Fiction. Suspense. Thriller. HTML:From the New York Timesâ??bestselling author of The Ninja comes the first "authentic and engrossing" thriller in the series featuring Jake Maroc (Los Angeles Times).

Jake Maroc, a top agent for the secret US government agency known as the Quarry, is a martial arts expert on a quest for vengeance. Nichiren, Jake's deadliest adversary, is a cold-blooded assassin with a deadly secret. And Shi Zilin is a Communist minister, a cunning survivor of turmoil.

But only one can be the Jian: the ultimate master of strength and wisdom.

Like stones in wei qi, the Chinese game of strategy, four ancient pieces of jade determine their fate. All three men are part of a grand scheme, but as the Communist Chinese, the KGB, and the Americans maneuver for position, only the Jian will determine who controls Hong Kong, the glittering gateway to China.

From the author of the Nicholas Linnear novels and the continuing adventures of Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne, this thriller is "brilliant . . . Perhaps no other piece of fiction since Shogun illuminates the mind, machinations, and mores of Eastern peoples with the style and intensity of Jian" (The Miami Herald).