Catching his smile, Chen shivered. He had seen enough of his new boss by now to guess what was giving him pleasure.
They had been working side by side for only forty-eight hours, yet Chen was already starting to understand more than he would have liked about him. He knew enough not to speak unless spoken to and would spent long hours in silence, simply waiting for the next order.
Now he stood in front of Zhu’s desk back at headquarters, watching those pale, blank features knitted in concentration over a file.
‘Sir, I have just received a report that two Westerners have not checked in with the local station at Nyemo.’
Zhu raised his left hand and Chen slid the paper across the desk.
‘They were on a tourist visa, sir, heading down the standard trekking route to Nepal. But I also discovered that they were here only a month ago, and on that occasion received special climbing permits. I thought I should bring this to your attention because they left their interpreter here in Lhasa.’
‘Left?’
‘Yes, sir. They apparently departed early in the morning in a Land Cruiser, leaving him waiting at the bus station.’
Zhu studied the expression on Chen’s thickset face, the mixture of deference and dogged determination. He knew that Chen had been working late into each night, carefully combing through every scrap of information that might be related to their mission. There were dark rings under his eyes and his hair was still ruffled at the back of his head. He was obviously terrified of falling behind or putting a foot wrong. Zhu had come in early that morning and noted, with some satisfaction, that he had been sleeping in one of the empty cells downstairs.
‘So where are they?’ Zhu asked.
‘I am not sure, sir. We don’t have that information yet.’
Zhu stared at him before extinguishing his cigarette on the side of the glass ashtray, twisting the stub round until every trace of its glowing head was black.
‘Was I not clear enough about what happened last time? Your incompetence cost your superior officer dearly.’
Chen stared fixedly at the square of carpet in front of the desk, keeping his legs tense to stop them from shaking.
‘I will not make the same mistake now that I am in command,’ continued Zhu. ‘Don’t ever come to me with incomplete reports again.’
‘Yes, sir. I apologise, sir.’
‘Do you at least know which travel agent sanctioned their permits?’
‘Jagged Travel, sir. The owner is listed as one René Falkus.’
Zhu nodded.
‘Get my car. We’re paying him a visit.’
Chapter 22
With every step they closed in on the disease-ridden village.
It was late afternoon and a muted orange light cast long shadows below the ridges on the path. To the right, the cliffs rose up from the ground in a massive, unbroken wall. Beyond they could see the streaks of white as glaciers carved down from the summits of the mountains.
They had been going since before dawn and both Bill and Luca had sore feet from their La Sportiva ‘Evo’ mountaineering boots. The rigid soles and padded insulation were more suited to ice climbing than trekking and both were counting the hours until they could take them off for another night’s rest.
A hundred yards behind where they walked, Jigmi and Soa called out to the line of lumbering beasts slowly wending its way along the path. From their hunched shoulders and moody stares, it looked as if the herders were also tired, but they had been like that all day. Even after the promise of an extra fifty dollars each, it had taken Luca nearly an hour to persuade them to continue.
‘Look, over there,’ he said to Bill, pointing to the ridge ahead of them. Faint wisps of smoke were rising up into the harsh blue sky. ‘That must be the next village.’
Bill looked up and gave a strained smile. He was looking forward to a rest, but the thought of what they might find at the village had been worrying him for the last few hours. He could still picture the look the farmer had given them as they had left the last village and wondered how Luca had managed to persuade him to ignore such a desperate warning.
Luca came to a sudden stop, his boots crunching on the pathway. Just ahead, a bedraggled monk sat in the lotus position on a small pile of stones. In his right hand a prayer wheel spun in continuous motion, the movement seeming to pass through his entire body. He rocked back and forth, a low chant coming from his lips. His face looked like unpolished mahogany, cross-hatched with lines, and his watery eyes stared out to nothing in particular.
The last of the evening’s light filtered down over the far mountain ridge to where he sat, illuminating his filthy red robes. As Bill and Luca stared at the monk, the yaks ambled up behind them, coming to a disjointed halt with a soft clanging of bells.
Luca took a pace forward and, crouching down, gave the traditional Tibetan greeting.
‘Tashi delek,’ he said, then, pointing to the village ahead, ‘Menkom?’
The old monk continued swaying backwards and forwards, seemingly unaware that he was even being spoken to.
‘Menkom?’ Luca repeated, a little louder, waving one hand in front of the monk’s eyes.
There was not a flicker of recognition. Luca shrugged and glanced back at Bill. ‘He looks a bit thin. Maybe he wants some food or something? Pass me one of the chocolate bars, will you?’
As Bill dug into his rucksack and offered a brightly wrapped chocolate bar, the monk seemed to wake up and focus on the two men, waving the chocolate away with a sweep of his hand and pointing to the far ridge.
‘What do you think he wants?’ said Luca.
Bill followed the direction of the pointing finger to where the orange sun had sunk halfway behind the mountain ridge. When he turned back to face Luca, a smile was playing on his lips.
‘You know, I think the old guy just wants us to get out of his sun.’
Both men backed off a few paces and as the orange light washed over him again, the old monk nodded contentedly before settling back into his solitary chanting.
Bill looked over at Luca, and laughed softly.
‘Ever get the feeling we’re a touch behind these guys?’
After pitching their tents on a flat patch of ground a little further on from the monk, they walked up to the village in search of water. The farmer’s warning loomed in Bill’s mind once again, and he felt a prickle of fear creep up his spine.
The village was nothing more than a collection of twenty or so shacks, built beside a small stream. Each building was raised on stilts above the hard earth, with uneven steps leading up to a single door. The doorframes provided the only touches of decoration, with symbols drawn across them in faded red and yellow paint.
Everything was so still that they assumed the place must be deserted. Bill looked over at Luca, his face relaxing into a smile.
‘Maybe the farmer thought it was haunted,’ he said with relief. ‘Some kind of ghost village or something.’
But Luca shook his head, his expression tense.
‘Look,’ he said, pointing at a shack further up the stream.
As soon as they spotted one figure they seemed to be everywhere, camouflaged by their dirty rags against the porches where they were sitting. Pitifully thin people sat listlessly on the steps: men with skeletal faces and children on their mothers’ laps, bodies barely more than a heap of bones. The only sound was the occasional bout of coughing. As Bill and Luca approached, hollow eyes followed their progress with a mixture of apathy and hunger.