“Really?” Rory Benedict’s bushy brows rose in surprise. “Nothing to be concerned about. Chen Lu takes better care of her place here than they do of the crown jewels in the Tower of London.”
“Stop bragging and show the man how safe we are here. Give him the grand tour of all those boring exits and tunnels and introduce him to your team. Then take him to his room.”
“I’m not bragging, merely expressing pride in our achievements,” Benedict said. “And it will be my pleasure.” He gestured down the hall. “Mr. Gallo.”
Gallo nodded but turned to Catherine. “We need to talk. I’ll call you when I’m finished.”
She had been expecting that from him. “I’ll be waiting.” She watched him walk down the hall with Rory Benedict before she turned to Chen Lu. “I’m sorry to intrude. Hu Chang said that you wouldn’t mind.”
Chen Lu’s laugh rang out. “No, I don’t mind as long as I come out of it alive. Hu Chang has always made sure so far that I have. I like life too much to risk it without the proper precautions. Come along with me, Catherine. I’ll show you to your room.” She smiled at Hu Chang. “You have the same quarters as usual. I’ll come and see you after I get your friend settled. We have to discuss a few things. I’m getting impatient.”
“You were born impatient,” Hu Chang said. “You will get along well with Catherine. You suffer from the same malady.”
“I’ve been very patient … for me,” Catherine said. “But I have to know what this is all about. I’m going to have a shower and change out of these clothes. And then I’m going to come looking for you.”
“You’ll probably find me in the garden with the children. I, too, must change, but I like being with the young. They have clean minds that one can write upon.”
“Like Luke?”
“It is very difficult to make an impression on Luke’s mind, but I think I succeeded. In the end, we got along very well.” He turned and went down the opposite hall from the one where Gallo had disappeared. “I look forward to seeing him again…”
“Then heaven help him,” Chen Lu called after Hu Chang before turning to Catherine and leading her down the hall. “Hu Chang told me about you and your son. I told him I wanted to meet you, but he wouldn’t commit. He seems to want to keep you to himself.”
“I was thinking the same thing about you. I’d never heard him mention your name. I was wondering if…” She stopped and quickly changed the subject. “This place is wonderful.” Her gaze went from the polished cherry floors to the paintings on the walls they were passing. They were a mixture of traditional Chinese and old masters. A decorator would probably have been horrified, but Catherine liked the combination. The colors were bright and the paintings zinging with life. The furniture she had passed had the same combination of color and rich comfort. Contemporary but clean lines, and the colors were the delicate lemon, beige, and cream popular in Hong Kong. “The interior certainly doesn’t look like a temple.”
“There are thousands of temples. I didn’t want to imitate any of them. This place was a disaster, so rotten it was almost falling into the bay. No one wanted it but me. Hong Kong is crowded and growing more crowded every day. I wanted the peace and the space, and buying the temple was my way of getting my way.” She grinned. “You should have seen the Chinese cultural minister trying to get me to listen to him on the duty of restoring this to its former Chinese glory. He was horrified at what I was doing here. They would have taken it away from me if I hadn’t tied the purchase up with a mountain of clauses, then bribed the politicians in Beijing to make them irreversible.” Her face was suddenly alight with enthusiasm as she grabbed Catherine’s hand. “Come, I have to show you why I’d never give up my Golden Palace.” She pulled her over to the full-length panel of glass on the landing. “Look at my garden. Have you ever seen anything more wonderful?”
“Never.” Catherine stared, stunned at the acres of beautiful flowers and trees of every description. Roses, day lilies, cherry trees, too many plantings to identify … The planting beds were lush and varied and breathtaking and several white fountains with sparkling sprays reached for the sky. Catherine didn’t know where to look next. “It’s positively … amazing.”
“Yes.” Chen Lu smiled with satisfaction. “I put the first plantings in myself after I bought the property. The rest I imported from all over the world. Tonight, we’ll have dinner on the veranda that overlooks my gardens. You’ll love the scents.” She started up the stairs again and shot a glance at Catherine over her shoulder. “Now that the distraction of my lovely palace has been put to rest, what were you wondering?” Her eyes were twinkling. “Let me guess. Did you think that Hu Chang was my lover? No, though I’m sure that he would be an excellent one. Our relationship is much more complicated. And I’m guessing that yours is equally complex.”
“You could say that,” she said dryly. “I’m sorry that I misunderstood. He told me you had an understanding and implied that you’d be willing to go to a great deal of trouble for him.”
“I would do anything,” she said simply. “He did a great service for my late husband, Donal, and an even greater one for me. You need not worry that we won’t keep you safe here.”
“I … see.”
Chen Lu threw back her head and laughed. “No, you don’t, and you’re fighting against throwing discretion to the winds and asking me to tell you what the hell I mean.”
“Yes.” Catherine grinned back at her. “And Hu Chang will tell you that I’m not known for my discretion, so I’m really suffering.”
“There is no reason why I shouldn’t satisfy your curiosity. It’s a fine tale, and I’m proud of every minute of it.” Chen Lu shrugged. “My husband, Donal, and I knew and loved each other from childhood. I married him in Dublin when I was seventeen. We had no children, but the love was so strong that we needed no one but each other. We traveled, we climbed mountains, we sailed the seas, we loved, we laughed. I helped him start his business, and it prospered. Oh, my, how it prospered. We found China, and we grew to love it. Donal even gave me a Chinese name that he said suited me much better than the one I was given at birth. He said Margaret had no magic, and I should have magic all around me. I did have magic. I led a truly magical life with my Donal.” She paused. “But sometimes the magic stops, and you can’t get it back. He fell ill with a blood disease, and they told me he was dying. He was in terrible pain. It had to stop. I told all the doctors to make it stop. They just looked at me and said…” She drew a deep breath. “You know what doctors say when they don’t know what to do. They said we’ll put him to sleep. Morphine is so good, Chen Lu. He may live another year, but he’ll be asleep. No pain. My Donal, who loved every minute of our life together, and they wanted to put him to sleep for the last year of it. That year was precious. Then I heard about Hu Chang from one of my maids, and I went to see him. I won’t tell you how hard I had to plead with him to find a way for Donal. All I’ll say is that he agreed to try and he came to see him. When he left, he said that it was too late to save him, but he would do what he could. Three days later he sent me a small vial with instructions. The next day Donal’s pain was gone, but even better he was my Donal again. He lived another eighteen months, and he lived it with joy and free of pain. Hu Chang came to see us frequently during that time, and he and Donal formed an attachment. And when my Donal died, Hu Chang was there for me.” She smiled. “So there’s my story. It’s a good story, Catherine, a good life. But like all good stories, to make it meaningful, there must be a wee bit of sadness. But can’t you see? It’s full of joy, too.”
“I can see it was,” Catherine said with a smile. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be so philosophic. I’d fight and yell and howl. But I can see you have a very Gaelic attitude.”
“How can I help it? I’m only a poor Irish lass, and I’m older than you. The years teach you to accept what you can’t change.” She stopped before a beautifully carved door. “This is your suite.” She opened the door. “You have no maid. I se
nt most of the servants away when Hu Chang called. I kept only the ones I can trust implicitly. But I imagine you can take care of yourself.”
“No problem.”
Chen Lu nodded. “I had no servants at all until years after I married Donal. But you’d be surprised how quickly I became used to them. You’ll find a caftan in the armoire in the sitting room to change into for dinner. I’ve always found caftans fit everyone, and they make us look like empresses. Isn’t that wonderful? Dinner will be on the veranda in two hours. That should allow you time to refresh yourself and still have time to try to dig information from our mutual friend, Hu Chang.” She smiled. “I’m lost in admiration that you think you can succeed. Your relationship must be much closer than even I can claim with him.” She didn’t wait for an answer, but was gone in a flash of gold-embroidered silk and a lingering trail of boundless energy.
I will succeed, Catherine thought as she gazed after Chen Lu. This woman and the Golden Palace she ruled were both dazzling and distracting. She genuinely liked Chen Lu, and her story had touched her. But it didn’t change the scenario or the reason Hu Chang had brought them here.
She entered the luxurious suite and shut the door behind her. The situation was getting more and more dangerous. Hell, she’d even had to safeguard Luke. She couldn’t allow it to go on.
She tore off her clothes, which were now dry but caked with salt from that swim in the sea, and headed for a door that must lead to the bathroom. She would shower and change, then go down and find Hu Chang.
And before she left him, she would know everything.
* * *
“JACK TAN IS HERE,” FOWLER said as he came into the yacht’s lounge. “Shall I show him in here?”
“No, tell him to go away and not come back until he finishes the job.” He couldn’t believe the incompetence the asshole had exhibited. The numbskull had actually had Catherine Ling and John Gallo on that island, and his men had failed to catch them. She had made fools of them.
As she had mocked him on the veranda.
That sting was like an open wound.
Why had she gone to the island? Because she was working on Hu Chang’s orders to retrieve something he had left there?
Of course, that was why she’d taken the risk to go to the island. And he knew exactly what she’d been after when she got there. Jack Tan’s fault. Another reason to be angry with the bastard.
“I thought that might be how you felt,” Fowler said. “So I thought you might want me to ask him a few questions. He said to tell you there was a third set of footprints in the woods. A man’s prints, a medium-size foot,” he said. “Hu Chang?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” he said through his teeth. “That would make this disaster complete.”
“He’s trying to trace the seaplane. He’s got the pilot’s name, Ned Talbot, and the woman who lives with him, Sue Kim. He works out of Hong Kong, but the plane hasn’t been seen there since he dropped off passengers and took off again. The woman is still at his place in Kowloon.” He paused. “He dropped off three passengers in Hong Kong.”
“Three. Hu Chang. They are together.”
“Tan said he’s got men all over Hong Kong asking questions and trying to find where they went after they left the seaplane. He has a report that they may have rented a blue speedboat on the docks and taken off south. Tan has sent men out in the bay to scan the coastline, trying to locate the boat. Those rental boats all have numbers.”
A break? It was about time that Tan came up with something promising. “Tell him to confirm it. Find them.”
“Anything else?”
“The pilot, Talbot, may know something. Tan’s got to locate him. See if his woman will give him up to you. If she doesn’t talk, kill her. If he feels anything for her, that may bring him back so that Tan can grab him.”
Fowler nodded. “Very clever.” He started to leave the lounge. “You’ve always found it efficient to go through people close to the target.”
“You’re damn right it’s efficient. That was why I was trying to get Ling. But it’s time to start going down the chain.” He reached for his phone. “According to her dossier, Ling has a child. Even a bitch like Ling may have maternal feelings.” He smiled. “I’m going to enjoy seeing how she likes seeing you work on the kid.”
* * *
HU CHANG WAS DRESSED IN a black tuxedo and sitting on a low chair, gazing out at the sun going down over the harbor, when Catherine reached the veranda. “It is beautiful, isn’t it? Why do you think God made the end of the day so much more beautiful than the beginning? Do you suppose it is supposed to have some correlation with death and birth?”
“I have no idea.” She dropped down in the chair opposite him. “And I have no desire to think about it … or discuss it.”
“Not at the moment anyway.” He smiled. “Did Chen Lu make you comfortable?”
“Of course, it’s a fantastic place. Everything is meant to please the senses. How could I help but be comfortable?”
“Yes, comfortable but a little on edge.” His gaze traveled from her shining dark hair loose to her shoulders, down her body garbed in the scarlet silk caftan, to the red silk slippers on her feet. “I see she furnished you with dinner regalia, too. Chen Lu loves to dress up.” He touched the lapel of his tuxedo. “She always keeps one of these here for me. I wonder if she managed to find one on such short notice for Gallo. You look magnificent in that scarlet caftan. You’re like a sunset yourself.”
“I don’t want to talk about sunsets. And I don’t want to talk about Chen Lu, either. Though she’s definitely interesting.”
“You have no idea.”
She brought the subject back to where she wanted it to go. “How did you get into this mess, Hu Chang? What the hell is this drug that Nardik wants so damn much?”
“I call it Pondera. It’s Latin for balance. I was going to call it Octatok, which is the Russian word, but Pondera flowed better.”
“Pondera, balance. From the first day we met, you’ve always been hung up on balance.”
“It seemed fitting in this case.”
“Why? I don’t care about the name. Tell me what it does and why it has caused all this trouble.”
“What did Venable tell you?”
“That it had something to do with a foolproof poison that could be used for assassination with no possibility of detection. I found that hard to believe. Forensics is so sophisticated these days that there would be some test that would give it away.”
“You’re quite right, and someday in the far-distant future, they will possibly develop a test to detect traces of my Pondera in the body.” He smiled. “But not yet, Catherine. And not for a long, long time.”
She stared at him, stunned. “The perfect murder, Hu Chang?”
“Convulsive heart failure. Perfectly natural in every symptom.”
“Why?” Her hands clenched into fists. “Why did you do it? You don’t need any more money. You’ve told me yourself what people pay for your medical potions and drugs. You could be a bloody billionaire just from those medicines if you chose to go that route.”
“Money is always desirable.” He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “But in this case I wasn’t commissioned to produce this particular drug. It came as a by-product of another potion I was creating. That happens often, but I wasn’t expecting such a powerful side effect. I was quite amazed.”
“Not too amazed to exploit it. How many times have you used it?”
“Only once. Lab experiments were inadequate, and I had to look farther afield to make certain that my findings were correct.”
“How far afield? In what direction?”
“You would have approved. He was quite atrocious, a dictator who had been torturing his subjects for some twenty years. His prime minister had recently been won over to democratic principles and wanted to take over the country. But there were too many equally ambitious men in the cabinet who merely wanted to take over the dictator’s slot and con
tinue the oppression. The prime minister knew everyone would be accusing each other of the assassination, but they’d have to prove that it was murder. If he could stir the population while all the uproar and the forensic tests were going on, he had a chance of seizing power.”
“Who was it?” She was thinking hard, discarding possibilities. “Mideast?”
He nodded. “I thought since there was chaos there anyway, I’d give the people their chance. It worked out very well.”
“It was Ben Salan, wasn’t it?” The tiny Mideastern country he’d ruled was the only one who’d had a revolution after the death of its dictator. “You killed Ben Salan.”
“Actually, his prime minister, Ali Gazaran, did it. I only provided the means.” He frowned. “But Gazaran didn’t deserve my help. He had become a little too Westernized. He broke his promise of silence and told his pretty wife about my drug. She was very shallow and loved to party when she was out of the country. After Gazaran became president, at one of those parties, she made a few indiscreet remarks that attracted the attention of Nardik. So one night when she was vacationing in Switzerland with friends, she disappeared for a matter of a few hours. It was only a short time, but Nardik’s men are very capable. Her sports car was found smashed against a tree at the bottom of a ravine just after midnight. Her terrible wounds were thought to be as a result of the accident.”
“She told Nardik everything.”
“Yes, without doubt. And now I’m suffering the consequences of not handling the matter myself and depending on Gazaran. I truly thought that he would keep his word. But one can never tell what a man will do when he’s infatuated with a woman. It tends to blur honor and judgment.” He poured a cup of tea and handed it to her. “I meant well, Catherine.”
“And you couldn’t leave it alone and walk away. You had to know.” Her hand tightened on the delicate cup. “I’ve seen you create incredible formulas, then just abandon them and go on to something else because you were bored. Why not this one?”
“I wasn’t bored,” he said simply. “And I couldn’t walk away from this one. I had to know every single aspect of it.”