The Year of the Dragon [antikvár]

CHAPTER ONE Victor Mace, the Kung Fu Monk-Master, was trapped! The one-story warehouse, filled with boxes and crates belonging to Bogue's Oriental Imports, had been dark except for small lights spaced every twenty-five feet or so along the watchman's route. The watchman had not been a problem, Mace having taken him into consideration while planning the break-in, much against the advice of Darren Crawford and the other CIA agents, all of whom had pointed out that even if Bogue did have the Ming Do Chun, he would hardly have the statue hidden in his own warehouse! Knowing that all tOo often the so-called obvious is only illusion, Mace wanted to find out for himself. As for the watchman, a creaking mass of bones in his early seventies, he made his rounds every hour on the hour, stumbling along like a zombie, after which he would return to a small office in the front of the building and resume his dozing. Mace had inspected the boxes and crates while the watchman slept. He had found nothing unusual, the boxes filled with merchandise one would expect to find in the warehouse of a company whose business was the importing of gifts from the Far East—stone carvings, rare porcelain, jade and coral jewelry, dolls, lacquer screens, brass objects and other items. But no gem-encrusted, three-foot high Ming Do Chun worth Hve million American dollars! Yet who could say that the Red Chinese art treasure was even in the United States? The Red