"Put your head down for a minute," David said. He looked around. "Can someone get some water, maybe a cold cloth?"

A heavyset Caucasian man whom David had yet to meet nodded with military precision, went into the building, and returned with a couple of paper cups filled with water which he gave to David. Then the man went over to the dead woman, flipped open some fabric, and let it settle on her. From here he walked to Sandy and escorted him to the steps to sit with Aaron Rodgers. "Drink this," he said in an Australian accent. Then, as Sandy stared over at the body, the other man said, "I'll get this cleaned up before the women have their lunch break."

"Go ahead, Jimmy," Sandy said.

"Don't you think you should wait for the police?" David asked.

Jimmy turned his squinty eyes on David. "We're way the hell out here in the middle of nowhere. You want to wait for the police and have a thousand women go hysterical when they come outside on their lunch break and see their friend or whatever squashed like a melon?" he asked sarcastically. "Or how about this? You want to sit around and wait five hours for the locals to arrive and have that thing over there start stinking up the place?"

"All I'm saying is, we don't know what happened," David said.

This was Aaron's cue, and he resumed his narration. "I carried her upstairs to my office," he said. "You know how we have those cots in there?" David didn't, but he nodded anyway. "I laid her down. She was upset, screaming about not wanting to die. Why did I leave her alone? Why did I go to another office to make my calls? Why didn't I just carry her straight to the clinic?" His whole body shook as if trying to shake away his guilt. "I don't know what I was thinking. I wasn't, I guess. I called Sandy. I knew Mr. Knight would be here today, and I wanted to tell him about the accident in person. After I called Sandy, I tried Madame Leung. When she wasn't in her office, I called the nurse straightaway."

David thought, Straightaway? It must have been five minutes at least.

"Then I went to find Madame Leung. I wanted her to stay with… with… the injured girl. I thought she would want a woman with her. Madame Leung was in the control area, speaking over the loudspeaker to the workers down on the floor. It was important to keep them calm, don't you think?" The young man looked earnestly at David. "But when we got back to the office, the girl was gone." Aaron's face went a few shades whiter. David put a hand on the back of Aaron's neck and pushed his head back down between his knees.

Doug Knight said, "She must have jumped out of your window."

"No," Aaron mumbled. "My office isn't on this side. My office faces the back and looks out over the wall."

David looked up at the building. There were no windows on this side.

"Well," Doug said conversationally, "she must have climbed up to the roof, then."

"Christ almighty, you're a cold-hearted bastard!" Henry stared at his son, his fists in tight balls at his side. "A woman has died here. Our family has been in business for more than seventy years. We've never lost an employee."

"All I'm saying, Dad, is that she killed herself," Doug went on calmly. "It's not your fault."

The older man, reacting to his son's soothing tones, gradually regained his composure. Then he turned away, walked back to the body, and knelt beside it.

"He's old," Doug said to no one in particular. "I hope he'll be strong enough to deal with this." Then Doug went over to his father, put an arm on his shoulder, and spoke softly to him.

Hurriedly the body was removed and the blood washed away. Several times Doug pleaded with his father to go back to the conference room, but the old man couldn't seem to tear himself away. Since he wouldn't leave, the rest of them couldn't either. At one, the bell rang and hundreds of women began filing out of the Assembly Building. Soon the courtyard was a sea of women in pink smocks with pink bandanas. Many of them walked arm in arm, chatting and laughing together. A couple of the younger women-perhaps on dares from their compatriots-waved and smiled at the foreigners, then began calling out greetings. David couldn't understand the words, but he could tell they were friendly from the women's smiles and infectious giggles. As the women eddied by, David searched for Hulan, but how could he find one face amidst this basically faceless crowd? Once they were past, David glanced over at Aaron Rodgers and was relieved to see that color had come back to his cheeks.

At last Henry turned and headed in the direction of the Administration Building, the others following close behind. Once back in the conference room, Henry still appeared unsteady, but his son moved to sit next to him, which seemed to bring the older man a measure of comfort. David suggested that they break for the day, but Henry dismissed the idea, saying, "There's nothing more we can do about that poor woman now. Let's keep this moving." Then he turned to Sandy and added, "But I want you to find out who she was. Make sure her family has the means for a proper burial. The Chinese set great store in that, you know. Make a payment to the family. Cash is always good. And if she had children-" "I'll take care of it," Sandy said.

"Okay, then." Henry turned his gray eyes on David. "I guess I spoke too soon about liabilities."

"A suicide could hardly be Knight International's fault," David said. "What about the injury that happened on the factory floor?" "We'll have to look into it," David replied. "Have there been other accidents?"

"None," Henry said.

David looked questioningly over at Sandy.

"This is a first," Sandy said. "Sure, we have some problems, but nothing that a little peroxide and a Band-Aid won't cure."

Again, a week ago David could have demanded answers, but he was back in private practice. The finalization of the deal was the most important thing for his client as well as the Knights, so he didn't have the luxury of grilling these people. Besides, Keith must have covered this material a hundred times over. So David moved on, re-addressing the due diligence issues that he'd brought up earlier in the day. Did Knight have any outstanding lawsuits? Henry answered no.

"Looking ahead, do you foresee any lawsuits?" "Maybe from that woman's family," Henry replied glumly. David shook his head. "I think you can take care of that. As you've said, you'll provide for the woman's family even though it's a suicide. Your generosity will go a long way in a peasant family. But I'm not talking about what happened today. Right now Tartan is concerned with any possible liabilities it will be facing when it acquires your company. So I want you to think broadly about such things as copyright infringement, manufacturing defects, patents, licensing agreements."

They spent the next couple of hours going over each issue. Henry let Doug and Sandy do most of the talking, but this made sense. Not long after Henry had decided to move operations to China, he'd had the first of his heart attacks, so the responsibility for building this compound had fallen on Doug and to a lesser extent Sandy. All of which had ultimately worked to the company's advantage. If Henry hadn't been home recovering, he never would have stayed put long enough to come up with not only the idea for Sam amp; His Friends but also the technology. During the months he'd been homebound, he'd brought in all manner of toy and software designers to help him turn his concepts into reality. All of it- even the things that had been invented by others-was owned entirely by Knight International.