The South Lawn Plot (12 page)

T
HE SKY WAS THROBBING
. It flickered on and off as the storm rumbled over the East China Sea. A particularly strong flash made Henry Lau's eyes blink. This storm had its eye on the city. It was, he thought, at least an appropriate metaphor, if not an outright omen.

Darkness had fallen over the towers of Taipei, and most of its inhabitants were bedding down for an anxious night.

The city's frenetic routine, though unchanged at a casual glance, had been turned on its head by the government's decision to hold a referendum on Taiwanese independence. The natural storm that would strike within the hour paled against the political maelstrom that had followed the announcement. The island was feverish with rumor and speculation, much of it directed at its giant neighbor just across the Formosa Strait.

Beijing's verbal fury had been unrestrained. The military equivalent, for years made plain in excruciating detail by the mainlanders, left little to the imagination.

The Taiwanese leadership, in turn, had left no doubt that it wanted the roughly twenty-four million inhabitants of the island to back a proposal that would put more than the strait between them and the mainland.

Henry Lau supported the idea of independence, but for the moment he was not especially concerned with the reaction of the hated Beijing Communists, or whatever they lately called themselves. His mind was mostly focused on the pulsating pain in his head.

Still, he knew a vote for independence could mean war. Indeed, many felt that even an inkling that the vote would go that way could trigger an invasion well before the plebiscite itself. Perhaps, Lau thought, an invasion would offer an opportunity for an alternative form of death, and a far more glorious one at that.

Beyond the office window, the storm unleashed the first drops of rain. Taiwanese people were used to tropical downpours. If nothing else it would
churn up the waters out at sea and make the night uncomfortable for the Chinese navy ships.

Taiwanese people, Lau thought. Not Chinese, but Taiwanese.

Henry Lau was one of the richest men on the island, yet he still considered himself an ordinary man, a man of the people. He had been born on the mainland in the industrial city of Chongqing during the height of the war against the Japanese. In those days, the city was known as Chungking, and for a few years, and for all of World War Two, it had been designated the capital of free China.

His father, a devoted nationalist and follower of Chiang Kai-Shek, had worked himself to an early death in a coal mine. But that same mine had saved his son during one of the heaviest Japanese air raids on the city.

Chungking was a river city, its heart on an island split by the Chang Jiang River, better known in the West as the Yangtze. This had proved unfortunate for Lau's hometown. On moonlit nights the Japanese had merely to drop their bombs on the blacked out space between the diverging river channels to hit their target.

During one such raid, Henry had arrived into the world, not just on the edge of town, but also deep beneath its surface. The thought of it still gave him nightmares despite the passing of decades since his first cries in a coal pit.

As a little boy, he had been nicknamed Coal Lump. He had taken the name of Henry Lau many years later in Hong Kong. But he would always be Coal Lump to his family.

Henry Lau was a vigorous man and looked years younger than his age. His story was a classic rags-to-riches tale, but by no means an uncommon one in the Hong Kong of the 1960s and 70s. After Mao's Communists had vanquished Chiang's nationalists in 1949, Henry's mother, with a degree of insight fueled by years of her husband's anti-Communist tirades, had decided to move her family to Canton, ostensibly to be closer to her sister.

The move was accomplished before the new rulers in Peking began to exert control over internal migration. Canton, however, could not long compete with the allure of the down-river British colony of Hong Kong. Henry's family had duly crossed into British territory. They did so in the dead of night, and, to the young Henry, it seemed as if all the decisive moments of his life would take place in darkness.

Lau had his eyes fixed on a blinking neon sign in the street far below his
suite of offices and his own private retreat, the inner sanctum of Lau Industries Incorporated, manufacturers of, well, just about everything.

The girl had departed half an hour before. She was one of his favorites. Part Japanese according to her story. To remain vigorous, Lau believed, one's vigor had to be tested on a regular basis, at least every forty-eight hours or so, preferably after ingesting some of his favorite traditional Chinese herbal concoctions.

He prided himself on the breadth and depth of his taste in all things, not least women. He insisted on treating his dates, as he liked to call them, with respect. Still, they were required to work hard, usually for an hour at a time. Henry paid them well and swore to his handful of cronies that they were wasting a lot more than mere time by working out in gyms, crashing around in squash courts, or getting lost in the rough of golf courses.

Sex, Henry would proclaim after a few slugs of sake, or just about any Chateau, was the secret of a long life.

That was until he had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.

Rain began to splatter against the window. Lau retreated to his desk. It was bare apart from a laptop computer and a blank writing pad with an expensive pen awaiting its master's hand.

Lau was left-handed and addicted to writing things down on paper. He was also neat. Behind the desk, a table made of rare wood from Thailand was covered with framed photographs.

There were the usual family snapshots of Henry's French-born wife and the couple's four children at varying ages, up to, and including adulthood. There were also two dozen photos of Henry with world leaders. Henry smiled alongside the British prime minister, the French president, the Dalai Lama and the last pope.

There were others too, a couple with some of the more prominent Kennedys and a smattering of Saudi princes. Lau rotated his photo collection, showing only a fraction of it at any one time. There were many more stored in a closet in the corner of the room.

As he sat down at his desk, Lau made a mental note to change half a dozen of the photos in the next few days. He would also count, for the umpteenth time, his world-class collection of autographs, the scrawls and monikers of countless statesmen, the occasional female head of state, several despots and dictators and at least one former central African leader considered off his rocker by the rest of the world and rumored to be a cannibal.

Henry was particularly proud of his Saddam Hussein and Colonel Qaddafi pairing on the same page of his leather bound book. He also had a Stalin and a Hitler bought on the autograph market, but didn't show them around too much. People could get very funny about it when those two were produced, particularly Hitler.

He stared at the laptop, the e-mail still up on the screen. “Hooray, Henry.”

Sir Percival Bertram's calling card had never varied. They had spent much of the afternoon in the office together, discussing the old days in Hong Kong. Percy had been sent by Spencer with a very special favor to ask of a very dear friend of Great Britain. Henry Lau had listened intently at first, nodding occasionally and refilling his friend's cup with tea. Percy was off alcohol, a wise move considering the years he had spent knocking back a frightening proportion of Hong Kong's stock of gin.

Lau smiled, recalling the meeting.

“You know, Henry, “Sir Percival had said in opening their talk, “that we are very worried about the situation with the Chinese, the mainland lot.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Lau had replied. “I read the
Times
and
Telegraph
on the web every day. What do you think is going to happen?”

“Well, you remember back in the Cold War, those halcyon days, they had this clock, five minutes to midnight, a nuclear war and the end of the world and all that rot. Never happened of course, but in the end everybody turned out to be really rather sensible about it all. Even the Russians.”

“But now, it's the mad Chinese.”

“Yes, well, nobody is suggesting that Beijing is going to start flinging nuclear missiles about, but the feeling is, and I am reflecting the views of some of our top intelligence people, that they might be on the verge of deciding that a couple of hundred thousand dead soldiers might be an acceptable price to pay to reconcile your renegade province with the motherland.”

“And why so? Why now?”

Sir Percival had an idea that his friend knew the answer to his own question but wanted to hear it stated out loud nevertheless.

“Well, you've heard the rumors about virtual rebellion in parts of the Chinese countryside and some pretty vicious fighting between the People's Liberation Army and what is beginning to look very like a viable resistance to the Beijing leadership in several provinces.”

“Rumors yes. Always there are rumors, rumors, rumors.”

“Seems they are substantially true this time. Large parts of the mainland are in a state of virtual civil war, although it has been hard to confirm with all the new restrictions on press movement and the official media prattling on and on about China's relentless economic growth.”

“So why risk even more bloodshed by invading Taiwan?”

“Same old story, Henry, the need for a distraction, an overriding common cause if not exactly an outright enemy. The Beijing comrades can't label their Taiwanese brothers and sisters enemies, although I wouldn't bet too heavily on the prospects of your president and a few others when the PLA march into Taipei.”

“And me, Percy?”

“If I remember it correctly, your British passport is about up for renewal, Henry. I can, of course, speed things up with our consular people.”

“And beyond that, Percy?” Henry Lau was smiling at his friend who blinked back through his bifocals.

“We want to you to divest. Move everything out of here to Britain or a British territory, Bermuda perhaps. Every facility would be put at your disposal.”

“I wouldn't know where to start, Percy. I am a man devoted to detail, but even I can't give you an exact figure for my assets. I have a rough idea, of course.”

“You're worth just over thirty-two billion dollars. American. Trust me on that,” Sir Percival had immediately replied.

“My, you have been a busy bee,” Lau retorted, still smiling. “Should I assume that was this morning's estimate? What's happened since then? Another few million in interest in the family vault?”

“Very funny, Henry. But seriously, my good man, you have to see that the writing is on the wall. And it isn't a democracy wall. The Americans are going to cut and run this time, and there will be nobody left in the region capable of dealing anything like an effective blow to the PLA. It's been coming for years now. Taiwan, God bless it, is a democratic sacrificial lamb. There's simply too much at stake. Beijing has to be accommodated in the world, and that's that.”

“Yes, I know.” Henry Lau was no longer smiling. “What would you like me to do?”

“Come to London. I'll set up a meeting with the PM. We have a bloody marvelous plan that will secure your future, that of your company and family
and not a few Taiwanese who you might decide are essential for the smooth transfer of Lau Industries to parts of the world where invasions are as likely as orgies in a convent.”

“I know one.” The tension was broken, and both men laughed heartily.

“Okay, Percy, I'll come to London to meet Spencer, and perhaps the queen, too. By the way, what is this great project you're thinking about? What is the plan?”

“Oh, did I not mention it? You're going to save Belfast and Northern Ireland. Maybe even the entire United Kingdom.”

“Oh, really? Another cup of tea?”

“One more for the road, Henry, and then I had better be off. I have to meet someone in Tokyo.”

“Dear me, I hope you have shares in British Airways. You're a one man profit margin.”

“You should know, Henry. Anyway, we expect the announcement of your big move to set off quite a stir. I think we may already have announced a trade conference in Washington, a match for that last one way back in ‘95. And we are hoping that your intended arrival in Northern Ireland will be the main headline at the damn thing. Might even mean a visit to the White House and a chat with President Packer. I don't see his photograph over there.”

“No, Percy, you don't.” Henry Lau had leaned back into his high-backed chair and was staring at a point in the ceiling. “I've long looked forward to meeting with the leader of our wonderful free world.”

A great flash lit up the room for an instant. Lau glanced at his watch. His second visitor of the day was due. As he considered this prospect his cell phone jangled with a ring tone version of the “The East Is Red.”

The watch, custom made, had been a gift from an acquaintance with an edgy sense of humor. And this was an edgy moment.

Lau lifted the phone. “Come right on up,” he said. “I've been waiting for you.”

T
HERE HAD BEEN REPORTS
of his proximity but as yet no sign of the king and his hunting party. Richard Cole had remained in the house since Falsham's arrival while Falsham had set about exploring the Ayvebury estate, both on foot and on his rested horse.

The weather was warming with the advance of spring and Falsham felt good to be outside and away from sickness and the incessant praying that occupied most of his friend's waking hours.

The farm and the surrounding lands had impressed Falsham. Ayvebury was by no means the most extensive estate in this part of Essex, but it displayed clear signs of sound management over many years. Still, the suggestion by Cole that the house and lands would somehow provide the foundation for a renewed plot against the king's power seemed beyond understanding.

The estate sustained itself and gave work, directly or indirectly, to several dozen people, but it was no empire. There had to be more but Cole had not hinted at anything beyond what Falsham's eyes had seen.

What they had seen was a farm that had long been broken up into enclosed fields. Some of them were behind hedgerows now centuries old, one or two surrounded by ditches that were dug by Romans. Roughly half the land was devoted to the raising of sheep, the rest to various root crops. The land was again divided between that part devoted to the house, and the fields that were rented to tenant farmers.

Swine, fowl and some milk cows provided for much of the daily needs of the house. The sheep provided for most of the farm's monetary requirements. Lambing season had passed. Every man that Falsham had spoken to during his explorations had told him, through often toothless smiles, that it had been a good year for lambs and that there had been much celebrating on Lady Day, March 25th, to mark the season and new year.

Though no farmer himself, Falsham had a keen appreciation of order and efficiency. Ayvebury enjoyed both. Living here, he had concluded, was
not only possible but was indeed a prospect replete with the promise of many comforts.

Life's comforts, though, were not foremost on his dying friend's mind, and Falsham tried putting all such thoughts to one side as he contemplated what soon would be the most critical act of his life, a task far more dangerous than the raids on the Moorish coast he had undertaken with the Spaniards, the ones who had called themselves crusaders but who, if truth was told, were little more than pirates.

Cole's plan, what he had revealed thus far, did not impress Falsham. The physical part of it was easy enough to grasp, and could, he believed, be executed with proper planning, and not a little serendipity.

It was what would follow that seemed to be little more than in the lap of fate and happenstance. The king's reaction would decide the issue but just who, he kept thinking, could read the mind of a king? Certainly not himself, nor the ailing Cole.

A frightened and infuriated James might put the household to the torch and all its occupants to the sword, or the gallows. Any hint of papist plotting and all would be forfeit without question, perhaps even without a trial. And if the king's fury were thus aroused, the popish element would reveal itself to whatever degree the king and his less scrupulous agents required. Threaten to lop off a finger and it was easy to persuade its owner to point and accuse. Truth or falsehood would be of little consequence.

Falsham was puzzled, and he was impatient. But Cole had merely turned to his books and writings when pressed on the matter.

How, Falsham kept asking himself, could the king's mind be turned one way as opposed to the other? How could it be guaranteed that Falsham would find himself lord of these lands, so in a position to use his new status as a means to hatch a fresh plot against the king, a plot that would, God willing, enjoy the kind of success that that had so cruelly eluded the others in London? There had been no answers to these questions, not from within Falsham's own mind, and not from Cole's.

It was on the sixth day that Falsham took rest from his inspection of every nook and cranny that Ayvebury had to offer. A heavy rain had arrived in the night and staying indoors, close beside a large fire, was deemed the wisest course by all in the household.

Falsham had obeyed the older women of the kitchen and had placed himself beside a blaze, boots off, in the dining hall. A little before the noonday hour,
Cole had descended from his room, aided by a boy and followed by another carrying papers.

Richard Cole measured his day in canonical hours. Falsham was more elemental, preferring to mark its passing in degrees of light and temperature, and both the proximity or distance of meal times.

Cole, by this time, had done with his Matins, Lauds, Prime and Terce. His appearance coincided with Sext, the sixth hour since Prime at 6 a.m. Falsham braced himself for an earful of prayer but, surprisingly, his friend had other matters on his mind.

“Join me by the fire,” Falsham said. There was no need to make the request. Cole covered the distance from the base of the stairs to the fire with surprising speed.

“You are recovered a little, Richard. That was quite a display of youthful spleen and vigor.”

Cole sat in the other of the two high backed chairs that flanked the large fireplace. A momentary smile crossed the older man's face but just as quickly vanished as a result of a bout of coughing. One of the boys walked quickly to the kitchen for a draught. He returned moments later with an apothecary pot.

“One of my favorites,” said Cole. “From Delft, you know.”

Falsham nodded. The pot was to be admired, if not its contents. Cole passed this concoction between his lips several times a day. It was composed of a foul smelling liquid mixed with an egg yolk. Falsham had refrained from inquiring as to its precise composition but had heard kitchen whispers that hinted of a purgative composed in part of castor oil, rue, henbane and the juice of nightshade.

Cole said nothing for a few minutes. He sat rigid and gazed at the flames.

Falsham, though worried that the liquid was drawing his friend's last breath, was reluctant to break the silence. He did not have to.

“When you are a young man it is hard to imagine hell, though there are many types of heaven,” Cole said. “And when you are a young man a sword seems eminently more dependable than the will of God.”

Falsham said nothing, but he was staring intently at his friend.

“When you are a young man,” Cole continued, “all in life seems possible.”

Falsham made a noise in his throat that signaled agreement.

“I well remember myself,” Cole continued. “But of course the passing of time trims the possible. Sometimes this is a matter of a man's choosing, but more often than not it is the actions of other men that determine the course of one's own life and the fate of one's own country.”

Cole raised himself slightly in his chair and stretched his stocking feet towards the flames. Falsham sensed that a proposal was only a few words away.

“But above all this,” Cole said, “there is no greater possibility in all of worldly life than the meeting of a man and a good woman.”

Ah, Falsham thought, I was correct.

More than once in the days since his arrival at Ayvebury, Cole had spoken of the many virtues possessed by the woman who shared his bed. Her name was Ann Rook and though Falsham had at first suspected a mere dalliance, Cole had revealed that the young woman was in fact his wife. She was a cousin of one of the London plotters and, for all the rest of the world, a passionate devotee of the new faith. She was, of course, a most ardent recusant, a devotee of the virgin mother, Saint Ann and, for good measure, the late Pope Clement.

Cole smiled. “You have guessed John.”

“You are a sly old fox,” Falsham said. It was one of the few moments of mirth that the two men had shared.

“Yes, I have seen you cast your eye over Ann. And I take no offense. She is my wife now and for what time I have left. But that time is short. I must be assured that she and the child will be cared for after I am gone to God. Can you thus assure me, John Falsham?”

Falsham waited a few moments before replying. He knew what his answer would be, but he wanted to accord Cole's proposal the full measure of respect it deserved.

“It would be my honor,” he said simply.

“Then it is settled,” replied Cole, his voice cracking slightly. But there was no mistaking his pleasure.

Falsham said nothing. He knew there was more.

“Of course,” said Cole, “it would do the honorable woman little good to be known as my wife. That is something that must remain secret between us.”

Falsham glanced around the room and towards the various exits.

“You fear the servants, John,” said Cole. “You need not. They are all of the faith, and their fate is bound with ours. Besides, they love their mistress greatly. She is nothing but kind.”

“Nevertheless,” said Falsham. But Cole waved his hand dismissively.

“Your marriage will be no secret. It is Ann's widowhood that must never be spoken of.”

“So the child is mine, ours,” said Falsham.

“A gift to both of you from God.”

Forgive me,” said Falsham, “but this blissful vision does not, to my eyes, entirely match our other, greater purpose.”

“No, not as you are imagining events, John. But trust me when I say that I have considered our every move. When the moment comes I will merely be a papist zealot, a madman foaming at his mouth. You, by contrast, will be an upstanding husband and loyal subject. All eyes will see what all eyes will be made to see.

“And when it is done there will be mouths to speak, whisper and persuade. All will be well and our designs can follow at the speed of your choosing. I, God willing, will survey their execution from our savior's realm.”

Falsham's eyes were fixed on his friend. Cole's precise plan was still a mystery, but that it would lead to at least one death and two new lives was plainly part of his intent.

“I pray to God that you are right in all this,” he said.