the old granary.”
Shan noted the times of the movements to and from the little building. “Does Thomas go only around meal times?”
“Heinz and I made him responsible for keeping an inventory, a serious job since we can’t run out to a shop when we’re out of a necessity.”
“You could always call Public Security for salt and rice,” Shan observed. He was still resentful of what Gao was.
“The Party secretary would respond immediately,” Gao replied in a stiff tone. “But regional commanders are not always as accommodating.”
Shan stared at the screen as the display of the data entries finished, then asked Gao to run them again. He had missed the quick blurs of color on the upper left corner of the field on the first run-through but noted them on the second. He asked Gao for one more replay. A glow that, though fleeting, indicated a human, reappeared.
Gao took Shan to the main entrance and pointed out the location of the scanners. Shan noted blind spots; infrared light did not register through rocks. There were a lot of low spines of stone along which someone could have crawled undetected. Shan pointed out where the unknown intruder could have circled the house.
“Could it have been someone from the village?”
“No. They are not welcome here,” Gao replied.
“But they do come. Bearing gifts.”
“Nothing I ask for. That fool Chodron arrives every spring, kowtowing, bringing me tokens. I think he believes he keeps the soldiers away by doing so.”
“But recently he sent you something else. A gold beetle.”
“He sought my help in removing some intruders from the mountain,” Gao said. “I declined to get involved.” He studied the screen again.
“Could it be the guards?” Shan asked.
“No. They usually come twice a day, check the system, then walk around the perimeter of the house, and leave. I sent them away until tomorrow. If they knew a foreigner was here, so close to the base, it could be”-he paused to select a word-“problematic.” Gao frowned, stared at the now blank screen, then walked to his office window. Someone seemed to be watching his house. Someone who, knowing that the scanners were operating, was using the cover of the rocks to come and go, leaving only the most slender traces.
“Why did this American come here if he is dying?” the physicist asked after a moment.
“Perhaps to prove he is still alive,” Shan suggested.
But Gao answered his own question. “How many places on the planet are so completely removed from the eyes of any authority? Surely there are no more left in America.”
“Hostene did not come to Tibet to commit a crime.”
“We know he has already committed crimes. He achieved admission to the country under false pretenses, no doubt involving a lie on his visa application. He’s trespassing in a restricted region. We know he is a criminal, even if we don’t know the full list of his crimes.”
“I trust him.”
Gao stared at Shan, and shook his head in disappointment. “You live in a fairy tale, Shan. You will have to grow out of it.”
Shan searched Gao’s face. Another time he might have taken the remark as a bitter joke. But now Shan saw no mockery in Gao’s expression, which seemed to reflect his own sorrow.
“
Shan had been slapped in the face by such men for much less. But Gao merely left the room. Shan stared at the screen again, glanced at the door, then quickly closed the program, and scanned the pile of papers in the tray beside the fax machine. Thomas had sent several messages to Beijing recently, each confirming that he had dispatched a new package of evidence-photos, fingerprints, and, later, fibers from the bloody cloth stuffed in the mouth of one of the victims.
Shan found Gao at the telescope, gazing at the distant nest of vultures. “I’m worried about Albert,” Gao said. “He leans out of the nest too far. He does not have his flight feathers yet.”
“Before you learn to fly,” Shan observed, “you must learn to fear.”
Gao continued to study the young birds of prey. “We can take a day or two and delay sending Hostene away,” he said. “It would give me time to get a doctor to look at him. Neither of us wants him to die while he is on this mountain.”
“If he dies on this mountain,” Shan replied, “it will not be from cancer.”
Gao shrugged and stepped toward his sand garden below. “For now we shall let sleeping Americans lie.”
But Shan couldn’t let things rest. He found the Navajo’s pack and recharged the battery of the video camera. He had spent a quarter hour reviewing Abigail’s videos when Thomas appeared from the kitchen, carrying an empty basket, wearing a black linen shirt. “Let’s discuss the evidence,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper. “After I finish my chores,” he added.
Shan hurried to Hostene’s side and shook him, gesturing for him to keep silent. He lifted the camera and pointed to a long silver object lying on a rock. “Whose is that?” he asked in a whisper.
“Tashi’s,” Hostene said with a yawn. “His pen case. He kept little drawings and things in it. You woke me up for that?”
“No,” Shan replied. “You must come with me to the granary,” he said urgently.
Hostene stretched. “That old stone ruin? Why?”
“Because of a ghost in the motion detectors,” Shan said. “And because Thomas put on a clean shirt to go get groceries.”
Chapter Seven
They approached the granary as they had before, running together from rock to rock, using the shadows for cover until they reached the plank door of the low stone structure. If Gao happened to open the monitoring program, he might assume the movement on the screen was caused by Thomas. Shan glanced at the padlock that hung open from the door’s hasp and peered inside. He saw a second door beyond a stack of rice and onion sacks, on top of which sat a small lantern. There was no sign of Thomas. He withdrew, whispered to Hostene, then both men slipped around the side of the structure.
Thomas emerged fifteen minutes later, setting his basket, now filled with foodstuffs, on a rock in front of the door before he turned to fasten the padlock.
“Did you know the miners tried to kill us yesterday?” Shan asked as he came around the corner.
For a moment Thomas looked as if he was going to attack Shan. Then he shrugged. “That Bing,” the youth said, “he tells people that they should still consider him to be Public Security, but without all the red tape.”
“They’re not hard to beat, Thomas,” Shan observed, pointing to the nearest motion detector. “By shifting each a quarter turn you could create a corridor where they are blind. Or if you set a lighted candle in front of one, you blind that sensor.”
Thomas cast an uncertain glance toward Shan. Then, acting on Shan’s suggestion, he began turning the little metal box. Shan sensed Hostene behind him, going inside. Thomas paused, as if he too had sensed something. They heard a low moan from within the building.
Thomas sagged, and for a moment looked as if he was about to flee. “You tricked me,” he said, wounded.
The sounds from inside turned to muffled cries of joy, then a low, feminine sobbing.
Thomas lowered himself onto a rock. “You wouldn’t believe what she knows about rock and roll,” he said. “She drives a car with satellite radio. It receives two hundred fifty stations. She says when I finish in Beijing she’ll help me gain admission to a graduate program in America.”
Shan gave Hostene five more minutes. Inside, Abigail Natay was crying on her uncle’s shoulder. She scrubbed
