SAT AT A DESK ON A STAGE IN THE middle of a huge office and studied reports gathered by an international army of researchers hired by Qin Shang. The Princess Dou Wan project took up half of one floor in the Qin Shang Maritime office building in Hong Kong. No expense was spared. And yet, despite the massive effort, nothing of substance had been found. To Zhu Kwan, the loss of the ship remained a mystery.

Zhu Kwan and his team scouted every maritime source for leads while Qin Shang's survey-and-salvage ship kept up its search of the waters off the coast of Chile for the elusive passenger liner. Built in his Hong Kong shipyard, the vessel was a marvel of undersea technology and the envy of every maritime nation's oceanographic science and research institutions. Named the Jade Adventurer rather than a Chinese name to make documentation simpler when operating in foreign waters, the ship and its crew had previously discovered the wreck of a sixteenth-century junk in the China Sea and salvaged its cargo of Ming-dynasty porcelain.

Zhu Kwan examined a description of works of art from a private collection of Chinese art owned by a wealthy merchant

in Peking that had disappeared in 1948. The merchant had been murdered, and Zhu Kwan had tracked down his heirs in what turned out to be a successful hunt for an inventory of the lost art. He was studying a drawing of a rare wine vessel when his assistant's voice came over the speakerphone.

"Sir, you have a call from the United States. A Mr. St. Julien Perlmutter."

Zhu Kwan laid aside the drawing. "Please put him on."

"Hello, Zhu Kwan, are you there?" came the jovial voice of Perlmutter.

"St. Julien. What an unexpected surprise. I am honored to hear from my old friend and colleague."

"You'll be more than honored when you hear what I have to tell you."

The Chinese historian was bewildered. "I am always happy to hear of your archival discoveries."

"Tell me, Zhu Kwan, are you still interested in finding a ship called the Princess Dou Wan?"

Zhu Kwan sucked in his breath, a fear rising inside him. "You are also searching for her?"

"Oh, no, no, no," Perlmutter said carelessly. "I have no interest in the ship whatsoever. But while researching another lost ship, a missing Great Lakes car ferry, I ran across a document by a ship's engineer, since deceased, that told of a harrowing experience while he served on board the Princess Dou Wan."

"You found a survivor?" asked Zhu Kwan, unable to believe his luck.

"His name is lan Gallagher. His friends called him 'Hong Kong.' He was the chief engineer on the Princess when she went down."

"Yes, yes, I have a file on him."

"Gallagher was the only survivor. He never went back to China for obvious reasons and dropped out of sight in the United States."

"The Princess," gasped Zhu Kwan, unable to contain his growing expectation. "Did Gallagher give an approximate position off Chile where the ship sank?"