Donovans 02 - Jade Island

lined cheeks. In a distant way Kyle felt sorry for the man; a gambling addict, easy prey for Harry and Han Seng. Yet Kyle’s sympathy was inhibited by a simple fact: Joe had set up his niece to take the blame for his own thefts, and to go to jail in his place.
    No tears, no apologies, no excuses about addiction could change that.
    “Who planned the Jade Emperor charade?” Kyle asked coolly.
    Joe sighed. “Han Seng.”
    “Figures,” Kyle muttered.
    “It was a way to explain the appearance on the market of such remarkable jades,” Joe said sadly. “Seng sold many of the pieces. He kept only the erotica.”
    “I’ll bet he made more on the deals than you did,” Kyle said.
    “I was not in a position to argue price. But yes, I never quite covered my losses.”
    “And good old Harry kept on helping you out. Why? What was in it for him?”
    “He was protecting me.”
    “Bullshit. He was building his own empire.” Kyle glanced at Archer.
    “Go ahead,” Archer said. “If anybody has a need to know, it’s Wen.”
    “Harry knew he would never be Wen’s Number One Son, but he had ambition,” Kyle said. “He saw the Red Phoenix triad making money by the container load from drugs, gambling, extortion, and more drugs. He wanted some of the action. Han Seng was willing to oblige. But first, Harry would have to do something really special for Seng and the triad.”
    “The jade shroud,” Lianne said.
    “Yes,” Kyle agreed. “SunCo, through Seng, had tried to woo Dick Farmer with a jade burial suit that was, shall we say, dubious. It didn’t pass muster with Farmer’s curator. SunCo tried to bribe a better suit out of one of the state museums, but China isn’t like Russia yet. There’s still enough civil government in China to protect state museums from being creamed by thieves and sold on the international market. Red Phoenix needed a real burial shroud. Harry Tang had one.”
    “So he traded the Tang jade suit for the fraudulent one SunCo had,” Lianne said. “He assumed Wen would neverknow the difference. But what about me? What about the inventory I would conduct at the end of the year?”
    “You were a problem, sweetheart,” Kyle said, brushing the backs of his fingers down her cheek. “That’s why he arranged for the Red Phoenix to kill you, after he first had you arrested for theft.”
    Suddenly Johnny looked almost as old as Joe. “What? You can’t know that!”
    “Actually,” Archer said, “we pretty much can. When it looked like Lianne was going to make bail, Harry’s lawyer called Vancouver. A few hours later, two triad hit men were waiting for Lianne at her home. There was no sign of forced entry. The Tang Consortium owns the building. If Kyle hadn’t been real close by, Lianne would be dead and every last jade theft would be laid at her door. Or her headstone, in this case.”
    Johnny turned to Wen, whose forehead was resting on his folded hands. “Father, do you believe this?”
    “Have I a more sensible choice?” Wen asked, lifting his head. “It would be like Harry to stake everything on one bold, foolish plan. Number Two Son is clever, but not so clever as he thinks.”
    “He’d better be,” Kyle said. “Farmer was well and truly pissed when he saw the wrong shroud on his altar. No doubt he recognized it for the fake Seng had already tried to sell him. Then he went straight to Seng and started screaming. Seng knows there’s only one place that particular fake jade suit could have come from—the Tang vaults. Seng has a lot of explaining to do to the Red Phoenix boys. I’m sure he’s looking for Harry to help him out.”
    “The triad won’t be happy to lose a big fish like Farmer,” Archer added. “All those juicy opportunities for graft, corruption, and money laundering in the New World. So if you hear from Harry, tell him to find a good, deep hole, dive in, and pull it in after him.”
    “It would be better if I didn’t hear from him,” Johnny said roughly. “I’m ashamed that he is my brother.”
    “In case you get to feeling sentimental, remember that Daniel likely was next on Harry’s list of expendable relatives,” Archer said. “Good old Harry wasn’t going to take the fall for any missing jade.”
    Johnny went gray and looked at his youngest son.
    For the first time, Daniel Tang spoke. “A few months ago, Harry told me to start checking the contents of the vault, using last year’s inventory list. He didn’t say why.”
    “So that