The Interior

"Why didn't you tell me about Sun and the bribery?" Henry Knight demanded, as he finally burst through the door. "Did you know all along this was brewing? Did you know he was going to be arrested?"

David, briefcase in hand and ready to flee, asked, "Has he already been arrested?"

"Now, how in God's name am I supposed to know?" Henry queried, dramatically throwing himself into a chair. David just looked at the man.

Henry began to take in the scene: Miss Quo in her pink Chanel suit, eyes swollen and red, her bag over her shoulder and an umbrella in her hand; David looking rumpled, harried, with his briefcase in one hand and his laptop in the other; and Hulan swaying there as if she were ready to keel over for an afternoon siesta except it was only 10:30 in the morning.

"What's going on here?" Henry asked.

"In case you don't know it, Sun isn't the only one who's in trouble," David answered. "I've been named, as have Miss Quo and Miss Liu."

"Well, I know thatl But you aren't going to turn tail and run away like scared dogs, are you?"

"That's precisely what we're going to do." "But you have a duty to your client."

David didn't have time to talk with Henry about this. He looked at the two women. "Come on, let's go."

They made for the door, but Henry jumped up and blocked them. "If Sun's arrested," Henry said, "he'll be executed. His death will be on your head."

"If he's arrested and I go down to the jail to help him, I'll probably be arrested too. If I'm lucky, I'll simply be expelled from the country. If not-"

Henry grabbed David's shirt. He was a small man but wiry and tough. "You've got a duty, boy. The man's i

"Like you're i

Henry shoved David away. "Do you realize that at this very minute my son is selling my company out from under me? That vulture Randall Craig and your partner Miles Stout are trying to rip my life away from me, but I'm not going to let them. I'll use every pe

"Of course it will, Henry. It's the key to everything. Tartan wants your company for the very abuses you insisted you didn't have. And your pal Sun has moved the whole thing along. Now," he added forcefully, "we're leaving."

"What if I told you I knew where Sun was?"

David motioned at the walls around him. "I'd say you'd better be careful where you say that. I don't think the Chinese will take kindly to your hiding a criminal."

"I'm not hiding him, but I know where he is, and…" He once again grabbed David's shirt, pulled him very close, and whispered, "I've got a plane."

The phone rang. Miss Quo stared at it. When it rang a third time, she picked it up. "Phillips, MacKenzie amp; Stout," she said, taking a stab at a cheerfulness she didn't feel. The voice on the other end spoke for several seconds with Miss Quo nodding. "Please hold," she said at last, "I will see if he's in." She held the receiver out to David. "It's for you."

"I don't have to take it. I no longer work for the firm."

"She's calling from America."

"Oh, Jesus," David said, "Je

Miss Quo shook her head. "No, it's a woman from Kansas. She says she's been trying to reach you for a long time."

21

DAVID MOVED SWIFTLY TO THE PHONE. "ANNE?" After a long-distance delay, A

"Yes."

"I've wanted to talk to you and apologize for how I acted at my brother's funeral. I think anyone would have been upset. But when we heard the circumstances-that he'd been killed instead of you- well, I, we…"

David listened impatiently while A

"I thought he'd gone to you for help. I thought, now isn't that bad karma? I mean, you go to someone for help and you end up getting killed. That's why I was so rude."

"He didn't come to me for help," David said. "I invited him to di

"I know that now," she said. "But at the time I was only going off what Keith had told me. He called me that day. We were very close, and whenever he had a problem he'd call. He was troubled. He said he was going to meet a friend, someone he could talk to. He had di

As on the day of the funeral, David felt that there was no reason to ruin the Baxter family's memories of their son and brother. "We just had di

"I know, I know. All I'm saying is that when I saw you at the funeral, all I could think was that you hadn't helped him. I'd told him before to go to the FBI. He'd laughed at my ignorance. He said he didn't need the FBI; he needed the State Department. Then he told me that he had friends down at the U.S. Attorney's Office who might put in a good word. But he didn't go to you."

No wonder Keith had acted so strangely that night. He was ready to throw away his career by going to the feds to rat on his client. "Was it about what was happening with the Knight deal?"

Even over the thousands of miles David heard A

David couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Anyway," A

There was only one person at the funeral to whom Keith might have gone. "Rob Butler," David surmised.

"That's right. He came up and introduced himself. He said he'd tried to do what he could for my brother. Do you think he tried to help?" A