The Princeling of Nanjing (30 page)

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 headline. 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.”

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.

The California Technical Trust Bank of San Francisco had the same good fortune. It established a subsidiary in Jiangsu called California Asian Trust. That company put a lot of cash into AKG and another firm, New Age Capital. New Age is owned by Ying Jie and Hu Chi. Ying Jie is the wife of Zhu Huan of AKG and the daughter of Ying Fa. Hu Chi is the husband of Tsai Bik, Tsai Lian’s daughter. California Asian Trust’s money — cycled through AKG and New Age — eventually bought an appliance company called Kitchen Giant. The purchase was made through a provincial government auction that some losing parties claim was rigged. For their 100 percent investment, Trust got a 49 percent stake in a business that experts tell us should have been sold for about half a billion — more than three times the amount that was paid.

Ava scrolled down and saw the chart representing the Tsai family holdings. She smiled. It looked even more polished and authoritative than it had in the version Curry had sent her. Tsai Lian was positioned at the top of the family and too many companies to quickly count, all of them interconnected like a spider’s web. They had even found photos of some of the major players.

Xu read quietly, his face expressionless, and Ava wondered what was going through his mind. Their war with the Tsai family had now moved from theory to fact. Bridges had been burned, completely and dangerously. It was too late to have second thoughts, but it wasn’t too late to have regrets.

“Lian looks quite arrogant in that shot,” Xu finally said.

“That’s appropriate,” Ava said. “What do you think about the story?”

“It’s even more powerful than I expected.”

“Dillman called and read me the headline from the
Herald
,” she said. “That story will be available online any minute now.”

“And how strong is it?”

“Equally, and it refers to Tsai Lian as ‘Chairman Tsai.’”

Xu shook his head as if that was information he didn’t want to hear.

“What do you think?” Ava asked, deciding to push. “What kind of reaction do you think these stories will generate?”

Xu sat back in his chair and turned to Ava. His face was firmly set, and if he had any doubts about the path they’d taken, Ava couldn’t detect them.

“Ask me in an hour,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because we need to get busy. I have to call Lop, and you should call May. We have to let everyone we contacted know that the stories are public and Tsai Lian has been named as the government official. How they react will tell us what the impact might be.”

“The only weakness I can see is that the
Tribune
story doesn’t link Lian directly to any of the deals.”

“Given everything else in it, I don’t think that will matter, but we’ll find out,” Xu said.

“I’ll phone May.”

“I’m going to make my calls outside.”

Ava punched in May’s cell number as Xu left the house. The call went to voicemail, so Ava tried her private office line. It rang once.

“Ava,” May said.

“May, the story about the Tsai family just appeared on the
Wall Street Tribune
’s website. The
Economic Herald
story will be available in a few minutes,” Ava said in a rush.

“How is the
Tribune
story?”

“Take a look for yourself and tell me what you think.”

“Give me a few minutes. Don’t hang up.”

“I’ll wait.”

Auntie Grace was still in the kitchen. Ava had been so caught up in what she was doing that she hadn’t noticed. “Could I have more coffee, please,” she said to her, holding out her mug. While Auntie Grace was making her coffee, Ava checked the
Herald
again. The story was up. The headline was gigantic, even larger than Dillman had indicated, and Ava wondered if this was another bit of the revenge that Tamara Klinger was taking on Calhoun.

“May, are you still on the line?” Ava asked.

“Yes, I’m reading the
Tribune
. Sorry to be so slow but my English is not as good as yours.”

“When you’re finished, go to the
Herald
website. You can read that story now too.”

While May was reading the articles, Auntie Grace quietly placed the cup of coffee in front of Ava. She gave her a pat on the shoulder and went back to the stove.

“It’s almost hard to believe.” May finally said.

“Which story?”

“Take your pick. Either of them would be a bombshell on its own. Together, God knows what damage they’ll cause. I can’t remember the last time I was so shocked.”

“I’ve been telling you what I’ve been finding and what I was doing.”

“Yes, but seeing it in large print in two such respected papers makes it appear even worse than I imagined,” May said. “And I can tell you that the
Herald
referring to Tsai as ‘Chairman Tsai’ will make some people very, very angry.”

“I thought the
Tribune
calling him the ‘Princeling of Nanjing’ and ‘head of the new Chinese royalty’ would be more infuriating.”

“Neither description does him any good.”

“May, Xu is calling the people he phoned earlier to let them know the stories have broken. He thinks you should be doing the same.”

“Of course.”

“What will they think?”

“I don’t want to guess.”

“Can you phone them now and get back to me?”

“Yes. I’ve been getting calls all day from them, wondering when the stories were going to break. I’m sure they’ll be happy to hear from me,” May said.

Ava put her phone down and sat back in the chair.

“Can I get you anything else?” Auntie Grace asked.

“No, I’m fine.”

“You look more relaxed than you did half an hour ago.”

“We’ve had good news, or at least the beginning of something that could be good news.”

“I’m happy for you.”

“It isn’t over yet,” Ava said, sipping her coffee. She then got up to go to the bathroom.

She took her time standing over the sink, looking at herself as she washed her hands. She had no real idea, she realized, what would be the outcome of what she had started. The same was often true of jobs she’d undertaken with Uncle, but the difference this time — and it was a huge difference — was that on past jobs, her failure to collect money was just that, and she knew there would be another day and another job. Now, if the Tsai family survived, or possibly even continued to thrive, there might not be another day. She shuddered and thought of her mother, who, for as long as she could remember, had chided her for her constant risk-taking. It was her nature, and it was only recently that her mother had seemed to accept that.
Maybe she shouldn’t have
, Ava thought.

She was now closer to forty than to thirty, but she had the face and the body of a woman in her twenties. She had her mother’s and father’s genes to thank for that. Her mind was a different age entirely, and that had everything to do with the experiences and memories etched into it. She wondered how old she was inside. Certainly forty, and maybe even fifty. One of her mother’s pat descriptions of Ava was that she had an old head on a young body. It was a cliché, but like all clichés it had a kernel of truth. And what that old head was telling her right now was that whatever was going to happen was going to happen fast. She glanced down at her T-shirt and Adidas training pants.
This isn’t what I should be wearing
, she thought.

She went into the bedroom, brushed her hair, and fixed it with the ivory chignon pin. She put on makeup. She took a pink shirt and a black skirt from her bag, slipped them on, and then added the green jade cufflinks and her Cartier watch. She looked at her shoes and opted for the high heels she’d worn to the PÖ launch, which seemed like a lifetime ago. Now fully dressed, she lowered herself onto her knees by the side of the bed and prayed again to Saint Jude. She could not remember ever praying to him so often over the course of a few days, but then she had never needed him more.

When she had finished, she sat on the bed. There was nothing for her to do except wait for Xu, Lop, and May to make their phone calls, and waiting alone was something she was accustomed to. She had her phone next to her, and her ears were attuned to the sound of the door opening and Xu’s shoes crossing the living room floor. When she heard the door, she slid from the bed. When she heard the sound of his steps, she left the bedroom.

He was taking a chair at the kitchen table when she entered the room.

“You look like you’re going to a meeting,” he said, glancing at her.

“I’m not, but that’s how I feel. Whenever I was on a job with Uncle, it seems as though I was dressed like this when we closed it successfully,” Ava said. “I can’t help being superstitious.”

“I never discount luck,” he said.

“What kind of reaction are you getting on the Tsai Lian stories?” she said as she took a seat.

“The most common one is shock, but not shock that he’s been using his position to line the family’s pockets — that’s to be expected. It’s more about the extent of the wealth and the way it’s been accumulated. No one cares about the consulting fees and commissions, but the Mega Metals and Jiangsu Insurance deals can’t be explained away. They’re clearly corrupt deals and couldn’t have happened without his active support.”

“Do they think they’re enough to bring him down?”

Xu shrugged. “Everyone I spoke to is convinced he’ll fight to survive.”

“What does he have to fight with?”

“They tell me that his father’s name and reputation still have currency. There are his years of service to the province. And of course he will call in favours from those who owe him, and he’ll threaten those he has something on.”

“Could that work?”

“All anyone is sure about is that he will try, but I’ve been told that one sure sign that he has support will be if the websites carrying the stories are blocked. That can’t happen without someone very senior in Beijing giving the order.”

“Is that possible?”

“Websites crash all the time. Firewalls mysteriously appear. Newspapers are seized or told to cancel distribution until further notice. If Beijing decides to back Tsai, then it’s possible the stories could be restricted to outlets outside China, although many of the people Lop and I spoke to probably have VPNs.”

“What is a VPN?”

“The government routinely blocks Facebook and YouTube and other Western sites, but VPNs — virtual private networks — are a way around the blocks. We call it
fan qiang
.”

“Climbing over the wall?”

“Yeah, and the term couldn’t be more appropriate.”

Ava looked at her computer and hit the
Tribune
and the
Herald
tabs. “The sites are still live,” she said.

“That’s good, but it’s very early. We’ll have to keep an eye on them.”

“And if they don’t get blocked?”

“I think it will indicate the stories and their claims are too big for Beijing to ignore, and then officials will have to decide if they’re going to stand by Lian or throw him overboard. If they choose to defend him, they’ll have to stick out their own necks and reputations. If they don’t support him, they will be almost compelled to go after him. Indifference isn’t an option.”