Beijing Smog

by Ian Williams

  Airpocalypse opened and after a few seconds a big yellow window appeared with the figure 375, and below that the words “Air Soup” and an image of a man in a mask. Drayton loved these guys. The figure meant the air had improved a bit from earlier, but for the tiny dangerous bits that did the most damage it was still hazardous, still fifteen times what experts said was safe, and that wasn’t funny.

  There was banging from the spiral staircase, somebody slipping, almost falling over as they tried to make their way down. It was one of two girls clinging to the arms of the birthday boy, the older man following behind, face set in stone.

  The boy was still in his wet clothes, black jeans and a tight grey pullover over a black T-shirt, designer casual. He was still wearing his dark glasses, a cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth. He was carrying his shoes, as was one of the girls who’d been in the Jacuzzi with him. She had a towel around her shoulders, and was wearing a short black dress, wet and clinging to her.

  The older man was wearing a dark windcheater over a white polo, which struck Drayton as classic bureaucrat-issue.

  They walked down a long corridor lined with wooden wine racks and took the lift to the lobby. Drayton followed, taking the next lift, down a glass tube looking out over a barely visible city, descending through the smog.

  The kids were unsteady on their feet, clinging to each other as they crossed the lobby, but with a bit of guidance they managed to negotiate the hotel’s revolving door and out to its covered drop-off and pick-up area, the boy handing a sodden piece of paper to the concierge.

  The boy then detached himself from the girls and went over to the older man, who had been standing to one side, putting one hand against the window to steady himself, neither of them noticing Drayton, who was now sitting the other side of the darkened window, looking out. They talked for a while, the older man smiling for the first time, putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder again, patting him, then pointing to where a red Ferrari was pulling up behind them.

  A bellhop got out of the driver’s door, leaving it open, before walking around the car and opening the passenger door towards which the two girls staggered before tumbling inside, the bellhop closing the door with a look of complete indifference.

  With a wave to the older man, the boy got into the driver’s seat and revved the engine like he was on the grid at Le Mans. The wheels span and the car lurched forward towards the road, onto which it made a screeching right turn, forcing an oncoming taxi to brake and swerve.

  The bellhop and the concierge glanced at each other with an expression that said to Drayton that they’d seen it all before, though he suspected that neither would be entirely upset if the Ferrari veered into a lamppost.

  Soon after the Ferrari left, a black Audi pulled up, a licence plate of red and black text on a white background. Military. The concierge opened the rear door and the older man climbed inside, on the phone now.

  The car turned left out of the hotel and headed north.

  Drayton left the hotel on foot, making a call. The number rang three times before somebody who didn’t speak picked it up.

  “Our friend is on his way,” were the only words Drayton spoke. Then he hung up.

  It started to rain, more of a heavy drizzle really, which suited him just fine. He bought an umbrella from a woman selling them in the street outside the hotel, and pulled his hood over his head. With the big black pollution mask he felt suitably anonymous.

  The area he headed into was one of the last around the Bund still to be developed, and was a jumble of new office buildings, apartments and construction sites, mostly close to the river, side by side with weathered warehouses and narrow lanes of dilapidated shophouses, some boarded up, waiting for demolition.

  The roads were now quiet and dark, most of the light coming from the Pudong skyline, which loomed like a giant from across the river. He entered a shabby building with a hostel sign at the front, squeezed between a noodle shop and a motorcycle repair centre. He waited just inside the door and looked back down the street from where he’d come.

  A police car with flashing lights passed slowly along the road in front.

  A voice from the gloomy interior of the hostel asked what he wanted. Drayton said he needed the washroom and the voice said it was at the back.

  Drayton walked towards the back of the building, but before he found the washroom he passed another half-opened door that led out to an alleyway behind the hostel. He went out into the alleyway and followed it to where it joined another road, where he waited.

  A pile of black trash bags rustled and pulsated by his left leg, so he kicked them, then jumped back as rats spilled out in every direction, some across his shoes. He kicked at the rats, still coming out of the bags.

  “For fuck’s sake.”

  He hated rats.

  A woman looked from a window down the alley, asking what was going on.

  He decided he was done with being cautious and, satisfied he wasn’t being followed, walked deeper into a maze of old narrow streets until he came to a fading white low-rise building, set back from the street. It could have been a warehouse at some point, but no longer carried any signs identifying it.

  It could easily have been dismissed as another abandoned building, if not for the array of antennae and satellite dishes on the roof, and a heavy sliding metal door at the front, watched over by a cluster of security cameras. The door led to what looked like a courtyard beyond.

  Drayton walked past the building, bringing his umbrella down low against his head, turned another corner and entered an old office building, where he took a lift that creaked its way up to the top floor of the twelve-storey building.

  He left the lift and walked to a door with a plaque outside reading SHANGHAI TT LOGISTICS. He unlocked the door and let himself in.

  The outer office was deserted. It was sparsely furnished – just a reception desk and a coffee table with sofa and one other chair. There were some shelves with guidebooks to Shanghai, gathering dust, and a single picture on the wall of the Bund at night.

  There was also a fish tank; most Chinese offices had fish tanks, only this one had no fish, just an inch of fetid green water.

  There was another door behind the reception desk, on which Drayton knocked twice, twice again, then three more times before he heard heavy bolts being slid open.

  “Hi Chuck. Everything okay?”

  “Fine, Dave. How’s Team Panda?”

  “We’ve had a busy day. Lots of comings and goings down there.”

  The room contained two sofas, an armchair and two tables, one with an overflowing ashtray and empty coffee cups. There was a case of beer beneath the table.

  The other longer table had on it two cameras with telephoto lenses, binoculars and a laptop. It was close to a window that looked down on the entrance to the white warehouse-like building, and with glass adapted to prevent anybody seeing into the room.

  “Just like in the satellite photo, hey?” said Dave.

  “Yeah,” said Drayton. “Now tell me about the Colonel.”

  The man called Dave handed him a camera and he played back a series of shots of a black Audi arriving at the white gate, the gate sliding open, and the car driving inside.

  The gate stayed open just long enough for the camera to catch the older man from the birthday party getting out of the car and being saluted by two men in military uniform. Then the heavy gate slid shut again.

  The time on the last photo was 20.23.

  “That’s nearly seven thirty in the morning DC time,” Drayton said. “He’s working American hours. Makes sense.”

  “This guy we’re calling the Colonel, what do we really know about him, Chuck?” said Dave.

  “Right now, not a lot,” Drayton said. “But I’m working on it.”

  – 8 –

  Sha
dows on the Bund

  Anthony Morgan left his Lucky Bund View apartment as the sun should have been rising, but the sky was grey, everything was grey. It was as if the whole city had been drained of colour, the neighbouring towers of Pudong just shadows in the gloom.

  He’d slept badly. It wasn’t just the Bud problem. Clients were becoming cautious about China, and he needed to convince them to keep their faith in the Chinese economy, to keep their investments flowing, and with them the fat fees he charged because he was their guiding hand. He was Mr China. But that was becoming a bigger challenge by the day.

  Still, this new client, this American called Drayton, seemed promising. The call had come out of the blue, Drayton introducing himself as the US Consulate’s commercial guy, looking for some due diligence on business partners for American companies. He said it needed to be discreet, which was fine by Morgan, but dawn on the Bund discreet seemed a bit much.

  He decided to take the ferry across the Huangpu, but quickly regretted it as he stepped in a deep puddle crossing the road that separated his luxury apartment complex from a low shed-like building from which the ferry left every half hour.

  It wasn’t cold, but there was a chilly damp after heavy overnight rain, one of those damps that penetrated every seam of his coat. At least it had cleared some of the smog. He’d checked his air quality app before leaving, which gave a reading of a still-dangerous 256. He chose a mid-range pollution mask.

  There were five other people waiting for the ferry. A young boy and his mother and another young couple were all bent over the screens of their smartphones, which glowed brightly in the dark of a damp waiting room.

  Outside, an older man in a leather peaked hat was standing under posters saying no smoking or spitting, with helpful cartoons of both. He lit a cigarette and cleared his throat, a long high-pitched retch, and spat into a trashcan.

  The crossing was quick; Morgan had taken it dozens of times, but it still enthralled and sometimes alarmed him, the way the ferry picked its way through the heavy river traffic.

  Even this early in the morning it was more like watching a freight train on a railway line than a river, a seemingly endless passage of ships sitting so low in the water that they looked like they might submerge, submarine-like, at any moment. Morgan guessed that some of them did. Most were weighed down with what looked like sludge or sand, and were at times three abreast.

  The river was fast-moving and the ferry seemed to struggle against the tide, steaming parallel to the passing ships until it spotted a small break in the traffic, powered up, and went for the gap.

  Morgan left the ferry, and climbed stairs to a wide walkway beside the river, alongside the old buildings of the Bund, or rather their darkened silhouettes.

  His client had asked to meet near the old Customs House, and bells rang from its clock tower, almost invisible in the gloom.

  He began to walk north towards the bells, passing joggers, some in masks, some jogging backwards, which Morgan had never quite been able to figure out. Two men were trying to launch an enormous kite, as big as them, eagle-shaped.

  A bigger group of older people were moving slowly, rhythmically, raising their hands, twisting, turning and bowing in unison. Further along, women in bright tracksuits were dancing to traditional Chinese music, fans in hand. Another group were prancing up and down, round and round to Chinese pop.

  Dawn on the Bund.

  “What a fucking circus,” said a voice from behind him.

  He turned to face a tall man in a black coat and scarf, collar turned up, a head of thick black hair swept back and wearing a big black pollution mask.

  “Chuck Drayton. Nice to meet you.”

  “You too,” said Morgan. “A little early.”

  “Nothing like a bracing early morning stroll on the Bund, Tony. Or is it Anthony?”

  Morgan said Tony was fine, and Drayton said to call him Chuck.

  They began walking north, Morgan saying he knew a good place for coffee and maybe breakfast. That it was quiet and private.

  Drayton said he liked quiet and private.

  “Tough doing business in China, I imagine,” said Drayton.

  Morgan said it could be, and Drayton said the consulate had just been dealing with one pain-in-the-arse American businessman, now in a Shanghai hospital.

  “An accident?”

  “Yes and no,” Drayton said. “He was in Ningbo, at the airport, walking towards his gate and on his phone, texting, when he got hit by one of those ridiculous electric buggy things, speeding around a corner, and moving a bunch of Chinese VIPs who couldn’t be arsed to walk. Broke three ribs and fractured his ankle.”

  “Wow. I guess there’s a compensation issue.”

  “You could say that. Police kept the guy’s passport and refused to give it back until he coughed up US$5,000 in compensation for damage to the buggy.”

  “So, did you sort it out?”

  “Well, here’s the thing. We did sort it out. Or thought we did. But you know what? This businessman says, no, he wants to pay compensation to the people who nearly killed him because he doesn’t want to rock the boat, doesn’t want to risk losing a contract he’s close to getting with some local state-owned company.”

  “That’s too bad,” Morgan said. “Stuff happens in China. But it’s an important market. Sometimes you have to be pragmatic.”

  And Drayton said that wasn’t being pragmatic, that was being stupid.

  Morgan let that go, though it did strike him that for a diplomat this guy Drayton wasn’t particularly diplomatic. It was a good story though, which he’d pass on later to followers of @Beijing_smog.

  They passed another smaller group, men and women this time, dancing, twirling slowly to a haunting piece of music. One of them gestured to Morgan to join them. He smiled and waved. Maybe next time.

  “Go on,” said Drayton. “I won’t tell Mrs Morgan. Bet you can do that twirly stuff.”

  “Used to,” Morgan said.

  “I hear you and Mrs Morgan are good. The best corporate investigators in China,” Drayton said.

  “Thanks. We’ve been here a long time,” said Morgan, a little puzzled since he couldn’t remember telling Drayton about his wife. But he let that go too. The American must have done his own due diligence about MacMaster and Brown.

  “I’d love to meet her.”

  “Who?”

  “Your wife. Must have some great contacts.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. Though she’s been pretty busy.”

  “I can imagine,” Drayton said.

  He had zero intention of giving Drayton direct access to his wife, precisely because her contacts were so good. It was the way they worked on investigations. He dealt with the clients. And, anyway, he resented the implication that it was his wife who did the work. Sure, she got the raw data, but it was he, Morgan, who gave it context, provided the analyses.

  They crossed an old metal bridge over a small river off the Huangpu and entered a baroque-style hotel called the Astor House, Morgan telling Drayton it dated back to the 1840s, just after the first Opium War, founded by a Scottish merchant.

  “Oh yeah?” said Drayton, who’d stopped just outside and was looking back down the street, towards the bridge.

  “You okay?”

  “Thought I saw someone I knew,” Drayton said.

  He followed Morgan into the hotel, a doorman in white uniform holding the door open for him.

  “Let me show you something,” Morgan said, leading Drayton down a corridor off the ornate lobby. The corridor was lined with photographs, a history of the hotel that was also a history of the city. A plaque said Ulysses Grant, Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin had all stayed there.

  “So we’re in pretty good company,” Drayton said.

  The long photo-lin
ed corridor was book-ended by two little massage places.

  “I assume they’re a recent addition. Or is that where Ulysses went for a rub down?” Drayton said.

  Morgan said he really liked the place. That it was tired and weathered, but full of charm. That sooner or later it would be taken over and renovated and turned into some super-luxurious place, which would kill the charm.

  Drayton didn’t seem to be listening. He was looking inside one of the massage places, which was open in spite of it being so early, though he couldn’t see anybody on duty.

  “Just curious,” he said. “You like a massage?”

  “Sometimes,” Morgan said, looking a little embarrassed.

  They took a table in a dining room. Drayton said he thought it resembled an opera house, with its marble pillars, high roof and stuff, and asked when the fat lady was going to sing. There were even little high-up balconies surrounding the hall and a series of big chandeliers.

  Morgan fetched two coffees from a long table at the back of the hall. The machine spluttered and hissed, but eventually filled the cups with something the machine described as espresso.

  When he got back to the table, Drayton asked him, “What’s with the OBE?”

  “That was a few years ago,” Morgan said, brushing it off, but loving the moment. He always did when he was asked that question and had a chance to flaunt it, affecting an air of modesty.

  “It was no big deal,” he said. “It was just for doing my best, for services to British trade. It was presented by the Queen.”

  Drayton said yeah, he’d seen the photographs in the MacMaster and Brown promotional stuff. In the company reports.

  “Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Pretty impressive,” Drayton said. “You don’t have any problems with the Chinese with all that empire stuff? I mean they’re always droning on about the gunboats and the opium. All that national humiliation stuff. The way your empire snatched Hong Kong.”