August 1983
AS THE PLANE DESCENDED INTO CALCUTTA, Hamilton peered out the 747 first class upper-deck. The man sitting next to him remarked, “The city’s just like the rest of the third world—dirty. Just bigger.” It was 2 a.m. local time when the chauffeur headed for the Tan Mahler Hotel where a new moon and an occasional run of ghee lights brought from the shadows mile after mile of homeless wrapped in white linen. Hamilton, having traveled the route many times, eventually bored of the view and closed his eyes.
The next morning, over eggs and a few slices of specially ordered bacon, he read the Asian edition of the Wall Street Journal. A trend line showed futures on an incline. He picked up the phone and wired a two word telegram to his broker: Sell aluminum. He put his toast into the egg’s yellow center, stuffed it in his mouth and casually gazed out the window—following one-armed, pick-pocketing wafts horsing around and giggling before they struck the mark. He went back to the article, where it said his associate John Walker Russell was in line for Secretary of Defense. Hamilton met Russell, then a CIA operative, through Hamilton’s former army boss Andy Johnston twenty years ago. Shortly afterwards Russell and Hamilton formed a profitable alliance, where Hamilton supplied inside information to Russell in his CIA capacity, and Russell reciprocated by helping Hamilton export technology, especially when U.S. export licenses were almost impossible to obtain. In time, the “business” from Russell’s point-of-view deserved more than simply G-2, which only benefited his employer. Russell wanted his cut, access to a Swiss bank account in which Hamilton would deposit a small percentage of the funds from each export transaction. Reading the newspaper, Hamilton surmised that the level of scrutiny Russell would get being elevated from Undersecretary to the top Defense post would be intense, and he wasn’t happy, since any detection of their relationship would result in embarrassment or worse. After all, he had his eye on the governorship.
After breakfast, Hamilton proceeded to meet his Far East contact. In the next few minutes he found himself part of a moving wall of people and decided to slip down a side street where the hubbub transitioned to a relatively stilled picture, where women quietly went about chores in brilliant saris of vermilion, turquoise blue, brown, white; each forehead smudged scarlet, aquamarine or soot black to symbolize one or another blessing, demon inoculation or simply to adorn her face. A man rummaged through a garbage heap, another darted around it, almost run down by a bicycle. Hamilton noticed a light skinned woman sweeping the sidewalk: a fifty-year-old woman lost in a seventy-year-old body, with arms only slightly thicker than her broomstick. She swept briskly. He stepped around the miniature dust devil that swirled in her wake, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty dollar bill. He slipped it into her hand.
Hamilton came to the two-story frame that bore the number 96, the place where he would meet his associate. This kind of meeting was not typical for a man of Hamilton’s position. People in-country did his bidding, but this convocation was classified as “sensitive—highly confidential.” Hamilton knew he could maintain a defensible position if the meeting were ever exposed for what it was. Officially, the organization he dealt with was Crawford, Singh and Sons, Ltd., a subsidiary of a larger Indian concern. Hamilton walked up two flights and into a room that was crowded by a desk, four chairs, a floor fan running on high speed, two Indians and a Chinese man.
The Chinese man smiled widely. “Hello, Trent, excellent to see you again.”
“And, you too, Tat Wah. Three years, right? What have you been doing?”
Trent had known the man for thirty years, and though he had gained weight since last time, he would recognize him strictly from his short, wide shouldered, stocky appearance and his hallmark white Palm Beach linen suit, gray fedora, highly polished black shoes and ebony cane.
“Yes, three. Been going between Shanghai and Hong Kong.” He tapped his cane into his hand.
“What’s been your focus?”
“Erecting tire plants. Planning to export because the economy’s sunk. That “Intellectual Revolution” stunted growth. Now we turn policy to entrepreneurship.”
“Well,” Hamilton started in a sympathetic tone, “we had our rabble rousers... protesters, civil rights.”
Through with small talk, Tat Wah asked, “What do you bring today?”
Hamilton’s beefy hand opened his briefcase, grabbed and laid before the men engineering plans for an optical guidance system that could aim handheld missiles at low flying targets. It was about the size of a large camera: ten pounds. How Tat Wah would use the device, Hamilton could only guess. A forerunner of the product had been used to pan cameras in U-2 spy planes that photographed Cuban missile sites. It had remained classified, and, understandably, the U.S. was reluctant to license it for export. Russell knew how to get things done, however, and four weeks earlier, he had given Hamilton the green light to meet with his foreign connections.
The matter of interpreting drawings was left to the Indian engineers. Tat Wah and Hamilton went outside. Taking a long drag on his cigarette, Hamilton said, “Look around— isn’t this a despicable place?”
“Yes, though no fault of ours.”
“It’s a good place to do business,” Trent breathed confidently.
“Yes, labor is economical.” Tat Wah tapped his cane, scanned the neighborhood. “As far as Calcutta’s misery goes, we play no part in it.”
Nearly two hours had passed before the Indians went in search of the two men, and reconvening, the engineers affirmed the integrity of the drawings. Tat Wah picked up the phone and called Hong Kong. Hamilton heard him wire $2,000,000 into a Swiss bank account with a designated account number. After lunch, the men returned to the cubbyhole, where Hamilton called the Disraeli Bank, which confirmed the deposit.
“Well, Tat Wah, as always, well... not always.” The two men smiled reservedly in the way men familiar, but distant, do.
“Excellent seeing you, Trent,” the Chinese smiled warmly, adding, “We are survivors, are we not?”
“That we are, Tat Wah. See you when I have something.”
The American empty handed, pockets full, and the Chinese, plans in hand, bowed toward one another and went separate ways—one east, one west along the side street.