Jade Island

by Elizabeth Lowell

  The Neolithic blade was next up for auction.

  Breathing a silent prayer that the bidding wouldn’t go beyond four thousand dollars—preferably twenty-five hundred—Lianne sat back and tried to get a feel for the bidders who were interested in the blade.

  The minimum opening bid listed in the catalog was one thousand dollars. Three paddles went up at once, beginning the auction. A single glance told Lianne that the eager paddles belonged to bottom fishers, not serious bidders. The real bidders would be like her, waiting to see who was earnest and who was simply using the auction paddle to fan his face.

  “Fifteen hundred,” the auctioneer said, scanning the crowd.

  Two paddles lifted, then a third. The last one belonged to Charles Singer, the owner of an excellent jade shop in downtown Seattle.

  “Two thousand.”

  Singer’s paddle lifted, along with two others.

  “Twenty-five hundred.”

  Again Singer raised his paddle. Only one other person was bidding against him now.

  “Three thousand.”

  No one raised a paddle.

  “Come, now, ladies and gentlemen,” the auctioneer coaxed. “This is a very fine example of Neolithic artistry. The stone fairly glows with mystery, immortality, and six thousand years of secrets. Surely that’s worth at least fifty cents a year to a discerning collector?”

  The audience laughed. Singer raised his paddle in the manner of a man who knows he is paying too much but is willing to do it for charity.

  “We have three thousand dollars. Will someone bid thirty-three hundred?”

  Singer’s paddle remained in his lap.

  Kyle and Lianne raised their paddles simultaneously. So did a man in the back of the bidding section.

  “Excellent,” purred the auctioneer. “I just knew this room was full of civic spirit.”

  The crowd laughed while the bidding quickly rose to thirty-nine hundred dollars. Singer and the man in the rear of the section went head-to-head for another five hundred dollars’ worth of bids. Then Singer dropped out, leaving only the anonymous man, whom Lianne couldn’t see.

  “Forty-five hundred. We have forty-five hundred. Do we have forty-six?”

  Lianne held up her paddle. She could just barely afford forty-six hundred…if she ate oatmeal for a month and her car stopped using gas and her panty hose didn’t run.

  “Forty-six. We have forty-six hundred. Do we—thank you, Number One-oh-six. You are a man of civic virtue. We have forty-six hundred. Forty-six hundred. Going once. Do we see forty-seven hundred?”

  Kyle looked at Lianne for the first time since the blade had gone up for auction. Behind her professional calm he sensed a seething kind of despair.

  “Going twice at forty-six hundred. The next bid is forty-seven hundred, ladies and gentlemen.”

  In silent question, Kyle touched Lianne’s wrist. She let her paddle drop into her lap. She was through bidding. She should have been through at four thousand.

  “Going—”

  Kyle flicked his paddle into an upright position.

  “Thank you, Number One-ten. We have forty-seven hundred. Forty-seven hundred looking for forty-eight. Do we have forty-eight?” the auctioneer asked, looking toward the back of the bidding section. “Forty-eight, thank you. I’m waiting for forty-nine.”

  “Fifty-nine,” Kyle said.

  “Fifty-nine. I heard clearly? Fifty-nine hundred for the Neolithic blade?”

  Kyle lifted his paddle in confirmation.

  There was silence, then a scattering of applause. Though the money was less than many of the other articles had brought that night, the bidding on the blade had been more competitive, thus more entertaining.

  As the gong sounded, ending the bidding on the blade, Lianne closed her eyes and wondered what she would do if she looked in Wen’s vault and discovered that a very, very fine Neolithic blade was missing.

  Wen wouldn’t have sold it. The more she thought about it, the more certain she was. Though far from his most valuable piece, the blade was one of Wen’s most cherished possessions. It was simply, incredibly, good. Even if he had needed cash desperately, there were other jades that could be sold, other ways to raise cash.

  Cold washed through her, a chill that grew with her certainty that the extraordinary blade Kyle now owned had been stolen from Wen Zhi Tang.

  “Thank you,” the auctioneer said. “Before we move on to the final lot of the evening, Precious and Important Gems of the Pacific Rim, we have a special treat for you. Mr. Richard Farmer, whose white jade Sung bowl many of you admired in the atrium, has graciously agreed to preview some of the magnificent—quite literally imperial—artifacts he will be featuring in his soon-to-open Museum of Asian Jade. Indeed, after seeing just a few pieces of this extraordinary collection, I am tempted to crown Mr. Farmer the new Jade Emperor. Please welcome Richard Farmer, international businessman, humanitarian, philanthropist, and jade connoisseur of the highest level!”

  Kyle’s eyes narrowed at the words Jade Emperor. He glanced sideways at Lianne to see how she was taking the announcement. She didn’t seem to have heard. Her skin was pale and her eyes were closed. He bent down so that he could speak in her ear, above the sound of applause.

  “Lianne? Are you all right?”

  She jerked, nodded, and opened her eyes, trying to pretend interest in what was happening around her.

  The audience was beating its hands together with real enthusiasm. If it wasn’t for Richard Farmer Enterprises Inc., the auction wouldn’t have been held tonight and the charity wouldn’t have benefited.

  Though it was common knowledge that Farmer’s philanthropy was as self-serving as his business interests, no one complained. There were too many businesses that didn’t bother with philanthropy at all. The fact that Farmer was on his way to owning a considerable chunk of the free world and controlling a lot more through foreign licensing arrangements simply made people more grateful for his streak of charity, however lean it might be.

  The lights dimmed dramatically, then came up again to reveal Dick Farmer striding toward the podium, which the auctioneer had abandoned. The curtains had been drawn across the small stage. Farmer’s black tuxedo showed vividly against the heavy, lipstick-red velvet of the curtains. He was a man of medium height, unassuming looks, and supreme confidence.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Farmer said, picking up the cordless microphone from the podium and going back to center stage like a rock singer or a televangelist. “I’m delighted and overwhelmed to be among such generous patrons of the arts, especially the Asian arts.”

  Kyle shifted in his uncomfortable seat and wished he had known this was coming. He could have left before all the self-congratulations began. Usually that sort of babble was reserved for the end of a charity event, or the beginning, sometimes both. Pitches at intermission were left for public TV.

  If he hadn’t been interested in seeing Farmer’s jades, Kyle would have stood up and left. And if Farmer blathered on for more than three minutes, Kyle would leave anyway. The Museum of Asian Jade would open in another week; he could see all of Farmer’s artifacts then without having to listen to a canned lecture.

  “Before I show my jades, I’d like to give those of you who are into painting and ceramics a brief overview of jade’s importance in China.”

  Kyle managed not to groan out loud. Barely.

  “As with all precious and semi-precious stones throughout history, jade was believed to have special, even spiritual, properties,” Farmer said. “From the very earliest beginning of Chinese civilization, jade was the embodiment of various virtues we like to think of as Christian: loyalty, modesty, wisdom, justice, integrity, and, of course, charity.”

  The audience murmured appreciatively.

  The sound Kyle made was guttural disgust. The closest Farmer came to any of the virtues listed was when he formed the words in his mouth. Farmer was a businessman first, last, and always. He had an unwavering, uncanny instinct
for entering international markets at the moment when they were just emerging. He came in when he could buy land and workers for a handful of pennies. When he got out, he sold for a bucketful of diamonds. Governments bitched about the trade-off, but they lined up anyway to lure Farmer into business deals. He created value where nothing had existed before.

  Kyle admired the man’s marketing genius and jugular instinct. He didn’t admire Farmer’s efforts to represent himself as an international icon of charity and a gentle, genial prince among men.

  “Naturally, when it came time for burial, jade was among the most important items in any grave offerings,” Farmer continued. “Jade, the incorruptible stone, was believed to prevent corruption of the human body. Immortality, in a way. Thus, thousands of years ago, men of importance were buried with jade closing all nine openings of the body. In time, man, being man, decided that if nine pieces of jade were good, hundreds of pieces would be better. Thousands would be better still: an entire burial suit of jade plaques sewn together with threads of pure gold, rather like a medieval suit of armor made wholly from precious jade—jade from helmet to boots.”

  Kyle stopped shifting restlessly and began to listen. Really listen. He wasn’t the only one. The room had gone still while Farmer paced the stage and spoke urgently, drawing people into his words, into the vision he was creating of an ancient time.

  “That’s what Han emperors were buried in,” Farmer said. “Suits of pure jade, the Stone of Heaven brought to earth for man. All this at a time when it took months of an artisan’s work simply to shape and pierce a single plaque of jade. And the burial shroud had thousands of such plaques.

  “The lavish and lavishly aesthetic lifestyle of China’s emperors and empresses is well known. What is less well known is that many princes and court functionaries also lived—and died—in ways that Egyptian Pharaohs could only have envied.

  “The Han princes are a prime example. Their tombs were filled with the best that whole generations of contemporary and ancient artists could provide. Imagine it: the output of an entire kingdom channeled into providing a tomb to amuse its royal occupants throughout eternity. The cream of the artifacts of an entire civilization skimmed and buried forever.”

  Farmer let the audience’s stillness build, then smiled like a boy. “Well, perhaps not forever. Many tombs were robbed before the royal corpses were cold. The fantastic grave goods were brought into the light again and sold to wealthy connoisseurs. But some tombs, a very special few, remained untouched for hundreds, even thousands, of years. The tomb of an individual we call the Jade Emperor is one of those. Or was.”

  The crowd stirred, as though everyone was sitting up and leaning closer. Kyle and Lianne were no different. They sat forward, afraid to miss a word.

  “The Jade Emperor was a prince of the Ming dynasty who dedicated his life to the collection of one thing. Jade. With unlimited time, unlimited power, and the discriminating eye of the true connoisseur, he collected the best that China had to offer. When he died, he took everything to his grave. Of course, it isn’t possible tonight for me to bring more than a few things from that tomb. More, much more, will be on view when I open my museum. Until then, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Jade Emperor.”

  The crimson velvet curtains parted suddenly. Alone on the stage, impaled by a vertical column of light, a jade burial suit shimmered in ageless shades of green.

  Distantly Lianne was aware that her nails were digging into Kyle’s hand and that he was holding her fingers hard enough to leave dents. She didn’t care. She needed something solid to hang onto, something warm, something strong, something that could balance the queasy fear coiling through her.

  In the whole world, she knew of only one jade burial suit in private hands. That suit was in Wen Zhi Tang’s vault.

  Or had been. Like the Neolithic blade.

  Even as Lianne told herself she was crazy, the burial suit she was looking at now couldn’t be Wen’s, she knew she must examine Farmer’s gleaming green prize for herself. Until she did, the sick fear inside her would grow into a nightmarish certainty.

  The way it was growing now.

  Even at a distance of twenty feet, the suit looked the same as Wen’s. It looked like it was made of plaques of imperial jade, not softer serpentine. Darker on the head, flowing to a pale, creamy green across the torso, deepening to moss on the feet. Gold thread winked everywhere, especially on the sections that covered the face and chest. There the thread was so thick it was like embroidery, a careful series of Xs crisscrossing and outlining each separate plate of jade.

  It can’t be the same suit.

  Without knowing it, Lianne stood and leaned closer to the stage. She wasn’t the only one. People in the audience were coming to their feet like corks out of champagne bottles. There was a restless shifting, then a concerted rush toward the stage.

  Lianne didn’t notice. She was staring at the patterns of jade and gold stitching on Farmer’s prize. From where she stood, they were identical with her memories of Wen’s suit.

  Her throat closed around air that was too thick to breathe. She didn’t know which would be worse: being mistaken in identifying the blade and the burial suit, or being right. She tried to get past Kyle, but there was no room.

  “Let me by,” she demanded urgently. “I have to see it close up.”

  “You and every other jade lover. I wouldn’t mind taking a good look myself. But we’re too late. There’s a crowd six-deep heading for it right now.”

  “No, you don’t understand. I must examine that suit. Get out of my way!”

  He looked sideways at her. Her face was pale, strained, and her body was vibrating with the intensity that had her nails buried in his callused palm. She was tugging and pushing, trying to get past him in the tightly packed crowd of people.

  “Why?” he asked.

  Lianne shook her head and said starkly, “Let me by!”

  “Stay close. I’ll break trail for you.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Farmer said loudly. “Please sit down. The suit will be on display for the opening of my Museum of Asian Jade. It will remain on display thereafter. Everyone who wishes will have ample time to see the burial shroud.”

  Perhaps half the people heading for the stage hesitated. The rest just kept on going. Hard-faced guards wearing tuxedos materialized near Farmer.

  Towing Lianne behind him, Kyle made for the side of the room. He ignored the startled curses and outraged looks from people whose feet happened to be in his way. Then he saw the guards form a ring around Farmer, who was yelling at them to protect the suit, not him. Soon the guards would become a solid barrier across the stage.

  Kyle turned to Lianne. “Faint,” he said quietly.

  “What?”

  “If you want to get close to that burial suit, faint.”

  Lianne crumpled.

  Kyle grabbed her, lifted her in his arms, and began shoving roughly through the crowd.

  “Get out of my way,” he shouted. “She needs air. Clear a path!”

  Quickly Kyle forced a way up on the stage, which was the only place in the auction room that wasn’t crowded. Several guards started toward him, saw the utterly limp woman in his arms, and turned back to control the people who were still on their feet. The curtain thumped down behind Kyle’s back, tangling the most eager members of the crowd in a combination of soft velvet folds and guards whose hands were a good deal harder.

  “Stay away from the jade,” a guard snarled at Kyle.

  “Screw the jade. She has to have air.”

  Before the guard could decide whether to go after Kyle, one of the mainland China contingent staggered out from under the curtain. While the guard was trying to do a little hands-on, cross-cultural exchange, Kyle slipped around behind the coffin-sized pedestal that supported the jade suit.

  “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” Kyle said in Lianne’s ear. “You’ve got maybe thirty seconds before a guard spots us. Ten seconds after that, we’ll be out on
our ear.”

  Lianne didn’t need a second invitation. She twisted in Kyle’s arms until she was facing the shroud.

  It was barely two feet away, illuminated by a spotlight so intense that it seemed like a solid column of white. Gold threads twisted and glittered as though alive, but it was only Lianne who was alive, straining toward the immortal jade with an urgency that made her quiver.

  “Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing!” yelled a guard.

  “Take it easy,” Kyle said. “This is the only decent air in the room.”

  “Take her outside,” the guard said curtly, running across the stage. “Move!”

  “We’re bounced,” Kyle murmured, heading for the exit.

  Lianne didn’t complain. She had seen enough. Too much. Dick Farmer’s beautiful jade prize had once belonged to Wen Zhi Tang.

  The certainty of it stunned her.

  Belatedly she realized that Kyle was still carrying her. “Put me down.”

  “In a minute.”

  “But—where are we going?”

  “Outside.”

  “Why? Is the guard still after us?”

  “No, but I want to see if anyone else is. Got any objections?”

  If Lianne did, she didn’t have time to voice them. Kyle put her down and then hustled her through an outside door so fast her feet barely touched the floor. He kept going until they were beyond the well-lighted building and down a side walkway. Soon they were hidden in the shadows leading to the hotel’s underground garage.

  Kyle stopped and held Lianne motionless against his chest. Over her head he watched the empty walkway they had just hurried down.

  “What are you—” she began.

  “Be still,” he whispered.

  Shivering in the chill, she waited quietly, watching his eyes for any sign that they were being followed. All she saw was a faint gleam of reflected moonlight in a face that was uncompromising, chiseled out of shadow and ice. He looked barbaric, cruel, an ancient Viking wolf dressed as a civilized modern lamb.