Playing Cards

Singapore to Jakarta, Friday, 14 April 1995

The early morning Singapore Airlines flight to Jakarta banked snappily into its final approach. From his window seat James Fang could see the slim batik-uniformed hostess reading mechanically from a prompt card held in her right hand while she hung onto a rail with her left. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, in a short time we shall be arriving at Sukarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta…’

She glanced over to James and gave him a sly smile. She had been paying James more than regulatory attention during the flight. He liked that. And he was used to it. At forty-two he still looked good. And rich. James ran his eye up and down her swaying body. Too thin.

Dutifully, he brought the back of his business-class seat into the upright position, looked out of the window and involuntarily clenched his fists. However many flights he took, he still could not relax. He knew that disaster would strike the moment he stopped listening to, and worrying about, each change in the pitch of the engines.

Below them the rural Javanese landscape spread out in a mosaic of shapes and colours. Small clumps of trees sprouted out of the flat fields. Wooden huts were sprinkled around, each with a ribbon of blue-grey wood smoke drifting lazily from it in the still early morning Javanese air. James noticed with surprise the amount of water there was glimmering in the neat paddy fields. Far more than there should have been at the end of the dry season.

Ugly sprawling slums of corrugated, iron-roofed shacks replaced the lush paddy fields as they neared Sukarno-Hatta airport. The plane completed its final approach and, with engines screaming, lunged towards the shantytown. The outstretched branches of palm trees rushed up towards the aircraft as it skimmed the rusty roofs, reached the runway and landed heavily with a screech of tyres. James held his breath. He couldn’t put out of his mind the story circulating at the time the new Jakarta airport was constructed – that the runways were built on badly drained marshland. The theory was that one fine day a runway would collapse under the strain of a jet landing a little too heavily. Happily, today was not going to be the day – for James at least.

James began to relax as the plane taxied towards the red-roofed terminal. The slim hostess appeared with his blazer, smiled knowingly and looked him straight in the eyes in an un-Asian way. ‘Have a nice day, Mr Fang.’ James winced. At the best of times he hated the Americanism he had heard so often whilst at MIT. Still, she was quite sweet and wasn’t using the prompt sheet.

James returned her smile, undressed her one more time in his mind, managed a polite ‘Thank you’ in his upper-class English accent and then hurried to escape from the sterile cigar tube manned by robots that had terrorised him for the previous hour and a half.

He walked along several wide corridors that wound their way through grassy gardens and finally dropped down into the brightly lit main arrival hall. Queues of short-sleeved-shirted people waited to present themselves to bored-looking immigration officers seated in tall booths like overweight high priests dispensing favours.

Instead of joining one of the many queues James walked to the side of the room. He approached a portly man wearing the customary tight-fitting khaki tunic held in place by a broad, shiny, black leather belt. This uniform seemed to be worn by anyone in Jakarta carrying out a semi-official duty.

James held out his passport in the direction of the khaki uniform. ‘Good morning, I’m James Fang.’

The man didn’t take James’ passport. Instead, he consulted a list with the annoyed air of someone being disturbed by a lower life form. He found what he was looking for on the list, grunted, took the passport without looking at James, muttered unintelligibly, ‘Okay, yo… way…’ and shuffled into a side room.

James waited patiently and wondered how long a system like this would be allowed to continue. It was all so wonderfully Indonesian. For a relatively small fee paid to a semi-official organisation in Jakarta, the services of an arrogant, fat little man dressed in khaki could be secured for fifteen minutes. During this time, he would obtain your entry visa through some mysterious process carried out in a side room, and escort you through the customs, thereby ensuring your trouble-free exit from the airport.

In James’s case it saved one hour of formalities. For others it certainly meant a considerable saving of customs duties on undeclared goods, or freed the way for the importation of restricted items such as published material printed in Chinese. Indonesia was a country in which there were no problems for those who knew how to deal with the system. And the Fangs did.

Sure enough the fat khaki-clad man reappeared after a few minutes. He waddled off towards the customs for the second part of his duty, having indicated to James with a dismissive wave of the hand that he was to follow.

After organising James’ quick exit from the airport, the little man would return to the arrival hall to repeat the fifteen-minute process. For each completed circuit he would be the richer for some bank notes, dutifully donated by his happy client of the moment. The value of each donation was normally greater than the average daily earnings of an Indonesian factory worker. Khaki uniforms meant money for those wearing them.

James walked out of the air-conditioned arrival hall and was hit by a blast of hot, humid-tropical air. He paused to catch his breath and then carried on walking alongside a metal barricade, which held back a crush of people eagerly looking for arriving friends, relations or business contacts. At the front of the crowd, hanging over the barrier like eager fans at a football match, was a line of hotel reps and drivers, many of whom held up scraps of cardboard announcing the names of their quarries.

James began running the gauntlet of the notice boards. Suddenly he saw who he was looking for and nodded surreptitiously in the direction of a short, squat, old Indonesian who had managed to get himself into pole position at the front of the crowd. Without any further greeting, James continued walking past the rest of the throng towards the roadside. The old Indonesian driver understood that most of the visitors to his employer, the Minister of Agriculture, wanted to keep a very low profile. None more so than old Mr Fang and his son Mr James.

James brushed away the offer made by a rabble of shifty-looking people, and waited by the roadside sweating gently while the old man hobbled slowly off towards the car park. After a few minutes he returned driving a white ministerial Mercedes, installed James in the back seat, exchanged the customary pleasantries with his charge and then lapsed into the silence that young Mr James enjoyed. Having carried out the first part of his duties, the old man crouched over the driving wheel and concentrated on delivering his important passenger in one piece to his boss.

Water-logged fields flashed by the windows as they sped down the newly constructed airport highway towards the centre of Jakarta. Coolie-hatted peasants and slick-skinned water buffalo plodded through the paddy fields together in the falling rain. Both looked equally miserable.

Enormous garish hoardings advertising Japanese and Korean consumer goods bordered the highway as they neared the centre of Jakarta. As the highway ended these were replaced by roadside shacks and stalls selling everything from noodles to second-hand shoes. Crowds of steaming-wet people jostled one another squelching in the slurry of rubbish and mud that made up the pavement.

The old driver fought his way through the dense, unruly city traffic, showing remarkable aggression for one so old. Trucks were hooted at and not given way to. Mopeds were bulldozed aside. Pedestrians interfered with his passage at their peril. The old man drove like a demon without care or courtesy for other road users, while all the time staring fixedly ahead as if daring someone or something to challenge his right of way. Side and rear-view mirrors were plainly an unnecessary optional extra for him in the execution of his daily duty.

James sat quietly behind the heavily darkened windows that seemed to be obligatory in this city of secrets and winced at every near miss. He consoled himself with the thought that if they did actually kill someone, the Ministry of Agriculture would probably sort things out.

The roadside scenery changed again as they approached Jakarta City proper. The narrow streets and stalls gave way to wide dual carriageways and grand buildings that were a mixture of old colonial-style administrative architecture and modern tinted glass and steel. A service road ran down the side of each boulevard giving access to the surrounding buildings. It also provided a way for motorists with luck on their side to leapfrog ahead of the slower traffic on the main road. The old driver seemed to be an expert leap-frogger, launching the Mercedes on and off the main carriageway and blasting obstructing pedestrians and motorcyclists alike out of his way.

James held on to the door handle as they careened round a roundabout, which housed the Youth Spirit Monument depicting a muscular youth carrying the ‘Torch of Development’. This, along with several others, had been built during the sixties with the help of Soviet designers. James smiled silently to himself at the nickname of Pizza Man given by local residents to this wonderful example of social realist heroism.

Within a few minutes they roared up to the front gate of the Ministry of Agriculture and stopped sharply. The old driver turned round to James and smiled triumphantly, revealing a mixture of gaps and gold fillings. For a few seconds James did not respond, preferring instead to sit still to gather his thoughts after the hair-raising journey. Finally, he looked at the old driver. ‘You’re getting slower, Omar. We’re almost late.’

James then glanced at himself in the rear-view mirror, took a deep breath and stepped out of the car, whose door was now being held by the confused-looking driver, and shook the hand of the waiting official.

‘Good morning, Mr Fang,’ said Osman. ‘I hope you had a good journey.’

‘Good morning, Osman. Good to see you again. The journey was fine except for the fact that the Minister’s driver seems to be getting more and more frisky.’

The two men set off in the direction of the Minister’s office. Osman laughed.

‘I’m afraid he seems to be getting faster as he gets older. In fact, the minister has recently taken a new personal driver. He said that Omar was bad for his blood pressure. I think Omar must feel a bit hard done by and is trying to prove that he is still up to it. I’ll have to see what I can do to slow him down, but it’s not easy at his age.’

James laughed politely as they reached the top of the stairs and Osman ushered him into the Minister’s office.

‘James, thank you for rearranging your schedule and coming here so quickly,’ said Dr Amin, getting up from his desk and walking over to shake James’s hand. The Minister’s mouth smiled but his eyes did not. James noticed that he had been wearing a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, which he still held in his left hand. A sign of age. How old was he now? Must be mid fifties. Age for Dr Amin did not come alone. James noticed how much thinner the Minister’s hair was since their last meeting nine months ago. It was also getting quite grey at the temples.

James and the Minister had known each other for many years. It was only in the last five years or so, however, that James had begun to take over responsibility from his father for the trading business that had been so vital on many occasions to the Indonesian economy. Dr Amin still looked down on James and considered him the lad. James resented this, but also knew that in reality it was he who was now in charge of the business and not his father. Little by little Amin would have to accept this fact.

For the moment, however, James ignored this irritant. Osman had taken the trouble to call him personally, earnestly requesting him to come to Jakarta on a highly confidential basis the next day. Something extremely urgent must be happening. And this in turn could well translate into significant profits for the trading arm of the Fang Group. On this basis, James was quite prepared to put up with a little loss of status and to give great face to the Minister.

‘Minister, it was the least I could do when I received the call yesterday,’ James replied, giving Amin his title and establishing their relative social positions. James knew that the more relaxed Amin felt, the easier it would be for him to negotiate something favourable to himself when the time came. And come it would.

‘Something pretty important must be on the cards for you to need a meeting this urgently,’ continued James, more by way of a statement rather than a question. It would be better for James in the long run if Amin told his story at his own speed and in his own way.

The two men sat down around a low, ornately carved ebony table. James braced himself for drinking the strong, sweet Indonesian coffee laced with condensed milk that was about to be served. Dr Amin looked at the suave, good-looking Chinese man in front of him. His eyes drifted over Fang’s Armani blazer and Bally shoes. The Minister wondered, not for the first time, why a country of Indonesia’s size and importance was forced to use foreigners to help them out of their agricultural difficulties. And bloody Chinese ones at that! On the one hand he remembered so well how the first deals had been struck with old man Fang. At the time Amin had been amazed at the efficiency with which the transactions had been executed. But that was nearly thirty years ago…

James fixed a pleasant smile on his face and waited reverently for Dr Amin to begin. Behind the smile, James’ mind was working fast, trying to glean any clue as to why he had been summoned to appear before the Minister. He had managed to cast a sweeping glance over Amin’s desk as he came in but had been unable to see anything unusual. Amin was an organised worker and the few papers arranged neatly in front of him had not revealed any secrets. Nor were there any tell-tale details left behind on the whiteboard that, as a technocrat, Amin always kept in the corner of his office. So far James could not find anything to give him a hint as to why he was here. However, from the stressed look on Amin’s normally relaxed smooth brown face, something was definitely wrong.

James went back in his mind over the business that the Fang group currently had in hand for the Indonesians, to try once again to anticipate what was about to be said. He had already examined the business from several angles during the journey down but had failed to identify any aspects which might give rise to a problem serious enough to warrant an urgent request for him to come to Jakarta. However, you could never be too careful.

For years the Fangs’ principal business with the Minister had been centred on rice and sugar. These were the two agricultural commodities that were of greatest strategic importance to the country. Full and satisfied bellies meant happy and contented people – which in turn meant no civil unrest and votes for Suharto.

The formula was extremely simple. Executing it was not so easy, however, given the massive size of the population spread over so many islands. Domestic logistics were always a problem. In such a big country it was inevitable that there would be surpluses in some places and shortages in others.

Moreover, the whole of Indonesia could be a country of feast and famine depending on how the crops yielded. For years, Suharto’s series of five-year plans had been slowly working and both the rice and sugar crop had been growing. Unfortunately, the population had also been expanding rapidly as income levels increased. Indonesia had a long way to go before it faced the problem of the professional husband and wife wanting to pursue their own careers at the expense of producing children.

The Fang Group’s job was to help the Minister balance surpluses or deficits of rice and sugar. Typically, after a meeting like this one, they would be asked to either buy or sell rice or sugar on the international market place in the most discreet way possible. The total contract values were normally so large that if the world markets got wind that Indonesia was either a buyer or seller of either commodity then the price would move sharply against them. It was the Fangs’ job to make sure that news of Indonesia’s shortages or deficits remained a secret for as long as possible. At the same time the Fangs would be carrying our their trading on behalf of the Minister in the international markets, quickly and quietly selling or buying what was required.

In order to carry out this deception, the Fangs had established a complex network of dummy companies incorporated in every tax haven one could think of. They had done this together with some key Indonesian contacts and international trade houses. Often these dummy companies were only used for one or two transactions. By the time the international trading community had figured out that a specific company was a front for the Indonesian Government the business had long since shifted to yet another front. By using such a web of companies, it was almost impossible for the trade to get the complete picture of Indonesia’s position at any one point in time.

This corporate complexity and fast-moving trading was the answer to Dr Amin’s question. In his heart of heart he knew that no indigenous Indonesian group had the capacity to handle this type of trade. This was the domain of the Chinese.

Although the Indonesians were indeed extremely experienced in such transactions, the deals themselves were often so complicated that they would almost certainly not run smoothly without the intervention of the Fangs. Behind the smiling James Fang was an army of logistics people. They made sure that vessels they had chartered jumped queues, documents that were necessary for them to be paid found their way to the tops of piles, export licences were issued on a preferential basis and bad quality shipments were given to the competition. The Fangs knew what was required and the Fangs knew how to get it.

It was reckoned in the trade that over the years old man Fang had built up a mountain of obligations through granting financial favours. He had obtained files full of incriminating evidence. There were few men in Government or trading circles in Asia who would either be brave enough or foolish enough to resist a request for assistance from old man Fang – or now from his equally smiling son, James.

As far as current business was concerned, James could only think of one topic that, if discovered, would be sufficiently important to justify summoning him to Jakarta: smuggling.

Indonesia was currently importing about half a million tonnes of sugar a year. As far as Minister Amin, and for that matter the President, were aware, the Fangs were handling about 350,000 tonnes of this business through their normally discrete business channels. The remaining 150,000 tonnes was being smuggled at night, in small coastal vessels, directly into many of the larger Indonesian islands, thereby avoiding import duty. In view of the relatively small size of each shipment and the ad hoc night-time nature of this business, it was virtually impossible to put a stop to it.

James had had many conversations on this topic with Minister Amin, and together they had concluded that the smuggling was a necessary evil. It was also an extremely profitable evil for the Fangs since it was they, by hiding behind another network of small local traders, who controlled it. Old man Fang hadn’t built up his empire by allowing someone else to eat into business that he considered rightfully his.

This structure of legitimate imports and smuggling had several benefits for the Fangs. Firstly it earned them even more than the already considerable amount they squirreled away from their profit on their legitimate sugar imports. It also gave them a de facto stranglehold on all sugar imports, and at the same time provided a convenient party to blame when the pricing on the legitimate shipments appeared to Minister Amin to be somewhat out of line with world markets.

‘Ah, Minister, you know if it wasn’t for the smuggling, things would be much more straightforward…’

As he smiled at the Minister, James tried to fathom whether the look on Amin’s face meant that the smuggling scheme had been rumbled. If challenged, he had already prepared what he felt would be a sufficiently complicated yet plausible reason to explain the Fangs’ involvement in the night-time business. However, before presenting this it was essential to find out exactly how much Amin knew.

‘Amin cleared his throat and started talking. James… it’s about sugar. I’m afraid there’s a small problem that will involve your group.’

James’s heart sank. Oh Christ, he thought, it must be the smuggling… How the hell did they find out? James struggled to preserve half an attentive smile.

As he spoke, James’ normally confident voice sounded weak and unconvincing. ‘Oh… er… really, Minister?’ He coughed in an attempt to give himself more authority. ‘Um… What type of problem, Dr Amin? If there is anything the Fang group can do, I am sure we would want to,’ James finished in a rush, hoping that he sounded interested and not guilty.

Dr Amin stared at James in surprise. What was up with the little rat? Why did he look and sound so bloody ill at ease? This wasn’t like him at all. Normally he oozed the public school confidence that Amin still lacked, even as a Senior Minister. Dr Amin continued slowly, trying to sound as casual as possible. At the same time his mind continued working on reasons why Fang looked so out of sorts.

‘For various reasons, the projections we have been working on seem to be a little… um… inaccurate,’ Amin continued carefully.

James felt a warm glow spreading throughout his body. Not only was the Fangs’ involvement in smuggling undiscovered, it looked like the old crocodile had a major shortage on his hands. If this turned out to be the case, it could only mean lots more money for the Fang coffers. James leant forward slightly, lowered his voice a little and tried not to look too pleased.

‘I take it that the “inaccuracy” means a crop shortage, Minister?’

‘Mmmmm, afraid so,’ admitted Dr Amin, who had decided, on the spur of the moment, not to tell Fang yet about the disappearing stockpile. The underestimated crop figures would be bad enough. No point in giving this bloody Chinese rip-off artist more than he needed to know at this time.

As he stared at James, Amin allowed a small smile to himself. He had just had a blinding flash of inspiration. Of course, now he knew why Fang looked so guilty! The Fangs must be behind the smuggling! Judging by the look, first of guilt and then of relief, on James Fang’s face when Amin had mentioned a sugar problem, the Fangs were as implicated as hell. For years Amin had been hinting as much to the President, only to be dismissed as seeing the Chinese equivalent of reds under the bed. Now he almost had proof…

James saw the hint of a smile passing across Amin’s lips, and his trading antennae went onto full alert. Bloody old shark, what did he have to smile about?

‘Frankly speaking…’ continued Amin.

Never believe anyone who starts a sentence with that, James thought to himself. Biggest giveaway in the world. What follows is guaranteed to be an outright lie.

‘Frankly speaking, the unusually wet weather we have been having has significantly lowered the sugar cane crop, particularly on Sumatra. Not only that, but the lack of sunshine has reduced the sugar yield of whatever cane we do manage to harvest. We estimate that the net result is that we will have to import an additional…’

James involuntarily leant forward and Amin hated him.

‘… an additional quarter of a million tonnes this crop season,’ finished Amin.

James grunted and wondered by what factor Amin was deflating the requirement. He decided to double it to half a million tonnes. If they could get a margin of $30 a tonne that would earn them $15 million.

‘How sure are you on these figures,’ said James, avoiding at this stage any comment on the crop shortfall itself.

‘I’m afraid pretty sure,’ grumbled Amin.

‘Hmmm, this is going to have to be handled extremely carefully,’ started James. ‘The sugar market is already looking as tight as hell, we reckon China will be buying a million tonnes and Thailand looks as though it is going to have a bad crop as well…’

‘I know. That’s why you’re here. Save me the sales pitch,’ snapped Amin, deciding that of the two he really preferred dealing with old man Fang. At least he looked like a crook. The son looked like a fashion advert but was probably more bent than a corkscrew.

‘I’m sorry if I offend you minister; however, the facts are the facts…’

‘No, no, it’s for me to apologise,’ sighed Amin, having regained his composure. ‘I’m afraid this whole episode is rather stressful. Anyway, let me show you some details. We have an appointment with the President at lunch time.’

James looked up sharply. An appointment with the President. Things must be really serious. Perhaps James should triple the figure Amin had given him as the shortfall!

During the next hour Dr Amin ran through the details that he had prepared for James. These had been carefully doctored to reflect the shortfall of 250,000 tonnes rather than the worst case 800,000 tonnes that Amin really feared.

After an hour it was time to go to the audience with the President. As the two men sank into the back seat of Dr Amin’s Mercedes and set out for the Palace, the conversation in the car was relatively friendly. Amin had begun to appreciate the benefit of sharing the burden of his problem with someone who could help him even if that person didn’t know the full extent of the difficulty.

*

As they made their way into the President’s office, Suharto got up from his desk. He clasped James’s outstretched hand in both of his as a warm greeting to the son of one of his oldest friends.

‘My dear James, how are you, and how is that shark of a father of yours? I swear we have personally paid for at least fifty per cent of the real estate he owns!’ continued Suharto in jovial fashion, not aware that the concept was correct but that the figure should in fact have been nearer seventy-five per cent.

‘He is extremely well, sir, and asks me to pass on his best regards to his oldest friend,’ responded James.

‘Good, good… Now come and sit down, and let’s talk business like I used to do with that rogue of a father of yours,’ said the kindly old uncle as he lead the way to a heavily ornate and uncomfortable suite of furniture in the corner of his office.

‘I suppose that by now the good doctor has explained the extent of our little problem?’

Amin felt faint, as he suddenly remembered that he had not had time to brief the President on his decision to withhold the stockpile information from Fang.

‘Yes, sir, I am afraid Dr Amin has. And I must say how sorry I am that your sugar crop should have been affected in this way,’ said James, lying through his teeth.

‘And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the whole damn situation is made worse by the stockpile fraud,’ continued Suharto.

James’ heart jumped as he heard the President’s words. So this was why he was seeing the President. The situation must be really serious. And that bastard Amin hadn’t told him anything like the whole picture. In his mind James doubled once again the shortage to one million tonnes, and to $50 million the profit he could make.

As he looked across the room at Amin, James saw that he wore the wistful smile of a gambler who has had one of his tricks discovered but still has several aces up his sleeve…