Part 40 (2/2)

At length, the captain departed, shouting to his crew. Fung the Skeleton nodded and the Malaysian brought Bliss over.

”I know you,” Fung the Skeleton said immediately. ”You're Jake Maroc's woman,”

Bliss said nothing. She wondered whether she had met this man before. She had never had anything to do with drugs so she knew only the name. But she knew about her father's past and suspected that the two had met at one time or another. Fung the Skeleton was younger than Three Oaths by at least two decades but his contacts were so extensive that she could not believe the two had lived their entire lives without their paths crossing.

”On the contrary,” she said, taking a chance, ”I believe you know my father, Three Oaths Tsun.”

Fung the Skeleton lounged against the taffrail of the boat. ”Is that so? Was it he who sent you here?”

”No. It was the Monkey Man.”

Fung the Skeleton grunted, held out his hand. ”Let's see what you have.”

Bliss dug out the fire opal, dropped it into his hand.

Fung the Skeleton took an inordinately long time examining the jewel. At last he looked at her and said, ”Where did you get this?”

By his tone alone Bliss might have guessed it, but the part of her qi that resided in da-hei warned her quite clearly that she should not lie to this man. So she told him what her father had been told by Jake.

”Now I know why you are here,” Fung the Skeleton said. ”It has nothing to do with selling me Australian fire opals. It has to do with this particular stone.”

”Do you know the young woman in question?”

Fung the Skeleton stood up from the rail, moved forward along the side of the boat until he was at the bow. Bliss went after him. The typhoon shelter was live in the early morning with cooking fires, children scampering up ratlines, walla-wallas moving slowly down sea lanes, junks putting out to sea or returning, laden with unknown cargo. Far out at the western edge of the shelter she could make out the sleek predatory outline of a police launch, lazily patrolling like a shark along a reef.

”Somewhere,” Fung the Skeleton said, ”out there is the dream of riches beyond comprehension. Everyone thinks about it: cas.h.i.+ng in on the one great deal of a lifetime. Sometimes I think peoplesome peopleare willing to take any risk, no matter how dire, for the prospect of such riches. What do you think?”

”I think there's a sucker born every minute,” Bliss said.

There was silence for a time. Then, abruptly, Fung the Skeleton roared with laughter. His captain, alerted for bright sharp sounds, lifted his head from his charts, saw that everything was all right, and went back to work.

”I used to believe that the loh faan, the foreign devil, were the only suckers in this world.” He turned the opal over in his fingers so that the sun struck the crimson fire, dazzling them momentarily. ”Now, of course, I am older, wiser. I know different.

”To answer your question, yes, I know the young woman from whom Jake took this stone. It is my stone. She appropriated it from me under, let us say, delicate circ.u.mstances.”

”I hope she was worth it,” Bliss said.

Fung the Skeleton smiled. ”No single woman is worth the price of this jewel. If you knew anything about opals you would understand that.”

”Why was she following Jake?”

Fung the Skeleton looked out to sea. She knew he was following the progress of the police launch; it was habit with him. ”Perhaps for the same reason she stole this from me.”

”Meaning?”

”She was crazy to do that. She knew what would happen to her. The only reason I did not have her killed was that Jake beat me to it.”

”She wasn't crazy,” Bliss said. ”Jake would have known that.”

He turned to her. ”Then do you have an explanation?”

”She wasn't stupid,” Bliss said. ”She was very smart. Smart enough to keep Jake away from his appointment with his father, to keep the path clear for those who a.s.sa.s.sinated s.h.i.+ Zilin.”

Fung the Skeleton looked from Bliss's face to the flash of intense color between his fingertips. ”Why do I have the feeling you know why she stole this?”

”I have a feeling about it,” Bliss admitted. Da-hei. s.h.i.+ Zilin. ”I think she saw the stone, knew its value and decided to take the chance.”

”But she knew I'd have her killed within the day.”

”Then obviously she knew that she would be out of Hong Kong within hours.”

”Jake stopped that.”

”Yes.”

Fung the Skeleton studied this woman more carefully. She was very sharp. He wondered just how sharp she was. ”I know she was seeing someone else while she wasat my house.”

”Do you know who?”

He glanced at his watch. ”I'm late for an appointment I cannot postpone. Will you meet me later for dinner?”

”Where?”

”I usually go to Star House, do you know it?”

”In the Causeway Bay? Yes.”

”Eight o'clock all right?” He signed to the Malaysian.

Bliss wondered whether he knew anything more. She had seen his face, read his mind as the Malaysian had brought her over. She knew when she was being mentally undressed. But what choice did she have. He was her bestand onlylead to the mysterious woman who had followed Jake. She had no choice.

She shrugged. ”Eight o'clock.”

The storm caught up with Qi lin just after she had crossed the southern frontier. It might have gotten to her sooner but she had in her mind something the old doctor at Jiao zhuang hu had said to her, Remember the rivers that flow to the sea and she used the great trees that grew by the plateau's wide, muddy river for protection.

Now, high above sea level, Qi lin knew that she was at last out of danger. She was in the mountains of northern Burma.

The Shan States. Where there was no law, and even the Chinese army lived in fear.

She knew that she was within the Golden Triangle, an area that encompa.s.sed not only a section of the Shan States but areas of Laos, Thailand and her own country's Yunnan province as well. She knew that the business here was opium or, as it was locally known, the tears of the poppy.

The Communist Chinese government had been trying for years to stamp out the illegal but enormously profitable opium trade, as had the rather ineffectual Socialist regime in power in Burma. But theShan States were a universe unto themselves. These mountains were riddled with ancient tribes, commanded by ferocious and imposing warlords, well-armed and -trained private armies that, along with the terrible terrain, a.s.sured a permanent continuance of the lucrative trade.

America and Russia, the most powerful of the world powers, Qi lin knew, had accepted this fact and, for years had tried to infiltrate these mountains with the intention of gaining control over the opium trade and its billions-of-dollars-a-year profits.

Both the CIA and the KGB had had so many setbacks in these mountains that Qi lin had heard a rumor that there were separate appropriations set aside by both governments to handle the losses.

<script>