The road to the ragyapa village had been deliberately built to terminate two hundred feet short of the village, culminating in a large clearing where flat rocks were arranged as unloading platforms. As Sergeant Feng edged into the clearing, a small flatbed truck pulled out with unnecessary speed. Shan glimpsed a woman at the window. She was weeping.
Along the path to the village a donkey pulled a cart with a long thick bundle wrapped in canvas.
Yeshe, to Shan's surprise, was the first out. From the back he pulled a burlap sack of old apples and with a look of somber resolution began moving up the trail. As Shan stepped out, Feng took one look at the long bundle on the cart, then immediately locked the doors and raised the windows. As his last defense, he lit a cigarette and began filling the interior with smoke.
Shan was an alien to the ragyapa. They weren't accustomed to Han, dead or alive. They weren't accustomed to anyone but each other. Even other Tibetans seldom ventured near, except to leave the body of a loved one and a pouch of money or basket of goods in payment. In a cutter's village near Lhasa two soldiers had been killed for trying to film their work. Near Shigatse Japanese tourists had been beaten with leg bones when they got too close.
Shan quickly caught up and stayed one step behind Yeshe. "You look like you have a plan," he observed.
"Sure. To get out as quickly as possible," Yeshe said in a low voice.
An unwashed boy with long ragged hair sat on the earth near the first hut, stacking pebbles. He looked up at the visitors and shouted, not a warning cry but a cry of abrupt pain, as though he had been kicked. The sound brought a woman from the inside of the hut. With one hand she carried a dented teapot and with the other balanced a baby on her hip. She glanced at Shan, not looking into his eyes, but slowly surveying his body, as though measuring him for something.
Beyond the hut was the central yard of the camp, around which several structures were arrayed. Some were makeshift huts of sticks, planks, even cardboard. Several, to his surprise, were small but substantial stone buildings. A knot of men worked in front of one, sharpening an assortment of axes and knives.
They had an apelike quality, short men with thick arms and small eyes. One of them detached himself and took a step toward Shan, brandishing a light axe. He had a disturbingly vacant stare, as if borrowed from the dead. Noticing the sack in Yeshe's arms, his face softened. Two other men stepped toward Yeshe, and solemnly extended their arms. As Yeshe handed the sack to them, they gave a nod of sympathy, then confusion appeared on their faces. One of the men looked inside the bag and laughed as he displayed an apple from inside. The others joined in the joke as he tossed the apple to the circle of men. It was not the kind of small burlap package the ragyapa usually received, Shan suddenly realized, not one of the small bundles of death that even the flesh cutters must hate to receive.
Yeshe's action broke the tension. More apples were thrown, and the men produced pocketknives- their longer blades being reserved for their sacred duties- and began distributing pieces of the fruit. Shan looked at the tools. Small knives whose blades ended with hooks. Long flaying knives. Rough handaxes that could have been forged two centuries earlier. Half the blades could easily have severed a man's head.
Children appeared, eager for the fruit. They stayed apart from Shan, but circled Yeshe, wide-eyed and happy.
"We came from the bookstore in town," Shan announced.
The words had no effect on the children, but the men instantly sobered. Words were muttered among them, and one man split away and ran up the hill behind the village.
The children began to poke at Yeshe, and suddenly he seemed very interested in them. He knelt to tie one of their shoes, studying the youth's clothing, then they leapt on top of him, knocking him to the ground. Some of the older boys produced toy blades of wood and, laughing hysterically, made sawing motions over his joints.
Shan watched the melee for only a moment, then his gaze fixed on the running man. It quickly became clear that his destination was a rock outcropping at the top of the low ridge above the camp. Shan began walking up the trail, then stopped as he noticed the birds. Over a dozen, mostly vultures, were circling high in the sky. Others, birds of prey both large and small, sat perched along the path on stunted trees. They seemed strangely tame, as though the village belonged to them as much as the ragyapa. They watched the runner pass by with idle curiosity.
It was called sky burial. The quickest remove from the physical bounds of one's existence. In some parts of Tibet bodies were set adrift in rivers, which was why it was taboo to eat fish. Shan had heard that in regions still closely tied to India immolation was practiced. But for the devout Buddhist in most of Tibet there was only one way to dispose of the flesh left when an incarnation was extinguished. Tibetans couldn't live without the ragyapa. But they couldn't live with them.
Another man appeared at the top as the runner approached, holding a long handle like a staff with a wide blade at its end. He was middle-aged, and wore a winter military cap with its quilted side flaps hanging out at the sides like small wings. Shan, wary of the birds, sat on a boulder and waited.
The man evaluated Shan with suspicion as he neared the boulder. "No tourists," he barked in a high voice. "You should go."
"This girl in the bookstore. She is from this village," Shan said abruptly.
The man stared at Shan with a grim countenance, then lowered his blade. He produced a cloth and began wiping off gobbets of wet, pink matter, watching Shan, not the blade, as he worked. "She is my daughter," he admitted. "I am not ashamed." It was a serious admission, and a brave one.
"There is no need for shame. But it was surprising, to find one of your people working in town." He knew he did not need to mention the work papers. The realization that Shan had discovered the lie was, he expected, the only reason the man was talking to him.
The challenge in the man's eyes dissipated to a glint of stubborn resolve. "My daughter is a good worker. She deserves a chance."
"I am not here about your daughter. I am here about your family's business with the old sorcerer."
"We don't need sorcerers."
"Khorda has been supplying her with charms. I think she brings them here."
The man pressed a fist against his temple, as though suddenly in pain. "It is not illegal to ask for charms. Not anymore."
"But still, you are trying to hide it, by having your daughter buy them."
The ragyapa considered this carefully. "I help her out. One day she will have her own shop."
"A shop can be very expensive."
"Another five years. I have it worked out. Ragyapa have the steadiest job in Tibet." It had the sound of an old joke.
"Has Tamdin been here? Is that why you need the charms?" Shan asked. Or does Tamdin live here, perhaps he should ask. Could it really be so simple? The bitter, forgotten ragyapa must hate the world, especially its officials. And who more qualified to conduct the butchery on Prosecutor Jao? Or to cut out the heart of Xong De of the Ministry of Geology?
The man sighed. "The charms are not for here."
"Then where? Who? You mean you are selling them to someone else?"
"These are not things to speak about." The man wiped the blade again, as if in warning.
"Are you selling them?" Shan repeated. "Is that how you will pay for her shop?"
The man looked up at the circling birds. A ragyapa village would be the perfect place for murder, Shan realized. Like shooting your own officer on a battlefield because you hated him. One body here would quickly become indistinguishable from the others.
The man did not respond. He looked down into the village and saw the men staring at him. He barked at them and they began working on the tools again. Yeshe, strangely, was still tumbling about with the children.
Shan looked at the man again. He was not only older than most of them, he was apparently the headman of the village. "I just want to know who. Someone must be too embarrassed, or too scared, to ask for the charms directly. Is it someone in the government?" The man turned away from Shan. "My questions may occur to someone else," Shan said to his back. "They would have other means of persuasion."
"You mean Public Security," the man whispered. Certainly the Bureau would be more interested than Shan in his daughter's work papers. His face seem to crumble with the words. He stared into the dirt at his feet.
Shan told the man his name.
The headman looked up in surprise, unaccustomed to such a gesture. "I am called Merak," he said tentatively.
"You must be very proud of your daughter."
Merak stopped and considered Shan. "When I was a boy," he said, "I never understood it, why none of the others would let me near. I would go to the edge of town and hide, just to watch the others play. You know who my best friend was? A young vulture. I trained him to come to me when I called. It was the only thing that trusted me, that accepted me as I was. One day when I called an eagle was waiting. It killed my friend. Snatched him right out of the air, because he was watching me, not the sky."
"It is hard to be trusted."
"We're vultures, too. That's what the world thinks of us. My father used to laugh about that. He'd say, 'That's the advantage we have over everyone else. We know exactly who we are.' "
"Someone has asked you to buy a charm. Someone who thinks they offended Tamdin."
Merak swept his hand toward the buildings below. "Why would we need them?"
"The ragyapa do not believe in demons?"
"The ragyapa believe in vultures."
"You didn't answer my question."
"First you tell me."
"Tell you what?"
"You're from the world," Merak said, nodding toward the valley. "Tell me you don't believe in demons."
The sound of scuffling arose further up the trail. Shan looked up, and instantly regretted it. Two vultures were engaged in a tug of war over a human hand.
Shan gazed down into his own hands a moment, his fingers rubbing his calluses. "I have lived too long to tell you that."
Merak gave a knowing nod, then silently led Shan back to the village.
"The American mine," Shan told Feng. There was another ragyapa, he remembered, one who climbed the high ranges that were the home of Tamdin.
Yeshe, in the back seat, extended a child's sock toward Shan as if it were a trophy. "Didn't you see?" he asked with a meaningful grin.
"See what?"
"The missing military supplies I had been cataloging for Warden Zhong. The hats, the shoes, the shirts. And everyone wore green socks."
"I don't understand," Shan confessed.
"The lost supplies. They're here. The ragyapa have them."
"No," Shan said as they turned from the highway onto the access road to Jade Spring. "The American mine."
"Right," Sergeant Feng said. "Just one stop. Not long."
He pulled up next to the mess hall and, to Shan's surprise, opened Shan's door, waiting. "Not long," he repeated.
Shan followed, confused, then remembered. "You were talking to Lieutenant Chang."
Feng grunted noncommittally.
"Has he been reassigned? He isn't spending much time at the 404th."
"In a lockdown? With two hundred border commandos camped there? What's the point?"
"What did he want?"
"Just talking. Told me about a shortcut to the American mine."
In the mess hall soldiers were gathered in small groups, drinking tea. Feng surveyed the room, then led Shan toward three men playing mah-jongg near the rear.
"Meng Lau," he called out. Two of the men jerked their heads up and stood. The third, his back to them, laughed and set down a tile. The others fell back as Feng put his hand on the man's shoulder.
Startled, the man cursed and turned. He was young, a mere boy, with greasy hair and hooded, lightless eyes. Headphones, turned upside down under his chin, covered his ears.
"Meng Lau," Feng repeated.
The sneer on the man's face faded. He slowly lowered the headphones. Shan unbuttoned his pocket and showed him the paper provided by Director Hu. "You signed this?"
Meng glanced at Feng and slowly nodded. There was something wrong with his left eye. If drifted, unfocused, as if perhaps it were artificial.
"Did Director Hu ask for it?"
"The prosecutor came and wanted it," Meng said nervously, rising from the table.
"The prosecutor?"
Meng nodded again. "His name is Li."
"So you signed one for Li and one for Hu?"
"I signed two."
So it was true, Shan realized, Li Aidang was compiling a separate file. But why go through the trouble of providing Shan a duplicate statement? To ensure that he finished as quickly as possible? To deceive Shan? Or maybe to warn him that Li would always be one step ahead?
"They said the same thing?"
The soldier looked at Feng uncertainly before he answered. "Of course."
"But who put the words on the paper?" Shan asked.
"They are my words." Meng took a step back.
"Did you see a monk that night?"
"The statement says so."
The words seem to deflate Feng for a moment. Then anger grew on his face. "You damned pup!" he barked. "Answer him straight!"
"Were you on duty that night, Private Meng?" Shan asked. "You were not on the roster."
The soldier began to fidget with his headphones. "Sometimes we switch."
Feng's hand came out of nowhere, slapping the soldier across the mouth. "The inspector asked you a question."
Shan looked at Feng in surprise. The inspector.
Meng looked at Feng vacantly, as if he were used to being hit.
"Did you see a monk that night?" Shan asked again.
"I think because I'm a witness for the trial I am not supposed to speak with anyone."
Anger rose again on Feng's face, then quickly faded, though not before the soldier had seen it and stepped further back. "It's political," he muttered, and bolted away. Feng stared after him, looking no longer angry, but hurt.
The sergeant drove moodily, roaring through the gears, barely braking at the crossroads, until they began the long climb up the North Claw toward the American mine.
"Here," he mumbled finally, pulling a cellophane bag from his pocket. "Pumpkin seeds." He handed the bag to Shan. "Good ones, not the moldy shit from the market. Salted. Get them at the commissary."
They chewed the seeds slowly and silently, like two old men on a Beijing park bench. Before long Feng began leaning forward, watching the shoulder of the road.
"Chang said it would save an hour," Feng offered as he swung onto a rutted track that seemed little more than a goat path. "Back in time for evening mess this way."
In five minutes they were following the track toward the crest of a sharp ridge. To the right, barely three feet from their tires, the path fell away over a nearly perpendicular cliff face, ending in a tumble of rocks several hundred feet below.
"How could this reach the Americans?" Yeshe asked nervously. "We'd have to cross this chasm."
"Take a nap," Feng grumbled. "Save your energy for all that work back at the 404th."
"What do you mean?" Yeshe asked, alarm in his voice.
"Like you asked, I talked to the warden's secretary. She said no one is doing the computer work. Warden said just stack it up, someone's coming in two weeks."
"It could be someone else," Yeshe protested.
Feng shook his head. "She asked one of the administrative officers. Said the warden's Tibetan pup was coming back."
There was a tiny moan from the back. Shan turned to find Yeshe nearly doubled over, his head in his hands. With pain, Shan turned away. He had already told Yeshe. It was time for him to decide who he was.
Suddenly Shan held up his hand. "There-" he said as Sergeant Feng slowed down, pointing to a set of fresh tire tracks that veered from the path and disappeared over the crest of the ridge.
"So we're not the only ones who use the shortcut," Feng said with a tone of vindication.
Lots of people, Shan thought- like Americans searching for old shrines.
Shan opened the door and carefully eased around the truck, mindful of the sheer dropoff. He picked a stem of heather from the tire tracks and handed it to Feng. "Smell it. This was crushed not even an hour ago."
"So?"
"So I'm going to follow this fresh trail. Your road curves around that rock formation to the crest. I'll meet you on the other side."
Feng frowned but began to inch the truck forward.
Moving up the slope, Shan tried to piece together the geography. The skull cave was less than a mile away. Was this the Americans' back door to the skull cave? Had Fowler and Kincaid been so foolish as to return to the shrine? As he neared the top he heard a peculiar sound. Like bells, he thought. No, drums. A few feet further he realized it was rock and roll music. As he reached the crest he crouched and dropped back. There was a truck, but it was not the Americans'. It was bright red.
Calming himself, he edged his head above the rocks. It was the big Land Rover that Hu had been driving, but the figure at the wheel, tapping in time to the music, was too tall to be Hu.
It made no sense to park there. There was no one else to be seen, no one to wait for. There was not even much landscape to survey, for the rock outcropping cut off much of the view down the ridge.
Slowly, unconsciously, Shan's curiosity forced him to rise. There were fresh mounds of dirt behind the rear wheels, and a huge five-foot boulder in front of the vehicle, balanced precariously close to the lip of a bank that dropped sharply down to the road. Suddenly the man inside straightened and looked intently at the track below. Their own truck was coming into view. The figure inside the Land Rover raised his fist as though in victory and gunned the motor.
"No!" Shan screamed, and ran toward the truck. Its wheels were spinning, throwing more dirt into the air. The boulder was beginning to move.
He launched himself through the cloud of dust, pounding violently on the driver's window. The man turned and stared dumbly. It was Lieutenant Chang.
Shan could see him reaching for the gear shift. The truck seemed to ease back as Chang fumbled with the controls, then lurched forward. In one violent heave the boulder and the truck both flew over the bank.
As if in slow motion Shan watched Feng stop, then jump out of their truck with Yeshe just as the boulder hurled past them and disappeared over the edge. The Land Rover, airborne, struck the bank on its side and began to roll down the precipitous slope, glass popping, metal groaning, its wheels still whirling. It hit the road in the middle of a roll and landed on the driver's side in a cloud of dust, with the front half hanging over the chasm.
Shan, breathless, reached the road just as an arm rose through the shattered passenger's window. Chang, his forehead smeared with blood, appeared in the window and began to pull himself up. The music was still playing.
Lieutenant Chang stopped moving and shouted for Feng, who stood ten feet away. As he did so there was a groan of metal and something gave way. Chang screamed as the vehicle sank another foot over the edge and stopped.
Anger grew on Chang's face. "Sergeant!" he bellowed. "Get me-"
He never finished. The Land Rover abruptly tipped and disappeared from view. They could still hear the music as it fell.
Not a word was spoken as they backtracked down the ridge and onto the main road. Sergeant Feng's face was clouded with confusion. His hand shook on the wheel. Try as he might, Shan knew, in the end Sergeant Feng would not be able to avoid the truth. Chang had been trying to kill him, too.
As they finally cleared the ridge above the boron mine, Shan signaled for Feng to stop. There was a shrine he had not seen on their first visit, on a ledge three hundred feet above the valley floor. Prayer flags were fluttering around a cairn of rocks. Some were just bits of colored cloth. Others were the huge banners painted with prayers that the Tibetans called horse flags.
"I want to know about that shrine," he said to Yeshe and Feng as they parked the truck. "Find a way up there. See if you can tell who built it, and where they're coming from."
Yeshe cocked his head toward the shrine with an intense interest and began moving toward it without looking back. Feng contemplated Shan with a sour look, then shrugged, checked the ammunition in his pistol, and jogged toward Yeshe.
The mine office was nearly empty as Shan entered. The woman who served tea was asleep on a stool, leaning against the wall. Two men in muddy work clothes huddled over the large table. One offered a nod of acknowledgment as Shan approached. It was Luntok, the ragyapa engineer. The red door at the rear was closed again. There were voices behind it, and the low whir of electronic equipment.
The two men were taking measurements on one of the colorful charts he had seen before. It had a blue rectangle in the center, below rows of smaller blue-green rectangles. Suddenly Shan recognized the images.
"It's the ponds, isn't it? I have never seen such a map," he marveled. "Do you make them here?"
Luntok looked up with a grin. "Better than a map. A photograph. From the sky. From a satellite."
Shan stared dumbly. It was not that satellite photography was beyond his imagination; it was just beyond his expectations. Tibet truly existed in many different centuries at once.
"We have to know about snow melt," Luntok explained. "About river flows. About avalanches above us. About road conditions when shipments go out. Without these, we would need survey crews in the mountains every week."
Luntok pointed out the mine's lakes, the buildings of the camp, and a cluster of geometric shapes at the far left that was the outskirts of Lhadrung town. He outlined with his finger the big dike at the head of the Dragon Throat, then picked up the map and pointed to a second, earlier photo. "Here it is two weeks ago, just before construction was completed." Shan saw the spots of color that must have been pieces of equipment near the center of the brown dike.
"But how do you obtain these?"
"There is an American satellite and a French satellite. We have subscriptions. The surface of the earth is divided into sections, in a catalog. We can order up a print by section number. It gets transmitted to our console," he said, pointing his thumb toward the red door.
"But the army-" Shan began.
"There is a license," Luntok explained patiently. "Everything is legal."
A license for a Western venture to operate equipment that could survey troop movements, air exercises, and army installations as easily as it could survey snow accumulations. The Americans had worked a miracle, to obtain such a permit in Tibet.
Shan found the road leading to the mine, visible as a tiny gray line that wandered in and out of the shadows cast by the peaks. He found the road from the north, to Saskya gompa, and finally the 404th worksite. The new bridge was a narrow hyphen that intersected the serpentine grayness of the Dragon's Throat.
Shan sat beside Luntok. "I've been to the ragyapa village," he announced. The man beside Luntok tensed, and glanced at Luntok, who kept studying the maps without reacting. The man grabbed his hat and stepped out of the building.
"I spoke with Merak," Shan said. "Do you know Merak?"
"It is a small community," Luntok observed tersely.
"It must be difficult."
"There are quotas for us now. I was allowed to attend university. I have a good job."
"I meant for them. Seeing the people here and in town, but knowing most will never break away."
Luntok's eyes narrowed, but he did not look up from the photo map. "The ragyapa are proud of their work. It is a sacred trust, the only religious practice that has been allowed to continue without restriction."
"They seem well provided for. Happy children. Lots of warm clothes."
As if Shan's comment were a cue he had been awaiting, Luntok picked up his own hat and rose. "It is considered bad luck to underpay a ragyapa," he said with a wary glance, then turned and left.
That the ragyapa had the ability to carry out Jao's murder Shan had no doubt. Had the military supplies been a reward? If so, someone else paid them to kill Jao. Someone with control over military supplies. Shan stepped back and studied the room. The woman was snoring now. No one else was present. Shan moved to the red door and opened it.
Computer terminals, four in all, dominated the room. A few bowls with noodles clinging to the rims, the remains of lunch, were on a large conference table. Two Chinese, dressed in Western clothes, one wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his head, sat studying glossy catalogs and sipping tea. From an expensive sound system came Western rock and roll. At a corner desk sat Tyler Kincaid, cleaning his camera.
"Comrade Shan," said a familiar voice from the back of the room. Li Aidang rose from a sofa. "If only I had known, I would have invited you to ride with me." He gestured toward the table. "We have a luncheon meeting twice a month. The supervisory committee."
Shan moved slowly around the room. There was an empty cassette case on top of a speaker. The Grateful Dead, it said. Perhaps, Shan considered without remorse, it was what Chang listened to as he and his truck tumbled into the abyss. Li retrieved a Coca-Cola from a small refrigerator and extended it toward him.
There were photo maps on one wall. Photographs were fastened with pins to another: more studies of Tibetan faces, taken with the same sensitivity as those Shan had seen in Kincaid's office. Li handed Shan the soft drink.
"I didn't realize the prosecutor's office had an interest in mining," Shan said, and set the can on the table, unopened.
"We are the Ministry of Justice. The mine is the only foreign investment in the district. The people's government must be certain it succeeds. There are so many issues. Labor organization. Export permits. Foreign exchange permits. Work permits. Environmental permits. The Ministry must be consulted for such approvals."
"I had no idea boron was such an important product."
The assistant prosecutor smiled generously. "We want our American friends to stay happy. One third of the royalties stay in the district. After three years of production we will be able to build a new school. After five, maybe a new clinic."
Shan moved to one of the computer monitors, closer to Kincaid. Numbers were scrolling across the screen.
"You know our friend Comrade Hu," Li said, pointing to the first of the two men at the table. Hu gave him the same mock salute he had left Shan with in Tan's office. Shan had not recognized him with the hat. He studied the Director of Geology closely. Was Hu surprised to see him?
"Comrade Inspector," Hu acknowledged in a curt tone, his little beetle eyes fixing Shan for a moment, then turning back to the catalog. The one he was reading had pictures of smiling blond couples standing in snow, wearing sweaters of brilliant colors.
"Still giving driving lessons, Comrade Director?" Shan asked, trying to look distracted by the console.
Hu laughed.
Li gestured toward the second man, a well-groomed, athletic figure who stood as though to better survey Shan. "The major is from the border command." Li looked meaningfully at Shan. "His resources are sometimes useful for our project." The major, nothing more. He was so polished that he could have been lifted from the pages of the catalog, Shan thought at first. But then he turned his head toward Shan. A gutter of scar tissue ran across his left cheek; it could only have been made by a bullet. His lips curled up in greeting but his eyes remained lifeless. It was a familiar insolence. The major, Shan decided, belonged to the Public Security Bureau.
"A fascinating facility," Shan said absently, continuing to wander about the room. "Full of surprises." He paused in front of the photographs.
"A triumph of socialism," the major observed. His voice had a boyish tone belied by his countenance.
Tyler Kincaid gave a slow nod toward Shan but did not speak. Half his forearm was wrapped with a large piece of gauze taped over a recent injury. A shadow of dried blood could be seen through the gauze.
"Comrade Shan is investigating a murder," Li announced to the major. "Once he led anticorruption campaigns inBeijing. The famous Hainan Island affair was his." The Hainan Island case, in which Shan had discovered that provincial officials were purchasing shiploads of Japanese automobiles- for an island with only a hundred miles of roads- and diverting them to the black market on the mainland, had made Shan a celebrity for a few months. But that had been fifteen years earlier. Who had the assistant prosecutor been speaking to? The warden? Beijing?
Shan studied the major, who had no interest in Li's words. There had been no challenge in his eyes, no question in his voice despite Shan's abrupt intrusion. He already knew who Shan was.
"This is where your telephone system operates?" Shan asked Kincaid.
The American rose, and forced a smile. "Over there," he said, indicating a speaker above a console on a small desk against the wall. "Wanna order a pizza from New York?"
Li and the major laughed hard.
"And the maps?"
"Maps? We have a whole reference library. Atlases. Engineering journals."
"I mean the ones from the sky."
"Amazing, aren't they?" Li interrupted. "The first time we saw them, it seemed like a miracle. The world looks so different." He moved toward Shan and leaned toward his ear. "We must talk about our files, Comrade. The trial is only a few days away. No need for undue embarrassment."
As Shan considered the assistant prosecutor's invitation, the door opened and Luntok appeared. He nodded to Kincaid and quickly left, leaving the door open. Kincaid stretched and made a gesture of invitation toward Shan. "Afternoon climbing classes. How about some rappelling?"
"You're climbing with your injury?"
"This?" the American asked good-naturedly, raising his arm. "Walking wounded. Came down on a jagged piece of quartz. Can't let it stop me. Always get back on the horse, you know."
Li laughed again and moved back toward the sofa. Hu returned to his catalogs. The major lit a cigarette and pushed Shan out of the room with a daggerlike stare.
Outside he found Rebecca Fowler sitting on the hood of her truck, studying the valley.
He didn't think she had noticed him until she suddenly spoke. "I can't imagine what it must be like for you," she said.
He was uncomfortable with her sympathy. "If I had never been sent to Tibet I would never have met Tibetans."
She turned to him with a sad smile and reached into the deep pocket of her nylon vest. "Here," she said, producing two paperback books. "Just a couple of novels, in English. I thought you might…"
Shan accepted them with a small bow of his head. "You are kind. I miss reading in English." The books indeed would be a treasure, except that they would be confiscated when he was returned to the 404th. He didn't have the heart to tell her.
He leaned back on the truck, gazing at the surrounding peaks. The snowcaps were glowing in the late afternoon sun. "The soldiers are gone," he observed.
Fowler followed his gaze over the ponds. "Not one of my better ideas. Called away for some other emergency."
"Emergency?"
"The major had something to do with it."
Shan paced along the front of the truck, surveying the compound. Someone was sitting on one of the dikes, staring at the mountains. He squinted and saw that it was Yeshe. Sergeant Feng was sitting on the hood of their own truck. As his field of view extended behind the buildings, Shan froze. Behind the first one was a familiar vehicle. A red Land Rover. Another red Land Rover. "Whose car is that?"
Fowler looked up. "The red one? Must be Director Hu's."
He resisted the urge to run to the vehicle and search it. The committee members could emerge at any moment.
"These Land Rovers. Do they all belong to the Ministry of Geology?"
"Don't know. I don't think so. I saw the major driving one."
Shan nodded, as though he expected the answer. "What do you know about this major?"
"One powerful son of a bitch, is all. He scares me."
"Why is he on your committee?"
"Because we're so close to the border. It was a condition of our satellite license."
Somehow Shan felt he knew the man. With a wrench of his gut he remembered. Jigme's description of the man who had come for Sungpo. A man with a slice on his face, a deep scar. His name, Jigme had said, was Meh Jah.
"What if it wasn't Hu who wanted your license suspended?" he asked abruptly.
"He signed the notice."
"He would have to sign it, as Director of Mines, but it may be at the order of someone else. Or a political favor to someone."
"What do you mean?" Fowler asked, suddenly interested.
"I don't know what I mean." He shook his head despondently. "I'm supposed to be finding answers, and all I find is more questions." He gazed out over the pond complex.
Workers were moving along the dikes at a relaxed pace with shovels and pipe fittings. Yeshe and Feng were moving back down the slope, approaching the buildings.
"Did someone- did you have a ceremony? For your workers."
She looked at him with a pained expression. "I almost forgot- it was your idea, wasn't it?" The nervousness had not left her eyes.
"I never thought it would be so soon."
The American woman jumped down and gestured for him to follow her along the line of buildings.
"Who was the priest who came?"
"There was no name," Fowler said in a near whisper. "I don't think we were supposed to use his name. An old priest. Strange."
"How old?"
"Not old in years. Middle-aged. But old like austere. Like timeless. Thin as a rail. An ascetic, I guess."
"What do you mean strange?"
"Like from another century. His eyes. I don't know. Sometimes it seemed like he didn't see anyone. Or he saw things we could not see. And his hands."
"His hands?"
"He had no thumbs."
On the side of the last building, facing the valley, was a patchwork charm, a square an arm's length on each side. It was filled with complex pictograms and writing. Two poles flanked it, draped with prayer flags.
Yeshe appeared behind him and muttered something under his breath. It had the tone of a prayer. "Powerful magic," he gasped. He held up his rosary as though for protection, and stepped back.
"What is it?" Shan asked. He remembered the building from his last visit. There had been a line of Tibetans outside, waiting for something.
"It's very old. Very secret," Yeshe whispered.
"No," Fowler said. "Not old. Look at the paper. It has printing on the back."
"I mean, the signs are old. I can't read them all. Even if I could I would not be permitted to recite them. Words of power." Yeshe seemed genuinely frightened. "Dangerous words. I don't know who- most of the lamas with the power to write such words are dead. I don't know of any in Lhadrung."
"If he traveled far he must have been very fast," she said, looking at Shan.
"The old ones," Yeshe whispered, obviously still in awe of the charm. "Those with this kind of power. They would say they used the arrow ritual to fly. They could jump between dimensions."
No, Shan was tempted to say, the charm had not come far. But perhaps it had come between dimensions.
Fowler grinned uneasily. "It's just words."
Yeshe shook his head. "Not just words. You cannot write such words unless you have the power. Not power, exactly. Vision. Access to certain forces. In the old schools they would say that if I tried to write this, or someone else without the training-" Yeshe hesitated.
"Yes?" Fowler asked.
"I would shatter into a thousand pieces."
Shan stepped up and examined the paper.
"But what does it do?" Fowler asked.
"It is about death and Tamdin."
She shuddered.
"No," Yeshe corrected himself. "Not exactly that. It is difficult to explain. It is like a signpost for Tamdin. It celebrates his deeds. His deeds are death. But good death."
"Good death?"
"Protecting death. Transporting death. It offers the power of all souls here to help him open a path to enlightenment."
"You said death."
"Death and enlightenment. Sometimes the old priests use the same words. There're many kinds of death. Many kinds of enlightenment." Yeshe turned back to Shan for a moment, as though he had just realized what he had said.
"All souls here?" Fowler asked. "Us?"
"Especially us," Shan said quietly, stepping closer to the charm.
"Nobody asked me if I wanted to offer my soul," Rebecca Fowler said, trying to make a joke. But she did not smile.
Shan ran his finger over the patchwork. It was made of thirty or forty small sheets, stitched together with human hair. He didn't need to lift the edge to know that the sheets were from the guard tallies at the 404th. He had seen the charm being made.
"And this is all he did, this priest?" Shan asked.
"No. There was something else. He had them build the shrine on the mountain." She pointed to the shrine Shan had seen earlier. "I am supposed to go there tonight."
"Why you? Why tonight?"
Fowler did not reply, but led them into the building, which was a dormitory for workers. The entrance chamber seemed to be a recreation area, but it was abandoned. Shelves were packed with jigsaw puzzles, books, and chess sets. Tables and chairs had been pushed to the sides, against the shelves. In an empty food tin, incense was burning. One small table stood in the center. On it was a bundle, surrounded by flickering butter lamps.
"Luntok found it near one of the ponds," Fowler said. "Where a vulture dropped it. At first we thought it was human."
"Luntok?"
"He came from one of the old villages where they do- you know, sky burial. He has no fear of such things."
"Does he know Director Hu?" Shan asked. "Or the major? Does he ever speak with them?"
"I don't know," the American woman said distractedly. "I don't think so. He's like most of the workers, I think. Government officials scare them."
Shan wanted to press, to ask how Luntok came to work for her, but suddenly she seemed incapable of hearing anything. She was staring desolately at the bundle. "The workers say we have to give it back tonight." Her voice cracked as she spoke. "They say it is the job of the village headman. And that I am the headman here."
Shan took a step forward and opened the bundle. It was a severed hand, a huge gnarled hand with long, grotesquely proportioned fingers that ended with claws covered in finely worked silver.
It was the hand of a demon.