Albert Sekloong has attacked the citadels of commerce like a condottiere captain with an electronic sword. It’s not easy to outshine his high-powered family: Albert is the nephew of Archbishop (and Cardinal-apparent) Charles Sekloong; the cousin of cinemactress Comtesse Alaine d’Alivère; and cousin-by-marriage of Deputy Under Secretary of State Spencer Taylor Smith. A new element in the mix: Jiro Matsuyama, considered the brightest modan ekuzekutibu (modern executive) in the even more tradition-encrusted Mitsubishi empire. Instant rapport welded the Harvard Business School classmates, and in 1960 Albert married Jiro’s then 23-year-old sister Kazuko (Radcliffe ’56, Phi Beta Kappa).
Albert Sekloong remains an enigma. He appears more comfortable with Asians than with Americans or Europeans, despite his entrée to the highest circles in the West. Some suggest that Albert (one-fifth Chinese, one-half Jewish) still remembers real or imagined slights during his long residence in America under the care of his Aunt Charlotte (married, fourth time, billionaire Avram Barakian, the Enigmatic Armenian, 1951). Such speculation right or wrong, he’s shown a predisposition for doing business with such dubious Asian partners as the Communist regimes of Peking and Hanoi.
Himself no Communist, but a swashbuckling, capitalist free-booter, Albert has put together a dazzling array of new ventures under his own company, Albert Sekloong Associates, Ltd., called Ah Sek along Ice House Street. For the first time, a Sekloong company went public two months ago when Ah Sek offered its shares on the Hong Kong, London, and New York Stock Markets. All were snatched up at the issue price of $15. They’re now selling at $45.
A partial list of the new Sekloong ventures: Dragon Plastics and Electronics with a range of products from helmet liners to computer components; 64 percent of Hong Kong Airways, a scrappy feeder line for the Far East and Southeast Asia that’s worrying the big carriers by creaming off profitable short-haul and medium-haul business; heavy commitments in grain futures, estimated about $20 million, after successful brokerage of previous Canadian grain sales to Communist China; Borneo South Seas Explorations, which melds Mitsubishi technology with Sekloong connections through the overseas Chinese of Indonesia and has committed an estimated $40 million to leases and prospecting off Borneo; Megalith Housing, which plans mammoth apartment complexes for accommodation-short Hong Kong; China Agencies, a major factor in expanding trade with Peking, while, confirmed report has it, funneling trucks, radios, pharmaceuticals and rubber goods to Hanoi; and Dragon Films, a fledgling of one month, purposes and direction not yet known.
To top it off, Ah Sek recently took options on large quantities of commodities from rubber, tin, and zinc to textiles, steel, and chemicals. One knowledgeable source contends: “Albert thinks a war’s coming and remembers the legendary Sekloong killing before the First World War!”
That’s just the superstructure. The solid foundation is the old Sekloong holdings in real estate, hotels, shipping, banking, and highly profitable distributorships for mundane necessities ranging from kerosene to sewing-machines. But the superstructure is reaching higher every day. The limits of its growth? Some smart moneymen say only the sky.
Though jibes about his unlimited ambition still rankled, rereading the panegyric had done Albert more good than an hour of meditation. He was refreshed, ready to cope with whatever problems his rapid expansion next cast up. If Time considered his achievements “breathtaking” and “dazzling,” how could he disagree?
The communications center chimed softly, and a green light winked.
“Mr. Sekloong, your wife calling.” A secretary’s voice spoke from a concealed speaker. “And I have Mr. Matsuyama on the green line.”
“Tell her I’ll get back to her as soon as I can. Jiro, hello Jiro, where the devil are you? I’ve been trying to reach you all day.”
“In a traffic jam in Roppongi. If the Mercedes weren’t fitted with a desk, a dictating machine, and a telephone, I’d lose half my working day.”
“Why don’t you get a helicopter, one of those two-place Bell jobs?”
“I’ve thought about it, but it doesn’t go with the image. We new zaibatsu have to keep a low profile—or catch hell from the press and the unions. I wish we had a nice tight oligarchy that keeps everything under control like Hong Kong.”
“You do all right,” Albert said dryly. “Japan Incorporated isn’t cracking. And I know who runs Japan Incorporated.”
“I’ve told you that’s a damned exaggeration. If only you knew how much time I waste placating this one, cajoling that one, and.… But you didn’t call to discuss the eco-sociology of Japan. What’s on your mind?”
“Borneo and oil,” Albert replied succinctly. “I don’t like the way it smells. After that half-assed Communist coup failed last September, our people’ve been getting pushed around. Sukarno himself’s shaky, can’t last as President. Subandrio’ll fall with him—and there goes the five million dollars we ‘contributed’ to the Foreign Minister’s ‘special fund.’ If the generals take over …”
“… we’re in the shit,” Matsuyama completed the sentence. “And they’re beginning to wrap up all your buddies. My people tell me all Chinese are going to get hit. The students are calling Subandrio Peiking Anjing, the Peking dog.”
“The whole deal could unravel, couldn’t it?”
“It’s not that bad yet. We can make new connections …”
“… and pay new bribes.”
“I’m afraid so. But that’s better than letting the whole thing go down the drain. Look, Albert, just keep cool.”
“I’m not steaming, not yet. But it’s damned bad timing with this Hong Kong slump.”
“I thought you were coming out of it.”
“We are, but it’s slow. Construction’s way off, and cash is tight. I’ve had to move funds … some of them yours … out of Ah Sek to cover other commitments. All legitimate, of course, but I’m beginning to feel a cold breath on my neck.”
“Albert, I’ll check on Borneo. But look at it like this. It can’t go completely sour. The Indonesians need our technology and the oil income too badly. If worse comes to worst, we’ll just have to pull in our horns for a while—wait them out.”
“That’s a little comfort, Jiro, but not much. And really look around. We may need cash in a hurry.”
“You don’t want me to bullshit you, old buddy, do you? Hand you a lot of optimistic talk that isn’t worth a damn? Just keep cool on Borneo. And I will look around. But what set you off? The old lady back yet?”
“Today,” Albert answered glumly. “She just got back.”
“Oh, I get it,” Jiro laughed. “Look, don’t let her spook you. You’re still her blue-eyed boy, and she is eighty-five, even if she is sharper than most big operators half her age. The big firm’s still solid, isn’t it? Nothing wrong with J. Sekloong and Sons?”
“No trouble there,” Albert conceded. “I guess I’m just edgy.”
“We’ll talk again soon. My love to Kazuko. Tell her I want to be an uncle.”
“She’s not that anxious to be a mother,” Albert laughed. “But I’ll give her your message. Thanks, Jiro.”
The Porsche Targa flicked its canary-yellow tail insouciantly around the curves of the road winding up The Peak. Albert gunned the motor as he downshifted under the winged-dragon arch, and the twin exhaust pipes rumbled throatily. Jiro, who was deliberately unobtrusive in his dark suits and black Mercedes, mocked the tear-drop sports car as “Al’s Adolescent Fantasy Machine.” But Albert grinned at the jibe.
The two spoke the same language, the hard-boiled, Americanized argot of the new international marketplace, and Albert trusted Jiro as he did no other. Jiro was one of the family, and the two self-consciously emancipated Asians still knew in their bones that only family ties were, ultimately, dependable. But Jiro was not a Sekloong. He was not burdened by the ingrained reverance for the Old Gentleman or the responsibility for the unproductive members of the clan that, Albert felt, hampered his own initiative and restricted his individuality.
Radial tires skidding on flying gravel, the Targa stopped before the iron-bound double doors of The Castle.
The closed shutters of the Second Small House cheered Albert by their mute demonstration that Sir Jonathan had not been infallible. Kazuko and he had moved into the First Small House, originally Mary and Charles’s, when the three Dowager Empresses chose to live together in The Castle. Together was not quite the right word: Lady Mary, Sarah, and Opal maintained three distinct households in the stone pile that lacked only arrow slits and machicolations to make it a medieval fortress. The Second Small House was, however, tenanted only by an occasional relation spending a few months in Hong Kong. Sir Jonathan, that compulsive builder of monuments to himself, had never imagined a time when too few Sekloongs were permanently resident in Hong Kong to fill all the clan’s dwellings.
Albert strode through the circular marble reception hall and bounded up the stairs to the study, where, the Number One Boy told him, the ladies were “taking tea.” He brushed his grandmother’s crumpled-velvet cheek with his lips, careful not to jar her tulip glass of champagne. He kissed his mother, who was sipping a brandy-and-soda. His hand trailed affectionately across his wife’s shoulders. Kazuko alone was actually “taking tea,” green tea from a handleless Japanese cup. The old girls liked their nip, but his modern wife preferred the conventional lady’s beverage because, she complained, alcohol made her flush bright red.
“At last, Albert,” Lady Mary smiled affectionately. “You’ve been busy, have you?”
“Sorry, Grandma. I just couldn’t get away earlier. It must have been easier in the old days. No telephones and Telexes to chain you to your desk.”
“Less frenetic, perhaps,” Lady Mary replied. “But easier? I think not. However, we didn’t make such a great splash in the press.”
Here it comes, Albert warned himself. She’s back just five minutes, and the inquisition is starting.
“Oh, you mean the Time piece. They were going to do it anyway. I thought I’d get a better shake if I cooperated. Besides, publicity’s good for business nowadays. The rules’ve changed.”
“I won’t debate modern business practices or the sweet lure of publicity with you. I can appreciate its practical value, even if the greatest value is to your own ego.” Lady Mary’s smile drew the sting from her words. “I’m not happy at public identification with my friend Chou En-lai’s erratic regime. However, it is China, so there’s no help for it. But Hanoi? I suppose you know what you’re doing.”
“I do,” he replied. “Besides, Time erred, as they say. Our share of the Hanoi trade is practically nonexistent. Mostly it’s Mitsubishi.”
Albert poured a jigger of Glenlivet over the ice cubes in his glass. He was surprised and relieved. He had expected Lady Mary to seize upon the hard commercial aspects of his expansion, rather than the political ramifications. She asked only two more questions.
“I take it you haven’t touched the foundation, the established operations of J. Sekloong and Sons. Not made any fundamental changes, Time to the contrary notwithstanding?”
“No, I haven’t, Grandma,” he could reply in good conscience.
“And your own new company, though it’s not strictly my concern? The shareholders are protected, aren’t they?”
“No greater than any commercial risk, and less than many. Of course, there’s always an element …”
“But no more than normal? Albert Sekloong Associates, Ltd., is still a Sekloong enterprise. Our name won’t be smirched?”
“No, I assure you. No monkey business. No risk the shareholders take that I don’t. I can show you.”
“Fine, Albert. Perhaps we can look at the books another day.”
Albert Sekloong raised his glass in a silent toast. He’d forgotten how reasonable the old girl could be when she chose.
In bed that night, he asked Kazuko with elaborate casualness, “Lady Mary seems content with my affairs. Did she cross-question you and Mother?”
“A little, but no more than she did you. I got the impression she’s more concerned about our producing another great-grandchild for her.”
“Fine,” he whispered into the hollow of her throat. “Let’s see if we can’t oblige her.”
His fingers gently peeled back the skirt of her lace nightdress. Albert was the first naturally monogamous Sekloong male; his passions were divided between his delightfully uninhibited wife and his spiraling business affairs. The latter passion, normally greater, was soon submerged in the first.
Albert Sekloong had, to the best of his knowledge, told his grandmother the literal and complete truth. In late October 1965, the Sekloong empire was vigorously producing goods and services, as well as profits. He had taken no greater risks than his competitors in Hong Kong, the twentieth century’s last stronghold of commercial buccaneers. He had scrupulously obeyed the minimal regulations of the Colony’s laws, and he had adroitly slipped through their numerous loopholes. Recalling Lady Mary’s tales of his great-grandfather’s adventures, he could sincerely affirm that he had not sailed as close to the wind as had Sir Jonathan when his ships were beginning to bring their rich cargoes into harbor.
“Venture capital” meant just that. Albert had to venture widely to utilize the opportunities offered by an increasingly unsettled Asia—and he fully expected some losses. Some of his ventures might raise eyebrows in the City of London or on Wall Street. But even the more adventurous financiers, merchants, and industrialists of London and New York had always lifted their eyebrows at Hong Kong’s daring. His conscience was clear, and his accounts were healthy, though somewhat short of liquid cash because of the constant drain of Borneo South Seas Explorations.
A month later, Albert would have hesitated before assuring Lady Mary that all was well. Two months later, he could not have offered that assurance without perjuring himself.
January 1966 brought a disastrous sequence of apparently unrelated setbacks. Albert could almost smell the sour stench of his own fear when he pored over the files in his showcase office, just as Sir Jonathan had reviewed his dispositions at the blackwood desk that stood in the adjoining office before counterattacking the Wheatleys forty-eight years earlier. Had his upbringing behind the unbreachable walls of Sekloong wealth not imbued him with immense self-confidence, Albert might have panicked. Even so, he wondered if he were becoming paranoid. The assaults from every quarter appeared deliberately orchestrated. Though he had taken no greater risks than were customary in laissez-faire Hong Kong, the unparalleled misfortunes threatened to bear him down.
Poor quality control and, perhaps, sabotage at Dragon Plastics and Electronics had resulted in purchasers’ rejecting goods worth almost $3 million. The new art of ultra-miniaturization had rendered obsolete an additional $1.2 million worth of transistors and computer components assembled by deft-handed girls peering through microscopes to solder wires one-hundredth of a hair’s diameter. Assisted by Jiro Matsuyama, Albert was negotiating for licenses to manufacture printed circuits and micro-sliced quartz chips. But his greatest advantage, cheap and skilled labor, would be sharply reduced by the new automated manufacturing processes, while initial fees and new equipment would cost $5 million.
The alternative was dismaying and, ultimately, not very helpful. He could sell out Dragon’s inventory and capital equipment at a heavy discount in order to obtain cash to shore up his other enterprises. However, both his pride and his business sense counseled against that course. The loss would be great, and the receipts would be rapidly dissipated.
His most prized possession, Hong Kong Airways, had been virtually snatched away from him, though he retained his 64 percent interest in the six Lockheed Electras standing idle on the tarmac at Kaitak. Hong Kong Airways was no longer functioning. Glorying in his lone-wolf image, Albert had failed to protect his flanks by making allies in London. He had, therefore, been humiliatingly outmaneuvered. A “routine route reallocation” by Whitehall had cut Hong Kong Airways back to two flights a week to Taipei and a single flight
to Bangkok. The old British hongs had manipulated the politicians. In collaboration with British Overseas Airways, Derwent’s had taken over Albert’s routes for their new Sino-British Airlines, which flew chartered BOAC jets flown by BOAC crews. For its future independent operations, Sino-British had hired Albert’s unemployed air crews and, in a deliberate gesture of contempt, had offered $150,000 for each of the six Electras. He was still stubbornly rejecting that derisory offer.
Borneo South Seas’ oil ventures were at a standstill. The right-wing generals who were consolidating their control of Indonesia had suspended all drilling “for technical reasons,” imposed confiscatory taxes on his overseas Chinese associates—and were threatening outright expropriation. Nonetheless, the payroll and maintenance costs had to be met, as did contracted fees to the Indonesian Government. The alternative was loss of his entire investment.
Political upheavals had also struck at his China trade by virtually paralyzing all Peking’s foreign commerce. No official of a state-trading corporation dared approve a sale or place a firm order for fear that he might subsequently be pilloried for sabotaging the revolution by trading with the “capitalist-imperialists.” Albert was, nonetheless, bound to pick up $18 million in wheat futures—and pay hard cash—in two months’ time. Besides, he was overcommitted to an inventory of general goods for the China market. Hanoi would gladly have taken his commodities at bargain prices, but the North Vietnamese lacked cash. Moreover, a mild-mannered commercial attaché from the American Consulate-General had warned Albert that he would be blacklisted if he did not withdraw entirely from the Hanoi trade. He could not sacrifice his relations with American firms for the chimera of a North Vietnamese market. Worse, Mitsubishi and the other zaibatsu had virtually monopolized that market. The U.S. Government, anxious to avoid offending Tokyo, turned a judiciously blind eye to those transactions through dummy corporations.
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