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zjpped the small leather case, drew out the can of shaving
am that was not filled with shaving cream - he had had
use soap in the Princess's public men's room. He held this . t})e palm of his left hand as he began to part the curtains tfith his right.
Just a sliver of the room was revealed to one eye, then more s be moved slightly. He was alone. He stepped through, finding himself in the dining area. It was dominated by a glass-topped table whose pedestal was carved in the shape of an enormous gilt, red and green dragon. It was surrounded hv twelve chairs whose legs were similarly carved. On its centre was a porcelain vase, obviously antique, of translucent thinness.
To his right was the enormous living room with a vrought-iron staircase at its extreme right end leading up to the upper storey and, presumably, the bedrooms. To his left was a short passageway to the kitchens and probably the garage.
He went immediately to his right, past a length of aqua silk curtains, drawn back partially that separated the dining room from the main living area. He could not know there was a door just behind it, could not, therefore, have known that anyone would be emerging just as he moved past the curtains.
In that instant, electric as a violent storm, there was absolutely nothing to do but stop and stare. He was face to face with a slender Chinese woman. She was a good deal shorter than Jade Princess. Hers was a Shanghaiese face, cunning and hard, dark and proud with none of the softness, the liquid sensuality that seemed an integral part of Jade Princess's countenance. Yet Tracy reacted to another kind of sensuality that was at once more disturbing and more enticing.
Her tilted eyes opened wide with shock and her mouth 'ormed an O. For just an instant, a bolt of sheer, animalistic hostility impaled them both on the same stake, then as Quickly was gone. She began to cry out just as Tracy lunged Ofward, grabbing her wrist and pulling, so that she was
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P
whirling around in front of him. He pressed himself against her back, feeling the soft warmth of her buttocks intruding.
There was movement at the far end of the living room. TWO Chinese ran in. Both brandished pistols. They stood far enough apart so that if Tracy had been holding a gun, he would not have been able to shoot both before he himself was hit. They were pros and he marked that. Carefully, he kept the woman between himself and the bodyguards.
There was movement from above and Tracy, without diverting his attention, saw Mizo appear on the balcony overlooking the living room. 'Mr Richter,' the Japanese said slowly, 'you have caused me a great deal of discomfort.' He was wearing a black cotton tunic and trousers. 'But the time has come for us to abandon this game. How it is you come here I cannot imagine. But, even you must admit now that your race has been run. Give it up or my men will shoot you
down.'
'If you wanted that, it already would have happened,'
Tracy pointed out.
Mizo frowned. A forefinger plucked at his moustache. 'Yes. That is true. I wish Little Dragon no harm. But you, Mr Richter, must be eliminated.' 'Who gave you that order?'
Mizo smiled. 'At last there is something you do not know.' His face went deadpan. 'I admit it puzzles me. You obviously know of my narcotics network yet you do not know the connections. Curious. I wonder, then, how you got to me in the first place,' He came forward, one hand on the wrought-
iron railing.
'I am quite well insulated and I would dearly like to know
the source of the leak.'
'Then we have information to exchange.' The smile came again, quickly fading. 'Alas, no. You, Mr Richter, are certainly in no position to bargain. While we have been talking, two of my men have made their «>y around the house. They are behind you now and will kill Y0" if you make a move to harm Little Dragon.'
'Even if I believed you,' Tracy said, 'there is another stf'
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prise I have for you.' He brought out his left hand so that Mizo could see what was in it.
'A shaving can?' Mizo's voice was contemptuous.
'The present from my father.' Tracy stared up at Mizo, judging the Japanese's face. 'Remember? It will blow us all to the four winds.'
'In a shaving can?'
'How d'you think I got it through Customs?'
Mizo's face had gone grey. He stood now as still as a statue. A tiny tremor seemed to have been triggered along the side of his face. 'I see that I have underestimated you again,' he said softly. 'Well, I promise you it will be the last time.'
He came down the staircase in slippered feet, waved at the two gunmen. They put away their weapons, disappeared. 'Perhaps it is truly time to end the game,' Mizo said. His voice was filled with a world-weariness. He came slowly towards Tracy, hands clasped behind his back. 'You have done much damage to me already. I do not wish more. I have been here in Hong Kong for almost twenty years. I have done everything I have wanted to.' He shrugged his shoulders. 'What more is there, after all?' He nodded. 'There is Little Dragon and an endless parade of days.'
He was quite close now, his soft eyes regarded Tracy ruefully as if to say, I'm sorry I lost but I respect you for having beaten me. Tracy felt a tiredness suffusing him; his eyelids flickered and at that moment he knew something was wrong. Too dose, part of his mind screamed at him. You're letting him tooo close.
But Mizo's hands had already unclasped behind his back, blurred outward, jerking Little Dragon from Tracy's weakened grip. He lunged down and forward, his right hand as straight as a swordblade.
He almost got through but the fear Tracy registered sent a great spurt of adrenalin coursing through him and his ^sponse was off by only a fraction. Still, Mizo hurt him before
racY took the oncoming wrist in both his hands, lifted up
d to his right, ducking under, using Mizo's own body as tulcrum for stretching out his arms painfully.
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Tracy brought the arm down hard enough for Mizo to cry out. Then, still holding on, he bent down, retrieved the faUetl
can.
'Count yourself lucky,' Tracy whispered into the other's ear. 'And if you're smart as well as very lucky, you'll be able to spend the rest of your lifetime with Little Dragon. If not' he jerked on Mizo's right arm again 'you'll die right here
Think it over.'
Mizo's eyes were watering and he was having trouble breathing. 'All right,' he managed to get out. 'Enough. I will tell you what you want to know. Just let me go. You're killing
» O
me.
'Not good enough,' Tracy said. 'I have no reason to trust
you.'
'Then I'll give you one,' Mizo's face was red with the strain
and the agony Tracy was inflicting.
'I doubt that you can.'
'Give me the chance at least. I know you're wrong. I can prove how trustworthy I am with two words.'
Tracy was curious. 'What are they?'
'Operation Sultan,' Mizo said.
The Mauritious Company was located on West Twentyseventh Street. It was an area of importexport companies, small warehouses, wholesale businesses bounded on Sixth Avenue by the flower district and on Eighth Avenue by middle-income housing projects.
Thwaite nosed the Chewy into an illegal parking space, flipped down the sun guard on the passenger's side to which was clipped his POLICE BUSINESS card.
'Okay,' he said to Melody. 'Let's go.'
It was a red stone building, crusty and dulled by a century of New York's increasing grime. The dark, gloomy hallway was narrow, painted a drab institutional green. It smelled o' cardboard and twine from a business on the ground floor.
A small directory, its glass spiderwebbed with cracks, t >'<> them the Mauritious Company was on the second floor.
Thwaite took hold of Melody with his left hand, drew hi'
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.g with his right. They headed up the stairs. On the landing, j,e paused, getting his bearings. It was dusty and dark, jjurnination coming from one bare bulb high up, hanging ftotn a bare wire from the cracked and peeling ceiling.
Thwaite could find nothing to feel confident about. The hallway had about it an unmistakable air of disuse. Melody opened her mouth to say something and he squeezed her wrist hard, shaking his head back and forth.
The Mauritious Company had its offices halfway down the hall. Thwaite directed Melody to stand against the righthand wall. He put his lips very close to her ear, whispered, 'Don't move until I call for you. If you don't hear my voice within sixty seconds, turn around and run like hell.'
She looked at him, her eyes large and clear. 'What d'you expect to find in there?"
'I don't know.' He was watching her, knew he should be watching his back. 'Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.'
'More guns. More death.'
'Your friends.'
She bared her teeth at him.
He turned away from her then, crossed to the other side of the door so that it was now between them. He tried the knob with his left hand. He turned it slowly as far as it would go, pushed gently in. Nothing. It was locked. Well, that was to be expected.
He got out his picks, went to work while Melody looked on, wide-eyed. He was close to the lock, heard the soft click. He did not wait to take the pick out, pushed hard on the door, moving quickly inside in a half-crouch, his .38 levelled before him.
The room was fully carpeted in a lush champagnecoloured pile. Mahogany desk and chairs dominated the room, though there was also a leather sofa. A wall unit to s left contained a well-stocked bar. There were three steel engravings on the walls, all of China clippers of the iSoo's.
Thwaite went over to the desk, saw a calendar, pads and pencils, a brass letter opener and scissors set, a white onyx paperweight and a brass oversized paper clip standing on its
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end on an ebony base. And that was all. It was quite odd, he thought. Where was the phone?
There were filing cabinets in the corner behind the desk, Thwaite opened the top drawer, pulled out a sheet of creamcoloured stationery. At its top was printed in coffee-brovn letters: 'The Mauritious Company', and just below u
'Founded 1969'.
There was nothing else on the sheet. Thwaite foldec n twice, tucked it into his jacket pocket. He went through the other drawers, found nothing but dust. It was a drop, all
right, he thought.
There was a noise from outside and he turned. 'Melody?'
'Who's Melody?' said a harsh male voice.
Thwaite lifted his .38 at the same time hearing a loud crack and he spun away from the bullet's impact. He grunted and his teeth clacked together.
From his position on the thick carpet, he saw a scar-faced man pointing a long-barrelled pistol at him.
'Sayonara, buddy,' the scar-faced man said, and smiled.
Thwaite let out a long sigh. His fingers were numb and he watched the shape of his own gun on the carpet in front of
him.
He winced at the next shot but, oddly, felt no more pain. He felt his heart beating strongly, heard the bellows of his lungs working unimpaired. He opened his eyes.
The scar-faced man was crumpled on the doorsill, one arm stretched before him, the long-barrelled gun a pointing finger. His scarred face was turned towards Thwaite, the brown eyes gummy and staring. There was a rough ovoid of black and red in the centre of his forehead, a bullet's tearing exit hole. The back of his skull seemed somehow mashed, as if a bolted foot had slammed into it. His hair was
singed.
Thwaite blinked, uncomprehending. His mouth flopp open. Then he sensed movement in the doorway behind the corpse. He saw Melody appear, a .45 in her hand. She look* from the ridge-backed mountain of the scar-faced man to him. Her lips opened stickily and he saw a thin line of crims°
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trickling from a cut up near her hairline. Her face was very
pale-
'There was another one,' she breathed softly. 'I didn't want any more killing.' Huge tears welled up in her eyes, spilling over, and the gun slid from her long slender fingers, making
3 dull thud on the thick carpet. Her head shook back and forth. She could not take her eyes off him. 'Now look what you've made me do.'
She stepped over the corpse, then she was running across the room towards him, her face full of anguish but suffused with another emotion as well. She knelt in front of Thwaite, put an arm around his shoulder. He winced because that was where he had hit the floor.
He put his head back against the wall and she ran her hand down his cheek.
'Sorry,' he said. 'I'm sorry for everything.'
She was very close to him. 'Lie back,' she said. 'Relax now.'
'I said -'
'I know what you said.' Quick, clipped tones.
He saw that she was regarding him steadily and though she was still crying she seemed changed, as if a great burden had been lifted from her shoulders.
His voice was thick, his throat and lips dry. 'You did a helluva thing just now.'
'No,' she whispered. 'I'm going to do a helluva thing now.' Her head came towards his. 'I'm going to kiss you and you're going to turn into a prince.'
Just before her opened lips met his, he was certain he saw the ghost of a smile playing there.
The conditions were crude by New York City standards: the rehearsal rooms were inadequate and so uninsulated against the beastly heat that the dancers dripped sweat almost from the moment they began their exercises. The stage itself was too SInall and there was a hurried and uncomfortable conference *Kn the principals in order to modify as best they could the noreography at such short notice. Martin was superb at that but stl11 it unnerved the dancers.
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But by far the worst of the problems was not actually face, until they went on the stage and then it was too late. Instead of the springy wooden flooring they were used to which aided their leaps and forgave their falls, they were faced with think
covered concrete.
'It is impossible!' Martin exclaimed. And Lauren had to agree Still they performed as best they could because that was what they had been trained to do. They would have done the same in the middle of a muddy clearing in the jungle.
The company was superb, the response enthusiastic. Ballet was one of the Western art forms long banned in China and everyone knew the Chinese were starved for culture.
But for Lauren the triumph was somewhat tempered by the muscle pull in her left leg. It happened at the very tail end of her solo, which made it that much more maddening.
She would never know precisely how it happened. She suspected that her partner, Steven, who was impeccably reliable, let her down off her last leap too suddenly. But she could not discount the fact that the unusually hard dancing surface had brought back worries about her newly healed hip and perhaps she was leaning off-centre just a bit. Whatever the case, she came down on the outside of her foot instead of down the centre and the momentum combined with her weight was enough to damage a muscle. She thought she heard a pop and Steven, realizing instantly what had happened, carried her off.
She barely heard the great wave of applause, did not want to go out to receive her curtain call but was carried anyway by the
Dane.
Back in the dressing rooms she was sweating and cursing, the company's doctor dressing the leg in ice. Martin came up, his face a worried mask.
'How is it?' he wanted to know.
The doctor shrugged. 'I cannot tell for certain before twentyfour hours. But I don't believe there's a tear.'
'Lauren?'
'It hurts like hell,' she said angrily. 'God damn it!'
Martin put his arm around her. 'We have a day off tomorrow before we go in to Beijing.'
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'Great,' Lauren said. 'I can spend it flat on my back.'
She rubbed a towel across her sweating face and Martin shot
quick glance at the doctor. He looked up, shook his head.
'Nonsense,' Martin said to Lauren, sitting down beside her. jje was smiling now. 'This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for all of us and I won't let it go to waste. You'll come with me tomorrow in the private car the People's Government has so graciously provided me.'
Lauren looked up. A chance to spend the day with Martin. 'Yes,' she said. Her eyes glowed. 'I'd like that very much.'
'Good,' Martin said, patting her good leg. 'Now I'd like you to say a few kind words to one of the cultural ministers, Lauren. He's been waiting since the performance ended to meet you. He is most chagrined at the injury you suffered. Apparently he's taken it quite personally and wants to offer you his apologies in person. We did not meet him on arrival; he was away from the city.'
Lauren was about to protest; she was still steaming but Martin interrupted her. 'This is very important to us, Lauren. Important for the success of the whole tour. Cordial relations are, after all, why we chose to accept the government's invitation to perform here.' Martin got up, smiled down at her. 'And he does seem to be a kindly man.'
Martin went off through the chaos, bringing back a heavyset Chinese.
'Lauren Marshall,' Martin said, almost bowing in that endearing Old World Russian manner of his that was peculiarly formal, 'may I present Dong Zhing, Shanghai's minister of culture for the People's Republic.'
Lauren held out her hand and Dong Zhing took it, bowing slightly. He was smiling and Lauren could see his small yellow teeth like perfect pieces of aged ivory, polished to a high sheen.
'I am delighted to meet you, Miss Marshall,' he said in a singsong English that was nevertheless quite good. 'I enjoyed your dancing immensely. A breath of fresh air to this ancient content, if I may say so.'
'Thank you.'
I must take this opportunity to apologize most profusely for
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the unfortunate accident that befell you.' He paused, smiling anri when he spoke again, his tone had changed, become rtiot intimate as if he were doffing his official rank. 'I'm most terribl afraid that it was a bit of a screw-up on my part, not bein familiar enough with the company's needs.'
