'Right,' the Tiger said grimly.
'Somo said there are other knobs working for Tuan somewhere else. Five others.'
'We can't find them. No one knows where they are. We have tightened security everywhere. No new faces are permitted at any of our meetings now. We have word out all over the district. But those five are not to be found. Everyone is wary, very nervous. It is getting more and more dangerous.'
They sat in silence. Crickets sounded somewhere.
'I went to that hermitage where you started but you had already gone,' the Tiger said suddenly. 'The dropka who were there told us about an old lama taking away the body of Drakte. We followed, and stayed at the durtro until the vultures were done, trying to understand what had happened to him. We talked into the night, and when we awoke your lama was gone, into the mountains.'
Had he been wrong about the Tiger? Was he there about Drakte, about finding revenge for Drakte? 'I know Drakte was at Amdo town that night,' Shan said. 'Getting one of the Lotus Books. But why there, why couldn't someone have met him away from the dangers of a town?'
'That damned Serenity Campaign. The howlers are keeping scores for economic success. We laughed about it at first. But this gompa, this Khodrak, decided he had to have the best score in Tibet. And he did.' The Tiger gazed at a particularly bright star.
'But it has to be lies,' Shan said.
'Exactly. Drakte found out. He had other duties, but he was from this region originally, and he would not allow Khodrak to get away with the lies. It became a personal quest of his, even though I opposed it. When he finished his work for us in the south he roamed through this district to collect the true data. When he found out that a boyhood friend was Tuan's assistant he said it was destined, that he was meant to give it to that Chao. And Chao readily agreed, even said he would trade Drakte something just as good.'
'But they were attacked.'
'It must have been a trap. To a man like Tuan, Chao would have been a traitor. Chao died, and Drakte was fatally wounded. The Lotus Book Drakte carried was lost.'
'How did Chao die, exactly?'
'A stab in the back, wide, like a butcher's knife. They were at a garage. It could have been an ax. Chao died immediately. If Drakte had come to us we probably could have saved him. But he went to you instead.'
'You sound convinced they did not attack each other.'
'That bastard Tuan must have discovered them. He would have been furious with Chao. Chao could have ruined him. Easiest solution for Tuan would have been to kill them both. He was in Amdo that night, in meetings about the Serenity Campaign. He could kill Chao, say reactionaries did it, and call him a martyr.'
They listened to the crickets again. The Tiger pointed out a falling star. 'Why speak with me?' Shan asked again.
'I told you. Because of that colonel. There's a woman back there who speaks like a nun,' the Tiger said, 'from that village that was burned. She says we can't have Lin unless you agree.'
They were silent again, for a long time. 'All they wanted was to complete their deity,' Shan said in a sad, lonely voice.
'All I ever wanted was to grow barley with my father,' the feared leader of the purbas replied, in a tone that seemed to match Shan's.
'That deity has to be mended in the light, not in shadow,' Shan said after another silence, and he looked skyward, puzzled at the words that had drifted off his tongue. He heard the purba general sigh, and he waited for an answer, but none came. He turned and saw that the Tiger was gone.
When he returned to the campfire the dropka had retired to their tents and Winslow was huddled with Nyma, Lhandro, and Somo. Somo asked Shan to repeat in detail everything he had seen inside the gompa, and they reviewed their plan once more. Everything was ready, but no one had anticipated that Lokesh could not walk.
'That,' Winslow said slowly, sprouting a grin, 'must be the reason I am here.'
The little bell came from far away to reach him, its first peal sounding like an alarm in his consciousness. Shan sat upright in his blanket. It was before dawn. He had slept fitfully, kept awake by Winslow as Lhandro and Nyma taught him a strange dance step in the shadow of the truck. The bell sounded again. Something inside him had been listening, the lao gai Shan who had learned all the many types of bells, sirens, and whistles used by the knobs and their prison guards, had learned to know which bell summoned guards with rifles, and which brought guards to search their barracks or carry a prisoner to the infirmary. Slowly he realized this bell was to summon monks to their predawn prayers.
He rose and stepped around the sleeping Tibetans and through the grey light toward the gates. A solitary guard leaned against one pillar. Electric lights illuminated the assembly hall. Monks were filing out of the sleeping quarters that lined the two side walls of the gompa and entering the lhakang.
'Two long cars came in the night,' a voice said at his shoulder. Somo. 'Red Flags I think,' she added, referring to the limousines used by many of Tibet's senior officials.
'The Bureau of Religious Affairs,' Shan said. 'The ones Tenzin said were coming from regional headquarters.'
They watched from the truck as the monks streamed out of the lhakang an hour later, carrying benches and cushions to the courtyard in front of the administrative building. A table was brought from the dining hall to the building entrance and by fastening boards to it several monks converted it to a makeshift speaking platform with a wooden crate for a step. A man in a shirt and tie appeared in the doorway with another Chinese flag, which he affixed to the front of the platform. Shan followed the first group of Tibetans into the gompa, the guard watching not the Tibetans now but the officials at the entrance.
The window of the upstairs office opened and a large loudspeaker appeared in it. Anthems began to play, until abruptly someone was addressing them. 'Citizens of China,' a thin voice said. 'We salute you. It is you, the children of industry, who have made us a great nation and who will make us greater still.' It was the radio. Someone had patched in the May Day speeches from Beijing. A murmur shot through the courtyard. It was the supreme Chairman himself, addressing the nation.
Padme, wearing his robe over a pair of blue jeans, appeared in the door with an uncomfortable expression, studying the disorganized crowd. He glanced up at the window as though debating whether to turn the radio off, then quickly ordered everyone in the courtyard to be seated on the benches and carpets and listen. It might appear unpatriotic not to stop and listen while the Chairman spoke, and even more so to turn the radio off now that the speech had started. Padme dispatched the guard to command the Tibetans outside the gates to attend, darted inside, and reappeared a moment later, without his jeans, to sit in one of the chairs on the podium. Shan remembered the blue jeans they had seen at the burned patch of herbs, and how Winslow had given the monk the yellow nylon vest from the burned meadow to wear. When they had arrived at the gompa with the injured Padme, he had been recognized from a distance. Because the vest, like the jeans, had belonged to Padme.
A tall distinguished Tibetan appeared, grey-haired, wearing a business suit, closely followed by a stocky Han in nearly identical attire, hurriedly straightening his tie. Emissaries from the Bureau of Religious Affairs. The two mounted on the podium and sat beside Padme. Dropka and rongpa began to arrive in family groups and sat on the carpets near the wall.
Then, as the crowd dutifully stared at the loudspeaker in the window, Shan watched as two men in light blue uniforms carried a stretcher with an old man from behind the central building toward the medical station. He sighed with relief. Tenzin had understood the bargain he had to reach with Khodrak. Shan gestured to Gyalo and the two men inched their way along the wall.
Ten minutes later, neatly attired in the white tunics of the kitchen workers, Shan and Gyalo approached the medical team and announced to a technician sitting by the door that they had been sent for the old man with the bad foot. They waited another ten minutes, then the door of the station opened and a man in blue, a stethoscope around his neck, motioned them inside.
'He's sedated. A bad fall, that one. Had to put on a walking cast to stabilize the bone. He'll need crutches for a month at least.' The man hovered over a clipboard with an incomplete form, then someone called for him to join the celebration. Chairman Khodrak was waiting with his visitors. The doctor sighed and tossed the clipboard on the table. Suddenly the technician appeared in the door. The man ignored Shan and Gyalo at first but then he stilled and slowly faced the monk. 'He's one of those!' the man cried out, pointing at Gyalo. 'One of the banned ones! The
