Mandarin Gate (36 page)

He stepped inside and found Meng staring at two papers on her desk. She raised one. “I am ordered to initiate a process against Professor Yuan and his daughter to revoke their Pioneer status.”

“Meaning what?”

“They will be given a chance to provide evidence of their loyalty. Meaning they will have ten days to inform on unpatriotic activity known to them. Or they will be revoked and sent back to face their original charges. Certain prison for the girl.”

She shook the paper and laid it on the desk. “That one came to me over the Public Security computer.” She raised the other paper. “This one I found on the old fax machine in the outer office they use for messages to the constables. An arrest order for Abbot Norbu. Not to me,” she said pointedly, “to the local Tibetan constables. They are supposed to join Armed Police at Chegar tomorrow night to make the arrest, at the monks’ evening assembly.”

“The charges?”

“Political activity by a registered monk. Organizing unauthorized public assemblies. Suspicion of conspiracy against the government.”

“The constables,” he observed. “Do you ever wonder why those who blow their horns are never caught?”

“Only why we would trouble over them.”

“Liang never intends to arrest Norbu. It’s why the order went only to the constables.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Liang is gone. Call headquarters and ask. He is done here. This order is his farewell gesture.” He saw Meng’s uncertain expression. “Call now,” Shan insisted. “Ask for him.”

The lieutenant frowned and picked up the phone. She spoke to one office at headquarters, then another, before hanging up. “He packed up the office they loaned him,” Meng reported. “Officially he is gone, on to his next posting. They say he may be at that guesthouse. It’s still the weekend. He probably won’t leave until tomorrow.” She looked back at the papers on her desk. “Why issue the order now?”

“He wants the word out to the Tibetans, and sending the order to the constables is how he achieves that. Did they see it?”

“One of them read it and left.”

Shan nodded, as if it proved his point. “He wants everyone to believe Norbu is in grave danger, so there is no hesitation in the plans for his flight from Tibet. It’s the endgame,” Shan said. “The final act of their drama, to ensure he doesn’t arrive in India as just another refugee, but as a hero. We’ve run out of time. The full moon is tomorrow night. By the time the police arrive for him he will have disappeared in the smuggler’s truck.”

“I don’t understand.”

He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it to her.

“What’s this?”

“Me and Ko. Our registration numbers.”

Her face tightened. “Why do I want this?”

“I have to get Liang back here. I can’t go to the monks and tell them their abbot is a spy and a murderer. They will never believe me now. It has to be a secret they steal from Major Liang.”

She raised the slip of paper again. “Why do I want this?” she asked once more.

“Liang only has authority to imprison me for a year. I can take a year. It will be like a meditation retreat enforced with chains. But there’s a chance he will make good on the threat he made the last time he arrested me. Keep me for years, keep me invisible by moving me around. If that happens, I ask a small favor. Every few months, maybe once a year, just check the central records. It’s important to me, Xiao Meng, a great favor to me. One I will never forget. Then get word to each of us where the other is. Public Security can get messages to prisoners. Otherwise…” he was having difficulty getting the words out. “Otherwise I will never find him. Otherwise today will have been the last day I ever see my son.”

Her face drained of color. “What are you going to do?”

“Lokesh once told me that words are just hollow things. Truth can only be found in the heart, and in actions.”

“Please, Shan. No more riddles.”

“The Tibetans will not accept the truth from my lips, or yours. It has to be shown to them. I will force Liang back here so Tibetan ears will hear what I have to say, so the constables will grasp the truth by Liang’s reaction and get the word to the monastery. It’s a great risk to his mission for him to appear again in the valley. He had to take things to a boiling point, then back away. Otherwise he risks everything. He could frighten away the purbas, the ones waiting to escort Norbu to India. There are only two things that would make him ignore the risk. A chance to complete his vengeance on me and a way to correct his failure to capture the American woman. I will give him both. Everyone already knows me as the bonecatcher who killed a lama. It will come as no surprise when I demand more bounties for killing those who were going to expose his agent and delivering Cora Michener.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Tears welled in Meng’s eyes. “You fool,” she whispered. “You damned fool. You can’t beat Liang.”

“I am not going to beat him. I am going to use him. I will not let all of them die in vain. I will not let the poison spread across the border. There has to be an end to it.”

“He will kill you if he can.”

“Probably not. Too many people know about me. But he will have to put me away. He has a prison he uses in the desert.”

Meng was silent a long time. “Why does it have to be you?” she asked at last.

He ignored the question. “Will he bring other knobs when he comes?”

Meng looked down at her desk. “He no longer has an official role here. Those assigned to him will have been given new duties.”

“Bring the Tibetan constables. They’re the audience. We’ll do it at the marketplace, by the old stable.”

“Audience?”

“For my confession. Liang announced I killed Jamyang. Half the people here suspect I am some sort of secret operative. Liang himself demonstrated that I was one of those clandestine bonecatchers everyone hates. He showed me he has bounty money. Now I want payment in full. I killed a nun who conspired against the state and I want my reward. I will give them the gun I took from Jamyang as proof. I will say I killed them all for the Motherland. Liang knew Norbu had killed the Lung boy, because of the risk the boy represented to his secret mission, because the boy saw Norbu secretly conferring with Public Security. A bonecatcher relies on the government for his living, and therefore owes it a duty. He keeps watch, keeps alert for trouble. I had to kill the others because they were going to expose Norbu as an agent of Public Security, prevent him from his mission of infiltrating the government in exile. The major will cut me off for fear I give away too much. But they will hear enough. Don’t give the constables any assignments afterwards. Give them plenty of time to warn those in the monastery before the end of the day. In time to stop the purbas from putting Norbu on that truck to Nepal.”

“Liang can’t imprison you for protecting Public Security.”

“Not for the killings. For knowing his secrets.”

“But Colonel Tan—”

“Will do nothing if I am declared a threat to national security. He will be powerless.”

“It’s madness, Shan. It will never work.”

“It is all that
will
work now. I can’t just go to the monks or any other Tibetan. They will never believe me after what Liang did.”

“It doesn’t get Cora Michener out of danger.”

“I will see the girl gets to the purbas. They can put her on that truck, instead of Norbu.”

Shan turned at the sound of movement in the darkened holding cell. Sansan appeared in the pool of light at the front, her hands gripping the bars.

He sagged. The world indeed was closing in about him. He had to give himself up to stop Norbu but it meant giving up the possibility of helping the exiles and the dropka. “Meng. You have to give her a chance. You can’t just—”

“Shan!” Sansan called out in a strangely scolding voice. “You have to give
her
a chance.” As she echoed his words she pushed open the cell door. “Lieutenant Meng is helping me.”

“I told her if she stayed at her house she would be picked up by police out of district headquarters,” Meng explained. “Suspicion of stealing state secrets is a serious charge. For now she is safer here.”

Sansan offered Shan a sad smile as she stepped out of the cell. She poured them each a cup of tea from the thermos on a side table.

“Stealing state secrets?” Shan asked. “I thought you were just another dissident.”

Sansan cast a sidelong glance toward Meng, then shrugged. “When I was in college I was noticed for the first time by Public Security. Not for my political activities but for my skills with computer systems. They targeted me for a career with them, running and designing such systems, breaking into systems elsewhere, outside of China. I took special courses at school. That was before someone else noticed my antisocialist leanings,” she added.

“What state secrets could you steal in Baiyun?” he pressed.

“On my computer I was looking into the management systems for the dropka relocation camps. They need more medicine than they’re getting at Clear Water.”

Shan gazed at her with new interest. “Show me,” he said, indicating Meng’s computer.

“No!” Meng gasped. “You can’t…” Her protest died away. Sansan fingers were already flying over the keyboard.

Minutes later Sansan was scrolling through pages of data showing the camps throughout Tibet, with lists of inhabitants and management plans for moving the dropka into factory jobs. She stopped at the entries for Clear Water Camp.

“What if some official wants to send orders? Like to the manager of Clear Water Camp?”

“It would require special security codes.”

Shan frowned in disappointment.

“Which will take a few more minutes,” Sansan added with a new glint in her eyes.

Shan watched in confused awe as the woman sped through screens of numbers and symbols. At last she looked up expectantly. “What do you want to say to him?”

Shan looked up and saw the warning in Meng’s eyes. He held her gaze as he spoke to Sansan. “What I want to say is that the granddaughter of the headman Rapeche is to be immediately recalled from her factory in Guangdong.”

Meng muttered a curse but did not move.

When Sansan had finished he turned to Meng. “Dakpo told me the monastery has a computer,” he said, query in his eyes.

“I wouldn’t know,” the lieutenant said, then paused. “Yes. Actually they do. In the administrative office. The Bureau of Religious Affairs requires it now, so that decrees and orders can be efficiently transmitted.”

Shan nodded. “Every police laptop computer I’ve ever seen looks the same. Do you have others here?” he asked Meng.

“A couple were sent for the constables. They never use them. The drives are empty.”

Shan filled his cup and paced around the room, pausing to study the outer office and the cell beyond the desk. “I’ve changed my mind. We will invite Liang here. But first get one of those other computers. Put it under the pallet in the cell. Sansan will need it tomorrow.”

*   *   *

Shan felt closer to Jamyang than ever as he drove up the rugged track toward the lama’s hut. Lung’s men had finished repairing his truck as Shan and the leader of the Jade Crows had spoken of his plans. Shan had left Lung with a packet of incense sticks and made him promise that he would stay with the American girl all the way to Nepal. Lung had been quiet when Shan had stated he probably would be leaving the valley. “Wait here,” the gang leader had said, then disappeared into his house. When he returned he handed Shan a small clay deity figure. “That first day,” he said. “I smashed that one of yours. I shouldn’t have.…” He shrugged, not finishing the sentence, and shook Shan’s hand.

Shan took care of his main task at the shrine first, finding the decorated pistol and Yuan’s spirit tablets, then stowing them in his truck before returning to the shrine. The offering objects were still on the lama’s makeshift altar, along with sprigs of heather and hearth-baked effigy figures left by Tibetans who lived in the hills. Shan lit some incense, then picked up a little bronze figure and began cleaning it. He had finished nearly half the altar objects when he heard footsteps behind him.

Meng was at the cairn by the edge of the shrine, holding a weathered mani stone. “I found this by the side of the highway,” she said in a self-conscious tone. “All by itself. It was going to be broken under some truck. I picked it up and put it in my car. It seemed like it needed to be somewhere else.” She looked inquiringly at Shan as she set it on top of the cairn. “Will this do?”

He nodded slowly.

She moved hesitantly toward him, as if uncertain of his reaction. She had replaced her uniform top with a bright red blouse and one of the rough felt vests sold by Tibetans in the market.

“You look like a Tibetan farmer going out for her herd.”

“Is that good?” She seemed to be struggling to put a smile on her face.

“It’s fine, Meng. More than fine.”

She reached his side and gestured to the other offerings. “Show me what to do.”

Shan handed her one of the rags he was using.

They worked in silence. Meng had the air of a novice nun as she handled the little deities. Shan explained the deities carved in the rock, showing her the little skulls underneath depicting the frailty of human existence.

When they finished, they walked on the slope above and spoke of little things, of stories from their youth and the larks that flitted about them. “I’ve heard it’s a magic mountain,” Meng said, pointing to snow-capped Yangon as it came into view.

“They say,” Shan added, “that at least the people who dwell in its shadow find magic sometimes.”

She looked at him, searching his eyes, as if longing to say something, then she turned away. They were not to speak of things below, they each seemed to have decided, not to talk of the treachery and death, not to speak of the disaster that Shan was about to bring on himself the next day. From Meng’s car they brought a blanket and a sack of cold dumplings she had brought from town, then laid under the summer stars. They listened to the cries of nighthawks and watched a meteor streaking toward the massive mountain.

He stirred her at dawn. “I have to go,” he said as he picked grass from her hair. “I have to ready things.”