Prologue
I will never forget the moment I first saw the Hang-Jinhe, no matter how many decades have passed. Who could forget such a thing? Or such people? Mr. Lawson, and his unbelievable Chinese clock. An-Ming and Peter. Wang and Hu-Lan and Captain Li. If I close my eyes I can see their faces sharp and clear, like they were standing right by me. All the others, too: old Robert and his daughter, Eleanor, and her husband, Jacob Sands. Billy Adams. The tall thug whose name I never knew. Good old Pat Delany...

Aboard the Hang-Jinhe
Faith, but she was fine! She was a junk, a genuine sea-going Chinese junk. Peter gaped. I must have, too. I know my heart soared at the sight. Only one other junk had ever graced Boston Harbor. Six years before, the Keying had stopped in on her way to England from Canton, and I still remembered the crowds and hullaballoo. And Da rowing the whole family out to see her on the water. It was the last time we’d all been in the boat together. Before Tim died.
The Hang-Jinhe was much like the Keying, t...

Mr. Lawson and An-Ming
There was a wild man standing in the doorway. He looked and sounded like an American, but he was wearing Chinese clothes and had such a fierce expression that I thought he might jump us. The bodyguard hovered behind him, looking very worried. That made me even more worried. Peter stepped to my rescue.
“He wasn’t touching anything, sir. He was merely pointing.”
“Who is he? And who are you?” the old fellow demanded. And he did seem old right then. Frail, too. Bowed by some weight. He had a thick h...