Brian Freemantle: The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin

The fire boats had been placed so that their sprays created a paper-chain of rainbows for the Pride of America to sail through when she left New York for the last time. Every vessel in the harbour set up a cacophony of farewell sirens and the streamers hung, like just-washed hair, over the ship’s side and from Pier 90 and several other jetties by which she slowly passed.

Lights in the twin towers of the Trade Center windows had been specially illuminated, so that the message read ‘Farewell’, matching the word spelled out over the Manhattan skyline by the skywriting plane which arced and circled above, its purple smoke streaming behind.

The waterside was jammed with people and the Circle Line boats had arranged special ferry trips to remain alongside until the liner reached the Statue of Liberty, a vantage point crowded with more sightseers.

It was here that Mr L. W. Lu called the major press conference on board the ship, to enable the film and television crews and journalists who would not be remaining for the entire voyage to Hong Kong to be conveniently airlifted back to La Guardia in helicopters waiting on the cleared observation deck.

There had been press flights from England and every major European country and over two hundred people crowded into the former observation bar. Not since Onassis had there been a ship-owner more internationally known, so the press-kit was hardly necessary. But Lu was a consummate publicist. As each of the pressmen had entered the room, they had been handed a bulging file setting out the already familiar history of an orphan boy born into poverty who had risen from junior shipping-office clerk to speculative investor on the Hong Kong stock market to tanker magnate, Asian oil millionaire, free enterprise entrepreneur and benefactor of three fully supported orphanages and two hospitals.

He sat on a raised dais, the panoramic view from the ship behind him, patiently waiting amid the chaos that precedes any such gathering. By his side, as always, sat his son. There was a remarkable physical resemblance between the two men. The father was a Buddha-plump, benign-looking man, the harsh klieg lights of the cameras glistening against his polished face and silk suit and occasionally, when he extended his almost constant smile, picking up the gold in his teeth. John Lu was slightly thinner and, unlike his father, wore spectacles. He had no gold in his teeth either, but that was difficult to establish because John Lu was a man who hardly ever smiled.

It was the younger man who stood first, holding out his hands for silence.

‘My name is John Lu,’ he said. ‘I would like you to welcome my father, who wishes to begin this conference with a statement.’

There was a surprising but isolated burst of applause from the Asian journalists present and Lu smiled in appreciation. He didn’t stand. He merely leant forward upon the table that had been set with microphones and radio equipment, tapped the mouthpiece to ensure he had selected the right amplifier and said, in an ordinary conversational tone, ‘Thank you all for coming.’

The microphone picked up the sibilant blur in his voice and there was an immediate response, the room quietening within seconds. Lu’s smile widened slightly at the reaction.

‘There has been, I know, much speculation about my reasons for purchasing this still magnificent liner…’

The man was very aware of the seating arrangements for the conference and turned fractionally towards the section he knew to be occupied by Americans.

‘I have always felt it a tragedy that a vessel like the Pride of America, still the holder of the Blue Riband for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic, should, because of a change in world travelling preference, be mothballed and left to lie almost forgotten, if not abandoned, off the coast of Virginia…’

He paused. Imperceptibly, a glass of water appeared at his elbow from the attentive son. The Chinese sipped at it, smiling out at people he could no longer see because of the fierceness of the lights. He made almost an affectation of politeness.

‘And so,’ he resumed, ‘I have found for it a function that will maintain the liner not only in its former glory, but put it to a purpose that will make it perhaps more famous than it ever was as a sea link between Europe and America…’

The millionaire paused again, to achieve effect.

‘We are bound, as you know, for Hong Kong. Once there, it will be necessary to carry out some alterations and modifications for that role, a role best explained by the new name which will appear on its hull – the University of Freedom. ’

There was another pause, this time forced upon him by the sudden burst of noise from the assembled journalists. Lu raised his hand, silencing the room again, then gestured to a bank of seats upon which a group of people had assembled minutes before the opening of the conference.

‘You see behind me,’ he announced, ‘professors who have agreed to take chairs at this university and who have joined me from the Sorbonne, Heidelberg, Oxford, Yale and Harvard…’

There was a fresh outburst of noise from the journalists and a slight shift in the lighting at the sudden demand for identification.

Lu gestured again. ‘Some of you may recognise Professor James Northcote, from Harvard, recipient of last year’s Nobel Prize in Physics…’

The lights and cameras wavered and a bonily thin, balding man shuffled awkwardly into a half-standing position and nodded his head.

‘… an indication,’ took up Lu, bringing the attention back to himself, ‘of the level of teaching which will be available at my university.’

He indicated the man who had opened the conference.

‘Under the personal control and organisation of my son, I intend to provide perhaps the best education in the world for students of any nationality.’

He made a deprecatory gesture with his hands.

‘There are some of you who may already know a little about me,’ he said, pausing for the laughter that came from the room and smiling with it. ‘Those that do will be aware of the steadfast conviction and belief that I have advanced whenever possible… a conviction and belief that the free, democratic world is growing increasingly blind to the dangers of communism…’

He sipped from his water glass.

‘I believe there is a need for that warning to be repeated, over and over again, until people at last begin to take proper notice. So upon the University of Freedom I will provide something more than a superior education. Every undergraduate, no matter what subject he reads, will compulsorily attend daily lectures at which will be fully debated and explained the dangers of the evil, pernicious regime which exists upon the mainland of China…’

Lu rose for the first time, waving his hands to quell the clamour.

‘A pernicious regime,’ he repeated, the hiss in his voice more obvious because he had to shout, ‘which, because of its growing acceptance by the free world, endangers the very existence of democracy.’

Lu remained standing, very aware of his stance and the sound of the cameras recording it, refusing any questions. At last the sound died.

‘The University of Freedom will be permanently anchored off a small island in the Hong Kong archipelago,’ he enlarged. ‘We will be less than five miles from the Chinese mainland, a constant and visible reminder to Peking of the truth it tries so hard to suppress…’

Lu sat, nodding to his son. It took fifteen minutes to achieve adherence to the system of questioning upon which Lu insisted, receiving queries first from the American section and then from the European press. Two hours had been set aside for the conference, but it overran by a further two, so that the liner had to slow and finally turn back in a meandering arc upon itself to enable the helicopters to get away, just before nightfall.