Typhoon. Charles Cumming
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economy in the world. We need them onside so we can build General Motors factories in Guangdong, investment banks in Shenzhen, sell Coca-Cola and cigarettes to the biggest market the world has ever known. What’s a few votes in Hong Kong or a guy getting his fingernails ripped out by the PLA if we can get rich in the process? Isn’t that the problem? Patten has given you a conscience.’
Joe gave this last word real spit and venom and all of us were a little taken aback. It wasn’t the first time that I had seen him really go at Miles for the lack of support towards Patten shown by Washington, but he had never done so in front of Isabella and it felt as though two or three tables were listening in. For a while we just picked at our food until the argument regained its momentum.
‘Spoken like a true patriot,’ Miles said. ‘Maybe you’re too good for freight forwarding, Joe. Ever thought about applying for a job with the Foreign Office?’
This was water off a duck’s back. ‘What are you trying to say, Miles?’ Joe said. ‘What’s that chip telling you on your shoulder?’
This was one of the reasons Miles liked Joe: because he took him on; because he bullied the bully. He was smart enough to pick apart his arguments and not be daunted by the fact that Miles’s age and experience vastly outweighed his own.
‘I’ll tell you what it’s telling me. It’s telling me that you’re confusing a lot of different issues.’ Things were a little calmer now and we were able to eat while Miles held forth. ‘Patten pissed off a lot of people in the business community, here and on both sides of the Atlantic. This is not just an American phenomenon, Joe, and you know it. Everybody wants to take advantage of the Chinese market – the British, the French, the Germans, the fuckin’ Eskimos – because, guess what, we’re all capitalists and that’s what capitalists do. Capitalism drove you here in your cab tonight. Capitalism is going to pay for your dinner. Christ, Hong Kong is the last outpost of the British Empire, an empire whose sole purpose was to spread capitalism around the globe. And having a governor of Hong Kong with no experience of the Orient parachuting in at the last minute trying to lecture a country of 1.3 billion people about democracy and human rights – a country, don’t forget, that could have had this colony shut down in a weekend at any point over the past hundred years – well, that isn’t the ideal way of doing business. If you want to promote democracy, the best way is to open up markets and engage with politically repressed countries at first hand so that they have the opportunity to see how Western societies operate. What you don’t do is lock the stable door after the horse has not only bolted, but found itself another stable, redecorated, and settled down with a really fuckin’ hot filly in a meaningful relationship.’ Joe shook his head but we were all laughing. ‘And to answer your accusation that my government didn’t have a conscience until Chris Patten came along, all I can say is last time I checked we weren’t the ones willingly handing over six million of our own citizens to a repressive communist regime twenty miles away.’
It wasn’t a bad retort and Isabella looked across at Joe, as if concerned that he was going to let her down. I tried to intervene.
‘Confucius has been through all of this before,’ I said. ‘“The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.’’ ’
Isabella smiled. ‘He also said, ‘‘Life is very simple. It’s men who insist on making it complicated.’’ ’
‘Yeah,’ said Miles. ‘Probably while getting jerked off by a nine-year-old boy.’
Isabella screwed up her face. ‘If you ask my opinion – which I notice none of you are doing – both sides are as bad as each other.’ Joe turned to face her. ‘The British often act as though they were doing the world a favour for the last three hundred years, as if it was a privilege to be colonized. What everybody always seems to forget is that the empire was a money-making enterprise. Nobody came to Hong Kong to save the natives from the Chinese. Nobody colonized India because they thought they needed railways. It was all about making money.’ Miles had a gleeful look on his face. Seeing this, Isabella turned to him. ‘You Yanks are no better. The only difference, probably, is that you’re more honest about it. You’re not trying to pretend that you care about human rights. You just get on with doing whatever the hell you want.’
All of us tried to jump in, but Miles got there first. ‘Look. I remember Tiananmen. I’ve seen the reports on torture in mainland China. I realize what these guys are capable of and the compromises we’re making in the West in order to –’
Joe was pulled out of the conversation by the pulse of his mobile phone. He removed it from his jacket pocket, muttered a frustrated: ‘Sorry, hang on a minute,’ and consulted the screen. The read-out said: ‘Percy Craddock is on the radio’, which was agreed code for contacting Waterfield and Lenan.
Isabella said, ‘Who is it, sweetheart?’
I noticed that Joe avoided looking at her when he replied. ‘Some kind of problem at Heppner’s. I have to call Ted. Give me two minutes, will you?’
Rather than speak on a cellphone, which could be hoovered by one of the Chinese listening stations in Shenzhen, Joe made his way to the back of the restaurant where there was a payphone bolted to the wall. He knew the number of the secure line by heart and was speaking to Lenan within a couple of minutes.
‘That was quick.’ Waterfield’s éminence grise sounded uncharacteristically chirpy.
‘Kenneth. Hello. What’s up?’
‘Are you having dinner?’
‘It’s OK.’
‘Alone?’
‘No. Isabella is here with Will Lasker. Miles, too.’
‘And how is our American friend this evening?’
‘Sweaty. Belligerent. What can I do for you?’
‘Unusual request, actually. Might be nothing in it. We need you to have a word with an eye-eye who came over this morning. Not blind flow. Claims he’s a professor of economics.’ ‘Blind flow’ was a term for an illegal immigrant coming south from China in the hope of finding work. ‘Everybody else is stuck at a black-tie do down at Stonecutters so the baton has passed to you. I won’t say any more on the phone, but there might be some decent product in it. Can you get to the flat in TST by ten-thirty?’
Lenan was referring to a safe house near the Hong Kong Science Museum in Tsim Sha Tsui East, on the Kowloon side. Joe had been there once before. It was small, poorly ventilated and the buzzer on the door had been burned by a cigarette. Depending on traffic, a taxi would have him there in about three-quarters of an hour. He said, ‘Sure.’
‘Good. Lee’s looking after him for now, but he’s refusing to speak to anyone not directly connected to Patten. Get Lee to fill you in when you get there. Apparently there’s already a file of some sort.’
Back in the dining area, Joe didn’t bother sitting down. He stood behind Isabella – almost certainly deliberately, so that he didn’t have to look at her – and put his hands on her shoulders as he explained that the bill of lading from a freight consignment heading to Central America had been lost in transit. It would have to be retyped and couriered to Panama before 2 a.m. Neither Miles nor myself, of course, believed this story for a minute, but we made a decent fist of saying, ‘Poor you, mate, what a nightmare,’ and ‘You’ll be hungry’ as Isabella kissed him and promised to be awake when he came home.
Once Joe had gone, Miles felt it necessary to polish off the lie and began a sustained diatribe against the phantom clients of Heppner Logistics.
‘I mean, what’s the matter with these people in freight? Bunch of fuckin’ amateurs. Some asshole on a ship can’t keep hold of a piece of paper? How tough is that?’
‘They work him so hard,’ Isabella muttered. ‘That’s the third time this month he’s been called back to the office.’
I was trying to think of ways of changing the subject when Miles