'No. You're a businessman.'

Fei could feel the situation twisting around him and tried to steady it with tough words. 'Wrong, I'm a soldier. A soldier who follows orders.'

'Ah' The little white man nodded with faux understanding. 'A soldier who makes war on unarmed women?' he asked scornfully. Fei had had enough, and thumbed back the hammer on his gun.

The little gwailo moved suddenly, thrusting his fingertip into the gun's muzzle. "There. You're disarmed. What now?'

Fei blinked. He was rapidly becoming more and more convinced that this guy was a psycho.'I pull this trigger, you lose your hand.'

'Maybe. But the gun will explode from the pressure and be useless. Then where will you be? Unarmed Unarmed Defenceless Defenceless Impotent Impotent' Fei shivered. What if the guy was right? The gwailo could be wounded, but if Fei was disarmed and the little man then pulled an Uzi with his other hand hand If he was the sort of psycho he was beginning to sound like, he could be capable of just that kind of thing. If he was the sort of psycho he was beginning to sound like, he could be capable of just that kind of thing.

'Leave,' the little man growled, and Fei could feel his force of will pushing with the word. 'Leave now.' What the hell, Fei thought. The Smith woman wasn't going anywhere so he could always come back tomorrow.

A door behind the gwailo opened a crack, and Fei saw a gun muzzle in a dark hand. Maybe the guy wasn't so crazy after all, if he had muscle to back him up.

With that thought in mind, it was a lot easier to pull the gun back and turn and run.

The Doctor watched Fei and his companions run back to the lift, When he was satisfied they weren't going to come straight back he allowed himself a small smile, and moved down to the door of Sarah's suite. He opened it, without a key, and slipped in quietly.

Tom Ryder watched him from a neighbouring room. He had the door open just wide enough to see through the crack. When the Doctor went inside, Tom emerged and waited for him.

The Doctor re-emerged after a moment, looking stressed in Tom's opinion.

'Doctor whatever, I presume?' whatever, I presume?'

The Doctor looked surprised. 'You seem to have the advantage of me.'

'I've read your file. Well, one of them anyway' Tom gestured towards the lift.

'Saved me a lot of trouble.' He opened his jacket to let the Doctor see the butt of the Desert Eagle he was carrying. "Them too.'

The Doctor smiled, though Tom was sure it was falsely. "Then I'm glad to have been of help. You aren't with them, I take it?' He indicated the way the Triad thugs had gone.

'No. I'm I'm a friend of Sarah's.' He hoped so, anyway. a friend of Sarah's.' He hoped so, anyway.

'Ah, what a small world. So am I.'

'I know.' Tom looked into the suite through the still-open door. All was in darkness. 'At least I hope so, if you're going to visit sleeping women unannounced.'

'I didn't want to wake her, but I wanted to see that she's all right.' Tom could understand that. He had the same instinct himself.

'She is all right, isn't she?'

'I assume so,' the Doctor said coyly. 'But until she comes back, I couldn't really be sure.'

Tom blinked. 'She's not there?' He pushed past the Doctor, taking a quick tour through the darkened suite. The bed was empty, undisturbed since the housekeeping staff had made it. 'Where is she?' He hoped she wasn't in trouble, but his fears were eased by the fact that the Triad goons had come to her suite. If they'd got at her elsewhere, or kidnapped her, they wouldn't have bothered coming there afterwards.

'I don't know' The Doctor sounded as concerned as Tom felt. There were compensations, Tom decided. For one thing, he had the Doctor to himself, and a good chance to get a few answers from him.

Tom turned. 'I'd have thought you'd be the one with -' There was no one there. Tom sighed. Back to Plan A, he told himself.

Sarah was perched on a rented motor scooter, taking yet more pictures of the Pimms Building using infra-red film and special night lenses. This time, rather than concentrating on how impressive the place was, she was using a longer lens, focusing in on the building's doorways, hoping to catch Pendragon - the Doctor, if that's who he was - entering or leaving.

A part of her mind tried to point out that, nearing the big five-oh, she was perhaps getting a bit old for this cloak-and-dagger stuff. She should have kids at university by now, if her friends and neighbours were to be believed.

She was determined to ignore those thoughts. They were obviously just trying to lure her away from this boring photography bit. She looked back through the viewfinder, and struck gold.

The Doctor was just walking into the building. She took a few quick snaps before he disappeared. A few moments later, there was a brief display of rhythmic yellow flashes. Though Sarah was out of earshot, she could hear the TARDIS's peculiar sound in her head, and knew the police box was no longer in the stone garden.

Tse Hung woke to the sound of the shower that adjoined the bathroom. It stopped after a few moments and Bonnie emerged, glistening. It was a better sight to wake up to than any sunrise.

'You're awake,' she said, noticing his interest. 'I didn't hear you come in.'

'You were asleep,' he explained, 'and you looked so beautiful that I couldn't bring myself to disturb you.'

She nodded slowly, and smiled weakly. 'It's a shame. I spent most of the night trying to think of a way to tell you, but I guess I fell asleep before I got the chance.'

This did not bode well to Tse Hung's ears. 'Tell me what?'

'I'm leaving. You. The business. The life I've got myself into over the last couple of years.'

At first Tse Hung couldn't believe his ears. Moments flashed through his mind - meeting her for the first time, arranging for her to sing at a club, making love on Hong Kong Peak, setting up accounting books for her. The more he thought about them, the more he just remembered the sex, and the more he realised that he didn't really feel anything - either for her, or about her decision.

What he did have feelings about was the investment she represented. He had put a lot of money into buying recording sessions for her and keeping her earnings out the tax collectors' hands. His cut of her more personal fees offered to businessmen.

She was still waiting for an answer and she looked frightened, probably due to some bad response from a rejected lover in the past. 'It's all right,' he said. 'Can you afford to buy yourself out?'

She hesitated, but started to nod. She was probably trying to protect someone, he decided. She had met someone who cared enough for her to put up the money. "There's someone else? Someone who Someone who'

'Someone who loves me.' She sat down. 'I don't have a problem with you or us, but neither of us loves the other, do we?'

Tse Hung shook his head. 'Tell him to bring fifteen thousand dollars to me at the Club Shanghai tonight. Then you're free, and I wish both of you well in your life together.'

"That's it?' she asked, disbelievingly. 'That's all you've got to say?'

'What else should I say? Neither of us loved the other. It's been fun at times, but in the end, it's just business.'

Business inspires the same feelings in businessmen, whether they deal in stocks and shares, hookers and drugs or pirated software and hot cars. It was simple - get the job done, get the money and don't get caught.

The very words Tse Hung lived by. The very reason he wasn't bothered by Bonnie leaving. He wasn't bothered at all. In fact, he'd spent the whole drive to the Pimms Building revelling in how not bothered he was, and how it meant nothing to him that she was ditching their cosy arrangement for some guy with a clean rapsheet.

Fei and three other 49s were waiting for him in his office when he arrived.

They didn't look happy or comfortable, and that set alarm bells ringing in Tse Hung's head. 'Well? Did you enjoy yourselves?' Tse Hung asked.

The 49s hesitated, looking at each other more as though they were nervous sheep than thugs who've just demonstrated their false courage with a forced gangbang. 'They were expecting us.'

"They?'Who?'

'Two men. A black guy with a gun, and this little white guy with an umbrella.'

Tse Hung turned slowly, his drinking hand trembling. "This gwailo with the umbrella umbrella what did he look like?' what did he look like?'

'A white suit. Silly hat. He had an accent - Scottish or Irish, maybe.' A Scots accent. Tse Hung knew there must be more than one such person in Hong Kong at any given moment, but how many were small, carried an umbrella and knew these fools were going to abduct the girl? He could only think of one.

He took a photo from his desk drawer, and put it face up so they could see it. 'Is this the man?' They nodded enthusiastically, averring that it was.

'All right. Get out.' They complied, undoubtedly glad to be leaving alive. Tse Hung lifted the photo of Pendragon, and crushed it slowly.

There was blood, and there was fire. No matter how far or fast he ran. Yue Hwa couldn't get away from the heat and the screaming. Screaming and the ringing of a telephone.

Yue Hwa woke up with an indrawn gasp, shaking like a leaf. When his heartbeat had settled, he lowered himself back on the sweat-soaked bed.

Tradition had it that dreams were messages, while modern science said they were the mind's way of sorting through memories of both real events and fictions viewed or read. Yue Hwa didn't remember much of his dreams, just enough to know that he fervently hoped that, if they were memories, they were memories of fictions. If he had done any of the things his dreams suggested, he would surely have remembered, for they would haunt his every waking moment as well as his sleeping ones.

Or so he hoped. He had heard that the mind could repress memories and bury them so deeply that only the subconscious could recover them. And he had been involved in some less-than-pleasant duties during his life.

Perhaps the dreams were messages that he didn't know himself as well as he might?

He shivered, despite the humidity. It was just as well there was no one he could ask about all this; he didn't think he'd want to know the answers anyway.

The phone was still ringing, and he picked it up once his hand had stopped shaking. 'Who is it?'

'It's Tse Hung. Meet me at the Shanghai Club. It's important.'

'What's this about?' It was unusual for Tse Hung to use a land-line, which could be more easily tapped. It must be very important indeed.

'I can't tell you. Meet me in half an hour'

The Shanghai Club wasn't open this early, of course, but such rules didn't apply to people like Tse Hung and Yue Hwa. Not if the club's owners wanted to keep it unburnt.

Yue Hwa was cautious as he entered the bar. He knew about Borisovich's death and wondered if Tse Hung had planned the same thing for him. He couldn't think what might have made Tse Hung make such a decision, but then, victims often didn't.

A few staff were mopping the floor and polishing the furnishings. Only Tse Hung was seated at the bar, with two drinks already set up. Yue Hwa perched on a stool beside him. 'What's this about?'

'You know the Englishwoman we wanted to warn off?'

'Yes.'

'My men were intercepted before they could teach her that lesson. Two men were there - a black man with a gun, and and' Tse Hung paused to break a popper into his glass and drain it. ' Pendragon Pendragon.'

'Pendragon?' Yue Hwa's face was a mask of disbelief. 'How 'How? Why?' That would answer a great many things.

'I don't know, but the men I sent to deal with the Englishwoman identified him from a photo as the man who stopped them. He's going behind my back over this box thing, and now he's covertly interfering in my execution of his own orders. Why would he do that? I can only think of one reason - he doesn't trust me. He wants rid of me, and he's putting my replacements in place.'

'I can't believe that.'

'You better damn believe it; we came up together. If he's got it in for me, then he'll also have it in for you. We're of equal rank. If he gets rid of one of us, he must get rid of both. That's why I can trust you enough to talk about this. We're in it together.'

'Maybe he just changed his mind about the girl?'

Tse Hung scowled. "Then he's weak as well.'

Yue Hwa took a few moments to sip his drink. 'What are you suggesting?

That we go up against him? Turn him in? Chop him?'

'I haven't decided yet. But we've got to do something.' He looked Yue Hwa in the eye.' And soon.'

Chapter Eleven.

Seeking Here. Seeking There There

There was a slight fizzing sound from somewhere high above and a bird fell, stunned, into the undergrowth.

Major Russell Barry looked closer, and saw that although the lower and middle branches of the trees were waving gently in the breeze, the very top branches were splayed out and still. They looked as if they were either pressed against something or trapped in glass.

Barry hated the jungle; it shows in all the files and reports about this particular mission. He hated most countryside. It was one thing to engage in urban warfare, where you only had to worry about the enemy, but quite another to have to watch out for wild animals and snakes or whatever as well. As far as he was concerned, the outdoors was for camping and fishing, not for warfare.

Maybe he just felt out of sorts because he knew so little about the area he was leading his team into. The trees were thinning out, the ground was beginning to slope into a wide depression. He still couldn't see what was more than a couple of hundred yards ahead, and raised a hand to halt the group's march. They were quite close to where the bird had fallen.

Tranh scooped up a stone and threw it on ahead. Its flight was curtailed abruptly and it fell to the ground. He looked nervous. Barry clapped a hand on his shoulder, half-expecting the guide to start complaining about magic or sorcery. 'All right, this is as far as we go for now.'

Captain Clark signalled to the others to rest. 'Palmer, get your gear set up.'

The group obeyed and Palmer brought out a laptop and a small receiving dish. 'What was that with the stone?' Clark asked.

'Magic?' Tranh asked.

'Some kind of force field,' Barry corrected him.

'You've heard of Clarke's Law?' Tranh asked. 'I can call it magic if I want to.' Barry didn't trust himself to reply.

Instead, he pointed to the depression ahead, a natural bowl. 'That's our objective,' he said. He didn't sound too enamoured of it. 'We've got a few aerial and satellite photos, but&'

The group gathered round, looking at the reconnaissance photos he was spreading out. All of them - even the images from satellites that should be able to read a newspaper from orbit -showed a blurred circular area about five miles across. There was no way to tell what should be there.

Barry liked a challenge all right, but this one just made him too nervous. No clear satellite photos, no intelligence reports from inside the target area, no way to overfly it no way to overfly it It was stupid to try and mount an operation with no information about either the opposition or the location, but what else could he do? It was stupid to try and mount an operation with no information about either the opposition or the location, but what else could he do?

All things considered, he would most definitely rather be fishing in the creek near his home. 'As you can see, we've no idea what's in there.'