“The subject matter is worthy of the stone and the artist. Sexual union is the philosophical core of Taoism, the instant of fusion between yin and yang, when all forces are balanced and the sum total of harmony in the universe increases. To a Taoist, what we in the West think of as a merely physical joining of man and woman is profoundly metaphysical, an act which affects the balance of creation itself.”
Gently Lianne set the jade on the table’s scarred metal surface.
April looked from the jade to Lianne’s face. The respect and love Lianne had for the sculpture and the tradition it represented was easy to read in her expression, in the way her fingertips traced and her palm cupped smooth stone. But there was no greed in her gestures, no hunger to possess, no bitterness that such a fine jade belonged to a man too old and blind to appreciate it.
Frowning, April glanced at Kyle. He was watching her with those odd, penetrating eyes. The look on his face said, See? I told you. Lianne Blakely isn’t a thief.
For a time the only sound was that of Lianne unwrapping jades and making occasional comments.
“Excellent stone.” “Superior artistry.” “Look at this one carefully, Kyle. See how the veins of red coloring in the stone heighten instead of distract from the subject? A difficult thing to do with such pronounced color contrast.” “Very fine polish.” “Remarkable fluidity.” “Ah, I haven’t seen this one before. Exquisitely carved. Look at his expression, submission and ecstasy in one. Obviously she is a master of his jade flute.”
Kyle knew it was juvenile of him—this was art, after all—but he couldn’t help getting hard at the thought of having Lianne between his knees like that, his body corded and his head thrown back in blind, shattering climax.
“Yeah,” he said. “Hell of a song she’s playing.”
April gave him a sideways look. “Getting to you, big boy?”
Lianne looked up from the sculpture. The smile she gave Kyle doubled his heart rate. “I’d worry about you if you didn’t react. The purpose of these sculptures is to remind people that there are many roads to the metaphysical, and one of those roads is sublimely physical.”
“Consider me reminded,” he said. “How about you?”
“When you’re around, I don’t need reminders.”
He turned to April. “Don’t you want to get some coffee or something?”
“Tie a knot in it, Romeo.” April glanced at her watch. “All right, let’s say for the sake of argument that Lianne was sent off to make a swap with Han Seng, decided that she didn’t like the smell of the deal, and left without unpacking the cartons.”
“It would explain why she was arrested heading back into Canada with the Tang jades that were listed as missing,” Kyle said, not for the first time.
“It wouldn’t explain all of the missing jades. I’ve got a fax two pages long on my desk, and it’s still growing. These are only part of what’s on the list.”
“Show me the fax,” Lianne said instantly.
April ignored her. “Like I said, suppose we agree that Lianne was set up for the arrest and there’s not enough evidence to hold her. What’s in it for us?”
“A chance to make China happy and Farmer look like a fool,” Kyle said.
In a heartbeat April went from casual to full alert. “The jade burial suit?”
Kyle nodded. “Interested?”
“Yes.”
“Lianne has to be able to move freely. Drop the charges.”
“You think Farmer has smuggled the damned shroud out of the States?” April asked quickly. “We know he took it to his island, but we didn’t think he managed to get it over the border. Shit. That’s all we need, piling the Canadian bureaucracy on top of everything else. What a Charlie Fox-trot.”
Kyle didn’t translate “Charlie Fox-trot” for Lianne. He was too busy switching over to plan B, the one where the jade suit wasn’t in Seattle. It wasn’t his preferred plan. But then, nobody had asked him to approve.
“Shit,” April said again, with emphasis. She looked at Lianne, who had gone back to unwrapping jades. Then she glared at Kyle. “If you were anybody else’s brother, I’d kick your tight butt out the door right now.”
“I’ll tell Archer you care.”
April ignored him. She was sorting through possibilities with the speed of the well-trained, intelligent agent she was. It didn’t take long to get to the bottom line.
None of the possibilities particularly appealed to her, and only one of them might lead to a fast solution. Speed was critical. The longer the standoff between Farmer and China went on, the greater the chance that China would unzip decades of zigzag economic progress in a rush to preserve national pride.
China’s leaders wouldn’t suffer in an economic downturn. They would still have their Western toys and Eastern aesthetics. Dick Farmer wouldn’t suffer. There were other world markets to make another billion bucks in. The people who suffered would be the hundreds of millions of Chinese who would survive more gracefully in the twenty-first century, with all its drawbacks, than in the modern Bronze Age of rural China, where life was so brutally hard it stunted children in the womb.
With a mixture of bitterness and acceptance, April watched the last of the jades being unwrapped…the cream of a culture’s artistic aspirations worked in stone that was as hard as a despot’s heart. Even as she wondered how many millions had lived and died in poverty to support such an expensive, labor-intensive art, the pragmatic part of her knew it didn’t matter. That was the past. The present was a jade artifact so important to China that her leaders were willing to kick off a trade war and self-destruct their own economy over it.
“What’s your plan?” April asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Kyle said.
She stared at him without expression, but she was thinking of Archer Donovan. He had a legendary ability to drag the hottest chestnuts out of the fire and not burn down anybody’s house in the process. “Slick, you better be as good as you think you are.”
“I hear you.”
“What do you need from us?” April said after another tense pause.
While Lianne listened to exactly what Kyle wanted from Uncle, she unwrapped the last jade. Very quickly, Bride Dreaming lay in her hands, as elemental and ethereal as her memories.
“Three rebreathers?” April asked. “You want the Navy SEALs to go with them? They’d love the exercise.”
“If I need them, you’ll be the first to know.”
“What’s a rebreather?” Lianne asked Kyle.
“Scuba gear that doesn’t leave a trail of bubbles.”
“Is one of those rebreathers for me?”
“No.”
“Make it four,” Lianne told April.
“Four it is.”
Kyle started to argue, then shrugged. It wouldn’t hurt to have an extra unit on hand in case something was defective in the first three. But if Lianne thought she was coming along, she was dead wrong.
“Anything else?” April asked.
“Get Farmer to agree to an expert appraisal of his burial shroud,” Lianne said.
“He already has.”
“Damn it. I’d like to have been there.”
“It hasn’t happened yet. China is sending its own expert.” April gave Lianne her full attention. “Do you really think Farmer’s shroud is fake?”
“I really think I’d like a close look at it,” Lianne said smoothly. “But wouldn’t it be nice if it was fake?”
“Only if China’s expert agreed,” April said. “If we had that, we wouldn’t need to screw around with you two.”
“Who is Uncle’s expert?” Kyle asked.
“Me,” April said, still looking at Lianne.
Somehow Kyle wasn’t surprised.
“We’re going to Farmer’s private island the day before the museum opens,” April added.
“Day after tomorrow?” Kyle asked.
“Yes. I’ll arrange for Lianne to come with me on the appraisal,” April said, turni
ng to him. “I’m good, but she’s better. That’s assuming she’s still out of jail. Big assumption.” April turned back to Lianne. “Kyle got you close to the suit before the guards tossed you out. Was it real?”
“If you stay out of our face until the appraisal,” Kyle said before Lianne could answer, “the shroud won’t be a problem.”
“What are you going to do?” April demanded again.
“You still don’t want to know.”
April put her fists on her hips. “If you get caught, we don’t know you from skid marks on underwear.”
Kyle nodded. “When will I get the equipment?”
“It will be delivered to your condo by eighteen hundred.”
“Six P.M.,” he translated before Lianne could ask. “What about her passport?”
“I’ll get it,” April said.
“Take her off the immigration shit list, too. Just in case.”
“I’ll try, but…” April shrugged and headed out of the room. “This is a bureaucracy, Donovan. Better that her name never gets punched into a border computer in the first place.”
As soon as the door closed behind April, Lianne said, “I don’t need a passport to—”
The words ended in a muffled sound when Kyle kissed her firmly, shutting her up. After he lifted his mouth, all he said was, “Are you through here?”
Lianne looked down at the sculpture she still held. As eager as she was to see the last of the building where she had been handcuffed and locked in a room, she still was reluctant to part with Bride Dreaming.
Kyle took the sculpture from Lianne’s hands. As he set it on the table, he looked at the jade for the first time. He whistled in a sliding, musical tribute to the artist’s skill. The entire piece had been designed to take advantage of the remarkable chatoyance of the jade that lay between the woman’s thighs, the physical door to a metaphysical experience.
“Is this the one you called Bride Dreaming?” Kyle asked without taking his eyes off the shimmering, gleaming jade.
“Yes.”
“I see what you meant. This is much superior to the version Han Seng owned.” As Kyle lifted his hands, he skimmed the ball of his thumb over the focus of the sculpture. “Extraordinary. But…”
“What?”
“Yours is prettier.”
Chapter 24
Two hours after the meeting with April, Lianne felt like a lion tamer without a whip or a chair. Everywhere she looked there were large, healthy, potentially dangerous animals sprawled on the floor of the Donovan condominium. The mass of muscle and bone made her feel beyond petite. She felt miniature.
“How does Susa stand it?” Lianne muttered. “All these big, overwhelming, overbearing males.”
The males in question ignored her. They were debating various approaches to Farmer Island.
Faith looked up from a jewelry auction catalog and smiled. “You should see it when Dad, Justin, and Lawe are here.”
“Frightening.”
“Only if they’re not on your side.” Faith’s mouth drew down in a frown. Her family’s restrained dislike of her fiancé gnawed at her. Even Honor, who normally could be counted on for support, had to make an effort to look happy when Tony showed up.
As though Honor understood exactly what her twin was thinking, she asked Faith about Tony.
“Still in Tahiti,” Faith said. “He’s doing PR—oops, image consulting—for one of the new pearl houses. When he called this morning, he said it might be another week before he could come home.”
“Bet you wish you had gone with him,” Honor said.
Faith’s smile was strained. She had wanted to go, but she hadn’t been invited. Tony was furious that she wouldn’t approach Donovan International about switching its business to her future father-in-law’s advertising firm. “Not much point in going,” she said. “He’ll be working sixteen-hour days.”
That left the nights, but no one in the room mentioned it.
“Kyle,” Lianne said, “what if—”
“No,” he interrupted without looking up. “You’re not going.”
“Describe Farmer’s jade shroud,” she said.
“Green.”
“What will you do if he’s switched bad for good to fool China’s expert?” she challenged. “We’ll be back where we started as soon as the museum opens. Or what if I was wrong? What if the suit isn’t Wen’s? Then there would be a whole different can of worms to untangle and I’d be back in jail. You’ve never seen Wen’s suit. I have.”
One by one, three male heads came up. Lianne had their undivided attention. It wasn’t comforting.
“You need me,” she said.
“No,” Kyle said flatly.
Archer and Jake looked at each other.
“Why shouldn’t she go?” Honor asked Kyle with wide-eyed interest. “You and Jake have spent the last two hours telling me how safe this little jaunt will be. ‘Just a walk in the park,’ was what you said, Jake. Right?”
Jake grunted.
Archer rolled onto his side and faced Kyle, “She has a point.”
“The hell she does,” he said without looking away from Lianne. “Do you know how to dive?”
“No, but—”
“Exactly,” Kyle cut in. “You’re staying here.”
“—the jade shroud isn’t on the bottom of the ocean, either,” Lianne said, talking over him.
“We can take the inflatable boat and run it up on the shore here,” Archer said, pointing on the map to the east side of Farmer Island. “With the Zodiac, she won’t even have to get her feet wet. By the time we go ashore, the guards will be tired of watching little lights go off on their consoles.”
“No,” Kyle snarled.
“Why?” Archer asked mildly.
“For God’s sake, she’s a—”
“GIRL,” Lianne, Faith, and Honor chorused. Then they smiled at one another, pleased by their timing.
Kyle looked hunted. “If it was Honor,” he said to Jake, “would you let her go?”
Amused, Jake smiled at his wife. “Would I let you go, honey?”
“I wouldn’t ask,” Honor retorted. “I’d just go like I did the last time you wanted me to stay ashore.”
“That answer your question?” Jake asked Kyle.
“Shit.”
“You were there when that thug jumped her,” Jake pointed out. “Did she panic?”
“No. But she was damn near killed anyway!”
Archer sat up and watched Lianne with steady, silver-green eyes. “Running the Zodiac up on shore increases our risk,” he said to her. “If necessary, could you suit up and swim for a hundred yards in dark water?”
“Yes.”
He watched her for a few moments longer, nodded, and returned his attention to the map. “Four will fit in the Zodiac without a problem.”
“Archer,” Kyle said tightly, “don’t do this to me.”
“Think with your brain, not your dick,” Archer said in a calm voice. “We need someone who can make a fast, expert appraisal of jade using only a trained eye, a flashlight, and nerve. You’ve got the nerve, I’ll hold the flashlight, but we still won’t be sure of the goods. We can’t afford to fuck this one up. Uncle isn’t in a forgiving mood.”
“Which brings up another point,” Kyle said. “Can we trust Uncle to stay out of this?”
“Once we get the jade suit off the island,” Archer said, “it’s open season. Uncle wants that suit. If some eager government boys steal it from us, who do we complain to?”
“That’s what I thought.” Kyle closed his eyes, thought of a few truly awful oaths, and asked, “Who do we have on the payroll that can fly small planes and keep his mouth shut?”
“Walker,” Archer said instantly.
“Where is he?”
“Seattle. Just back from Australia. He was flying geologists around the outback for Donovan International.”
“Okay, he can handle a plane,” Kyle said. “What about the rest of it?”
“Are you talking about Owen Walker?” Jake asked.
Archer nodded.
“No worries,” Jake said, turning back to the chart. “Walker used to bodyguard VIPs for Uncle. If it goes from sugar to shit, he’ll know what to do.”
“Aren’t you going to ask what I want the plane for?” Kyle said to Archer.
“I’m more worried about getting a wet suit small enough for Lianne. Does that dive shop down on Fifth Street outfit kiddies?”
Lianne made an outraged sound and dove for Archer’s back, but he had already rolled aside. Kyle caught her and tucked her along his side on the rug. “You’ll get used to him, sweetheart. We have.” He wrote quickly on a piece of paper before he looked up at Honor. “Okay, sis. It was your bright idea. You have three hours to shop for Lianne. Here’s the list.”
Faith, Honor, and Lianne walked into the condo, their arms overflowing with sacks.
“Took you long enough,” Kyle said. “I was about to send out a search party.”
“Listen, buttercup,” Honor said sweetly. “You try getting a full set of acrylic nails and buying a wet suit, a Dolly Parton wig, size five shoes with five-inch heels, and sexy clothes in the kiddie department of Nordstrom, and see how fast you get home.”
“It wasn’t the kiddie department,” Lianne said loudly. “Petite. Repeat after me. Petite.”
Faith winked at Lianne. “Honor’s just jealous. Next to you and Susa, we feel like telephone poles.”
Lianne looked at the tall, unmistakably female twins and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.”
Archer came into the entryway wearing tan slacks and a black, silk-weave jacket. He looked casual and very, very expensive. “Twenty minutes.”
As one, the women turned and rushed down the hall to Faith’s suite.
“No perfume,” Kyle called after them. “If I could recognize Lianne in the dark by her scent, someone else could.”
“Sniffing around in the dark,” Faith muttered. “Men are so primitive.”
“Yeah,” Honor said. “Isn’t it grand?”
Nineteen minutes later, Lianne emerged from Faith’s suite. The click of her high heels on marble was the only sound in the condominium.
Jade Island Page 31
