eggs.
The floor was the last thing Stephanie noticed. At first glance it appeared to be nothing more than a hard mottled surface, divided into large squares. But when she looked at it more closely she realized that what she was standing on was reinforced glass and that there was something beneath.
She dropped to a crouch. The speckle effect began to come into focus. They were tiny leaves, perhaps, of several colours: orange, rust, grey, ochre. But there was still something further beneath.
Gradually she saw. They weren't leaves. They were hands. Tiny hands, palms upward, supporting the glass panel on which she stood. Beneath the hands were arms and bodies. Small men, in work clothes, made from plastic or some kind of resin, all identical, packed tightly together. Thousands of them per square. She looked up and down the room and tried to guess how many there were in total.
A male voice said, 'One million, more or less …'
She looked over her shoulder. Gilbert Lai was standing in the doorway. She stood up and smoothed the creases that had appeared in her black linen skirt.
'Of all the pieces of art in this room, this floor is my favourite. And unlike every other piece, it's a copy. The Brancusi – at auction, that would probably sell for somewhere between eight and ten million dollars. This floor, built to fit this room, is worth nothing.'
'I've never seen anything like it.'
'The original was created by the Korean artist Do-Ho Suh. A true genius, despite being Korean. He has made entire apartments – accurate in every detail and to scale – out of diaphanous silk and nylon. He created wallpaper out of thirty-seven thousand miniature photographic portraits. Everything he does stimulates the mind. Take it from me, Miss Reuter, a man of my wealth can afford anything, and that can be a curse. It can leave you jaded. I find Do-Ho Suh is the antidote to that.'
Lai was wearing black trousers, a Gucci belt to go with his Gucci loafers – complete with matching gold buckles – and a silk shirt with stripes of black, lilac, chocolate and deep purple.
'Have you come to a decision?'
'Almost.'
'What else do you need?'
'Answers.'
He nodded slowly. 'You want to know what the condition is?'
When they'd spoken on the phone, Lai had said there was one condition that he would have to impose if she accepted the contract. She'd asked what it was and he'd declined to tell her, arguing that until she accepted, it was irrelevant.
'Is that the only answer you require?'
'Not quite.'
'What else?'
'I need to know the reason.'
'Why?'
'Because I don't walk into anything blind.'
'I give you my word …'
'I don't want your word. I want the reason.'
He chewed on this for a moment, then conceded. 'The reason and the condition are entwined. The condition is this: both men must die simultaneously.'
'I'm sure that can be managed.'
'Not as easily as you might imagine. They are never in each other's company.'
'Never?'
'Never. For precisely this reason.'
'Anywhere else and that might sound like paranoia.'
'I'm a rich man but I didn't start out that way, Miss Reuter. I had to fight to get where I am today. Over the years I've made deals, alliances and enemies. Mostly, over those years, I've been a predator but, as I've grown richer and older, I have become a target for other predators. Younger, hungrier, stronger – you could describe it as some sort of Darwinian cycle – they see age as weakness. But I have two advantages over them: experience, and the resilience that comes through experience.
'Felix Cheung is a parasite. He's enriched himself by feeding off others. He hasn't created anything. The restaurants he owns are simply vehicles for crime. The parties he throws, the donations he makes – they are cold and calculated. I don't pretend to be a virtuous man, but I have a code that I adhere to. Cheung doesn't. His only interest is money. He would sell his mother to a butcher.'
'In my line of work I've come across men like that before.'
'I'm sure you have. And men like me, I expect. I don't know how much you know about me but I imagine that in the past few days you have been finding out what you can.'
'Naturally.'
'Then let me ask you this. Last year my son – my only child, as it happens – was kidnapped. Did you know that?'
Raymond Chen hadn't mentioned it in his capacity as a Magenta House mouthpiece, or in his own right. 'No.'
'That is because it was never reported. Not to the authorities, not by the media. Yet if you ask me how many people in Hong Kong had heard something of the incident, I would say many thousands. If somebody told me that figure was as high as half a million, I wouldn't disbelieve it. Rumours preying on rumours based on a kernel of truth. Hong Kong operates on many levels, including those levels that are not open to your sources.'
'Evidently.'
'The kidnap was organized by Felix Cheung. My son was held captive for a month. Inevitably, there was a negotiation. As a father, all I can say is that I was prepared to meet the first demand instantly. But I couldn't. Because if I had, other demands would have followed. As you probably know better than I do, there is a process to go through. Neither side can acquiesce too swiftly, nor be too resolute in any given position. It's a dance. And a very brutal one, too.'
Lai moved into the room and paused by the Brancusi, running his hand over the smooth, clean curves.
'When they sent the first demand, they also sent my son's severed right ear to prove how serious they were. The final demand, four weeks later, was accompanied by a videotape. It showed Cheung's men beating him with hose-pipe before cutting off the little finger from his left hand and forcing it into his mouth. Two days later he was released.'
'What did you pay?'
'A lot. But not very much at all, really.'
'And how is he?'
Lai was still caressing the Brancusi, but now he turned his back to her. 'He's living in Europe. At first he was in a clinic outside Stockholm. Now he lives in Geneva. He likes to ski. At one time I had hoped he would take over from me. Now I think he'll probably pursue our mutual interest in art. Before last year that would have made me angry. Now it makes me happy.'
'That's what this about – revenge?'
'Sadly, it's rather more complicated. Part of the agreement I struck with Cheung was that once my son was returned, and once he'd received his money, there would be no further action on either side. This sort of arrangement is not unprecedented in this part of the world. Alan Waxman was brought in to negotiate the details on Cheung's behalf. When the money was paid, it was Waxman
who handled it and who has subsequently been responsible for investing it. This I know through my own sources.'
'If it's not revenge, what is it?'
Lai turned again to face her. 'Despite the agreement, both Cheung and Waxman felt it necessary to take precautions. They let me know that if anything happened to either one of them, the other one would enforce retribution. I think you can guess what that means.'
'Your son?'
He nodded. 'In order to strengthen this position, they agreed not to meet again. This has not been a problem. Although Waxman has represented Cheung for a number of years, they had only met twice prior to my son's kidnap. It's not as though they are friends. Anyway, this was a measure they decided to adopt in order to protect themselves.'
'So if you're going to do one, you need to do both.'
'Exactly.'
'But if you'd all agreed that the matter was resolved, and if you insist you're not in it for revenge, why bother?'
'Waxman and Cheung have grown complacent. They feel secure. So secure, in fact, that they feel they can elicit more money from me. And, to be frank, they could. The trouble is, once they start, where will it end? My only priority is to protect my son from further harm. I take it you don't have any children?'
'No.'
'I don't mean to be condescending, but if you ever do, you'll understand. My fear is not that I shall bleed to perpetual blackmail. I can afford to. But I cannot – will not – allow the possibility of further harm to my son.'
'I understand.'
'Not fully, I'm afraid. It now transpires that they are actively planning to renege on our agreement.'
'When?'
'Some time within the next three months.'