Noble House

He had agreed with all his heart.
It had been easy for Suslev to subvert him. Because of deVille's potential after the war, the KGB had secretly had him betrayed to the Gestapo, then rescued from a Gestapo prison death by Communist guerrillas. The guerrillas had given him false proof that he had been betrayed by one of his own men for money. DeVille was thirty-two then and, like many, infatuated with socialism and with some of the teachings of Marx and Lenin. He had never joined the French Communist Party but now, because of Sevrin, he was an honorary captain in the KGB Soviet Security Force.
"You seem tired, Frederick," Suslev said, using deVille's cover name. "Tell me what's wrong,"
"Just a family problem."
"Tell me."
Suslev listened intently to deVilla's sad story about his son-in-law and daughter. Since their meeting in 1941 Suslev had been deVille's controller. In 1947 he had ordered him out to Hong Kong to join Struan's. Before the war deVille and his father had owned a highly successful import-export business with close ties to Struan's—as well as family ties—so the change had been easy and welcome. DeVille's secret assignment was to become a member of the Inner Court and, at length, tai-pan.
"Where's your daughter now?" he asked compassionately.
DeVille told him.
"And the driver of the other car?" Suslev committed the name and address to memory. "I'll see that he's dealt with."
"No," deVille said at once. "It… it was an accident. We cannot punish a man for an accident."
"He was drunk. There is no excuse for drunk driving. In any event you are important to us. We take care of our own. I will deal with him."
DeVille knew there was no point in arguing. A gust of rain battered the windows. "Merde, but the rain's good. The temperature must be down five degrees. Will it last?"
"The storm front's reported to be big."
DeVille watched globules running down the pane, wondering why he had been summoned. "How are things with you?"
"Very good. Drink?" Suslev went to the mirrored bar. "There's good vodka."
"Vodka's fine, please. But a short one."
"If Dunross retired are you the next tai-pan?"
"I would think it's between four of us: Gavallan, David Mac-Struan, myself and Linbar Struan."
"In that order?"
"I don't know. Except Linbar's probably last. Thanks." DeVille accepted his drink. They toasted each other. "I'd bet on Gavallan."
"Who's this MacStruan?"
"A distant cousin. He's done his five years as a China Trader. At the moment he's heading up our expansion into Canada—we're trying to diversify and get into wood fibers, copper, all the Canadian minerals, mostly out of British Columbia."
"How good is he?"
"Very good. Very tough. A very dirty fighter. Forty-one, ex-lieutenant, Paratroopers. His left hand was almost ripped off over
Burma by a tangle in the shrouds of his parachute. He just tied a tourniquet around it and carried on fighting. That earned him a Military Cross. If I was tai-pan I'd choose him." DeVille shrugged. "By our company law only the tai-pan can appoint his successor. He can do it anytime, even in his will if he wants. Whatever way it's done it's binding on the Noble House."
Suslev watched him. "Has Dunross made a will?"
"lan's very efficient."
A silence gathered.
"Another vodka?"
"Non, merci, I'll stay with this one. Is Arthur joining us?"
"Yes. How could we tip the scales for you?"
DeVille hesitated, then shrugged.
Suslev poured himself another drink. "It would be easy to discredit this MacStruan and the others. Yes. Easy to eliminate them." Suslev turned and looked at him. "Even Dunross."
"No. That's not the solution."
"Is there another one?"
"Being patient." DeVille smiled but his eyes were very tired and shadows lurked there. "I would not like to be the cause of … of his removal or that of the others."
Suslev laughed. "It's not necessary to kill to eliminate! Are we barbarians? Of course not." He was watching his protege closely. DeVille needs toughening, he was thinking. "Tell me about the American, Bartlett, and the Struan-Par-Con deal."
DeVille told him all he knew. "Bartlett's money will give us everything we need."
"Can this Gornt effect a takeover?"
"Yes and no. And possibly. He's tough and he truly hates us. It's a long-term rival—"
"Yes, I know." Suslev was surprised deVille kept repeating information he already had been given. It's a bad sign, he thought, and glanced at his watch. "Our friend's twenty-five minutes late. That's unusual." Both men were too seasoned to worry. Meetings such as this could never be completely firm because no one could ever control the unexpected happening.
"Did you hear about the fire in Aberdeen?" deVille asked at the sudden thought.
"What fire?"
"There was a bulletin over the wireless just before I came up."
DeVille and his wife had apartment 20 on the sixth floor. "The Floating Dragon restaurant at Aberdeen burned down. Perhaps Arthur was there."
"Did you see him?" Suslev was suddenly concerned. "No. But I could easily have missed him. I left well before dinner."
Suslev sipped his vodka thoughtfully. "Has he told you yet who the others are in Sevrin?"
"No. I asked him, judiciously, as you ordered, but he nev—" "Order? I don't order you, tovarich, I just suggest." "Of course. All he said was, 'We'll all meet in due course.'" "We'll both know soon. He's perfectly correct to be cautious." Suslev had wanted to test deVille and test Arthur. It was one of the most basic rules in the KGB that you can never be too cautious about your spies however important they are. He remembered his instructor hammering into them another direct quote from Sun Tzu's The Art of War, which was obligatory reading for all Soviet military: "There are five classes of spies—local spies, inward spies, converted spies, doomed spies and surviving spies. When all five categories are working in concert, the state will be secure and the army inviolate. Local spies are those who are local inhabitants. Inward spies are officials of the enemy. Converted spies are the enemies' spies you have converted. Doomed spies are those fed false information and reported to the enemy who will torture this false information from them and so be deceived. Surviving spies are those who bring back news from the enemy camp. Remember, in the whole army, none should more liberally be rewarded. But if a secret piece of news is divulged by a spy before the time is ripe, he or she must be put to death, together with the person to whom the secret is told."
If the other AMG reports are like the one already discovered, Suslev thought dispassionately, then Dunross is doomed.
He was watching deVUle, measuring him, liking him, glad that again he had passed that test—and Arthur. The last paragraph of The Art of War—so important a book to the Soviet elite that many knew the slim volume by heart—sprang into his mind: "It is only the enlightened ruler and wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for the purposes of spying. Spies are the most important element in war because upon them depends an army's ability to move." That's what the KGB does, he thought contentedly. We try for the best talent in all the Soviets. We are the elite. We need spies of all five categories. We need these men, Jacques and Arthur and all the others.