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steel-gray hair was the color of his eyes, the metallic tint responsible for his given name. Six-foot-two and 190 pounds, his physique was muscled from working the farm. When the car parked and DeClercq got out, he lowered the binoculars and turned from the barn.
    The owls slept on.
    Watching his former boss trudge through the snow, a light breeze ruffling the fur of DeClercq's beaver hat, the Chief's parka navy blue against the horizon's enamel blue sky, flashes from the past sparked through Zinc Chandler's mind . . .

    . . . when a cloud masks the face of the moon, Zinc crosses the bridge.
    The windows of the Teahouse are lattice screens, intricately patterned with chrysanthemums. Back to the door, Lotus Kwan watches ripples play across the lake. Gun in one hand, knife in the other, Zinc is a shadow in the moon gate.
    Lotus turns.
    "Where's Evan?" Zinc asks, scanning the pavilion.
    "Behind you," Lotus says, East confronting West.
    The look that passes between them speaks a thousand words.
    To imperial China, the Middle Kingdom was the center of the world. Everyone not Chinese was a barbarian. The "Red Beards "—Englishmen—were hated most of all. Lotus is heir to that reality.
    To imperial Britain, everyman's land was theirs to seize. Colonists had a right to go where they had no right to be. God, Queen, Country, and the White Man's Burden sent armies and corporations forth to "civilize" the world. Zinc is heir to that reality.
    "White monkey," Lotus says, pulling a gun.
    Zinc hears running behind him, coming across the bridge.
    Shots ring out.
    The pain explodes with such force that for an instant he believes his head has disintegrated. The cause isn't external, so there is no escape. The pain is internal, blasting his puddinglike brain. Tissue tears, blood flows, and everything goes black . . .

    . . . blind to the theater of surgery, he sees monsters instead. Hunched, deformed, and hairy, their black faces knobbed like the Elephant Man, they lumber from his limbic brain to torment his mind. Hair sloughs off their pustular skin in ugly pink patches, oozing slime into their matted fur. Drool that smells like goat cheese dribbles from their fangs, two inches long and caked with human meat. Bloodshot, their piggy eyes are rabidly insane, a condition echoed in their ravenous growls.
    Welcome to Hell . . .

    . . . like in a photograph, no one moves. White on white, they circle him under a halo of frozen light. His eyes crack, close, then crack again. His mouth's as dry as cotton balls. Is this heaven, or is it a dream? Cold, he's ice cold, the ice cube man. Consciousness slips and he's sucked down by the tide . . .

    . . . above his bed are a zillion drips, bags, and snakelike tubes. His forearms, black and blue from needles, itch maddeningly. From under the heavy white turban wrapped around his head a line carries blood to a lemon-shaped drain. Slowly the mystic union of body and mind returns. With it comes a craving for maple walnut ice cream . . .

    . . . the world is outrageously ugly, and he looks like shit. Why is he so tired? The anesthesia? They'd shaved his head for surgery, then had cut a square from his skull to remove the piece of lead. Enter, Stranger, at your Riske: Here there he Monsters . . .

    . . . who'd have thought recovery would be this quick? Soon he's eating and walking, trailing his pole and bag of serum. The tubes, like cut umbilical cords, come out one by one. When blood stops draining from his scalp, removing the threat of clots, that line is pulled too, leaving nothing but a pencil-sized stab mark. The turban's replaced by a skullcap, and each day's dressing shrinks. The square of bone, held in place by silk strings, bounces like a trapdoor on his bruised brow. The nurse gives him a stool softener. "Don't push too hard . . .

    . . . healing is up to him, not up to doctors.
    Life becomes a struggle to relearn control. Control, which always came naturally, now requires concentration. If he doesn't