Hong Kong (6 page)

"I remember you and Tiger flew a plane from the carrier into Cubi Point during the final months of the Vietnam War," Callie said, "and I went to the Philippines to meet you. I remember meeting him at the airport when you showed me the plane before you left."

Jake nodded. He, too, remembered. "A few weeks after mat we were shot down," he said.

"As I recall," Callie said, "he was tall, silent, intense."

"That was Tiger. He never had much to say, but when he did, people listened."

She had been a junior translator at the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong in those days. And now Tiger Cole was the consul general. Who would have guessed?

'Tiger broke his back in the ejection," Jake continued, recalling days he hadn't thought about in years. "After we were rescued he spent a long time in the hospital, then they sent him to Pensacola for rehabilitation. He finally said to hell with it and pulled the plug. I think he went back to college in California, got a master's in something or other, then got involved in the computer industry."

"I lost his address about ten years ago," Callie explained. "He sent us Christmas cards, then we moved or he moved or whatever."

Jake Grafton chuckled. "Sometimes life deals you an ace. Last month
Fortune
magazine said he was in on the ground floor of three big high-tech start-ups."

"And now he's the consul general," Callie said distractedly. "Why do you want me to translate this tape?"

Jake summarized his morning conversation with Carmel-

lini while Callie finished her salad. "The tape may contain something worth knowing. China Bob was a rainmaker, a wheeler-dealer who played every angle he could find. Something on that tape might shed some light on what is happening in this town."

"You mean on what the Americans are doing to help make it happen?"

"If they are."

"This CIA officer, Carmellini? Do you trust him?"

"I met him last year in Cuba," Jake explained. "He was working with a CIA officer who was subsequently killed. The dead officer told me Carmellini was a safecracker before the CIA recruited him."

"That doesn't sound like anything I'd want on my resume," Callie shot back.

"It may not take all kinds, but we sure as hell got all kinds."

"Are we going to do this tonight?'

"I don't know. Whenever Carmellini shows up with a tape player."

"I certainly don't want to sit around this hotel room all evening waiting for him."

"I didn't say we should."

"Why don't you call Tiger Cole, invite him to go to dinner with us?"

"You think he'd go?" Jake asked dubiously.

"For heaven's sake, of course he'd go! Unless he has another commitment, then he'd probably want to set something up for tomorrow. Call him. Tell him you're in town and want to have dinner. I always thought you saved his life after you two were shot down."

"That's true," Jake admitted. "But he's the consul general and pretty busy and—"

"You're a two-star admiral in Uncle Sam's navy, Jake Grafton. You can buy a drink anywhere on this planet."

Rip Buckingham was about ready to send the bank story to the makeup room when he received a telephone call from the governor's office.

"This is Governor Sun's assistant, Mr. Buckingham. Your newspaper is running -story about tragedy in front of Bank of Orient? This morning?"

"Yes."

"Governor Sun Siu Ki has issued statement. Statement go in story."

The aide's English was almost impossible to follow, so Rip replied in Cantonese. "Read it to me," he said, trying to keep the dejection out of his voice.

"A crowd of justly outraged citizens gathered this morning at the Bank of the Orient to withdraw their money panicked when bank officials shamefully failed to open their doors," said the aide, reading slowly. "In the rioting that followed, several people were killed by the gallant soldiers of the People's Liberation Army while they were restoring order. The officials of the Bank of the Orient will be held responsible for this tragedy...."

There were several paragraphs more, and as the governor's assistant dictated in Cantonese, Rip wrote it down in English, in his own private shorthand. He read it back to ensure he had it, then quickly typed out the statement on his computer. He put a note above the statement for the frontpage editor, directing him to put the governor's statement in a box in the center of the page. However, he didn't change a word of his story, which gave the facts, without comment, as they had been gathered by his reporters.

When he had sent the story for the
China Post
on its electronic way, he called it up again and made some changes. His fingers flew over the keyboard, changing the slant of the story, trying to capture the despair of Saburo Genda and the hopelessness of the crowd waiting for money that rightfully belonged to them and would never be paid. He also tried to capture the callousness of the soldiers who used deadly weapons on defenseless people.

When he had finished this story, he E-mailed it and the governor's statement to the Buckingham newspapers worldwide. The
China Post
was owned by Buckingham Newspapers, Ltd., of which Rip's father, Richard, was chairman and

CEO, Richard Buckingham started with one newspaper in Adelaide at the end of World War II, and as he liked to tell it, with hard work, grit, determination, perseverance, and a generous helping of OPM—other people's money—built a newsprint empire that covered the globe. Richard still held a bit under sixty percent of the stock, which was not publicly traded. A series of romantic misadventures had spread the rest of the shares far and wide; even Rip had a smidgen under five percent.

Thirty minutes after Rip E-mailed the story to Sydney, the telephone rang. It was his father.

"Sounds like Hong Kong is heating up," Richard growled. "It is."

"When are you going to pack it in?" "We've had this conversation before, Dad." "We have. And we are going to keep having it. Sometimes in the middle of the night I wake up in a sweat, thinking of you rotting in some Communist prison because you went off your nut and told the truth in print about those sewer

rats."

"All politicians are sewer rats, not just ours."

"I'm going to quote you on that."

"Go right ahead."

"So when?"

"I don't know that my wife or mother-in-law will ever leave, Dad. This is their place. These are their people."

"No, Rip.
You
are their people. You are the husband and son-in-law, and in China that counts for just about everything. You make the decision and they will go along with it. You
know
that."

"What about the
Post?'

"I'll send someone else to run it. Maybe put it up for sale."

"Nobody is going to pay you serious money for a newspaper in Communist China, Dad. Not here, not now."

"We'll see. You never had a head for business, Rip. You are a damned good newspaperman, though, a rare talent. You come to Sydney, I'll give you any editorial job in the com-

ny except mine, which you'll get anyway in a few years."

"I'll think it over."

'The thought of you in one of those prisons, eating rats

. Oh, well." Without waiting for a response, his father

ngup.

massacre in front of the Bank of the Orient was the hot

pic of conversation among the American Culture confer-attendees during the afternoon break. One of Callie Grafton's fellow faculty members told her about it as she watched the attendees whispering furiously and gesturing angrily. Three or four of them were trying to whisper into cell

3nes. Callie didn't tell her informant that Jake had been

the crowd in front of the bank and had given her an eyewitness account at lunch.

At least twenty people were killed, the faculty member said, a figure that stunned Callie. Jake hadn't mentioned that people were killed, only that there had been some shooting.

bviously he didn't want her to worry. "Ridiculous to worry, after the fact," he would say, and grin that grin he always grinned when the danger was past.

Through the years Jake had wound up in more than his share of dangerous situations. She had thought those days behind her when he was promoted to flag rank. An admiral might go down with his ship, it was true, in a really big war, ut who was having really big wars these days? In today's world admirals sat in offices and pushed paper. And yet... somehow this morning Jake wound up in the middle of a shooting riot!

Perhaps we should go home, Callie mused, and then re-embered with a jolt that Jake was here for a reason and

uldn't leave.

She tried to forget riots and bodies and her husband's nose for trouble and concentrate on the conference.

Unfortunately, one of the attendees was a government of-

ial, a political officer sent to take notes of the questions ad answers and jot down the names of any Chinese who light be "undermining the implementation of the laws," in

the phrase the official used to explain his presence to the faculty.

This official was a bald, middle-aged party apparatchik, a generation removed from most of the attendees, who were students in their early to mid-twenties. The first day Callie Grafton found herself fixating on the man's facial expressions when any student stood to ask a question.

Angry at herself for feeling intimidated, she still had to carefully phrase her comments. While she could not be prosecuted for political deviancy, her participation in the conference could be terminated by this official on the spot. That sanction was used the very first day against a political science professor from Cornell. Callie was ready to pick up her notebook and follow him out the door, then decided a precipitous leave-taking would not be fair to the students, who came to hear her comments on American culture.

That first evening Callie remarked to Jake, "Maybe taking part in this conference was a mistake."

"Maybe," he agreed, "but neither of us thought so when the State Department came up with the invitation." State had procured a conference faculty invitation for Callie as a cover for the Graftons' presence in Hong Kong. "Don't be intimidated," Jake continued. "Answer the students' questions as best you can, and if the organizers give you the boot we'll see the sights for the rest of our stay. No big deal."

Today after the break, the questions concerned the American banking system. Hu Chiang had asked questions often during the last three days, and he was ready when the room fell silent.

"Mrs. Grafton," he asked in Chinese, the only language in use during the conference, "who decides to whom an American bank will lend its money?"

Hu was tall, more muscular than the average Chinese youth, Callie thought, which made him a fairly typical Hong Kong young adult, most of whom had enjoyed better nutrition while growing up than their mainland Chinese peers.

"The bank lending committee," Callie answered.

"The government gives the committee guidance?"

"No. Government sets the financial standards the banks must adhere to, but with only minor exceptions, the banks loan money to people and enterprises that are most capable of paying back the loan with interest, thereby earning profits for the owners of the bank."

This colloquy continued for several minutes as the party boss grew more and more uncomfortable. Finally, without even glancing at the listening official, Hu asked, "In your opinion, Mrs. Grafton, can capitalism exist in a society that lacks political freedom?"

The official sprang from his seat, turned to face Hu, and

ointed his finger. "I can sit silently no longer. That question

(a provocation, an insult to the state. You attempt to destroy

: which you do not understand. We have the weapons to

i those who plot evil." He turned toward Callie. "Ignore

provocations of the criminal elements," he ordered per-

orily, closing the discussion. Then he sat heavily and

a cloth to wipe his face.

Callie was trembling. Although she could speak the lan-

ge, she felt the strangeness of the culture acutely. She

also worried that she might somehow say something to

rdize the conference or the people who had invited her.

"Mr. Hu merely asked my opinion," Callie said, trying to

her voice steady. "I will answer the question."

The official's face reddened and his jowls quivered. "Go,"

s roared at her, half rising from his seat and pointing toward

s door. "You insult China with your disrespectful attitude."

Callie gathered her purse and headed for the door. As she

she addressed her questioner, Hu Chiang, who was

standing in the audience. "The answer to your question,

Hu, is no. Political freedom and economic freedom are

of the same coin; they cannot exist independently of