NINETEEN
FAREWELL TO HONG KONG
THE ALBINO TOM IMMEDIATELY MOVED FORWARD AND DISARMED BOND. HE tucked the Walther PPK in his belt, then moved back into position. Harry slowly released Sunni, and she moved to join Bond.
“How touching,” Thackeray said. “It looks as if you two have some sort of affection for each other. Surprised to see me, Mr. Bond?”
Bond was speechless.
“No, I’m not a ghost,” Thackeray said. “Still alive. I haven’t felt better in years!”
“What’s going on, Thackeray?” Bond ground out. “Let us go!”
“But you two are my guests,” the man said with mock sincerity. “I was about to have breakfast. Won’t you join me? I promise to tell all.” He gestured to the albinos. Bond and Sunni were shoved roughly towards the passageway. Bond removed his radioactive-resistant suit, then the entire party made their way out of the mine. They walked across the gravel towards the main building. The temperature had risen considerably in the hour Bond and Sunni had been underground.
They were led into a comfortable private dining area on the second floor. Tom shoved Bond towards a chair. Angered, 007 turned and swung at the albino. Tom was unbelievably quick for his size—he blocked the blow effortlessly, grabbed Bond’s arm and twisted it sharply. Bond winced in agony.
“Enough of that!” Thackeray commanded. Tom released Bond, who jerked his arm away from the albino and stared at him menacingly.
“Who are the three stooges, Thackeray? I should have known they worked for you when I first saw them in Macau.”
“Oh, these are the Chang brothers. All three of them were born albino. Their parents were my grandfather’s servants. My own father saw to it that they were raised in a safe environment and they have been loyal to my family ever since,” Thackeray said.
“Sit down, Mr. Bond. Sit down, Miss … uhm, what shall I call your lovely companion?”
Before Sunni could answer, Bond replied, “Her name is no concern of yours. She’s completely innocent. You should let her go. She won’t go to the police.”
“I cannot believe she is completely innocent, Bond,” Thackeray said.
“For that matter,” Bond said, “you have no right to keep me either. I promise you, my newspaper won’t publish anything about you.”
“Your newspaper?” Thackeray laughed loudly. “Come, come, Bond. Cut the crap, please. I know all about you. You’re no reporter. I knew you weren’t a reporter before we parted company in Macau. You work for the British Secret Service. You see, my albino friends here kept tabs on Mr. Woo after he had played mahjong with me a couple of times. I wanted to know more about him. It wasn’t difficult to ascertain that he worked for your government. You people really are becoming careless, you know. I was about to do something about him, but General Wong in China beat me to it. Woo knew too much. It wasn’t a huge leap of logic to see through you, Mr. Bond.”
A Chinese servant brought in a tray of food: scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, orange juice, and coffee.
“Ah, breakfast,” Thackeray said. “Eat up, please. It may be the last good breakfast you’ll ever have!” He sat down and started piling food on his plate.
Bond looked at Sunni. She was terribly frightened. He took her hand. It was trembling. He wished she had stayed at the motel and was angry with himself for allowing her to come. Once again he had put a girl he cared about in jeopardy. Bond gave her hand a squeeze as if to say, “Don’t worry.” He then put on his best façade of nonchalance.
“I bet you say that to all your guests, Thackeray,” he said, sitting down. “This looks good. We’re quite hungry, aren’t we, Sunni?”
She looked at him as if he was mad. Bond gestured with his head for her to sit. Sunni sat down and played with her food.
“So, tell me,” Bond said, “how did you manage to survive that car bomb?”
“Oh, that,” Thackeray said. “Simple stage illusion. I once made a paltry living doing magic, but you probably already know that. I used to perform the same trick on stage with a cabinet and a curtain. I’d step into the cabinet, and my assistants would hold a large drape in front of it. The top of the cabinet could be seen behind the curtain, but it shielded my escape through the bottom. The cabinet was set on fire, and then I miraculously appeared at the back of the house and walked down the aisle to the thunderous applause of the audience. It was a nice illusion. On the day of my ‘disappearance,’ I simply got out of the limo when the vehicle was shielded by a large lorry that pulled up beside it. I jumped on to the side of the lorry and rode with it up the street. A man I’d hired then threw the bomb into the car. It was quite spectacular, if I do say so myself. I understand you had something to do with the man’s demise?”
Of course, Bond thought. He should have known it had been a magician’s illusion. It just proved the old adage that the hand really was quicker than the eye.
“Very clever, Thackeray,” Bond said. “But why? I know all about the contract between your great-great-grandfather and Li Xu Nan’s great-great-grandfather. But why disappear? Unless it was simply to escape being arrested as a drug-smuggler?”
“Yes, well, the contract …” Thackeray suddenly seemed lost in thought. “It’s extraordinary, isn’t it? My father had told me about the agreement, and I thought it had been lost forever. Li Xu Nan hated me on principle. He thought my family had cheated his family. But we didn’t lose the contract. The Thackerays had nothing to do with his family’s exile from China. Yet he blamed me for some reason.” Thackeray chuckled. “It didn’t stop him from doing business with me!”
“And then General Wong came to see you …”
Thackeray nodded. “Yes. A black day, to be sure. General Wong came to see me in, what year was it … ? 1985. At first I couldn’t believe he could get away with what he told me. I was determined to find a legal defence against him. At the same time, though, I had to keep silent. I couldn’t put the company’s market value in jeopardy. If the news that EurAsia Enterprises was going to change ‘management’ in 1997 had been made public then, I could not have conducted business. There are plenty of big corporations that have pulled out of Hong Kong in the last ten years. I was stuck, so I had to make it work until that fateful day.”
Thackeray stood and began to walk around the room as he spoke. He took a bottle of vodka, poured some into a glass, and drank it quickly. For the next half hour, he continued to refill the glass regularly. His address slowly became a rant, as if he was justifying himself to the gods rather than talking to people in the same room as him.
“I had to live with it for ten years!” he said. “Ten … bloody … years … Imagine it! Imagine knowing that everything your family had built was going to vanish in one swift blow, and there wasn’t a damned thing you could do about it! I alone carried that weight on my shoulders. My solicitor knew of course but he was helpless as well. So, about a year ago, I finally knew what I had to do. I would get everything I could out of the company, escape, and then wreak havoc on the society that had destroyed five generations of wealth and success.”
He sat down again and faced Bond and the girl. His face was flushed and he was now beginning to lose his composure. “I hate the Chinese. I hate the two-faced bastards! They smile to your face, eager-to-please, but behind your back they have nothing but contempt for you. And you know something? The British are no better! I hate them as well! What idiots! They agreed to hand over the wealthiest city-state in Asia to the yellow bastards, and it was rightfully theirs!”