15

Forty miles southwest of Hong Kong, beyond the out islands in the South China Sea, is the peninsula of Macao, a Portuguese colony in ceremonial name only. Its historical origins are in Portugal, but its modern, freewheeling appeal to the international set, with its annual Grand Prix and its gambling and its yachts, is based on the luxuries and life-styles demanded by the wealthy of Europe. Regardless, make no mistake. It is Chinese. The controls are in Peking.

Never! It must not be Macao! The order will be swift, the execution swifter! Your wife will die!

But the assassin was in Macao, and a chameleon had to enter another jungle.

Scanning the faces and peering into the shadowed corners of the small, packed terminal, Bourne moved with the crowd out onto the pier of the Macao hydrofoil, a trip that took roughly an hour. The passengers were divided into three distinct categories: returning residents of the Portuguese colony—in the main Chinese and silent; professional gamblers—a racial mix talking quietly when they talked at all, continually glancing around to size up their competition; and late-night revelers—boisterous tourists, exclusively white, many of them drunk, in oddly shaped hats and loud tropical shirts.

He had left Shenzen and taken the three o’clock train from Lo Wu to Kowloon. The ride was exhausting, his reasoning stunned, his emotions were drained. The impostor-killer had been so close! If only he could have isolated the man from Macao for less than a minute, he could have gotten him out! There were ways. Both their visas were in order; a man doubled up in pain, his throat damaged to the point of speechlessness, could be passed off as a sick man, a diseased man perhaps, an unwelcome visitor whom they would gladly have let go. But it was not to be, not this time. If only he could have seen him!

And then there was the startling discovery that this new assassin, this myth that was no myth but a brutal killer, had a connection in the People’s Republic. It was profoundly disturbing, for Chinese officials who acknowledged such a man would do so only to use him. It was a complication David did not want. It had nothing to do with Marie and himself, and the two of them were all he cared about. All he cared about! Jason Bourne: Bring in the man from Macao!

He had gone back to the Peninsula, stopping at the New World Centre to buy a dark, waist-length nylon jacket and a pair of navy blue sneakers with a heavy tread. David Webb’s anxiety was overpowering. Jason Bourne planned without consciously having a plan. He ordered a light meal from room service and picked at it as he sat on the bed staring mindlessly at a television news program. Then David lay back on the pillow, briefly closing his eyes, wondering where the words came from: Rest is a weapon. Don’t forget it. Bourne woke up fifteen minutes later.

Jason had purchased a ticket for the 8:30 run at a booth in the Mass Transit concourse in the Tsim Sha Tsui during the rush hour. To be certain he was not being followed—and he had to be absolutely certain—he had taken three separate taxis to within a quarter of a mile of the Macao Ferry pier an hour before departure and walked the rest of the way. He had then entered upon a ritual he had been trained to perform. The memory of that training was clouded, but not the practice. He had melted into the crowds in front of the terminal, dodging, weaving, going from one pocket to another, then abruptly standing motionless on the sidelines, concentrating on the patterns of movement behind him, looking for someone he had seen moments before, a face or a pair of anxious eyes directed at him. There had been no one. Yet Marie’s life depended on the certainty, so he had repeated the ritual twice again, ending up inside the dimly lit terminal filled with benches that fronted the dock and the open water. He kept looking for a frantic face, for a head that kept turning, a person spinning in place, intent on finding someone. Again, there had been no one. He was free to leave for Macao. He was on his way there now.

He sat in a rear seat by the window and watched the lights of Hong Kong and Kowloon fade into a glow in the Asian sky. New lights appeared and disappeared as the hydrofoil gathered speed and passed the out islands, islands belonging to China. He imagined uniformed men peering through infrared telescopes and binoculars, not sure what they were looking for but ordered to observe everything. The mountains of the New Territories rose ominously, the moonlight glancing off their peaks and accentuating their beauty, but also saying: This is where you stop. Beyond here, we are different. It was not really so. People hawked their goods in the squares of Shenzen. Artisans prospered; farmers butchered their animals and lived as well as the educated classes in Beijing and Shanghai—usually with better housing. China was changing, not fast enough for the West, and certainly it was still a paranoid giant, but withal, thought David Webb, the distended stomachs of children, so prevalent in the China of years ago, were disappearing. Many at the top of the inscrutable political ladder were fat, but few in the fields were starving. There had been progress, mused David, whether much of the world approved of the methods or not.

The hydrofoil decelerated, its hull lowered into the water. It passed through a space between the boulders of a man-made reef illuminated by floodlights. They were in Macao, and Bourne knew what he had to do. He got up, excused himself past his seat companion, and walked up the aisle where a group of Americans, a few standing, the rest sitting, were huddled around their seats, singing an obviously rehearsed rendition of “Mr. Sandman.”

Boom boom boom boom …
Mr. Sandman, sing me a song
Boom boom boom boom
Oh, Mr. Sandman
 …”

They were high, but not drunk, not obstreperous. Another group of tourists, by the sound of their speech German, encouraged the Americans, and at the end of the song applauded.

Gut!

Sehr gut!

Wunderbar!

Danke, meine Herren.” The American standing nearest Jason bowed to the Germans. A brief, friendly conversation followed, the Germans speaking English and the American replying in German.

“That was a touch of home,” said Bourne to the American.

“Hey, a Landsmann! That song also dates you, pal. Some of those oldies are goldies, right? Say, are you with the group?”

“Which group is that?”

“Honeywell-Porter,” answered the man, naming a New York advertising agency Jason recognized as having branches worldwide.

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“I didn’t think so. There’re only about thirty of us, counting the Aussies, and I thought I pretty much knew everybody. Where are you from? My name’s Ted Mather. I’m from H.P.’s L.A. office.”

“My name’s Howard Cruett. No office, I teach, but I’m from Boston.”

“Beanburg! Let me show you your Landsmann, or is it Stadtsmann? Howard, meet Beantown Bernie.” Mather bowed again, this time to a man slumped back in the seat by the window, his mouth open, his eyes closed. He was obviously drunk and wore a Red Sox baseball cap. “Don’t bother to speak, he can’t hear. Bernard the Brain is from our Boston office. You should have seen him three hours ago. J. Press suit, striped tie, pointer in his hand and a dozen charts only he could understand. But I’ll say this for him—he kept us awake. I think that’s why we all had a few—him too many. What the hell, it’s our last night.”

“Heading back tomorrow?”

“Late-evening flight. Gives us time to recover.”

“Why Macao?”

“A mass itch for the tables. You, too?”

“I thought I’d give them a whirl. Christ, that cap makes me homesick! The Red Sox may take the pennant, and until this trip I hadn’t missed a game!”

“And Bernie won’t miss his hat!” The advertising man laughed, leaning over and yanking the baseball cap off Bernard the Brain’s head. “Here, Howard, you wear it. You deserve it!”

The hydrofoil docked. Bourne got off and went through immigration with the boys from Honeywell-Porter as one of them. As they descended the steep cement staircase down into the poster-lined terminal, Jason—with the visor of his Red Sox cap angled down and his walk unsteady—spotted a man by the left wall studying the new arrivals. In the man’s hand was a photograph, and Bourne knew the face on the photograph was his. He laughed at one of Ted Mather’s remarks as he held on to the weaving Beantown Bernie’s arm.

Opportunities will present themselves. Recognize them, act on them.

The streets of Macao are almost as garishly lit as those of Hong Kong; what is lacking is the sense of too much humanity in too little space. And what is different—different and anachronistic—are the many buildings on which are fixed blazing modern signs with pulsating Chinese characters. The architecture of these buildings is very old Spanish—Portuguese, to be accurate—but textbook Spanish, Mediterranean in character. It is as if an initial culture had surrendered to the sweeping incursion of another, but refused to yield its first imprimatur, proclaiming the strength of its stone over the gaudy impermanence of colored tubes of glass. History is purposely denied; the empty churches and the ruins of a burnt-out cathedral exist in a strange harmony with overflowing casinos where the dealers and croupiers speak Cantonese and the descendants of the conquerors are rarely seen. It is all fascinating and not a little ominous. It is Macao.

Jason slipped away from the Honeywell-Porter group and found a taxi whose driver must have been trained by watching the annual Macao Grand Prix. He was taken to the Kam Pek casino—over the driver’s objections.

“Lisboa for you, not Kam Pek! Kam Pek for Chinee! Dai sui! Fan-tan!

“Kam Pek, cheng nei,” said Bourne, adding the Cantonese please, but saying no more.

The casino was dark. The air was humid and foul, and the curling smoke that spiraled around the shaded lights above the tables sweet and full and pungent. There was a bar set back away from the games; he went to it and sat down on a stool, lowering his body to lessen his height. He spoke in Chinese, the baseball cap throwing a shadow across his face, which was probably unnecessary, as he could barely read the labels of the bottles on the counter. He ordered a drink, and when it came he gave the bartender a generous tip in Hong Kong money.

Mgoi,” said the aproned man, thanking him.

Hou,” said Jason, waving his hand.

Establish a benign contact as soon as you can. Especially in an unfamiliar place where there could be hostility. That contact could give you the opportunity or the time you need. Was it Medusa or was it Treadstone? It did not matter that he could not remember.

He turned slowly on the stool and looked at the tables; he found the dangling placard with the Chinese character for “five.” He turned back to the bar and took out his notebook and ballpoint pen. He then tore off a page and wrote out the telephone number of a Macao hotel he had memorized from the Voyager magazine provided to passengers on the hydrofoil. He printed a name he would recall only if it was necessary and added the following: No friend of Carlos.

He lowered his glass below the bar counter, spilled the drink, and held up his hand for another. With its appearance, he was more generous than before.

Mgoi saai,” said the bartender, bowing.

Msa,” said Bourne, again waving his hand, then suddenly holding it steady, a signal for the bartender to remain where he was. “Would you do me a small favor?” he continued in the man’s language. “It would take you no more than ten seconds.”

“What is it, sir?”

“Give this note to the dealer at Table Five. He’s an old friend, and I want him to know I’m here.” Jason folded the note and held it up. “I’ll pay you for the favor.”

“It is my heavenly privilege, sir.”

Bourne watched. The dealer took the note, opened it briefly as the bartender walked away, and shoved it beneath the table. The waiting began.

It was interminable, so long that the bartender was relieved for the night. The dealer was moved to another table, and two hours later he was also replaced. And two hours after that still another dealer took over Table Five. The floor beneath him now damp with whisky, Jason logically ordered coffee and settled for tea; it was ten minutes past two in the morning. Another hour and he would go to the hotel whose number he had written down and, if he had to buy shares in its stock, get a room. He was fading.

The fading stopped. It was happening! A Chinese woman in the slit-skirted dress of a prostitute walked up to Table Five. She sidestepped her way around the players to the right corner and spoke quickly to the dealer, who reached under the counter and unobtrusively gave her the folded note. She nodded and left, heading for the door of the casino.

He does not appear himself, of course. He uses whores from the street.

Bourne left the bar and followed the woman. Out in the dark street, which had a number of people in it but was deserted by Hong Kong standards, he stayed roughly fifty feet behind her, stopping every now and then to look into the lighted store windows, then hurrying ahead so as not to lose her.

Don’t accept the first relay. They think as well as you do. The first could be an indigent looking for a few dollars and who knows nothing. Even the second or the third. You’ll recognize the contact. He’ll be different.

A stooped old man approached the whore. Their bodies brushed, and she shrieked at him while passing him the note. Jason feigned drunkenness and turned around, taking up the second relay.

It happened four blocks away, and the man was different. He was a small, well-dressed Chinese, his compact body with its broad shoulders and narrow waist exuding strength. The quickness of his gestures as he paid the seedy old man and began walking rapidly across the street was a warning to any adversary. For Bourne it was an irresistible invitation; this was a contact with authority, a link to the Frenchman.

Jason dashed to the other side; he was close to fifty yards behind the man and losing ground. There was no point in being subtle any longer; he broke into a run. Seconds later he was directly behind the contact, the soles of his sneakers having dulled the sound of his racing feet. Up ahead was an alleyway that cut between what looked like two office buildings; the windows were dark. He had to move quickly, but move in such a way that would not cause a commotion, not give the night strollers a reason to shout or call for the police. In this, the odds were with him; most of the people wandering around were more drunk or drugged than sober, the rest weary laborers, having finished their working hours, anxious to get home. The contact approached the opening of the alley. Now.

Bourne rushed ahead to the man’s right side. “The Frenchman!” he said in Chinese. “I have news from the Frenchman! Hurry!” He spun into the alley, and the contact, stunned, his eyes bulging, had no choice but to walk like a bewildered zombie into the mouth of the alleyway. Now!

Lunging from the shadows, Jason grabbed the man’s left ear, yanking it, twisting it, propelling the contact forward, bringing his knee up into the base of the man’s spine, his other hand on the man’s neck. He threw him down into the bowels of the dark alley, racing with him, crashing his sneaker into the back of the contact’s knee; the man fell, spinning in the fall, and stared up at Bourne.

You! It is you!” Then the contact winced in the dim light. “No,” he said, suddenly calm, deliberate. “You are not him.”

Without a warning move, the Chinese lashed his right leg out, shoving his body off the pavement like a speeding trajectory in reverse. He caught the muscles of Jason’s left thigh, following the blow with his left foot, pummeling it into Bourne’s abdomen as he leaped to his feet, hands extended and rigid, his muscular body moving fluidly, even gracefully, in a semicircle and in anticipation.

What followed was a battle of animals, two trained executioners, each move made in intense premeditation, each blow lethal if it landed with full impact. One fought for his life, the other for survival and deliverance—and the woman he could not live without, would not live without. Finally, height and weight and a motive beyond life itself made the difference, giving victory to one and defeat to the other.

Entwined against the wall, both sweating and bruised, blood trickling from mouths and eyes, Bourne hammer-locked the contact’s neck from behind, his left knee jammed into the small of the man’s back, his right leg wrapped around the contact’s ankles, clamping them.

“You know what happens next!” he whispered breathlessly, spacing the Chinese words for final emphasis. “One snap and your spine goes. It’s not a pleasant way to die. And you don’t have to die. You can live with more money than the Frenchman would ever pay you. Take my word for it, the Frenchman and his killer won’t be around much longer. Take your choice. Now!” Jason strained; the veins in the man’s throat were distended to the point of bursting.

Yes, yes!” cried the contact. “I live, not die!”

They sat in the dark alleyway, their backs against the wall, smoking cigarettes. It was established that the man spoke English fluently, which he had learned from the nuns in a Portuguese Catholic school.

“You’re very good, you know,” said Bourne, wiping the blood from his lips.

“I am the champion of Macao. It is why the Frenchman pays me. But you bested me. I am dishonored, no matter what happens.”

“No you’re not. It’s just that I know a few more dirty tricks than you do. They’re not taught where you were trained, and they never should be. Besides, no one will ever know.”

“But I am young! You are old.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. Besides, I stay in pretty good shape, thanks to a crazy doctor who tells me what to do. How old do you think I am?”

“You are over thirty!

“Agreed.”

Old!

“Thanks.”

“You are also very strong, very heavy—but it is more than that. I am a sane man. You are not!

“Perhaps.” Jason crushed out his cigarette on the pavement. “Let’s talk sensibly,” he said, pulling money from his pocket. “I meant what I said, I’ll pay you well.… Where’s the Frenchman?”

“Everything is not in balance.”

“What do you mean?”

“Balance is important.”

“I know that, but I don’t understand you.”

“There is a lack of harmony, and the Frenchman is angry. How much will you pay me?”

“How much can you tell me?”

“Where the Frenchman and his assassin will be tomorrow night.”

“Ten thousand American dollars.”

Aiya!

“But only if you take me there.”

“It is across the border!

“I have a visa for Shenzen. It’s good for another three days.”

“It may help, but it is not legal for the Guangdong border.”

“Then you figure it out. Ten thousand dollars, American.”

“I will figure it out.” The contact paused, his eyes on the money held out by the American. “May I have what I believe you call an installment?”

“Five hundred dollars, that’s all.”

“Negotiations at the border will cost much more.”

“Call me. I’ll bring you the money.”

“Call you where?”

“Get me a hotel room here in Macao. I’ll put my money in its vault.”

“The Lisboa.”

“No, not the Lisboa. I can’t go there. Someplace else.”

“There is no problem. Help me to my feet.… No! It would be better for my dignity if I did not need help.”

“So be it,” said Jason Bourne.

Catherine Staples sat at her desk, the disconnected telephone still in her hand; absently she looked at it and hung up. The conversation she had just concluded astonished her. As there was no Canadian Intelligence Force currently operating in Hong Kong, foreign service officers cultivated their own sources within the Hong Kong police for those times when accurate information was needed. These occasions were invariably in the interests of Canadian citizens residing in or traveling through the colony. The problems ranged from those arrested to those assaulted, from Canadians who were swindled to those doing the swindling. Then, too, there were deeper concerns, matters of security and espionage, the former covering visits of ranking government officials, the latter involving means of protection against electronic surveillance and the gaining of sensitive information through acts of blackmail against consulate personnel. It was quiet but common knowledge that agents from the Eastern bloc and fanatically religious Middle East regimes used drugs and prostitutes of both sexes for whatever the preferences of both sexes in a never-ending pursuit of a hostile government’s classified data. Hong Kong was a needle and meat market. And it was in this area that Staples had done some of her best work in the territory. She had saved the careers of two attachés in her own consulate, as well as an American and three British. Photographs of personnel in compromising acts had been destroyed along with the corresponding negatives, the extortionists banished from the colony with threats not simply of exposure but of physical harm. In one instance, an Iranian consular official, yelling in high dudgeon from his quarters at the Gammon House, accused her of meddling in affairs far above her station. She had listened to the ass for as long as she could tolerate the nasal twang, then terminated the call with a short statement: “Didn’t you know? Khomeini likes little boys.”

All of this had been made possible through her relationship with a late-middle-aged English widower who had opted for retirement from Scotland Yard to become chief of Crown Colonial Affairs in Hong Kong. At sixty-seven, Ian Ballantyne had accepted the fact that his tenure at the Yard was over, but not the use of his professional skills. He was willingly posted to the Far East, where he shook up the Intelligence division of the colony’s police, and in his quiet way shaped an aggressively efficient organization that knew more about Hong Kong’s shadow world than did any of the other agencies in the territory, including MI6, Special Branch. Catherine and Ian had met at one of those bureaucratically dull dinners demanded by consular protocol, and after prolonged conversation laced with wit and appraisal of his table partner, Ballantyne had leaned over and said simply, “Do you think we can still do it, old girl?”

“Let’s try,” she had replied.

They had. They enjoyed it, and Ian became a fixture in Staples’s life, no strings or commitments attached. They liked each other; that was enough.

And Ian Ballantyne had just given the lie to everything Undersecretary of State Edward McAllister told Marie Webb and her husband in Maine. There was no taipan in Hong Kong named Yao Ming, and his impeccable sources—read very well paid—in Macao assured him there had been no double murder involving a taipan’s wife and a drug runner at the Lisboa Hotel. There had been no such killings since the departure of the Japanese occupation forces in 1945. There had been numerous stabbings and gunshot wounds around the tables in the casino, and quite a few deaths in the rooms attributed to overdoses of narcotics, but no such incident as described by Staples’s informer.

“It’s a fabric of lies, Cathy old girl,” Ian had said. “For what purpose, I can’t fathom.”

“My source is legitimate, old darling. What do you smell?”

“Rancid odors, my dear. Someone is taking a great risk for a sizable objective. He’s covering himself, of course—one can buy anything over here, including silence—but the whole damn thing’s fiction. Do you want to tell me more?”

“Suppose I told you it’s Washington-oriented, not U.K.?”

“I’d have to contradict you. To go this far London has to be involved.”

“It doesn’t make sense!”

“From your viewpoint, Cathy. You don’t know theirs. And I can tell you this—that maniac, Bourne, has us all in a sticky wicket. One of his victims is a man nobody will talk about. I won’t even tell you, my girl.”

“Will you if I bring you more information?”

“Probably not, but do try.”

Staples sat at her desk filtering the words.

One of his victims is a man nobody will talk about.

What did Ballantyne mean? What was happening? And why was a former Canadian economist in the center of the sudden storm?

Regardless, she was safe.

• • •

Ambassador Havilland, attaché case in hand, strode into the office in Victoria Peak as McAllister bounced out of the chair, prepared to vacate it for his superior.

“Stay where you are, Edward. What news?”

“Nothing, I’m afraid.”

Christ, I don’t want to hear that!”

“I’m sorry.”

“Where’s the retarded son of a bitch who let this happen?”

McAllister blanched as Major Lin Wenzu, unseen by Havilland, rose from the couch against the back wall. “I am the retarded son of a bitch, the Chinese who let it happen, Mr. Ambassador.”

“I’ll not apologize,” said Havilland, turning and speaking harshly. “It’s your necks we’re trying to save, not ours. We’ll survive. You won’t.”

“I’m not privileged to understand you.”

“It’s not his fault,” protested the undersecretary of State.

“Is it yours?” shouted the ambassador. “Were you responsible for her custody?”

“I’m responsible for everything here.”

“That’s very Christian of you, Mr. McAllister, but at the moment we’re not reading the Scriptures in Sunday school.”

“It was my responsibility,” broke in Lin. “I accepted the assignment and I failed. Simply put, the woman outsmarted us.”

“You’re Lin, Special Branch?”

“Yes, Mr. Ambassador.”

“I’ve heard good things about you.”

“I’m sure my performance invalidates them.”

“I’m told she also outsmarted a very able doctor.”

“She did,” confirmed McAllister. “One of the best internists in the territory.”

“An Englishman,” added Lin.

“That wasn’t necessary, Major. Any more than your slipping in the word ‘Chinese’ in reference to yourself. I’m not a racist. The world doesn’t know it, but it hasn’t time for that crap.” Havilland crossed to the desk; he placed the attaché case on top, opened it, and removed a thick manila envelope with black borders. “You asked for the Treadstone file. Here it is. Needless to say, it cannot leave this room and when you’re not reading it, lock it in the vault.”

“I want to start as soon as possible.”

“You think you’ll find something there?”

“I don’t know where else to look. Incidentally, I’ve moved to an office down the hall. The vault’s in here.”

“Feel free to come and go,” said the diplomat. “How much have you told the major?”

“Only what I was instructed to tell him.” McAllister looked at Lin Wenzu. “He’s complained frequently that he should be told more. Perhaps he’s right.”

“I’m in no position to press my complaint, Edward. London was firm, Mr. Ambassador. Naturally, I accept the conditions.”

“I don’t want you to ‘accept’ anything, Major. I want you more frightened than you’ve ever been in your life. We’ll leave Mr. McAllister to his reading and take a stroll. As I was driven in I saw a large attractive garden. Will you join me?”

“It would be a privilege, sir.”

“That’s questionable, but it is necessary. You must thoroughly understand. You’ve got to find that woman!”

Marie stood at the window in Catherine Staples’s flat looking down at the activity below. The streets were crowded, as always, and she had an overpowering urge to get out of the apartment and walk anonymously among those crowds, in those streets, walk around the Asian House in hopes of finding David. At least she would be moving, staring, hearing, hoping—not thinking in silence, half going crazy. But she could not leave; she had given her word to Catherine. She had promised to stay inside, admit no one, and answer the phone only if a second, immediate call was preceded by two previous rings. It would be Staples on the line.

Dear Catherine, capable Catherine—frightened Catherine. She tried to hide her fear, but it was in her probing questions, asked too quickly, too intensely, her reactions to answers too astonished, frequently accompanied by a shortness of breath, as her eyes strayed, her thoughts obviously racing. Marie had not understood, but she did understand that Staples’s knowledge of the dark world of the Far East was extensive, and when such a knowledgeable person tried to conceal her fear of what she heard, there was far more to the tale than the teller knew.

The telephone. Two rings. Silence. Then a third. Marie ran to the table by the couch and picked up the phone as the third bell began. “Yes?”

“Marie, when this liar, McAllister, spoke to you and your husband, he mentioned a cabaret in the Tsim Sha Tsui, if I recall. Am I right?”

“Yes, he did. He said that an Uzi—that’s a gun—”

“I know what it is, my dear. The same weapon was supposedly used to kill the taipan’s wife and her lover in Macao, wasn’t that it?”

“That’s it.”

“But did he say anything about the men who had been killed in the cabaret over in Kowloon? Anything at all?”

Marie thought back. “No, I don’t think so. His point was the weapon.”

“You’re positive.”

“Yes, I am. I’d remember.”

“I’m sure you would,” agreed Staples.

“I’ve gone over that conversation a thousand times. Have you learned anything?”

“Yes. No such killing as McAllister described to you ever took place at the Lisboa Hotel in Macao.”

“It was covered up. The banker paid.”

“Nowhere near what my impeccable source has paid—in more than money. In the coveted, impeccable stamp of his office which can lead to far greater profits for a very long time. In exchange for information, of course.”

“Catherine, what are you saying?”

“This is either the clumsiest operation I’ve ever heard of, or a brilliantly conceived plan to involve your husband in ways he would never have considered, certainly never agreed to. I suspect it’s the latter.”

“Why do you say that?”

“A man flew into Kai-tak Airport this afternoon, a statesman who’s always been far more than a diplomat. We all know it but the world doesn’t. His arrival was on all our printouts. He demurred when the media tried to interview him, claiming he was strictly on vacation in his beloved Hong Kong.”

“And?”

“He’s never taken a vacation in his life.”

McAllister ran out into the walled garden with its trellises and white wrought-iron furniture and rows of roses and rock-filled ponds. He had put the Treadstone file in the vault, but the words were indelibly printed on his mind. Where were they? Where was he?

There they were! Sitting on two concrete benches beneath a cherry tree, Lin leaning forward, mesmerized. McAllister could not help it; he broke into a run, out of breath when he reached the tree, staring at the major from Special Branch, MI6.

Lin! When Webb’s wife took the call from her husband—the call you terminated—what exactly did she say?”

“She began talking about a street in Paris where there was a row of trees, her favorite trees, I think she said,” replied Lin, bewildered. “She was obviously trying to tell him where she was, but she was totally wrong.”

“She was totally right! When I questioned you, you also said that she told Webb that ‘things had been terrible’ on that street in Paris, or something like that—”

“That’s what she said,” interrupted the major.

“But that they’d be better over here.”

“That is what she said.”

“In Paris a man was killed at the embassy, a man who tried to help them both!”

“What are you trying to say, McAllister?” interrupted Havilland.

“The row of trees is insignificant, Mr. Ambassador, but not her favorite tree. The maple tree, the maple leaf. Canada’s symbol! There is no Canadian embassy in Hong Kong, but there is a consulate. That’s their meeting ground. It’s the pattern! It’s Paris all over again!”

“You didn’t alert friendly embassies—consulates?”

Goddamn it!” exploded the undersecretary of State. “What the hell was I going to say? I’m under an oath of silence, remember, sir?”

“You’re quite right. The rebuke is deserved.”

“You cannot tie all our hands, Mr. Ambassador,” said Lin. “You are a person I respect greatly, but a few of us, too, must be given a measure of respect if we are to do our jobs. The same respect you just gave me in your telling me of this most frightening thing. Sheng Chou Yang. Incredible!

“Discretion must be absolute.”

“It will be,” said the major.

“The Canadian consulate,” said Havilland. “Get me the roster of its entire personnel.”