“You are the expert,” Xie said as he opened the first of the chests.
“I don’t understand.”
“The cults. The factions. The separate cadres within the church. We will need to inventory everything here for our warehouses. Bur first I need you to tell me what they say about the links between the monks of this compound and others nearby.”
So Xie did know something about the Tibetans he regulated. There were several sects of Tibetan Buddhism and affiliated gom-pas supported each other. The director opened the second trunk, which was loaded with ritual implements. “We have people who know the names of all these artifacts,” he boasted.
Shan slowly walked along the chest, lifting some of the implements as he identified them. “Purba,” he said, as he raised a ritual dagger, then “a dorje, a drilbu, a kangling, a damaru,” indicating a scepter, a bell, a bone trumpet, a skull drum. He looked up to meet Xie’s impatient gaze. “This gompa was one of a kind,” he lied. “It is not affiliated with others here, only some in Nepal and India.” He looked back over the chests, all of which Xie had now opened. Most were only half full. The slow moving dump truck and its heavy load must have been dispatched the day before. The Tibetans in the surrounding hills would have understood. They had already salvaged many of the treasures.
“Still,” Xie observed, “a lost sheep looks for any flock it can find.”
“But the others,” Shan ventured, his voice growing strangely hoarse, “have signed loyalty oaths.” Only one gompa had been targeted for a raid.
“True.”
“Then your mission is successful. You have dealt in a permanent way with those who would not sign.” He gestured to the chests. “You have added artifacts worth several thousand to the government coffers.”
“Still,” Xie said, “this region seems so-” he searched for a word-“fertile.”
Another shudder moved down Shan’s spine.
A deputy jogged up with a small radio unit and handed it to Xie, who stepped out of earshot to speak into it. He handed it back to the assistant then offered a pointed grin to Shan. “Foreigners. Always causing complications.”
“You mean that American Yates?”
“Him? No. He is away, they say, up high scouting advance climbing camps.” The announcement caused Shan to glance up toward the summit that loomed large on the horizon. He had stayed away from the base camp because of the American. “We can’t search the base camp the way we would like. The foreigners have everything out of context; they don’t understand our family matters.”
“You mean they might misinterpret the government putting a bullet in a monk.”
Suspicion rose in Xie’s eyes. “Comrade, my office is responsible for the whole family of Buddhists in Tibet. It does not serve our policies for monks to be shot. The government strives to make them patriots, not martyrs.”
“What are you saying?”
“That fleeing monk wasn’t killed by Public Security. They found his body on the trail.”
The purba in Shan’s hand slid out of his grip, dropping back into the chest. He stared at Xie in disbelief. “Cao knows this?”
“Of course. It is why I was brought in.”
Shan considered Xie’s words. “You mean you are giving cover to Cao.” Xie’s presence assured that everyone assumed the monk was killed for defying the Bureau of Religious Affairs. Otherwise Cao would have another murder to account for, complicating his case against Tan.
“We are all soldiers in the service of the motherland,” Xie replied, then turned away as another deputy handed him a radio.
Shan retreated, back to Jomo. He quickly spoke to the Tibetan, then eased into the cab of the blue truck.
Entering the base camp below the North Col of Everest was like entering a war zone. Stacks of materiel for doing battle with the mountain lay under tarps fastened with rocks and ropes, each labeled with a trekking company name. Clusters of tents were scattered across the rocky landscape-some elaborate, brightly colored nylon structures, others, from less well-endowed expeditions, affairs of tattered canvas. Porters-the ammunition carriers of the annual spring war-scurried about under heavy loads, weaving in and out of small groups of climbers. The foreigners could instantly be identified as new recruits or veterans. The haggard veterans, back from the oxygen-starved, frigid upper slopes, looked as if they had come from weeks of artillery barrage. Sometimes stretchers would move among them, urgently being carried to waiting trucks. Kypo had made sure Shan knew the statistics before he ventured to his first advance camp weeks earlier. Nearly two percent of all those who ascended Everest died. One in twenty of those over sixty died. It was too dangerous to bring down those who died on the upper slopes, so they were left as grisly, contorted monuments slowly being mummified by the dry, cold wind. Others, the walking wounded, came back with injuries that would mark them for life. Two weeks earlier Shan had seen a man writhing in agony on a stretcher, half his face dead from frostbite.
Completing the battlefield effect were the many foreign flags that fluttered near the groups of tents. On a low, gravelly knoll between two rutted tracks a familiar figure in a uniform sat in a folding chair, as if expecting to direct traffic. Except Constable Jin was fast asleep.
Shan did not bother to search for the striped red, white, and blue flag before hoisting a crate to his shoulder for cover. He aimed for the most populous of the encampments.
With a businesslike air he entered the largest tent in the base camp, an expansive pyramidal structure used as a supply depot. Confirming that he was alone, he set down the crate and studied the chamber. To his right was a tall wooden tool chest with folding chairs around it, a makeshift table. Small nails had been driven into the wooden tent posts near the table, from which hung lanyards with compasses, whistles on chains, several open padlocks, and a small net bag filled with hard candy. In the far left corner, taking up at least a fourth of the space inside, was a huge square stack of supplies in cardboard cartons. Opposite was a little alcove, separated from the rest of the tent by felt blankets hung from climbing ropes. Shan glanced behind him, then slipped through the curtain of blankets.
A piece of heavy canvas covered the gravel and sand underfoot. A folding chair sat between a metal cot and a folding camp table, which was covered with papers. He sifted through them quickly. Lists of climbers, schedules for future expeditions, weather reports for the summit and the Bay of Bengal, correspondence between Yates and the Ministry of Tourism on the payment of climbing fees, inventories of equipment.
He moved to the cot, searched the bedding, then pulled out a heavy foot locker that was under the bed. Secured with a large padlock, it bore the legend Nath. Yates in large black letters on its top. Behind it were three pairs of boots, a plastic bin of pitons and a nylon climbing harness. On an upended wooden crate at the other end of the bed lay several personal items. A plastic bag of toiletries. A bottle of Diamox tablets, for altitude sickness. A small basket holding dozens of small denomination coins from several countries, with a deck of well-worn playing cards. He sifted through a pile of clothing thrown on the canvas rug, scanned the chamber once more, then found himself gazing again at the padlocked trunk. The padlocks by the main entry had been almost identical to the one before him. The wooden tool box there might hold one of the heavy bolt cutters sometimes used for slicing through the thickest climbing ropes. He moved back to the entry then, as voices were raised outside, slid open the front tent flap to survey the camp. Four weary figures in parkas were descending the trail from above, three Tibetans and Nathan Yates. Shan watched as the American was hailed by a bearded man near a tent flying a German flag, who gestured for Yates to join him. Shan lingered long enough to confirm that Yates was moving toward the German, then darted to the languid form of Constable Jin, still sprawled in the lounge chair.