Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (133 page)

“That is why I appeal to you, sir. My company, BOSS, has recently become a victim of this campaign. The attention of the British public has been drawn to our operations in Ubomo by groups of these people who call themselves childish names such as ‘Greenpeace’ or ‘The Friends of the Earth’.” Heng grimaced at the title, and Tug nodded. “I know it sounds silly and harmless, but one such Organisation is led by a fanatical young woman. She has chosen my company as her target. She has already managed to do us some damage. There is a small but noticeable decline in sales and income that is directly attributable to her campaign. Some of our major markets in the United Kingdom and the United States are getting nervous, and asking us to back off from Ubomo or at least to play down our involvement, and I personally have received hate mail and death threats.”

“You do not take those seriously?”

“No, Mr. Ning, I do not, although these are from people who blow up animal experimentation laboratories and set fire to furrier’s shops. However, I think it might be prudent to play down BOSS’s role in Ubomo, or at least to give it better public relations.”

“What do you propose, Sir Peter?”

“Firstly, I have already hired an independent film-producer, quite well-known in Europe and America, to film a television feature on Ubomo with particular emphasis on the benefits to the country of our involvement.”

“You do not plan to expose all the syndicate’s operations to the camera, Sir Peter?” There was a tone of alarm in Heng’s question.

“Of course not, Mr. Ning. The film-producer will be carefully guided to show our syndicate in the best possible light.”

“It may even be necessary to prepare some exhibits for him to film. To put on a little show for his benefit?” Heng suggested.

“Exactly, Mr. Ning. We will keep him away from the sensitive areas of our operations.”

Heng nodded. “That is wise. You seem to have arranged matters without my help.”

“You are in a better position than I am, Mr. Ning. These so called green people cannot reach you here in Taiwan. Your own Chinese people are too pragmatic to take up such an immature attitude to mining and forestry, especially as nearly all the products that we reap will be shipped here. You are invulnerable to this childish but dangerous influence.”

“Yes.” Heng nodded. “I see that all you have said makes good sense, but where does it lead us?”

“I want Lucky Dragon to become the figurehead of the syndicate. I want one of your best men, rather than one of mine, to go to Ubomo and take charge of the operations there. I will pull out my geologists and forestry experts and architects; you will put in Chinese experts. I will gradually sell off my share of the syndicate to Hong Kong front companies and other oriental nominees.

“Although you and I will meet regularly and discreetly to direct the syndicate operations, BOSS will gradually withdraw from the scene.”

“You will become the invisible man, Sir Peter.” Heng chuckled with genuine amusement.

“The invisible man, I like that.” Tug laughed with him. “May I know who it is that you would send to Ubomo to take charge there.”

Ning Heng H’Sui stopped laughing and tugged thoughtfully at the silver tuft that hung from his cheek. His sons, sitting below him at the long lacquer table, leaned forward, trying not to display their eagerness, watching their father’s face with impassive expressions that were betrayed by their eyes.

“Ha!” Heng coughed and wet his lips from the tea bowl. “That will require some consideration, Sir Peter. Will you give me a week or so to decide?”

“Of course, Mr. Ning. It is not a decision to be taken lightly. We will need somebody clever and dedicated and…” he hesitated as he weighed the adjective, discarding ruthless as too explicit, and strong, “yet diplomatic.”

“I will telephone you with my decision. Where will you be, Sir Peter?”

“Well, I am flying to Sydney tomorrow morning, and from there I will go on directly to Nairobi and Kahali in Ubomo to meet President Taffari. However, my aircraft has direct satellite communication. You can contact me in flight as easily as if I were in the next room.

“These modern miracles.” Heng shook his head. “Sometimes it is difficult for an old man to adjust.

“It seems to me that you are old only in experience and sagacity, Mr. Ning. In courage and dash you are young, sir.” Tug said, not entirely in flattery, and Ning Heng H’Sui inclined his head graciously.

Chapter 26

Cheng had waited patiently for exactly the right moment to present his father with the gift that he had brought for him from Africa. It was almost two weeks since Sir Peter Harrison had visited Taiwan and still his father had made no announcement within the family as to which of his sons he was sending to run the syndicate’s operation in Ubomo.

All the brothers knew it must be one of them. They had known it the moment that the Englishman had made the request. Cheng had noticed the others lean forward at the words, and he had seen his own excitement and expectation mirrored in their eyes. Ever since then, the brothers had been walking around each other like dogs with stiff legs. The extent of Lucky Dragon’s investment in the Ubomo syndicate was unprecedented. When the project was fully financed and developed, the family would be committed to raising almost a thousand million dollars, much of it borrowed from banks in Hong Kong and Japan.

It must be one of the sons. Ning Heng H’Sui would never put so much trust in an outsider. Only his age forced him to delegate the task to one of them. Not long ago he would have taken command in Ubomo into his own hands, but now his sons knew he had to give it to one of them, and each of them would kill for the honour. That command would be the ultimate accolade which would show clearly whom Heng had chosen as his heir.

Cheng longed for the honour with a passion so intense that it denied him sleep and spoiled his appetite. In the two weeks since Sir Peter’s visit, Cheng had lost weight and become pale and hollow-cheeked. Now, when he exercised in the gymnasium with his hired sparring partners, his body was lean to the point of emaciation. Every rib showed through the hard rubbery casing of muscle. However, his blows and kicks had lost none of their fury. As he fought, his dark eyes, sunken into bruisedlooking cavities, glittered with a feverish intensity.

He found every excuse to be in his father’s company. Even when the old man was painting, or meditating with the Confucian priests at the shrine in the gardens of the estate, or cataloguing his ivory collection, Cheng; tried to be with him, keeping himself close. Yet he sensed that the moment was not exactly right to make the gift. He believed that his father’s choice must in the end come down to that between his second brother, Wu, and Cheng himself.

The eldest brother, Fang, was tough and ruthless, but lacking in guile and cunning, a good hatchet man but not a leader. The third son, Ling, possessed an unreliable temperament. He was clever, as clever as either Wu or Cheng, but he was easily panicked and inclined to fly into a rage when things went against him. Ling would never head Lucky Dragon. He might become Number Two perhaps, but never Number One. No, Cheng reasoned, the choice must be between himself and Wu.

As a child he had recognized Wu as his main rival and in consequence he hated him with a single-minded malevolence.

While she had been alive, Cheng’s English mother had protected him from his half-brothers. But after she died he had been at their mercy. It had taken all these years to learn to hold his own and insinuate himself ever deeper into his father’s favour.

Cheng recognized that this would be his chance, his only chance for supremacy. His father was old, more than old, he was ancient. Despite his seemingly boundless strength and energy, Cheng sensed that his father was near death. It might come at any moment of any day, and he went cold at the thought.

He knew that unless he consolidated his accession while his father still lived, Wu would wrest it from him with the help of his two full brothers, the moment his father died. He sensed also that his father was on the point of deciding on the Ubomo project. He knew that this was his moment. This was the slack water of the tide of his fortunes, and now they must turn and begin to flood, or he would be for ever stranded on the mudbanks.

“Honourable Father, I have something for you. A small and humble token of the respect and gratitude I feel for you. May I present it?”

Fortune seemed to conspire with Cheng to provide an appropriate opportunity. The old man was spry today, his mind quick and his waning bodily strength in some measure restored. He had eaten a ripe fig and an apple for breakfast, and had composed a classical stanza while Cheng walked him down to the shrine. It was an ode to the mountain peak that stood above the estate. The poem began:
Beloved of clouds who caress her face …

It was good, although not as good as his father’s paintings and ivory carvings, Cheng thought. However, when the old man recited it, Cheng clasped his hands. “I am awed that so much genius resides in one person. I wish only that I had inherited a few grains of it for myself.”

He thought he might have overdone it a little, but the old man accepted the praise and for a moment tightened his grip on Cheng’s arm. “You are a good son,” he said. And your mother…” his voice trailed off mournfully, “your mother was a woman.” He shook his head and Cheng thought incredulously that the old man’s eyes had moistened. It must have been his imagination. His father was not prey to weakness and sentimentality.

When he looked again his father’s eyes were clear and bright, and the old man was smiling.

That morning Heng stayed on at the shrine much longer than he usually did. He wanted to inspect the work on his own tomb. One of the most famous geomancers on the island had come to position the tomb precisely and to orientate it so that it stood neither on an earth dragon’s head nor on his tail. That would have disturbed the old man’s death sleep.

The georriancer had worked with a compass and a magic bag for almost an hour, directing the efforts of the priests and the servants to get the marble sarcophagus laid properly.

All this preparation for his own funeral put Heng into a pleasant relaxed mood, and when they were finished Cheng seized the moment and asked to be allowed to present his gift. Heng smiled and nodded. “You may bring it to me, my son.”

“Alas, father, the nature of the gift makes that impossible. I must take you to it.”

Heng’s expression changed. These days he seldom left the estate. He seemed about to refuse. However, Cheng had anticipated his reaction. All he needed to do was lift one hand and the Rolls that was parked behind the clipped privet hedger, beyond the lotus pools slid silently forward. Before the old man could protest, Cheng had helped him into the back seat and settled him comfortably with a cashmere rug over his knees. The chauffeur knew where to take them.

As the Rolls came down the mountain road on to the littoral plain, Heng and Cheng were isolated and protected from the heat and humidity, and from the teeming humanity that clogged the road with Vespa motorcycles and buses, wild chicken taxis and heavily laden trucks.

When they entered Chung Ching South Road in the Hsimending area of the city the chauffeur slowed and turned in through the gates of the Lucky Dragon company’s main city warehouse.

The guards jumped to attention as they recognized the couple in the back seat.

One of the warehouse doors stood open and after the car drove through, the steel shutter doors rolled closed behind it.

The Rolls parked on one of the loading ramps and Cheng helped his father out of the back door and took his elbow to lead him to a carved teak chair that stood like a throne, covered with embroidered silk cushions, overlooking the floor below the ramp.

As soon as his father was comfortable, Cheng signaled one of the servants to bring freshly made tea. He sat on one of the cushions lower than Heng and they drank tea and talked quietly of unrelated subjects.

Cheng was drawing out the moment, trying to spice his father’s anticipation. If he succeeded, the old man did not show it. He barely glanced towards the floor below.

Ten brawny workmen knelt in a row facing the throne. Cheng had dressed them in black tunics, with red headbands, and the emblem of the Lucky Dragon embroidered on their backs also in red. He had rehearsed them carefully and they were motionless, heads bowed respectfully.

Finally, after ten minutes of talk and tea, Cheng told his father, “This is the present I have brought you from Africa.” He indicated the rows of chests, arranged behind, the workmen. “It is such a poor little present that now I am ashamed to offer it to you.”

“Tea?” Heng smiled. “Cases of tea? Enough tea to last me the rest of my lifetime. it is a fine gift, my son.”

“It is a poor gift, but may I open the cases for you?” Cheng asked, and the old man nodded his permission.

Cheng clapped his hands and the ten workmen sprang to their feet and ran to seize one of the tea-chests and bring it forward. They worked swiftly, efficiently. With half a dozen blows of a slap-hammer and a twist of a jernmy bar, they lifted the lid off the first case.

Heng showed the first sign of animation and leaned forward in the high chair. Two of the workmen lifted out the first tusk from its bed of caked black tea.

Cheng had long ago arranged that it should be one of the largest and most finely shaped tusks in the entire shipment of stolen ivory. He had asked Chetti Singh to mark the case that contained it before the shipment left the Indian’s warehouse in Malawi.

The tusk was long, over seven feet long, but not as thick and blunt as one of the typical massively heavy tusks from further north than Zimbabwe. Yet from an entirely aesthetic point of view this one was more pleasing, its girth more in proportion to its length and the curve and taper were elegant. It was neither cracked nor damaged and the patina above the lip was creamy yellow.

Involuntarily Heng clapped his hands with pleasure and exclaimed aloud. “Bring it to me!”

Two of the workmen, struggling under the burden, climbed the concrete steps and knelt before him offering the lovely tusk. Heng stroked the ivory and his eyes sparkled in the cobweb of wrinkles that surrounded them.