“And graves,” Shan suggested. He was watching Pike now, who lingered at a six-foot-long hole. He had not expected the American to take him up on his offer to join, but Pike had been at the waiting place by Barkhor Square when Shan had arrived at dawn, after a restless night at a cheap hotel at the edge of the city.
Pike had said very little during the long drive to the site, and Shan had realized that the American felt obliged to visit the dig, which after all was why his daughter had come to Tibet. Doing so with Shan as a companion was probably more palatable than going alone.
“Graves, of course. That’s how Professor Gangfen discovered the first evidence of the importance of the site. We have found several others since.”
“Evidence?” Shan asked.
“Proof, really. Of the Tibetan acceptance of Chinese authority. Skeletons wearing Tibetan amulets around their necks but in remnants of Green Standard Army uniforms. The fabric was mostly disintegrated but the professor was a wizard at using microscopes to confirm weave, material, and color. There can be no real argument anymore. The Tibetan people embraced the Chinese emperor as their protector, their savior against those barbaric Mongol hordes.”
Shan swallowed hard and forced himself to say the correct thing. “No doubt the motherland will be proud of your work.”
“Yes, yes! We’ve already had letters of commendation from Beijing. But the most exciting work lies ahead. We hope to find evidence of the amban’s presence here. We have reason to believe this unit was escorting him to his high office in Lhasa.”
“I’m afraid I am not entirely clear on this history,” Shan confessed as Pike approached. “The Green Standard Army?”
The acting director beamed, and they listened for several minutes to a lecture on how the Dzungar Mongols, last survivors of the great Mongol khans, had invaded Tibet in 1717. The Dalai Lama had requested aid from the Qing Empire and the Kangxi Emperor had generously sent a force of regular infantry and his special Green Standard Army troops to subdue the bloodthirsty Dzungars. The Green Standard Army, a unit used to placate civil unrest and to impose order on conquered peoples, had stayed, establishing garrisons in several Tibetan towns and stabilizing the land for the Chinese ambans who had served as direct representatives of the Emperor. “The unity of China and Tibet has been unbroken ever since,” the young archaeologist exclaimed.
Shan and Pike exchanged a pointed glance. The theory of such unity ignored the violent years-long invasion by China in the mid-twentieth century. A million Tibetans had died disputing that theory, and China had been forced to maintain massive garrisons of occupying troops, who had never left. Shan knew enough history to know that the ambans were little more than ambassadors, and their office had only survived a few decades. Gangfen probably knew those same facts but if his goal had been to find a way for the government to sponsor a project so close to Lhasa, he had been astute in choosing his subject. Had Gangfen indeed been playing to the propaganda machine for some hidden motive? Archaeology was one of the most political of Chinese sciences. Excavation sites in Xinjiang Province to the north had often been shut down because they had found images on ancient murals and coffins with blue eyes, even mummies with red hair. Archaeological excavation of old monasteries had been blocked for fear they would reveal more signs of an independent Tibetan culture. The independent-minded senior professor who maintained an anonymous operating base in Jamalinka had kowtowed to Party bosses by designing a dig that would bolster Beijing’s political paradigm of a long-standing, expansive Chinese motherland. The government had been so excited, and so confident of the outcome, that they had even cleared an American to join Gangfen.
Pike asked in a grim tone whether their guide knew where the accident had occurred, and the junior professor spent several minutes drawing a meticulous map and emphasizing the dangers of traveling on mountain roads. “Half an hour from here. I don’t know what they were doing on those roads,” he said, then added with a shrug, “the professor was always watchful for any signs of old ruins and sometimes went up on higher ground for perspective when drawing the maps which would accompany his reports. My theory is that he was trying to pinpoint the most likely route for the eighteenth-century army when it was escorting the amban to his glorious role in Lhasa. Dedicated to the very end.”
Pike gestured toward the students. “Must be a challenge to maintain a team in such a remote place. I don’t see any sleeping quarters.”
“Oh, no, not here,” the professor replied. “There’s a crossroads ten miles south of here with an old inn. We stay there.”
“Where my daughter stayed?” the American asked.
Their guide did not look at Pike, just bobbed his head up and down in an affirming nod.
“Did the professor have an office of some kind?” Shan inquired.
“A desk in our shared office,” the acting director said, nodding toward a small modular building near the road.
The building held only one large chamber, serving as a kitchen and meeting area on one side, and on the other an office consisting of three desks, one of which was separated by folding screens. Shan gestured toward the desk behind the screens. “Gangfen’s?”
Their guide hesitated. “I am quite sure there’s nothing related to the accident.”
“Of course not,” Shan said, and lowered his voice. “This is mostly a courtesy call for Natalie’s grieving father. Who happens to be an important official in America,” he added in a whisper. “We thought there might be a memento, something about his daughter’s work here that Mr. Pike might take home. Perhaps a glowing evaluation of her work here. It might bring some solace to grieving relatives back home.”
The acting director gave a reluctant nod, and Shan sat at the desk as Pike leaned over it. Papers were strewn haphazardly, all seeming to be reports and files on Dzungar artifacts, camp structures, and the Green Standard Army. Shan opened drawers with careful disinterest and lifted another file from the bottom drawer.
He read the caption with a question in his voice. “Religious Affairs?”
The balding professor sighed. “One of Gangfen’s many projects. Ever vigilant for opportunities to help the motherland. More than a scholar. A patriot hero, really. He will be sorely missed.”
Shan opened the file and read the subject matter of the report inside, not bothering to conceal his surprise. “Weather Magic Folklore?”
“What the professor called a subthread of a new Religious Affairs campaign. They are assembling proof of the many pagan practices that were poisoning the Tibetan working class before we intervened.”
“The motherland benefits all it touches,” Shan replied, choosing the safety of a popular Party slogan.
“Exactly. These people were practically living in the Bronze Age.”
“No cars, no trains, no flushing toilets, no factories, no compulsory boarding schools, no prisons,” Shan observed.
His host nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, yes, exactly, comrade!”
Shan quickly scanned the file, attempting not to seem too interested. Gangfen had notes from interviews with over a score of old Tibetans, some prominently labeled Bonpo, practitioners of the old Bon religion. Most of the statements reflected memories from the middle of the prior century, when itinerant weather tamers roamed the countryside and took money or barter goods to keep hail away from crops. The interview subjects seemed to agree that the tamers were all lamas who had received their calling only after years of study, but they described them with many different labels. Hail chasers seemed the most common, but cloud master, rain sorcerer, weather witch, cloud wizard, and even sky conjurer were also used. Shan recognized several of the locations of the interviewees. “Some of these places are hours away. Did he leave the site often?”
“He had been compiling that report for years. This year I believe he met a couple new sources in Lhasa, others at their homes in the countryside. Some of the old ones refuse to travel to a city. So reactionary, but Gangfen always humored them.”
As he leafed through the file Shan realized he had neglected to ask an obvious question. “Whose car was he driving when they had their accident?”
“Ours, leased to us for the duration of the project. Fortunately, the government quickly provided a replacement.”
Shan paused over the last two statements in the file, given months earlier. They both referred to a contemporary weather conjurer and urged the professor to meet with him upon his release from a reeducation camp. Gangfen had been planning to meet with Yankay Namdol.
* * *
Shan gave Pike the choice of going to the accident site or the inn used by the archaeology students. “I knew the story about Natalie dying in a car accident was a lie even before you explained what Metok said,” the American replied. “No point in wasting time there.”
The original crossroads inn, an aged structure of stone and timber, looked as if it had been built for the caravans of yak, sheep, and sometimes Bactrian camels that had once crisscrossed Tibet. Most of the caravan routes had been paved over into roads, and the inn had evolved into a rambling truck stop with two cinder block wings painted in garish red and yellow.
As Pike pushed on the door handle Shan held up a restraining hand. “You need to see something,” he said, and handed the American the envelope sent by Amah Jiejie.
Pike read the first line and tossed it back at Shan. “As they say, fuck you. I can catch a bus.”
“I debated with myself last night about what to do with this,” Shan said in a level tone. “I could have just kept it secret from you. I could have given it to Public Security in Lhasa so I could be rid of you. I chose to share it.”
“So, this is how it’s going to be,” Pike said, his anger thinly veiled. “Just when I was thinking you might be the real deal, you turn into another sniveling, backstabbing bureaucrat.”
Shan unfolded the paper and read it. “From Public Security. Beijing Headquarters, Counterintelligence Unit.” He raised his eyebrows. “You were getting attention in very high places.” He turned back to the report Amah Jiejie had obtained through back channels in Beijing. “The surveillance of the embassy attaché Cato Pike is hereby transferred to the Great Wall Team,” Shan read, then turned again to Pike. “An elite team. You got upgraded.”
“Is there a point to this?”
Shan refolded the paper and summarized the remainder. “A case was being assembled against you for espionage so you could be deported. Then suddenly the deportation file was closed and you were transferred to a team that evaluates candidates for service as double agents. They thought you might be turned and willing to work for the People’s Republic. Why?”
“Because I broke my ambassador’s nose. He didn’t take it well.”
“You mean you were involved in some sort of accident.”
“Not at all. I struck him. If I ever see the bastard again, I’ll break it a second time.”
Shan gazed at his companion in surprise. “Could you possibly explain why?”
“Public Security had it right. I was running a couple agents in my job in FBI counterintelligence. One of them was supplying low-level stuff, some codes and warnings on where Chinese hackers would strike next. He was arrested. The ambassador could easily have arranged a deal, exchanged him for one of the two dozen Chinese spies we were holding, but he refused. My man was executed. Damn right I hit the ambassador. Wish I had done worse.”
“That was the end of your FBI career?”
“I got shipped home. Just say the FBI and I mutually parted ways.”
Shan reached into the console and fished out a lighter. He lit a corner of the report, waited for the flames to catch and dropped it out the window.
Pike gave a bitter grunt. “I don’t work with partners,” he said.
“Good. Me neither,” Shan replied. He motioned to the inn. “Shall we?”
A café occupied most of the cramped lobby, in a corner of which sat the registration desk.
Shan showed his badge to the plump Chinese woman at the desk and asked if any of the students from the university project were there.
“One of ’em took the day off, gonna catch the bus to Lhasa, he says,” she reported, nodding toward a scholarly looking, bespectacled Chinese man in his twenties who sat reading at a table with a pot of tea.
“Excuse me,” Shan said as he approached. “Are you with the university project?”
The man slowly nodded.
“I was hoping to speak with you about the accident.”
The student obviously didn’t have to be told which accident. His countenance twisted with pain, and he shook his head.
Shan was not sure how to take his reaction, so he stepped aside to fully reveal Cato Pike, standing behind him. “This is Natalie’s father.”
The young scholar’s face went pale. He looked up at Shan with something that might have been desperation. “I wouldn’t know what to say,” he said. “It was so horrible. And I don’t speak English,” he added.
Another of Pike’s sad smiles appeared on his countenance. “How about a ride to Lhasa?” he asked in his flawless Mandarin.
The student’s name was Cao Li, and while they drove Shan eased his reticence by speaking of the work at the Green Standard Army camp, then of his own father’s great interest in history. As they neared Lhasa, Cao opened up, reflecting on his great respect for Professor Gangfen, who had been his mentor for years, teaching him, in Cao’s words, “the proper approach for archaeology in China.” Cao seemed to evade questions about the accident but finally admitted that the professor and Pike’s daughter had not been seen for three days before the crash.
“So the professor was out doing interviews with some of the indigenous inhabitants?”
Cao hesitated, clearly worried about Shan’s prying. “The professor was deeply committed to the advancement of knowledge. He loved his work. ‘Science doesn’t lie,’ he would tell us.” Cao winced, as if again he had gone too far.
Pike and Shan exchanged a glance. Science doesn’t lie. The professor’s words could have been taken as a truism used in teaching or as a warning for those who participated in the Party’s particular form of science.
Pike broke the silence with a question Shan should have asked earlier in the day. “What happened to the car after the crash? I think it probably had some of my daughter’s belongings in it,” he added.
“Gone. They brought a new one the next day, a better one.”
“What kind was the one in the crash?” Shan asked as he checked his watch. Zhu was supposed to meet him again at the tea shop.
“One of those heavy utility vehicles with high suspension for travel on rough terrain, a white one, with a cargo rack on top. But I’m sorry, like I said, it is gone. They say the gas tank exploded.” He glanced awkwardly at the American. “They said that she died instantly.”
“They,” Shan stated. “The same ones who brought the replacement car?”
“Sure. Public Security out of Lhasa. They had to be involved, everyone said, because a foreigner was one of the victims.”
“Do you know the name of the officer? We’ll want to see if he found any belongings in the vehicle,” Shan said. “It would save me time if you had a name.”
“The new director dealt with them. It was a lieutenant. I remember afterward one of the younger students said it would be fun to check his DNA, and the director snapped at him to stop suggesting such things.”
“His DNA?”
“When the sun hit his hair at a certain angle, you could see red in it, or at least a deep auburn hue. That’s from the Turkic population. His people must be from Xinjiang, probably Kashgar or Khotan. I’m surprised he hasn’t dyed his hair to remove the reminder that not all China is Chinese.” Cao looked up with an awkward glance at his companions, seeming to catch himself. “But good archaeology students can’t be heard saying such things, or we can find ourselves shifted to some school for computer technicians or accountants.” Cao grew very sober. “I would never say such things,” he assu
red them.
Shan studied the student. Cao may be a scholar, but he was something more. Had Gangfen nurtured a dissident? “The professor was a good man,” Shan said, as if to comfort him. “An honest man. He deserves a memorial.” They were approaching the Jokhang Temple complex, where Cao had said he wanted to be dropped.
“Yes, yes,” Cao agreed. “I would gladly help with one.”
“Good,” Shan said. “The memorial I am thinking of is the truth. Not the new director’s version of the story, not the report of Public Security. I think Gangfen was trying to make a difference in the world. That effort shouldn’t die with him.”
The words sent the student into a brooding silence. He did not speak until Shan stopped the car. He climbed out and paused as he closed the door. “They died for the truth,” he blurted, then darted into the crowd.
Pike climbed out of Shan’s car as Cao disappeared into the crowd. He turned to Shan, his hand still on the door. “I suppose this city has more than one crematorium. Which do you suppose the police would use?” Shan considered a moment and told him, and the American pulled the hood of his jacket over his head and set off in the direction Cao had taken.
* * *
Zhu was waiting once more at the tea shop with the red door and seemed excited to see Shan. He handed three photocopies to Shan with a victorious gleam. “Took some digging to get what you wanted but the colonel’s office helped.”
The first page was the list of official attendees at Metok’s execution. There had been two Public Security officers in the gallery, the captain who had read the statement and the young lieutenant with reddish hints in his hair who had pulled the trigger. The young lieutenant had been Huan Yi.
The second page was a printout of a scanned document that had been sent from a Lhasa office to Tan’s office. It was the official cover letter to a submission to the Party tribunal that had determined Metok’s fate, with the recommendation for punishment listed as Swift Resolution, one of the knob euphemisms for a death sentence. It was signed by Lieutenant Huan Yi, and the higher-level clearance for the execution had been signed by the provincial governor with the added seal, the chop, of the head of Party discipline for all of Tibet, the aged, treacherous man feared by many even in Beijing. His name was Yang Chouzi, but he was known simply as the Commissar. The Commissar’s chop had sealed Metok’s fate. In other jurisdictions, in other cases, a half dozen Party signatures would have been needed for the execution of a Party member, but the seal of the Commissar preempted all others.
Bones of the Earth Page 10
