"What men?"

"They brought flowers for your Aunt Sarah there… " the caretaker began.

A lovely touch, Stratton thought.

"How many men?"

"Two. Said they were good friends of the deceased."

The old man dabbed at his neck with the handkerchief. "I'm trying to remember their names. One of them was a thin fellow, about forty-five, fifty maybe. Had black hair. Dressed kind of bright for the cemetery. The other guy looked Japanese. He didn't say much. Last time I saw them they were just sitting on the bench, talking quietly. I'm glad they weren't here to see what happened to their flowers."

Stratton found two motels within a half mile of the small cemetery. He went first to the Holiday Inn. The young junior-college student at the registration desk was helpful. He allowed Stratton to study the check-in cards going back for seven days; there were no Oriental names registered. Stratton asked the young desk clerk if he remembered an American and a Chinese staying there. The clerk shook his head no.

"And I probably would have noticed them," the clerk said. "This is the slow time of the year. A lot of our business is lunch hour." He winked.

Across the street at the Bay Vista Court Stratton was greeted by an attractive, middle-aged woman with frosted hair and a warm smile.

"Carl Jurgens," he said, holding out his hand. "Apex Car Rentals."

"I'm Mrs. Singer," the woman said. "How can I help you?"

"Well, a few days ago we rented a car to two fellows. A red Oldsmobile, brand-new. When they picked it up at Tampa Airport, they wrote on the rental agreement that they'd be staying here at your place. I've got a copy of the rental papers in the car."

Mrs. Singer nodded. Stratton could tell that she was curious.

"Anyway," he said, "they stiffed us. Dumped the car at a Grand Union over on Dale Mabrey."

"I still don't see how I can possibly help."

"Simple, Mrs. Singer. Just tell me if they were here, and maybe let me have a look at the registration cards-to see if they left an address, or a phone number. The ones they gave our people were phony, of course. Maybe they paid you with a credit card. Now that would be great."

Mrs. Singer stood up and smoothed her dress. "How much did they get you for?"

"A hundred and ninety-four," Stratton replied. "It's not Fort Knox or anything, I know… "

Mrs. Singer smiled. "It's a lot of money. I understand, believe me. We've been burned a few times ourselves." She pulled a Rolodex wheel across the counter and .thumbed through the cards. "What were their names?"

"One was an Oriental man, a Chinese. His name is Wang. W-A-N-G. Like the computers."

Mrs. Singer nodded vigorously. "Yes, I remember him. Here." She unfastened a three-by-four card from the Rolodex. "They stayed one night. Room forty-one, no phone calls. Paid with a Mastercard. Here's a copy of the charge slip."

Stratton read the name: Harold Broom.

Broom… Broom? Then he had it: the overbearing art broker he had met at the consular office in Peking. What was it he had said: This is new territory, and I don't know whose back needs scratching. Maybe we could help each other out. Hey, pal, wanna buy some artifacts?-it was almost that blatant. Broom was a soulless cretin, the perfect confederate for the deputy minister of art and culture.

"Are these the men?" Mrs. Singer inquired.

"Yes. This is very good."

"But they weren't driving an Oldsmobile, Mr. Jurgens. They drove a white van-like a U-Haul, only white. Mr. Broom did all the driving."

A van, of course. Prosaic but practical-a modern hearse for an eternal warrior.

Mrs. Singer asked, "Do you rent vans like that?"

"No, only cars. Perhaps they got the van after they ditched our Oldsmobile.

Well, the important thing is that these are the fellows I'm looking for."

She gave Stratton a coy look. "I might be able to help. Mr. Broom asked to borrow a phone book-we don't keep them in the rooms anymore. They just get stolen. Anyway, I let him borrow the telephone book. Then he walked over to that pay phone and called Delta Airlines. He made reservations for today to New York.

La Guardia, I think."

Stratton wanted to hug her.

He drove to a Holiday Inn on the other side of St. Petersburg and checked in. It was almost dusk. He turned on every light in his room, slipped out of his shoes and sat down at a wobbly desk. From another pocket in his suit jacket, Stratton took the piece of paper that Jim McCarthy had delivered to him in Hong Kong. The list was typed under the letterhead of the Boston Globe. It said:

U.S. citizen deaths May-August 1983:

Steinway, Sarah 5-10-83 - Canton - St. Petersburg, Fl.

Mitchell, Kevin P. 6-22-83 - Xian - Baltimore, Md.

Bertecelli, John 7-4-83 - Xian - Queens, N.Y.

Friedman, Molly 8-14-83 - Peking - Fort Lauderdale, Fl.

Wang, David 8-16-83 - Peking- Fort Lauderdale, Fl.

With a blue felt-tip pen, Stratton circled the name of John Bertecelli, who had died on the Fourth of July in Xian. Bertecelli's body now lay somewhere in New York. Probably Broom and Wang Bin were already there, and maybe already at work.

Stratton thought: I ought to leave right now. There is no time to do what I had planned. Catching them will not be easy, even with the right grave.

The right grave.

Stratton contemplated his macabre odyssey. Chasing the coffins was a shell game.

Five caskets, three Chinese soldiers. Scratch off McCarthy's list the name of David Wang, whose "death" at the Heping Hotel had been staged after the theft of the warriors. That left four possible caskets.

Stratton had arrived in San Francisco with a simple strategy: geography. He could think of no other logical way to go at it. He had booked a flight to Miami where he had planned to begin the search, moving north, following his death list.

Molly Friedman had been first. A death notice published in the Fort Lauderdale News had announced that Molly was at rest at the Temple of David Mausoleum in Hallandale. A brief memorial service had been held four days after her sudden death in Peking. Rabbi Goren had kindly presided.

Stratton had found his way from the newspaper offices to the Temple of David.

Bearing a small parcel of flowers from a Moonie working the stoplights on Federal Highway, he had been greeted at the door by a small balding man dressed in a dark wool suit. "Molly Friedman, please," Stratton had whispered, and the greeter had led him down a chilly hallway with high granite walls. They had entered a huge vault bathed in purplish light that filtered from stained-glass panels set high in a rectangular ceiling.

The balding man had consulted a small, leatherbound directory. Then he had taken ten steps forward and pointed high up the wall. "There," he had whispered,

"G-one-two-oh."

Stratton had squinted to see the name. Molly Friedman's remains lay seven rows up, on a granite ledge-in an urn. A Chinese urn.

"Your flowers," the greeter had whispered. "We can arrange them."

"That will be just fine," Stratton had said. Two hours later he had been on a plane to St. Petersburg.

And now the trail was red hot. Stratton rocked the chair, gripping the cheap desk by its corners. He was jittery, restive. How easily all the old hunting instincts had returned. He envisioned the icy-eyed old Chinese prowling a foreign graveyard, a remorseless night bandit. Why not go to New York tonight?

Stratton thought. The grave of John Bertecelli waited. He could end it there.

Stratton thought of the old caretaker with the lawn mower at the St. Petersburg cemetery. He thought of the stinking garbage on the graves, the bloody swastikas, the vulgar poem-all doubtlessly the work of Harold Broom, relishing his role as a teenage vandal. If Wang Bin was a man to be feared, Broom clearly was a man to be hated. And not to be taken for granted. What if the despoliation was a double-blind, a misdirection on the off chance someone was following them?