Beautiful Ghosts (35 page)

Ming, Shan realized, had just told him where he had found the secret amban papers. “You said the letter proved the theft was a political crime. But to be so the thieves would have to go public, make a statement.”

Ming lit a cigarette. “We scared them, drove them into the hills. They’re hiding for now. The fact that you found Lodi proves my point.” He blew a stream of smoke toward Shan.

“Lodi’s killers are still up there,” Shan said, watching Ming’s face carefully.

“Killers?” Ming smiled thinly. “There is already a confession. Perhaps I neglected to tell you. I had it typed up, and signed. By Surya, with two army officers as witnesses. Just in case.”

Shan stared at him in disbelief. “No,” he said in a level tone. “It was a big Mongolian named Khan, who smokes sweet cigars, and a short Han named Lu.”

Ming slowed the car. In his eyes there was no alarm, only a tremor of excitement. “You have such capacity for subtlety, comrade, that I am surprised I must explain. You are the one who confirmed that Lodi was indeed killed. I have in my possession a signed confession from Surya saying he killed a man in the mountains. There would be no need for an investigation. You’ve done all the necessary work, proven the crime. All I have to do is have an official file opened, submit the confession with my supporting statement, and Surya goes to a firing squad.”

If Shan were to pursue Khan and Lu, Ming was saying, Ming would see that Surya was executed. Khan and Lu were somehow opposing Ming, but Ming still could not afford to have them arrested. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

“I told you. Work for me. Share in my riches. Prove yourself in the mountains. The monks were fastidious about keeping records of what they did in the old monasteries. Even two hundred years ago. Bring me the records. Find the location of the Mountain Buddha. Find the details of the amban’s travels. You’re the one who can do it. Perhaps the only one.”

Shan fixed Ming with a cool stare. “Tell me what you did to him, to Surya, when you met him in the mountains.”

“Nothing. We spoke about art. I told him I collected paintings, had more art than he had ever seen.”

“Did you tell him you were an abbot?”

Ming’s thin smile returned. “You have to speak in terms these people understand. I couldn’t simply say I was a museum director, now could I?” He seemed pleased with the hopelessness that entered Shan’s eyes.

Shan suddenly realized where they were, what road they had turned onto at the last fork. His throat was bone dry again. His skin crawled. “This isn’t where—” he protested. He found himself sinking into the seat. The road had only one destination. The 404th People’s Construction Brigade.

“It is,” Ming said, amusement back in his voice. “The colonel said it was most convenient. Secure. Hidden. Close to the prison trusties, close to the soldiers.”

As the car skidded to a stop two minutes later Shan discovered that his hand had clamped around the lao gai tattoo on his forearm.

A single huge military tent had been erected fifty yards from the razor wire gate of the prison camp. Four military trucks were backed up to the tent, being loaded with stacks of equipment and boxes on wooden pallets. Shan forced himself out of the car and began to examine the supplies going into the trucks but could not stop his gaze from repeatedly drifting toward the prison camp. He found a spot in the shadows by the front corner of the tent and squatted, studying the compound inside.

Most of the prisoners were on work detail, still clearing fields by the cliffs at the far end of the valley. But as usual the sick, the injured, and the dying stayed in camp. Figures in tattered pajama-like clothing hobbled around the yard between the barracks, carefully avoiding the line of white lime laid on the ground ten feet from the fence, the dead zone where prisoners were not permitted to enter. He fought wave after wave of emotion. Inside the wire were men Shan knew, some of the bravest, strongest, and yet most serene men he had ever known. The men who had preserved him, who had given him a new life, who had forever changed the universe Shan lived in. They still lived there, in rags, half starved. Images flashed before his eyes, of an old man lying on the ground, a tooth kicked out because he had been caught with prayer beads, of a young monk shot in the head for leading a protest against the warden, of Lokesh sitting in the snow with two old lamas praying for the souls of the guards. Suddenly he found himself standing in the rough grass on the far side of the road, an arm stretched toward a bent figure walking between the huts. He meant to call out a greeting but the sound came out like a sob. There was abrupt movement beside him, prison guards jogging toward him, muttering curses. They seemed somehow distant and unimportant, despite the anger in their voices. He stepped away from them, toward the fence, into the dead zone that surrounded the camp, suddenly desperate to look into the faces of the prisoners.

Something hit him behind the knees, a baton, and he dropped, instinctively curling into a ball, his head tucked into his chest, knees up, hands over his neck. After a long moment he realized nothing had happened, no stick had landed on his head or back, no boot had kicked him. He looked up to see two guards hovering over him, cruelly grinning, batons in their belts. Beyond them others were watching, half a dozen soldiers, several trusties. And Yao. As Shan straightened his limbs and stood, the inspector stepped into the shadows as if he did not want Shan to know he had seen.

“Idiot,” one of the guards growled.

“There will be time enough, Shan,” the second hissed. “We have a place waiting for you inside. You’ll be back.” He motioned Shan back toward the tent, slapped his companion on the back with a laugh, and marched back toward the gate.

A strange weakness overcame Shan. He sat on the running board of one of the trucks, watching as Ming and Colonel Tan conferred forty feet away. The loading was proceeding at a near frantic pace. He noticed several of the prison guards who had been at the guest compound the day before, followed the steely gaze of one to a slim worker in the blue clothes of a trusty. Ko still wore his cold sneer, and Shan began to wonder if it was a permanent part of his expression. Ko was carrying a box onto a truck, moving slower than those around him, his hooded eyes restless, watching everyone, studying the open wooden crates from which backpacks were being loaded with cooking kits, sleeping bags, and other supplies, casting furtive glances toward the guards.

A trusty carrying a small plastic drum of water suddenly stumbled, dropping the container, the drum popping its seams and launching a spray of water onto those nearby. Work stopped a moment as prison guards shouted at the man, soldiers laughed, and one of Ming’s assistants jogged forward with a reprimand, directing the man back to work. But Shan watched the scene only out of the corner of his eye, for as the others had watched the little drama, Ko had kept moving, changing his route, carrying a box near the stack of crates where with a quick motion he snatched something and stuffed it into his shirt without breaking stride.

As Ko carried his load to a waiting truck Shan stepped toward the crate where his son had stopped. It was a receptacle for several types of equipment. Binoculars, belt packs, canteens, even folding shovels. But Ko had taken something small. Near the front were compasses, rugged military compasses, and pocket knives. Ko must have taken a compass or a knife, perhaps both.

Shan watched the youth weave through the crowd of workers, cutting in front of older men who clearly struggled with their burdens, setting another box on the tailgate of a truck then stepping along a line of soldiers, two fingers raised, until a soldier gave him a cigarette and lit it for him. Ko leaned back on another truck with a superior air, studying the others as he smoked, watching one of Ming’s assistants set a tin mug of steaming tea on a table then quickly, carefully stepping by the table and stealthily lifting the mug, carrying it back to the truck, where he drained it. He dropped the empty mug into the shadows under the truck, observing the scene with sleepy, hooded eyes, pausing to look at Shan long enough to direct a plume of smoke toward him, not moving a muscle when an old Tibetan trusty dropped his load near Ko’s feet, scattering a box of butane fuel canisters and canned goods across the ground.

“I had him assigned to us,” Yao suddenly interjected from Shan’s side. “As one of our porters. You haven’t had a proper reunion.”

“No,” Shan shot back. “No reunion.” He turned and faced Yao, saw that Yao was stuffing one of the pilgrim guides into a pack. “Take him off our team. Send him away,” Shan demanded. The aching he felt now was alien to him, a strange mix of revulsion, anger, fear, and guilt. And an unexpected sense of loneliness. Not love, certainly not affection, just a stabbing loneliness. He recalled the years he had spent imagining Ko running, happily playing with other children, reading old teachings, going to temples on festival days to make offerings to ancestors the way Shan always had. But the real Ko was a cruel, arrogant, drug-dealing gang member. The bigger the lie the more bitter the truth.

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

“Elizabeth McDowell.” There was reluctance in Yao’s voice as he spoke the name, as if it were a truth he did not wish to acknowledge. There had been one more message from the FBI when Yao had gone back to Tan’s office. “They had decided to check the travel records of everyone whose name they had. She was with Lodi all the way, not only from Beijing to Lhasa, but from Seattle to Beijing.”

“She knew the Dolan collection. Lodi needed help,” Shan said. He was not surprised at the news, only surprised that Yao seemed so upset by it. “They were partners in everything.” He looked back toward the valley. “She would be one to appreciate the irony of what happened today,” Shan said tentatively, glancing about to be sure no one else was within earshot. “Sort of a tribute to Lodi.”

Yao turned to face Shan, inquiry in his eyes.

“The tomb was as fake as some of the artifacts he displays in Beijing,” Shan said quietly. “It was just the foundation of an old chorten, an old shrine. The farmers in the valley probably know of a dozen such places, buried when the shrines above were demolished.”

“But that robe, the old decree.”

“They were real, planted to lend authenticity.”

“You’re saying Ming faked his discovery.”

“No, someone else, to trick Ming. You know Ming lied about finding a letter suggesting the emperor’s fresco had been taken to Lhadrung, to have an official excuse to come here. Now someone is lying to him. There were no complete skeletons there. Many people know where old skulls and bones can be found. I had seen the robe in the hills.” Even as the words came out Shan was not certain whether he was offering himself, or many others, up for sacrifice. There were parts of Yao he had grown to grudgingly trust, other parts he would never trust.

“The robe—why would anyone give up anything so precious, just to fool Ming? And surely whoever it was would have wanted him to think the amban’s grave was in the north.”

“They still do. But they are desperate now. All they can do is distract him here, because here is where they are. They gave him political treasure today, enough to distract him for a few days. Soon enough he will realize it was faked for his benefit. He will keep to the official story, because it is so politically convenient. But what he wants most of all is the amban’s treasure. He thinks his competitors do not know about the Tibetans uncovering the Mountain Buddha in the hills, so he can take that at his leisure, that was why he wanted to hire me, to slowly reap the fortunes lying in shrines here. But he is desperate for the records that will tell him where the amban’s treasure can be found. When he realizes the tomb was faked, he will decide it was because his competitors are close to victory, that they have confirmed the treasure is in the north, and wanted to keep him in Lhadrung.”

Yao nodded agreement. “He will conclude that Khan and Lu would never give up something so valuable as that robe unless they were confident that they had something much more valuable.”

“That will be his biggest mistake,” Shan said, “thinking that it was Khan and Lu. He would never consider that Tibetans could devise such a trick. And all they wanted was to keep Ming in the valley, to protect something more valuable than the robe.”

“His workers are going into the mountains.”

“They know nothing of his true purpose, only that they must call Ming if they find anything. They are no threat to his plans.”

“He won’t stop,” Yao stated. “Not until he finds the records that tell him where in the north the amban’s treasure was left.”

“Which means you’re investigating the wrong crime.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ll never get to the truth about the emperor’s fresco and Dolan’s stolen art until we unlock the mystery of the amban’s death. That is why we’re not going to the cave Ming assigned us to,” Shan said. “The emperor has told us where we need to be, even Ming has shown us where we need to be.”

“What do you mean?”

Shan pulled out the map he had taken from Ming’s car. “It marks the destinations of each team,” he explained, pointing to circles drawn in the remote ranges, a double circle around each of the suspected pilgrim shrines which were the targets of the new search teams. “Ming has concluded that Lodi was killed at Zhoka for a reason. He will go back eventually, when he thinks it safe. But the imperial decree at the tomb today was also a decoy. Whoever wrote the words at the bottom was trying to push the search to Zetrul Puk.” He pointed to a location twenty miles north of Zhoka. “Of all the search targets, that is the most distant from Zhoka. Whoever created that tomb wanted Ming as far from Zhoka as possible, wanted to buy some time.”

“The ones who killed Lodi must still be there,” Yao said after a moment, “hidden underground. Corbett will eventually understand that as well and return to the ruins. But how can we go there, with all of them?” Yao asked with a gesture toward the column of figures ahead of them. “They have radios. If we leave they will tell Ming.”

“One of us is going to fall, and twist an ankle. Here,” Shan said, indicating a place where a path to the south crossed their trail. “About an hour from now. The other will stay to help while we send the party on. I can find the way to the gompa.”