Each round of counting yielded one of the lines of a tetragram, which he drew with a finger in the dusty soil at his side. When he had finished he had compiled a solid line over three lines of two segments each. It denoted Chapter Fourteen in a table his father had taught him. When they had first studied it together, his father had told him it was about the geometry of living correctly. Shan whispered the resulting verse to the moon:
The world is a mysterious instrument Not made to be handled Those who act on it, spoil it Those who seize it, lose it
He sat motionless, sensing that a door was opening to a carefully guarded chamber in his mind. He heard the distant voice of his father, a whisper down a long corridor. He forgot his fear, forgot his helplessness, and listened with his heart. Eventually, he became aware of a faint smell, the scent of the ginger his father always carried in his pocket.
He did not know how long he immersed himself in his memories, but the moon was high in the sky before the hoot of another owl brought him back. Abruptly, he lost the sensation of his father’s presence and the dim figures accompanying it who were the monks they had sat with when Shan was a child. He was alone again in the night on a cold, windswept perch, remembering the dangers that waited on either side of the mountain.
His stomach whined again, and he picked up several grains, ready to eat them, then looked at the moon and lowered his hand. He could not eat without reducing the number needed to cast. He tossed them down again to produce another tetragram. This time the pattern was a line broken in thirds over one broken in half, the pair repeated. It indicated Chapter Seventy-One, the verse that had seemed to come up more frequently than any other during his years in Tibet:
To know that you do not know is best To not know of knowing is a disease To be sick of the disease Is the way to be free of the disease
The lives of everyone on the mountain who meant something to him, including the Navajo woman he had never met, hung in perilous balance, and it was impossible that all would escape unscathed unless Shan could solve the terrible riddles of the mountain. But all he knew now was that he did not know. And soon they had to choose between going west, to those who wanted to kill Hostene, or east, to those who wanted to kill Shan. The owl, Hostene’s harbinger of death, landed thirty feet away and cocked its head, as if to remind Shan that he had known the answer to that particular riddle even before he had tallied the rice grains.
Even wolves halt to lick their paws. Well after midnight, as Shan watched from the rim again, figures appeared against the light of the bonfire, weary men who settled onto the rocks near the flames. He pushed back and found his way to the bottom of the chasm again and awakened Hostene with a brief touch on his leg. Without questioning Shan, the Navajo rolled up his blanket and followed. Shan handed him the full pouch of rice. “Keep this,” Shan said. “Put a few grains on your tongue as you walk.” He had returned his own sixty-four grains to the pouch. His hunger had disappeared during his final vigil with the owl.
When they stepped into the moonlight Shan explained his plan.
“But this side is where Abigail is,” Hostene protested. “You say there are soldiers on the east side,” he added in a plaintive tone. “If they arrest me they will deport me. I will never see her again.”
“We are doing this for two reasons. First, the miners are in a frenzy. They will execute you and march back to their camp, singing. Second, the key to finding Abigail is the hermit, who has fled from his cave.”
“Rapaki? He doesn’t even know her.”
“There are two people on this mountain trying to unlock the mystery left by the old monks. The hermit knows more about the pilgrim stations than anyone else. I think Abigail and he do know each other. It seems impossible that they never encountered one another.” Shan extracted the empty tin from his pocket. “I found this in Rapaki’s cave.”
The Navajo took the container, turning it over in his hand, holding it up to the moonlight. “Lemon Freshies,” he said in a bewildered tone. “She brought three or four of these from home.”
A bird flew up in the darkness overhead. Hostene put his hands up, palms out, to shield his face. The hands. It was, Shan abruptly realized, how Rapaki would have seen Shan the previous morning. As he walked, he replayed the encounter with the hermit in his mind. Rapaki’s jumble of mantras had had a theme. Honored by the waking dead was part of the most common prayer to Tara. Face like the circle of the autumn moon was part of a ceremony for invoking the presence of Tara. Even the cheating-death mantra the hermit had used was one that invoked Tara. And though Shan had raised his hands to protect himself from the flying stones, he had not understood until now Rapaki’s reaction. Shan’s thumbs had been touching, palms flattened, turned outward. He had unconsciously made a mudra, one that was a special offering to the goddess, invoking the Laughing Tara. Shan and Hostene had been looking for Abigail. Rapaki had been looking for Tara.
Shan said, “In one of her photos, Abigail wore a short necklace with a large turquoise pendant. Did she wear it often?”
“It’s one of her favorites. It was her mother’s. Why?”
“We have to find Rapaki,” Shan said urgently. “And the key to finding Rapaki is Thomas.”
“That boy from the other side?”
“There were other things in Rapaki’s cave-new pencils, a panda-printed quilt, clean paper. He didn’t get them from the miners, he didn’t get them from Yangke, and he certainly didn’t get them all from Abigail.”
Shan led them down the dark, treacherous path in short stages, stopping frequently to mentally revisit the terrain ahead, painfully aware of the jagged shards of stone, remnants of the earlier explosions, that waited below to impale them if they fell from the slippery rocks. Twice he lost his way and they had to backtrack. When they reached the makeshift ladder bridge Hostene balked. Shan waited for the moon to emerge from behind a cloud and, steeling himself, walked back and forth across it to reassure the old Navajo.
Much later, as they rested, looking at the stars, Hostene asked the question that had been often on Shan’s mind. “Why the hands? Why does the killer cut off their hands? Why does he want hands?”
But Shan had no answer.
“What that old miner said,” Hostene whispered later, “maybe he was right. About your hands being the proof of your life.”
They finally reached the opening to the eastern slope an hour before dawn. Shan pointed out the vague shapes of the buildings of Gao’s compound, singling out the little stone hut that stood perhaps fifty yards from the main house, partially dug into the slope. “The road from the base ends there,” Shan explained. “It was an old storage hut, a granary once. Now they keep supplies there.”
“Once we reach it, what?”
“We hide there. Thomas comes and goes. We know he steals supplies, probably from the hut itself. We will find a way to speak with him.” The long night with no more than an hour’s rest had taken its toll on Shan. “At least we can sleep safely for a few hours,” he said wearily.
After advancing on the hut in short bursts between taking cover behind rocks, Shan pressed a tentative hand against the plank door. Relief flooded him as it opened. He paused, noticing for the first time two small metal boxes sitting on the ground between the hut and Gao’s darkened dzong, then stepped inside. He was caught in the beam of a flashlight. Behind him Hostene uttered a startled gasp. Shan had only a glimpse of the green-uniformed figure pinioning Hostene’s arms before the butt of a rifle knocked him unconscious.
Of all the torments suffered by a gulag prisoner, the greatest was that once you entered, you never left. Long after their release, prisoners would cower in alleyways, flinch at the sight of a uniform, compulsively pace out the dimensions of their former cells within much larger chambers.
Since his first day of freedom Shan had fought that compulsion. Now as he lay on a metal cot in the blackness, helplessness washed over him like some dark tide. It was pointless to resist. He was a prisoner again and would be for years t
o come. Even if he was eventually sent back to his former camp, where he might at least be reunited with his wayward son, there would be the inevitable softening up inflicted on repeat prisoners. His upper arm twitched where the battery cables would be clamped. His fingernails began to ache, as if they remembered what the Public Security soldiers, the knobs, had done.
No! a voice shouted in his head. He had to escape, whatever the cost. He would knock down the soldiers and run, dodging their bullets. He would leap out of the helicopter as it rose from the ground. He would dive out the door if they flew over a lake. There was a murderer on the mountain and Shan had to stop him. Gendun was in the clutches of Chodron, and had to be saved.
He rubbed the bump on his head where he had been struck, realizing in sudden panic that he had no way of knowing how long he had been unconscious. The cement floor and stone walls gave no clue as to where he was. He could have been drugged and transported miles away from the mountain. He searched his palate for the bitter tinge of the drugs that Public Security favored for prisoners. Nothing. Then a tiny vibration came through the ceiling, an intermittent, rhythmic rumbling. Rock and roll music.
A shadowy figure materialized at his cot without sound, holding a hand lantern, shaking him from a restless sleep. “They hit you too hard,” came the soft words in Tibetan, and a porcelain cup of steaming tea was extended toward him. “They’re just boys, most of those soldiers. Children with guns.”
Gao’s housekeeper helped him sit up and dabbed at his head with a damp cloth as he drank the strong brew. She answered his questions in quick whispers explaining that he had been brought here to the cellar of the tower by the soldiers, that he had been in the room for nearly half a day, that the other gentleman was being prepared, that a helicopter was coming that afternoon. Shan shot up and staggered to the door, where he clung to the frame a moment as his head cleared. Then he stepped into the hall.
Following a short corridor, he found himself in the austere chamber where he had seen Gao doing Tai Chi exercises. As he climbed the staircase to the sitting room, a figure in green fatigues leaped from a chair by the front door, hand on his pistol holster. Shan froze as he took in the unexpected scene. Thomas lounged in one of the overstuffed chairs, reading a Western magazine. Kohler stood at the telescope, watching the nest of fledgling lam-mergeiers. At a small table set before the long row of windows, Gao and Hostene were playing chess. The muted music of a string orchestra emanated from the hidden speakers.
Gao caught the soldier’s eye and raised a hand. The soldier frowned but retreated. When the guard reached the chair where he had been sitting, Gao made another gesture and he left the room.
“You missed lunch, Inspector,” Kohler declared with amusement.
“The metal boxes,” Shan said. “Some sort of surveillance device?”
“Motion detectors,” Kohler confirmed. “We told the army we were having trouble with predators.”
“Meaning that you want no more intruders from the other side,” Shan offered.
Hostene rose and inspected the raw patch on Shan’s temple, then nodded as if satisfied with what he saw. “It’s OK,” the Navajo said. “They know who I am.”
“We understand you saved our new American friend,” Gao said in perfect English.
“Again,” Hostene added.
“For now,” Shan replied, trying to eye the door inconspicuously. Thomas had said Gao wanted him to vanish, by means of a bullet if necessary.
“But he’s free now,” Gao said. “On this side of the mountain. His nightmare is over.”
“We left”-Hostene seemed to search for a word-“someone. Shan and I must go back.”
Gao sighed, a father losing patience with his children. “Surely you understand it is too dangerous.”
Kohler appeared between Shan and Hostene, pacing slowly, playing with the end of the white cashmere scarf draped over his collar. He looked at them. “An illegal foreigner and an outlaw investigator. Perhaps they are trying to decide which side is most dangerous for them. Over there they merely have a crazed murderer to deal with.”
“Heinz, perhaps you forget that Inspector Shan navigated the minefields of Beijing his entire career.”
“Half a career,” Shan inserted. “I prefer to think of it as a rite of passage.”
“What I don’t forget,” said Kohler, “is that he left us rather abruptly on his last visit.”
“We won’t be so careless this time,” Gao observed. “We have summoned reinforcements from the base.”
“I am going back,” Hostene said. “The miners will cool off and then I must return. No one is going to stop me.”
Gao shrugged. “I thought I mentioned the soldiers.”
“They were already here,” Hostene shot back. “You didn’t summon them because of me.”
Kohler rolled his eyes. Gao conceded the point with a nod.
“My niece is on the other side of the mountain. I will move heaven and earth to find her.”
Gao shot a confused glance at Kohler. “Your niece? You let a young girl roam the mountain?”
“She is thirty-four years old and a professor of anthropology. We were together, a party of four, doing research.”
Comprehension lit Gao’s face. “The other two were the murder victims.”
Hostene nodded soberly. “I think she believes that I am dead too. No one has seen her since the murders.”
“I may have,” Kohler declared. “Five days ago. With my binoculars.”
Hostene stepped closer to Kohler, his eyes bright with excitement.
“You were on the other side?” Shan asked.
“Hunting wolves. Does she have long black braids? A gray sweatshirt? The woman I saw seemed to be taking measurements on a rock face. She kept stopping to look over her shoulder.”
“But surely you went to investigate?” Hostene asked.
Kohler shrugged. “I was following a fresh trail. I planned to go back if I found the wolf or lost the trail. But I never saw him. And when I went back, she was nowhere to be seen. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Where was this?” Hostene asked.
Kohler withdrew a folded map from a bookshelf and laid it out on the dining table as Hostene and Shan pressed close. “Here.” He pointed to a spot two miles above Little Moscow. “She didn’t come down the slope or I would have seen her. And”-he gestured toward the set of undulating ridgelines, the steep terrain closer to the summit-“this is no man’s land. She should have known better. I’m sorry,” he added.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s too dangerous up there. Wolves. And the winds. Winds explode out of nowhere, strong enough to knock a man off a cliff. And as she goes higher, there is the lightning.”
“Lightning?” Hostene asked. “Everyone makes so much of the lightning here. Surely it is no different from anywhere else.”
“Wrong,” Kohler rejoined. “Scientific fact. Some kind of geologic anomaly, probably related to all the iron in the mountain. We studied it before we set up the base below, to understand any possible effects on our radio telemetry. There are more lightning strikes here than on any mountain for hundreds of miles, maybe more than on any other mountain in all of China. Storms sweep over the Himalayas filled with water from the ocean. The moisture is dumped on the southern slopes, which is why Tibet stays so dry. But they still retain a lot of energy when they reach the northern side of the range. Sleeping Dragon Mountain is where they discharge it. The configuration of the ranges funnels storms to us. Metallic deposits at the top do the rest.”
Hostene and Shan exchanged a worried glance. Lightning. Abigail was looking for the home of the mountain deity, the dragon that gave birth to lightning.
“I’m sorry,” Kohler said in a sorrowful tone. “I should have gone to save her.”
“Save her?” Hostene asked, alarmed.
Kohler left the room for a few minutes, returning with a rag in his hand. “I did try to look for her later, and the next day as well
. I think I may have seen her once more. I think it was her. A figure in the distance, standing on a high ledge, in an impossibly dangerous spot. A squall struck out of nowhere. The wind would have scoured that cliff of anything that wasn’t tied down, even without the lightning. It was impossible to see what happened, with all the flashes. But afterward I went to the base of the cliff. I don’t know who it was for certain. This is all I found.”
Kohler tossed the rag onto the map. With a trembling hand, Hostene smoothed and straightened it. It was a piece of charred fabric from a gray sweatshirt. Despite several holes burned into it, the English words that encircled a small yellow sun rising over mountains were still legible. The surviving letters spelled The U ver ity of New Me ico.
Hostene buried his head in his hands.
“It could have been a miner,” Kohler said. “I don’t know. A miner could have found the shirt and worn it.”
“It was a miner,” came a voice from the kitchen doorway. “It had to be.” Thomas stood there, earphones around his neck.
“What haven’t you told us?” Gao demanded.
Thomas sank into one of the chairs. “I thought I could find her. A day before the murders, I went past one of those old paintings that had been overgrown with brush, so you could hardly see it. Three days ago I went by it again and the painting had been uncovered. Someone had cut the brush down, and there were the fresh marks of a tripod in the soil.”
Shan studied the boy as he spoke, remembering Thomas’s warning that Gao intended to kill him if he crossed the mountain again. Had Thomas lied to him deliberately? Or had Gao changed his mind?
“Then yesterday I met a miner working by himself, singing a song. He had a new Swiss watch. A woman had given it to him, he said. She had traded it for his horse, asked him for directions to the nearest town, to Tashtul, and galloped off. She spoke Tibetan, but no Chinese.”
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