"Without spies you can't operate, can you?"
"You can, but then that's amateur. How's Miss Casey? I thought she'd be with you."
"She's not in this. Not yet."
"Oh?"
"No. No, she's not in on the initial attack. She's more valuable if she knows nothing."
"She knows nothing of this? Not even your call to me?"
"No. Nothing at all."
After a pause he said, "I thought she was your executive VP . . . your right arm you called her."
"She is, but I'm boss of Par-Con, Mr. Gornt."
Gornt saw the level eyes and, for the first time, felt that that was true and that his original estimation was wrong. "I've never doubted it," he said, waiting, his senses honed, waiting him out.
Then Bartlett said, "Is there somewhere we can park—I've got something I want to show you."
"Certainly." Gornt was driving along the sea front on Gloucester Road in the usual heavy traffic. In a moment he found a parking place near Causeway Bay typhoon shelter with its massed, floating islands of boats of all sizes.
"Here." Bartlett handed him a typed folder. It was a detailed copy of Struan's balance sheet for the year before the company went public. Gornt's eyes raced over the figures. "Christ," he muttered. "So Lasting Cloud's cost them 12 million?"
"It almost broke them. Seems they had all sorts of wild-assed cargo aboard. Jet engines for China, uninsured."
"Of course they'd be uninsured—how the hell can you insure contraband?" Gornt was trying to take in all the complicated figures. His mind was dazed. "If I'd known half of this I'd've got them the last time. Can I keep it?"
"When we've made a deal I'll give you a copy." Bartlett took the folder back and gave him a paper. "Try this one on for size." It showed, graphically, Struan's stockholdings in Kowloon Investments and detailed how, through nominee companies, the tai-pan of Struan's exercised complete control over the huge insurance-property-wharfing company that was supposedly a completely separate company and quoted as such on the stock exchange.
"Marvelous," Gornt said with a sigh, awed by the beauty of it. "Struan's have only a tiny proportion of the stock publicly held but retain 100 percent control, and perpetual secrecy."
"In the States whoever figured this out'd be in jail."
"Thank God Hong Kong laws aren't the same, and that this's all perfectly legal, if a trifle devious." The two men laughed.
Bartlett pocketed the paper. "I've got similar details of the rest of their holdings."
"Bluntly, what have you in mind, Mr. Bartlett?"
"A joint attack on Struan's, starting today. A blitzkrieg. We go 50-50 on all spoils. You get the Great House on the Peak, the prestige, his yacht—and 100 percent of the box at the Turf Club including his stewardship."
Gornt glanced at him keenly. Bartlett smiled. "We know that's kind of special to you. But everything else right down the middle."
"Except their Kai Tak operations. I need that for my airline."
"All right. But then I want Kowloon Investments."
"No," Gornt said, immediately on guard. "We should split that 50-50, and everything 50-50."
"No. You need Kai Tak, I need Kowloon Investments. It'll be a great nucleus for Par-Con's jump into Asia."
"Why?"
"Because all great fortunes in Hong Kong are based on property. K. I. will give me a perfect base."
"For further raids?"