To Pitt the concept was inconceivable. “I'll grade you with an A for wishful thinking and an F for practicality.”
“Not as ridiculous as you may think,” Qin Shang said patiently. “Consider how the boundaries of Europe have changed in the past hundred years. Migration through the centuries has shattered old empires and built new, only to have them fall again from new waves of migrants.”
“An interesting theory,” said Pitt. “But a theory nonetheless. The only way for your scenario to become reality is for the American people to lie down and play dead.”
“Your countrymen have slept through the nineteen nineties,” Qin Shang replied, a visceral, even menacing quality in his voice. “When they finally wake up, it will be a decade too late.”
“You paint a grim picture for humanity,” said Julia, visibly shaken.
Pitt went silent. He did not have the answer nor was he Nostradamus. His brain told him that Qin Shang's prophecy might indeed come to pass. But his heart refused to reject hope, He came to his feet and nodded at Julia. “I think we've heard enough of Mr. Shang's meaningless drivel. It's plain to see that he's a man who loves to hear himself talk. Let's clear out of this architectural monstrosity and its phony decor and breathe fresh air again.”
Qin Shang leaped to his feet. “You dare mock me,” he snarled.
Pitt moved to the desk and leaned across the surface until his face was bare inches away from Qin Shang's. “Mock you, Mr. Shang? That's putting it mildly. I'd rather have my Christmas stocking filled with cow dung than listen to your retarded philosophy on future affairs.” Then he took Julia's hand. “Come on, we're out of here.”
Julia made no effort to move; she appeared dazed. Pitt had to pull her along behind him. At the doorway he paused and looked back.
“Thank you, Mr. Shang, for a most provocative evening. I enjoyed your excellent champagne and seafood, especially the abalone.”
The Chinese's face was tight and cold, twisted in a mask of malevolence. “No man speaks to Qin Shang in this manner.”
“I'm sorry for you, Shang. On the surface you are fabulously rich and almighty, but underneath you're only a self-made man who worships his inventor.”
Qin Shang fought to regain control of his emotions. When he spoke, his voice came as though out of an arctic mist. “You have made a fatal error, Mr. Pitt.”
Pitt smiled thinly. “I was about to say the same about the two cretins you sent to kill me earlier this evening.”
“Another time, another place, you may not be so fortunate.”
Pitt said coldly, “Just so we keep a level playing field, please be advised that I have hired a team of professional assassins to terminate you, Mr. Shang. With luck, we'll never meet again.”
Before Qin Shang could respond, Pitt and Julia were walking through the mass of guests toward the front entrance. Julia discreetly opened her purse, held it close to her face as though searching for cosmetics and spoke into the tiny radio.
“This is Dragon Lady. We're coming out.”
“Dragon Lady,” said Pitt. “Is that the best you could dream up for a code name?”
The dove-gray eyes gazed at him as if he was thick between the ears. “It fits,” she said simply.
If Qin Shang's paid killers had any plans of following the Duesenberg and blasting its occupants at the first stoplight, they were quickly laid to rest as two unmarked vans fell into a convoy behind the big car.
“I hope they're on our side,” said Pitt.
“Peter Harper is very thorough. The INS protects its own with specialists outside the service. The people in the vans are from a little-known security force that supplies teams of bodyguards on request from different branches of government.”
“A great pity.”
She looked at him quizzically. “Why do you say that?”
“With all these armed chaperons watching our every move, I can't very well take you to my place for a nightcap.”
“Are you sure a nightcap is all you had in mind?” Julia replied in a sultry voice.
Pitt took one hand off the wheel and patted her bare knee. “Women have always been an enigma to me. I had hoped you might forget you were an agent of the government and throw caution to the winds.”
She moved across the leather bench seat until her body was pressed against his and slid her hands around his arm. She found the muffled roar of the engine and the smell of the leather sensual. “I went off duty the minute we walked out of that scumbag's house,” she said lovingly. “My time is your time.”
“How do we get rid of your friends?”
“We don't. They're with us for the duration.”
“In that case, do you think they'd mind if I took a detour?”
“Probably,” she said, smiling. “But I'm sure you'll do it anyway.”
Pitt went silent as he shifted gears and drove the Duesenberg effortlessly through traffic, watching in the rearview mirror with a touch of pride at seeing the vans struggle to keep pace. “I hope they don't shoot out my tires. They don't come cheap for a car like this.”
“Did you mean what you said when you told Qin Shang you'd hired a team of hit men to kill him?”
Pitt grinned wolfishly. “A big, fat bluff, but he doesn't know that. I take great satisfaction in tormenting men like Qin Shang who are too used to having people jump at their beck and call. Do him good to stare at the ceiling nights and wonder if someone is lurking outside waiting to put a bullet in him.”
“So what's with the detour?”
“I think I found the chink in Qin Shang's armor, his Achilles' heel if you'll pardon the cliche. Despite the seemingly impenetrable wall he's formed around his personal life, he has a vulnerable crack that can be pried open a mile wide.”
Julia pulled her coat tightly around her bare legs to ward off the late-evening chill. “You must have divined something from what he said that escaped me.”
“As I recall, his words were, 'My life's most passionate desire.' ”
She looked curiously into his eyes, which never left the road. “He was talking about a vast cargo of Chinese art treasures that vanished on a ship.”
“The same.”
“He possesses more wealth and Chinese antiques than anyone else in the world. Why should a ship with a few historical objects be of serious interest to him?”
“Not a mere interest, gorgeous creature. Qin Shang is obsessed like all men down through the centuries who have searched for lost treasure. He won't die a happy man no matter how much wealth and power he's accumulated until he can replace every one of his art replicas with the genuine pieces. To own something no other man or woman on earth can own is the ultimate fulfillment to Qin Shang. I've known men like him. He'd trade thirty years of his life to find the shipwreck and its treasures.”
“But how does one go about searching for a ship that vanished fifty years ago?” Julia asked. “Where do you begin to look?”
“You start,” Pitt said casually, “by knocking on a door about six blocks up the street.”
PITT STEERED THE BIG DUESENBERG OVER A NARROW DRIVE-way between two homes with brick walls entirely blanketed with climbing ivy. He stopped the car in front of a spacious carriage house that fronted an expansive courtyard that was now roofed over.
“Who lives here?” asked Julia.
“A very interesting character,” Pitt replied. He motioned toward a large bronze knocker on the door cast in the shape of a sailing ship. “Give it a rap, if you can.”