Reluctantly she took out the hundred-dollar note and offered it. "Ayeeyah, I was particularly attached to this note."

"Thank you," Dunross said and pocketed it. "I'm particularly attached to that one myself."

There was a knock on the door. "Yes?" he said.

The door was opened by Sandra Yi, his private secretary. "Excuse me, tai-pan, but the market's up two points and Holdbrook's on line two." Alan Holdbrook was head of their in-house stockbroking company.

Dunross punched the line two button. "Claudia, soon as I'm through bring in Armstrong." She left with Sandra Yi.

"Yes, Alan?"

"Morning, tai-pan. First: There's a heavy rumor that we're going to make a bid for control of Asian Properties."

"That's probably put out by Jason Plumm to boost his shares before their annual meeting. You know what a canny bastard he is."

"Our stock's gone up ten cents, perhaps on the strength of it."

"Good. Buy me 20,000 at once."

"On margin?"

"Of course on margin."

"All right. Second rumor: We've closed a multimillion-dollar deal with Par-Con Industries huge expansion."

"Pipe dreams," Dunross said easily, wondering furiously where the leaks were. Only Phillip Chen and in Edinburgh, Alastair Struan and old Sean MacStruan was supposed to know about the ploy to smash Asian Properties. And the Par-Con deal was top secret to; the Inner Court only.

"Third: someone's buying large parcels of our stock."

"Who?"

"I don't know. But there's something smelly going on, tai-pan. The way our stock's been creeping up the last montha There's no reason that I know of, except a buyer, or buyers. Same with Rothwell-Gornt. I heard a block of 200,000 was bought offshore."

"Find out who."

"Christ, I wish I knew how. The market's jittery, and very nervous. A lot of Chinese money's floating around. Lots of little deals going ona a few shares here, a few there, but multiplied by a hundred thousand or soa the market might start to fall aparta or to soar."

"Good. Then we'll all make a killing. Give me a call before the market closes. Thanks, Alan." He put the phone down, feeling the sweat on his back. "Shit," he said aloud. "What the hell's going on?"

In the outer office Claudia Chen was going over some papers with Sandra Yi who was her niece on her mother's side and smart, very good to look at, twenty-seven with a mind like an abacus. Then she glanced at her watch and said in Cantonese, "Superintendent Brian Kwok's downstairs, Little Sister, why don't you fetch him up in six minutes."

"Ayeeyah, yes, Elder Sister!" Sandra Yi hastily checked her makeup and swished away. Claudia smiled after her and thought Sandra Yi would be perfect a perfect choice for Brian Kwok. Happily she sat behind her desk and began to type the telexes. Everything's done that should be done, she told herself. No, something the tai-pan saida what was it? Ah yes! She dialed her home number.

"Weyyyyy?" said her amah, Ah Sam.

"Listen, Ah Sam," she said in Cantonese, "isn't Third Toiletmaid Fung at the Vic your cousin three times removed?"

"Oh yes, Mother," Ah Sam replied, using the Chinese politeness of servant to mistress. "But she's four times removed, and from the Fung-tats, not the Fung-sams which is my branch."

"Never mind that, Ah Sam. You call her and find out all you can about two foreign devils from the Golden Mountain. They're in Fragrant Spring suite." Patiently she spelled their names, then added delicately, "I hear they have peculiar pillow habits."

"Ayeeyah, if anyone can find out, Third Toiletmaid Fung can. Ha! What peculiars?"

"Strange peculiars, Ah Sam. You get on with it, little oily mouth." She beamed and hung up.

The elevator doors opened and Sandra Yi ushered the two police officers in, then left reluctantly. Brian Kwok watched her go. He was thirty-nine, tall for a Chinese, just over six feet, very handsome, with blue-black hair. Both men wore civilian clothes. Claudia chatted with them politely, but the moment she saw the light on line two go out she ushered them in and closed the door.

"Sorry to come without an appointment," Armstrong said.

"No sweat, Robert. You look tired."

"A heavy night. It's all the villainy that goes on in Hong Kong," Armstrong said easily. "Nasties abound and saints get crucified."

Dunross smiled, then glanced across at Kwok. "How's life treating you, Brian?"

Brian Kwok smiled back. "Very good, thanks, Ian. Stock market's up I've a few dollars in the bank, my Porsche hasn't fallen apart yet, and ladies will be ladies."

"Thank God for that! Are you doing the hill climb on Sunday?"

"If I can get Lulu in shape. She's missing an offside hydraulic coupling."

"Have you tried our shop?"

"Yes. No joy, tai-pan. Are you going?"

"Depends. I've got to go to Taipei Sunday afternoon I will if I've got time. I entered anyway. How's SI?"

Brian Kwok grinned. "It beats working for a living." Special Intelligence was a completely independent department within the elite, semisecret Special Branch responsible for preventing and detecting subversive activities in the Colony. It had its own secret ways, secret funding and overriding powers. And it was responsible to the governor alone.

Dunross leaned back in the chair. "What's up?"

Armstrong said, "I'm sure you already know. It's about the guns on Bartlett's plane."

"Oh yes, I heard this morning," he said. "How can I help? Have you any idea why and where they were destined? And by whom? You caught two men?"

Armstrong sighed. "Yes. They were genuine mechanics all right both ax-Nationalist Air Force trained. No previous record, though they're suspected of being members of secret triads. Both have been here since the exodus of'49. By the way, can we keep this all confidential, between the three of us?"

"What about your superiors?"

"I'd like to include them in but keep it just for your ears only."

"Why?"

"We have reason to believe the guns were destined for someone in Struan's."

"Who?" Dunross asked sharply.

"Confidential?"

"Yes. Who?"

"How much do you know about Lincoln Bartlett and Casey Tcholok?"

"We've a detailed dossier on him not on her. Would you like it? I can give you a copy, providing it too is kept confidential."

"Of course. That would be very helpful."

Dunross pressed the intercom.

"Yes sir?" Claudia asked.

"Make a copy of the Bartlett dossier and give it to Superintendent Armstrong on his way out." Dunross clicked the intercom off.

"We won't take much more of your time," Armstrong said. "Do you always dossier potential clients?"

"No. But we like to know who we're dealing with. If the Bartlett deal goes through it could mean millions to us, to him, a thousand new jobs to Hong Kong factories here, warehouses, a very big expansion along with equally big risks to us. Everyone in business does a confidential financial statement perhaps we're a bit more thorough. I'll bet you fifty dollars to a broken hatpin he's done one on me."

"No criminal connections mentioned?"

Dunross was startled. "Mafia? That sort of thing? Good God no, nothing. Besides, if the Mafia were trying to come in here they wouldn't send a mere ten M14 rifles and two thousand rounds and a box of grenades."

"Your information's damn good," Brian Kwok interrupted. "Too damn good. We only unpacked the stuff an hour ago. Who's your informant?"

"You know there're no secrets in Hong Kong."

"Can't even trust your own coppers these days."

"The Mafia would surely send in a shipment twenty times that and they'd be handguns, American style. But the Mafia would be bound to fail here, whatever they did. They could never displace our triads. No, it can't be Mafia only someone local. Who tipped you about the shipment, Brian?"

"Tokyo Airport Police," Kwok said. "One of their mechanics was doing a routine inspection you know how thorough they are. He reported it to his superior, their police phoned us and we said to let it through."

"In that case get hold of the FBI and the CIA get them to check back to Honolulu or Los Angeles."

"You went through the flight plan too?"

"Of course. That's obvious. Why someone in Struan's?"

"Both of the villains saida" Armstrong took out his pad and referred to it. "Our question was, 'Where were you to take the packages?' Both answered using different words: 'To 15 go-down, we were to put the packages in Bay 7 at the back.' " He looked up at Dunross.

"That proves nothing. We've the biggest warehouse operation at Kai Tak just because they take it to one of our go-downs proves nothing other than they're smart. We've got so much merchandise going through, it'd be easy to send in an alien truck." Dunross thought a moment. "lS's right at the exit perfect placing." He reached for the phone. "I'll put my security folk on it right n"

"Would you not, please, just for the moment."

"Why?"

"Our next question," Armstrong continued, "was, 'Who employed you?' Of course they gave fictitious names and descriptions and denied everything but they'll be more helpful soon." He smiled grimly. "One of them did say, however, when one of my sergeants was twisting his ear a little, figuratively speaking of course" he read from the pad " 'You leave me alone, I've got very important friends!' 'You've no friends in the world,' the sergeant said. 'Maybe, but the Honorable Tsu-yan has and Noble House Chen has.'"

The silence became long and heavy. They waited.

Those God-cursed guns, Dunross thought furiously. But he held his face calm and his wits sharpened. "We've a hundred and more Chens working for us, related, unrelated Chen's as common a name as Smith."

"And Tsu-yan?" Brian Kwok asked.

Dunross shrugged. "He's a director of Struan'~but he's also a director of Blacs, the Victoria Bank and forty other compames, one of the richest men in Hong Kong and a name anyone in Asia could pull out of a hat. Like Noble House Chen."

"Do you know he's suspected of being very high up in the triad hierarchy specifically in the Green Pang?" Brian Kwok asked.

"Every important Shanghainese's equally suspect. Jesus Christ, Brian, you know Chiang Kai-shek was supposed to have given Shanghai to the Green Pang years ago as their exclusive bailiwick if they'd support his northern campaign against the warlords. Isn't the Green Pang still, more or less, an official Nationalist secret society?"

Brian Kwok said, "Where'd Tsu-yan make his money, Ian? His first fortune?"

"I don't know. You tell me, Brian."

"He made it during the Korean War smuggling penicillin, drugs and petrol mostly penicillin across the border to the Communists. Before Korea all he owned was a loincloth and a broken-down rickshaw."

"That's all hearsay, Brian."

"Struan's made a fortune too."

"Yes. But it would really be very unwise to imply we did it smuggling publicly or privately," Dunross said mildly. "Very un- wise indeed."

"Didn't you?"

"Struan's began with a little smuggling 120-odd years ago, so rumor has it, but it was an honorable profession and never against British law. We're law-abiding capitalists and China Traders and have been for years."

Brian Kwok did not smile. "More hearsay's that a lot of his penicillin was bad. Very bad."

"If it was, if that's the truth, then please go get him, Brian," Dunross said coldly. "Personally I think that's another rumor spread by jealous competitors. If it was true he'd be floating in the bay with the others who tried, or he'd be punished like Bad Powder Wong." He was referring to a Hong Kong smuggler who had sold a vast quantity of adulterated penicillin over the border during the Korean War and invested his fortune in stocks and land in Hong Kong. Within seven years he was very very rich. Then certain triads of Hong Kong were ordered to balance the books. Every week one member of his family vanished, or died. By drowning, car accident, strangulation, poison or knife. No assailant was ever caught. The killing went on for seventeen months and three weeks and then stopped. Only he and one semi-imbecile infant grandson remained alive. They live today, still holed up in the same vast, once luxurious penthouse apartment with one servant and one cook, in terror, guarded night and day, never going out knowing that no guards or any amount of money could ever prevent the inexorability of his sentence published in a tiny box in a local Chinese newspaper: Bad Powder Wong will be punished, he and all his generations.

Brian Kwok said, "We interviewed that sod once, Robert and I."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Scary. Every door's double locked and chained, every window nailed up and boarded over with planks just spy holes here and there. He hasn't been out since the killing started. The place stank, my God did it stink! All he does is play Chinese checkers with his grandson and watch television."

"And wait," Armstrong said. "One day they'll come for both of them. His grandson must be six or seven now."

Dunross said, "I think you prove my point. Tsu-yan's not like him and never was. And what possible use could Tsu-yan have for a few M14's? If he wanted to, I imagine he could muster half the Nationalist army along with a battalion of tanks."

"In Taiwan but not in Hong Kong."

"Has Tsu-yan ever been involved with Bartlett?" Armstrong asked. "In your negotiations?"

"Yes. He was in New York once and in Los Angeles on our behalf. Both times with John Chen. They initialed the agreement between Struan's and Par-Con Industries which is to be finalized or abandoned here this month, and they formally invited Bartlett to Hong Kong on my behalf."

Armstrong glanced at his Chinese partner. Then he said, "When was this?"

"Four months ago. It's taken that time for both sides to prepare all the details."