Mindlessly Stratton knelt by his friend's body and activated the ultrasonic beacon. Already he could hear the invisible helicopter, waiting for the signal.

From behind he heard whispers from approaching Chinese soldiers as they skittered between clumps of cover.

Stratton glanced down at Gomez and smothered a moan. He passed a grimy hand across parched lips. All he could do was wait; it would be a very near thing.

Wait in silence for deliverance, for the sight of the rope ladder peeling out of the chopper's belly. Pray that the chopper came before the Chinese found him.

Stratton heard a noise and knew instantly that the helicopter would come too late, an eternity too late.

It was a squelch in the mud, and he whirled to face it. Another gray shape, only a few yards away. It had been watching him; he should have sensed it.

Stratton sprang forward, his hand working on the Thai blade at his belt. The shape had no gun or he would already be dead. But it could scream, and if it screamed, he would be discovered.

In three frantic bounds he reached the peasant. It was a young woman. She cried out and backed away, her eyes wild. The distant throb of the chopper blades grew louder. A minute or two, maybe more.

The woman turned to flee.

Let her go?

But she would scream. He knew she would scream. She ran in awkward steps, her arms around her belly. Stratton swiftly caught her, sobbing. Not this time, Bobby Ho. Not again.

With his left hand Stratton jerked back the girl's head, and the fire's glow shone on the flesh of her neck. He killed her with a single savage thrust.

Still she screamed, a thin, piteous wail lost in the clatter of the descending helicopter and the confused shouts of the Chinese soldiers. She screamed for her life, and that of the child who lay heavy within her. Two senseless deaths.

Thomas Stratton did not care.

CHAPTER 18

Stratton's throat was dry, his voice rough. He felt himself winding down like a cheap clock.

"Like it was yesterday," he said. "I still dream about it. It still hurts. I murdered them. The woman, the baby… "

Kangmei worried a deep furrow with her stick.

"It is a very sad story, Thom-as," she murmured at last.

"I'm sorry."

"Men should not fight, Thom-as. They should live in peace and build beautiful things. Man is for good, not for killing."

"I wish I could believe that."

"Oh, but it is true. For every evil old man like my father, there are hundreds-many thousand-who are true and loving. Leave your unlocked bicycle at their door and it will be there tomorrow, and the day after. Those are the Chinese people, Thom-as. Not my father, not commissars who play with people's minds."

"Your Uncle David is a good man."

"Yes, I could see that."

"Until today he was the only person who had ever heard my story."

"Thank you."

"I wanted you to know. It was important… "

"I understand. I am not a witch, like one of the old women in Bright Star, but I have seen the sadness inside of you."

"Kangmei, I… "

Stratton let the thought drift away. He watched the swift river, as muddy as his own thoughts. He felt light-headed and empty. And yet purged, as though retelling the horror would at last allow him to file it in some dusty mind bin, where it belonged.

On the far side of the river a young woman led a file of nursery-school children toward an old wooden footbridge. A flock of pigeons alighted in the trees around them. The palm leaves glinted with fleeting gold in the brief tropical dusk.

Soon it would be dark, and a few hours after that he would be gone. Kangmei's family had found a friend of a friend who was a conductor on the overnight train to Canton. Tomorrow the vestige of Captain Black would take over. Canton would be no problem. It was tonight that hurt. Stratton wanted the ghost of Man-ling banished as quickly as the Chinese railroads would allow. He wanted to get to Hong Kong, and from there to save David Wang. But he did not want to leave the strong and idealistic woman at his side.

He was assembling the question when Kangmei spoke. Again, she had anticipated him.

"Have you ever loved, Thom-as?"

"Yes, sure," he said, but he could not separate the images of a cliched decade: blondes and Titians, quiche and Perrier, trim-cut ski jackets, designer sheets.

Carol, who had proved a more devoted doctor than wife, more brittle than beautiful, a better diagnostician than mother.

"No," he said. Not like this.

"I loved once," she said, so far away, so fragile he wanted to gather her into his arms, but dared not molest her privacy.

"A gentle boy, not tall and strong and handsome, but short and plain. One leg was shorter than the other and he limped. His face was so round you thought it was the moon, and he could not see well, so he wore heavy glasses that always slid off his nose and broke. There was no place he could hide: People would point and say, 'Oh, how ugly.' But when they saw what he wrote, no one laughed anymore. His poems were beautiful, like the morning sun creeping along an open field. His poems were as simple as the birds in these trees and as pure as those children across the river.

"He was a happy boy who did not mind being ugly. He laughed at his bad luck and lived for the hours when he could write his poetry. During the days he worked as an electrician in a big factory. At night he would compose in a workers' dormitory. At first he showed his poems only to his friends. That was when he was happiest. He gave poems to his friends as gifts and then showed them to other friends until finally other writers saw them, writers who work without Party control. He gave poems in secret to his friends at the factory and finally the top cadres of the factories saw them, too. The writers went to him and said, 'Write of life. Be freer.' The cadres of his unit went to him and said, 'You have great talent. You must write of the workers' heroic struggle.' "My friend was a happy man who wanted everyone to share his joy. So he wrote for the writers about larks and joy, and he wrote for the cadres about the beauties of blast furnaces and socialist progress. At first both were very pleased.

'More,' they said. 'Write more.' So my friend wrote more, and more, until he could hardly remember whether the next poem was supposed to be about the glorious fulfillment of factory quotas, or every man's right to find his own truth.

"Then one day my friend said, 'No more.' He went to the writers and to the cadres and told them, 'I must write for me, not for you. What I write for you is not me, and it is not good.' They both became very angry, the writers and the cadres. They felt my friend had betrayed them. They yelled and screamed at him.

The factory gave him the most dirty and dangerous jobs. The writers no longer invited him to tea or to walk in the park. My friend became very unhappy. Soon he could not write at all-not even for himself. He would limp around the city looking for inspiration, his great moon face empty, like a man whose father has died. He wrote nothing. All this happened the year that I loved him."

Kangmei smiled through tears. "That is my sad story, Thom-as."

"I'm sorry, Kangmei. Is your friend still in Peking?"

"He is beyond Peking."

"What happened?"

"One day at the factory he picked up two heavy cables in his hands and rubbed them together. They were full of electricity. Perhaps it was an accident… "

"I'm sorry." A temporizing banality.

"I love you, Thom-as."

"I was trying to say the same thing. Come with me, please. We'll find a way to Hong Kong. America is a strange country, I know, but you will like it. If you don't, we can come back to Asia. Anywhere you want… "