Outside, Sergeant Feng stood uneasily between two knobs.
"Comrade Shan!" Li Aidang called from a dark gray sedan parked across from the restaurant. The assistant prosecutor opened the door and gestured for Shan to climb inside. "I thought we might chat. You know. Colleagues on the same case."
"So you returned safely. Kham is such an unpredictable place," Shan said dryly. He hesitated, seeing the uncertainty in Feng's eyes, then slid into the back seat beside Li.
"We found him, you know," Li announced.
Shan willed himself not to take the bait.
"That is to say, we persuaded a clan in the valley to tell us where his camp was."
"Persuaded?"
"Doesn't take much," the assistant prosecutor said smugly. "A helicopter, a uniform. Some of the old ones just whimpered. We found out where to look, but when we arrived they had gone. Fire ashes still warm. Not a trace." Li studied Shan. "As if they had been warned."
Shan shrugged. "Something I've noticed about nomads. They tend to move about."
The door was slammed shut by one of the knobs, who climbed behind the wheel and started the engine. As they drove away Shan turned to see the remaining soldier step in front of the driver's door of their own truck, blocking Sergeant Feng's way.
A shadowy figure in the front seat turned and looked at Shan without speaking.
"You remember the major," Li said.
"Major Yang, I believe," Shan observed. "Minder of Public Security."
"Exactly," Li confirmed tersely.
One side of the officer's face curled up in acknowledgment of Shan, then he turned away.
They moved out of town quickly, the horn blaring intermittently to scatter pedestrians and any vehicles that dared to get close.
Ten minutes later they entered an evergreen forest, in a small valley three miles from the main road. As they passed through the ruins of an ancient mani shrine wall, the trees began to assume an orderly appearance. They had been groomed. Spring flowers bloomed along the road, beside raked gravel.
They passed another wall, taller than the first, and entered the courtyard of a very old gompa. It had one tower of stone and gray brick and a small chorten, twice the height of a man, on the opposite side of the courtyard. Newly laid flagstone lined the courtyard. The walls had been replastered and were being painted. Along the far wall was a collection of statues of Buddha and other religious figures, several plated with gold. They were in a disorganized row, some facing the wall, some listing sharply, some propped against each other. Shan had the sense of visiting a wealthy, neglected villa. A faint aroma of peonies wafted through the courtyard as they climbed out of the car.
The major disappeared behind a large gate. Li led Shan into the anteroom of the assembly hall, switched on a lightbulb and gestured toward a rough wooden table surrounded by stools. Shan studied the wiring, which was new. Few of the remote gompas were wired for electricity.
Li made a gesture that swept the room. "We have done what we can to preserve it," he said with affected humility. "It is always a struggle, you know."
The floor was of the original wood planking, hand-cut centuries earlier. It was pockmarked with cigarette burns.
"There are no monks here."
"There will be." Li roamed about the room with the eye of an owner inspecting his premises. On pegs along the interior wall, robes had been arranged to give the effect of a lived-in gompa. "Director Wen is arranging everything. A stop for the Americans. A few reenactments. Let the Americans light some butter lamps and incense."
"Reenactments?"
"Ceremonies. For atmosphere." Li selected one of the robes, an antique ceremonial robe with gold brocade and silk panels depicting clouds and stars. He slipped off his suit jacket and with a grin tried on the robe, stroking the sleeves with satisfaction as he continued speaking. "We're finalizing things. Just a few more days before they arrive." He strolled the room like a proud cockbird, trying to catch a reflection of himself in the small window panes. "For a few dollars extra we'll let the Americans put on robes and spin prayer wheels. Soundtracks of mantras will play in the background. For a few more dollars we'll offer a one-hour course on how to meditate like a Buddhist."
"Sort of a Buddhist amusement park."
"Precisely! We think so much alike!" Li exclaimed, then sobered. "Which is why I had to speak to you, Comrade. I have a confession to make. I have not been totally open with you. But now I must be, to make you understand something. I have a concurrent investigation, separate from Prosecutor Jao's murder. More important. But what you are doing, you have no idea of how damaging it could be. You make it very difficult."
"Difficult?"
"Difficult for us to do the right thing. You are out of your element. You are being used."
"I'm confused," Shan said, studying a shelf of trinkets behind a table. "Exactly which right thing are you speaking of?" There were small ceramic figures of yaks and snow leopards, and an entire row of muscular Buddhas carrying Chinese flags.
Li moved to a stool beside Shan, oblivious to the sound of popping threads in the shoulders of the old robe as he sat. "Tan can pretend all he wants. It is a luxury of office. But you. You cannot pretend. I am sorry. We must be frank. You are a prisoner. You were a prisoner. You will be a prisoner. Neither you nor I can do anything to change that."
"Assistant Prosecutor Li. I lost the capacity to pretend many years ago."
Li laughed, and lit a cigarette. "Go back to the 404th," he said abruptly.
"It is not within my power."
"Join the strike. We can let you resolve it. Big hero. Notation in your file. Maybe save a lot of lives."
"What exactly are you offering?"
"We can reassign the troops."
"You're saying you will recall the knobs if I stop investigating?"
Li walked over to the shelf of ceramic novelties. He picked up one of the Buddhas and blew into the bottom. Smoke came out the eyes. "It would solve a lot of problems."
"You haven't said why."
"Obviously there are things I am not permitted to tell you."
"So you brought me here to tell me that you would not be telling me anything."
Li stepped back to his side and patted Shan on the back. "I like your sense of humor. I can tell you're from Beijing. Someday, who knows? You could fit well with us." He paced around Shan. "I brought you here to save you. The major and I are trying to find a way to be generous. There've been too many victims. There's no need for you to be hurt further. If Minister Qin in Beijing wants you in lao gai, that's between you and him. But Minister Qin is very old. Someday you may have another chance. I can see you are an intelligent man. A sensitive man. You will be of use to the people again one day. But not with Colonel Tan. He is very dangerous."
"I am no danger to him."
Li studied his cigarette. "I don't mean it that way. He manipulates you. He thinks he can ignore state procedures. Have you considered why he avoids the prosecutor's office?"
Shan did not answer.
"Or why he makes you work with unreliables?"
"Unreliables?"
"Discredited sources. Like Dr. Sung."
"I respect Dr. Sung's medical expertise."
Li shrugged. "Precisely my point. You weren't told about her problems. Her prejudices. Was refused her normal rotation home for neglect of duty."
"Neglect of duty?"
"Went off for a week on her own decision to work on unauthorized patients."
"Unauthorized patients?"
"A high mountain school. Very remote. Forgotten by anyone in Lhasa. Kids dying of something. They get things up there, diseases that have disappeared in the rest of the world."
"So the doctor was punished for helping children who were dying?"
"That's not the point. The stated procedure is for such parents to bring their children to the clinic. She left a number of important patients at the clinic. Some were Party members. She won't be going home. Not for a very long time."
"And no opportunity if she stays." Shan was tempted to ask when the doctor's indiscretion happened. She had been invited to dinner but later denied membership in the Bei Da Union. He remembered the nervous way she had recited to him party dogma on the inferiorities of the Tibetan minorities and policy on treating unproductive patients in the mountains. They had been words from a tamzing.
"You understand," Li said with affected gratitude. "You put me in a very awkward position, Comrade Shan. What you are saying is that you want me to trust you, aren't you?"
Shan did not reply.
"This is most unorthodox. The prosecutor's office confiding in a convicted criminal."
"I never had a trial, if that helps."
Li raised his brows and slowly nodded. "Yes, Comrade, good point. Not a convict, just a detainee." He lit a second cigarette from the butt of the first. "All right. You need to know. There is a corruption investigation. The biggest ever in Tibet. We were almost done. Jao was about to announce his conclusions. We can move soon. But you will make them flee."
"So Jao was killed by a suspect in his corruption investigation?" Shan asked. It would be a very balanced solution. The kind of ending that would please the Ministry of Justice.
"Not exactly. It's just that this hooligan monk Sungpo, he had no idea of the effects of his murder. With Jao gone, the corruption case is in ruins. We've had to piece it together. We owe it to Jao to finish. We owe it to the people. But you are stirring up too much dust. You are beginning to frighten our suspects. You will ruin it."
"If you're saying that Prosecutor Jao was going to arrest Colonel Tan, then Tan had more reason than anyone to kill Jao. Accuse him of the murder and Sungpo can be released. The knobs can stand down at the 404th. That's a solution."
"Give me some evidence."
"Against Colonel Tan?" Shan asked. "I thought you meant you already had evidence."
"One might surmise you could have reason to celebrate the passing of the old guard."
"I have a preference," Shan said contemplatively, "for natural causes."
"You can't possibly think he would protect you."
"I have been relieved of the need to worry about protection. I have been entrusted to the custody of the state."
A sneer built on Li's face. "You are his fallback. His safety net. If you fail to build a case, he will create one. He will have his own case file even if you do not finish yours. All your actions can be construed as an effort to protect the radicals. Obstruction of justice is a lao gai charge in itself. I told you. I made inquiries about you. You weren't picked by Tan simply because you were investigator. You were selected because by definition you are guilty. And expendable."
It was the only thing Li had said that Shan believed. Shan watched his own fingers move, seemingly of their own volition. They made a mudra. Diamond of the Mind.
"No one will defend you. No one will say Shan is a model prisoner, a worker hero. Tan can't even put your name on the report. You don't exist. There is no need for you to be a victim also."
It was the closest Li had come to putting his threat into words.
Shan studied his mudra. "This place," he said with sudden realization as he surveyed the room again. "It is the Bei Da Union."
Behind him, Shan sensed an abrupt movement by Li, as if his head had snapped up. "It is an old gompa. It has many uses."
"I saw a list of gompas licensed for reconstruction. This wasn't on it."
"Comrade. I fear for you. You don't want to listen to those who want to help you."
"Does it have a license?"
Li sighed as he eased off the ceremonial robe and tossed it on a stool. "It has been classified as an exhibition facility by Religious Affairs. It does not need a license."
Shan raised his palms in a gesture of frustration. "I admire your ability to reconcile it all. For me, it is so confusing. If a group paid by Beijing meets to discuss educating the people it is socialism at work. But if people wearing red robes do so it is an unlicensed cultural activity."
Li was studying Shan closely now. They were both aware of how dangerous the game was becoming. "You have been out of touch, Comrade. Much progress has been made in defining the socialist discipline for ethnic relations."
"I do not have the benefit of your training," Shan admitted. He rose and moved to the door.
"Where are you going?" Li asked, annoyed.
"The sun is coming through the clouds." Before Li could protest Shan was moving into the courtyard.
A van had arrived with markings for the Bureau of Religious Affairs. Workers were arranging benches at the side of the courtyard, as if for a lecture. Directing them was the young woman Shan had met at Director Wen's office- Miss Taring, the archivist.
The moment he saw her Shan understood. In their underground refuge the purbas had said they knew about Shan's discussion of the costume with Director Wen. There was only one person who could have told them. Miss Taring had told the purbas, or perhaps she was a purba herself. He studied her as though for the first time. Her hair was tied in a tight bun at the back, and she wore a white blouse with a long dark skirt that gave her the gleam of professionalism, the model worker. She stopped, nodded casually and started to turn, too, when she caught his gaze. She slowly turned away to issue orders to the workers, her hands behind her back. Shan was about to turn when he saw her fingers moving. Her knuckles clenched together in fists, the thumbs facing each other at forty-five degree angles, the hands almost touching. He had seen it before, an offering mudra. Aloke, the lamps to light the world.
She held the mudra only a moment, then slowly turned her head toward the rear of the courtyard. She then walked to the far wall and stood beside one of the large Buddha heads, turning at an angle toward something Shan could not see.
He watched, perplexed, then walked toward the woman. She moved away before he reached the wall, not acknowledging him. He stood where she had stood, trying to understand. There was a gap between the buildings that was being blocked with brickwork. The job was not yet completed. He could see over the unfinished wall into an elegant courtyard. There was a man in the attire of a waiter carrying a tray with tall drinking glasses. A large wooden tub with steaming water was partially set in the ground. Two sleek young women in bikini swimsuits were stepping into it.
He slowly turned, confused, and found himself facing the opposite direction. He stared for a moment in shock. There was a low building, a stable converted to a garage. Inside it were two red Land Rovers.
Through the corner of his eye Shan saw Li approaching. He turned and slowly moved along the statue heads, letting Li catch up.
"Is Lieutenant Chang of the 404th part of your Bei Da Union?" he asked.
Li frowned. "I believe he qualified for membership," he said cryptically.
"How about a soldier named Meng Lau?"
Li ignored the question, and moved closer. "Listen, you should become a witness," Li offered. "Surely having the lead in an investigation must be overwhelming for one in your position. Become a cooperative witness instead."
"A witness from the 404th?"
"A witness recently transferred to trusty duties at the 404th, let's say. A model prisoner. I will vouch for you. You are always diligent, you have never been accused of lying, that kind of thing. Your problems have been of a different nature, in Beijing. The tribunal need not know of them."
"But I have nothing to say." Shan kept walking. There was a pool in one corner of the courtyard. It was made of stone blocks, elegantly carved centuries before, and was populated with small silver fish. Lotus blossoms floated in it, and an empty beer bottle.
"You might be surprised at what you could say," Li said from behind.
Shan walked to the edge of the pool and turned. "You haven't described the nature of your corruption investigation." From his perspective he could see a small knoll just beyond the compound. On it was a magnificent seated Buddha, at least twenty feet high. It had an unfamiliar headdress. Shan recognized it with a start. Someone had bolted a satellite dish to the head of the Buddha.
Li moved to his side and bent toward his ear. "Irregularities in the prison accounts. Unexplained withdrawals from state accounts. Missing military assets."
"Are you saying that Tan and the warden are conspirators? You're implicating the warden?"
"Would you like him to be implicated?"
Shan stared, wondering if he had heard correctly. "I would need to see your files."
"Impossible."
"Let me speak to Miss Lihua."
"Jao's secretary? Why?"
"Let her confirm Jao's corruption investigation. She would know."
"You know she is on vacation." Li shrugged as he saw the frustration on Shan's face. "All right. You can send a fax."
"I don't trust faxes."
"Okay, okay, as soon as she returns." He glanced at his watch. "The car will return you to town."
Shan climbed into the car without looking back. He knew Li was lying when he said he didn't want Shan to be a victim. But was he lying because he was worried about the investigation or just for all the usual reasons?
Li leaned into the window. The sneer was gone from his face. "Damn you, Shan. I don't know why I'm telling you this. It's worse than you could ever imagine. Heads are going to roll and no one will be there to protect yours. You have to go back to the 404th and I have to get my case done before the madness starts."
"The madness?"
"They're opening an espionage case. Someone in Lhadrung has stolen computer disks containing secrets of the Public Security border defenses."
Shan watched Dr. Sung march past Yeshe sitting on the bench in the corridor and into her dimly lit office. She threw her clipboard on a chair, switching on a small desk lamp, and pushed aside a plate of old, half-eaten vegetables. She hit a button on a small cassette player and turned to a chessboard. It was in the middle of a game. Opera music began to play. She moved a pawn, then spun the board about. She was playing against herself.
After two moves she stopped and looked out at the bench. Muttering angrily, she twisted the lamp upward, illuminating Shan's chair in the corner.
"The most fascinating thing about investigations," Shan observed with great fatigue, "is discovering how subjective truth really is. It has so many dimensions. Political. Professional. But those are easy to discern. What is hardest is understanding the personal dimension. We find so many ways to believe in the lies and ignore the reality."
The doctor switched off the music and stared absently at the chessboard. "The Buddhists would say we each have our own ways of honoring our inner god," she observed, with a choke in her voice.
The words shook Shan. Suddenly he did not know what to say. He wanted most of all to let her go, to leave the woman to her peculiar misery, but he could not. "When did you stop honoring yours?"
He yearned for one of her sharp, angry comebacks, but all he got was silence.
Unfolding Sung's letter to the American firm, he dropped it in front of her. "Did you feel you were lying to me when you pretended to know nothing about Jao's interest in an X-ray machine? Or did you really believe yourself because only your name was on the official record?"
"All I said was that it was too expensive."
"Good. So you didn't mean to lie."
Sung absently moved a castle. "Jao asked me to write a letter. No one would suspect such a request from a clinic."
"Why would he need to hide it? Why not just ask himself?"
She picked up a knight and stared at it. "An investigation."
"He would have wanted your help to operate it. He didn't say where he would need it?"
She still stared at the chess piece. "Sometimes he would come, not very often, and we would sit here and play chess. Talk about things at home. Drink tea. It felt like, I don't know. Civilized." She put both hands on the knight and twisted it as though to break it.
"So you wrote the letter to help in an investigation. To find something that was hidden."
"It would be so easy to be like you, Comrade Shan, just to ask questions. But I told you before, there are questions that may not be asked. All you have to do is ask about other people's truth. Some of us have to live it."
"A murder investigation?" Shan pressed. "Corruption? Espionage?"
Sung laughed weakly. "Espionage in Lhadrung? I don't think so."
"What was he going to use the machine for?"
Sung shook her head slowly. "He wanted to know if it would fit in one of his four-wheel-drive trucks. He wanted to know the power source it would require. That's all I know."
"Why wouldn't you ask? He was your chess partner."
"That's why." Sung opened her hand and stared forlornly at the knight. "I assumed he wanted it to open one of their tombs. And if I knew that I could not let him sit here again."
The 404th was like a cemetery. The faces of prisoners, gaunt and expressionless, peered out of the barracks. The patrols which kept them confined to quarters marched stiffly through the compound. The soldiers kept looking over their shoulders.
The stable was in use. Shan could tell- not because there were screams. There were never screams from the Tibetans. Nor because of greater activity in the infirmary. He could tell because an officer walked by carrying rubber gloves.
A cloud seemed to have settled over Sergeant Feng as he moved through the gates with Shan. He did not speak to the knobs on guard at the dead zone but looked straight ahead until they reached the hut, then opened the door for Shan and stood to the side gesturing him awkwardly inside.
The scene was much as it had been when he left the hut six days earlier. Trinle lay in bed, prostrated by fatigue, a blanket covering his head and most of his body. The others sat on the floor in a circle, taking instruction from one of the older monks.
Choje Rinpoche had braced his knees and back with a gomthag strap torn from his blanket, so he would not fall while meditating. One of the novices held a rag to the back of Rinpoche's skull. It came away pink with blood.
It took several minutes for him to acknowledge Shan's inquiries. His eyes fluttered, then opened wide and brightened. He surveyed the hut with an intense, curious gaze, as though to confirm which world he was in. "You are still with us," he said, not as a question but as a declaration of welcome.
"I need to know something about Tamdin," Shan said, fighting the knot that was tying in his gut. It seemed he felt the lama's pain more than Rinpoche himself. "Rinpoche," he asked, "what if Tamdin had to choose between protecting the truth and protecting the old ways?"
Of all the paradoxes that riddled his case, the one that troubled him most was that of the killer's motives. Tamdin was protector of the faith, and his victims defiled the faith. But how could such a killer then let innocent monks die for his crimes? That was defiling the faith, too.
"I don't think Tamdin chooses. Tamdin acts. He is conscience with legs."
And flaying knife, thought Shan.
"Like conscience with legs," the lama repeated.
Shan considered the words in silence.
"When I was young," Choje offered, "they said there was a man in a nearby village who prayed for Tamdin's help and never received it. He renounced Tamdin. He said Tamdin was a tale created for the dancers in the festival."
"I haven't met many recently who would call Tamdin a fiction."
"No. Fiction is not the word to describe him." Choje held his clenched fingers before Shan's face. "This is my fist," he said, then threw his fingers out. "Now my fist does not exist. Does that make it a fiction?"
"You're saying in certain moments anyone can become Tamdin?"
"Not anyone. I'm saying the essence of Tamdin may exist in something that is not always Tamdin."
Shan recalled the last time they had spoken about the demon protector. Just as some are destined to achieve Buddhahood, Choje had said, perhaps some are destined to achieve Tamdinhood.
"Like the mountain," Shan said quietly.
"The mountain?"
"The South Claw. It is a mountain but it hides something else. A holy place."
"It is such a small piece of the world we have," Choje said, speaking so low Shan was forced to lean toward his mouth.
"There are other mountains, Rinpoche."
"No. It's not that. This-" he said, gesturing around the hut. "The world does not take notice of us. There is so much time before, and after. So many places. We are a mote of dust. No one outside should care about us. Only we should care about us. Our particular being occupies this place for now. That is all. It is not much, really."
The words chilled Shan. Something terrible was going to happen. "You're never going back to the mountain, are you?" He looked up with dread in his face. "No matter what happens. You can't have the road built. That is what it's all about." Why was it so important? Is that where he had gone wrong, not paying enough attention to the secret of the mountain?
"Waking up every day for fifty years, for a hundred years, is no great accomplishment, after all," Choje said with a serene smile. "It is like arguing that your mote of dust is bigger than my mote of dust. They are the arguments of an incomplete soul."
They would bring others to build the road, Shan wanted to say. But he did not have the courage.
"We have talked. All of us. Everyone has agreed. Except for a few. Some with families. Some who have another path to follow."
Shan looked around. The khampa was gone.
"They have received our blessings. They were accepted across the line this morning. Those of us who are left…" Choje said with his peaceful smile. He shrugged. "Well, we are the ones who are left. One hundred eighty-one. One hundred eighty-one," he repeated, still smiling.
The whistle for exercise blew, then another, and another, in relays through the camp. The men began to stir, without talking, toward the door.
"It is time, Trinle," Choje called with new strength, and the figure in the blanket rose. Not taking his eyes off Choje, Shan sensed Trinle struggling to his feet. With a shudder he realized that Trinle must have been in the stable. From the corner of his eye he saw the stooped figure wrap the blanket around his makeshift robe and over his head like a hood, then shuffle to the door.
Only Shan and Choje remained in the hut. They sat in silence amid the brilliant shafts of light that leaked through the loose boards of the walls and roof.
"What happened to that man? The one who didn't believe?"
"One day part of the mountain above him collapsed. It destroyed everything. The man, his children, his wife, his sheep. And worse."
"Worse?"
"It was strange. Afterward, no one could remember his name."
Suddenly there was a peculiar swelling of sound from outside- not a shout, but a rapidly rising murmur that carried through the camp. Shan helped Choje to his feet.
They found the prisoners in the small yard behind the hut, or rather around the small yard, packed two and three deep around an empty space twenty feet in diameter.
"He's gone!" exclaimed one of the monks as they approached. "The magic…" he began, but seemed unable to complete the sentence.
"Like the arrow! I saw it. Like a blur!" someone shouted.
The line parted to let Choje through, Shan at his side.
"Trinle!" one of the young monks gasped. "He's done it!"
There was nothing in the clearing but Trinle's shoes, sitting side by side as if he had just stepped out of them.
No one breathed. Shan stared, stunned. It had the quality of a strange, poorly timed joke at first. He looked up with alarm as it sank in. Trinle was gone. Trinle had escaped. He had spirited himself away, after all the years of trying.
The monks stared reverently at the shoes. Some dropped to their knees and offered prayers of gratitude.
But the spell did not last long. From somewhere the whistle began to blow, signaling the end of the exercise period. From the back a man with a deep baritone voice began to chant. Om mani padme hum. He continued, solo, for perhaps thirty seconds, then was joined by another, and another, until soon the entire group joined in, drowning out the angry whistles.
The prisoners began to move into the central yard, celebrating the miracle with their mantra. Shan found himself moving with them, beginning the chant. Suddenly a hand seized his elbow and pulled him to the side. Sergeant Feng.
They stayed there, watching, as the prisoners arranged themselves in a large square and sat, still chanting loudly.
Instantly the knobs were among them. Shan could see the soldiers shouting, but their voices were lost in the reverberating mantra. He tried to pull away but Feng held him with an iron grip. The batons were raised and the knobs began slowly, methodically, to beat the prisoners on their shoulders and backs, swinging their batons up and down as if cutting wheat with sickles.
The batons had no effect.
A Public Security officer appeared, his face a mask of fury. He screamed into a bullhorn, but was ignored. He grabbed a baton from one of his men and broke it over the head of the nearest monk. The man slumped forward, unconscious, but the chanting continued.
He threw the stump of the baton to the ground and moved along the ranks. The scene unfolded as if in slow motion.
"No!" Shan shouted and twisted in vain against Feng's grip. "Rinpoche!"
The officer paced around the entire square, then ordered two knobs to drag a monk to the center. It was one of the younger men, from another hut. The monk had shaved his head and wore a red band on his arm. He continued chanting, still kneeling, seeming not to notice the knobs. The officer stepped behind him, drew his pistol, and fired a bullet through his skull.