He had decided that her face, though not familiar to him, was not altogether new. He had a sense he had seen Yates with a woman at the base camp, though he could not be certain since Public Security worked hard to discourage the support staff from mingling with the Westerners. But Kypo had confirmed that the American had a partner who was a famous climber, a woman named Ross.
He had planned to find her photo, tear it out and rush out of the office. But it took much longer than he had expected, as he futilely leafed through every newspaper from the past three months then started over, reminding himself to look for different hairstyles, different apparel, as he studied each of the many group photos. When he finally found her, her hair was much longer, shadowing part of her face, under an American style visored cap.
She stood in the center of the front row of a group of two dozen, described in the caption simply as the American guest speaker at a luncheon of the local climbing industry, celebrating the launch of the season, announcing American funding of a new environmental campaign to clean litter off the upper slopes of Everest.
He ripped the page out of the paper, folded it, and stuffed it into a pocket, then resumed his search. Westerners were conspicuous and popular subjects during the season. Within five minutes he had found her again, a clearer image showing an athletic woman with a gentle, self-conscious smile shaking hands with a representative of the Ministry of Education in front of a new one-room schoolhouse donated by an American climbing club. He was scanning the second article, about to extract it, when the overhead light switched on.
Tsipon stood in the doorway, his face smoldering.
“Who is she?” Shan demanded before the Tibetan could speak. Shan held the photo in front of him, advancing toward the door.
The image of the woman seemed to jar Tsipon. He stared at it, his anger fading, as Shan repeated his question, then he pulled it from Shan’s grip.
“Megan Ross, it says,” Tsipon read. “Citizen of the United States.”
“You knew her. You must have known her.”
Tsipon glanced expectantly toward the entry to the building, then frowned. “Known her? I know her. A troublemaker. An agitator from the outside who has no notion of the delicate balance of politics in our world. Last year she started a petition demanding that Beijing send the climbing fees it collects to the mountain villages, abruptly announcing it at the climbing society banquet at the end of the season. She said every cent should be given to rebuild the temples leveled by Beijing so the mountain would be content again and stop taking so many lives. I told her if she wanted people to listen to her speak about temples she was going to have to die and come back as a Buddhist nun.”
“She did die, in my arms, beside Minister Wu.”
Tsipon rolled his eyes. “I read about a particular form of paranoid delusion, imagining that celebrities die in your presence. I know of a hospital near here that could deal with all that ails you,” the Tibetan added with a meaningful gaze, then saw Shan’s insistent expression and shrugged. “You can’t possibly think the death of an American could be kept quiet.”
“Cao has somehow managed to do so. Find someone who has seen her since that day. Anyone.”
“She is secretive. She has people who grant her confidential favors. She doesn’t like the spotlight.”
“You seem to know her well. If she is alive, contact her,” Shan pressed.
Tsipon glanced out the door again before taking another step inside. “I have to get along with all the foreign climbers. They are our lifeblood. Megan Ross has a list of the peaks she wants to climb. A life list she calls it. Did you know there are over twenty peaks of more than twenty thousand feet in this region alone? Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu, Sishapangma. And nearly all of them officially closed to foreigners. Sometimes she goes off for a few days and when she returns another mountain is crossed off her list.”
Shan considered the challenge in Tsipon’s eyes. “You mean you help her. You grant her secret favors.”
Tsipon shrugged. “She’s American,” he said, as if it explained much. “She’s been coming here for years, works with that man Yates now, and has influence with all the expedition companies. She needs equipment sometimes. Nothing much. Freeze dried food. Some climbing hardware, most of which she returns. A guide who can keep secrets. Sometimes even a private truck ride in the middle of the night. She pays in dollars. Dollars are very helpful to have. Some of the sherpas from Nepal insist on being paid in dollars.”
“Contact her.”
Tsipon glanced at his watch. “She isn’t stupid. She doesn’t tell me about every trip. And no one will talk even if they know. These are illegal climbs. No permits. No fees. Some are close to military bases.”
A new thought occurred to Shan. “Why would she know the minister of Tourism?” And why, he asked himself, would she have confronted the minister as she was driving up the mountain?
“You need to see a doctor for this disease of yours. She hated what the Minister was doing to the mountain. Ross said the minister acted like she owned Chomolungma. The minister was the enemy to her.”
And that, Shan realized, might have been exactly why Ross had met the minister on the mountain.
Tsipon stepped to a calendar on the wall by the door, lifting a marker from a nearby bookshelf. He put crosses through the past five days. “I need the body of that sherpa. You’ve got one more day. You should be in the mountains.”
Shan kept pressing. “How would a foreigner like Ross get past the Minister’s security?”
“The road was closed. When the minister suggested she go up without an escort, no one objected. She wanted to drive herself, experience the passage up the mountain as a tourist.”
“How do you know that?”
Tsipon offered a sly smile. “Because she borrowed one of the rental cars from the new guesthouse, free of charge.”
“And you,” Shan ventured, “have gone into the rental car business.”
Tsipon smiled again. “I only have a partial interest in the guesthouse. But the car agency is all mine. When I heard she wanted to drive herself, I readily offered our biggest car. The front license plate had an advertisement for the agency. Celebrity promotion.”
Shan gazed with foreboding at the calendar. “How is the prisoner?”
Tsipon looked out the door one more time, then paused, looking down, as if deciding something. “Yesterday they brought in more specialists, from out of town. An ambulance was called to the jail last night. Forget your colonel. I need the dead sherpa. And right now,” he added in a pointed tone, “I need for you to come with me.”
Shan silently straightened the newspapers, considering the many ways Tsipon could be laying a trap for him, then followed.
Outside a black sedan waited, bearing the number plates for a government car from Lhasa. Beside it paced a refined Chinese man, overdressed in a black overcoat and red fox cap.
“Comrade Shan,” Tsipon declared, “I don’t think you have met our distinguished visitor from the capital. Comrade Director Xie of the Bureau of Religious Affairs.”
Shan’s mouth went bone dry. He offered a hesitant nod.
“One of our glorious rehabilitated émigrés,” Xie observed in a polished voice as he reached for Shan’s hand. He made it sound as if Shan had decided to migrate to Tibet for his health. “I have heard about your skills with the local population.”