And love? Where do you put that? No training needed. It just happened. It can even happen when you are fighting for your life.

The ache in Stratton's belly was more than simply hunger.

In the unsprung jeep, they had embraced clumsily, kissing, chattering toward calm after the dispensary confrontation.

"But why, Thom-as? Why? If the young man knew who you were, why did he not say so?"

"I'll never ask him, but I can guess."

"Tell me."

"I'd rather kiss you. I think you are wonderful."

"No more kisses until you tell me."

"Let's say the rag boy-now the young teacher-has given a lot of careful consideration to what happened that night, like I have, and the policeman. I think he came to realize over the years that he was a dead man who had been reprieved by one of the evil invaders he had denounced."

"So he lied."

"I think he was trying to apologize."

"And the fat old policeman. He-"

Stratton stopped her with a kiss.

"Kangmei, I don't want to talk about it anymore. I want to talk about you, and about me. About us. I love you. Please come with me."

She ran cat's-paw fingertips across his jaw.

"I must try to do what I believe is right, my brave Thom-as. Would you respect me if I did not?"

"Respect! I'm talking about love. I want you with me. I need you."

"And I you. But I must try. And I must think. Perhaps one day I will see that you are right; that, as you say, harmony between a man and a woman is really what is most important."

"And then?"

She smiled.

"And then I will confess to you what I feel now, but must resist: that I, too, am empty without you."

"If that happens, will you tell me, please?"

"Yes, I will tell you. I promise."

"I will come back to get you."

"No, Thom-as."

"Why not, damn it?"

"Because." She squeezed him tight enough to hurt and bit playfully at his ear.

"Because," she murmured, "I do not wish to witness a war between our two countries."

The train was waiting. At the station, like a schoolboy fighting a curfew, he had scribbled his address on the back of a yellowed old timetable.

"Write to me, please."

"I love you, Thom-as."

A smiling conductor who spoke only with a warning finger at his lips led Stratton to a darkened soft-class compartment and locked the door.

All the way to Canton the rails whispered her name.

Stratton laid aside his reverie and the sauna precisely at seven thirty-five.

Dressed again in the strange-fitting commune clothes, he took the elevator to the seventh floor and padded the carpeted hallway until he found room 718. He knocked sharply. No one answered.

Stratton found one of the floor attendants sorting cakes of soap.

"Excuse me, but I seem to have locked myself out of our suite. Seven-one-eight.

The name is Bodine. My wife is down at the hairdresser."

"I help," the attendant said. The master key hung from a chain on his cloth belt. The attendant unlocked the door to the darkened suite and Stratton went to work.

He shed his clothes and concealed them beneath a mattress on one of the beds.

From Danny Bodine's closet he selected a navy blue necktie, a pin-striped business shirt and a pair of dark trousers. The clothes fit almost perfectly;

Stratton had guessed as much when he had first noticed the American oilman in the hotel lobby. Even Bodine's black wingtips felt snug.

Stratton removed a blue suitcase from the closet and opened it on the bed.

Haphazardly, he tossed in a suit, a couple of shirts, another pair of slacks.

One could not very well leave China without some luggage.

In the bathroom he borrowed Bodine's cordless Remington.

Danny Bodine was a second-drawer man-that is, the kind of traveler who hides his most precious valuables in the second drawer of the bureau, instead of the top, in the belief that this will outfox the burglars of the world. A jet-setter's illusion.

Stratton triumphantly located Bodine's passport under a stack of jockey shorts.

Next he guessed that the oilman's emergency cash would be either carefully taped on the underside of the drawer, rolled into his socks, or divided in equal sums between the two hiding places.

Again, Stratton silently congratulated himself. A pair of black nylon knee socks yielded three hundred dollars and two hundred yuan. Stratton took only the dollars. Traveling expenses-he had lost everything in Xian.

Before he left Bodine's room, Stratton checked his watch. It was barely eight o'clock. He picked up the telephone and asked the switchboard operator to ring the Ban Xi restaurant. It took five full minutes for a waiter to locate "the American woman named Pam" and lead her to the phone.

"Hi," said Stratton. "I've got some bad news: I don't think I'm going to make it to dinner. I'm sorry for all of the trouble."

Pam was disappointed and curious.

"Did you get your cable?"

"Yes, and that's the bad news. I've got to go back to the States tomorrow,"

Stratton said. "For a funeral."

"I'm so sorry."

"I'm the one who's sorry-for all the inconvenience. Could I have your address?

I'd like to write after we get back." This time he was telling the truth.

Stratton wrote down her address in Denver.

"I'm going to send you something," he said. Something the size of a man's suitcase, he thought. Bodine would be thrilled to get his wingtips back, not to mention the three hundred bucks.

"You're missing a great dinner," Pam said. "I skipped the quail eggs and ordered something called 'fragrant meat.' It's very tasty, Tom."

"Dog meat," Stratton muttered.

"What did you say?"

"Never mind. Good night, Pam."

The rain had stopped. Stratton left the Dong Fang Hotel by foot, carrying Bodine's suitcase as nonchalantly as if it were a briefcase. He strolled past a city park, lushly landscaped, its circular ponds ringed by orchids. A young Chinese couple sat together on a bench, whispering in the twilight, touching each other's hands. On a downhill sidewalk, slick from the rain, Stratton was startled by a throng of teenagers who flew by on roller skates, giddy with speed.

At the Guangzhou Railway Station he had only an hour to wait for the train to Hong Kong. Bored immigration inspectors barely glanced at the passport.

CHAPTER 21

The taxi climbed haltingly toward Victoria Peak through the morning rush-hour snarl. On all sides, Hong Kong howled at Tom Stratton; a glitzy, avaricious, sequined city, a century from Peking, light-years from Kangmei's bucolic Bright Star. It seemed impossible that they shared the same continent, let alone the same blood. Below, the famous harbor, tickled by the prows of a thousand boats, glinted gold in the early light.

The driver braked to a stop at the foot of a steep hill. Behind the taxi, a long line of cars bunched up, honking-gleaming Subarus, BMWs and Jaguar sedans, all seemingly driven by serious, thin-lipped businessmen. Stratton scrambled out of the cab, dutifully toting Bodine's suitcase. On the hillside sat the United States Consulate, square-windowed, flat and uninviting. It reminded Stratton of a cut-down version of the Boston City Hall except for the forest of antennae prickling from the roof.

Stratton lugged the suitcase up a winding flight of steps. By the time he reached the black iron gate, his injured leg throbbed in misery. He was intercepted by a young Marine in a white hat and a starched blue-and-khaki uniform. Stratton asked to meet the station chief.

"Sir?"

"The head spook, Sergeant. It's an emergency."

"Wait here, please, sir."