"Just a family problem."

"Tell me."

Suslev listened intently to deVille's sad story about his son-in-law and daughter. Since their meeting in 1941 Suslev had been deVille's controller. In 1947 he had ordered him out to Hong Kong to join Struan's. Before the war deVille and his father had owned a highly successful import-export business with close ties to Struan's as well as filmily ties so the change had been easy and welcome. DeVille's secret assignment was to become a member of the Inner Court and, at length, tai-pan.

"Where's your daughter now?" he asked compassionately.

DeVille told him.

"And the driver of the other car?" Suslev committed the name and address to memory. "I'll see that he's dealt with."

"No," deVille said at once. "Ita it was an accident. We cannot punish a man for an accident."

"He was drunk. There is no excuse for drunk driving. In any event you are important to us. We take care of our own. I will deal with him."

DeVille knew there was no point in arguing. A gust of rain battered the windows. "Merde, but the rain's good. The temperature must be down five degrees. Will it last?"

"The storm front's reported to be big."

DeVille watched globules running down the pane, wondering why he had been summoned. "How are things with you?"

"Very good. Drink?" Suslev went to the mirrored bar. "There's good vodka."

"Vodka's fine, please. But a short one."

"If Dunross retired are you the next tai-pan?"

"I would think it's between four of us: Gavallan, David MacStruan, myself and Linbar Struan."

"In that order?"

"I don't know. Except Linbar's probably last. Thanks." DeVille accepted his drink. They toasted each other. "I'd bet on Gavallan."

"Who's this MacStruan?"

"A distant cousin. He's done his five years as a China Trader. At the moment he's heading up our expansion into Canada we're trying to diversify and get into wood fibers, copper, all the Canadian minerals, mostly out of British Columbia."

"How good is he?"

"Very good. Very tough. A very dirty fighter. Forty-one, exlieutenant, Paratroopers. His left hand was almost ripped off over Burma by a tangle in the shrouds of his parachute. He just tied a tourniquet around it and carried on fighting. That earned him a Military Cross. If I was tai-pan I'd choose him." DeVille shrugged. "By our company law only the tai-pan can appoint his successor. He can do it anytime, even in his will if he wants. Whatever way it's done it's binding on the Noble House."

Suslev watched him. "Has Dunross made a will?"

"Ian's very efficient."

A silence gathered.

"Another vodka?"

"Non, mercy I'll stay with this one. Is Arthur joining us?"

"Yes. How could we tip the scales for you?"

DeVille hesitated, then shrugged.

Suslev poured himself another drink. "It would be easy to discredit this MacStruan and the others. Yes. Easy to eliminate them." Suslev turned and looked at him. "Even Dunross."

"No. That's not the solution."

"Is there another one?"

"Being patient." DeVille smiled but his eyes were very tired and shadows lurked there. "I would not like to be the cause ofa of his removal or that of the others."

Suslev laughed. "It's not necessary to kill to eliminate! Are we barbarians? Of course not." He was watching his protege closely. DeVille needs toughening, he was thinking. "Tell me about the American, Bartlett, and the Struan-Par-Con deal."

DeVille told him all he knew. "Bartlett's money will give us everything we need."

"Can this Gornt effect a takeover?"

"Yes and no. And possibly. He's tough and he truly hates us. It's a long-term rival"

"Yes, I know." Suslev was surprised deVille kept repeating information he already had been given. It's a bad sign, he thought, and glanced at his watch. "Our friend's twenty-five minutes late. That's unusual." Both men were too seasoned to worry. Meetings such as this could never be completely firm because no one could ever control the unexpected happening.

"Did you hear about the fire in Aberdeen?" deVille asked at the sudden thought.

"What fire?"

"There was a bulletin over the wireless just before I came up."

DeVilleand his wife had apartment 20 on the sixth floor. "The Floating Dragon restaurant at Aberdeen burned down. Perhaps Arthur was there."

"Did you see him?" Suslev was suddenly concerned.

"No. But I could easily have missed him. I left well before dinner."

Suslev sipped his vodka thoughtfully. "Has he told you yet who the others are in Sevrin?"

"No. I asked him, judiciously, as you ordered, but he nev"

"Order? I don't order you, tovarich, I just suggest."

"Of course. All he said was, 'We'll all meet in due course.'"

"We'll both know soon. He's perfectly correct to be cautious." Suslev had wanted to test deVille and test Arthur. It was one of the most basic rules in the KGB that you can never be too cautious about your spies however important they are. He remembered his instructor hammering into them another direct quote from Sun Tzu's The Art of War, which was obligatory reading for all Soviet military: "There are five classes of spies local spies, inward spies, converted spies, doomed spies and surviving spies. When all five categories are working in concert, the state will be secure and the army inviolate. Local spies are those who are local inhabitants. Inward spies are officials of the enemy. Converted spies are the enemies' spies you have converted. Doomed spies are those fed false information and reported to the enemy who will torture this false information from them and so be deceived. Surviving spies are those who bring back news from the enemy camp. Remember, in the whole army, none should more liberally be rewarded. But if a secret piece of news is divulged by a spy before the time is ripe, he or she must be put to death, together with the person to whom the secret is told."

If the other AMG reports are like the one already discovered, Suslev thought dispassionately, then Dunross is doomed.

He was watching deVille, measuring him, liking him, glad that again he had passed that test and Arthur. The last paragraph of The Art of War so important a book to the Soviet elite that many khew the slim volume by heart sprang into his mind: "It is only the enlightened ruler and wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for the purposes of spying. Spies are the most important element in war because upon them depends an army's ability to move."

That's what the KGB does, he thought contentedly. We try for the best talent in all the Soviets. We are the elite. We need spies of all five categories. We need these men, Jacques and Arthur and all the others.

Yes, we need them very much.

"Arthur's never given any clue who the others are. Nothing," deVille was saying, "only that there are seven of us."

"We must be patient," Suslev said, relieved that Arthur was correctly cautious too, for part of the plan was that the seven should never know each other, should never know that Suslev was Sevrin's controller and Arthur's superior. Suslev knew the identities of all the Sevrin moles. With Arthur he had approved all of them over the years, continually testing them all, honing their loyalties, eliminating some, substituting others. You always test, and the moment a spy wavers that's the time to neutralize or eliminate him before he neutralizes or eliminates you. Even Ginny Fu, he thought, though she's not a spy and knows nothing. You can never be sure of anyone except yourself that's what our Soviet system teaches. Yes. It's time I took her on the trip I've always promised. A short voyage next week. To Vladivostok. Once she's there she can be cleansed and rehabilitated and made useful, never to return here.

He sipped his vodka, rolling the fiery liquid around his tongue. "We'll give Arthur half an hour. Please," he said, motioning to a chair.

DeVille moved the newspaper out of the way and sat in the armchair. "Did you read about the bank runs?"

Suslev beamed. "Yes, tovarich Marvelous."

"Is it a KGB operation?"

"Not to my knowledge," Suslev said jovially. "If it is there's promotion for someone." It was a key Leninistic policy to pay particular attention to Western banks that were at the core of Western strength, to infiltrate them to the highest level, to encourage and assist others to foment disaster against Western currencies but at the same time to borrow capital from them to the utter maximum, whatever the interest, the longer the loan the better, making sure that no Soviet ever defaulted on any repayment, whatsoever the cost. "The crash of the Ho-Pak will certainly bring down others. The papers say there might even be a run on the Victoria, eh?"

DeVille shivered in spite of himself and Suslev noticed it.: His concern deepened. "Merde, but that would wreck Hong Kong," deVille said. "Oh, I know the sooner the better buta but being buried so deep, sometimes you forget who you really are."

"That's nothing to worry about. It happens to all of us. You're in turmoil because of your daughter. What father wouldn't be? It will pass."

"When can we do something? I'm tired, so tired of waiting."

"Soon. Listen," Suslev said to encourage him. "In January I was at a top echelon meeting in Moscow. Banking was high on our list. At our last count we're indebted to the capitalists nearly 30 billions in loans most of that to America."

DeVille gasped. "Madonna, I had no idea you'd been so success- ful."

Suslev's smile broadened. "That's just Soviet Russia! Our satellites are in for another 6.3 billions. East Germany's just got another 1.3 billion to purchase capitalist rolling mills, computer technology and a lot of things we need." He laughed, drained his glass and poured another, the liquor oiling his tongue. "I really don't understand them, the capitalists. They delude themselves. We're openly committed to consume them but they give us the means to do it. They're astonishing. If we have time, twenty years at the most twenty by that time our debt will be 60, 70 billions and as far as they're concerned we'll still be a triple-A risk, never having defaulted on a payment evera in war, peace or depression." He let out a sudden burst of laughter. "What was it the Swiss banker said? 'Lend a little and you have a debtor lend a lot and you have a partner!' 70 billions, Jacques old friend, and we own them. 70 and we can twist their policies to suit ourselves and then at any moment of our own choosing the final ploy: 'So sorry, Mr. Capitalist Zionist Banker, we regret we're broke! Oh very sorry but we can no longer repay the loans, not even the interest on the loans. Very sorry but from this moment all our present currency's valueless. Our new currency's a red ruble, one red ruble's worth a hundred of your capitalist dollarsa'"

Suslev laughed, feeling very happy. "a and however rich the banks are collectively they'll never be able to write off 70 billions. Never. 70 plus by that time with all the Eastern Bloc billions! And if the sudden announcement's timed to one of their inevitable capitalistic recessions as it will bea they'll be up to their Hebrew bankers' noses in their own panic shit, begging us to save their rotten skins." He added contemptuously, "The stupid bastards deserve to lose! Why should we fight them when their own greed and stupidity's destroying them. Eh?"

DeVille nodded uneasily. Suslev frightened him. I must be getting old, he thought. In the early days it was so easy to believe in the cause of the masses. The cries of the downtrodden were so loud and clear then. But now? Now they're not so clear. I'm still committed, deeply committed. I regret nothing. France will be better Communist.

Will it?

I don't know anymore, not for certain, not as I used to. It's a pity for all people that there must be some "ism" or other, he told himself, trying to cover his anguish. Better if there were no "isms," just my beloved Cote d'Azur basking in the sun.

"I tell you, old friend, Stalin and Beria were geniuses," Suslev was saying. "They're the greatest Russians that have ever been."

DeVille just managed to keep the shock off his face. He was remembering the horror of the German occupation, the humbling of France, all the villages and hamlets and vineyards, remembering that Hitler would never have dared attack Poland and start it all without Stalin's nonaggression pact to protect his back. Without Stalin there would have been no war, no holocaust and we would all be better off. "Twenty million Russians? Countless millions of others," he said.

"A modest cost." Suslev poured again, his zeal and the vodka taking him. "Because of Stalin and Beria we have all Eastern Europe from the Baltic to the Balkans Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, all Poland, Prussia, half of Germany, Outer Mongolia." Suslev belched happily. "North Korea, and footholds everywhere else. Their Operation Lion smashed the British Empire. Because of their support the United Nations was birthed to give us our greatest weapon in our arsenal of many weapons. And then there's Israel." He began to laugh. "My father was one of the controllers of that program."

DeVille felt the hackles of his neck rise. "What?"

"Israel was a Stalin-Beria coup of monumental proportions! Who helped it, overt and covert, come into being? Who gave it immediate recognition? We did, and why?" Suslev belched again, "To cement into the guts of Arabia a perpetual cancer that will suppurate and destroy both sides and, along with them, bring down the industrial might of the West. Jew against Mohammedan against Christian. Those fanaticstll never live at peace with one another even though they could, easily. They will never bury their differences even if it costs them their stupid lives." He laughed and stared at his glass blearily, swirling the liquid around. DeVille watched him, hating him, wanting to give him the lie back, afraid to, knowing himself totally in Suslev's power. Once, some years ago, he had balked over sending some routine Struanfigures to a box number in Berlin. Within a day, a stranger had phoned him at home. Such a call had never happened before. It was friendly. But he knew.

DeVille suppressed a shudder and kept his face clear as Suslev glanced up at him.

"Don't you agree, tovarich7" the KGB man said, beaming. "I swear I'll never understand the capitalists. They make enemies of four hundred million Arabs who have all the world's real oil reserves one day they will need so desperately. And soon we'll have Iran and the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Then we'll have a hand on the West's tap, then they're ours and no need for war just execution." Suslev drained his vodka and poured another.

DeVille watched him, loathing him now, wondering frantically about his own role. Is it for this that I have been almost a perfect mole, for sixteen years keeping myself prepared and ready, with no suspicion against me? Even Susanne suspects nothing and everyone believes I'm anti-Communist, pro-Struan's which is the arch-capitalistic creation in all Asia. Dirk Struan's thoughts permeate us. Profit. Profit for the tai-pan and the Noble House and then Hong Kong in that order and the hell with everyone except the Crown, England and China. And even if I don't become tai-pan, I can still make Sevrin the wrecker of China that Suslev and Arthur want it to be. But do I want to now? Now that, for the first time, I've really seen into thisa this monster and all their hypocrisy?

"Stalin," he said, almost wincing under Suslev's gaze. "Dida you ever meet him?"

"I was near him once. Ten feet away. He was tiny but you could feel his power. That was in 1953 at a party Beria gave for some senior KGB officers.. My father was invited and I was allowed to go with him." Suslev took another vodka, hardly seeing him, swept by the past and by his family's involvement in the movement. "Stalin was there, Beria, Malenkova Did you know Stalin's real name was Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili? He was the son of a shoemaker, in Tiflis, my home, destined for the priesthood but expelled from the seminary there. Strange strange strange!"

They touched glasses.

"No need for you to be so solemn, comrade," he said, misreading deVille. "Whatever your personal loss. You're part of the future, part of the march to victory!" Suslev drained his glass. "Stalin must have died a happy man. We should be so lucky, eh?"

"And Beria?"

"Beria tried to take power too late. He failed. We in the KGB are like Japanese in that we too agree the only sin is failure. But Stalina There's a story my father tells that when at Yalta, for no concession, Roosevelt agreed to give Stalin Manchuria and the Kuriles which guaranteed us dominance over China and Japan and all Asian waters, Stalin had a hemorrhage choking back his laughter and almost died!"

After a pause, deVille said, "And Solzhenitsyn and the gulags?"

"We're at war, my friend, there are traitors within. Without terror how can the few rule the many? Stalin knew that. He was a truly great man. Even his death served us. It was brilliant of Khrushchev to use him to 'humanize' the USSR."

"That was just another ploy?" deVille asked, shaken.

"That would be a state secret." Suslev swallowed a belch. "It doesn't matter, Stalin will be returned to his glory soon. Now, what about Ottawa?"

"Oh. I've been in contact with Jean-Charles an " The phone rang abruptly. A single ring. Their eyes went to it, their breathing almost stopped. After twenty-odd seconds there was a second single ring. Both men relaxed slightly. Another twenty-odd seconds and the third ring became continuous. One ring meant "Danger leave immediately"; two, that the meeting was canceled; three that whoever was calling would be there shortly; three becoming continuous, that it was safe to talk. Suslev picked up the phone. He heard breathing, then Arthur asked in his curious accent, "Is Mr. Lopsing there?"

"There's no Lop-ting here, you have a wrong number," Suslev said in a different voice, concentrating with an effort.

They went through the code carefully, Suslev further reassured by Arthur's slight, dry cough. Then Arthur said, "I cannot meet tonight. Would Friday at three be convenient?" Friday meant Thursday tomorrow Wednesday meant Tuesday, and so on. The three was a code for a meeting place: the Happy Valley Racecourse at the dawn workout.

Tomorrow at dawn!

"Yes."

The phone clicked off. Only the dial tone remained.

T H U R S D A Y.

39 - 4:50 A.M.:.

About an hour before dawn in the pouring rain Goodweather Poon looked down at the half-naked body of John Chen and cursed. He had been through his clothes carefully and sifted through endless pounds of mud from the grave that the two youths, Kin Pak and Dog-eared Chen, had dug. But he had found nothing no coins or parts of coins or jewelry, nothing. And Four Finger Wu had said earlier, "You find that half-coin, Goodweather Poont" Then the old man had given him further instructions and Goodweather-Poon was very pleased because that relieved him of any responsibility and he could then make no mistake.

He had ordered Dog-eared Chen and Kin Pak to carry the body downstairs and had threatened Smallpox Kin, who nursed his mutilated hand, that if the youth moaned once more he would slice out his tongue. They had left Father Kin's body in an alley. Then Goodweather Poon had sought out the King of the Beggars of Kowloon City who was a distant cousin of Four Finger Wu. All beggars were members of the Beggars' Guild and there was one king in Hong Kong, one in Kowloon and one in Kowloon City. In olden days begging was a lucrative profession, but now, due to stiff prison sentences and fines and plenty of well-paying jobs, it was not.