Dragon Dance Read online

  “Sure, Dad.”

  That was a dead giveaway—“our private life.” What he really meant was “Jenny is off-limits.” But Mark was not going to shut up about Jenny. Jenny Leung was the center of the whole problem.

  They went into Mark’s office and sat down. Warwick thumped his briefcase down on the floor, pulled out two leather-bound folders, and slid one across the glass tabletop. Mark flipped it open and glanced at the title page.

  “Another restructuring plan?”

  There had been three already, and Mark hadn’t found much to celebrate in any of them. Management control had been progressively shifted from London to Los Angeles, and from the board of directors to a “supervisory committee” made up of Warwick himself, Jenny Leung, and a couple of tame lawyers.

  His father fitted on his half-moon reading glasses. “The other plans were just tinkering. This is the crucial one, the last throw of the dice.”

  He stared over the top of the glasses, fixing Mark with his pale blue eyes. Mark gave a noncommittal nod and turned his gaze to the folder. His father’s choice of words had been quite deliberate. He was invoking a family legend, the story of how his own father had started out in business.

  Jack Fletcher had been the illegitimate son of a good-time girl in a remote Australian mining town. At the age of twelve he became a miner himself, and gradually accumulated a little cache of gold. When he judged he had enough, he exchanged it for cash, made his way to the biggest gambling den in the state, and staked the equivalent of three years’ wages on three rolls of the dice. He won all three, and walked out of there rich enough to buy the local newspaper.

  Mark was not a gambler himself. He preferred to be in the position of the house, which was why he had purchased lottery franchises in half-a-dozen countries. Still, he understood the power of the idea in his father’s mind. “The last throw of the dice” was something you could never walk away from. It was the test of your manhood. Warwick regularly underwent that test in casinos [66] all over the world, winning or losing as much as fifty million dollars a session.

  “Take your time, Mark. You’re only the fourth person alive to clap eyes on it.”

  Fourth? So who were the other three? Warwick himself, Jenny, and probably Nelson Curbley, the high-powered Washington lawyer who was deputy chairman of the supervisory committee. Mark tried to control his mounting anger. He was the chief executive of InfoCorp and should have been consulted right from the start, as he had been with the other three restructuring plans. Presenting him with a fait accompli like this was an insult.

  “Lot of asset transfers here,” he muttered sullenly. And they were all in one direction—from InfoCorp Global Holdings to InfoCorp Asia.

  His father nodded. “I’m not looking at the world as it is now, but what it’s going to be like in thirty years’ time. All through my career I’ve based my plans on looking thirty years ahead. This time I won’t be around to see them fulfilled, but that makes no difference. This is absolutely the right platform for the next phase of development.”

  Mark turned to the next page, which outlined the new capital structure. He caught his breath. This was worse than anything he had ever imagined.

  “You’re cutting off Asia from the rest of the group?”

  “Not exactly. What we’ve decided is a sister company structure. InfoCorp Global and InfoCorp Asia will no longer have any financial or operational relationship, though of course they will both still be controlled by the master company.”

  “What’s the point of that?

  “The point is strategic focus. You can’t sit here in London staring out over the Thames and understand what’s happening in Asia.”

  Mark felt as if he’d been slapped across the face. “That’s bollocks,” he snapped. “I know the region as well as anyone, for chrissake. I spent three years in Hong Kong setting up the finest digital satellite operation in the world.”

  “Listen, I’m not knocking your contribution, I’m just stating a fact. From now on we need a dedicated management style, with a single clearly defined line of command.”

  “Leading to who? To Jenny, I suppose.”

  “Watch your mouth, mate. Without Jenny’s ideas, our Asian business would be flat on its arse by now.”

  His father’s lower lip gave a little quiver. That was an early warning sign of a gathering storm. Mark ignored it. Nothing could prevent a showdown now and the sooner it came the better. He stabbed a forefinger at the center of the paper.

  “And what about this private placement of shares? Was that her idea too?”

  “Yeah. As a matter of fact it was.”

  Mark glanced at the list of investors. They were companies he had never [67] heard of, with bland names such as Asian Capital Management, Dragon Resources, and China Development Corporation.

  “I suppose the people behind all this are personal contacts of hers.”

  “What if they are? We want to be insiders in this region, not big white men with colonialist mindsets. We need strong strategic partners.”

  “Like who?”

  “Like I can’t tell you right now. Listen, Mark, this game is being played for bigger stakes than you can ever imagine. We’re talking about historical forces here, the fate of nations.”

  “Bigger stakes”—there was the gambling metaphor again. But what were these historical forces he was referring to? The old man had always had a mystical streak, but some of his recent comments had been almost Napoleonic. Mark sometimes wondered if his father was becoming slightly unhinged. After four decades of stable marriage, and constant harping on the importance of family values, he had suddenly embarked on a relationship with a woman less than half his age. Under Jenny’s influence, he had become a vegetarian and junked his Savile Row suits in favor of leather jackets and silk scarves. More troubling to Mark’s educated mind, he had started hanging out with movie people and bogus intellectuals, such as the self-realization guru now installed as editorial adviser to the Tribune.

  “You’re intending to sell almost twenty percent of InfoCorp Asia, and you’re not even going to say who the buyers are?”

  “Not yet. But read the strategy paper at the back of the folder. It’ll give you some idea of the background.”

  There was a six-page document tucked into the inside pocket of the leather folder. Mark pulled it out and browsed the first few paragraphs. It was called “Japan vs China—The Coming Powershift.” The author was J. J. Murphy of the Industrial Security Institute in Washington.

  “So who is this Murphy?”

  “He’s quite a guy, the most brilliant of the new generation of Asia experts. You would learn a lot from him, Mark.”

  “Uh-huh. Where did you come across him, Dad?”

  He knew the answer to that question already. Warwick Fletcher was unlikely to bump into “the most brilliant of the new generation of Asia experts” in the normal course of his activities—unless Jenny Leung had something to do with it.

  “Look, read what he’s got to say. And if you’re still not convinced, you can talk to him in person. I’ve just offered him a job.”

  “Oh really?”

  Mark was about to blurt out something sarcastic, but he restrained himself. There was no point in sweating the trivialities, it was time for the crunch. [68] Mark had a fleeting vision of that South African prop forward charging straight at him, shaven head thrust out, arms and knees pumping away. Mark hadn’t faltered that time. He’d gone in hard, right shoulder thumping against those tree-trunk thighs. Dangerous, but the only approach that had stood a chance of working.

  He snapped the leather folder shut and looked his father in the eye.

  “All very interesting stuff, Dad. But before you go any further, there are a couple of things I want to bring to your attention.”

  “Concerning what?”

  “Concerning Jenny.”

  The pale blue eyes narrowed. The lower lip started twitching. “Careful, mate.”

  “It’s very simple, Dad. T
he woman cannot be trusted.”

  Mark was expecting an explosion of anger, but the reply that came was unnervingly mild. There was even the ghost of a smile on his father’s lips.

  “Now what can you possibly mean by that, Mark?”

  “I mean that she has often given false information about herself. She didn’t edit a student newspaper at Berkeley, nor did she work as a part-time language instructor, nor was she active in the Asian Students’ Association. In fact she was hardly present at all.”

  “Go on,” said his father, low and quiet.

  “As for the idea that she built up her consultancy firm through years of hard struggle—nothing could be further from the truth. When she first moved to Hong Kong, she rented an office in Central and lived in a luxury apartment in Clearwater Bay—quite an expense for a start-up company with no income.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Not quite. There’s the question of how she got her first contract with a major American company. That was Digicom.”

  “And how did she, Mark? Please tell me.” The lower lip was twitching and flexing as if it had a life of its own.

  “Well, what happened was that Digicom’s counterpart, which was a Chinese state-owned enterprise, put her name forward as being indispensable to the deal. So a thirty-two-year-old American Studies graduate suddenly became indispensable to a multibillion-dollar communications satellite deal.”

  There was silence while his father sat there staring at him in an oddly abstract way, his fingers locked together under his chin. The large square fingernails had become pale and blotchy. What was that a sign of—bad circulation, liver problems? He would have to remember to ask one of the health editors.

  “It sounds like somebody’s been doing quite a bit of research. Who is it, Mark? Some investigative journalist trying to make a name for himself?”

  “That’s not important,” said Mark tightly.

  Without warning his father shot to his feet, sending his chair crashing to [69] the ground. His face was a mask of rage, his voice loud enough to be heard outside in the heliport.

  “You’re right it’s not important. I’ll find out soon enough. And whoever’s responsible is going to wish he’d never been born!”

  “Cool down, Dad. Let’s discuss this rationally.”

  The huge fist came slamming down on the table, sending the ashtrays skipping into the air.

  “Shut your mouth, Mark. I told you this stuff is off-limits. Another word about it and I’ll have you fired immediately.”

  Mark remained in his seat, his voice calm and measured. “You can’t do that. I’m the CEO of a public company. The shareholders have just given me a three-year term.”

  “Hah! You’ve got no fucking idea what I can and can’t do, no fucking idea at all.”

  The last words were pronounced with a savage glee that Mark found shocking.

  It was true that his father’s ruthlessness amazed even those who knew him well. This was a man who used a flunky to tell his wife that their forty-year-old marriage was over, who had changed his citizenship three times for business purposes, and who switched his support from right wing to left wing and back again depending on which was offering the better deal.

  “So you’re not interested in the facts?”

  “The facts?” roared Warwick Fletcher. “Bugger the facts! I’m interested in the future.”

  His eyes were bulging, his face dark with blood. He was like an enormous child, thought Mark. A billionaire child ranting and raving, exulting in the noise of his own tantrum.

  “The future?”

  “Yes, the future. You think I’m just a horny old fool. That’s not it, Mark. I know exactly what I’m doing. And nobody is going to get in my way. Nobody, you hear me?”

  “I hear you all right,” said Mark, fingering his left ear. He would never forget the fury of that moment fifteen years ago, helpless at the bottom of the ruck while human teeth tore into his flesh. And he would never forget the feeling of triumph when he heard the final whistle and knew the game was won.

  Ten minutes later, Warwick Fletcher was retracing his route along the Thames, a sheaf of documents perched on his loglike thighs, his jaw set in an expression of steely determination. When the helicopter was no more than a speck above the London skyline, Mark called his friend at Kroll and explained that he had another job, one that would involve a different style of investigation.

  SEVEN

  Martine put down the toothbrush and gazed at herself in the mirror. The person she saw looking back at her bore an unnerving resemblance to her mother. Not her mother as she was now—overweight, her complexion mottled with years of heavy drinking—but as she had been when Martine was a child. There was no getting away from it. No matter what Martine did with her hair, no matter what she did with eyeshadow and lipstick, she was gradually morphing into her mother.

  When she was younger, she had never imagined that such a thing could happen, but now the resemblance was getting stronger year by year. Her neck was thickening, her skin coarsening, and her body was getting bigger in all the wrong places. The nightmare thought hit her once again: one day she would stand in front of the mirror and a fat middle-aged woman would be staring back at her. And the worst thing about this woman would not be the evaporation of beauty, not the boozing, not the increasingly pathetic love affairs. It would be the look in her eyes—the look in her mother’s eyes—of crushing loneliness, of disappointment at what she had become.

  Ageing, rejection, despair—was that really what lay ahead? If only she could freeze time and stay as she was now forever, with no wrinkles, no blotches, no cellulite. With a relationship that never ceased to be fresh and exciting, and with work that never ceased to be challenging. Impossible, of course, but that wasn’t going to stop her from exerting every fiber of her being in trying.

  Martine spat out the toothpaste and turned away from the mirror. This much was true—you couldn’t avoid your destiny. But the kind of destiny Martine believed in had nothing to do with inheritance. It was as the ancient Greeks said—destiny is character.

  Six-thirty on a weekday morning, and there were thirty students in the dojo. Until a few years ago karate had been the preserve of tough guys, headcases, [71] and cops. Now with the crumbling of law and order, martial arts training had become one of the few boom industries. Ordinary men and women of all ages were rushing to learn karate, kickboxing, tae kwon do, shorinji kempo, nin-jitsu and all the variants and new improved systems that were appearing like bamboo shoots in the rainy season.

  Martine had started karate at the age of ten, got her black belt at fifteen, and had won a silver medal at the European Student Championship. She was no longer a devoted practitioner, but she tried to get to the dojo at least a couple of times a week. It was a good way of working out, and more fun than aerobics or squash. And the sensei here was one of the best. He only accepted the students he wanted, and treated them like family. From his serious, rather morose appearance, you would never guess he was an ex-yakuza who had left the syndicate after five years in jail for manslaughter. That had been a quarter of a century ago, and he still refused to say a word about it.

  This morning there were two new students, a tall Japanese woman and a blond foreigner with a black belt in another karate style. The sensei called them out of the circle of students and they introduced themselves with a bow.

  “Saya Miki, detective, Azabu Police Station.”

  “Fritz Schneider, cultural attaché, German Embassy.”

  The sensei nodded and clapped his leathery hands. “Well then, newcomers, let’s see your form. Hasegawa and Kondo, please.”

  The sensei’s two favorite students stepped into the middle of the circle. Hasegawa, a shaven-headed twenty-five-year-old with a chest like a barrel, was the most enthusiastic student in the dojo. After the others left, he would stay behind bashing his fists against a wooden pillar until his knuckles bled. Kazuko Kondo was a squat, cheerful woman who had recently lost her job as
an elevator attendant in one of the big department stores. She was technically strong and very fit, as you would expect from someone who never touched a drop of alcohol and went to bed at nine-thirty surrounded by a menagerie of fluffy animals. When Martine first came to the dojo, she’d been capable of beating Kondo in eight bouts out of ten, but now it was the other way around. Lifestyle—stress, work, diet—had taken its toll.

  “All right, match up. Schneider against Kondo, Miki against Hasegawa.”

  The sensei stood there nonchalantly flexing his shoulders as the German stared at him in amazement.

  “What does this mean?” he said in heavily accented Japanese. “You are asking me to fight against a woman?”

  The sensei was asking Hasegawa to fight against a woman too, but Hasegawa’s chubby face was as expressionless as ever.

  “Get ready!” called the sensei.

  [72] The German glanced at Martine and shook his head theatrically. “This I don’t believe,” he said in English.

  Martine looked straight through him. She had a strong suspicion that he wouldn’t be attending this dojo much longer. The other three were strapping on their chest guards.

  “Helmets!”

  Schneider scrabbled impatiently with his straps, leaving one of them dangling half-fastened.

  “Take positions!”

  The two pairs separated, Schneider and Kondo to the sensei’s right, Miki and Hasegawa to his left. They bowed, then the sensei clapped his hands again and the bouts began.

  Martine kept her eyes on Kondo, admiring the flow of her hips and shoulders as she swayed past Schneider’s frantic jabs. The plain, practical woman whose other hobbies were cooking and pachinko had been transformed into something else entirely. With her bright, alert eyes and piercing shrieks, she was more like a wild animal than a human being. Schneider was lost, of course, and the end came quickly when he tried an arching reverse kick, which Kondo swept aside with her forearm. For a moment he lost his balance and Kondo skipped forward and tapped him in the middle of the chest with her foot. Martine had been on the receiving end of that tap once or twice and she wasn’t surprised to see Schneider go reeling backward and land on the floor with a loud “Oomph!”