Pitt barbecued an elk steak for an early dinner, mixed a salad and ate at a table on the porch overlooking the lake. He leisurely sipped an Olympia beer before setting the bottle on the table and stepping into the kitchen, where he extended the tripod legs on a brass telescope. He set it in the middle of the kitchen away from the window to make it difficult for anyone from the outside to observe his activity in the shadows. He crouched over the eyepiece and focused on Qin Shang's retreat. The high-powered magnification made it possible for Pitt to observe two players on the golf course behind the house. Duffers, he deduced. They took four putts apiece to send their balls into the cup. His circular field of vision strayed to the guesthouses nestled under a grove of trees growing behind the main house. Except for a maid making the rounds, they looked unoccupied. There was no neatly manicured lawn in the open spaces. The grounds were left natural with meadow grass and wildflowers.

A huge porte cochere extended from the building over the driveway so VIP guests could get in and out of automobiles without getting wet in bad weather. The main entry was guarded by two great bronze reclining lions on each side of a stairway that led to rosewood doors standing the height of three men. He refocused the telescope and discerned the beautifully carved dragon motif on the panels. The expansive golden-tiled, pagoda-styled roof seemed utterly incongruous with the walls of copper-tinted solar glass that wrapped the entire lower structure. The three-story house itself was set in a spacious clearing a stone's throw from the shoreline.

He lowered the telescope a fraction and studied the dock that extended half the length of a football field into the waters of the lake. Two boats were tied alongside. Nothing fancy about the smaller one. The stubby twin catamaran hulls held a large, boxlike cabin with no portholes or windows. A wheel-house was perched on the roof, and the entire vessel was painted as black as a hearse, not a color often seen on the upperworks of a boat. The second could have qualified as a ship. She was a looker, an elegant motor yacht with a sky-lounge on a hull over 120 feet in length, the kind that stopped people hi their tracks. Pitt estimated her beam at nearly thirty feet. Designed for luxurious comfort, her classic lines enhanced

her from a mere yacht to a floating masterwork. Probably built either in Singapore or Hong Kong, Pitt guessed. Even with a shallow draft, it would take a good pilot to navigate her through the river running from the lake to open water.

As he watched, diesel smoke trailed from the stack of the work boat. In a few moments its crew cast off the mooring lines, and it began moving across the lake toward the river outlet. A very strange craft, Pitt thought. It looked like a wooden shipping crate on two pontoons. He could not begin to imagine what its builder had in mind.