“On the other side,” Shan continued, “the ferocious Mountain Warrior God carries a cutting wheel, a maul called the Earth Shatterer, a scimitar, a ball of fire, a thunderbolt arrow, a crushing killing wheel, a battle-axe, and a sword.” He pointed to each of the objects on the right side, indicating in turn a large circular saw blade, a heavy sledgehammer painted entirely blue, a mock scimitar that appeared to have been made for the old ritual dances, a tarry black mass that burned with a low blue flame, an arrow with scorch marks on it, a wide smoldering tire that looked like it had been taken off a forklift, an ax painted blue, and a sword that also appeared to be a prop made for dance performances. He paused by the smoldering rock. He doubted it was the actual meteorite, but Jaya and her friends had used the appearance of the meteorite to great advantage. The boulder was cupped at the top, providing a basin for the liquid that burned.“Toys and stolen tools!” Jiao shouted. “Cheap theatrics!”
“The meteor last night?” a voice called out from the crowd of workers. “Like the knob said! We all saw it! It was the arrival of the blue god! He was here! Whatever he touches burns blue!”
“Idiot! It’s just some oil or gas!” Jiao snapped. “Get back to work!” he shouted and stepped toward the objects.
“Don’t,” Shan warned as he picked up the scimitar.
“A sham!” Jiao crowed and bent the old dance prop over his knee. He gestured for the cleanup crew to help clear away the objects. The first man made the mistake of kicking at the burning, tarry object. Flaming black blobs spurted onto his leg and instantly his shoe and trousers ignited. An awed murmur swept through the crowd as he frantically tried to rub out the flames with his hand and blue flames spread onto his fingers. He shouted, then screamed, and as two of his coworkers began pulling off his trousers another ran for a fire extinguisher in their truck.
Shan realized the director had retreated behind Tan to stand among the colonel’s soldiers.
“Remove that trash now!” Jiao shouted at the cleanup crew, who now also seemed unwilling to approach the god’s implements. Not a man moved. “You ignorant fools! They are props in a game!”
“No,” Shan said in a slow, reverent voice. “The objects used in the old rituals like those weapons”—he pointed to the sword and scimitar—“could be called props at first but after the god touches them they have power.”
Jiao sneered at Shan and pointed to the ruined cave on the slope above them. “The god is dead! We killed him!”
A worker bravely went forward to the boulder as the flames went out and pushed a tentative finger into the liquid that remained. He lifted his finger to his nose and smelled it. “Not oil or gas!” he announced. He licked his finger. “Water! It’s a miracle!”
An excited murmur rippled through the crowd, and despite Jiao’s protests, another man went forward, then a third. They each touched the water, then with radiant smiles dabbed it onto their foreheads.
“The god’s not dead!” came a voice from the crowd of Tibetans. “Just angry at what you have done! This is his valley!”
Jiao spun about to face the workers. “Who said that?” he thundered. “Arrest that man!” When none of the soldiers or cleanup crew moved, Tibetans surged forward around the boulder, reverently anointing themselves with the blessing water. The deputy director darted to Huan, who produced a small device with an antenna extending from it. Jiao pointed triumphantly up the slope to the yellow flags above the mouth of the cave, then seized the device and pressed a button.
Shan shuddered and took an involuntary step backward. But the caches did not explode. They simply emitted small puffs of white smoke.
“No, no no!” Jiao shouted as he pounded the button again and again.
The explosives were gone. Shan had not been sure if Yeshe the Tibetan demolition expert would have had the strength to work on the slope the night before, but Shan recalled that he had had several strong companions.
The Public Security team seemed confused as they gazed back and forth from Jiao to the drifting plumes of smoke but leapt to action as Jiao turned with a shrill cry. “Those who did this are guilty of sabotage of a national security project!” he shouted to the knobs and pointed back up the slope. “Arrest every Tibetan you find! The charge is treason! If they resist, you must shoot them!”
* * *
Choden met them as they landed on the flat outside of Yangkar and drove Shan and the colonel into town, parking behind the station then awkwardly motioning them toward the guest quarters behind the station. A freshly scrubbed and subdued Kami met them inside the door and, with nervous glances at her mother and Amah Jiejie, escorted them toward a neatly laid luncheon table adorned with a vase of mountain heather.
They ate a pleasant meal together, with Amah Jiejie carefully leading the conversation away from criminal conspiracies, and Kami behaved surprisingly well, edging toward mischief only once, when Shan saw her surreptitiously making a small rice ball. He saw her eyeing the colonel across the table, as if gauging the trajectory, and he gently pushed her hand down, knocking the ball from her grip as he did so. She wrinkled her nose at him but then smiled and attacked a pickled radish.
Kami dutifully rose when Meng asked her to help with the dishes, which went back into the box brought from Marpa’s café. Shan studied the girl, seeing more than once the intense curiosity behind her defiant eyes, the high cheeks of her mother, and the long fingers that seemed reminiscent of Ko’s. Surely this could not be true, an inner voice kept telling him, surely this energetic little creature could not be his own flesh and blood, surely he could not have a family. He was too old, his life was too unstable, his work too dangerous. He had to find a way to tell Meng she must leave, that he would help support Kami but there could be no life for them in Yangkar. He rose and excused himself, saying he had to check the station.
Shan walked through the building and out into the square, which was thankfully empty. He sat on the ground in front of the Buddha, legs crossed under him, and stared into the eyes of the ancient granite statue. He did not know how long he was there, was not aware of a presence beside him until the child’s voice broke the silence.
“What are we doing?” Kami asked. She was seated a foot away, mimicking his posture.
“Speaking to the god,” Shan said.
“No, we’re not,” the girl disagreed. “I would have heard you.”
Shan tapped his heart. “The god inside me.” The child’s eyes rose in alarm, and she leaned forward and stared at his chest as if for a glimpse of the deity. “We all have one,” Shan said, “but many people refuse to recognize him.”
Kami lifted the collar of her shirt and looked down inside it, then back up at the stone Buddha. “Him? You have one of those old things inside you?”
“Her. We can call yours a goddess.”
He instantly regretted his words, certain they had frightened the girl.
But Kami seemed more curious than fearful. She put a tentative hand over her heart. “Why would a goddess bother with me?”
“Because you are alive.”
“But what does she do?”
“Just witnesses.” Shan saw her confusion. “She just watches for now. When you get older she may help you.”
Kami was quiet for several breaths, then a bird landed on the Buddha’s head, and she laughed.
“Your mother said you saw camels when you came down to visit us.”
Kami laughed again. “Like great lumpy horses! I tried to ride one!”
Shan stood and extended a hand, gesturing to a bench. “Let’s go sit and you can tell me all about it.”
He listened to Kami’s excited tales about travel encounters with camels, dogs, soldiers, trucks, and yaks. After a few minutes she stood on the bench and cast a longing eye at one of the trees she liked to climb, but she stayed on the bench, except for a short break spent skipping in a circle in front of him as she described how their car had been trapped by “millions” of sheep one day.
At last Meng and Amah
Jiejie appeared and Kami ran to them. Colonel Tan and his commando sergeant met Shan as Choden drove the truck to the front of the station.
“I may be out of touch,” Shan said. “I have to go back up the mountain above the Five Claws.” They had swooped low over the mountain when flying out, but Shan could not be sure Jaya and the others had understood the warning.
“No,” Tan said in a tight voice. “You have to come with us, Shan. I’m sorry.”
“But you heard Jiao. The Tibetans up there may—”
“No,” Tan interrupted. “The sergeant has something to tell you.”
The sergeant grimaced, then fixed Shan with a somber expression. “I told you, I know some of the men on that cleanup crew, the prison guards on detached duty for Deputy Director Jiao. We got to talking. One of the guards said he heard you called Inspector Shan and asked if you were the one with the son in the 404th.”
“I’m hoping we can get him parole in a couple years,” Shan said uncertainly.
The guard cocked his head. “No. Your son switched places with a trusty, one of those prisoners allowed to do unsupervised work. The warden said it was so Ko could spy on him.” The sergeant shrugged. “It’s why I put in for a transfer out of there last year. I’m a soldier, not one of those who likes to torment prisoners. That new warden isn’t right. They caught Ko and kept it unofficial, if you know what I mean. Beat him real bad. Blood everywhere. They didn’t put him in a bed in the infirmary, just locked him in a closet at the back of the infirmary. More like solitary confinement. No doctors to see him. You know how it goes. Next time they go working high up in the mountains they’ll take him with the crew then report that he had a tragic accident.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
As Shan stared numbly at the landscape below, he was vaguely aware that Tan was snapping out orders into the mouthpiece of his headset. As he regained his senses he realized the colonel was speaking to him.
“I’m sorry, Shan,” the colonel said. “I thought the boy had been weaned from his troublemaking ways. You know I don’t interfere with prison discipline.”
“It wasn’t troublemaking. He was helping me, helping us. It’s my fault. He was trying to get more information about Xun and Jiao, and what they did at Larung Gar.”
“That doesn’t involve the 404th. And why would he spy on the warden?”
“How could Jiao recruit guards for the 404th behind your back? The warden and Jiao must have a connection. You heard those seconded soldiers at the Five Claws. They came from the 404th. Xun arranged it with the warden. That warden is new, just arrived last year. It is unusual for you not to promote from within your ranks. Why was he different?”
Tan thought a moment. “Commendations. A record of rapid promotion. And the Commissar sent me a note asking me to, sealed with his chop for emphasis. He hadn’t asked a favor for years.”
“The retired boss who still gets calls from Beijing,” Shan said. “Who also signed the death warrant for Metok.” He did not miss the way Tan’s jaw tightened at the mention of the aged Party boss.
“Officially he’s been retired for years,” the colonel said, “though you wouldn’t know from the way people still shudder at his name. Lives on an old estate outside Lhasa. He may have slowed down but his fangs are still sharp.”
“Where did the warden come from?”
Tan frowned. “Are you asking me as Ko’s father or as my investigator?” Shan did not reply, just returned his steady stare. Tan sighed. “I don’t know such details.”
“Ask Amah Jiejie. Now.”
The colonel muttered under his breath then spoke to the pilot and switched his headphones back to the radio channel. Moments later he was speaking in a low voice to his office. Shan heard him curse, then Tan turned with his hand over the microphone. “Larung Gar. He came from the Larung Gar campaign. Thirteen months ago.”
“Meaning just before Huan brought him those six prisoners from Larung Gar. Why would the hail chaser confront that very convoy? Too many coincidences.” He recalled Ko’s description of the old lama Tsomo who had died on National Day. What had the warden shouted when Tsomo crossed into the forbidden perimeter zone. Not again, you bastard! “Who sent those prisoners to the 404th?” Shan answered his own question. “Public Security. Huan and his friends had unfinished business with them. Or,” he added, “considered them a threat to their plans.”
“There had to be a trial,” Tan said, “a tribunal verdict, to send them to hard labor.”
“We should get the—” Shan began, but Tan was already back on the radio, asking Amah Jiejie for the records of the six inmates.
“How do we get Ko out of the 404th?” asked Shan when he had finished.
Tan held up a hand then pointed downward. He already had a plan. They were landing at the hospital helipad.
Dr. Anwei, the doctor who had tried to save the old Tibetan janitor, seemed to sense there was some other motive than the unannounced review of the 404th’s infirmary that Tan had suggested, but he seemed to savor the chance to leave the hospital and before they left, he darted into an office and appeared with a clipboard and a stack of forms. As one of Tan’s utility vehicles drove up with two of his soldiers, Shan followed the doctor and began to climb inside.
Tan put a restraining hand on his arm. “No. The warden will be suspicious if you are there. I am going because I am so angry at these damned medical bureaucrats,” he said with a mischievous nod toward a grinning Anwei, “that I had to go to keep him in line. The computerization of all prison activity is to be completed soon,” Tan stated in a louder, stage voice, “meaning bureaucrats from Beijing will be routinely reviewing everything we do. I will not have the 404th embarrass us by poor record keeping.” He turned to Shan. “We will find your son. If he needs medical attention, we will see that he gets it. The helicopter will take you back to Yangkar.”
“Not until you return,” Shan said. “I will be at your office.” He waited until Tan and the doctor drove away with their escort, then walked the half mile to the old building in the center of the town. To his great surprise as he climbed the final flight of stairs to the top floor, Shan heard Amah Jiejie laughing. He found Tan’s assistant in a conference room, having tea with Cato Pike.
The American nodded at Shan, as if expecting him. “I was explaining to this lovely lady about a problem I had once in Beijing. We discovered that a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been delaying the visas for the family of one of our attachés for nearly a year, trying to pressure him into sharing secrets about some investment negotiations. So I managed to get a camera installed in his apartment. A few days later I had a video of a little ritual he performed every day after returning from the office. He propped a portrait of the Chairman on his kitchen table, took off all his clothes and folded them neatly on a chair, then put on an old Mao cap and paraded naked in front of the Chairman, calling out criticisms to the portrait. I showed him ten seconds of the footage and we got the visas in an hour.”
Shan offered an uncertain grin. “Why are you here?” he asked Pike as Amah Jiejie poured him tea.
“Call me an American tourist seeking to experience Tibet in all its glory.”
“Lhadrung County is off-limits to all tourists,” Shan pointed out.
Pike shrugged. “Like I said, all its glory.”
Amah Jiejie laughed again.
Shan was not amused. The American seemed more and more like a powder keg with a smoldering fuse. He switched to English. “Why are you are being so reckless?”
“You mean why would a father try to pry open the conspiracy that got his daughter killed?” Pike replied, his voice sharp as a blade.
“The conspiracy is not in Lhadrung town.”
Pike didn’t reply, just unfolded printouts of more of the emails Cao had intercepted. “I needed a seasoned set of eyes on these records, someone who understands the bureaucracy,” he said, gesturing to Amah Jiejie. It was an exchange between an anonymous “Five Claws Project” email add
ress and another address used for the Lhadrung military depot.
Pike read the first out loud. Checking the order for equipment. Send timetable.
“Innocuous on its face,” Pike said. “But it is only the first of a dozen, and always between midnight and a quarter past midnight, on three successive nights. Special messages at prearranged times between two people using the addresses as cover.”
“They were arranging the shipment of the drone,” Shan said.
“No, this was weeks before the drone,” Pike countered, then pointed to an abbreviation that recurred in each message.
“FAE?” Shan asked.
“Right. They use the American acronym because it was developed in America,” Pike ran his finger down the exchange, reading the references in sequence. “Do you have the FAE yet? Sorry the FAE may come tomorrow. Be patient these things are tightly controlled. I can’t be patient, get the FAE.” And finally, Cato read: “FAE denied. Just use the conventional explosives I sent.”
“I don’t understand,” Shan said. “An FAE?”
“A fuel air explosive. A thermobaric bomb.”
“I’m not a soldier, Pike,” Shan pointed out.
“It sucks all the air out of an enclosed target. Bunkers, buildings, caves. Made to kill people, not destroy structures.” Pike pointed to the dates of the emails. “Not long before my daughter died someone was planning to suffocate everyone in that cave, with help from the army in Lhadrung.” Pike switched back to Mandarin and turned to Tan’s assistant. “Who has authority to order munitions? Especially such a serious weapon.”
“Several staff officers would,” Amah Jiejie replied, as Shan handed her the printed page. “All the colonel’s direct reports, the headquarters staff, and all of the wardens. But for something unusual, the colonel wants to know about it.”
“Except the colonel wasn’t up at midnight talking about vacuum bombs with the Five Claws,” Shan said.
Bones of the Earth Page 26
