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the Eiger to an Aryan Youth: something to be scaled. Smashing muscle tone. You want to strap on your crampons and climb all over him, Stef. Admit it.”
    “The fortune, Oliver.”
    “Max Roderick is the last of a line of rather daring chaps who suffered difficult ends. His father, Rory, flewbombing runs over North Vietnam and died in the Hanoi Hilton. His grandfather was a true legend in Southeast Asia—an adventurer, a potentate, a glamorous rogue. Jack Roderick. He trained with the OSS during the Second World War then settled permanently in Bangkok in ’45.”
    Stefani’s eyes narrowed. “To do what?”
    “Run agents for the CIA,” Oliver replied carelessly. “Jack Roderick was Bangkok intelligence chief right after the war. Took to the people, the food, the khlongs like a duck. Found God a few years later and abandoned spies for Thai silk—he’s credited with reviving the craft there. Started a company called Jack Roderick Silk, still famous the world over. Made a great deal of money. Bought or stole every Khmer antiquity on offer during the course of twenty-odd years. Stored them in his house—an antique itself, shipped down-river from the ancient capital of Ayutthaya—and when he disappeared one day without a trace, the Thai government seized the lot.”
    “Disappeared?”
    “Like so much smoke,” Oliver assured her. “Jack Roderick went on holiday to the Cameron Highlands-old British hill station in Malaysia—and took a stroll around cocktail time, all by himself. Never came back. Body never found.”
    The same surge of feeling—fear? excitement?—knifed through her again. “When was this?”
    “Easter Sunday, 1967.”
    “The height of the Vietnam War.”
    “Hanoi declared son Rory dead two weeks after Roderick disappeared. No obvious connection.”
    “And his entire fortune was—seized?”
    “The Thai government claims Roderick always meantto leave his personal collection to the people of Thailand. He’d burbled on about it quite often, apparently. His will—or should I say, his
first
will—provided for just that.” Oliver smiled. “They’re quite proud in Bangkok of having preserved the Roderick house and gardens—the whole kit and caboodle, including books on a bedside table—just as it was when he vanished in ’67. Jack Roderick’s House is now a major tourist attraction.”
    “And his grandson wants … what? Financial compensation? Or the collection returned?”
    “Our Max wants everything, ducks. That’s his opening bid. Everything that belonged to his grandfather returned with interest. Max claims, you see, to have found Jack’s second will. Quite recently. The will leaves the estate to the Roderick heirs, and the lawyers are calling it good.”
    She expelled a deep breath. “Hence the Thai prostitute in Max’s Geneva hotel room. A warning from your precious clients: Back off, Golden Boy, or you’ll be mauled.”
    “If we believe Max’s version of events,” Oliver rejoined gently. “Which I’m not sure we do.”
    “Why should a bunch of American lawyers strike fear in the hearts of the Thai government, thirty-five years after Jack Roderick’s disappearance?”
    “Dunno. That’s not my end of the deal, heart—it’s
yours.”
He was studying his chopsticks.
    Stefani tossed back the last of her wine. “You talk about these clients as though they were a corporate entity. Whom do you really mean?”
    “That,” Oliver returned, “I cannot tell you. Compartmentalization is the first rule of warfare. Less said, the better for all of us.”
    “So you’ve arranged for me to work
against
Krane &Associates, on the basis of no investigative experience and partial information?”
    “You’re not the
enemy,
Stefani. You’re just tackling one end of this naughty little problem while I manipulate the other. Experience is overrated, you know.” “I’d have to be mad to accept such an offer.” “You already did.” A fingertip grazed her cheek, fleeting as a