They ate in the conference room, with the driver perched at the window like a guard.
Hostene broke their weary silence. “She intended to trick us. Abigail never left the mountain. I don’t understand.”
“She intended to make you leave, to get you out of harm’s way. She knew Thomas had been killed, and she knows the killer is close. But she is determined to reach the summit. Only two things are important to her now-your safety and reaching the end of the pilgrim’s path.”
“A cheap trick,” Hostene said. “We came all this way because of that damned Bing.”
“It was
Hostene nodded. “She doesn’t want us to interfere. She asked us for a box and postage. She means to send her work home.”
“It’s as if she-” Gao did not finish his thought. As if she didn’t expect to make it off the mountain.
“If the doctors are right, she has three or four months before her strength fails.”
“If I went to Ren right now and explained, he would forget the rancor between us,” Gao said. “This is the kind of thing he lives for. He could have a hundred men on the mountain tomorrow.” He handed a folded paper to Shan.
“No,” Hostene said, and it seemed to settle the point. “It’s between me and Abigail.”
“And the killer,” Shan added.
“And the killer,” Hostene repeated. “But if we don’t find the killer, what becomes of Lokesh and Gendun?” he asked Shan. This was the question that never left Shan’s mind.
There were only three beds for visitors in the upstairs chamber. When Shan arranged a blanket for himself on the floor Yangke argued, saying he should take it, as the youngest, relenting only when Shan explained that after so many years in prison he was unable to sleep on a mattress.
As Gao began to draw the curtains Shan put a hand on his arm. “No. Don’t give them any reason to think we are trying to hide.”
“You think they are watching? Impossible.”
“Some people feel impending rain in their joints,” said Shan. “I can feel Public Security in my spine. They are out there, a team, at least two men, maybe four.”
“What are we going to do?” asked Yangke in alarm.
“What we are going to do,” Shan said as he removed his outerwear and stretched out on the floor, “is sleep.” But he did not sleep right away, for he had read the folded paper from Gao. It was a record of Bing’s assignments in the Public Security Bureau. For the five years immediately preceding his retirement, Bing had been commander of prison guards at a gulag camp near Rutok.
It was perhaps two hours past midnight when Shan awoke, trembling, from another recurring nightmare about Gendun and Chodron. Lifting his boots from the floor beside him, he tiptoed down the stairs, into the silent factory building.
There the gods awaited him. Lit by moonlight filtering through a high window, tiered rows of tiny Buddhas, Taras, and saints stood, waiting to be painted and packaged. An army of miniature Tibetans waiting for a signal. Lokesh would have said a prayer over each one.
He sat in a pool of light facing the little figures, like a lama facing his students. Or perhaps from another perspective, they were like a legion of lamas patiently abiding their single, faltering student.
He lowered his head, shamed by his earlier relapse into his Beijing incarnation. “I’m sorry,” he heard himself say to the figurines. “I strive to become a shape like them.” His audience of perfect little ceramic gods would know he meant Gendun and Lokesh. “But the only clay I have to work with is that which I brought from the outside.” He fought a chaos of thoughts, forming his fingers into a mudra, Diamond of the Mind, and focusing on it, letting the storm within him blow itself out. Eventually, for the first time in nearly two weeks, he found a quiet place, a meditative place, and worked to stay there. It was, as Gendun once told him, like balancing a smooth weathered rock on the tip of one finger.
His meditation ended abruptly, a long time later. Something was lurking at the edge of his consciousness. The words that sprang onto his tongue seemed to bypass his mind.
His mind became impossibly clear. He heard an insect crawling on the window, a mouse scratching at the rear of the building. He began reviewing the events on Sleeping Dragon Mountain, starting with the moment he had set foot in Drango village, reconsidering every piece of the puzzle, changing their positions, twisting them like little pieces of colored glass, watching them transform in hue as he turned them this way and that. His fear receded, replaced by what some of the Old Ones would have called the mind of the warrior protector. By the time he rose, the moon was low in the sky and he had begun to grasp the pattern of the puzzle.
He bowed to the assembled deities in gratitude and went toward the front of the compound, pausing at the factory door as he reminded himself of what Yangke had said on the helicopter. Tashi had promised he would “ride with the gods” all the way to India.
Gao stood in the dark in the doorway. He spun about at Shan’s approach, then relaxed. “You were right. There are two of them.”
Shan stepped to his side. Gao was watching a shadow inside a shadow. But then the man drew on a cigarette, casting his face in a quick orange glow.
“I wish Heinz were here,” Gao said. “He knows about such things.”
“Have you spoken with him?”
“I called the hotel where he keeps an apartment. He checked in. But he had to drive to the airport. He’ll phone tomorrow.”
“But you’ll be gone tomorrow.”
“No. I can’t leave on the same helicopter that brought us here. Ren would note the serial number and make the pilot talk. Then the mountain will be smothered with soldiers. You would never find the killer.”
Gao was repeating Shan’s own warning back to him. The scientist too must have been meditating in the dark. He seemed to have finally accepted that the only justice for his nephew would be unofficial justice.
Gao tapped a compact instrument on his belt. “My satellite phone. I called the pilot. He landed at a nearby base after arrang- ing to have a mechanical problem. He will take the helicopter on a test flight and come at dawn, without lights.” Gao reached into his pocket and handed Shan a wad of banknotes. “This will make up for the gold you used.”
Shan went to the backpack they had left there earlier. He extracted the digital camera, fumbling until finally he discovered how to scroll through the stored photos. When he found the one he wanted he extended the camera to Gao. “Can you print this here?” he asked.
Gao studied the photo. It was of Abigail Natay, cheerfully sitting on a rock, left foot under her body, right foot hanging over the edge. Her hair was upswept, adorned by flowers. After a moment Gao went to the computer on the desk and then pointed to the printer. A still image emerged. Shan retrieved the photo, placed it in his pocket, then checked the window again.
On the adjacent table, dimly lit by the street light, was the photo of Kohler, his arm around a woman’s shoulder. They were on a beach. Shan held it up. “Where was this taken?”
“In the south of India. Heinz does a lot of business there and has made friends. The company owns a house and a warehouse in India.”
“You must enjoy the contrast in climate.”
When Gao did not reply Shan realized his mistake. “They won’t let you out,” he said. The government’s lifeblood was secrets, and Gao was a walking vault containing the most dangerous secrets of all.
“If I want sun,” Gao said, “they arrange for me to speak at a conference on the southern coast of China. With an escort.”
Shan replaced the photo and rejoined Gao at the window.
“When you find Abigail Natay,” Gao said wearily, “bring her back to my house. But first we must find a way to
