As they drove away, Shan tried not to be conspicuous in scanning the outcropping. He was certain he had seen someone there. The distance had been too great for Ren and his colleagues to understand what had happened, but he recalled how Jaya had collected newspapers, tape, string, and dried sticks. She had brought the drone down with one of her kites.
Tan seemed to be having difficulty in suppressing his amusement. He had briefly watched through the binoculars and was canny enough to understand that even eagles and lammergeiers have to flap their wings from time to time. The colonel disliked Public Security nearly as much as Shan, but neither of them had many opportunities to see the knobs embarrassed.
Director Ren was visibly upset. Clearly, he was not an engineer in any technical sense. He was an overseer, a Party diplomat, and his job was mostly to polish the image of his project to a high sheen. He was miserably failing with the most important man in Lhadrung. Tan herded the director back to the car and made sure they drove away without Jiao before he pressed Ren harder.
“A report will have to be submitted, Director,” the colonel pointed out. “That was a very expensive piece of military equipment. If you like, I can certify it was an accident. If only I had been consulted when someone decided to use my railcar, I might have been able to call it a loss on one of my training exercises. But I can still try. Whom should I speak with?”
Ren was still recovering from his shame. “Speak with?”
“The one who approved the use of the army’s equipment for a civilian project. Corners were cut. Maybe we can take advantage of that. It must be someone else’s fault. I would hate to see your record stained.”
Ren brightened. “My deputy did all that. Someone in the Lhadrung military depot arranged it, and Major Xun said we should take advantage of a military shipment to keep things quiet. Jiao was hoping to surprise”—the director glanced uncertainly at Shan—“to surprise them,” he said with a gesture toward the top of the mountain.
Tan weighed the response for a moment. “Does Major Xun visit you often?”
Ren stiffened. “Our first official visit from the Lhadrung government was that of Inspector Shan.”
“So he visits, just unofficially.”
“They are friends, Jiao and Xun. Served together somewhere before this. They have meetings.”
“Meetings?” Shan asked.
“Like a working group. That Public Security lieutenant from Lhasa, he’s in the group too. It’s all kept very quiet, since Jiao says they are working on special Beijing assignments, very confidential stuff.”
“Surely you know everything your own deputy does,” Tan chided.
“Everything the Party wants me to know.”
“Spoken like a true patriot, comrade,” Tan said, patting Ren on the shoulder.
Ren nodded gratefully. “Even in the army there are secret missions outside the usual command structure.”
“Damned right,” Tan rejoined. Ren did not see the way the colonel’s jaw clenched. It wasn’t amusement he was suppressing now. It was anger.
“They even have a name for their group, derived from those old officials who used to enforce the emperor’s word out of Lhasa. They call it the Amban Council.”
“A clever name,” Shan said after a moment’s reflection. “Tell me something, Comrade Director. Who came up with the name for this project?”
“Believe it or not, it was Deputy Director Jiao. People in Beijing loved it. He wrote a note for our website that says Tibetans believed a mythological bird lived here, a garuda it was called. There is some rock formation on the mountain that the Tibetans call the claws.”
“The Talons,” Shan corrected.
“Yes, yes, the Talons. Jiao says the name pays homage to the Tibetan people.”
“A garuda has only four claws,” Tan observed, to Shan’s great surprise.
Ren shrugged. “Beijing loved it.”
The colonel exchanged a pointed glance with Shan. The name had nothing to do with Tibetans. The sign of the Five Claws was a symbol of the ambans, and of the imperial power in Beijing. In old China mortal punishment was imposed on anyone outside the government who used the sign, because, for centuries, five claws had been the symbol of the imperial five-clawed dragon.
The banquet the director threw for the colonel was surprisingly elegant. The modular buildings, arranged in rows behind the office and mess hall, looked identical from the outside, but the one closest to the mess hall had been transformed by Deputy Director Jiao into what he called his executive club, for his senior managers and visiting dignitaries. It had been divided into a lounge, furnished with thick Tibetan carpets and overstuffed chairs, and a dining room, with a small kitchen and bar in the rear. The lounge walls were hung with framed photographs of the director and deputy director with various officials. Next to the photographs hung another artist rendering of the completed dam and the lake behind it. Along the bottom of the painting were images of joyful Chinese children turning on light switches, electric railways, and spotlights sweeping across skyscrapers of eastern cities. The dining room was hung with portraits of Party chairmen and several framed vintage political posters.
Pinned to the bulletin board by the bar were three pages captioned Master Development Plan Summary. With a chill Shan read a paragraph on the second page explaining how his beloved Yangkar would become the administrative center for the project. The first office building would be constructed on what was a vacant lot currently used as the town square. Shan closed his eyes for a moment, fighting the agonizing vision of Yangkar as a modern Chinese town, then turned toward the dining room. His years in Tibet had taught him to fight one disaster at a time.
The food was simple but the wines and liquor expensive, and Tan, who could hold his alcohol better than any man Shan had ever met, made sure the director matched his own consumption of vodka. Tan had insisted that the Public Security officers join them, ostensibly to show his appreciation for their service in such a hardship post, but in fact to allow his four commandos more freedom in following Shan’s instructions for reconnaissance. A sullen Lieutenant Huan sat beside Jiao at the other end of the table. Twice Shan caught Huan staring balefully at the colonel and each time Jiao nudged him then refilled his glass and offered a toast.
Shan tried not to show his impatience as he sat through the meal, declining all liquor, and listened to a short, slurred speech by Director Ren that ended with the announcement that in the morning the colonel would be given the honor of pressing the detonator to collapsee the steep slope above the imploded cavern. The cave mouth, Ren explained, was still visible and presenting a great distraction to the Tibetan workers, who still went there to pray and leave offerings. With his usual efficiency, Ren stated, the deputy director had devised a plan to eliminate the distraction.
Shan nodded to Tan as the dinner guests finally rose, and the colonel made a show of good-naturedly helping the tipsy director out of the building, surrendering him to one of his junior managers.
Tan’s commandos, all from Lieutenant Zhu’s team, met Shan behind the mess hall and were about to report what they had found when a shadowy figure appeared around the corner. The soldiers crouched into the darker shadows, pulling Shan with them as the man stopped and pulled out a cigarette. As his match flared they made out Colonel Tan, in battle fatigues now. “Did you really think I would miss the fun?” Tan asked, then motioned for them to carry on.
The soldiers reported that the cleanup crew, all looking like military men, were closely guarding the equipment yards, and that several of the Tibetan workers had voluntarily gone back into the wire-enclosed compound for the night. Only one man, a young Tibetan, was in the infirmary, where the nurse was drowsily watching another movie on her computer. The cement factory was working through the night, and a reduced crew at the southern end of the valley was continuing work on the huge forms that would eventually be filled with thousands of tons of concrete. A small toolshed behind the equipment yard had armed guards outside it.
“I need a truck, and not the one assigned to us,” Shan said.
The sergeant in charge gestured to the row of pickups parked behind the mess hall. “Take your pick,” he replied. “We just returned from urban warfare training. Very first thing they teach is how to hotwire any vehicle.”
Tan insisted on coming and sat beside the sergeant with the air of a battle commander as he drove them out of the compound, switching off the headlights as they reached a dirt track Shan had marked that day. The going was slow, with only a gibbous moon to light their way, and it took nearly a quarter-hour to reach the flat in front of the cave mouth. Shan found a flashlight in the glove box and the sergeant handed Tan the powerful light he carried on his equipment belt.
The collapse of the cavern had started twenty feet inside the entrance, and the base of the sloping pile of shattered rock it had created began several paces inside, leaving the outermost portion of the entry walls still intact and visible to their lights. Even that small section revealed the working of multiple cultures. On each side intricate images of Bon deities had been painted above a row of elongated stick-figure shapes, some carved into the rock and some in faded paint on the surface. Shan made out horses, yaks, and deer among the ancient shapes. An angular image he would not have recognized except for the photos Cao had shown him he knew to be a horned eagle.
Tan aimed his light at each of the more detailed images painted above the more primitive shapes. “Demons,” he observed.
Shan recognized several of the images. “Apchi, Begtse, red Cumara, and Pehar,” he said, pointing to each as he named them. “Protector demons, yes,” he confirmed.
Tan’s light lingered on a flaming sword held in a hand that extended out of the wall of rubble. “Warriors,” he said in an approving tone. “That one died fighting.”
Shan gazed forlornly at the debris. Somewhere deep inside it covered the bodies of the two dead archaeologists.
“That’s not Buddhist,” Tan said. Shan followed his light to a small unobtrusive mark in ochre that was no bigger than his hand. It was the Christian cross Shan had seen in Cao’s photo.
“It was the Valley of the Gods,” Shan said. “I think all gods were welcomed here.” The Jesuit explorer described by Cao had stood in the cave entrance more than three centuries earlier, and had no doubt felt the same excitement that Shan experienced in knowing that devout hands had been at work here for thousands of years. His cross wasn’t there to preempt anything. It was just a greeting from the devout of the West.
Tan silently paced along the images. “Why exactly are we here?” he asked at last.
“You heard the director. They are going to finish the job tomorrow.”
“There are dead bodies inside,” Tan said as Shan produced a cone of incense, then watched in silence as he lit it and laid it on a slab of broken stone. In the dust on an adjacent slab, Shan inscribed the mani mantra with his finger. They backed out of the cave and spoke no more until they reached the truck. Then with the brighter light, Tan located four yellow flags on the slope above the cave that marked the caches of explosives laid for Jiao’s demolition of the cave mouth.
When they returned to the parking lot, two of Tan’s men were waiting for them. One silently pointed to a truck in the shadows at the back of the parking lot, at the opening that led to the rearmost row of modules. “The truck has a mop hanging off the back. It has two men inside, like an outer guard.”
“For the toolshed you mentioned that has more guards beside it,” Tan said.
“At the far corner of the equipment yard, yes, sir,” the commando reported.
“So consider it a training exercise, Sergeant,” Tan said. “Neutralize these two. Nothing fatal. Gag them and tie them to a bulldozer.” The soldiers grinned, saluted, and melted into the deeper shadows.
Ten minutes later Shan and the colonel approached the shed. Three of the cleanup crew now stood in front of the door, holding what looked like pick handles. Tan’s scouts marched directly up to them. Sharp words were exchanged, a club was raised, and before the man who held it could swing he was on the ground, with the club against his chest. The other two guards backed up, blocking the door. “We have orders!” one of them spat and raised his own club.
“Stand down!” Tan barked as he emerged out of the shadows with Shan. The men at the door hesitated a moment, then recognized the colonel and with fearful gasps lowered their weapons, butt first on the ground, as if standing at attention for an inspecting officer.
“Corporal Cheng?” the commando sergeant asked.
“Sergeant?” came the man’s equally surprised reply.
“You know this man?” Tan asked his sergeant.
“We used to be stationed together, sir. Cheng’s a prison guard. Or was.”
Corporal Cheng seemed to relax. “Still am, at the 404th. Seconded, the warden calls this duty. He even lets us earn wages here too. Hardship pay he calls it.”
“I don’t recall signing off on that,” Tan stated.
“Head of personnel did, sir. Major Xun.”
“Earning wages for what exactly?” Tan asked in a simmering voice.
“Whatever Deputy Director Jiao tells us to do, that’s our orders. He’s in charge of security.”
“Then what’s Public Security doing here?”
“They were called in to clear the high ground. That’s how Jiao puts it. We just keep the troublemakers in line.”
“Troublemakers?” Shan asked.
“Nearly two hundred men here, ninety percent of them Tibetans. Like the deputy director says, the bad apples have to be sorted out to avoid spoiling the whole barrel.”
“Open this door,” Tan ordered. “Now!”
Cheng’s companion lifted his club a few inches off the ground. “Don’t know about that, sir. The deputy director said—” With a quick nod from Tan, his sergeant slammed a fist into the man’s belly. He doubled over, staggering away.
“Open the damned door!” Tan ordered Cheng.
Cheng threw a hasty salute and produced a key. As the door swung open, a fetid stench rushed out.
“Bring them outside, Sergeant,” Tan growled.
Each of the four Tibetans had been beaten, though none seemed severely injured.
Tan seemed to force himself to keep his voice level. “What were their offenses?” he demanded.
Corporal Cheng brightened, not realizing that Tan’s fury was aimed at the cleanup crew, not the prisoners. He pointed at the nearest man, a compact middle-aged Tibetan who cringed as Cheng moved closer. “This one we caught sneaking around the bulldozers in the middle of the night. The next day we found someone had dropped dirt into one of the fuel tanks. This one—” he indicated another of the frightened Tibetans, but then Tan held up a hand.
“Make notes,” Tan said to his sergeant, who produced a pad and began writing.
“This one,” Cheng continued, “was ordered to burn those prayer flags that keep dropping from the sky. We discovered that instead he hung them in an unused shed where these two”—he indicated the remaining Tibetans—“had made an illegal altar, complete with a photograph of the Dalai Lama. The deputy director said they should be sent for reeducation, but they are equipment operators and we need them. Said we would just do our own reeducation.”
Tan fixed the Tibetans with one of his frigid stares, then gestured Shan forward. “This is work for the civil authority,” he announced to Jiao’s men. “Inspector Shan will take them into custody.” Tan took the notepad from his sergeant and handed it to Shan, then ordered his team to escort the Tibetans to their truck.
The cleanup crew watched uncertainly as Shan assembled the Tibetans in a line, then relaxed when he asked the corporal for hand restraints. He nodded with approval as Cheng ordered the men to place their hands behind their backs and secured them with the plastic ties used by Public Security when making mass arrests. Shan marched his prisoners to the parking lot, where two of Tan’s men waited by a pickup truck, supporting Yeshe, the patient from the infirmary, between them.
“Silly cow of a nurse slept the whole time at her desk while her movie kept playing,” one of the soldiers reported. “We took his chart and made the bed. She’ll have no idea what happened to him.”
Yeshe gave Shan a confused smile as he was laid in the back of the truck and the other Tibetans nervously climbed in beside him. Shan drove quickly up the long switchback until reaching the hidden flat where he had intercepted Pike and Cao the week before. He had the four bound Tibetans line up behind the truck and the nearest man groaned as he unfolded his pocketknife, then Shan asked him to turn and he cut off the plastic restraint. After freeing all four, he asked them to help Yeshe out and they sat in a small half-circle of rocks as he passed around his water bottle and told them what he knew about Metok’s execution and the deaths of the archaeologists.
“I have an old friend,” Shan declared, “who told me about monks from a long-ago time who found a way to travel between the heavens and hells of human existence. They walked between worlds, finding ways to keep the worlds in balance. Right here, right now, that’s where you are,” Shan said. “You are on the edge of worlds. In the world you just came from men have laid explosives above the ancient cave to obliterate it forever tomorrow morning.” He looked at Yeshe the demolition expert as he spoke. “Four big holes packed with explosives and marked with yellow flags,” he said.
“There is another world, above here, where the relics of gods are being recovered and taken to safety. There is also your homes, wherever they may be. It is your choice where you go now, back to the valley, the mountain, or your homes. If you think it safer to take the government’s punishment, then go to Yangkar and tell my deputy I said to arrest you. No one from the cleanup crew will reach you in one of my cells.”
Yeshe staggered to his feet, pulling off the bandage that covered his head with a defiant expression. “Plastic explosive or just plain TNT?” he asked with a wincing grin.
Another of the Tibetans stood with him. “The mountain is dark and vast. How do we know how to reach the world above?”
“You already have,” came a soft voice from the shadows. Jaya, as Shan had hoped, had been keeping watch in the night.
As they began to follow Jaya, one of the Tibetans paused, then approached to press something into Shan’s hand. “This was pushed through the window of that shed the first night we were locked in there,” he explained. “Bless you, Constable,” he said, then turned and disappeared into the shadows. Shan turned his flashlight on the object in his hand. It was a little blue tsa tsa, a crude ceramic image of the god Gekho.
Tan was sitting outside the module assigned as their quarters with a cigarette when Shan returned to the compound. “I assume all your prisoners are getting what they deserve, Constable,” he stated.
“They are grasping the painful lessons of this valley, yes,” Shan answered, raising a nod from the colonel.
They sat in silence, the only motion Tan’s occasional lifting of his cigarette to his lips and the smoke that seeped out of his nostrils. “Over there,” the colonel suddenly said, indicating a patch of sky with the ember of his cigarette.
The meteor was so close they could see a long glowing trail behind it. As it soared overhead, they could hear a whistling sound, then it abruptly crashed on the flat below the pass.
Tan gave a rumbling sound of pleasure.
There was an odd air of familiarity to the scene. Shan realized that this was exactly what he and Lokesh would do on such a night, when the air was impossibly clear and the sky brimming with stars. Years earlier Shan and the colonel could not have been more different. Tan had been the tyrannical, merciless overseer responsible for the prisons where so many died. Shan had been the frightened, suffering gulag inmate who despised men like Tan, who represented all that was bad in Beijing. Now Tan mourned an old Tibetan janitor and sometimes seemed to hate Beijing as much as Shan. With the death of Jampa, Shan suspected he was closer to Tan than anyone other than Amah Jiejie. The grudging respect that had developed between them after so many years of shared ordeals was evolving into something more, although Shan was hesitant to call it friendship.
Neither man acknowledged the bond, but Shan had seen the telltale signs of a transformation in Tan’s eyes. The colonel was a hero of the Chinese army, who had immersed himself in the holy cause of taming the heathens and bringing communism to Tibet. He had been a hardened warrior who found glory in training his cannons on monasteries and reducing them to rubble with their chanting monks still inside, or in directing machine guns toward villages, killing even their herds. His had been a sacred cause and he had risen far because he had been the perfect warrior, wrapped in the armor of his perfect cause. They had shared adjoining bedrooms at a conference a few months earlier, and Shan had confirmed what he had long suspected. Tan woke with frequent nightmares. Shan knew Tan was beginning to see the terrified eyes of the innocents who had been shot or bayoneted by his troops. He was hearing the prayers being chanted in the monasteries as his tanks brought the walls down on those inside. The nightmares had come because he had begun to suspect that his cause had been deeply flawed. Without a perfect cause, he could no longer be a perfect warrior.
“My first year in Tibet,” Tan said, in a low, contemplative voice, “we stayed on combat alert twenty-four hours a day. I sat in my command seat in the lead tank of my brigade many nights, all night. At first, based on what I heard from Beijing, I was watching for the enemy but after a few weeks we realized there was no enemy, none that would attack a battle line of tanks.
“I started watching the stars instead of the terrain. There were many nights like this, when it seemed you could reach out and grab a handful of the galaxy. At first the vastness scared me, because I was just a little insignificant creature in a uniform, but later the stars calmed me. I wasn’t insignificant, I was part of it.”
Tan sighed, and Shan heard the rasping that rose in his surviving lung when he was weary. “Hell,” he confessed with a forced laugh, “good thing they began ordering us to shell the monasteries, or I might have become a monk.”
“Lha gyal lo,” Shan said.
Tan gave another laugh. “Victory to the gods, right?”
“Right.” After a moment Shan added, “Most forget that it is part of a longer phrase. The ‘warrior’s cry,’ they used to call it, and Tibetans would always offer it at mountain passes, like the one where the dam is being built.”
“Why passes?”
“Because that’s where the good gods do battle with the evil gods. They have to hold the passes, or the evil will flood down onto humanity. Ki ki so so lha gyal lo, that’s the full cry of the prayer. It means something like through the strength of your heart and eternal spirit, the gods will be victorious. There’s a second part I learned in prison. Tak seng khung druk, di yar kye, which means Tiger, lion, garuda, dragon. May they all arise here. They are the allies of the good gods, the protectors on spiritual journeys.”
“Huan, Xun, Jiao,” Tan spat the known names of the Amban Council like a curse. “Ki ki so so lha gyal lo,” he whispered. “Bring out your dragons, old Gekho.” He turned his head toward the pass, where the drone had been defeated that day. “If they wanted this valley, they should have asked us first.”
Shan was not sure if he was speaking to Shan or to the god.
He slept fitfully on his narrow metal-framed bed in the guest quarters, though much better after he got up and reversed the portrait of the Chairman that seemed to be staring down at him. In his dreams he walked along a pilgrim path with Meng and Kami, calling Lokesh’s name.
An hour before dawn a terrified scream awakened him. It came from the building next door, the director’s quarters. Shan pulled on his trousers and ran outside. Three men jumped from the cleanup crew truck as it skidded to a halt, their clubs ready for action. Tan’s sergeant darted out from their quarters, a pistol in his hand.
The director was on his front step, wearing pajamas that clung to his body at several damp patches. “He was here!” Ren cried out. He was near hysteria. “He brought down the skies! He found me in my own bed!”
Shan reached the director at the same moment as the sergeant, who quickly ordered his men to search the building.
“Who found you?” Shan asked. “Who brought down the skies?”
“Who do you think!” Ren’s hand trembled as he opened it to reveal several balls of blue ice. “That damned god! The demon! He made it hail on me!”
The sergeant lowered his gun. “Sir,” the soldier said, “that isn’t possible.”
“Don’t tell me it isn’t possible, you fool! I was there. The hail came pounding down on me! It hit my head!” Ren remembered and began patting his skull as if seeking an indentation. “I could have a concussion!” He seemed near paralysis. Shan twisted his wrist and Ren dumped the ice balls into his own hand. “We’ll take care of this, Director,” Shan said, then pulled Ren away from the others. He handed the director the little blue tsa tsa god that the Tibetan had given him the night before.
“I … I don’t know about these Tibetan things.” Ren stared at the blue god. He was clearly very shaken. “Some of the men speak about a hail sorcerer who kills people with ice balls.”
Shan nodded at the blue figure. “Keep this with you to let the god know you respect him,” he suggested. “And I’ll light some incense in your room to call in the protective spirits.”
The director gave an anxious nod. As he clamped the tsa tsa tightly in his fist, Ren saw that Colonel Tan was staring at him from the step of the guest quarters and nervously retreated inside, Shan a step behind.
Ren led Shan to his bedroom but stayed in the hallway as Shan stepped through the entrance. The bedding lay in a tangled heap. As Shan lifted it, over a dozen ice balls rolled onto the floor. The window at the head of the bed was slightly ajar. Shan leaned toward it to confirm that the sash could easily be lifted from the outside. On the metal sill a ball was melting.
He lit a cone of incense, assuring the director that he would be safe for now. As he left, he heard Ren ordering the sergeant to bring out his clothes. He was too scared to go into his bedroom.
Tan could not contain his amusement when Shan explained the attack on Ren. In the kitchenette of their quarters, Shan laid the blue ice balls on a cutting board and sliced through one. Tan watched him with curiosity as he studied the cross section of ice. “Hail has rings, like a tree,” Shan explained. “No rings here. This was made in a freezer.”
The colonel laughed out loud. “I like this god!” he exclaimed and tossed one of the ice balls into his mouth.
At breakfast Shan resisted the temptation to go into the kitchen to search the freezer for an ice ball mold. It was probably gone by now, he told himself, then studied the Tibetan workers seated about him with new worry. Dangerous games were being played in the valley of the Five Claws, hopeless, impossible games that could never succeed but could easily result in the deaths or imprisonment of the Tibetans who played them. On the bulletin board by the food line, someone had pinned a new drawing, another caricature. This one was of the Chairman depicted as a five-clawed dragon whose neck had been seized in the talons of a huge garuda.
Tan was engaged in a lively conversation with some of the drivers about the similarities between tanks and bulldozers when the workers looked up then quickly lifted their trays and fled the table. The director and his deputy were approaching, with a Public Security soldier walking behind them. The armed knob took a position behind Ren as they sat across from the colonel and Shan.
“Worried about an attack from another Tibetan demon, Director?” Tan chided Ren, who flushed and kept eating.
The deputy director shot Ren a scathing glance before turning to Tan. “What do you think of our glorious project, Colonel?” Jiao asked. “We are changing the face of your county.”
“I admire your willingness to take on such challenges, Comrade Jiao,” Tan said.
“Challenges?”
“So remote. So old.”
Jiao hesitated. The confusion on his face changed to amusement, and he shrugged. “Moving a pile of rocks is much the same work no matter where you are.”
Tan sipped at his tea. “How long have you been in Tibet, Deputy Director?”
Jiao did a poor job of hiding his contempt for the colonel. “Long enough.”
Tan returned his gaze with a frigid expression. “Not more than a few months, I suspect,” Tan observed. “Took me years to understand how deeply we had underestimated the Tibetans.”
“Underestimated pathetic ditch diggers and unwashed sheep herders?”
“Something like that,” Tan said. “Nobody asked them about this valley.”
Jiao gave an indignant snort as he lifted his mug of tea. “Surely you are joking!”
“Nobody asked me.”
Jiao laughed into his mug. “This had been a Beijing project from the very first brilliant suggestion made to the Minister of Public Works. A task force was created. Satellite photos were analyzed, and electrical demand algorithms constructed. They have computer programs calculating peak loads five and ten years from now and how the Five Claws will meet the demand.”
“Still, it’s my county.”
Jiao’s eyes flared. “Beijing’s county! The Party’s county! You haven’t even attended a Party meeting in years!”
Tan shot Shan a meaningful glance. Jiao had been investigating Tan. “I found I wasn’t learning much at those meetings. I memorized the Chairman’s book of quotations decades ago. I have a drawer full of citations and medals for bravery and protection of the socialist imperative.”
“Collecting dust! What you know about the socialist imperative is forty years old! This is the twenty-first century!”
“I’ll be sure to change my calendar when I return to Lhadrung.”
Shan found himself on the edge of his seat, actually worried that Tan might strike the deputy director. Men who knew Tan would be trembling under his icy stare, but Jiao’s arrogance blinded him to it. But the director understood and tugged at his deputy’s arm as he interrupted. “I have a wonderful video of the Three Gorges Dam, Colonel,” he declared. “We can view it in my office. We are planning to use some of their same turbine technology here.”
Jiao’s mocking stare took in the director as well now.
Tan nodded. “We have an hour before my helicopter returns. We can go straight to your—” he paused, seeing the chief of the cleanup crew darting toward them.
The chief bent and urgently whispered to Ren, whose face slowly drained of color. He abruptly stood, then remembered his guests. “Perhaps you should collect your things first. I will meet you in my office,” he said distractedly, then hurried after the crew chief, followed by his new Public Security guard. Jiao muttered under his breath, then drained his tea and hurried after Ren.
Shan and the colonel climbed into their own truck and followed the director as he and Jiao sped toward the southern end of the valley. Half a dozen vehicles were already parked beside a patch of smoldering earth as they approached. The air had a foul, acrid smell, tinged with sulfur and burning rubber. The director and Jiao stood with Lieutenant Huan beside a rapidly expanding crowd of workers staring at a bizarre pattern of objects lying on the ground. Arrayed in two opposing arcs, each about fifty feet long and perhaps thirty feet apart at their tips, were tools and weapons, with a boulder above the arcs that was burning with blue flames.
“I don’t understand,” Shan heard Director Ren say in a near-frantic voice.
Shan saw that some of those among the workers did understand. Several Tibetans were talking in excited tones, and three or four ran away as if to bring others to witness the miracle. Jiao cursed and picked up one of the tools in the arc, a large hammer with a metal handle. He gasped and dropped it, shaking his hand. The hammer had burned him.
“What the hell is this!” Jiao shouted.
When no one spoke, Shan stepped through the crowd. “Gekho,” he announced as he reached Ren’s side at the base of the two arcs. “Gekho the Destroyer. Gekho the Mountain God.”
“You fool, Shan!” Jiao spat. “Stop spouting nonsense!”
“It was that meteorite last night!” Huan insisted, then hesitated as he gazed at the tools. No one seemed comforted by his explanation. Meteors did not come equipped with the tools of a god.
Shan spoke toward the director and Tan as he recalled the painting of Gekho he had seen in the secret archives. “Gekho has eight arms on each side. In his left hands he holds bow and arrow, lasso, battle hammer, iron chain, iron hook, spear, horn of a ram, and a caldron of boiling water.” He pointed to each item that comprised the left arc, which in sequence were an old battered bow with an arrow nocked in it, a coil of rope, the hammer Jiao had dropped, one of the chains used for hauling logs, a large hook that was used with the chains, the handle of a shovel that had been broken off and sharpened to a point, the horn of a sheep, and a brazier filled with a liquid that was also spouting blue flames.
“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.”