Yet Broom did not need him. Not anymore. The soldiers had arrived. The buyers were in place.

Coldly, Wang Bin began to see himself as excess baggage.

"What of the money?" he asked again.

"We've been through this."

"Once more, please."

"All the accounts are in the name Henry Lee. That's both of us. We're both Mr.

Lee. Both signatures are good at all the banks. As of today we got money in Texas and Florida. Lots."

"You said the spearman is for a Washington museum."

"The curator of an important museum. An expert," Broom muttered. "He would only agree to three hundred thousand, C.O.D. No money down."

That extinguished Wang Bin's faint hope that Harold Broom might be an honorable man. Broom was a liar. Wang Bin knew there had been a substantial down payment on the Chinese spear carrier. He had found the deposit slip in Broom's wallet, three hundred thousand dollars at the Riggs National Bank in Washington. The date on the deposit matched the date Broom had met the curator.

Wang Bin sighed. If only David had been cooperative, there would have been no need for an alliance with Harold Broom. If only David had agreed.

Now he was dead, and Broom was on his way to being a millionaire.

"Three hundred thousand for the spear carrier is an insult," Wang Bin declared.

"I agree, Pop. But the buyer has me over a real barrel. He heard about the other soldiers-don't ask me how-and accused me of cheating him. See, I'd promised him an exclusive. I had to. Anyway, when he heard about the other two soldiers he almost threw me out of the museum. I had to do some fast talking to jack him back up to three hundred, believe me."

"Find another buyer."

"It's too late."

"Why?"

"Because we're hot now," Broom said urgently. "The papers will have fun with our noisy escapade last night at St. Francis'. And if that little spade you plugged decides to talk, we could be in trouble." Broom jerked his thumb toward the trunk of the car. "I'm going to unload Charlie Chan on a train to Texas this afternoon. After that, just one more. Then we split the money and disappear, the sooner the better. By the way, where did you get that gun?"

"I purchased it last night, while you were sleeping off the liquor."

"Where?"

"In a place where people speak in my language."

Broom grinned, a yellow half-moon. "Chinatown! You old son of a bitch."

Wang Bin turned away.

"Eat your french fries, Pop. I've got a couple important calls to make, then we'll be on our way. Can't keep the customers waiting."

Broom sauntered down the street to a corner telephone booth. Wang Bin collected the lunch debris and placed it in a trash can outside the Burger King. He stretched his legs and breathed deeply of the summer day. He felt the butt of the pistol dig into his midriff, and he adjusted the gun a fraction in his waistband. From the highway overpass came the now familiar din of speeding traffic. Wang Bin thought how pleasant it would be to find a place untouched by the big road and all its relentless noise. A city of bicycles had certain advantages.

Harold Broom returned to the car with a pinched look on his face. He refolded the spiral notepad in which he had scribbled the vital phone numbers and slipped it into his pocket.

"I've got bad news, Pop," he grumbled. "Real bad news."

For nine hours Tom Stratton kept his place in the amphitheater. In throngs the tourists came and went, cameras dangling, children bounding up and down the marble steps. Twice an hour one audience replaced another, yet Stratton held his place, watching the lean young men in their dark blue uniforms. He glanced now and then down the gentle hill where Kevin Mitchell was supposed to be buried.

Eighteen times Stratton watched the guards change at the Tomb of the Unknowns.

The cameras clicked most often when the guards faced each other and presented arms. There were three or four different Marines, working in shifts. Despite the heat and humidity, each man looked crisp and fresh as he strode to the marble crypt. For Stratton, the drill was his clock. From the amphitheater he had a clear view of grave 445-H, third row, fourth from the end, a small white cross in a sea of crosses, geometrically perfect.

Perfect, Stratton mused. Perfect was always the way the military wanted its men, but in war that was impossible. In death it was easy; dead soldiers can march precisely as desired.

Stratton thought of Bobby Ho, and wondered morbidly what had become of his friend's body after the massacre at Man-ling. Had the Chinese buried it? Burned it? Displayed it as a trophy? Perhaps they had fed Bobby's flesh to the starving dogs and cats of the village.

Arlington was for heroes.

Bobby ought to have a place here, Stratton thought. If not his body, at least his name. Wouldn't take much space, and God knows he was more of a hero than most of the men planted in the sea of crosses that rolled toward the Potomac.

The last tram of the day sounded its horn, and the tourists thundered from the amphitheater. Stratton rose from his spot, as if to follow, but instead took a different path downhill, and melted into the trees to wait for nightfall. He sat down at the base of an old oak and took out a pair of small Nikon field glasses.

From his new vantage, Stratton could read the name on the cross:

Lt. Kevin P. Mitchell, USAF B.11-22-29 D. 6-22-83 A fighter pilot, World War II and Korea. Medal of Honor. After the wars Mitchell had joined Boeing as a test pilot and later became a captain with Pan Am. He'd died on a vacation to China-a heart attack, the U.S. Embassy had reported, while riding a bus to the Qin tombs at Xian. Death by duck.

Baltimore was where the family had wanted the coffin sent-a family plot, Stratton had learned, where one of Mitchell's brothers was buried.

Arlington had been an afterthought, Mrs. Mitchell's idea. A real honor, the family agreed. The Medal of Honor ought to count for something.

But Baltimore was where the embassy had sent the coffin, and Baltimore was where Broom and Wang Bin would go first, Stratton reasoned. He would wait for them at Arlington-days, weeks, whatever it took. How they could dream of ever trying it here…

Someone was walking among the graves.

Stratton panned with the binoculars along the crosses until he froze on the figure of a woman, dressed in black. Dusk was cheating him of the finer details.

She was tall and wore a veil. Chestnut hair spilled down her back. She walked slowly, elegantly, stopping every few steps to study the names on the crosses.

She was young, Stratton decided, younger than the soldiers who lay buried in Section H. Too young to be a widow.

The woman in black stopped walking when she came to grave 445. She stopped to read the inscription. Then she reached out and touched the cross with her right hand. It began as a light and sentimental gesture, and from a distance would seem nothing more than a sad moment. But through the field glasses Stratton could see that the woman was not merely touching Kevin Mitchell's cross, but testing it, pushing on it with discernible force. Then she stood up straight and with a quickened pace made her way out of the rows of graves to a footpath.

There was something familiar…

Stratton followed at a distance. He was careful to stay in the grass so his steps would not echo. Arlington was nearly empty now. The trams had stopped running and the tourists had gone back to the city. The woman in black walked alone, no longer in the gait of a mourner. Her heels clicked sharply on the pavement, and the sound dominoed along the tombstones.

"Hey there!" Stratton called.

Self-consciously she slowed, then turned as Stratton ran up. She looked at him and smiled. "So there you are!"