The Princeling of Nanjing (25 page)

“Suen, I think that you and Xing should leave now,” she said. “I have to take this call.”

Xing began to clean up, and Ava was about to tell him not to bother when Suen caught her eye. “Let him help,” he said.

“Michael, it’s me. I’ll be right with you,” Ava said, and then sat back until the paper plates and cartons were all packed up and Suen and Xing had left the room. “Okay, I can talk now.”

“That was the longest short wait of my life,” Dillman blurted.

“Why, what’s going on?”

“That video has caused a bloody sensation.”

“I was hoping it would have a positive reaction.”

“Tamara and Charlotte have watched it four times now.”

“And?”

“We need to interview Vincent Yin.”

“We have some conditions,” Ava said.

“Such as?”

“The timing of the story’s release will be important to him.”

“You want to know when the story will run?”

“We’ll need a bit more information than that.”

“Such as?”

“Am I wrong in assuming that you will want to interview Vincent so you can confirm that he did record the video and that it is an accurate rendering?”

“That’s part of it, but we’ll also want to make sure that Vincent is who he says he is.”

“Of course, and I’m expecting that when his bona fides are established, you will approach Dennis Calhoun to get his side of the story.”

“Of course.”

“We have to know precisely when you intend to contact Calhoun.”

“Why?”

“We have to get Vincent out of China. In fact, ideally, we should have him physically back in England before you call Calhoun. Because when you do, you can bet that the first phone call Calhoun makes will be to Tsai Men or Tsai Lian, and the first thing they’ll do is try to find Vincent. If he’s in China, they’ll probably be able to do just that,” Ava said. “Whistleblowers in the West are provided some level of protection by the law and public opinion. In the East, they end up in jail or dead and no one is around to object.”

“It isn’t my decision to give you the kind of information you want. I’ll have to talk to our people here.”

“Then put it to them.”

“If they say no?”

“Then tell them we’re going directly to Plan B.”

“Which is?”

“You’ll find out when we launch it,” Ava said. “The thing you need to stress is that we don’t have a lot of time. I want to hear back from you within the hour.”

“I’m at the office and everyone I need to talk to is here. It won’t take that long.”

“I’ll be waiting,” Ava said.

She put down the phone and saw Vincent Yin staring at her.

“You’re scaring me with all this talk about my safety,” he said.

“Would you rather I lied?”

“No.”

“Good, because I would find it most difficult to do so under these circumstances.”

“But what’s this Plan B?”

“I have no idea,” Ava said.

Ava sat quietly at the table, waiting for Dillman’s call. She looked out the window, trying to ignore Vincent Yin’s sudden hyperactivity. He paced around the table, sat for a few seconds, and then paced some more, all the while throwing anxious glances in her direction. Finally, she’d had enough.

“Sit down and stay down,” she said. “Things are getting resolved and there’s not a damn thing all that pacing will accomplish.”

He almost collapsed into his chair. “I was just thinking that it was only this morning that I got out of bed, showered, dressed, and left for work like I have done a thousand times before. Now look at me. Now look at the situation I’m in. My whole life has been turned upside down.”

“Vincent, you’ve done a magnificent job up until now. We need you to stay brave,” Ava said.

“The last thing I feel is brave,” he said.

“Let me tell you what I’ve learned,” Ava said. “Life is completely random. None of us can truly control our fate, and those who think they can are always the biggest losers. The secret to having a long and happy life is to be prepared for anything and to be willing to roll with it.

“Think about Calhoun. He’s the chairman of the Conservative Party. He’s making more money than he ever imagined possible,” she said and looked at her watch. “It’s just past breakfast time in England. He’s just eaten his bacon and eggs with potato scones. He is perhaps about to leave his mansion in Newcastle to travel down to London for a meeting with the party executive, and then maybe he has an early dinner with the prime minister. The PM might be asking him if he would consider accepting a cabinet position, and Calhoun is hesitating because, truthfully, what could possibly be better than the situation he’s in? I mean, he has everything. Do you think for an instant he imagines it could all disappear? Do you think he considers it even remotely possible that his entire life’s work, his reputation, and maybe a lot of his wealth might evaporate overnight?

“But I guarantee that when the headline story on the front page of the
Economic Herald
links Calhoun with bribes and corruption, everyone but his lawyer will stop taking his calls. That is how random life is.

“The reality is that if you do what we’ve discussed, your life is going to be better than you’ve ever imagined, and Calhoun’s is going to be a living hell. Did you think about that when you were brushing your teeth this morning?”

“Are you always this confident?”

“I don’t know how else to be, and so far it has worked out quite well for me.”

“I’m always thinking about how things could go wrong.”

“I’m not irresponsible. I do weigh my options,” Ava said. “The most important thing, though, is to act. The moment you hesitate, someone else makes your decision for you, and that never works out.”

“You are incredible,” Yin said.

“Hardly,” she said. She was about to continue when her phone rang. “Hello.”

“Ava, this is Michael and I have Tamara Klinger on the line with me.”

“You said Tamara is your editor?”

“Yes, she’s a senior editor at the paper,” Dillman said. “She’s reviewed all of the material you gave me, and she’s seen the video several times.”

“Before anyone starts to answer questions I need you to confirm that it’s the paper’s plan to contact Calhoun before the story is published,” Ava asked.

“It is,” Dillman said.

“And do we have an agreement that you won’t do that until we feel Vincent is safe?”

“We do. Do you need something in writing?”

“No, I trust you.”

“Thanks for that,” a woman’s voice said.

“Ms. Klinger?”

“The same.”

“How do you want to do this?”

“We want to talk to Mr. Yin.”

“Can I put him on speakerphone?”

“Do you have Skype?”

“No.”

“Then speakerphone will have to do. I’m sure we’ll recognize his voice from the video.”

Ava put her phone in front of Yin.

“He’s here and ready to go,” she said.

“Mr. Yin, could you please tell us where you were born, who your parents are, when you moved to the U.K., and where you lived?”

He looked at Ava with panic in his eyes. She reached out and touched the top of his hand. “Don’t rush,” she whispered. “Tell them everything they asked as slowly as you want. They aren’t trying to trick you. They just want to confirm that you are who you say you are.”

He nodded, and then said, “My name is Vincent Yin. I was born in Beijing and moved to the U.K. with my parents in 1987, when I was eight years old. We lived on Hunter Street in Newcastle.”

“What was your house number?” Dillman asked.

“One hundred and one.”

“And where did you go to school?”

“Burnside Elementary and then Northend Secondary.”

“Do you have any siblings?”

“No.”

“Excellent. Now we can move on to the reason we’re having this talk,” Dillman said.

“Before we get into the details surrounding the business and the business arrangements that were made in China, would anyone object if I asked Mr. Yin a personal question?” Tamara Klinger asked.

“That depends entirely on how personal it is,” Ava said.

“I’d like to know what motivated him to come forward with the information at this time. He is managing a very successful and profitable company. Has his job security been threatened?”

“Are you asking if he thought he was going to be fired?” Ava said.

“Yes.”

“I can assure you that this is not the case.”

“Then why do this now?”

Ava looked at Yin.

“I became disenchanted by the way that our success here was being used for political gain,” he said. “It made me rethink the basis for the business’s existence, and that made me more keenly aware that we might be breaking several laws.”

“You had never thought about that before?”

“Not in any depth, but please remember I was much younger and less experienced when we started Mega Metals. Also, I had the chairman of my company telling me that what we were doing was perfectly fine, that we were simply following local practices. And, on the other side, we were dealing with the governor of the entire province and his family. How was I supposed to think anything was wrong?”

“Did you raise any of these new concerns with your chairman?”

“No. After the company was set up here I didn’t have a chance to talk to him very much. My main contact is Rory Taggert, who runs the day-to-day business.”

“Did you raise your concerns with him?”

“No, I wasn’t secure enough, confident enough to do that. What I did do was talk to a friend of mine in the U.K. who’s a lawyer. I explained to him how things were set up and operating and asked him if he thought there was a problem.”

“What is your friend’s name?”

“I won’t say. I don’t want him getting dragged into this.”

The English side of the conversation became quiet. Ava nudged Yin’s knee to get his attention.
Did you talk to a lawyer?
she mouthed.

He shook his head, and then covered the microphone on the phone. “What laws were we actually breaking? I forget,” he whispered.

“The U.K. Bribery Act.”

“What did your friend say about the way Mega Metals was being run?” Klinger finally asked.

“He said that in all probability we had broken the U.K. Bribery Act, and he guessed we’d broken several Chinese laws as well, though he couldn’t be specific about them.”

“What did you do after he informed you of that?” Dillman asked.

“Nothing at first. Like I said, I was scared, but I couldn’t get it out of my mind,” Yin said. “Then when Mr. Calhoun became chairman of the Conservative Party and started promoting himself as the model for how to do business in China, my fear started to give way to anger. I thought it was all so dishonest and hypocritical.”

“Are you a political person, Mr. Yin?” Dillman asked.

“Not officially.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ve never carried a party card.”

“But you do have some leanings?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“And in which direction do you lean?”

“I won’t deny it,” Yin said. “I am further to the left than most of my colleagues.”

“You are a supporter of the Labour Party?”

“I certainly prefer them to the Conservatives.”

“Could part of your motivation for coming forward at this time be construed as political?”

“Are you asking me if I hope that the Conservative Party is embarrassed and maybe damaged by what I have to say?”

“Yes.”

“It would be a welcome bonus,” Yin said.

The line went silent again. Ava shook her head at Yin. He raised his eyebrows in question.

“You are brilliant,” she whispered.

“Okay,” Dillman said. “We’d now like to change course and talk specifically about Mega Metals and its operations in China.”

“And when we’re finished with that, I would appreciate it if one of you would answer some questions I have about the extent of the Tsai family’s holdings and influence,” Klinger said. “Among other things, I’m curious to know if the way they do business with Calhoun extends to others.”

“I can answer those questions but whatever I say has to be completely off the record,” Ava said.

“I’m not sure —”

“Ms. Klinger, unlike Mr. Yin, I can’t avoid being in China. I don’t want to be the object of retribution — not now and not in the future. If you want to know what I know — and what I know is substantial — there can be zero attribution. The best thing for all of us might be for you to create the impression that the newspaper did its own research into the matter.”

“We can agree to that,” Klinger said quickly.

So she’s the boss
, Ava thought. “In that case, you can ask whatever you want.”

The interviews lasted into the Shanghai evening. Surprisingly, to Ava, the
Herald
people were finished with Yin quite quickly and spent more time focusing on the Tsai family business interests. At one point Ava said, “I thought your major interest was in Dennis Calhoun.”

“The Calhoun story is quite straightforward and is for our U.K. market, and you can bet it has the possibility of being the front-page headline,” Klinger said. “But the tangled web that the Tsai family has spun is fascinating, and there are so many recognizable names among the companies paying them that we’re sure there will be a big readership for this larger story as well. We were going to make it a sidebar to the Calhoun story, but it could be a separate feature.”

“I am curious, though,” Dillman said. “How did you ever accumulate such a level of detail?”

“My training is as a forensic accountant. I had a solid starting point with one organization that was paying into four different Tsai companies, and from there it was all about connecting dots.”

“You have bank records. How did you get those?”

“I can’t say,” Ava said.

“Well, can you tell us what prompted you to start this investigation in the first place?” Klinger asked.

“I have a friend who has run into some problems doing business with the Tsai family. They’re trying to put him under. We decided to see if there was a way for us to take them down first.”

“And we are the chosen vehicle?”

“Yes,” Ava said, and then hesitated, unsure whether she should mention the
Wall Street Tribune.

“How much do you think the family is worth?” Klinger asked.

“I’m not entirely sure now that the value of their Mega Metals asset is probably going to disintegrate.”

“Take a guess, and include Mega Metals as it exists today.”

“Well, the public companies Kitchen Giant, Jiangsu Insurance, and Mega Metals combined have to be in the ten-to-sixteen-billion-dollar range. Then there are seven other companies they own privately that are either sitting on huge stacks of cash or have invested heavily in things like real estate. I would think they might be worth another five billion.”

“One thing that interests me is that you didn’t unearth that much information about Wu Wai Wai.”

“Tsai Lian’s sister?”

“Yes. In your notes she’s listed as the CEO of a company called Mother of Pearl, but one of my colleagues here has told me that she’s one of the largest gold and silver traders in Asia.”

“Through which business?”

“Golden Tomorrow.”

“That name didn’t come up during any of my searches.”

“Well, the company shares are tightly held, and she’s supposed to be highly secretive.”

“How much money is she worth?”

“My colleague thinks that Golden Tomorrow must have a value of at least ten billion.”

“You know, I haven’t been able to find out where all the cash from these businesses was sent,” Ava said. “Golden Tomorrow might have been the recipient of at least some of it.”

“And that brings the Tsai family’s wealth to something more than twenty billion dollars,” he said.

“You say that number as though it means something important.”

“I can see it in a headline.”

The conversation was becoming repetitive and Ava started to fidget. “Can we wrap this up soon?” she asked.

“I have only a few more questions,” Dillman said. “When do you expect Mr. Yin will be leaving China?”

“Tonight if possible, but most probably tomorrow.”

“So how long before we can contact Calhoun for his comments?”

“Forty-eight hours.”

“That works well enough,” Klinger said.

“What if for any reason we need an extension?” Ava asked.

“Contact me,” Klinger said. “Thank you all for your time. We’ll be in touch soon.”

Ava ended the call and looked at Vincent Yin. His eyes were closed and he was taking deep, gulping breaths. “Are you okay?” she said.

“I’m exhausted,” he said, opening his eyes. “I’m exhausted and exhilarated and scared out of my mind all at the same time. I can’t believe what we’ve done. I mean, I can’t believe what I’ve just done. I’ve thrown away my entire career.”

“What you’ve done is found a way to stay out of jail or a grave.”

“So you keep saying.”

“Well, when they take Calhoun and maybe some of the Tsais into custody, you can call me and say thank you.”

“I have to say,” Yin said softly, “I almost feel sorry for Mr. Calhoun. He’s always been good to me.”

“Your sympathy is misplaced. He put you in charge of what was essentially a criminal enterprise, and if things had come unstuck I have no doubt he would have found a way to leave you holding the bag.”

“I know you’re probably right,” he said. “The other thing that’s bothering me is that I’ve never been out of a job.”

“Think of this as a novel way of resigning from one. Tell yourself it was time to move on, and that the story in the
Herald
and elsewhere is one hell of a way to jump-start a job search.”

He shook his head, and Ava couldn’t figure out if he was agreeing with her or not. “What do we do now?” he asked.

“We need to get you on a plane from here to the U.K. You can go back to Nanjing and pick up your passport and some personal effects, or we can send someone to get them for you. Either way, I think you’re better off leaving Shanghai.”

“I need to call my driver.”

“I thought you came here in a taxi.”

“I did, but my driver’s brother lives in Shanghai and he’s visiting him. He dropped me off at my first meeting this morning. That’s where I caught the cab.”

“I think it might be wise to avoid your driver. We don’t want him or anyone else asking any questions. I’ll get our car to drive you to Nanjing. I’ll send Suen with you as security. And it’s security for me as much as for you,” Ava said. “I can’t take the chance that you’ll have a sudden change of heart, maybe feel sorry for Calhoun again and make some ill-advised phone calls. Suen will be your constant companion until you get on the airplane tomorrow, and I might actually arrange for him to fly with you.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No,” Ava said, standing up. She opened the boardroom door and saw Suen talking to Xing. “Are you okay to drive to Nanjing with Yin, get his passport and a suitcase, and return here tonight?”

“Absolutely.”

“I don’t want him left by himself. I have his phone. Keep him away from any others.”

“Okay.”

“And I’m going to book a flight to London for him. I’d like you to be his companion.”

Suen nodded.

“Good. Under what name do I book your seat?”

“Suen Wah.”

“I’ll leave the return open. I want you to stay with him until I tell you otherwise. It should only be a day, two at the most. Take a holiday after that if you want.”

“Thanks, but that’s not necessary,” Suen said. “Oh, Xu phoned me. He asked if you could call him when you have the chance.”

“I will,” Ava said. “You stay in touch with me, though. I want to be sure that there are no issues in Nanjing.”

“No problem,” Suen said. “Where do I take him when I get back here?”

“I’ll book a double room for the two of you at the Peninsula, under your name.”

“My wife might get jealous if she finds out where I’ll be spending the night.”

“I doubt that.” Ava laughed.

“The other car is still outside waiting for you. It will take you wherever you want to go, but Xu thinks his house is still the best option.”

“I can’t say he’s wrong.”