“You’ve told me yourself that you have to walk carefully around your son to make sure that you don’t overwhelm him. He got along without you for nine years just fine while you were searching for him.”

“You know he didn’t get along fine. Rakovac tried to destroy him and almost succeeded.” She felt a ripple of pain as she remembered the torment of those years after Rakovac, a Russian criminal, had tried to punish Catherine by kidnapping her two-year-old son. He had kept him for nine long years and tried to turn him into everything that Catherine would hate. She had only recently managed to free Luke, and they were still tentative with each other. “He survived, but I probably won’t know how damaged he is for years. Yes, he’s had to be independent all his life just to avoid Rakovac’s abuse, but now he has to know I’m there for him.”

“He has his tutor, Sam O’Neill, and Hu Chang.”

“I’m his mother, dammit.”

“A mother who Luke isn’t sure he knows what to do with,” Venable said bluntly. “He knows about surviving neglect and torture. He knows about a man who put a gun in his hand when he was a small child and took him on guerrilla raids. He doesn’t know about normal relations.”

“He’s learning,” she said fiercely. “Every time we’re together we get a little closer. Yes, I have to be careful not to let him know how much I—” She stopped. She wouldn’t reveal to Venable the aching frustration of having to restrain the deep, boundless love she felt for Luke. She wanted to reach out, touch him, smother him with the affection that had been stolen from both of them. She couldn’t do it. Luke was older than his age in many ways, but his lack of experience in ordinary emotions had stunted him, and he was only now beginning to open to her. She had to hold back, respect that reticence. But God it was hard.

“Do you think I don’t know why you’ve been letting me send you on assignments during these last six months?” Venable asked softly. “I believe Luke may be as torn and confused as you are about how to make the adjustment. You both have to occasionally step back and take a deep breath before you take another step forward.”

“Very perceptive,” Catherine said dryly. She wasn’t surprised that Venable had studied her situation and come so close to the exact truth. No one ever underestimated Venable’s cleverness. “And a convenient explanation for you in this case. Abandon my Luke and go off on CIA business because it’s good for us as well as the country. No deal, Venable.”

“Think about it. Look Erin Sullivan up on the Internet. Get to know her.”

“The hell I will.”

Venable chuckled. “I think you will. I’ll get off the line now so you can check her out before your plane begins its descent.”

“Wait.” She had just thought of something else. “You said bringing me into the mission would cause you big problems. Why?”

“I was wondering when you’d ask that question. It all has to do with my source. He doesn’t want you involved.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll have to ask him.”

“And how am I supposed to do that when you won’t tell me who he is? I take it you’ve changed your mind.” She stiffened as she began to have an outrageous suspicion. “Just who is your source?”

“Someone you know very well,” he said quietly. “Hu Chang.”

“What the hell? What’s Hu—”

But Venable had already hung up.

What did Hu Chang have to do with Erin Sullivan? He might slide in and out of political situations like a Las Vegas magician if he chose, but he seldom chose. At least, she didn’t think he often dabbled in the fates of nations any longer. What did she know? After all these years, he was still an enigma to her. She had met him when she was only fourteen and had been on the streets selling information to the highest bidder. He had been a practitioner of Chinese medicine, and they had bonded and become friends. She had not learned until later that Hu Chang was also the foremost creator of poisons in the world and sold them to the highest bidder. By that time, it had not mattered to her. He was her friend. He had saved her life, and she had saved his. Two solitary people who had found one person they could trust to make the loneliness go away.

He doesn’t want you involved.

Well, dammit, she didn’t want to be involved.

But why did Hu Chang want to close her out?

She pulled out her computer and flipped it open.

The next moment, she had drawn up the story of the Qinghai earthquake. The second story she accessed she saw the photo of Erin Sullivan. She was standing beside a monk and a Chinese soldier, and she was frowning as she stared down at the wreckage below her.

Catherine had thought she’d be older, but the woman looked to be close to her own age. She wasn’t over thirty, perhaps a little younger. She was tall, slim even in the bulky, cold-weather garments she was wearing. She had on a black, hooded jacket and matching pants and brown, fur-lined boots. A strand of copper red hair had escaped her hood and lay on her forehead above eyes that were large and a gray-green hazel. Not a beautiful woman, but she had an interesting bone structure and a full, wonderful mouth. Her expression was mature and intelligent and troubled as she looked down at the devastation in the valley below.

Who wouldn’t have been troubled? Catherine thought. Several thousand people had been killed in that quake. She quickly scanned the info about Erin Sullivan. She had been an Army brat who had traveled all over Europe and the Middle East with her parents. She had earned a scholarship to Stanford University, majored in languages and journalism, held several minor jobs in cities around Europe, and found a niche in a small television station in Calcutta, India. She had worked three years traveling for the station in Pakistan and Tibet, then had quit and become a freelance journalist. According to the story, she had traveled to the quake site on her own to write the story. Then she had stayed to help with the rescue that was being conducted by the monks of the area and the Chinese soldiers who had been sent from Beijing to help. They had needed all the help they could get because the soldiers had become disoriented and physically ill because of the altitude. Erin had worked in these mountains, and the altitude was no problem for her. Both the Tibetan monks and the Chinese soldiers had nothing but praise for her.

Clearly a remarkable woman. Why would someone want to target her?

“We are going to land.” The smiling, Asian flight attendant was standing beside her seat. “Please put away all electronic devices.”

“Sorry.” Catherine nodded, shut off her computer, and slipped it in her bag. She glanced out the window. They should be on the ground within a few minutes. She hoped Hu Chang would be there to meet her. She would see him walking toward her with a faint, mocking smile on that face that was totally ageless. She had questions to ask him that he might not answer. She could never tell if he would dance around or give her the simple truth. As if any truth was simple with a man so complicated.

“Just what the hell are you up to, Hu Chang?” she murmured.

DAKSHA PALACE

TIBET

“Get out of here, Jafar.” Erin Sullivan’s voice was shaking as she gazed at the young boy in desperation and fear. She had been stunned when she had seen the boy slip over the windowsill into her bedroom only moments before. Stunned and sick with panic. “You should never have come. I’ll get out on my own.”

“I should have come. I was sent.” Jafar’s huge brown eyes were glowing in his small face. “I heard the calling, and I went to my father. He told me to follow the spirits. You can’t get across the mountains on your own. I will lead you from this dark place.”

His father had told him to come to this hellhole? Jafar couldn’t be over eleven or twelve years old, Erin thought, agonized. She had grown to know Jafar and his family during the weeks she had spent in his village, but she had not dreamed they’d sacrifice their son like this. Perhaps she should have realized it could happen. Like the rest of the people in his village, Jafar was full of dreams and the belief that good would always triumph in the end. Erin knew better. Not here, not anywhere where Paul Kadmus could reach out to crush and mangle. But she wouldn’t be able to persuade the child to leave her by using fear. The dreams were too strong, the belief too ingrained. She thought quickly, searching for a way that he would understand.