Lindsay closed her hand over the small, circular ornament until the age-roughened edges bit into her soft skin. "Back to the bronzes," she agreed in a voice that was too strained to be her own.
"What do you think of them?" he asked a few moments later.
"Which one?" she asked, wishing she had one-tenth the control Catlin had, angry with him for being such an accomplished actor when she was merely an accomplished fool.
"Pick one," he said sardonically. "Any one. Hey, how about the one in your hand?"
"Catlin, Jacob MacArthur, G.B." retorted Lindsay.
He smiled with a warmth that surprised her. "Hold the good thought, honey cat."
Lindsay opened her hand, hating the fact that her fingers were trembling but unable to conceal it. "You have a good eye," she said. "It's the best of the lot. The design is still clear, the proportions are pleasing, and it's genuine."
As Lindsay talked about the familiar subject, she felt control returning. Even so, she was very careful not to look into Catlin's eyes. If she had seen a residue of passion in those amber depths she would have been shaken all over again. If she had seen only calculation she would have been furious. She could afford to be neither, so she confined her attention to the ancient bronze disc lying coolly on her palm.
"But?" he prodded, hearing the hesitation in her voice. "What's wrong with it?"
"Like all Ordos artifacts, this would be very hard to date with any real accuracy," said Lindsay. "The coiled beast motif used in this manner is both very ancient and remarkably persistent. It existed essentially unchanged in China from the fifth century B.C. to at least the fifth century A.D."
"If you had to guess, where would you place this one?"
"I wouldn't. Not without a great deal of research, including detailed comparisons with existing Ordos artifacts whose dates were determined in situ."
Catlin leaned forward until his lips were very close to Lindsay's ear. "Should we buy it just as a calling card to let people know we've got cash to burn and are willing to burn it?"
Thoughtfully Lindsay weighed the ornament before returning it to the black velvet.
"In that case," she said, turning toward the kuei, "I'd recommend that you consider this piece."
Catlin ran his fingertip lightly down the vague line of the bowl's old wound. With a nod, Lindsay told him that she had already seen the scar.
"Why?" he asked, lifting the vessel.
Lindsay hesitated, wondering if he would understand the distinction between old bronze and ancient bronze art. Then she remembered the sensitivity he had shown to the other bronzes he had handled.
"This bowl is an exquisite example of form both revealing and transcending function," she said simply.
"In a word, art."
"Yes."
"And the scar?" he asked, running his fingertip over the bowl in a long diagonal.
"It greatly diminishes the kuei's value as an investment," Lindsay said bluntly. "A museum might overlook the flaw if the bowl were needed to fill a specific didactic function within a collection. Most knowledgeable private collectors wouldn't touch the kuei."
"But you would."
"Yes."
"Why?" asked Catlin, looking at Lindsay suddenly.
Once again Lindsay felt as though she had stepped into a spotlight, frozen like a wild animal within a blinding scrutiny. "I don't collect for investment," she said finally.
"What do you collect for?"
"I don't know if I can describe it," she said. "Most collectors are searching for absolutes. The best preserved, the rarest, the oldest, the " She shrugged. "You get the idea. I can appreciate those things, but they don't compel me as a collector."
"What does?" asked Catlin.
Lindsay made a helpless gesture, telling Catlin that she had never put into words precisely what she sought in the bronzes that flowed ceaselessly through her hands. He waited silently, patiently, his whole body poised. She knew then that he would wait until he had the answers he wanted.
"Survival," she said finally. "Survival with grace and power. Art endures. Spirit endures. Flesh does not. That's why I hate frauds. They corrode man's soul, keeping him from knowing all that is beautiful and enduring of the human psyche. Frauds cheapen everything they touch. They are a betrayal of all that is best in humanity."
With an unconscious reverence Lindsay ran her fingertips over the kuei. "This is part of the human spirit cast in enduring bronze. Next to that fact, what is that faint diagonal line but a testament to the ultimate resilience of the human soul?"
Lindsay looked up at the man who watched her so quietly, focusing on her with an intensity that would have been frightening if she hadn't been focused on him in exactly the same way. Suddenly she wanted to make him understand things she had never articulated, even to herself. Her eyes as they met his were dark and yet brilliant, unflinching.
"I don't worship perfection, Catlin. I don't even like it very much. Everything is perfect until it breaks. Only in the mending do you know true quality. This bowl could have ten scars, a hundred, and still its essential power would radiate through, overwhelming the superficial perfection of things that have never been tested, never been broken, never been healed, never survived with grace and power."
"Are you talking about people or art?" he asked softly.
For a moment Lindsay was too surprised to speak.
"Both," she whispered at last, understanding something about herself that she had never realized before that instant. "Art and humanity are inseparable. One would die without the other. That's a truth older than Chinese bronzes, older than culture and civilization, older than mankind as we know it. The Neanderthals buried their dead with garlands of flowers, and their successors painted the spirits of animals on cave walls. Art isn't a luxury or an investment. It's the soul of humanity made tangible."
"Not always pretty, though," said Catlin, remembering just how accurately art could reflect the darker side of the human soul.
"No," agreed Lindsay. "But art is real in a world where too much else is false."
"And you'll take true darkness over false light," Catlin said softly, statement not question.
"Every time."
Catlin's fingertips touched Lindsay's cheek in a fleeting brush of warmth. "No matter what happens, the scarred bowl is yours."
10
Are you achieving progress, dragon?" asked Yi, inhaling sharply.
Catlin shrugged, closing his apartment door behind him. "Not with the very available Jackie. What she's offering doesn't interest me. What about you?"
"My comrades are feeling better. They wish to have a meeting with you. Tomorrow."
"Why don't you just paint Property of the PRC on my forehead?" Catlin asked sardonically. "Much quicker. Cheaper, too. Saves all that plane fare between coasts."
"The meeting will seem accidental. No one will suspect."
Catlin made a disgusted sound. "If you say so. It probably doesn't matter. If there are thieves, they're wired into your government. At this point in the game, your dear comrades are my second choice for nomination as those very same thieves - assuming that the bronzes have been stolen. And that," he added blandly, "is a very tricky assumption. There is no way in hell those bronzes could have been offered for sale in secret. No way, Yi. Word of a charioteer would go through the cognoscenti like fire through gasoline. There have been no solid rumors. Therefore, no bronzes have made it to America."
Yi grunted. "Who is your first choice as a thief?" he asked, ignoring Catlin's implicit question as to whether or not the bronzes had ever been stolen.
"You."
"Ah!" Smoke curled up from Chen Yi's thin-knuckled hand. There was no expression on his face, no clue as to whether he was insulted or amused or totally unmoved by Catlin's words. "The meeting with my comrades will occur at a private sale of third century B.C. Chinese bronzes. I believe you have already received an invitation."
"I have?" asked Catlin. His left eyebrow arched in an expression that could have been curiosity or disbelief.
"From the honorable Mr. Samuel Wang. Last night."
"So he belongs to you. I wondered."
"Wonder is a useful thing." Yi sent his spent cigarette in a flat arc that ended in Catlin's fireplace. "If Wang were mine, I would have no need of you, would I?"
"Really?" Catlin asked neutrally. "Then I'll give you a bit of advice. Whoever fishes with that particular cormorant better keep a damn tight string on him."
Yi made a curt gesture with his hand, dismissing the subject of Samuel Wang. "When can you leave for San Francisco?"
"When is the private sale?" countered Catlin.
"Tell Miss Danner to call Mr. Wang."
"What about Lindsay? Is she going?"
"Miss Danner will be traveling with you. The Museum of the Asias is interested in expanding its collection of third century bronzes."
"Convenient," grunted Catlin. "And just a bit pat."
"Please?"
"Too convenient to be convincing," Catlin explained.
"Yet the museum's needs are quite real and have been known by sellers and buyers of bronze for many months. That is, after all, why Miss Danner was hired."
"The word must have gone out about the time your Xi'an bronzes turned up missing," Catlin said with a thin smile. "Assuming they're missing of course."
There was a long silence that ended with the metallic click of a lighter being opened. Flame flared, turning Yi's lean cheeks a ruddy gold. The metal top of the lighter snapped back into place as Yi expelled a burst of smoke.
"To use the Museum of the Asias would have required much foresight, much planning. You have a devious mind, dragon."
"I have a survivor's mind."
Yi nodded slowly, plucked a bit of tobacco from his tongue, and said, "See that Miss Danner benefits from that mind, as well as from your more obvious physical gifts."
"My, my, gossip travels fast in this town, doesn't it?" Catlin said. "We must have made quite an impression at the dinner good old L. Stephen so conveniently missed. Or was Jackie's office wired into the local cable TV channel?"
Yi looked faintly amused. "Would it have been arousing to watch?"
Catlin felt a sudden, surprising shaft of anger. With the ease of long experience he controlled it, showing nothing on his face. "I didn't know voyeurism was approved by the Party. Next time I'll send out invitations."
Smoke sighed out with Yi's breath. "With any other man I would worry about distraction. With you " Yi shrugged. "You are not as other men. The usual temptations are behind you. You have accepted being a bird with one wing. You have lived unmatched for so long that you have forgotten that your tortured spirals are not true flight. All that is ahead for you is survival and, ultimately, death. Ah!"
Yi drew quickly on his cigarette as he searched Catlin's face. Yellow dragon's eyes watched Yi in return, calm, predatory, patient. Catlin was familiar with the old Chinese saying that man is born a bird with one wing and thereafter spends his life searching for the woman who is his other half, his missing wing, for only with her will true flight be possible. A very romantic idea for a race of pragmatists. But then, the Chinese knew that many searched for and only very few ever found their missing wing.
"Do you believe that, Yi?"
"I am Chinese." He drew twice in succession on the cigarette. "If you have to give me information," continued Yi, "or there is something unforeseen, call this number. Use the name Rousseau. The message will come to me."
"How long will it take to reach you?"
There was no answer.
After noting the San Francisco area code, Catlin memorized the whole phone number. He held out his hand without looking up from the paper. Yi dropped the Zippo onto his palm. Flint sparked. Impaled on flame, the paper writhed for a moment before becoming no more than ash smeared across Catlin's callused palm. He flipped the lighter back to Yi. Without a word Yi pocketed the lighter and walked out of the apartment. Catlin didn't bother to go to the window to watch Yi's exit. He had obviously learned to leave via the less public routes.
Catlin waited a few minutes, went down to the lobby of the apartment building where there was a public phone and punched in the number he had just memorized. From long habit he shielded the phone's numeral pad with his body, making it impossible for anyone to see the number he was calling. He fed in coins, listened to the ringing sound, and heard the much more subtle sound of the call being forwarded to another number. After the first ring an answering machine broke in. A recorded voice told him to leave his message after he heard the tone sound.
The voice was Yi's, speaking Mandarin.
Catlin hung up. He hadn't really expected Yi to be so careless as to leave an easy trail, but at the same time it had been necessary to try. Catlin had seen more men die from overlooking the obvious than from being taken in by the devious.
He punched in another number, fed coins, and waited. The phone rang, was switched, rang and was switched again to a third number. As soon as a voice answered, Catlin gave Yi's number in San Francisco, speaking in a tone that carried no farther than the receiver.
"See who it's billed to," finished Catlin.
"Is it a rush?" asked the technician.
"Yes."
Patiently, Catlin waited while a distant computer crunched its way through a staggering amount of information.
"Second Home Phone and Mail Service, San Francisco, California," the technician said when he came back on the line. "Sounds like some kind of high class cheesebox operation. I'll see what I can do. Don't hold your breath, though. Last time I took on one of these puppies, I put in three solid days and all it led to was an answering machine in a room rented by someone who paid a month in advance by mail, no return address, no fingerprints, no way, no how."
"I'll check back from time to tune."
Without waiting for an answer Catlin broke the connection. As he turned around he noted the man standing patiently behind him, change for a phone call held ostentatiously on his palm. Catlin didn't recognize the man until he turned aside; it was a profile Catlin had seen in the Sichuan Garden four tables away.
"Say hello to the boys for me," Catlin murmured as he walked past the stranger.
The man ignored everything but the phone in front of him until Catlin disappeared up the service stairs to his fifth floor apartment. He rarely took elevators if they could be avoided. It was too easy to wait in front of an elevator door until it opened, and then hold down the trigger until the clip was empty. Elevators were traps.
"Subject going back to apartment," said the man quietly, flipping up his suit coat collar to speak into a tiny microphone.
The message was passed along the line of command until it was brought to Stone's desk by a cheerful O'Donnel.
"They just tucked him back into bed."
Stone grunted. "It would be too much to ask him to stay there. Yi still with him?"
"No. He took the back way out. Should be in his hotel room by now."
Stone grunted again. "Any luck on the years missing from Catlin's file?"
"We rode it all the way up to the Oval Office."
"And?"
"Still missing. Likely to stay that way. I'm afraid Catlin's ass is well and truly covered from that direction."
"Keep trying."
"Yes, sir. You want Miss Danner yet?"
With a grimace, Stone flicked his blunt fingers over the file on his desk. "I was hoping to have more on Catlin before I talked to her."
"Maybe she can tell you something. From what I've seen, they got real close, real fast."
Stone smiled cynically. "In that case, what makes you think they wasted their time talking? Besides, the hot-and-heavy routine is part of their cover."
"Hell of an act," muttered O'Donnel. "From what I heard, he had her in such a sweat that she was lucky to tell wine from cheese at that dinner."
"Catlin has lived undercover. Way under. He's a goddam chameleon. He could fool God."
"She didn't strike me as a chameleon."
"Hell, Terry. She's a woman, isn't she?" Stone made an impatient sound. "Bring her in here. Let's see if Catlin is the kind who gets loose-lipped in bed."
O'Donnel didn't bother to hide his laugh. "Are you a betting man?"
"Yeah. I'll bet that when it comes to tight lips he could give a clam a run for its money in bed, out of bed and anywhere in between." Stone's blunt fingers rolled a pen back and forth, back and forth across the top of his desk, making a thin metallic sound. "Knew a man like Catlin a long time ago. Korea. They beat the shit out of him trying to get him to talk."
"Ever break?"
Stone gave the younger man a cold, amused look. "You've been reading too many comic books, Terry. Everybody breaks if you torture them long enough. This guy held out a long time, but finally he broke, too. He told them whatever Commie claptrap they wanted to hear. And then he went back into his cell and he healed up and the next time they wanted him to play the 'I love communism game' he refused again. It took them just as long to break him the second time. And the third. And the sixth."
The pen rolled back and forth, back and forth. Stone's eyes were unfocused as he remembered the past.
"Hell of a man," Stone said finally. "In the end he managed to kill his guard and four more, and lead the rest of us on a long walk home." Stone's eyes focused suddenly on O'Donnel. "Professionally, I don't like Catlin worth a damn, because I can't control him and I can't be sure whose side he's on. But if I had a war to win, I'd fight in his shadow any day of the week. Don't ever underestimate him, Terry. Kill him if you have to if you can but never take him prisoner."
Stone paused, smiling unpleasantly. "You see, Chen has himself a genuine, A-number-one twenty-four karat, fully grown, he-male tiger by the tail. And you know what? I hope the tricky old bastard loses his grip and gets eaten."
The pen snapped solidly against the desk. Stone picked up the files and locked them in a drawer. "Bring her in. And hold my calls. If she's really in bed with Catlin, my sales pitch is going to need all the help it can get."
"Want me to try a little counterseduction?" O'Donnel offered, smiling ingenuously.
"The Bureau doesn't sink that low." Stone's mouth made a cynical curve. "Especially when it won't do any damn good. Or did she come on to you?"
"I didn't really try."
Stone grunted. "Pull the other one, Terry. I've known you since you were in fourth grade, sneaking kisses from sixth-grade cuties."
O'Donnel grinned. "I'm willing to give my all for my country, Brad. You know that."
"Keep your 'all' zipped for now," Stone said dryly.
Laughing, O'Donnel left the office and returned in a few moments with Lindsay.
"Please sit down, Lindsay," said Stone, standing up as she walked in. "It was good of you to come with so little notice. Steve tells me he's kept you quite busy since his father decided a few months ago to upgrade the museum's Chinese collection."
"Mr. White told me that I was essentially your employee until further notice," Lindsay said. She paused, then smiled widely. "Does this mean that I bill the FBI for any third century bronzes I purchase?"
"You can try," Stone said, smiling in return, "but don't buy anything your museum can't use."
"And I had such high hopes for a shot at the government wallet," she said, laughing lightly.
Lindsay sat in a dark leather chair that faced Stone's desk and watched him with an expectant expression, waiting for him to speak. Discreetly, O'Donnel withdrew. Stone picked up the pen again. He studied it as though he were seeing it for the first time while he wondered what would be the most effective way to recruit Lindsay. Then he remembered Catlin's approach the kind of honesty that made you wince. But it had been effective. Given that fact, Stone doubted that an elliptical approach would work with Lindsay. This was a command performance and she knew it.
Besides, from what he had seen of her so far, she wasn't the kind of person who appreciated doing laps around the bush for the hell of it.
"How are you and Catlin getting along?" Stone asked neutrally.
"Fine," said Lindsay, hoping that any color in her face would be written off as a residual effect of the temperature outside. Memories of Catlin's sensuality simmered in her blood, but not as strongly as the intensity of him as he had listened to her, really listened, and then had promised her the scarred bowl. She had never felt so close to anyone in her life as she had to him in that instant.