"Fine," repeated Stone with a stifled sigh. He snapped down the pen. He hated one-word answers. "No problems?"
"Nothing that can't be worked out."
"Such as?"
"I'm not much of an actress, Mr. Stone."
"Brad."
"Brad," she repeated dutifully, wondering if she would ever feel at ease with the erect, silver-haired man who sat across the desk from her. "So far Catlin has managed to cover my dropped lines, as it were. I'm glad the Bureau found such a good teacher. He even "
"We didn't," interrupted Stone. '
"I beg your pardon?"
"Catlin isn't one of ours," Stone said bluntly.
Lindsay stared for a long moment, too surprised to speak, remembering that Catlin had said something similar. "Then where did he come from?"
"Pacific Rim Institute. A think tank on the West Coast," Stone added, doubting that Lindsay would be familiar with the deliberately low-profile operation that Catlin ran.
"Yes, he told me that. But he agreed to help you, didn't he, like I did?"
Stone shook his head. "Catlin isn't one of ours. He belongs to the People's Republic."
"I don't understand."
"I know. That's why I asked you to come in. There's a certain amount of risk in having you see, with the FBI, but I felt that what I had to say would be more understandable to you in person." He leaned back in his big leather chair, running his fingers over the cool body of the pen. "Coffee?"
"Coffee?" Lindsay laughed abruptly. "Forgive me, but I feel like Alice on the way down the rabbit hole. What risk?"
Smiling, Stone sat forward again. "Believe me, I won't offer you pieces of magic mushroom. The Drug Enforcement Administration would have my butt in a sling if I even thought of it."
Lindsay smiled in return, but her watchful eyes told him that she hadn't forgotten the word risk.
"The situation is a little complicated," Stone said, frowning. He fiddled with the pen.
"Don't worry about it," Lindsay said dryly. "It can't be much more complex than my doctoral dissertation on the evolution of symbol and design in Chinese bronzes."
Stone's head came up with an abrupt motion. He had forgotten that the attractive woman sitting opposite him was both intelligent and highly trained in her own field. It wasn't the first time in the past few years that a woman's sleek exterior had misled him. He still had trouble accepting the fact that some of the young women he passed in the hall not only carried guns, but had used them. With a muffled sigh, he ran his hand over his immaculate silver hair and wished he had been born either earlier or later in the century. Living in transition times was hell.
"You have a reputation for honesty," he said finally.
Lindsay waited.
"What I'm going to tell you is literally labeled Top Secret," continued Stone. "I'm taking a chance that you'll keep it that way. Will you?"
"Yes."
After a brief hesitation, Stone began speaking in a flat voice. "Chen Yi was a spy in the past, and almost certainly is on an intelligence gathering mission right now."
For a moment Lindsay was too surprised to speak. Disappointment washed over her, numbing her. "You mean there aren't any stolen bronzes from Xi'an?"
Stone made an impatient movement with his hand, sending the pen on his desk sliding against the ashtray with a distinct sound. As though reminded, he pulled a cigarette from the pack on his desk, lit up and turned back toward Lindsay.
"Maybe some stuff is missing from Xi'an, maybe not," he said. "What matters is that while we're looking for bronzes here and the CIA is looking for them overseas, Chen Yi is watching every move we make. He's going to learn a hell of a lot about how we operate, how efficient we are, how deeply we've penetrated Asian communities here and abroad. Information, Lindsay. That's all intelligence is. Gathering information. Chen Yi's good at it. Too damn good. His family has been doing it for centuries, near as we can tell."
As Stone pushed away from the desk, his glance went restlessly around the room, noting all the framed pictures, mementos of an easier past when enemies were named and numbered and known.
"When it comes to survival, the Chen family wrote the book," said Stone, looking at Lindsay again. "From emperors to the PRC, the Chen family has always kept at least one finger in China's governmental pie. Chen's family has tentacles all over the damn Asian continent, and in the West, too." Stone's tone was ambiguous, divided between admiration for the family's toughness and dislike for an old enemy. "There are cousins and cousins of cousins until hell won't have it. Chens are bankers and traders and teachers, prostitutes and pimps and pushers. But they all have one thing in common. They're all spies. They gather information and funnel it back up the line."
Lindsay nodded slowly.
"You don't look surprised," said Stone. "Did Catlin tell you about Chen Yi?"
"No. Catlin hasn't said anything about him."
Stone grunted. "That I believe."
"But what you've described isn't surprising. It's simply very Chinese." She looked at Stone, wondering what his background was, if his schooling had been in history or business. "For thousands of years the Chinese have survived because of the flexibility and sheer tenacity of family ties. For that reason, families command a loyalty that no government can," she explained.
"Then you understand how powerful the Chen clan is."
"Yes."
There was a moment of silence while Stone watched smoke curling up from the cigarette between his fingers. "Did Catlin tell you that Chen Yi is under suspicion by his own government?"
Lindsay's eyes widened. "No. Why?"
Stone didn't bother to stifle his sigh. It seemed that Catlin hadn't told Lindsay one damn thing worth knowing. "Who knows why one Communist suspects another?" Stone asked irritably. "It seems to be a national pastime over there. Hell, maybe Chen's been funneling bronzes over here so that he can cash out and run, and his government finally is catching on."
"Do you believe that?"
"I have an open mind," Stone said neutrally. "I do know that Chen Yi specifically asked me to keep you under wraps."
"What?"
"His comrades aren't to know that you're working with the FBI or with him," Stone said bluntly.
"Did he say why?"
Stone snorted. "Hell, no."
"Is it because of the risk to me?" She saw immediately that Stone didn't understand her question. "The risk you mentioned earlier, about me being seen with the FBI."
Unwillingly Stone smiled. "Bringing you here wasn't all that risky. Nobody's following you yet but us."
"Am I supposed to be comforted?" she asked, her eyebrows raised in disbelief. "Why are you following me in the first place?" As soon as the words were out, she remembered Catlin's response to a similar question. "No, don't tell me. Let me guess. You're following me to see if anyone's following me."
Pale blue eyes gleamed against Stone's ruddy face as he chuckled. "You'll do all right, Lindsay. You're quick."
"I have a hell of a teacher."
"Catlin?"
"Catlin," she agreed.
Stone muttered something beneath his breath, took a hard drag on his cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray. When he looked up again at Lindsay, his eyes were as pale as ice.
"Catlin's a big part of the problem. Chen Yi has hired him to help find the bronzes. Near as we can tell, Catlin is Chen's expert in this deal the same way you're ours. Except Catlin is probably getting paid, one way or another."
"That's a problem?"
"When a person is paid by a foreign government, we call them foreign agents."
There was a long silence while Lindsay weighed Stone's words. "Are you saying that Catlin is some kind of spy for the People's Republic?" she asked.
"I'm saying that's a possibility."
"How big a possibility?" she asked bluntly.
"That's hard to say."
"Try it one syllable at a time."
"Take my word for it," said Stone impatiently.
"I'd love to, but in the past forty-eight hours I've learned not to take anybody's word for anything."
"Catlin," muttered Stone, making the word an epithet. He rolled the pen back and forth with small motions of his hand, wondering how much he could tell Lindsay. Abruptly, he decided. Whatever he would tell her, Catlin already knew. And Chen Yi, too, most likely. "Catlin worked for the CIA in Indochina. Covert operations. Then all of a sudden he disappeared. He reappeared in Monterey a few years back, when he bought out the owners of the Pacific Rim Institute and began to put it on the map with the kind of information that only a man like Catlin would have access to."
"He sold Top-Secret information is that what you're saying?" asked Lindsay.
"He used it to draw conclusions and to give advice."
"Is that illegal?"
Stone made an impatient sound. "Not precisely. It skates right out there on the edge, though."
"Then why is he not only permitted to operate, but invited to the Hill to give expert testimony?" she demanded.
"Because his information is solid and the conclusions he draws from it are nothing short of brilliant," Stone said, looking at Lindsay coolly. "He's a very intelligent man. And all the more dangerous for it."
"I know," she whispered, understanding that fact very well. For her, Catlin's mind was as compelling as his sensuality and his powerful body combined.
"He's not cooperating with us," continued Stone. "He won't answer our questions about his past or about Chen, either."
"Is that why you think he's spying for Yi? For China?"
"He sure as hell isn't spying for us," Stone said curtly. "Don't trust him, Lindsay. He's good at manipulating people. That's his genius. He finds out what they want, what they'll believe, what they need, and then he uses it against them. He's as ruthless as they come."
Hands laced in her lap, Lindsay sat very quietly, wanting to protest, yet knowing that there was truth in what Stone said. Catlin was intelligent. He was dangerous. He was ruthless.
But was he a Chinese spy?
"What do you want me to do?" she asked after a time, her voice strained.
"Work for us," Stone answered promptly.
"I thought I was."
"Find out about Catlin and Chen Yi, and then tell us. We'll know what to do with the information."
"Spy on them," she said flatly.
Stone shrugged. "If that's how you want to put it, yes."
Lindsay didn't bother to ask how Stone would have put it. She simply shook her head. "I can't."
"You mean you won't," Stone snapped, his voice cold. "I guess Terry was right. Catlin got in your pants but good."
Color left Lindsay's face, only to return in a flood. When she spoke, her voice was unnaturally calm.
"I'm glad our act is so convincing. That's all it is. An act. Without Catlin, there would be no act at all. I've said it before, Mr. Stone, and I'll say it again: I am not an actress. What you're asking me to do is impossible. I can't speak out of both sides of my mouth and simultaneously believe three other contradictory things in my mind." She closed her eyes, then opened them to give Stone an unflinching look. "Even if I could, Catlin would see right through me," she said bleakly. "He is frighteningly perceptive. I'm no match for him."
Without hesitation, Stone cut his losses. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be crude. I'm aware that this is difficult for you. If it helps, I'm taking a lot of heat over this Chen Yi affair myself. We have to cooperate with China, even though we know damn good and well we can't trust them." He smiled encouragingly.
"All I really want you to do is to keep in mind that you might find out things that we don't know just as we've found out a few things about Catlin and Chen Yi that you didn't know," Stone added smoothly, coming to his feet. "If you happen on to something in San Francisco, give us a call."
"Am I going to San Francisco?" she asked, standing.
Stone nodded. "Remember, Lindsay. We're on the same side."
"And Catlin isn't?" she asked.
The outer door opened before Stone could answer. O'Donnel came in to show Lindsay out of the building.
Only later, safe in her own apartment, did she realize that O'Donnel must have been listening in on the whole conversation between herself and Stone, The thought sent a wave of anger and impatience through her.
"What a bloody mess," she said aloud, pacing her apartment like a caged cat. "The right hand doesn't know what the left is doing and if it does, they both lie about it!"
Her brooding gaze roamed the apartment, coming to rest finally on the scarred kuei Catlin had purchased that morning and then given to her as he put her in a cab. Amid all the lies and half-truths, the bowl stood forth as the spirit of man made tangible. The blue-green curves held sinuous traces of dragons, and the bowl itself was replete with time and truth.
Slowly her fingertip traced the pale diagonal scar as she remembered Catlin's intensity while he had watched her, listened to her, understood her. Had that all been an act, too? Had he lied to her with his body after promising not to lie to her with words?
The doorbell rang, startling Lindsay from her silent absorption in the ancient bowl. Even before she peered through the spy hole, she knew who would be there. Catlin.
She opened the door and stood back, allowing him in without a word.
"I see Stone has been sowing seeds of love and happiness," Catlin said after a brief look at Lindsay's face.
Lindsay opened her mouth to ask a question, then realized it was futile. How do you ask a man if he's a foreign spy? And having asked, how do you believe the answer?
"Are we going to San Francisco?" she asked politely.
"Looks that way," said Catlin.
"Nice of you to tell me."
"That's what I told Yi an hour ago."
"Oh." Automatically Lindsay shut and locked the door behind Catlin. "Did Yi tell you why we're going to San Francisco?"
"Sam Wang invited us."
"He did?"
"Last night."
"The bronze animals he mentioned?"
"Yeah. And a bunch more besides. He's laying on a private sale of third century B.C. Chinese bronzes."