"I'm sure that could be changed."

"Then you know about the guns too?" Bartlett said and cursed himself for the slip. He managed to keep his eyes steady.

"Oh yes. Someone else's been bothering you about them?" Dunross asked, watching him.

"The police even chased Casey! Jesus! My airplane's seized, we're all suspect, and I don't know a goddamn thing about any guns."

"Well, there's no need to worry, Mr. Bartlett. Our police are very good."

"I'm not worried, just teed off."

"That's understandable," Dunross said, glad the Armstrong meeting was confidential. Very glad.

Christ, he thought queasily, if John Chen and Tsu-yan are involved somehow, Bartlett's going to be very teed off indeed, and we'll lose the deal and he'll throw in with Gornt and thena "How did you hear about the guns?"

"We were informed by our office at Kai Tak this morning."

"Nothing like this ever happened before?"

"Yes." Dunross added lightly, "But there's no harm in smuggling or even a little gun-running actually they're both very honorable professions of course we do them elsewhere."

"Where?"

"Wherever Her Majesty's Government desires." Dunross laughed. "We're all pirates here, Mr. Bartlett, at least we are to outsiders." He paused. "Presuming I can make arrangements with the police, you're on for Taipei?"

Bartlett said, "Casey's very close-mouthed."

"I'm not suggesting she's not to be trusted."

"She's just not invited?"

"Certain of our customs here are a little different from yours, Mr. Bartlett. Most times she'll be welcome but sometimes, well, it would save a lot of embarrassment if she were excluded."

"Casey doesn't embarrass easily."

"I wasn't thinking of her embarrassment. Sorry to be blunt but perhaps it's wiser in the long run."

"And if I can't 'conform'?"

"It will probably mean you cannot take advantage of a unique opportunity, which would be a very great pity particularly if you intend a long-term association with Asia."

"I'll think about that."

"Sorry, but I have to have a yes or no now."

"You do?"

"Yes."

"Then go screw!"

Dunross grinned. "I won't. Meanwhile, finally: yes or no."

Bartlett broke out laughing. "Since you put it that way, I'm on for Taipei."

"Good. Of course I'll have my wife look after Miss Tcholok while we're away. There'll be no loss of face for her."

"Thank you. But you needn't worry about Casey. How are you going to fix Armstrong?"

"I'm not going tome him, just ask the assistant commissioner to let me be responsible for you, there and back."

"Parole me in your custody?"

"Yes."

"How do you know I won't just leave town? Maybe I was gunrunning."

Dunross watched him. "Maybe you are. Maybe you'll try but I can deliver you back dead or alive, as they say in the movies. Hong Kong and Taipei are within my fief."

"Dead or alive, eh?"

"Hypothetically, of coupe."

"How many men have you killed in your lifetime?"

The mood in the room changed and both men felt the change deeply.

It's not dangerous yet between him and me, Dunross thought, not yet.

"Twelve," he replied, his senses poised, though the question had surprised him. "Twelve that I'm sure of. I was a fighter pilot during the war. Spitfires. I got two single-seat fightem, a Stoka, and two bombers they were Dornier 17's and they'd have a crew of four each. All the planes burned as they went down. Twelve that I'm sure of, Mr. Bartlett. Of course we shot up a lot of trains, convoys, troop concentrations. Why?"

"I'd heard you were a flier. I don't think I've killed anyone. I was building camps, bases in the Pacific, that sort of thing. Never shot a gun in anger."

"But you like hunting?"

"Yes. I went on a safari in '59 in Kenya. Got an elephant and a great kudu bull and lots of game for the pot."

Dunross said after a pause, "I think I prefer to kill planes and trains and boats. Men, in war, are incidental. Aren't they?"

"Once the general's been put into the field by the ruler, sure. That's a fact of war."

"Have you read Sun Tzu's The Art of War?"

"The best book on war I've ever read," Bartlett said enthusiastically. "Better'n Clausewitz or Liddell Hart, even though it was written in 500 B.C."

"Oh?" Dunross leaned back, glad to get away from the killings. I haven't remembered the killing for years, he thought. That's not fair to those men, is it?

"Did you know Sun Tzu's book was published in French in 1782? I've a theory Napoleon had a copy."

"It's certainly in Russian and Mao always carried a copy that was dog-eared with use," Dunross said.

"You've read it?"

"My father beat it into me. I had to read the original in characters in Chinese. And then he'd question me on it, very seriously."

A fly began to batter itself irritatingly against the windowpane. "Your dad wanted you to be a soldier?"

"No. Sun Tzu, like Machiavelli, wrote about life more than death and about survival more than wara" Dunross glanced at the window then got up and went over to it and obliterated the fly with a controlled savagery that sent warning signals through Bartlett.

Dunross returned to his desk. "My father thought I should know about survival and how to handle large bodies of men. He wanted me to be worthy to become tai-pan one day, though he never thought I'd amount to much." He smiled.

"He was tai-pan too?"

"Yes. He was very good. At first."

"What happened?"

Dunross laughed sardonically. "Ah, skeletons so early, Mr. Bart lett? Well, briefly, we had a rather tedious, long-drawn-out difference of opinion. Eventually he handed over to Alastair Struan, my predecessor."

"He's still alive?"

byes."

"Does your British understatement mean you went to war with him?"

"Sun Tzu's very specific about going to war, Mr. Bartlett. Very bad to go to war he says, unless you need to. Quote: 'Supreme excellence of generalship consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.'"

"You broke him?"

"He removed himself from the field, Mr. Bartlett, like the wise man he was."

Dunross's face had hardened. Bartlett studied him. Both men knew they were drawing battle lines in spite of themselves.

Slim glad I came to Hong Kong," the American said. "I'm glad to meet you."

- "Thank you. Perhaps one day you won't be."

Bartlett shrugged. "Maybe. Meanwhile we've got a deal cooking good for you, good for us." He grinned abruptly, thinking about Gornt and the cooking knife. "Yes. I'm glad I came to Hong Kong."

"Would you and Casey care to be my guests this evening? I'm having a modest bash, a party, at 8:30 odd."

"Formal?"

"Just dinner jacket is that all right?"

"Fine. Casey said you like the tux and black tie bit." Then Bartlett noticed the painting on the wall: an old oil of a pretty Chinese boat girl carrying a little English boy, his fair hair tied in a queue. "That a Quance? An Aristotle Quance?"

"Yes, yes it is," Dunross said, barely covering his surprise.

Bartlett walked over and looked at it. "This the original?"

"Yes. You know much about art?"

"No, but Casey told me about Quance as we were coming out here. She said he's almost like a photographer, really a historian of the early times."

"Yes, yes he is."

"If I remember this one's supposed to be a portrait of a girl called May-may, May-may T'chung, and the child is one of Dirk Struan's by her?"

Dunross said nothing, just watched Bartlett's back.

Bartlett peered a little closer. "Difficult to see the eyes. So the boy is Gordon Chen,Sir Gordon Chen to be?" He turned and looked at Dunross.

"I don't know for certain, Mr. Bartlett. That's one story."

Bartlett watched him for a moment. The two men were well matched, Dunross slightly taller but Bartlett wider in the shoulders. Both had blue eyes, Dunross's slightly more greenish, both wideset in lived-in faces.

"You enjoy being tai-pan of the Noble House?" Bartlett asked.

"Yes."

"I don't know for a fact what a tai-pan's powers are, but in Par-Con I can hire and fire anyone, and can close it down if I want."

"Then you're a tai-pan."

"Then I enjoy being a tai-pan too. I want in in Asia you need an in in the States. Together we could sew up the whole Pacific Rim into a tote bag for both of us."

Or a shroud for one of us, Dunross thought, liking Bartlett despite the fact that he knew it was dangerous to like him.

"I've got what you lack, you've got what I lack."

"Yes," Dunross said. "And now what we both lack is lunch."

They turned for the door. Bartlett was there first. But he did not open it at once. "I know it's not your custom but since I'm going with you to Taipei, could you call me Linc and I call you Ian and we begin to figure out how much we're gonna bet on the golf match? I'm sure you know my handicap's thirteen, officially, and I know yours's ten, officially, which probably means at least one stroke off both of us for safety."

"Why not?" Dunross said at once. "But here we don't normally bet money, just balls."

"I'm goddamned if I'm betting mine on a golf match."

Dunross laughed. "Maybe you will, one day. We usually bet half a dozen golf balls here something like that."

"It's a bad British custom to bet money, Ian?"

"No. How about five hundred a side, winning team take all?"

"U.S. or Hong Kong?"

"Hong Kong. Among friends it should be Hong Kong. Initially."