The Pirate Ship

by Peter Tonkin

  Pragmatic to the last, and used to negotiating with worldly, pragmatic men, Charles Lee was currently in Beijing negotiating with the Chinese government on Heritage Mariner’s behalf — and doubtless mending fences on his own behalf as well. That fact, combined with the current catastrophe, made her blood run cold for some reason. It was a little strange that this should be so — and she put at least some of the feeling down to tiredness — for she liked Charles personally very much indeed. He was a worldly-wise, cynical, drily witty man of enormous personal charm. She knew him very well, believed she knew him as well as any Occidental could know an Oriental. They had much in common, for they had received almost identical educations for almost the same reasons and they had many friends in common at Johns Hopkins and the London School of Economics where they had almost been contemporaries as students. She had been closely involved in the headhunting, vetting and appointing of the new chief executive and had kept close social contact with him as well as the inevitable business contact.

  And yet, now she thought about it, if Charles were less of a friend than she believed him, how well placed he was now to dispose of his co-executive and rival and move the whole weight of Heritage Mariner into his own city, to replace his own lost little family business. If the Chinese were serious about making the whole province a special economic zone for the next fifty years, then there was a serious vacuum waiting to be filled there. The business done in the past by Jardines, Swires, Sime Darby, Hutchinson Whampoa, Wheelock Marden and Inchcape, not to mention the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, would still need to be done, and Heritage Mariner could do it as well as any other and better than most. If the Chinese were serious, then there was a fortune to be played for here, which was almost beyond computation. And Charles Lee was at the heart of things in Beijing. The man with the knowledge; the man with the contacts. The man with all to play for and nothing much to lose. The thought of it made her head whirl. And that was while she was still looking at the blue legitimate business files and the beige personnel files, dealing with above-the-board elements of the situation; long before she opened the red intelligence files and began to get some kind of a grasp on the manner in which the Mafia in Russia and the Triad organisations in Hong Kong and China might be involved. Not to mention the professional pirates in the Chinese Navy and the Philippines.

  Chapter Seven

  Robin was still reading the US Navy’s five-year-old warning advising American ships in the South China Sea to beware of renegade Chinese Navy units working as modern-day pirates as the Eurostar express eased itself into the long platform of the Gare du Nord terminal. She threw the varicoloured pile of files into the briefcase and rose stiffly. She shrugged herself into her light travelling raincoat, pulled her heavier overnight case out from between the seats and slung the long strap up over her right shoulder. As the doors hissed open, she was there, ready to step out, her eyes already busy looking for the contact she knew would be waiting to whisk her away to Orly.

  The platform was empty and her heart sank. She stepped down onto the concourse and as she did so it abruptly became bustlingly busy as the train’s other passengers did likewise. Straightening her back, she strode up at the head of the tide of travellers towards the ticket barrier. Her escort would be in the main part of the station, of course; she had been silly to be worried. But no; she came through among the first into the great echoing vacancy of the main area of the Gare du Nord. It was still well before dawn, and the only people there were other passengers from the Eurostar, all of whom seemed to be hurrying out towards the taxi rank.

  She hesitated, like a tall yacht with the wind taken out of her sails. The fatigue which she had been keeping heroically at bay washed over her with disorientating force. Her footsteps faltered and her shoulders sagged. Her eyes lost their focus and her ears filled with the roaring which comes with sheer exhaustion.

  So it was that she did not at first hear the announcement on the tannoy. ‘Will Captain Robin Mariner, a passenger recently arrived from London, please report to the Enquiries Office …’

  Had the message been relayed in anything other than those cut-crystal English tones, she probably would not have heard it at all even though her French was fluent and idiomatic.

  *

  The taxi driver was gruff and monosyllabic. One of the old school: he wore a beret and a Gitane as inevitably as his round shoulders and hangdog expression.

  ‘’Jour.’

  ‘Bonjour. Orly?’ She copied his spoken delivery and decided against asking him to take her cases.

  ‘Orly,’ he confirmed.

  ‘Alors. En avant.’

  His eyebrows rose and the comers of his eyes crinkled. ‘Bon.’ He led her out onto the station forecourt under a bright clock displaying the time 06:35, past the long, desperate-looking queue of passengers beside the empty taxi rank, across the gleaming cobbles to a smart, powerful-looking silver Citroen Xantia. Silently he opened the rear door for her and held it almost gallantly as she piled her cases onto the back seat. ‘I wish to sit in front,’ she said in French. ‘Is that OK?’

  He shrugged: OK.

  She strapped herself in and it was well she did so. The Xantia was a powerful car and the driver was a great deal less laggardly than he seemed to be. He approached le peripherique as though it was Le Mans. She was incapable of sitting there silently, however, and so she seduced her taciturn companion into conversation as they sped out through the sleepily stirring city towards the airport. His name was Henri and he was originally a Marseillaise. His wife was Parisienne and, against the tradition, he had come to her home town instead of making her come to his. They had three sons, all married now, and a daughter. The sons were a teacher, an accountant with a firm in Aix-en-Provence, and a sailor. Henri was currently saving every centime he could towards his daughter’s looming nuptials. And all the brothers sent in what they could as well. It was the eldest, Henri, his favourite, who had gone to sea. Henri fils was third officer on a liner cruising the Mediterranean and he loved the life. Oh yes, the Henris père et fils knew all about Heritage Mariner. Did the captain think simply quelqu’un would be selected to drive a person such as she? Even among the drivers who worked regularly for Crewfinders, he, Henri Le Pen, was considered to be the most reliable.

  This revelation reduced Robin to silence, but the quiet did not last long for Henri Le Pen was exceeding the speed limit by a considerable factor and Orly was rising up towards them, a blaze of light just beginning to lose its lustre in the brightening dawn.

  After parking, Henri did indeed take Robin’s cases — rather to her surprise — and led her swiftly and purposefully through the massive terminal. She had checked her itinerary and her tickets in the London taxi travelling between Heritage House and Waterloo and so it came as no surprise to her that Henri was plunging doggedly towards the increasingly exclusive environs of the international departure gates and finally to the Concorde lounge. It was inevitable, really; there was only ever one mode of transport which could get her more than halfway round the world within a twenty-four-hour period. She had no clear idea why Concorde was actually flying out to Hong Kong today, but she was very glad indeed that there was just one spare seat in the long, needle-shaped fuselage, and that she was now in possession of the ticket that went with it.

  She handed over that ticket to the smart young receptionist at the Air France counter and was whirled into a silk-lined, velvet-gloved, luxurious world at once, hardly having time to retrieve her luggage and to say au revoir to Henri.

  While her weekend case was whisked away and her briefcase was put through standard security checks, she was led down a series of thick-carpeted corridors by that same svelte, blue-uniformed receptionist. ‘The flight departs in a few minutes,’ this young woman informed her. ‘You have arrived at the last possible moment.’

  ‘I came on the Eurostar express train from London,’ said Robin, as though this was an extenuating circumstance.

  ‘Dieu! I do not think I would enjoy
to travel through the tunnel beneath la Manche. Give me an aeroplane every time!’

  ‘I enjoyed it. It was convenient, comfortable, fast and efficient. Very like a plane in many ways, I thought.’

  The blue-clad shoulders in front of her shrugged eloquent disbelief, as though Robin had suggested that English wine was superior to French.

  Conversation was at an end.

  Their footsteps echoed hollowly, suddenly, and it became obvious that they were walking across an enclosed bridge. They turned a corner and there was a doorway immediately in front of them with the Air France girl’s identical twin — except that she was in a BA uniform — standing waiting for them, holding Robin’s briefcase. She offered it with a smile and Robin grinned wearily in return, secretly hating the young woman’s bright-eyed tirelessly pleasant demeanour, her perfect make-up and her bouffant hairstyle with not one gleaming golden fibre out of place.

  Inside Concorde’s main passenger cabin there was a quiet hum of expectation as the better part of a hundred very superior men and women readied themselves for departure at this cripplingly antisocial hour. The blue-uniformed air hostesses passed between them solicitously, ensuring that everything required and requested was done for their comfort. Robin’s seat was by the window halfway along the narrow aisle to the right, just below the mid-cabin display designed to show what speed they were doing. At the moment it read MACH: 0.00.

  The hostess gently disturbed a young man in shirtsleeves wearing exquisitely tailored suit trousers and red and black silk Mickey Mouse braces which looked like something left over from the yuppy eighties. He rose accommodatingly, offered to put her briefcase up in the overhead rack and grinned understanding when she refused. He sat silently when she was settled and did not strike up a conversation until after she began to talk to him.

  But she did not begin that particular conversation until they were climbing towards five kilometres up in the air, the display above her head was reading MACH: 0.95, and breakfast was being served.

  ‘Do you like scrambled egg and smoked salmon?’

  ‘Rather!’

  ‘Would you like mine? It’s a bit rich and I’m feeling a little delicate.’

  ‘I say! That’s jolly decent! Can I swap anything for it? Want my croissant? Can’t say I’m too keen on croissants. Think they’ll have any toast and marmalade?’

  ‘I’d love your croissant, thank you. And yes, I’m sure they’ll give you toast if you ask.’ She broke open the flaky crescent of honeyed gold pastry and reached for her knife. A little butter, some apricot confiture and some thick, black coffee was just what the doctor ordered. If only the coffee cups weren’t so small!

  ‘Champagne, Captain Mariner?’ asked the hostess.

  ‘No … Yes, please,’ she said, watching the foaming nectar and her companion both at once. As soon as the hostess was gone, she resumed the conversation. ‘I’ll swap you if you like …’

  For her, it was exactly like being back at boarding school, as it was for him, she guessed. They made a good team, always accepting everything offered and then bargaining so that both of them got a lot of what they wanted instead of a mixture of palatable and unpalatable alternatives. Like Jack Sprat and his wife.

  It was a ridiculous game to play in this situation where either of them could have had exactly what they wanted simply for the asking, but it was a diverting amusement, if a childish one, and they both enjoyed it. It became a little like an innocent flirtation after a while and they were confederates and friends long before they got round to proper introductions. The introductions were simply information about first names in any case because he knew she was Captain Mariner from what the hostess said in the same way as she knew that he was Dr Maxwell.

  The game had the unexpected effect of isolating them a little from everyone else aboard. Even had Dr Maxwell not been there, Robin would probably have taken little notice of the other passengers as, more than seven kilometres up in the still, sun-filled spring air above the eastern Mediterranean, they hurtled eastwards at more than twice the speed of sound. She was preoccupied, unaware that there might be anyone aboard whom she knew, and insensitive to the atmosphere which surrounded her. Had she not been so tired — so overwhelmed — she would have thought to wonder about the flight, its timing, its destination and its occupants.

  ‘Your doctorate. Is it in medicine?’

  ‘Economics, I’m afraid. So I hope you’re not feeling unwell.’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘What you said about feeling delicate. And you do look all in, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

  ‘No. I’m just tired. I’ve had a pretty bad day, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Anything I can do to help?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so.’ She said it automatically, hardly thinking about the actual meaning of his words, certainly not looking beyond their apparent simple civility.

  ‘Well, I won’t be in HK for long but I’ll be networking like hell from the moment we touch down. We’re just going in to oversee the handover, you see, but they’ll have to let us have pretty wide access even in Government House. The legal team will have a broader brief than us economists, of course, but we’ll still be there on the pulse. Look …’ He reached down under his seat and pulled out his jacket which had been beautifully folded. He started sorting through the pockets, turning the perfectly arranged material into something which looked like a dishrag. Robin watched him, not a little dazed. At last he wrestled a business card out of an inner pocket and handed it over with boyish pride. She looked at it. ‘ADAM STAMFORD MAXWELL, DOCTOR OF ECONOMICS,’ it said. ‘COMMITTEE FOR THE OVERSIGHT OF POST-TREATY HONG KONG, ECONOMICS SECTION. Room 101, Government Offices, Government House, Hong Kong.’

  ‘It’s a bit of a misnomer really,’ he said a little sheepishly. ‘We’re not really going to be there post treaty; we’re just there to observe the handover for the House and report back in detail. There are a lot of government people very nervous about the whole thing, you see. We won’t be able to do anything but observe, I shouldn’t think, but we’ve got to report very fully on the Basic Law and the functioning of the Special Administrative Region and the Special Economic Zone. That’s my specialist area, of course.’

  She looked down at the card again. There in the corner was the seal of the House of Commons. She slid the pasteboard into the breast pocket of her blouse and relieved him of his wadded jacket. As he continued to talk, she shook it out expertly and refolded it with her practised sailor’s fingers until it fell into razor creases as though it had just been pressed.

  ‘So this flight is full of economists and lawyers all getting ready to report to Parliament on the final handing back of Hong Kong?’ she asked, on the verge of bewilderment.

  ‘Not quite. I’m sorry, I thought you knew. No, they wouldn’t waste Concorde seats on small-fry like me if it was just a question of getting us out there. You know Prince Charles is already out there, of course? Now we’re bringing out the Foreign Secretary and some big wallahs from the Foreign Office. It’s for the opening of the new airport just off Lan Tao Island, called Chek Lap Kok.’ He looked at his watch. ‘What’s the time? What time zone is this?’

  ‘I don’t know. Lunchtime?’

  ‘We’re due there to be part of the opening ceremony tonight sometime.’

  Robin sat in silence for a moment. Her forehead slowly creased and her grip on reality began to slip. ‘If half the Foreign Office is on board, why on earth didn’t the flight start from Heathrow?’

  ‘It did. But we had to drop off a couple of Mandarins and pick up fuel and flight crew in Paris. That’s how you got that seat, I suppose. I thought you’d have known. I mean, you’re Heritage Mariner, I thought you’d have been bang up to date with all of this. Someone somewhere must have pulled strings without number to get you on this flight. If you’re not swanning out to the Chek Lap Kok opening with the FO Buy British team or joining the diplomatic rollercoaster for the next two months, then what are you doing he
re?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘Well, Adam,’ she said, ‘I’ll tell you …’

  *

  An hour later, as the hostess cleared away the last of the lunch things, Adam said, faintly, ‘And this is what you call a bad day?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘I’d hate to see what you would call a disaster.’

  They sat in silence for a while then, ‘Robin?’ he said. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Look, I don’t know anyone on this plane, but you must. I mean even if you haven’t met the Foreign Secretary, then you or your husband must have met some of his team. Can’t you get some of them busy on this?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it, yes.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘No buts.’ Robin pressed the button to summon the hostess.

  ‘Yes, Captain Mariner? What can I do for you?’

  Robin looked up. This was another woman, older than the hostess who had brought breakfast and lunch. She was tall, well-groomed, of indeterminate age. But she was perfectly turned out and exquisitely made up. Even her eyebrows seemed to have been combed. And she had Security written all over her. Robin racked her memory for the most likely names to be accompanying the Foreign Secretary. Who did she know at the Foreign Office who might be up at the front of the plane? No names would come.

  ‘Yes, Captain Mariner?’ The cool tones had a touch of asperity now, just a hint of impatience. The perfectly-rouged lips thinned.