"Let's get out of here," Broom said.
Wang Bin took the feet of the ancient soldier while Broom cradled its head. They walked without light, an odd and halting procession made easier by the perfect geometry that ruled the Fields of the Dead.
Fascinated, Tom Stratton did not move at first, but merely watched them recede among the graves.
Then he was on his feet, padding quietly behind them at a distance of fifty meters. When they reached an iron fence, Stratton dropped to one knee and raised the field glasses. Broom went over first, ripping his golf shirt. Wang Bin followed, grimacing with the exertion. The soldier was brought over on a precarious makeshift pulley, fashioned from two long ropes. Through the binoculars, Stratton noticed that the artifact had been carefully wrapped in a canvas bag.
Stratton scaled the fence easily, and followed the men along a deserted road.
Fearful that they might wheel around and spot him, Stratton clung to the trees and hedges.
"Faster!" he heard Broom say. "We're almost there."
Ahead, parked on a curb, was a car. Stratton ducked into a grove of young trees.
He did not move again until he heard the sound of the car doors.
Then Stratton stepped to the middle of the road, twenty meters from the car. The trunk was open. Beside it stood Harold Broom and the smaller figure of Wang Bin, their backs toward him. Stratton drew a.45-caliber pistol from his belt and took aim at the base of Wang Bin's skull.
It was an easy shot. Even in the dark he'd never miss. David Wang's murderer would die instantly-die without knowing who had claimed revenge.
Behind Stratton, something rustled in the trees.
Wang Bin whirled, his face a fright mask. At the sight of Stratton the fear vanished in a portrait of pure hate.
Another noise. Wang Bin slowly raised a finger, as if to point. Broom's arms fell to his side.
Footsteps. Stratton's pulse hammered. He held the gun steady. Someone was there, beside him. He turned to see.
The pain hit Stratton high in one leg. It seared like a snakebite, racing up his thighs, burning through his lungs until it choked him. The gun dropped from his hand. Stratton spun down like a top, clawing at his leg, his throat, mashing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.
Even as he lay there rasping, the galaxy exploding in his skull, he was aware of someone standing over him.
The last thing Stratton heard was the faraway voice of the deputy minister.
"Miss Greer, it is very good to see you again."
CHAPTER 25
All the next morning, Dr. Neal Lambert waited.
Harold Broom phoned at eleven. "All set," he had said. "Be ready at noon."
But noon came and went, and Lambert's excitement soon dissolved into panic. He paced the halls of the museum. He told himself not to worry; people like Broom were always late. They were incapable of common courtesy.
At six the museum closed. Lambert sank into the chair behind his polished desk and ranted out loud. Every few minutes he would dial the number that Broom had given him, only to be reminded by a very bored answering service that, no, Mr.
Broom had not called in. Would he care to leave a number?
Lambert grew despondent. Broom was a greasy twit, but would he dare sell the Chinese soldier out from under him? And was he resourceful enough to locate a new buyer on such short notice? Doubtful, Lambert assured himself.
He wrung his hands and stood at the window of his office, gazing down the mall toward the Washington Monument.
Gravely he thought of his three-hundred-thousand-dollar down payment. Then he thought of something worse: someday, years from now, walking into another museum, maybe Renner's in Atlanta or that bastard Scavello's in New York, and discovering his own Chinese warrior on grand display in the main room.
No, not even Broom-his minimal reputation at stake-would stoop so low, Lambert concluded. Something else must have gone wrong. The possibilities were numbingly depressing. He picked up the telephone and tried again.
Tom Stratton awoke in the back of a taxi. He was dizzy, queasy, babbling.
"Easy, bud," the cabbie said. He led Stratton up the steps of the Hotel Washington and into the arms of a doorman.
"I took a twenty off you, okay?"
Stratton nodded foggily.
"What happened?" the doorman asked.
"Some broad called. Told us to go get this drunk out by the cemetery." The cabbie glanced down at Stratton. "That's where I found him, crawling around on all fours like a mutt."
Stratton groaned.
"Better get him up to his room," the cabbie advised, "before he urps on your nice carpet."
Stratton lay alone, dreaming of coffins. Slowly the pain drained from his limbs, but cotton clung to his mind. He could hear the sound of a city outside his window. A police siren. Screeching tires. A jet roaring down the Potomac. The noise crashed over him, triple amplified. His ears rang. His head felt like plaster.
He had to get up. Hours crawled by.
A maid rapped on the door.
"Not now," Stratton mumbled.
He had to get up. Move. Open your eyes.
The room was bright. The clock on the bedstand said eight o'clock.
"Jesus Christ." He had spent a full day in bed.
He made a wobbly journey to the shower. He found a crimson dot on his leg, still tender from the hypodermic injection. He stood under the hot water for twenty minutes, letting his blood wake up.
Sorting out the reality from the nightmare wasn't easy. Just where did Linda Greer fit in now? She had zapped him with something-elephant tranquilizer, it felt like. Why? And where was she?
On her own, that's where. No Langley, no Peking. Wang Bin had become a personal project, but why? And how personal?
Stratton was angry, restless and, above all, baffled. She had let them get away.
For whatever reason, that's what she had done. It was one truth that had survived the horrible night.
Stratton toweled off and pulled on a pair of jeans. He called room service and ordered a big stack of pancakes, three eggs and a pitcher of black coffee.
His options were dismal. He could run to the State Department and lay it all out. Someone very polite would call China, and someone in Peking would reply-very tersely-that the body found in the Ming reservoir was positively Deputy Minister Wang Bin; that no clay soldiers were missing from the Xian excavation; that no visa had ever been issued to an American named Harold Broom.
That's what the Chinese would say-because they had to. They would admit nothing, because they could never permit themselves to be seen as fools.
And that would be it.
A better option would be confiding in old friends at the CIA. But what proof could Stratton offer? Vandalized grave plots? Hardly a red-hot trail.
It all came back to Linda. Was she in league with Broom and Wang Bin? Or was she trying for that solo coup that would edify her career-bringing the old Chinese bastard in from the cold? He remembered their dinner talk in Peking. Yes, that was probably it.
Either way, the lady had guts. Wang Bin was a killer, not easily induced, coerced or charmed. With some defectors it was easy. Bring them in gently. Pay them. Pump them. Pay them some more. A new name, a new passport, off you go.
Linda was wrong if she imagined it would be that simple with the deputy minister. He was the ultimate pragmatist.
Maybe she knew that. Maybe she was way ahead of him. I'm the one who's fresh out of clues, Stratton thought ruefully.
He wolfed down his breakfast and went downstairs. He bought a copy of the Post in the lobby and walked out into the sticky heat to think. There was an empty bench on the mall near the Smithsonian, and Stratton sat down. Hearty joggers and lean cyclists flew by him, a reminder that he did not yet have his strength back. The sidewalks swarmed with foreign tourists who seemed to walk twice as fast as everyone else.