two cars in sight. The gate was closed; a guard walked out of a small glass-enclosed office towards the Daimler, a clipboard in his hand.
'You won't find my name on a list,' said Pak-fei in Chinese and with singular authority as the guard approached. 'Inform Mr Wu Song that Regent Number Five is here and brings him a taipan as worthy as himself. He expects us.' The guard nodded, squinting in the afternoon sunlight to catch a glimpse of the important passenger. 'Aiya!' screamed Pak-fei at the man's impertinence. Then he turned and looked at Webb. 'You must not misunderstand, sir,' he said as the guard ran back to his telephone. 'My use of the name of my fine hotel has nothing to do with my fine hotel. In truth, if Mr Liang, or anyone else, knew I mentioned its name in such business as this, I would be relieved of my job. It is merely that I was born on the fifth day of the fifth month in the year of our Christian Lord, 1935. ' 'I'll never tell,' said David, smiling to himself, thinking that Jason Bourne had not deserted him after all. The myth that he once had been knew the avenues that led to the right contacts - knew them blindly - and that man was there inside David Webb.
The curtained whitewashed room of the warehouse, lined with locked, horizontal display cases, was not unlike a museum displaying such artifacts from past civilizations as
primitive tools, fossilized insects, mystic carvings of religions past. The difference here was in the objects. These were exploding weapons that ran the gamut, from the lowest-calibre handguns and rifles to the most sophisticated weapons of modern warfare - thousand-round automatic machine guns with spiralling clips on near-weightless frames to laser-guided rockets to be fired from the shoulder, an arsenal for terrorists. Two men in business suits stood guard, one outside the entrance to the room, the other inside. As was to be expected, the former bowed his apology and moved an electronic scanner up and down the clothes of Webb and his driver. Then the man reached for the attach6 case. David pulled it away, shaking his head and gesturing at the wandlike scanner. The guard had waved it over the surface of the case, checking his dials as he did so.
'Private papers,' Webb said in Chinese to the startled guard as he walked into the room.
It took David nearly a full minute to absorb what he saw, to shake off his disbelief. He looked at the bold, emblazoned No Smoking signs in English, French and Chinese that were all over the walls and wondered why they were there. Nothing was exposed. He walked over to the small arms display and examined the wares. He clutched the attache case in his hand as though it were a lifeline to sanity in a world gone mad with instruments of violence.
'Huanying!' cried a voice, followed by the appearance of a youngish looking man. He came out of a panelled door in one of those tightfitting European suits that exaggerate the shoulders and hug the waist, the rear panels of the jacket flowing like a peacock's tail - the product of designers determined to be chic at the price of neutering the male image.
'This is Mr Wu Song, sir,' said Pak-fei, bowing first to the merchant and then to Webb. 'It is not necessary for you to give your name, sir, '
'Bu!' spat out the young merchant, pointing at David's attache case. 'Bu jing ya!'
'Your client, Mr Song, speaks fluent Chinese.' The driver turned to David. 'As you heard, sir, Mr Song objects to the
presence of your briefcase. '
'It doesn't leave my hand,' said Webb.
'Then there can be no serious discussion of business,' rejoined Wu Song in flawless English.
'Why not? Your man checked it. There are no weapons inside, and even if there were and I tried to open it, I have an idea I'd be on the floor before the lid was up. '
'Plastic?' said Wu Song, asking a question. 'Plastic microphones leading to recording devices where the metal content is so low as to be dismissed even by sophisticated machinery?'
'You're paranoid. '
'As they say in your country, it goes with the territory. '
'Your idiom's as good as your English. '
'Columbia University, seventy-three. '
'Did you major in armaments?'
'No, marketing. '
'Aiya!' shrieked Pak-fei, but he was too late. The rapid colloquy had covered the movement of the guards; they had walked across the room, at