He might be a Yank, but he’s learned fast and he can play.”
“I’ll watch him.”
“Good. See if you can break his leg before Saturday. How’s your diary? For dinner, I mean.”
Granger was smiling and Field found that he was, too. “I’m busy, but I think I’ll be able to fit in with whatever your wife suggests.”
Granger nodded and Field took a pace toward the door. “What did you want with the Lu file, anyway?”
Field turned. “Just . . . background.”
Granger’s eyes narrowed fractionally. “Sure.”
Field closed the door quietly and returned to his cubicle in the corner. It was almost six o’clock. The office was empty, Yang’s chair pushed neatly up against her desk. He thought he’d walk down to the Bund, despite the heat, which gave him fifteen or twenty minutes to kill before he was due to meet Geoffrey. His dinner jacket—his father’s—was on a hanger on the hatstand in the corner.
Field sat at his desk, still clutching the brown files he’d taken out of Registry earlier and the envelope he’d forgotten to drop into the mail room. Lu Huang’s name was written in pencil on the outside of the top file, faded with age. There was a typed summary on the front of this background file, and above it, Granger had written in pencil:
For MI6. Copy to State Department, Washington, P.G. Jan 12th 1926.
Lu Huang is the head of Shanghai’s notorious Green Gang, the most powerful triad, whose influence is pervasive across both the International Settlement and the French Concession, particularly the latter. He currently resides at 3 Rue Wagner, in a house full of bodyguards and concubines. We estimate he has around twenty thousand men at his beck and call, armed and loyal to his every whim. This is more than double the number of soldiers and police officers at the Settlement’s disposal, even if one includes administrative members of the force. We have expressed our views on this situation before and do not need to repeat them here.
Lu originally hails from the township of Gaoquiao in Pudong. His early life is shrouded in mystery and myth, but there is a general consensus that his family was poor. They drifted to Shanghai, like so many others, to try to make their fortune, but found only squalor and disease. Lu’s mother died in the first year here, when he was a small boy (aged five or six, we estimate). His father remarried the following year, another woman from their township, only to die himself shortly afterwards. The stepmother then returned to the village but was kidnapped by Brigands. Lu, now about seven or eight, was left to fend for himself.
He returned to Shanghai, drifted into a life of petty crime and then into the welcoming arms of the Green Gang, rising to prominence and then ultimate power through a combination of cunning and ruthlessness unique even for one of the most vicious organizations in the world. During 1923 he effectively oversaw the destruction of the Red Gang and is now undisputed master of crime in the Shanghai metropolitan area. He is probably the most powerful man in all China.
The primary source of the Green Gang’s income is opium illegally imported from India, an operation we believe is worth millions of dollars a year. Lu controls every aspect of its distribution and sale, as well as having a grip on prostitution across the city. He has a close relationship with the authorities in the French Concession (diplomatic discretion should perhaps prevent us from indicating how close).
In the past year, Lu has made great efforts to present himself as a legitimate and respectable member of the community, buying a series of “front” companies, donating money to charity, and making regular appearances in the social columns of the
North China Daily News.
The changing perception of him in normally conservative high society is partly due to the increasing sense of insecurity of the International Settlement as a result of the anarchy that continues to
“I’ll watch him.”
“Good. See if you can break his leg before Saturday. How’s your diary? For dinner, I mean.”
Granger was smiling and Field found that he was, too. “I’m busy, but I think I’ll be able to fit in with whatever your wife suggests.”
Granger nodded and Field took a pace toward the door. “What did you want with the Lu file, anyway?”
Field turned. “Just . . . background.”
Granger’s eyes narrowed fractionally. “Sure.”
Field closed the door quietly and returned to his cubicle in the corner. It was almost six o’clock. The office was empty, Yang’s chair pushed neatly up against her desk. He thought he’d walk down to the Bund, despite the heat, which gave him fifteen or twenty minutes to kill before he was due to meet Geoffrey. His dinner jacket—his father’s—was on a hanger on the hatstand in the corner.
Field sat at his desk, still clutching the brown files he’d taken out of Registry earlier and the envelope he’d forgotten to drop into the mail room. Lu Huang’s name was written in pencil on the outside of the top file, faded with age. There was a typed summary on the front of this background file, and above it, Granger had written in pencil:
For MI6. Copy to State Department, Washington, P.G. Jan 12th 1926.
Lu Huang is the head of Shanghai’s notorious Green Gang, the most powerful triad, whose influence is pervasive across both the International Settlement and the French Concession, particularly the latter. He currently resides at 3 Rue Wagner, in a house full of bodyguards and concubines. We estimate he has around twenty thousand men at his beck and call, armed and loyal to his every whim. This is more than double the number of soldiers and police officers at the Settlement’s disposal, even if one includes administrative members of the force. We have expressed our views on this situation before and do not need to repeat them here.
Lu originally hails from the township of Gaoquiao in Pudong. His early life is shrouded in mystery and myth, but there is a general consensus that his family was poor. They drifted to Shanghai, like so many others, to try to make their fortune, but found only squalor and disease. Lu’s mother died in the first year here, when he was a small boy (aged five or six, we estimate). His father remarried the following year, another woman from their township, only to die himself shortly afterwards. The stepmother then returned to the village but was kidnapped by Brigands. Lu, now about seven or eight, was left to fend for himself.
He returned to Shanghai, drifted into a life of petty crime and then into the welcoming arms of the Green Gang, rising to prominence and then ultimate power through a combination of cunning and ruthlessness unique even for one of the most vicious organizations in the world. During 1923 he effectively oversaw the destruction of the Red Gang and is now undisputed master of crime in the Shanghai metropolitan area. He is probably the most powerful man in all China.
The primary source of the Green Gang’s income is opium illegally imported from India, an operation we believe is worth millions of dollars a year. Lu controls every aspect of its distribution and sale, as well as having a grip on prostitution across the city. He has a close relationship with the authorities in the French Concession (diplomatic discretion should perhaps prevent us from indicating how close).
In the past year, Lu has made great efforts to present himself as a legitimate and respectable member of the community, buying a series of “front” companies, donating money to charity, and making regular appearances in the social columns of the
North China Daily News.
The changing perception of him in normally conservative high society is partly due to the increasing sense of insecurity of the International Settlement as a result of the anarchy that continues to
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