“I’ll have to apologize again, luv,” Tristan said. “I was so sure that coming here and talking to these blokes would solve everything. As it is we’re no better off than before we’d come to Hong Kong. It appears as if we’ve risked our lives and made you bloody sick for nothing.”

“I thought this would give us answers, too,” Marissa said. “It’s strange. I don’t understand what we could be missing. There just doesn’t seem to be any explanation why Female Care Australia is making this elaborate illegal effort to bring in Chinese nationals.”

“I still think it has to involve drugs in some way,” Tristan said. “It’s got to be the heroin from the Golden Triangle.”

“But these men are carrying nothing,” Marissa reminded him.

“But it’s the only way I can think to justify FCA’s level of expense,” Tristan said. “Not to mention the extent to which they are willing to go to protect whatever it is they’re doing. They thought it was important enough to gun us down in public. It’s gotta be drugs; don’t you think?”

“I don’t know what to think,” Marissa said. “What you say makes some sense, but only to a point. And we still haven’t figured where the TB salpingitis comes in. And if it is drugs, how does it involve a country doctor and a Buddhist monk?”

“I don’t have a clue to any of those questions,” Tristan said. “I’m at a loss. At one point I had an idea that this scheme might somehow involve Hong Kong being given back to the Chinese in 1997. But even that wild idea has nothing to recommend it. I’m afraid we’re at a dead end.”

Marissa wished he hadn’t used that expression. She closed her eyes. With all that had happened, she didn’t expect to sleep. But despite her physical discomfort and her emotional pain, exhaustion prevailed. Almost instantly she dozed off.

But once asleep, she started to dream. In her dream Robert was sinking into quicksand and she couldn’t reach him. She was holding on to a branch, reaching for his hand. Then the branch broke and she fell . . .

An hour after falling asleep, Marissa sat bolt upright, half expecting to be in quicksand. But she was on a hard bamboo mat with Tristan sleeping next to her. Around her head was a swarm of mosquitoes and on her forehead were beads of cold perspiration.

Marissa became aware of sandaled feet moving about the deck and she opened her eyes. It was before dawn, yet the misty world had become brighter. They were enveloped in a dense morning fog that completely shrouded the nearby island. The sound of birds could be heard but nothing of the shoreline could be seen.