Pitt would have preferred coffee this early in the morning, but he simply smiled and said, "I'd love some."

"I hope you've come to tell us about the salvage project," said Gallagher.

Pitt nodded. "The very purpose of our visit."

Gallagher motioned for them to sit around a picnic table set up on the porch. "Take a load off your feet."

As they gathered around the table, Pitt placed the box at his feet. After Katie returned with a pot of tea, Pitt and Julia talked about the salvage project and described some of the art treasures they had actually seen because of broken packing crates. Their only omission was any reference to Qin Shang, whom lan and Katie were not aware of anyway. Pitt told of Giordino's discovery of the bones of Peking man.

"Peking man," Katie repeated slowly. "The Chinese people revere him as an honored ancestor."

"Are we keeping any of the treasure?" asked Gallagher.

Pitt shook his head. "I don't think so. I've been told that President Wallace intends on turning the entire treasure over to the Chinese people after it has gone on exhibit around the United States. Peking man's bones are already on their way home."

"Just think, lan," said Katie, gazing fondly at her husband, "it might have been all ours."

Gallagher patted her on one knee and gave a hearty laugh. "Where would we have put it? We've got enough Chinese junk sitting around the house to start a museum as it is."

Katie rolled her eyes and gave Gallagher a hard slap on the shoulder. "You big mick, you love those objects as much as I do." She turned to Julia. "You have to excuse lan. Once a roughneck always a roughneck."

"We really should be moving along," said Julia, reluctant to leave.

Pitt leaned down, picked up the box from the floor and presented it to Katie. "A gift from the Princess Dou Wan that I thought you should have."

"I hope it's not a piece of the treasure," she said, surprised. "That would be stealing."

"Oh, but it belongs to you," Julia assured her.

Katie slowly, somewhat apprehensively, opened the lid on the box. "I don't understand," she said, bewildered. "It looks like the bones of some kind of animal." Then she saw the little golden dragon that was attached to a faded red leather collar, "lan! lan!" she cried in sudden comprehension. "Look, they've brought me Fritz."

"He's come back to his mistress," said Gallagher, his eyes beginning to mist.

Tears instantly formed in Katie's eyes as she came around the table and embraced Pitt. "Thank you, thank you. You don't know how much this means to me."

"If he didn't," said Julia, gazing at Pitt tenderly, "he does now."

Gallagher put an arm around his wife's shoulders. "I'll bury him with the others." He looked at Pitt and Julia. "We have a little cemetery that holds the pets we've owned over the years who've died."