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Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

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breathing, and disappointing his father.
    “I will find them for you,” Sam said, his voice harsh. “Then you will bring me the secret of Pearl Cove.”
    “If I have Hannah alone, you will have your secret,” Ian promised. “If Archer Donovan is with her, we will have a great problem. The Americans want him unharmed.”
    Sam made a curt, throaty sound possible only to a Chinese autocrat. “I will test their resolve on this Donovan.”
    “Please do,” Ian said smoothly. “While you negotiate with the Americans, I will search Derby and Darwin for our missing pawns.”
    Sam grunted. “With luck, we will not need them.”
    Though Ian didn’t move, he came to full, quivering attention. “May I ask why?”
    “The manager of my Hong Kong store called. He has seen a black pearl unlike any other. It has all the colors of life and the dark transparency of time.”
    “Did it come from Pearl Cove?” Ian demanded.
    “No. From the American gambling city of Las Vegas.”
    “Where is the pearl now?”
    “The swine would not sell it at any price. His wife wanted an entire necklace of such pearls.”
    Sam muttered in disgusted Cantonese about stupid dogs and bitches in heat. “First Son, you went to Stanford in California. Tell me. Why do American men let their women run free? It is against all common sense.”
    “If I knew the answer to that, I would understand the West. I do not.”
    Sam lit a cigarette, drew hard, and blew over the mouthpiece of the phone, setting up an odd rushing-whistling sound. “You know the answer to nothing. Why have I been cursed with seven daughters and a worthless son?”
    Ian didn’t know the answer to that question either.
    Archer was up and working long before dawn. Lawe and Justin’s suite was laid out like Archer’s, with a sitting room just off the hall. Because the “boys” shared the living quarters, there were two smaller, adjoining bedrooms with big beds. Thanks to the modern, angular style of the condo building, every room had privacy and some kind of a view.
    But even when dawn started sending pale streamers of light over the city, Archer didn’t look up from the computer screen in front of him to admire the sight of the sleeping city coming awake. It wasn’t the computer that kept his attention from the cloud-shot sunrise. There wasn’t anything exciting on the screen. He had been over and over the information, seeking patterns, finding them, discarding them.
    Nothing new.
    At the moment, the list of telephone numbers that Len McGarry had frequently called glowed on the screen. There was a name and an address beside each one. Most of the numbers traced back to pearl farms in Western Australia. Another number led to one of the Tahitian pearl farms owned by the Chang family. Archer ignored those listings. None of Len’s competitors or professional “friends” had the secret of the black pearls.
    A handful of numbers belonged to high-end jewelry stores such as Sea Gems. Five numbers belonged to pearl dealers whose reputations were no better than they had to be to stay out of jail. Two numbers led back to midlevel bosses of the Red Phoenix Triad.
    “What were you up to, Len?” Archer muttered. “Or were you just stirring the pot to see what floated to the top?”
    Len had been good at that. The man was a trouble magnet, and he took the devil’s own delight in it. If trouble didn’t exist, he poked and kicked until it boiled up around him. And then he laughed, because life never rushed through him so hotly as it did when he was rocketing down the greased skids to hell.
    The computer cursor blinked patiently, waiting for its human master to do something.
    Archer clicked the mouse and a new screen appeared. On it was a long list of names and dates, quantities, and enigmatic entries along the margin. The names and quantities related to pearl-production allowances, shell quotas, and pearl sales. He had studied enough raw data in his past service with Uncle Sam to see very quickly that the allowances and quotas had no obvious relation to the size or productivity of the pearl farms.
    Some growers get a higher quota than others, according to a formula only the government can understand.
    Hannah’s sardonic words echoed in his mind, distracting him. He didn’t want to think about her. Thinking would make the pain worse, not better. All he could do was find Len’s killer and get Hannah out of his life. Maybe the ache and emptiness would go with her.
    Maybe.
    But he

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