"There's writing on the blocks," Lokesh said. "Tibetan, in the old style. I studied it. It tells his story. This man," -Lokesh seemed almost overcome with emotion as he spoke- "he was going to Mount Kailas," he continued, referring to the holiest of Tibetan places, the father mountain at the edge of the Himalayas. The first of the mountains, the Tibetans called it. "He was going to leave these blocks on the mountain after completing a circuit of prostrations around it, as an offering for the spirits of his daughter, who had died falling from a horse, and his wife, who had died giving birth to his daughter."
Lokesh looked at Shan and sighed. Something had happened, something had stopped the man hundreds of miles from his destination. "He had come far," Lokesh said, admiration in his voice. "His home, it says, was Loulan, one of the old cities, gone now, at the eastern edge of the desert. He had come almost halfway."
It could have been a sandstorm, Shan thought, or the bitter cold of the winter desert that stopped him. It could have been the arrow of a bandit. Or a Chinese soldier.
They sat in quiet reverence for several minutes, with Lokesh sometimes making soulful moaning sounds.
"Do you sense it, my friend?" Lokesh asked. "It makes some part of me feel alive like never before." The old man seemed to struggle to find his words. "It's as though when they were put in the ground they were wondering would the world survive, would people like us still be here. For all the pain, the wars, the famines, the sandstorms, the persecutions. And now they emerged to find out."
They fell silent again, in a strange communion with the thousand-year-old Buddhist, then a thought seemed to capture Lokesh. He sobered and looked up at Shan. "If I knew this," he said solemnly, "if I knew in a thousand years another human could reach and touch me this way, like a link in the chain of the goodness in souls, I would lie down and die right now."
Shan remembered Lokesh's words at Senge Drak. Maybe humans existed, he had said, just to keep virtue alive and to pass it on to someone else.
***
They ate outside, as the sun set, by a small brazier into which Deacon set a cannister of gas that burned like a stove. His wife made flat cakes of buckwheat flour, then fried together an assortment of canned goods that Deacon produced with a festive air from his rucksack. Bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, and even pineapple wound up in the same pan, served on the buckwheat cakes.
Shan was ravenous.
"So you had an audience with the Jade Bitch," Marco observed as he joined Shan on a flat rock. There were no plates, no chairs, no tables- nothing, Shan realized, that could not be carried inside quickly if an aircraft approached. Between bites Shan explained what Xu had said, and done, at her office.
"Why would she think you were from Beijing?" Abigail Deacon asked.
"Listen to his voice, woman," Marco interjected. "It has the tones of Beijing."
"That," Shan agreed, "but mostly because she expected someone from Beijing. From Public Security headquarters."
"The boot squad reservations at Glory Camp," Dr. Najan muttered.
Shan looked at him, considering the implications of his words.
"You have friends who watch over you," Shan suggested. "Friends with laptop computers."
The Uighur nodded soberly. "Brave friends. Named Mao."
"Xu had evidence in her office," Shan said. "Lau's things, from the school."
"But Lau drowned," Marco said. "That is what Xu thinks."
"The prosecutor had looked at the evidence," Shan said. "The statement that she failed to report to the school. The horse on the trail. The jacket. And her identity papers."
"Identity papers?" Jakli said with alarm in her voice. "We never-"
"Public Security reported them turned in the day the jacket was found. Taken out of the mud on the river bank near Yoktian."
"Who turned them in?"
"Lieutenant Sui."
"The killer!" Jakli gasped. "Lau's murderer planted the papers with Sui, to complete the story."
"Or Sui was the killer," Marco said grimly. "I've seen him on a horse. He could ride well."
"Impossible," Jakli argued, "the knobs would have been all over Karachuk if he had seen things there."
"Not if it was just one knob," Shan suggested, "on a special mission. Sui, or one like him. Xu thought there were secret knobs operating in Yoktian," he reminded them.
"A secret mission to kill a teacher?" Deacon asked.
"A special mission to kill a Tibetan nun," Shan said.
"A nun who becomes a teacher," Jakli observed, "not such a strange story in the border country." She said it tentatively, as if trying to convince herself. "There are more Tibetans here than people think, they change their identity to be safe. They have good reasons."
"Some can leave their past behind," Shan said. "Some can't. And it wasn't just about her past. Perhaps something from her past was the link, the trigger that got the knobs interested in the zheli, a way to find what the knobs were already seeking. What boot squads were seeking," he added in a near whisper.
No one spoke for a moment. No one needed to be told what the boot squads were looking for. They watched the blaze of crimson that was all that remained of the day as it faded into pink and gold and then grey. The American woman rose, then settled on the sand in front of her husband, who rubbed her shoulders.
"Three boys dead," Marco said gravely.
"Micah's out there," Abigail Deacon said, worry in her voice now.
"He's all right, Warp," her husband said reassuringly. "He's in the high mountains. Untouchable. Not long until the full moon, and we'll be together. A new performance."
Warp wrapped her arm around his leg. "You and your damned crickets," she said. "Micah's going to wind up with a bedroom full of insects when we go home."
"Good company. Smarter than fish," quipped Deacon. "Good joss."
His wife laughed, a soft infectious laugh. "My father kept crickets one summer," she said, "used them for fish bait." Deacon, who seemed to have heard the story before, lowered his hands over her face, and she playfully batted them away. "My mother hated them but she let him keep them so long as they were away from the house. One day he left a can of them in the bedroom, while he took a shower, and forgot them. A few days later he puts on his underwear and it falls to pieces. Every pair, full of holes eaten by the crickets. He never said anything. But he got rid of all the crickets that day."
"See?" Marco said with a laugh. "Good luck. Good luck for your mother."
They laughed. They all laughed, even Shan made a sound like a laugh. Marco told a story of how a pet squirrel had made a nest in his mother's only surviving dress from Russia, and they laughed again. Jakli explained how Nikki had once caught an albino mouse for her, and when he got to her camp it had given birth to five tiny pink mice in his pocket. Dr. Najan spoke of a pet pika that always chewed off the buttons of his mother's clothes and took them to his box as treasure.
As he listened a little lump grew in Shan's throat, and a stranger feeling in his heart. What was it? They were happy and he was happy for them. But there was something else. Something they were doing had reached a place inside, a hollow place, another of the chambers that had been unoccupied for so long he had forgotten how to open it. But once it had been full, once it had been overflowing. He recognized the place at last, in a pang of emotion. It was family, it was the way they spoke so openly and laughed so readily, the way Marco and the Americans and even Jakli were so familiar and confiding of the little things, the personal things. Long ago, Shan had shared it with his father and mother, but never with his wife, never with his son.
"How about you, Inspector?" Marco asked in a jovial tone. "Ever have a pet?"
It took a moment before he realized the Eluosi was speaking to him. Shan looked out over the dunes, mottled in evening shadow, like a rolling sea. It seemed like he spent a long time, exploring the forgotten chamber, but they all waited in silence.
"Not a pet," he heard himself say in a near whisper. "In the China of my boyhood yo
u never had enough food to keep your own belly full. Pets never survived. But when I was young my father and I would go to the river and watch the world go by. In the fall farmers would bring ducks to market from far inland. They would clip the wings of the ducks, thousands of ducks, and herd them downriver like vast flocks of sheep, the shepherds in sampans wearing black shirts and straw hats. Once I cried because I realized all the ducks were going to be killed and eaten." He sighed and looked toward the stars. "My father said don't be sad, that for a duck, it was a grand adventure, to float hundreds of miles out into the world, that the ducks would have chosen the river even if they knew their fate. Then he looked all about, very serious, to be sure no one listened, and told me a big secret. That sometimes ducks escaped and made it all the way to the sea and became famous pirate ducks."
No one spoke. No one laughed. He glanced at Marco, who was just nodding toward the horizon, as if he knew all about pirate ducks.
"After that," Shan continued, "every time we went to the river we took paper and inkstones and brushes. We wrote poems sometimes, about the grandeur of the river and how the moon looked when it rose over the silver water. Sometimes I just wrote directions to the sea. Then we folded the paper into little boats and sailed them into the duck herds."
They watched the stars. After a few minutes Marco outlined with his finger the constellations and challenged the Americans to tell the English names. The Northern Bushel they instantly knew as the Big Dipper, and the White Tiger as Orion the Hunter. The game continued good-naturedly. The Porch Way was Cassiopeia, and the Azure Dragon, Sagittarius.
Lokesh wandered from the group and sat on the sand twenty feet away, facing the darkness. He seemed to be looking at something, or at least toward something. Shan considered the direction and noted the position of the small mountain they sat beside. His friend was looking toward the Well of Tears. Lokesh had heard lost souls there.
"Xu had a file on Americans," Shan said suddenly. He was reluctant to break the mood, but the words had to be spoken. Everyone seemed to freeze, and they all watched him intently now. "A list of visiting groups." He looked at Abigail Deacon. "She has your name."
She shrugged. "I was in a delegation. A group of professors, looking at the ruins of the Silk Road market towns. The Marco Polo tour, they called it."
"But only one name was circled on the list. Yours."
The American woman looked at him uncertainly, almost resentfully, as if Shan were accusing her.
"There could be a dozen reasons, Warp," her husband said. "Your flight connections were delayed."
"Sure," Dr. Najan confirmed. "They had to arrange a special car for you to catch up. That's when we first met, the day you caught up with us. Warp, she always wanted to do things not on the itinerary. Asked for a guide to take her to some of the old watch towers on the mountains. Asked for special food." He looked at Shan as if scolding him. "So they circle a name. Lots of reasons."
"Lots of reasons," Shan agreed woodenly. Good reasons. And bad reasons. He surveyed the team that lived in the little outpost. So far from the world, so absorbed in the grand mystery of their science, it would be easy to forget the bad reasons. The Public Security reasons. The Ministry of Justice reasons.
"The killer," Marco said. "He's hiding far away by now. With Sui murdered, he'll know the knobs will be angry as hornets."
"No," Shan said, and he pulled from his pocket the list of names that Jakli had retrieved from Lau's office. "He killed a third boy," he reminded them. "He has a plan." Shan handed the paper to Deacon, who produced a tiny flashlight. His wife held the paper as Deacon held the light and the others gathered around.
"Twenty-three names," Shan explained. "The zheli. The list is from the school records, the official roll of participants. Anyone could get it. You could print it from a government computer in Urumqi or Lhasa or Beijing if you wanted. Eleven girls. Twelve boys, nine left alive. First Suwan-" Shan pointed to the center of the list, then to two others. "Alta, and Kublai."
"But there's no logic, no way to know what the killer is thinking," Marco said.
"Wrong." Shan pulled a pencil from his pocket and reached for the paper, then handed pencil and paper to Jakli. "Eliminate the girls," he said.
She studied the paper and quickly drew lines through eleven names.
"Then Suwan," he said, and she put an X by the boy's name. "And the boy with the dropka parents who was killed-" Jakli made another mark. "And then Kublai." She made a third mark and returned the paper to the American woman.
The first X was on the center of the page. The next two were the top two names of boys.
"That's his great logic?" Marco asked skeptically, as if he thought little of Shan's discovery. "Just go down the list?"
"He targeted Suwan, and when Suwan proved not to have what he wanted he started from the top of the list."
Abigail Deacon gasped and grabbed her husband's leg tightly. "Micah!" she said in alarm, pointing to a name midway down the list. The fourth boy from the top. After Kublai came a boy named Batu, then Micah Karachuk.
"You can't run to him," Marco warned as he watched the Americans. "It may be what the knobs expect. They're watching everywhere. It must be why they haven't acted on Sui's murder, hoping you'll come out of hiding. You're too conspicuous. You'd be seen in the mountains, reported. Then Micah-" Marco shrugged. "Micah needs you to stay where you are."
Deacon nodded. "We made up the name," the American said in a near whisper as he stared at the list, then began to explain their decision to entrust their son to Lau. Soon after they had arrived in the desert it had become clear that their cavern at Sand Mountain was no place for a ten year old. He had met some of the zheli, had met Khitai, at a horse festival in the spring. Micah spoke Mandarin, as did most of the children, and was quickly picking up enough of the Turkic tongue to get by. He loved animals. The zheli was the perfect answer. He would be well protected, watched over by Lau and the nomads. "Besides," Deacon said, trying to lighten his wife's mood, "He's such a mischievous pup, the discipline of the sheep camps would be great for him. He loves it. Been with four different families so far."
"Lau knew this?" Shan asked.
"She suggested it. But kept it secret from the others. So Micah was just a Kazakh boy from a distant part of Xinjiang. Several of the children only spoke Mandarin, because they had been raised in government schools, so his not speaking the clan's tongue was not suspicious."
"So none of the children knew?" Shan asked.
"Not supposed to. But you know ten-year-old boys. Last month, Lau told us Micah had bragged about his parents, then at a class he handed around a jar of American peanut butter. We didn't know he had taken one. Then when I went to see him, he surprised me with three of his friends. Made me promise to come to some classes just before we left Xinjiang, to talk about our discoveries."
Shan stared at Deacon a moment. The Americans were planning to leave soon. Had the boys' killer learned this, and been forced into desperate action?
"He's made some good friends, better friends than in America," the boy's mother added. "Especially Khitai. Micah asked if Khitai could come to our moon festival, to hear the singers." There was no fear in her voice now, which comforted Shan. She had decided her son was safe.
"Stone Lake," Deacon said. "The next two classes are at Stone Lake. Lau always took the children there in the fall."
"If he comes," Jakli said. "Warnings have been going out. Some of the children may stay hidden in the mountains."
"The people he's with now," Deacon said, looking at his wife, "they are as hidden as hidden can be. Not a clan, just two men, a woman and two children. No assigned lands. No contact with the Brigade. The other children don't know where they are. Not even Lau knew all their hiding places. They just stay high up, until winter, roaming just below the ice fields. Lau said we shouldn't expect Micah to see us or anyone else, except on the class days."
"But the others," Jakli said in a forlorn voice. She read the next few names
on the list. "They are in danger. The killer could be stalking them. Tonight."
The color had faded from the sky. A cricket sang from the rocks above. Lokesh took another cup of tea and sat, as if listening to something in the darkness. Then, from the edge of the little circle Lokesh spoke, unexpectedly, still looking out into the desert sky. "They say the Jade Basket can vanish, when evil draws near."
"What do you mean, Lokesh?" Jakli asked.
But even if the old Tibetan had been speaking to them a moment earlier, which was far from certain, he was conversing only with the stars now.
Shan realized that Marco had gone, then turned toward the entrance and saw him standing above, on a tall boulder that gave him a perch to see far out into the desert. And he was looking, looking hard. It was for Nikki, Shan realized, his son who was on caravan, smuggling goods across the border. Nikki, who was going to change Jakli's life forever. Shan saw that Jakli had noticed too. She followed Marco's gaze for a moment toward the darkness, then quickly turned back to the others.
"My cousins and the Maos won't find them all. We have to be there to warn them," she declared urgently. "They're supposed to be at Stone Lake in five days. Kaju is going there." She looked back at Shan. They had no vehicle, he realized. They were stranded in the desert.
"That Tibetan?" Najan asked. "He's one of them. Works for Ko. For the Poverty Scheme. Who best to trap the zheli than their own teacher?"
The words seemed to create a stillness in the air, like the calm Shan had felt before the horrible sand storm.
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