Zero Minus Ten

Guy Thackeray’s father. While being a shrewd businessman, Thomas Thackeray had inherited his great- grandfather’s trait of greediness. If there was an opportunity to add to his fortune, then he would brush ethics aside and encourage the money-making to continue. It was with this attitude that Thomas Thackeray justified entering into a business alliance with my father. The two men met in person only once, and secretly, at one of my father’s nightclubs. It was agreed that EurAsia Enterprises would provide the means, the Dragon Wing Society would provide the goods and muscle, and together they would share in the profits. Thus, EurAsia Enterprises began distributing heroin all over the world as couriers for the Dragon Wing Society.”

Bond noted, “It seems the story has come full circle, practically a reversal of the partnership that existed in the mid-nineteenth century.”

“Ironically, that is true,” Li said. “There was, however, another piece of the alliance. The smuggled heroin had to come from somewhere, and that was the Golden Triangle. A certain young Chinese official in Guangzhou had influence over the operations of the poppy fields there. His name was Wong Tsu Kam. Extremely militaristic and a staunch Communist, Colonel Wong also happened to be even greedier than Thomas Thackeray! He was the unseen, silent partner of Thackeray and my father. He maintained the poppy fields. He refined the opium into heroin in his own laboratories located on site in the Golden Triangle. He cleared the way for the heroin to be safely smuggled into Hong Kong so that the Dragon Wing Society could get it onto EurAsia’s ships. For his efforts, Wong received a tremendous kickback. A man with those kinds of assets in China wielded great power, and he used it to advance within the Communist party until he became a fully fledged general in 1978.

“A year before Wong Tsu Kam became a general, Guy Thackeray took over EurAsia Enterprises. I had succeeded my father as Cho Ku of the Dragon Wing Society. Our uneasy partnership continued through the eighties and into the nineties. All along, my father knew of the ancient agreement that would have given us control of EurAsia Enterprises should the Hong Kong colony ever be handed back to China. In 1984, the speculation came to an end when the treaty was signed to do that very thing in 1997. The rage that my father felt at the Thackeray family, and at the Communists who had stolen his father’s assets, eventually killed him. He died of heart failure shortly after the news was made public. I carried on, but now a bitter rift existed between me and Guy Thackeray. Our partnership continued, but it was purely a business transaction. It had ceased being personal long ago.

“It was in 1985 that General Wong made his move. One afternoon, his people made an appointment to see Guy Thackeray at EurAsia Enterprises’ corporate headquarters in Central. With a Chinese lawyer in tow, General Wong met Thackeray in the company’s luxurious boardroom and pulled out a tattered document written in both English and Chinese. General Wong was in possession of the original agreement made between James Thackeray and my great-greatgrandfather! According to Chinese law, the state now owned the document and what it represented. Li Wei Tam’s heirs had fled China and their assets were seized by the Communist government. Therefore, as the representative of that Chinese government, General Wong informed Guy Thackeray that the 59 per cent of stock owned by Thackeray would automatically transfer to China at midnight on 30 June, 1997, just as the colony itself would be handed over after a hundred and fifty years of British rule. General Wong had been given full authority to execute the transition and implement whatever new management system he desired. Whatever he decided to do, Guy Thackeray was out. In essence, not only would General Wong gain control of a multi-billion dollar corporation, but he would also increase his profit margin in the drug smuggling operation by onethird. He would have the upper hand over me and the Society, too! General Wong would be able to call all the shots. As for Thackeray, he would be left high and dry. It made no difference that 41 per cent of the stock was owned by other British citizens. Wong implicitly made it clear that they would be persuaded to sell their shares and leave Hong Kong forever.”

“What happened?” Bond asked.

“Guy Thackeray never told a soul about this meeting apart from his own English solicitor, Gregory Donaldson. He spent the following five years consulting Donaldson about the matter. Donaldson was sworn to secrecy, and they searched for a way out. But it was hopeless. Once China took over the colony, their law would reign supreme and the original agreement would be deemed legal. For the next seven years, Guy Thackeray lived with the knowledge that he would have to give up his family’s company and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. He became a bitter, unhappy man—a friendless recluse prone to gambling for high stakes in Macau.”

Bond realized that this explained the man’s eccentric behaviour and his alcoholism.

“Thackeray arranged a meeting with me one rainy night in 1995 and told me the news. At first, I was ecstatic that my great-greatgrandfather’s agreement still existed. Then, as the truth of the matter sank in, I was filled with hatred and the desire for revenge. I hated the Thackeray family for their role in the history of the mess, and I detested General Wong for stealing what was rightfully mine.”

Li smiled wryly as he ended the extraordinary story. “Since then, the drug-smuggling partnership has kept operating—it was business as usual. After all, a profit could still be made until things changed in 1997.”

James Bond had listened to Li Xu Nan’s story, fascinated and repelled at the same time. It was a classic case of injustice and irony. A vicious criminal was being cheated out of something of great value that was rightfully his, and Bond found himself feeling the man’s outrage, too.

“So you see, Mr. Bond,” Li said, “Mr. Thackeray and I had a mutual interest in keeping Wong from taking over the company. Thackeray and I were not friends. We were enemies, but we had a common goal. I did not kill him.”

“But why would General Wong kill him?” Bond asked. “If he was going to gain control of the company on July the first anyway, why murder Thackeray?”

Li shrugged. “I do not know. You will have to ask him.”

“And why was the solicitor, Donaldson, also killed? And the other Directors?”

“Perhaps they were going to get in the way legally,” Li suggested. “Maybe there was a loophole, and that was the only way Wong could close it. General Wong may be a Communist, but he is one of the most corrupt capitalist pigs I know.”

It made sense. It was Thackeray’s murder that was the big question mark.

“The other night we were in Macau. Some Triads chopped up a mahjong game at the Lisboa Casino. Were they your men?”

“No. I give you my word,” Li said.

Bond sat in thought. A big piece of the puzzle was still missing.

“Now we come to the task I must ask you to do, Mr. Bond,” Li said. “As I mentioned earlier, you are in my debt. If you perform this task for me and succeed, I will release you from my debt and also spare your life.”

“I don’t know what it is you want me to do, Li,” Bond said, “but I can tell you right now I don’t work for criminals. You can kill me now. I’ve lived my entire life with the prospect of death coming at any moment.”

Li nodded. “Brave words, Mr. Bond. Why don’t you hear me out first?”

Bond sighed. “All right. What is it you want?”

“I want you to go to Guangzhou and pay a little visit to General Wong.”

“And then what?”

“Steal my great-great-grandfather’s agreement. Wong keeps it in a safe in his office. Bring it back to me. If you have to eliminate the good general in the process …” Li shrugged his shoulders.

Bond laughed. “You must be joking, Li! How the hell do you think a gweilo like me could get anywhere near this general, much less break into his bloody safe? Don’t you think I would stick out like a sore thumb in China?”

“Hear me out, Mr. Bond. I have a plan.” Bond raised his hand, gesturing for Li to continue, but he knew the very thought was absurd. “You are sceptical, Mr. Bond, I see that, but listen to me. We have learned that a new lawyer from London will be arriving in Hong Kong later this morning after the sun rises. He is Gregory Donaldson’s replacement as EurAsia Enterprises’ solicitor. Since Mr. Thackeray’s untimely demise, this new lawyer will be handling things. He has an appointment in Guangzhou the next day with General Wong himself. I propose that you go to Guangzhou in his place. My organization has contacts at the airport. We can do a switch before the man even enters Immigration. You will be hand-delivered to General Wong by EurAsia executives. You will meet Wong privately. He will most certainly show you the original document. You will have the perfect, and probably the only, chance to get it. Then my brothers will help you get out of Guangzhou and back to Hong Kong.”

“Not on your life, Li.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to die, then.”