Dragon Bones (39 page)

Brian arrived back in Bashan on June 20. He made no mention of who was at the site other than Dr. Strong, with whom he shared his theories and discoveries. Unfortunately, Strong’s mind had slipped even further, and he was of little help. Brian wrote nothing more on his camping trips, what was being unearthed at the dig, or even the All-Patriotic Society. However, he did encounter Lily, and she was most adamant that he bring her new artifacts. He refused.

Then, on June 30, he scribbled:

Our joke on Lily has ended tragically. How much could she have paid Wu Huadong to dive in the whirlpool? Of course she denies any responsibility. In fact, she blames me. If I had brought her new artifacts from my “treasure trove,” as she now calls it, this never would have happened. How can she not take responsibility and blame me at the same time? I’ll visit the Wus tomorrow and see if there’s anything I can do.

The next day he wrote:

Have now learned the truth. Only one way to salvage what I’ve done. Making one more trip to the cave. Imperative that Xiao Da never know what I’ve found. Must send photos to Angela in case it’s too late. I’ve been very stupid.

During the last eighteen days of his life, Brian eschewed words, preferring to sketch local landmarks, paralleling them with their ancient Chinese characters: The meandering of the river next to the symbol for
river,
the doors of country houses and how they related to the character for
door.
He’d done the same with the characters for
cliff
and
cave.
On one page he’d attempted unsuccessfully to draw the face of a child but then had scratched it out. Next to it he’d written the character for
good,
which was composed of the pictograms for
mother
and
child.

The more David looked at these drawings, the more they appeared to be maps, because in one he recognized the perimeter of Site 518, with the various pits where artifacts had been found. Another showed the river, Bashan, the dig, and the Wu house with archaic characters dotted here and there. In the middle of these pages, one sheet had been torn out. Finally, and most important, Brian had become very tense and fearful, which was made even clearer by his final, sad entry written two days before his disappearance.

July 17—Don’t know what to do. I can’t tell what I know and I can’t do the right thing either without putting other people’s lives in danger. I hope Angela understands what I sent her. Angela, if you read this and you haven’t figured it out yet, look at the photos. Really look! I love you and I’m sorry.

Instead of signing his name, he’d carefully drawn the characters of a window above a trembling heart. He’d seen what was coming, but as the characters suggested, he’d been powerless to stop it.

David closed the journal. Brian and Lily had died because of the
ruyi.
Bill Tang—who had been sent to Hong Kong to buy it—had nearly killed David. Whoever had the artifact now was a target.

David jumped up, fought a wave of dizziness and nausea, then rushed into the bathroom. He pulled his sodden clothes out of the hamper and riffled through them until he found Stuart Miller’s card.

DAVID RAN OUT THE BACK DOOR OF THE HOTEL AND JOGGED
through the storm, away from the harbor and the business district toward Victoria Peak. He saw no cars or taxis plying the streets. A few minutes later, he’d gone past the entrances to the Peak Tram, the YMCA, and the Botanical Gardens. The area became increasingly residential, with great apartment towers all around him. The climb was steep, and his lungs burned with the effort of running uphill. The wound on his head throbbed, and his side hurt almost as much as when Tang had kicked him. David ran every day but not with this kind of pain. He stopped for a moment, put his hands on his knees, and tried to regain his breath. Then he pushed off his back leg and continued on.

Land was at a premium in Hong Kong, and few homes remained within sight of the main harbor. David began to pass some of them and knew he was getting close. He turned onto another street and trotted another few hundred yards to Stuart Miller’s property. The electric gates were open, but all of the windows were shuttered against the storm. David bounded up the front steps, looked around, then as quietly as possible tried the doorknob. It turned. David hesitated. He could be wrong about all this. If he was, he’d be breaking into Stuart’s house. If he wasn’t and he opened the door, the sound of the storm might alert whoever was inside.

David entered the house and closed the door behind him. Dr. Ma was sprawled in the middle of the foyer. A bullet had obliterated half his face, and blood had pooled around him on the marble floor. His one eye was open and unseeing. David edged around the body and peered into the living room. The lights were on, but the room was empty. The walls had been painted in muted earth tones, and the furniture blended into the sepulchral gloom. Museum-quality lighting focused attention solely on the art that lined the walls and perched on risers in the living room. Even to David’s untrained eye, the value of the art was incalculable. He readily spotted works from the Ming, Han, and Tang Dynasties. Having spent some time with the Cosgrove’s catalog, he also recognized bronze pieces from the Shang Dynasty, some of which had to be nearly four thousand years old.

He systematically filtered out the sounds of the storm—the rattling of the shutters, tree branches hitting the sides of the house, the shrieking wind—until he heard voices upstairs. As stealthily as possible he climbed the stairs. A long hallway extended in front of him. To his left was a series of open doorways; to his right, more risers with archaic bronzes and carved pieces of jade. He moved down the hall, stopping before each open door to listen before crossing in front of the opening. He got to the end of the hall and one last open door. He recognized the voices of Stuart Miller and Bill Tang. David edged around the doorjamb. Stuart was tied to a chair. His face was puffy and bruised. Blood ringed his lips and dribbled down his chin. Tang had his back to the door. Another door on the far right of the room was open, but David couldn’t see what was inside. He pulled back and glanced around for a weapon. The heaviest thing he could see was a tableau carved in jade. He reached for it and hefted it in his hands. It weighed a few pounds. The tableau was rounded, but the bottom had an abruptly sharp edge. David shifted the piece in his hands. He took a deep breath, rushed into the room, and brought the tableau down on Tang’s head. The lieutenant crumpled to the floor, and David dropped the jade.

“Untie me, dammit, before he wakes up.” Stuart struggled vainly against the rope.

David untied Stuart, and together they used the rope to bind Tang’s feet and hands. The lieutenant didn’t budge. David felt for a pulse. Tang was alive, just out cold.

Now that he was out of danger, Stuart collapsed into a chair. His face was pale, and his body shook. David grabbed a blanket off the bed and wrapped it around Stuart’s shoulders. Next he found the phone and called the police to report Ma’s murder. He was asked if anyone was in immediate jeopardy and answered that he didn’t think so. Then the police operator informed him that it might take a while before someone got there. The department was spread thin, dealing with the effects of the typhoon. Someone would come as soon as possible, but the police had an obligation during this disaster to attend to the living first.

David crossed back to Stuart and sank to his haunches. “I take it you didn’t give Tang the
ruyi.
”

“I wasn’t about to give it to that little shit,” Stuart said, still staring at the floor.

“He would have killed you.”

Stuart lifted his eyes. He looked terrible. The last thing David needed was for Stuart to keel over with a heart attack.

“What happened?”

Stuart began speaking in a monotone. He and Madame Wang had stayed at the banquet until one in the morning. He’d seen Madame Wang to her penthouse, stayed for a nightcap, and left her about three. He drove home and had just put the
ruyi
in the vault when he heard someone knock on the door. He thought a neighbor might be having problems with the storm, but when he unlocked the door Tang accosted him, demanding the
ruyi.

“I told him I didn’t have it, and things went downhill from there.” A bit of Stuart’s normal jauntiness came back, and he attempted a smile. “I bet I don’t look as bad as you do, though.” But this was no time for false bravado and Stuart knew it. “You saw Ma?”

When David nodded, Stuart went on. “He must have followed Tang.” He shook his head as if to correct himself. “What I mean is, Tang started in on me, and Ma arrived soon after that. He must have come in….” He faltered. “I don’t know exactly….”

“I want you to listen, Stuart. You need to give me the
ruyi.
”

“If I didn’t give it to Tang—and believe me, he tried to make me—why would I give it to you?”

“Several reasons. First, you need to get rid of the
ruyi
before someone kills you for it.” When Stuart didn’t seem to buy this, David added, “You’ve got to realize that someone like Bill Tang doesn’t operate alone.”

David didn’t add that Dr. Ma wasn’t acting alone either. If the
ruyi
was what David thought it was, the Ministry of State Security would never give up, which was why he had to get it to Hulan, not Vice Minister Zai, not Director Ho, but his wife, the one person in the world he trusted. She would know where it would be safest and cause the least harm.

“Second,” he went on, “even if you don’t care about your own life, how would you feel if someone went after Catherine?”

“That wouldn’t happen. Tang is just a thug—”

“A thug who tried to kill me and now you.” David didn’t wait for Stuart to respond. “Third, you
know
the
ruyi
belongs to China. In addition, I’m going to make you a hero. And finally, in giving me the
ruyi
you’re going to become even richer than you already are.”

“How’s that?”

“You give me the
ruyi
before the police get here, then they don’t need to know that you’re in possession of a stolen artifact. I take the
ruyi
back to China and tell the government that you bought it at auction in order to return it to its homeland. Think of the gratitude. Think of the contracts you’ll get—forever.”

Stuart considered the logic. As a lawyer, David knew that Stuart really had only one option. Finally Stuart said, “A hero, huh?”

David nodded.

“Not bad for three million dollars.” Stuart sounded nonchalant, but it had to have been a huge concession.

“Not bad at all,” David agreed, “and it sure beats being tied up in litigation, or worse, ending up in a Chinese jail.”

Stuart sighed long and hard. “All right.” He stood shakily. “Come with me.”

Bill Tang was still out and not going anywhere, so David followed Stuart to the open doorway on the other side of the room. It looked like a closet, but actually it was the antechamber to Stuart’s vault. Tang had gotten much closer to his prize than Stuart had wanted to admit. He punched in an electronic code, and they stepped into a room lined floor to ceiling with drawers. He opened one of the drawers. Inside were four
ruyi
s. They were horribly ugly and horribly beautiful at the same time—the way the fungus stems twisted, the way the heads unfurled. They were natural yet somehow seemed beyond nature in their otherworldliness. Stuart picked up the Site 518
ruyi,
wrapped it in linen, and handed it to David.

“I hope you know what you’re doing.” It was the first time Stuart had acknowledged he might know more about the
ruyi
than its collectibility.

“What do you mean?” David asked, hoping Stuart could confirm what he suspected.

“This is China’s Holy Grail. Have you thought about the power it has to unite, control, and rule?” Stuart asked. “I don’t mean to be melodramatic, but have you considered what could happen if it fell into the wrong hands? The
ruyi
could be used symbolically to strengthen the Chinese military and in the process destabilize the current government. We, as Americans, may not like everything about the regime that’s in power now, but at least we know what we’re dealing with. So I hope you know what you’re doing and who to trust, because this could change China’s future.”

“Is it really Da Yu’s
ruyi
?” David asked point-blank. “Did Brian actually find Da Yu’s scepter?”

“You never met him, but Brian was a brilliant kid,” Stuart answered. “The fellowship proposal he sent this spring was amazing. It not only confirmed for me that he’d found a tomb or some other treasure chamber but that he’d made a discovery about Chinese culture through artifacts and language. Think about it, David. Think about how few artifacts there are in the world that have had an impact on how people view culture. The Rosetta stone provided the key to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics. The discovery of oracle bones did the same for Chinese language and history.”