Fat Mao and Shan had been walking for an hour in the dim predawn light when Mao threw up his hand in warning. He pushed Shan toward a boulder and crouched behind another as a solitary figure came up the trail behind them. It was Jowa, running hard, his head raised high as though he struggled to see something, or someone, in the distance. Fat Mao stood after Jowa passed, and a moment later Jowa slowed, his hand going reflexively to his belt. But his dagger was gone.
"I thought you were staying in Tibet," the Uighur called out to his back. "Too dangerous for purbas."
Jowa stopped and spun about. "I told them," he said, panting hard as he looked at Shan, "this is different." His gaze shifted toward the mountains. "I have to find the lamas."
Shan did not ask him why he had removed his knife. This is different, he had said. Did he somehow mean this was a different Jowa?
Fat Mao nodded, glanced at his watch, and walked past Jowa to lead them down the trail. He walked faster and faster. Then, as the sun cast its first rays over the mountains, he broke into a jog. The men moved hard and fast, over the open plain now, in the face of the cold wind, back toward the Kunlun. Not because they were late, but because boys were being killed, the spirit of the young Tenth Yakde was wandering, lost, and Gendun and Lokesh were missing. If they couldn't do anything else for the moment, they could run.
On they went, three small men in the vastness of the changtang, the wind sweeping the grass in long waves around them, the snow-capped peaks shimmering in the brilliant light of dawn. As they appeared over a small knoll they surprised a herd of antelope, which fled across the long plain. Except one, a small animal with a broken horn, which stared as if it recognized them, then ran beside them, alone, until they reached the road.
By late morning Jowa and Shan had been dropped at the side of the road to Yoktian, and an hour of walking brought Lau's cabin into view. Shan had decided the night before that he had to see the waterkeeper's chamber once more.
But Jowa held him back as they approached the clearing. Something was different. There were voices. A dog barked, then another, and they saw a big Tibetan mastiff charging toward them. Shan sensed Jowa's body tensing as it braced for an attack, then he threw his arm in front of the purba, pointing toward a figure walking up from the stream with a water pot. Jakli.
They emerged into the clearing. Someone shouted and the dog halted. Shan turned to see Akzu, and behind the headman, two yurts. Red Stone clan had moved camp.
Malik stood by a string of horses tied between the tents, with two young boys who had not been with the clan on Shan's first visit. He surveyed the camp. A pot of mutton stew hung over the fire, tended by Akzu's wife and another boy, who called out as Shan approached. It was Batu.
"They were coming back down," Batu explained as he ran to meet them. "They had fled at first, but they were coming back down."
"I don't understand," Shan said as he surveyed the clearing. He counted six boys, including Batu, all nearly the same age.
"They all had the same idea. Like an omen."
"Same idea?"
"That the only one who can really protect us now is Auntie Lau. We had to come back."
The zheli had returned to Lau. Of the eight survivors, six were in the camp.
A movement in the tree by the cabin caught Shan's eye. He looked up to see one of Akzu's sons sitting on a limb with a pair of binoculars, keeping watch. One of the man's hands was heavily bandaged.
"We're not leaving," Batu declared. "Not until her killer is caught. Not until we know she is in peace."
Jakli arrived at Shan's side. "It's too dangerous, I know," she said with a worried frown. "I found two of them walking on a path to come here. I told them stay away from the valleys. But then Azku arrived with the other boys. He said Red Stone had an obligation, because they had lost Khitai. And Marco agreed to stay." She gestured Shan back, out of earshot of the others. "The boys told me something else," she said in a hushed tone. "Lau was here, the day she died. With two boys and one of the girls. Riding horses. Then she sent them to sit alone, one of her reverence classes."
"Someone could come," Jowa pressed. "They have helicopters."
Shan followed Jowa's gaze toward the man in the tree with the bandaged hand, and suddenly remembered Xu's story of a Brigade truck that had been stolen and burned. He had almost forgotten their first encounter with Akzu and Fat Mao, when they had been interested only in speaking to Jowa about evading knob patrols. Red Stone clan might want a Brigade truck, not to sabotage, but to evade the Poverty Scheme.
"No one will come," Batu said defiantly. He reached into his shirt. "Not if we have this." He produced a piece of paper, which he unfolded into a large square. "A charm againt demons and killers."
With a surge of excitement Shan recognized it. Over twenty lines of Tibetan text in the elegant script used for religious writing covered the bulk of the paper, with renderings of the eight sacred symbols drawn along the edges. It was not exactly a charm but was called a Victorious Banner, an expanded form of prayer flag that invoked a special blessing on the virtuous souls who flew it.
"Who gave this to you?" he asked, suddenly looking over the boy's heads, anxiously surveying the meadow behind the cabin.
"The holy men," Batu said. "They came yesterday. They went to the meadow, speaking with the deities. They wrote these magic words for us. They said it would protect us if we held Lau in our hearts."
Lokesh and Gendun had been there. He remembered Lokesh's words when they had first seen the beautful meadow behind the cabin. It was the kind of place where a boy's soul might linger. They had been seeking traces of the Yakde's wandering soul.
The man in the tree whistled, and moments later the mastiff barked again. Someone was approaching the camp, a tall man in a red Brigade jacket, a small backpack hanging from one shoulder. It was Kaju Drogme, wearing a nervous, uncertain expression, as if at any moment he might turn and run back down the trail.
Jowa seemed to growl almost as loud as the dog at the sight of the Tibetan. He ran to Kaju's side and grabbed the backpack off his back. Kaju held up his hands and let it go without protest as he surveyed the compound with a relieved smile.
"One of the teachers said she came to this place with the zheli in the summer," Kaju said awkwardly, apparently deciding to speak to Jakli. "I thought the children might remember." He pulled a paper from his pocket as he surveyed the boys. The list of the zheli. "I need to assure them, make sure they know we have class at Stone Lake tomorrow."
Jakli asked Jowa what he was looking for. "A radio," Jowa said, staring sourly at Kaju. "A weapon. A beacon. He works for Ko."
Kaju took a step closer to Jakli. "I work for the Brigade. I work for the people of Yoktian County," he said, pain obvious on his face. "All the people."
There was only food in the pack- a bottle of water, fruit, and a bag of chocolate bars. Batu spied the chocolate and called out excitedly. The zheli boys descended on Jowa as he knelt on the ground and held out their hands. Kaju smiled. "Go ahead," he offered to Jowa. But the purba grimaced and tossed the bag to Kaju.
When the candy was distributed Kaju held out his list and studied it, then looked up at Jakli. "I still don't know all their names," he said awkwardly. She stared at the list and shook her head. Kaju appeared hurt by the gesture and walked away from them.
"They took him from the camp," Jakli announced to Shan suddenly. "The waterkeeper. The instructors said he was too disruptive, but they didn't want to report it since they might be criticized. So they said he was sick and took him to the clinic near town."
"Is he- has someone seen him?" Shan asked anxiously.
"A Kazakh nurse who knows us. The doctors mostly give him medication to keep him asleep. He's in a secure ward, where they put injured prisoners sometimes. Not always a guard, but they keep the door locked."
But he was out of the camp, Shan thought. It meant there was a chance of rescue, a chance for him to at last speak with the lama. "Does he know about Khitai?"
Jakli sighed. "No one knows how, but he must. The Kazakh nurse speaks some Tibetan. He seems to trust her. He asked her in what direction the lama field was, because he had to pray toward the place now."
"Tell her not to speak anymore Tibetan. It could make others-" He stopped when he saw Jakli was not listening. He followed her gaze toward Kaju.
"There is something you have to do for Kaju," Shan said after a moment. "Only you can do it."
Jakli looked at him with uncertainty and sighed, as if preparing herself.
"It may be," Shan said slowly, studying Kaju as he wandered among the boys, discomfort still obvious on his face, "the most important thing any of us could do. But I won't do it. She was your friend, your teacher."
"No," Jakli said slowly, almost like a moan. There was no uncertainty in her eyes now when she looked up. Only sorrow. "I couldn't."
"He won't accept that she was killed. And everything else he has done is based on that delusion." Shan looked up the slope. "Maybe he will find that he has something to say to her."
"And if he runs to Yoktian and brings them back? With all the boys here? It would be just what Xu wants."
"I'm not sure what Xu wants anymore," Shan replied.
Jakli ignored him. "She would call it clear proof that the Kazakhs are conspiring. She will say we killed Lau and are covering up the evidence. She would take all the boys away, maybe all the zheli. Put them in a special school. Make them all Chinese."
"You can trust or you can distrust. Lau would choose to trust. It is up to you. I will not take him because to do so without your consent would be to dishonor you."
She looked at him with pain in her eyes, then walked slowly away, without reply, and Shan began to inch away from the group. Then, as he reached the shadow of the cabin, he moved quickly to the trail. In twenty minutes he was at the cavern. He lit one of the torches and stepped inside.
The waterkeeper's chamber appeared untouched. He walked around the room. By the tunnel he saw the words he had left for Gendun. The way that is told is not the constant way. With a spark of joy he saw that someone had written below it. It was Gendun's hand, unmistakably. But a constant can be found in the way of the telling, Gendun had written.
Shan turned and searched the room again. Under the sleeping pallet by the wall he found a large, soiled envelope, stuffed with papers. Government papers, routine paperwork for those paid to maintain streams. He scanned them quickly. They were separated in groups fastened with paper clips, dated at regular intervals. The waterkeeper apparently journeyed to town every other week, where he received his papers. All routine, except the very last paper. It was on special letterhead marked Poverty Eradication Scheme, Yoktian County, and sent by Ko Yonghong. The waterkeepers in the district were being privatized into the Brigade, it said. The Brigade would be presenting gifts in celebration of the event. And to facilitate the project, all keepers would be required to keep strict records of the movements of herders and others through their assigned watersheds. Because the Brigade felt special compassion for them, all orphans were to be especially noted and asked to report to Director Ko so they could be enrolled in a special benefit program. Continue to build socialism in pursuit of your duties, it said in closing.
Lau had been at the cabin the day she died, Jakli had discovered. The zheli had been given their solitary assignments and Lau had gone to see the waterkeeper. He had shown her the memorandum from Ko, and she had known it was the final sign, the beginning of the end. She had ridden to Karachuk that night, ridden at a desperate pace, to tell Marco that the Yakde and his protectors had to escape with Jakli and Nikki.
As Shan was leaving the cavern, two figures appeared at the entrance. Jakli, holding a torch, with Kaju. She looked at Shan with a sad smile. "Okay. I told him a true teacher would want to know the truth," she said.
Shan nodded silently and stepped aside to let her lead the Tibetan through the ice cave to Auntie Lau. Shan followed at a distance. He was at the entrance to the burial chamber when he heard Kaju groan and saw him drop to his knees. Shan stood at the back, by the frozen handprints on the wall, as Jakli showed him the bullet hole.
Kaju held his belly as if he were going to be sick. And then he sobbed.
Jakli knelt beside him, and they studied Lau without speaking.
"She left me files," Kaju said at last, very quietly. "Three days before she disappeared, she updated all the files about each of the children." The words came slowly, as if he were struggling to find them. "This one had pneumonia once, so keep a hat on her. That one likes to watch birds. This one is supposed to see a dentist in three months. It was as if she were going away." He looked down into his hands. "Not locations. She didn't tell me where to find them."
"Why would you say that?" Jakli asked, suspicion heavy in her voice.
"Major Bao asked. Twice, himself. And three days ago at the school, Comrade Hu asked. Said records had to be completed."
The words hung like a dark cloud over them.
At last Shan stepped to the Tibetan's side. "You should consider carefully who it is who lied to you," he said.
Kaju looked at him in confusion. "No one," he said in a brittle voice. "This is just a terrible tragedy." He shifted his gaze to Jakli, then back to Shan. "Except you. She was missing, they said. But you had her body hid."
"It was all planned. Arrangements were made to bring you to replace her."
"Plans for her to retire, yes," the Tibetan said. "She was going to Urumqi." He fell back off his knees, sitting, as if he had lost his balance.
"Ko told you that she would definitely be leaving for Urumqi?"
Kaju nodded. "Ko said he was going to erect a plaque to her at the school. She will always be a hero in the Brigade." Kaju kept staring at Lau's face. "I will not let them stop me," he said. It sounded like a vow to the dead woman.
"Who?" Shan asked as he sat beside the Tibetan.
"The ones who did this. The reactionaries."
Jakli groaned.
"It's wasn't reactionaries," Shan said calmly. "It was someone looking for a boy. A very specific boy." He told them, as they sat in the chill burial room, about the Yakde Lama. He was careful not to let Kaju know about the Raven's Nest or the waterkeeper, but he spoke about General Rongqi and how one of the zheli had been the incarnation of the Yakde, and about the Jade Basket.
Jakli sighed heavily, then raised her hand slowly and rested it on Auntie Lau's shoulder. The Tibetan sat in silence, his eyes restlessly studying the corpse in front of him. "If I were to believe you, it would mean they all are lying, that they were all working together. Ko. General Rongqi and Major Bao. They aren't. I know that. That's not the kind of government we have now. Bao and Public Security, sometimes they don't understand. One of our assignments is to help them understand new techniques for-" His voice faded, as if he had lost his train of thought. "But the Brigade is different. I got a letter from vice chairman Rongqi congratulating me on my appointment. The people sent me to university," Kaju added, as if it explained much.
"To study integration of cultures," Shan observed. "Not annihilation of them."
"My training," Kaju said, as if in protest.
"Training for what?" Jakli interrupted. "To kill teachers? To murder boys?" She stopped, as if surprised by the venom in her own voice, and looked down, with pain in her eyes, at Lau.
"Of course not."
They were silent a long time. Jakli's head moved slowly up and down as she gazed at Lau, as if she were having a conversation with the dead woman.
Shan sighed. "It's a starting place. Just believe that. That someone has killed four boys, is still stalking them, and will not stop until he has the gau. Do you accept that the killer must be stopped? Whomever it may be?"
Kaju's eyes met Shan's and he nodded soberly.
"And understand this," Jakli added. "The boys are not safe with the Brigade for now. Or with Public Security. Not until it is over."
"I will-" Kaju said, confusion clouding his eyes, "I will not tell Director Ko about the boys being here. He night not understand, he might inadvertently say something to the knobs. I will not tell Major Bao. You can trust me. I have not told about the Americans."
Shan looked at him with surprise. "You mean the boy Micah?"
"Micah, and his parents. There was a class just after she disappeared. No one knew she was dead. Most of the zheli came. Micah was there. They played some American games, even tried speaking some words of English. One of them spoke about Micah's parents sometimes visiting classes, sometimes helping with instruction."
"Why wouldn't you tell about the Americans?" Shan asked. He considered the timing. Kaju had known about the Americans for nearly three weeks. When had Bao begun his search for the Americans?
Kaju looked at him and shrugged. "I don't know," he said, and Shan saw that he had struggled with the decision. "It's none of my business. The boy Micah is part of the class, and my business is to instruct the class, to help the class. He's-" Kaju shrugged again. "He's like the others, just a boy trying to understand the world." The Tibetan turned to Jakli. "But there are classes scheduled, at Stone Lake. Not all the boys have been accounted for. I am still going there." He stood and turned to leave, then after three steps stopped, looking at the wall, at the handprints in the ice.
"To pay homage," Jakli explained. "The ice wall will seal the cave. And then those who paid homage will be with her."
Kaju hesitated, looking at them with entreaty in his eyes.
"Those who paid her homage while she lived," Shan added. "And those who will pay her homage in her death."
Kaju cast a grateful glance toward Shan and pressed his own hand into the ice.
"It is a vow you are making," Jakli said behind them, in an eerily disembodied voice. "A vow to save the zheli."
"Then I give my vow," Kaju said in a small voice, pressing even harder against the ice. When he finished he stepped back and stared at the hollow he had made in the ice, then looked at Shan. "There was something I gave to Public Security. I mean, they took it. I was assigned to Lau's old room in the single teachers' quarters. Public Security was there when I cleaned out her things. I pulled something from under the pallet and they took it."
Shan sighed. "A poem."
Kaju nodded. "Just a poem about a teacher gathering flowers. I didn't- I wouldn't have given it to them but they were there and just grabbed it. No one should be put in jeopardy because of a poem."
Just a poem, Shan thought. But to Bao, a prime evidence of treason. He exchanged a glance with Kaju. It was why Kaju had not told about the Americans, he suspected, because he felt guilty about breaching Lau's confidence- or maybe, Shan thought, about violating the beauty of the child's poem.
Kaju took a step away as Jakli moved toward the tunnel, then stopped again. "I never thought about it, but maybe-" He began twisting his fingers together. "The schedule. Lau's schedule, and all the details I know about the zheli. I meant no harm. They told me her biggest fault was her secrecy about the children."
Shan considered Kaju's words and the pain on his face. "So you put it all on the computer."
Kaju nodded slowly.
Shan looked at the Tibetan uncertainly. He couldn't say it didn't matter.
Kaju sighed heavily, turned to face Lau, and walked, backward, out of the room.
Shan lingered behind in the cold vault as Jakli led Kaju outside. On his first visit, he had come to Lau the teacher. This time he had come to Lau the ani. He knelt at her side again. Speak to me, he wanted to say. Which of them came to Karachuk? Which of those in Yoktian were simply zealously performing their duties and which was working with Bao, which was a murderer? He sighed and pulled the tiny ceramic jar from his coat pocket, the jar that had been filled with sacred sands and sealed at Lhadrung. He held it cradled in his hands for a moment, then pried open the seal with his thumbnail. Lifting the robe, he poured the holy sands, making a small circle on her shirt, over her heart. Then he replaced the robe and placed the empty jar by her head. He stepped back, looking at the ice surrounding on the wall and back at the handprints. Jakli's hand was there, and Akzu's and Kaju's and his own. They could last a thousand years and more, preserving their shame that they had let a saintly woman die with a bullet in her brain.
When he arrived back at the Red Stone camp he realized that the boys had not told him everything about the visit of Gendun and Lokesh. He found Batu with Sophie, listening to Marco proudly explain her heritage.
"When they left," Shan asked when Marco finished, "where did the Tibetans go?"
"Last night, they left. On donkeys. Somebody had given them donkeys," Batu said with wide eyes. "It's what you do for holy men, Lau told us once, you give them things so their deities will smile on you. We asked them to stay, but they told us they had to go to another place. They were eager to leave."
"What other place?"
Batu shook his head, then called two other boys over. None of them knew. "In the desert," one of the boys said. "The old one who laughed a lot said he knew a place in the sand where souls collected."
Shan looked at Marco in alarm. "The Well of Tears," he gasped. "Where souls are collected by the wind when they become lost."
Jakli's hand shot to her mouth. "They are too old," she cried. "They could lose their way so easily. They could die in the wind."
"They came to the school, looking," Kaju interjected.
"Lokesh?" Jakli asked. "The lama?"
"No. Public Security. Knobs came this morning. They said they were looking for two old Tibetans who had escaped from prison."
Shan stared at Kaju with a clenched jaw, fighting the cold knot of fear that had suddenly gripped his stomach. The paths of the killers had indeed crossed. Bao had been looking for foreign subversives but now was asking about Tibetans. Someone must have seen Gendun and Lokesh, and reported them.
"Mother of God," Marco muttered and began harnessing Sophie.
When Jakli looked at Shan it seemed she was about to cry. "But we have to find the boys."
"Exactly," the big Eluosi said. "Which is why Sophie and I will go for the old Tibetans." He fixed Shan with a grave stare. "If the knobs take them, they won't last twenty-four hours. They don't want those old men for anything. Just want them gone."
Yoktian seemed in a state of seige. The town square was silent and empty, except for four squads of knobs, one stationed at each corner. Those few inhabitants who had business on the street scurried along, looking down, avoiding eye contact with anyone. The distant whinnying of horses floated through the air. Shan and the others had passed the pens on the way into town. Scores of horses were behind the heavy fences now, stamping the ground restlessly, looking wild-eyed and confused at the Kazakhs and Uighurs who watched them forlornly from a distance, not daring to approach the pens due to the knob guards at the gates.
Shan, Jowa, and Jakli followed Fat Mao along a side street that paralleled the square. With a grim set of his jaw the Uighur gestured toward two black utility vehicles parked near the square. "Another boot squad," he said. "Two new ones came in. One from Kashgar," he said to Shan. "And one just arrived from a base in Tibet." He looked to Jakli and grimaced. "They will start checking businesses soon," he said with an apologetic tone.
She sighed, then extracted a promise from the Uighur to keep looking for the Tibetans and turned toward her factory. She paused after her first step and turned. "Nikki could come looking," she said hurriedly. "Tell him to get back in the mountains. Tell him to just get to the festival on time," she added, then marched away to make hats.
Fat Mao led Shan and Jowa into a small restaurant in an old mud-brick building with a sign in Chinese, English, and the Turkic tongue that said Closed. Quickly checking the street for patrols, he led them to the rear of the building, then entered, stepping through the kitchen to the front dining room. A stout woman in a white apron, her hair bound in a red scarf, knelt on a small prayer carpet by a rear table. She glanced at them, grunted something that might have been a greeting, then reached up to flip a switch on the wall behind her. She flipped it twice, with no effect on the lights in the room, then Fat Mao led them through a doorway and down a set of rickety stairs to a musty cellar with a dirt floor. On one wall a set of shelves held blankets and clothing and many types of hats and footwear. Disguises. At a table under a single naked lightbulb a man and a slight woman with her hair bound in two small pigtails sat studying the screen of a portable computer. Shan recognized the man as the sullen, large-boned Kazakh who been on the truck to Glory Camp when Jakli and Shan had met it, who had driven Lokesh and Bajys to Senge Drak. Ox Mao. Fat Mao introduced the woman as Swallow Mao. Ox Mao was bent over something, studying it intently. He threw a paper over it when he saw Shan, but a corner could still be seen. It was one of the wooden tablets.
Half of Xu's detainees had been released, Swallow Mao reported, extending a sheet of paper after the prosecutor had conducted interviews. Shan anxiously studied the list. The waterkeeper was not on it. He watched as they reviewed half a dozen computer discs taken from an envelope in front of the woman, with no change in the list. He realized after a moment that he had seen Swallow Mao before, sitting at a computer screen at Glory Camp.
"You said you follow people sometimes," Shan said to Fat Mao. "What about Bao?"
"The clinic, having his wound treated," Swallow Mao reported with a cold anger. "Then Glory Camp, talking to detainees," she volunteered. "The knobs collected old men for interrogation. Some of them look like Tibetans, from the hills." She looked up and seemed to recognize the pain in Shan's eyes. "Did I say something wrong?"
Shan sighed and shook his head slowly. Bao was looking for a lama. "What about Ko?"
"At the clinic yesterday," Ox Mao offered in a deep voice. "Meeting with the parents of newborns. Explaining the Brigade's new statistical tracking service, about why certain questions must be answered, to allow the pattern of health problems to be identified. He says."
Fat Mao and Shan looked at each other. "Since when?" the Uighur asked. "When did his questions start?"
"Two days ago."
Two days ago. Khitai had been killed three days before.
"What kind of questions?" Fat Mao asked. "What, exactly, about newborns?"
Ox Mao looked from the Uighur to Shan with confusion in his eyes. "I wasn't there," he said slowly. "I got the report from the Kazakh nurse. Ko said the most important starting point was the background of the parents."
"I need to go to the clinic," Shan said. But the Maos ignored him.
"The background of new parents," Fat Mao muttered heavily.
With a chill Shan remembered the struggle over identifying the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama. The government had carefully waited for a baby born to parents who were both members of the Party. Ko's questions could mean nothing. Or they could mean that General Rongqi was indeed involved and was already searching for the new Yakde Lama, the Brigade's tame lama, which they could proclaim as soon as they obtained the Jade Basket.
"Names," Fat Mao said with sudden urgency, and he began explaining how the Maos must obtain a copy of the data that Ko was collecting. Shan listened for several minutes, then told them he would be upstairs, outside, getting fresh air.
He walked slowly, to avoid attention, watching the windows for reflections of anybody following him. It took another quarter hour to locate the door he wanted, then he paused in the shadows of an alley, watching again, before darting across to it- the rear door of the old palace that housed the Ministry.
In a darkened hallway he passed a narrow door that hung open before a closet that smelled of cleaning chemicals, then another, wider door, with a cross-bolt lock. With a deep breath he pushed open the door at the end of the hall and stepped into the lobby. The bald man was there, sitting on his desk, reading a paper. His eyes grew wide at the sight of Shan, and he leapt off his perch with unexpected speed, grabbing Shan's wrist, pushing him back into the shadows of the rear corridor. But he did not hit Shan or call out for help. "Wait," the man said instead in a hushed tone and looked over his shoulder. Shan nodded and the man released his hold, then darted out to the lobby.
Five minutes later Prosecutor Xu appeared, accompanied by the bald man, who opened the bolted door and flicked a light switch. Xu gestured Shan inside. It was a stale, windowless room, with a small metal table and four metal chairs. Its single lightbulb was encased in a wire cage. On a shelf in the back was a tin basin, a flyswatter, a roll of heavy duct tape, and several long slats of wood, the size of rulers. An interrogation room.
At a nod from Xu the bald man shut the door, leaving Shan and the prosecutor inside. The door shook, and Shan realized the man had not locked it but was leaning against it. Xu sat in the chair nearest the door, Shan at the opposite side of the table.
"Public Security computers say Sui is on personal leave," Xu announced tersely. "Family leave."
"Did you ask Bao why he said Sui was transferred?" Shan asked.
Xu shot him a peeved glance in reply. Of course not, he realized from her expression. Because she had not asked Bao for permission to enter his document system. He looked around the room again. Xu was hiding; she didn't want Shan to be seen. Everyone in Yoktian had secrets. Everyone spied on everyone else.
"Bao expanded the file on Lau," Xu said. "Added two more witness statements."
"You mean, it's Bao's investigation now? A simple missing person case?"
"Public Security has the authority if they choose to exercise it. Two days ago he choose to do so, on the grounds that she was a former public official. We transferred our file and he inserted two more witness statements. No case anymore. He closed the file. Finding of death by accident."
"So all the detainees in the investigation can be released now."
Xu ignored him. "Bao contacted his Public Affairs Officer. There will be an expanded story in praise of Lau in the newspaper."
"What witnesses gave statements?"
"Comrade Hu, from the school. He reminded us that he had reported Lau for praising dissidents in her classes. Then he signed a statement. Walking to work the day after the reported accident he saw a woman's body floating down the river."
"Just like that, he suddenly remembered." What had Hu said at the camp? He had a family to think of.
"The other was a forensics expert in Kashgar. Said the wallet with the identity papers they recovered had traces of mineral consistent with the riverbank she reportedly fell down."
"I am endlessly amazed," Shan said with a sigh, "at what the resources of the people's government are capable of when properly motivated." He stared into his hands. "Did you verify how Sui came into possession of Lau's papers?"
"A responsible citizen." It was a familiar code for government files, referring to an anonymous source.
"I don't think so. I think Sui had them himself."
Xu rose and slowly walked behind him. He braced himself but did not look back. She reappeared holding one of the wooden slats and sat again.
"I thought Bao might pursue the other theory," Shan suggested impassively. Xu's eyebrows rose in inquiry. "That Lau and Sui ran away together. Secret lovers, maybe. Or perhaps they both drowned, valiantly trying to save a copy of the Chairman's speeches that had fallen into the river."
Xu's eyes smoldered. She slapped the stick lightly in her palm, as if gauging its balance. "My chief investigator and Lieutenant Sui were friends. Sui would come here and wait for him sometimes by the stairs, at the end of the day." Shan glanced at the door. The bald man would be there, in the lobby, while Sui waited, listening to what Sui said. Perhaps, Shan thought, Xu's real investigator was the quiet, unobtrusive bald man. "Sui boasted a lot. He bought a new television, a new radio, a Japanese vacuum cleaner. He was going to buy a new car soon."
Shan stared at her. "The streets are paved with gold in Yoktian. You don't even have to be in the Brigade to get rich. But especially the Brigade. Comrade Ko, he's so rich he can give his sports car to Bao."
"Bao? Impossible. Complete opposites. They barely speak to one another. I've heard them argue in meetings. Ko says Bao is too rooted in the old economy. Bao says Ko does not sufficiently appreciate what the state has done for him."
"But he did," Shan said. "Should be simple enough to verify. A bright red car in a dull grey town." Xu's eyes stared intensely on the wooden slat, as if it might explain why Ko would do such an unlikely thing.
"Ko doesn't make enough in five years to buy such a car," she said slowly, speaking to the slat.
"But now he has announced he will buy another one, to take Loshi for a ride."
Xu looked up, her face clouded. "Loshi?" Xu asked, then nodded as if she had remembered that Shan had spoken with Loshi when he had visited the first time. Her hands became busy, playing with the slat, shifting it from one hand to the other. Then she abruptly laid it on the table and clasped her hands over it. "It's the bonuses," she said in a low voice.
"Bonuses?"
"You saw the memorandum from Ko. Economic incentives. It's the new world, comrade." Xu sounded unconvinced. "The market economy comes to Yoktian. Blend the best of capitalism with the tenets of socialism."
"Must be the Chinese characteristics that confuse me," Shan said with an exaggerated shrug, completing the slogan. It had been painted, bannered, and chiseled throughout China for years. Build for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. He stared down at his own hands. "But Ko was just talking about disc players for students and teachers."
"There's more. It's the Brigade. They're so infected with capitalism," she said bitterly. "Bonuses to workers for achieving special goals."
"Special goals?"
"Bring in unregistered sheep, fifty renminbi. Bring in unregistered herders to be converted to Brigade employees, five hundred renminbi. Bring in unlicensed religious practitioners to be screened and licensed, three thousand, half in cash, half in Brigade shares."
"A bounty." Shan spat the word like a curse. Three thousand renminbi was more than a year's wage for many inhabitants of the region.
"Economic incentives. To help the growth of enterprise," Xu said in a hollow voice.
Shan placed his face in his hands, elbows on the table. What was it Marco had said that first day at Karachuk? The worker's paradise just keeps getting better and better. "Who," he asked in a taut voice, looking up, "who is eligible for this honor?"
"Only the Brigade, at first. They're a private company, they can spend their money as they wish."
"You said, at first."
"A month ago, it changed. General Rongqi is very influential, expected to be the head of the Brigade in another year. He arranged a telephone call with Ko and me, and Public Security. Bao couldn't attend so he sent Sui. The general asked that key enforcement officials in Yoktian be permitted to participate in his program. I refused. I said Ministry of Justice workers don't accept bribes. It was lucky that Bao was not on the call. Bao would have been furious."
But Sui had secretly accepted the invitation, Shan realized. And Bao, however angry he might have been at Rongqi's suggestion, had also eventually joined the program. Everyone had their price. Bao had gotten involved, not as Sui's superior, but as Sui's competitor. Bao would never have investigated Sui's murder if he himself were Sui's killer. But that didn't explain why Ko had surrendered his car to Bao.
Xu sighed. "Rongqi argued that having all of us join would help accelerate the Poverty Eradication Scheme, he said. The government supports the Brigade, and it's all Brigade money anyway."
"In some places, Comrade Prosecutor, it seems the Brigade is the government. Just without all the rules."
The comment seemed to wound Xu. Her head bent into her hands. "You know how campaigns work, Comrade Shan," she said sourly. "Two steps forward, one step back."
She had spoken his name. It confused him.
"You have no theory," she said. "You think everyone in government is guilty, is that it?" But her voice wasn't accusing, it was resentful. "Because of what the government did to you."
They were silent a long time. From outside, in the square, came the sound of a harsh voice over a public address system, announcing a curfew.
"Why have you been here so long, Comrade Prosecutor?" he asked at last. "Twelve years in Yoktian, it's a lifetime."
"I make a difference here," she said woodenly. "We've made historic progress."
Xu was a different woman, Shan saw, when the almost constant flame of her anger burned away. The Jade Bitch wasn't made of stone. She was made of gristle, tough, indigestible gristle, that bore the marks of having been chewed on for many years.
"I want to go upstairs," he said, to see what would happen. "To the records room."
"No!" she snapped, and stood. The audience was ending. She took a step toward the door, then turned with an unexpected look of regret. "That tape. The videotape I made of you that day. It's missing. Someone took it."
"Miss Loshi? You mean, the Brigade has it?"
"I don't know. Ko has asked questions about you. I said that you were a state secret."
Shan looked into his hands. "What's the bounty on secret videos these days?"
Xu's frown seemed to grow. She moved out through the door, the bald man ahead of her, checking the lobby. But before she disappeared she spun about to face Shan as he stood in the door of the interrogation cell. "The general expanded the program," she said hurriedly. "Five thousand bonus for those who can bring in orphans. But only if they're brought in by the end of this week."
"The end of the week?" Shan asked in alarm. It had a macabre sound. A sale on orphan boys.
"That's when he comes. General Rongqi is coming to Yoktian. For a final banquet, to celebrate the final stage of the Poverty Eradication Scheme." She spun about and had already put one foot in the lobby when he called her name.
"There is a way," he said with difficulty, not wanting to believe his own words. "A way to understand what's happening."
She stepped back and let the door close.
"Ask the general. Call his office to negotiate. Ask what you would get."
Get?
"Ask what the bounty is for bringing in a Jade Basket," Shan said, and he explained Rongqi's hunt for the Yakde Lama.
Outside, trucks with knobs were moving down the street. Worried faces looked from windows. A dog looked up at a truck and ran away, tail between its legs. Shan walked quickly back to the restaurant, as fast as he dared. The knobs were always interested in people who ran.
But the back door was locked when he reached the building. He nervously ventured back onto the street and tried the front door. Locked. A black car, perhaps a surveillance unit, turned the corner and approached from two blocks away. He ducked back into the alley. There was a fenced area behind the restaurant, a small yard of compacted dirt enclosed by a six-foot-high wall of mud bricks. Against the back wall was a pen of chickens and a small shed with a door that hung partially open. He ventured toward it cautiously, remembering the cellar and how the Maos would prefer refuges with hidden escape routes.
As he swung the door open he heard running footsteps behind him. But as he turned something heavy hit his skull. He fell to his knees as the objects in the yard blurred, then there was blackness.
Shan regained consciousness in a new blackness, a small dark place that stank of nightsoil. Fighting the throbbing in his head, he explored with his hands and found that he was lying on a slippery cement pad, indented like a bowl, with a four inch hole in the center. A toilet.
Dim light came up from the hole, meaning, he knew, that it opened to the outside, and under it was a short barrel into which waste dropped, to be hauled away to the fields. He tried to stand but was overcome with dizziness and only made it to his knees. His head throbbed in two places now, where he had just been hit on the back of his skull and from his temple, where he had fallen in the sandstorm. He pushed with his hands on either side of his head, kneeling, bent over, gasping for breath through the filthy stench. Gradually the dizziness faded and, still on his knees, he explored his cell, finding a single faucet in the center of the adjacent wall, a metal bucket below it, and a door in the opposite wall, only five feet away. In a corner by the door was a pile of towels, stinking of mildew. He pushed one against his nose, preferring its odor to the almost overpowering stench of the nightsoil.
It wasn't a knob cell, at least not an official knob cell. He had been lax, too absorbed with the questions in front of him to pay attention to anything behind him. It could have been certain knobs acting unofficially. It could have been Bao, or even Xu, with second thoughts about their strange relationship. He sat in the darkness, not in fear but in disgust, disgust that he had come so far and still did not know who his real enemy might be.
But when the door opened it revealed the Maos. Fat Mao and the two others from the cellar, with Jowa hanging behind him in a kitchen. The kitchen. He was in the restaurant. They had thrown him in the toilet of the restaurant.
A lightbulb switched on, and Shan threw his hands to shield his eyes as the pain flared again. As he did so something hard pushed his hands away, and he fell backward into the toilet again. He looked to see the large Mao, Ox Mao, standing over with him with a short, thick board. Shan wondered absently if he had splinters in his scalp.
"You went to the prosecutor," Ox Mao grunted. "You sneaked out like a thief, back to your protector. Your Han friend." He slapped the stick lightly against Shan's arm, as if to make sure Shan had noticed it.
Shan bit his lip as the pain surged through his skull once more. He seemed to be unable to keep his head straight. It kept wanting to tilt and drop down onto his chest.
They had said he might have had a concussion in the sandstorm. Now there might be two concussions. He had seen men die that way in the gulag, after being beaten repeatedly. Something would build inside their skulls that would just explode. They would squirm on the floor, making animal sounds, holding their heads, and then they would die.
Ox Mao swung the board toward him but stopped before hitting him. He tossed the board from hand to hand, then swung again, getting closer. When he swung a third time Shan caught it, jerked it out of his hand before he could react, and stuffed it down the toilet hole. "My head," he said, and heard anger in his voice. "My head hurts enough."
His vision was blurred at the edges. He saw Fat Mao put a hand on Ox Mao's arm. He saw the stout woman step forward. Carrying a pan of dirty dishwater, she squeezed in by Ox Mao and threw it in Shan's face.
"You Chinese," she said with poison on her tongue. "You killed my two sons."
Shan licked the water that dropped onto his lips. His throat had become so dry he could not swallow. Ox Mao was in the kitchen now, rummaging through cooking utensils. The Maos, a voice said in the back of his mind, had been trained in interrogation technique by the best. The knobs.
"Either you're working with Xu," Ox Mao said, reappearing with a heavy wood instrument that looked as if it were used to mash vegetables, "or you're incredibly stupid. Either way you're a danger to us."
"I came from Tibet," Shan heard some part of him say. His eyes seemed to be rolling about in his skull. He tried to look at Jowa, but the Tibetan seemed unwilling to make eye contact with him. "The lamas."
Ox Mao seemed not to have heard. "Xu killed Sui," he hissed. "Maybe she killed the others too. It's all about her power. More crimes, more arrests. More arrests, more glory. More glory, more power."
"I thought they called you Ox because you're so big," another part of Shan said. "Now I see it's because you have the brain of an ox."
The big Kazakh cursed and raised his new weapon. As if in slow motion Shan raised his arms over head, then another hand appeared and touched Ox Mao's arm.
"He said that his head hurts." It was Jowa. "Why did you go to Xu?" he asked Shan in a faltering voice.
Ox Mao uttered a sound like a snarl, but lowered his hand.
"Xu and Sui," Fat Mao said, looking from the Kazakh to Jowa, then to Shan. "They were riding together in the days before Sui was killed. They were at Glory Camp together. Sui didn't have a car when he died. He was riding with someone. It must have been Xu. She killed him to create a reason to eliminate all of us."
Shan sat up against the corner of the toilet, folding his knees to his chest. "Xu doesn't kill people," he said in a thin voice, gasping every few seconds. "She disgraces them. She imprisons them. She breaks them. Killing-" he said, and grabbed his stomach as a wave of nausea swept over him. "She doesn't need to."
"I thought you saw the cemetery at Glory Camp," Fat Mao said with a chill.
Shan tried to nod but the effort made his head explode with pain. "She doesn't kill people with guns," he conceded. "But Sui," he groaned, "Sui was killed by a competitor." Although he had not even formed the thought in his own mind until that instant, he knew he was right.
No one seemed to have heard him. Ox Mao was glaring at Jowa, Fat Mao was looking at each of the two men in turn. Jowa seemed to size the two Maos up, and took a step back.
Ox Mao turned with a satisfied grin. "You're going to tell us, tell us all about you and Xu." But as he took a step forward, a toe of a boot appeared in his groin and an arm suddenly appeared around his throat. The big Kazakh collapsed with a groan, falling back on the floor, and a figure flew past Fat Mao, who stood with his mouth open, as if trying to understand what had happened.
The figure stood in front of Shan now, shouting, facing the Maos and Jowa. "It's all you know, isn't it? Violence. Fighting. But you never know who your fight is with!" Jakli had returned from making hats. Her fury seemed a tangible thing. Her hands clenched and unclenched, like a tiger extending its claws. The stout woman appeared and pulled Ox Mao back into the kitchen, shaking her head.
Jakli bent over him, then grabbed one of the towels, moistened it under the faucet and wiped his brow. "I never should have gone," she said with a remorseful tone and helped him to his feet. "The gates were locked."
She took command. She arranged the Maos on one side of the table in the kitchen, found a coat for Shan to wear, told him to remove his soiled clothes, and dispatched the stout woman with them to be cleaned.
Jowa brought Shan a cup of fresh water, then found him a mug of hot tea. "I was going to-" he said to Jakli, but left his sentence unfinished. Jakli looked at him, and he hung his head. "How are we supposed to know?" the purba asked her, in a voice taut with pain.
"Know?" she asked tersely. "You come all this way because of Shan, and you don't know what to do?"
"No," Shan said. His vision was rapidly clearing. "Jowa came because of the lamas, not because of me. What we have to do is written nowhere. He has reason to be confused. I am confused." He pulled out the chair beside him, inviting the Tibetan to sit. "But not as confused as I was."
"What do you mean?" Jakli asked.
"I had to talk to Xu, I have to understand where she is in this. She told me something that makes me believe Sui was killed by someone over money, a competitor."
"There is only one lieutenant assigned to Bao," Fat Mao said with a frown. "Sui had no competitor."
"Not a competitor for rank," Shan said. "For bounty." He swallowed more of the tea and explained what Xu had told him.
"The bastards," Fat Mao muttered when Shan finished. "They're unaccountable to anyone. It's not even about their socialism anymore. Just money."
"They can be accountable to us," Ox Mao grunted.
Jakli seemed to recognize the glint in the big Kazakh's eye and held up her palm as though to stop him. "Nothing. Don't do anything. Not until all the boys are safe."
"But you heard him," Ox Mao said with a conspiratorial nod toward Shan, as if he had decided to forget the episode in the toilet. "The general comes in a few days."
Shan looked at Jakli. The general was coming. The boys were being stalked. But the clans were gathering. One last time, the clans were gathering. And Jakli had to get to a new life.
The stout woman returned with Shan's clothes, still damp, and began cooking a meal for them. When he dressed and reappeared, she inspected him with a matronly air. Seeing dirt on his shoe, she rubbed it with her dish rag. It was her way of apologizing, Shan knew, and he accepted her hospitality with quiet nods as they started the meal, the woman serving Shan first.
When they had finished Fat Mao rose and pulled folded papers from a jacket hanging on the wall. "That truck driver," he announced, "the one who found Sui." He pushed the papers across the table to Shan. "We realized Sui had no money on him. We had the man's license number, so we tracked him down in Kashgar. After a couple of hours of persuasion he admitted stealing the money, but said he spent it all in a bar in Kotian. About a dozen drinks and a particularly enthusiastic mai chun nu." The phrase meant girl selling spring. A prostitute. "But when he grabbed the cash he grabbed some papers with it. He was glad to get rid of them, said they scared him when he finally read them."
There were only two sheets. One was a list of the zheli, the official list printed from the school computer, with Khitai's name underlined and a note beside it that said Red Stone camp. At the top of the page Lau's name had been written, with personal information. The room number of her office at the school. A description of her horse. Brown horse, white face, it said. There was another name Shan did not recognize. North Star Enterprise. He pointed to it.
"A garage," said Fat Mao. "Not just a garage- a blacksmith, a stable. Lau kept her horse there. Ox Mao checked it today. The afternoon before Lau died, she took her horse. Ten minutes after she left, a man who looked like Sui came in and rented a horse. In civilian clothes. Brought the horse back the next morning, drenched in sweat, worn out. The owner yelled at him, but Sui just smiled and threw him something that shut the man up. A piece of gold."
"A Panda?" Shan asked.
Fat Mao shook his head. "Gold in the form of a two-inch Buddha."
Jakli moaned and looked at Shan. They had seen the little solid-gold Buddhas before, in the sanctuary room at Karachuk, the room where Lau had died.
The other page held handwritten notes. In one corner was a series of numbers, sums of money, underlined repeatedly. Calculations of bounties, in multiples of five thousand. The price for an orphan. And in the center, a rough map, with a date on it. Over his shoulder Jakli gasped. "It's tomorrow. The map is to Stone Lake. Sui was going to Stone Lake for the boys."
"But he lost the competition to a better murderer," Fat Mao said grimly, "and now that killer is going instead."