“The most important question,” Shan mused, “isn’t who could have made the climb, it is why a sherpa who just arrived from Nepal for the season so threatened someone that he had to be killed.”
The bonfire in the square had begun to die as Shan and Yates slipped outside, Shan pointing the way to Ama Apte’s house. They had reached the side of the square when Kypo stepped in front of them. “When did you meet my mother?” he demanded of the American in an unsettled tone.
“I never have, until now,” Yates replied, with a pointed glance toward Shan that said he had not forgotten the strange encounter with her at the base camp. Shan saw that the American was gazing at the truncated finger Ama Apte had raised to the crowd. “It’s nothing,” he added hastily. “She noticed my finger and decided to use it to help quiet the mob.”
As his two companions stared uneasily at each other, a red light flickered in the sky along the southern horizon then disappeared behind a peak. The mountain commandos sometimes patrolled with infrared scanners, and outside the Everest zone were known to shoot at anything that moved within a mile of the border, whether man or beast. Shan watched the light absently, nearly overcome with fatigue, following Kypo toward his mother’s house, past the center square. Half the villagers still lingered there, listening to a man’s harangue about how Religious Affairs had destroyed a farmer’s barley stores because the Bureau suspected he had helped the fugitive monks, how the knobs would do the same to all of them when they came.
Another red light appeared momentarily between two ridges to the north.
Shan, now wide awake and frightened to his core, grabbed Kypo’s arm. “You have to send them home!” he insisted. “Put out the fire and send them home!”
“What are you talking about?”
“The knobs are coming tonight, not tomorrow! They want the village worked up, they want resistance so they can justify detention of every man here.”
Kypo raised his lantern close to Shan’s face, searching it as if hoping for a sign of deception, then just shook his head despondently. “It’s gone too far. Some of them have been drinking. They want a fight with the knobs.”
“Then your mother-“ “My mother,” Kypo shot back, “has put herself in enough jeopardy tonight.”
A vise seemed to be tightening around Shan’s chest. He knew what Public Security was capable of, but he was probably one of only a few in the village who had seen it firsthand. He stared forlornly at the fire, seeing in his mind’s eye how the destruction of Tumkot would become another of the tragic tales told at campfires, another story of Tibetans battered by a century they hadn’t chosen to live in.
“Then get Gyalo away.”
“What are you talking about?” Kypo protested. “I don’t know-”
“There’s no more time for games. He is at your mother’s house. Get him out, back to Yates’s truck, back to the sunken chamber at my stable. And get me four sober men who can be trusted.”
Major Cao said nothing as Shan opened the door and slid behind the wheel of his utility vehicle parked below the village, did not react when four dark figures took up position around the vehicle. He was used to figures in shadow, and would never for an instant have believed anyone but other knobs would be so bold.
Shan put his hands on the wheel, in plain sight, before speaking. “You’re going to call off the raid tonight,” he declared.
Cao’s head snapped up, his hand went to his holster, then he froze as he took notice of the figures outside the truck.
“You’re a dead man, Shan,” he hissed.
“Your disadvantage, Major, is that you don’t understand investigations for the top ranks in Beijing. But I carried them out for twenty years. Everything is in motion, everything is in play, including the investigator. Especially the investigator. They will turn on you in an instant. The number of antisocial Tibetans you arrest won’t matter. Have you asked yourself why they sent you, an investigator from Lhasa, and not someone from Beijing for such an important investigation? You are the failsafe. If things don’t go well you become a conspirator. A few adjustments to your investigation file and suddenly you’re part of the crime.”
“I will start with the bones of your feet,” Cao said. “I will keep you alive for a month or two. But after the first hour you will never walk again.”
“Do you think Madame Zheng is here for the mountain air? Have you even bothered to ask what her role is?”
“An observer.”
“No. She is from the Ministry of Justice. I don’t know her but I know her type. She is credentialed as a judge prosecutor, I wager. And for you that makes her the most dangerous person in the county right now.”
“Ridiculous. She just sits in meetings and takes notes.”
“She will ask for your file. That’s when you know they are beginning to doubt your ability, beginning to consider their own version of the crime.”
There was just enough moonlight for Shan to see the wince on Cao’s face.
“A Public Security bus is ambushed and a state minister killed a stone’s throw away. She knows these events must be related, and every hour you lose pretending otherwise puts you that much closer to disgrace.” Cao seemed to stop breathing for a moment. Shan’s guess about Madame Zheng was right. “You have a few more days at most. Then new reports will be written, your name will go into the file.”
“You are delusional. I have fifteen years with the Bureau. That would never happen.”
“You have all the proof you need that it does.”
Cao’s head moved toward Shan.
“I am that proof. Read my file again.”
Cao was silent for a long moment. “For all I know, you were Tan’s partner in the killing.”
“The other element you don’t appreciate is that there are foreigners here.” As Shan spoke, the right side of the vehicle began to sag. As Shan had instructed, Kypo’s men were releasing air from the tires. It was the subtlest act of resistance but enough to cause Cao to hesitate. He had no way of knowing how many of the shadowy figures lurked in the darkness around his car.
“There’s nowhere you can hide, Shan,” he snarled. “When you attack a Public Security officer your life is forfeit.”
“Pay attention to the subtleties, Major,” Shan replied in a level voice. “At this point in your career they make all the difference. This is just an informal conversation. Let’s call it career counseling. What you are doing tonight will make headlines in the Western press. Climbers and trekkers from America and Europe are all over this area, most with cameras. By noon tomorrow they will be giving interviews by satellite telephone to reporters in their home countries. The jackbooted oppressor attacks a hamlet of peaceful Tibetans, practically in the shadow of Everest, as a pretext so a Public Security bureaucrat can divert attention from his failed investigation. You may be under tremendous pressure now, yet you still have a chance to come out victorious. But your career is over with the first phone call from an embassy to the Minister of Public Security. They will find you a latrine on the Vietnamese border that needs cleaning for the next ten years.”
“My case is finished. I have the murderer. The trial will be next week.”
“No. You and I know you wouldn’t be here tonight if you were finished. You never had to deal with a prisoner who wouldn’t speak. You have to have evidence from some other source. You have to dirty your hands. That’s why you’re here, to test the market for new witnesses.”
“We’ll just include you in the sweep,” Cao spat. “You’ll be lost in the confusion. When you have no papers no one needs to account for you. A nobody can become nothing in an instant.”
Shan gave an exaggerated sigh as he lifted the door handle. “I leave you to your witticisms. I think I told you before you are overeducated for your job. Too much wit, not enough judgment. You fail to grasp the most fundamental truth of those you work for. The higher you aspire, the lower must be the denominator on which you base your actions. I fear for you, Major. You may not survive as long as I do.”