‘No! No!’ Lee shook his head, his voice, as ever, betraying no sign of agitation. ‘No. I’m certain you’ll get it all done today.’
The heartening thing, Bond reflected, was that Lee gave no indication of suspicion. He had completely accepted both Bond and Chi-Chi on trust through the passwords and codes. And why should he not? They had seemingly arrived by the correct route, called the designated numbers and established their bona fides correctly. The crunch could only come when H’ang, the unsuspected insect in the liniment, turned up and saw either one of them. He was also cheered by the thought that he had still managed to remain armed, another indication that he was completely trusted.
‘You can go through these at the table here or in my study. I forgot to mention that the soundproofing throughout is remarkably good.’
‘Then, I think it should be the study.’ Bond was already heading for the door and Lee was behind him, moving with the great agility one often sees in very big men.
As they reached the study, Chi-Chi appeared, dressed very simply in faded jeans, a white T-shirt and a short denim jacket. Every garment was well worn and anyone could believe that this was just the kind of thing she would wear at the offices inside the old French Legation in Beijing.
‘Jenny,’ Brokenclaw glowed with pleasure. ‘Peter has suggested that you work in here. It should not take long.’ He placed the leather folder on the table.
Chi-Chi glanced at Bond. ‘I think we should have some clean paper and maybe a calculator. I have been remiss. My own very specialised calculator was left in the Beijing office.’
Bond was almost elated to see that she had regained her composure.
‘What kind was it exactly?’ Brokenclaw’s soft and soothing voice had taken on the unmistakable tones of lechery.
So, Bond thought, that is only one of the reasons he wants me out of the way for an hour or so.
‘It was an HP-28S, an advanced scientific calculator. Very difficult to get hold of. I feel most annoyed with myself,’ Chi-Chi answered Lee’s question.
‘I’m sure one of the Jericho operators’ll have one, or something similar. Come, we can be quick, but you’ll see how ready we are to put Jericho into action.’ He turned back to the door that led down to the dining room and Bond saw the tiny shadow of concern cross Chi-Chi’s face.
‘Though it is most apt,’ Brokenclaw hovered by the door, ‘do you not think it amazing that old One-Eye H’ang has used what could either be a Jewish or a Christian symbol for this incredible operation?’
Chi-Chi did not pause in her stride. ‘Didn’t you know, sir? When General H’ang was very young, before he joined the Red Army and fought in the Revolution, he was raised by Christian missionaries, and it was also a pair of Christians who nursed him when he was wounded before the taking of Beijing.’
‘So? Yes. Yes, of course. The unfortunate girl in New York, Myra, was daughter to the couple who nursed him so long ago. I had forgotten. But come.’
He led the way back down the stairs and past the door to the dining room. At one point Bond gave Chi-Chi a little nod, meant to reassure her, but she returned a clear signal of anxiety and perplexity.
They were now in an even deeper level underground, though there was no hint of dampness or even of being below what was in all probability rock strata. The walls were hung with thick paper and this had been covered with white emulsion. Lights set into the ceiling kept the corridor as bright as day.
Finally, Brokenclaw stopped at a door in which there was a thick glass viewing panel. He peered through the glass and they saw him nod to someone within.
‘Here we are.’ He turned to Bond and Chi-Chi. ‘Our Jericho laboratory.’ He held back the door to allow them to enter.
They were in a brilliantly lit operations room watched over by four white-coated technicians – two women, one of them Chinese, one Caucasian, and two men, one black and one white.
Facing them was a bank of electronics gear at which the black man was sitting; the other members of the team sat at a leather-covered table which had computer VDUs embedded and angled below the table line. Bond also caught a glimpse of keyboards tucked away on sliding trays below the table level.
This monitoring position faced a wall of clear thick glass, and from it you could look down on a long, sterile room in which up to forty men and women sat at computer terminals, each with its modem and telephone. Around the periphery of the room ran a perpetual electronic tape printing out stocks and shares prices. It was very like the interior of a major stockbroker firm’s main office, the only difference being that these people sat calmly at their terminals. There was none of the usual chaotic shouting, bustling and confusion. Only occasionally one of the people in the monitoring room would flick a switch and say a few words into a microphone.
The large black man who sat at the electronics equipment appeared to be in charge, for it was to him that Brokenclaw spoke. ‘Andrew, I’m sorry to bother you. These are good friends of ours, Mr and Mrs Abelard. Peter, Jenny, this is Andrew, in charge of operations at the moment. What’s on for today, Andrew?’
Andrew gave a big smile. ‘We’re giving a couple of hotel chains a small fright. Just for the hell of it. Practice.’
One of the three overlooking the room below spoke softly into a microphone, ‘Okay, twenty-two and twenty-six start selling. Offload all the stuff you bought when the market opened. Just dump it. You have to remember that we’re playing with monopoly money, but the clients out there have the real stuff on their minds.’
‘We really only wanted to see if anyone had an advanced scientific calculator.’ Brokenclaw sounded almost apologetic.
‘I’ve got a Texas Instruments calculator. You want to borrow it?’ from one of the controllers.
Chi-Chi replied, saying she would only need it for a short time, and the small calculator was handed back towards her.
As they left, one of the other controllers was saying, ‘Watch it thirty-two, your gilt-edged are starting to drop. Buy up all you can get your hands on. Do it now, quickly. We can dump them again later; they’ll begin to rise as you buy, then we sell and the bottom’ll drop out for a while.’
‘They seem very efficient.’ Chi-Chi managed to remain composed during the return to the study.
‘They’re well trained. They’ve all worked on the stock market, and I had them recruited for their skill.’ Brokenclaw gave a sinister little chuckle. ‘They also have motivation. Everyone in that lab has a reason for hating the Stock Exchange. They’ll shout with joy when Wall Street comes tumbling down.’
‘I bet they will,’ muttered Chi-Chi.
Lee left them together in his study, saying that when they were finished with the Black Magic material one of them should just press six on the telephone and they would be put straight through to him.
They sat, side by side, the Black Magic papers between them, and the pads and pens which had appeared during their absence, directly in front of them.
Chi-Chi glanced through the first five sheets lying open between the leaves of the leather folder, then wrote quickly on her pad, ‘What in hell’s going on?’
Bond also riffled through the first five sheets, looked at what she had written and added—
Operation Jericho was not supposed to be even on the cards yet. It’s a long term plan for tapping into the New York Stock Exchange and causing an unnatural economic disaster over a period of days or weeks. It is aimed at bringing about a complete collapse of the dollar which will in turn hit most of the world’s other major currencies. The Japanese thought of it first, but it seems One-Eye plus our man are going to do it quite soon.