The second article in the newspaper read, it was announced in Beijing today by the Chinese government that Yin Tsang had died. The untimely death of China's minister of internal affairs, who succumbed to a heart attack while on a flight to Beijing, was sudden and unexpected. Though he had no known history of heart problems, all efforts to revive him failed, and he was pronounced dead upon arrival at the Beijing Airport. Deputy Minister Lei Chau is expected to succeed Yin Tsang.
A great pity, Qin Shang thought wickedly. My special blend of tea must not have agreed with Yin Tsang's stomach. He made a mental note to tell his secretary to send his condolences to President Lin Loyang and set up a meeting with Lei Chau, who had been nurtured with the necessary bribes and was known to be not nearly as avaricious as his predecessor.
Putting aside the newspapers, Qin Shang took a final sip of his coffee. He drank tea in public, but in private he preferred Southern-style American coffee with chicory. A soft chime warned him that his private secretary was about to enter the dining room. She approached and set a leather-bound file on the table beside him.
“Here is the information you requested from your agent at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
“Wait one moment will you, Su Zhong. I'd like your opinion on something.”
Qin Shang opened the file and began studying the contents. He held up a photograph of a man standing beside an old classic car who stared back at the camera. The man was dressed casually in slacks and a golf shirt under a sport coat. A crooked, almost shy grin curled the lips on a face that was tanned and weathered. The eyes, laughter lines wrinkling from their edges, were locked on the camera lens and had a probing quality about them, almost as if they were measuring whoever peered at the photo. They were accented by dark, thick eyebrows. The photo was in black-and-white, so it was impossible to assess the exact color of the irises. Qin Shang wrongly guessed them as blue.
The black hair was dense and wavy and slightly unkempt. The shoulders were broad and tapered to a slim waist and narrow hips. The data in the file gave his body size as six feet, three inches, 185 pounds. The hands looked like the hands of a field worker, the palms large with small scars and calluses, and the fingers long. The eyes, it was stated, were green and not blue.
“You have an inner sense about men, Su Zhong. You can envision things others like me cannot see. Look at this picture. Look inside the man and tell me what you find.”
Su Zhong swept her long black hair back from her face as she leaned over Qin Shang and gazed at the photograph. “He is handsome in a rugged sort of way. I sense a magnetism about him. He has the look of an adventurer whose love is exploring the unknown, especially what lies under the sea. No rings on his fingers suggests that he is unpretentious. Women are drawn to him. They do not consider him a threat. He enjoys their company. There is an aura of kindness and tenderness about him. A man you can trust. All indications of a good lover. He is sentimental about old objects and probably collects them. His life is dedicated to achievement. Little of what he has accomplished was for personal gain. He thrives on challenges. This is a man who does not like to fail but can accept failure if he has tried his best. There is also a cold hardness in the eyes. He also has the capacity to kill. To friends he is extremely loyal. To enemies, extremely dangerous. All in all, a most unusual man who should have lived in another time.”
“What you're saying is that he is a throwback to the past.”
Su Zhong nodded. “He would have been at home on the deck of a pirate ship, fighting in the crusades or driving a stagecoach through the deserts of the old American West.”
“Thank you, my dear, for your extraordinary insight.”
“My pleasure is to serve you.” Su Zhong bowed her head and quietly left the room, closing the door behind her.
Qin Shang turned over the photograph and began reading the data in the file, noting with amusement that he and the subject were born on the same day in the same year. There, any similarity ended. The subject was the son of Senator George Pitt of California. His mother was the former Barbara Knight. He attended Newport Beach High School in California and then the Air Force Academy in Colorado. Academically, he was above average, finishing thirty-fifth in his class. Played on the football team and won several athletic trophies. After flight training, he achieved a distinguished military career during the closing days of the "Vietnam War. Rose to the rank of major before transferring from the Air Force to the National Underwater and Marine Agency. Later promoted to lieutenant colonel.
A collector of old automobiles and aircraft, he kept them stored in an old hangar at the edge of Washington's National Airport. He lived in an apartment above the collection. His accomplishments at NUMA while serving as special projects director under his boss, Admiral James Sandecker, read like an adventure novel. From heading the project to raise the Titanic to discovering the long-lost artifacts from the Alexandria Library to stopping a red tide in the oceans that would have ultimately decimated life on earth, during the past fifteen years the subject was directly responsible for operations that either saved a great many lives or were of inestimable benefit to archaeology or the environment. The list of projects he directed to successful conclusions covered nearly twenty pages.
Qin Shang's agent had also included a list of men Pitt reportedly had killed. Qin Shang was stunned by several of the names. They consisted of men who were wealthy and powerful as well as common criminals and professional murderers. Su Zhong was correct in her evaluation. This man could be an extremely dangerous enemy.
After nearly an hour, Qin Shang laid aside the documents and picked up the photograph. He stared at the figure standing beside an old car intently, wondering what drove such a man. It became clearer with each passing minute that their paths would cross.
“So, Mr. Dirk Pitt, you are the man responsible for the disaster at Orion Lake,” said Qin Shang, speaking to the photograph as though Pitt were standing in the room before him.
“Your motive for destroying my immigrant staging area and yacht is as yet a mystery to me. But I have this to say to you: You have qualities that I respect, but you have come to the end of your career. The next addendum and final postscript to your file will be your obituary.”
ORDERS CAME DOWN FROM WASHINGTON FOR SPECIAL AGENT Julia Lee to be flown immediately from Seattle to San Francisco, where she was placed in a hospital for medical treatment and observation. The nurse assigned to her audibly gasped when she removed the hospital gown so the doctor could make his examination. There was hardly a square inch of Julia's body that wasn't black-and-blue or marked by reddish bruises. The expression in the nurse's eyes also made it evident that Julia's face was still grotesque from the swelling and discoloration, reinforcing Julia's determination not to look at herself in a mirror for at least a week.
“Did you know you had three cracked ribs?” asked the doctor, a jolly, rotund man with a bald head and closely cropped gray beard.
“I guessed from the stabbing pain every time I sat down and then stood after going to the bathroom,” she said lightheartedly. “Will you have to put a cast around my chest?”
The doctor laughed. “Binding fractured ribs went out with leeches and bleeding. Now we just let them mend on their own. You'll suffer some discomfort when you make sudden movements for the next few weeks, but that will soon diminish.”
“How about the rest of the damage? Is it reparable?”
“I've already set your nose back in place, medication will soon reduce the swelling and all signs of bruising should disappear fairly quickly. I predict that by this time next month you'll be voted queen of the prom.”