Bones of the Earth

by Eliot Pattison

  Tan had explained that the Commissar was particularly fond of public works projects and was still personally involved in the oversight of half a dozen bridge and highway projects, which the colonel now spoke of as they finished eating.

  “Prodigious expenditures,” the colonel said. “No doubt a challenge to keep track of those millions.”

  The Commissar’s instincts were still intact. He lowered his glass. “I have a small army of clerks,” he said with a question in his tone.

  Tan slid an envelope across the table.

  “Looking for a piece, Colonel?” the godfather asked. “Not like you.”

  “Looking for a missing piece. This account,” he explained as the Commissar opened the envelope, “had over twenty million transferred to another project over the past ten months.”

  “The infrastructure budget covers all my projects,” the old man said as he scanned the page Pike had printed out. They had been looking for corruption and found no unexpected accounts. Then Amah Jiejie had examined the messages with the eye of a seasoned bureaucrat and declared that a grave sin had been committed. “Sometimes adjustments are made between projects,” the Commissar suggested.

  “Of course. But this was transferred outside. To the Five Claws project. Or more specifically, to certain contractors of the Five Claws.”

  “The hydro project? Can’t be. That’s a Beijing project. Different pocket altogether. No one would shift funds from my projects to pay for that one. It would be stealing.”

  Tan produced another piece of paper and set it beside the Commissar’s plate. “Comrade Ren, the director at the Five Claws, is a figurehead. His deputy does all the work. His project was in a budget squeeze, threatening the schedule for the Chairman’s visit in two years.”

  The Commissar went very still. “What visit?” he asked in a simmering voice.

  Tan offered a sympathetic shrug. “They didn’t consult me either. My own county.” Tan pointed out another page. “Here’s an earlier message. He says twenty million is enough out of the bridges, time to tap the highways.”

  As the old man read the emails one side of his mouth curled up into a snarl. “How?” he demanded. “How do they do this without my knowing?”

  Tan nodded to Shan. “We don’t know exactly,” Shan confessed. “We didn’t want to show up with forensic accountants. It would scare them off their game. We do know about a death warrant you signed. They needed to eliminate a man who threatened them, so they made a preemptive strike. Called him corrupt. We know the signature of the governor was forged but your chop appeared authentic.”

  “Impossible!” the old snake hissed. “I gave no such order!”

  “Religious Affairs tried to look into what they were doing at the Five Claws,” Tan added. “They seemed to resent the intrusion, so they burned down their warehouse in Lhasa.”

  The Commissar’s breath grew rapid and his throat seemed to creak as he tried to form words. “That fire on Kunming Road?” he demanded. When Shan nodded, he seized a wineglass and shattered it against the wall.

  Shan did not react, even though it felt as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “They are very clever, very sure of themselves,” Tan continued. “They scored a big victory at Larung Gar then moved on to the Five Claws. They call themselves the Amban Council.”

  Another low hiss escaped the Commissar’s lips. He was the Amban, and Shan knew now that he had no council. His eyes narrowed as he looked at the copy of Metok’s death warrant. He stared at his chop on it for several long, rattling breaths. Murder and corruption were routine aspects of the political chess game the Commissar had played for decades. Far more grievous would be the sin of forging his personal chop.“Larung Gar, you say,” the old man said. “Give me the names on this so-called Council,” he ordered, then turned the envelope over and pushed a fountain pen toward Shan.

  The staff began to retreat, as if sensing an imminent eruption. The older woman produced a bottle of pills and set it beside the Commissar, who swatted it to the floor. His lips curled and his hands began to shake. “Larung Gar!” he repeated. The woman began to rub his neck. He seized a fork and made a vicious swing toward her, but she easily dodged the blow, as if expecting it, and snapped at him to behave.

  The Commissar took the list of four names. As he read it his face flushed and his entire body began shaking. “I have two men who take care of problems for me,” he said in a venomous whisper. “But they are away just now.” He pointed with a trembling finger at a wooden box on a sideboard, which the woman brought him with a despairing expression. He reached inside it and withdrew several objects, which he kept clasped in his hand. Two of the nurses appeared with a wheelchair. As they reached out to help him into it, he shook them off and extended his hand to Tan, who took its contents without a word.

  As the nurses pushed the Commissar away, the woman lifted the list of names Shan had written, read it, and gave a long sigh before dropping it on the table. “He was with the Commissar for two years. A wicked boy. He was a bad influence on the Commissar. I finally convinced the master to send him away.”

  “Who?” Shan asked.

  “The Commissar finally agreed, but only if he could find him a good position. He was sent to run that campaign at Larung Gar,” she said as she pointed to the last name on the list. “Jiao Wonzhou.”

  The woman spun about and disappeared in the direction of the wheelchair, leaving Shan and the colonel alone. Shan realized Tan was staring into his cupped hand at whatever the Commissar had placed there. After a long moment he turned his palm and the objects rolled out onto the table. The Commissar had given Tan four bullets.

  * * *

  The long sleek train was just pulling into the station as Shan met Pike at the entrance. Shan positioned Pike at a table of the tea shop where he had first seen the American, then, borrowing his phone, waited for the last passengers to clear the platform before approaching the knot of staff assembled by the dining car. The conductor sagged as he spotted Shan, then finished his instructions to the staff and motioned them toward the cartons of food being loaded at the other end of the car.

  “I’m fairly certain no one died today, Inspector,” he said as Shan reached him. “No passengers who failed to rise up out of their seats, no corpse in the cargo car.”

  “Congratulations, comrade,” Shan said. “But I’m interested in an old corpse, not a new one.”

  The conductor frowned. “That was an accidental death, the doctor confirmed it.”

  “There’s many kinds of accidents.” Shan held up the phone with the image of Madame Jiang. “Do you recognize her?”

  The conductor stared at the photo, too long, before looking up. “I see hundreds of people a week, sometimes thousands. How would I remember one face?”

  “Try harder. She was on your train. She’s quite attractive, the kind of woman who stands out.”

  “Inspector, please. I can’t say.”

  “Try harder. Or we can get a lie detector test. Yes, on second thought, let’s do that. I can probably have you back here by midnight or so.”

  “Impossible!” the conductor protested. “I must ready the train for the return! We have a very tight schedule.”

  “Perhaps you can make the return train tomorrow or the next day. Should I go find your boss and tell him the news? It would seem the courteous thing to do.”

  “I don’t know her name!”

  “Look it up. I can tell you the seat number. Right beside Sun Lunshi, the man who died.”

  “I can’t look it up. She never bought a ticket.”

  Shan saw how the conductor nervously watched a Public Security patrol walking down the platform. “Surely you don’t allow stowaways, even beautiful ones.”

  “Surely we don’t say no to Public Security.” The conductor closed his eyes and shook his head. “Look, she ran into the station in Golmud and demanded we hold the train. She made me search my computer for Sun Lunshi and asked his seat number, then just darte
d on board.”

  “And they stayed together the entire trip?”

  “She read a magazine at first, and took a nap, or at least seemed to. I remember because it seemed odd that she seemed to have urgent business with the man but didn’t speak to him right away.”

  She was working hard at doing nothing, Shan knew. It was a technique taught at police academies for not spooking informers. Show no aggressive attention, just be disinterested and casual, giving the target a chance to speak first. “But eventually they spoke.”

  “I wasn’t there the entire time, but yes, about halfway through the trip. A lot of passengers were asleep by then but those two began talking.”

  “Did they eat together?”

  “Is that important? No idea.” The conductor took off his hat and ran his hand over his thinning hair as he tried to recollect. “Yes, something from the snack bar. Sandwiches and sodas, I think. The dining car was all booked, blocked out by tour groups.”

  “You didn’t notice he was missing later?”

  The conductor shrugged. “We dim the lights. People huddle down in their seats and sleep.”

  “And she never asked you about him, never acted as though she might be concerned about his whereabouts when he disappeared?”

  The conductor hesitated as he grasped Shan’s question. “No,” came his nervous response.

  “As if she did not expect him to return.”

  The conductor’s face clouded. “I’m not the detective here.” He retreated a step then paused. “She looked in his baggage when he left. The overnight bag and the tube.”

  “Tube?”

  “A long black tube with a handle on it, nearly as long as your arm. One of those cases used for charts and blueprints.”

  “And maps,” Shan suggested. “It was not with the baggage collected after he died.”

  “Because she took it.”

  “And you didn’t stop her?”

  “I was at the end of the car when she passed me with it on the way out. I said, ‘Maybe you should leave a receipt or something.’ She laughed and showed me her badge again,” he explained, turning to look down the platform. The engineer was shouting for him from beside the locomotive. Obviously relieved for the excuse, the conductor mumbled an apology and hurried away.

  As Shan watched him retreat, a lanky figure stepped off the train. The conductor apparently muttered something to the man as he passed him, for his head snapped around in Shan’s direction. He seemed to groan as Shan held up a hand for him to wait.

  “What good fortune to see you, Doctor,” Shan said in greeting.

  The doctor did not share the sentiment. “I have to report to the office,” he said impatiently.

  “Fine, we can go there together and I can speak to the train master, so I can explain that you can’t make the next train because law enforcement needs you.”

  The doctor sighed. “What is it you want, Inspector?”

  “The autopsy report for Sun Lunshi. You never sent it to me.”

  “I gave it to the Public Security officer who followed up for you. Lieutenant Huan, Lhasa Division. He said he would get it to you. Hardly worth the trouble. It just confirmed my initial findings. We hand out warning brochures to every passenger. We can’t be responsible when people don’t read them.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “He inadvertently killed himself. His levels of benzodiazepine were off the chart.”

  “A drug?”

  “A sleeping aid. It’s a long trip, a stressful and restless night for many. We tell passengers to never take such drugs on the sky train. It inhibits breathing, lowers blood pressure. Combine that with even a moderate case of altitude sickness and the results can be fatal. You saw his blue fingers, his cyanosis. The fool didn’t have a chance. He took too many pills, fell asleep, and never knew he was shutting his eyes forever.”

  “Tell me something, Doctor. Could a few pills like that be mixed in with soda and swallowed?”

  “Of course. They’re small pills, hardly noticeable in a swallow of soda. Or if given a few moments to dissolve, not noticeable at all.”

  Shan glanced at a passing knob patrol and thanked the doctor. He willed the doctor to walk away, then gazed with new understanding at the shiny, serpent-like machine beside him. The sky train was a murderer’s paradise.

  * * *

  “It’s not your fault, Shan,” Pike said. They had been sharing a pot of tea as Shan explained what he had learned.

  Shan looked up from his cup. “What do you mean?”

  “Look at you, like you just came back from a funeral. I’ve seen it before. The investigator syndrome, the psychiatrists call it. My Irish grandmother had another name for it: ‘sin eating.’ But there’s so much sin here you’ll choke to death.”

  Shan could not push the forlorn tone from his voice. “They were laughing together, you said. Then she gave him a soda knowing it would kill him. I should have known the first time I met her. I should have known before, when I saw that the front data sheet on the file about Metok had been replaced. I blinded myself. I saw her as a victim and only wanted to protect her. She helped kill Lhakpa’s niece. She single-handedly killed Sun.”

  “They were both already dead when you met her,” Pike pointed out.

  “But not Jampa, the old janitor. I told her, Pike. I told her Metok had got a message out from the jail. I was trying to comfort a grieving widow. Instead I gave the Amban Council the information it needed to find and kill Jampa. I should have known right away because all the framed photos in his apartment only showed Metok, no family shots. I was blinded by her grief. I responded with my heart and not my brain and it got Jampa killed. And I pushed my son under their boots. He could have been killed. Then they nearly killed Amah Jiejie.”

  “You astound me, Shan. You have lived all your life in this fucked-up country, even survived a gulag prison camp, but you still have such naivete. It might be charming elsewhere, but here it is poison. Is it because you don’t see the evil or because you just don’t want to believe it?”

  “You don’t understand, Pike. They don’t sense evil in anything they do. They tell themselves they are just doing their job, serving the motherland.”

  Pike frowned in disappointment. “Then you are becoming one of them.”

  “No. After all these years, I am finally becoming one of their victims.”

  The American did not reply but withdrew several index cards from his pocket. They had small punctures in the top corners, as if they had been pinned to the wall. “The members of the Amban Council. Jiao is in charge. He spent his first ten years in Public Security, then went to a job with the Party. A troubleshooter. A fixer. He did a term as special assistant to some retired Party kingmaker here then was sent to Larung Gar, but not to construct new housing. He created a palatable plan to eliminate the politically unreliable crowds gathering there and snare a few of the more vocal dissidents in the process.”

  The American tossed out another card. “Major Xun. Before Larung Gar he was in Kashgar, devising ways to smoke out Muslim rebels. For a year he was assigned to work with Jiao there, when Jiao was in Public Security. They created a team that dressed in black, with black ski masks. They snatched suspected dissident leaders out of their beds in the night, never to be seen again.”

  “How could you possibly know this?” Shan asked, then after a moment answered his own question. “Amah Jiejie.”

  Pike nodded. “Amah Jiejie may seem a sweet old aunt. But she is quite the cunning operative herself and knows people in key offices all over China. When she calls someone, it is as if the colonel himself is calling.” He tossed out another card. “Huan. He showed up in Larung Gar and made quite an impression on Jiao and Xun. After they destroyed the main classrooms, the teachers kept their students together for classes in makeshift locations. But Huan always knew where they were, to strike next.”

  Pike tossed down another card. It didn’t have a name on it, only the numbers 404. “The Amban Council
likes to meet in obscure places. Cao and Tink triangulated emails to fix several of their locations. A safe house run by Public Security. Once at a club reserved for senior Party members. Once at the arsenal in Lhadrung. That one surprised me, but then they found another location. The 404th hard labor prison.”

  Shan took the card and wrote a name on it, the fourth name he had given the Commissar. “Captain Wenlu. The warden. He nearly beat my son to death. The Tibetans already knew,” he added and explained that the warden had received a Tibetan death chart. “Those from Larung Gar knew and never told us.”

  “Christ, Shan, you work for Colonel Tan. It’s a wonder you haven’t received a death chart.”

  Shan gave a bitter grin. “The astrologer who made the chart is a friend of mine. I think.”

  “It all started at Larung Gar,” Pike said. “They had their female spy there. In emails Xun and Huan call her their ‘robed eyes.’”

  “She was the nun,” Shan said.

  Pike nodded. “A nun, a widow, a flirtatious train passenger. Like I said, a versatile asset.”

  “And a tour guide,” Shan added. “A woman of many talents.”

  They watched in silence as passengers began to board the next train.

  “I keep watching that video that Zhu brought back from Hong Kong,” Pike said. “That knob officer said he had orders from Colonel Tan. He said it tentatively, like he wasn’t sure he believed it. Then he shrugged and said, ‘Too hard to resist.’ I keep asking myself why he added that. Did you see her today, I mean really see her? You had described a forlorn widow desperate to protect her family and restore her husband’s good name.”

  “It was the same woman,” Shan said.