The Skull Mantra (46 page)

“What does it mean, having the permit for that watershed?”

“Not much. Just keeps anyone else from using the water, I guess.”

“So it was a bureaucratic oversight.”

“It's what I assumed. But Jao, as soon as he sat down to dinner, wanted to know about it. He had found out about it
somehow, and he was excited. He asked who issued the permit. How much water was available in that area. I couldn't tell him. He asked if I had a copy of the permit somewhere, with an official signature. When I said I did, he was very pleased. It seemed like he wanted to laugh. He said he would call from Beijing with a fax number, so I could send it to him. Then he dropped the subject. Ordered some wine.”

Voices rose from outside. Workers were approaching the building. Fowler sprang up to close the red door. She leaned against it, as though bracing for intruders. “I forgot about it. Then Li came into my office. Trolling for information about the permit.”

“Trolling?”

“He knew about it. He had questions but didn't seem sure of what he wanted to know. He asked me to explain what Jao had asked for.”

“He's the assistant prosecutor,” Shan said. “Probably Jao's replacement. There may have been a file he needed to follow up on.”

“I don't know,” Fowler said. She looked at the floor as she spoke. “What if they had to do with Jao's being killed? The water rights. That's not something a Tibetan would kill for. Why would that monk care?”

“I told you before, Sungpo did not kill him.”

She fixed him with a forlorn stare. “Sometimes I wonder. If it got Jao killed, then what about me? That dinner. We talked a long time. Maybe the killer thinks I know what Jao knew. Someone may want to kill me and I don't even know why. Nothing makes sense. If it wasn't this monk Sungpo, then who is trying to frame him? Colonel Tan? Assistant Prosecutor Li? The major? They all seem in such a rush to get him to trial.”

“They say they're just eager to get the file closed, because of all the visitors.”

“Someone may be lying for personal reasons, not just political ones.”

Shan offered a nod of respect. “You've learned fast, Miss Fowler.”

“It scares me.”

“Then help me.”

“How?”

“I need more maps. The skull cave, perhaps.”

“We don't have them. We only have maps of our watershed.”

“But the computer can give you access.”

“We have a contract for this area. Outside that, it's expensive. Fifty dollars an order. U.S. We type in the grid reference. Some computer back home processes the order, verifies our account number, processes it for download, and invoices us.”

“A grid reference?”

“There's a catalog with map grids, identified by a code for the grid number.”

Shan reached into his pocket and pulled out the numbers transcribed from Jao's secret file. “The catalog,” Shan said with new urgency. “Is it here?”

The numbers fit the format perfectly. It took less than five minutes to find the reference. It was for the North Claw and farmland beyond. Jao had seen photos of the area where Fowler had mistakenly received water rights.

“But he didn't get these from us,” Fowler protested. “They're unrelated to our operations. We would never order maps outside our operations area.”

“Are you sure? Is there a record?”

“The invoices show all the orders. I'm about three months behind in checking the details.” They moved into her office. Five minutes later she located the entries. Someone had ordered a three-month sequence of photos of the northern site two weeks before the prosecutor had been killed.

Shan put the invoice in his notebook. “Can you print them out, the same ones Jao saw?”

Fowler nodded weakly.

Shan stood in the doorway to verify that no one was in earshot. “Bring them to me tomorrow at Jade Spring. And I need to take the disks. The ones you took from the cave.”

Fowler hesitated. “I need them, too.”

“Have you looked at them?”

“Sure. Mostly files in Chinese that Kincaid and I can't read. Some in English, listing contents of the shrine. They
sent the altar to a new restaurant in Lhasa. Jansen will want to know.”

“Why would they put them in English?”

Fowler cocked her head at Shan. “I hadn't thought about it.”

“Because,” Shan suggested, “it is a trap.”

She sat down heavily at her desk. “For us?”

“For you. For me. For Kincaid. Whoever might take them. I think the major put them there.”

“I want to give them to the United Nations office.”

“No.”

“Why the major?”

Shan dropped into a chair by the wall. “Sort of an insurance policy.” He leaned over, placing his head in his hands for a moment. He had an overwhelming temptation to just curl up on the floor and sleep. He looked up. “If you were forced out as manager, who would replace you?”

Fowler grimaced. “You're talking about the permit suspension,” she said with a sigh. “There's a procedure in the contract. The company appoints the first manager. After that, the committee would have the choice.”

“An American?”

“Not necessarily. Kincaid, maybe. But it could be Hu.”

“If you want to keep your job, Miss Fowler, I need those disks.”

She considered Shan for a moment, then with a quick, urgent movement pulled some books from a top shelf. Reaching behind the other volumes, she produced a thick envelope and dropped it into his hand.

“I need something else,” Shan said apologetically. “I need you to take me to Lhasa.”

 

Colonel Tan was waiting in their room at Jade Spring, sitting in the dark, smoking. Feng and Yeshe hesitated as they saw Tan's expression, then moved out to the front step as Shan turned on the light and sat across from him. Five cigarette butts stood end up in a row beside a folder on the table.

Tan's face was drawn and tense. He seemed worn out, as though he'd just returned from extended maneuvers. “You
believed them, didn't you?” He spoke to the cigarette. “That I did those things in the
Lotus Book.”

“I only repeated what I read,” Shan said. The air was so brittle it seemed about to shatter. “Is it so important what I believe?”

“Hell no,” Tan snapped back.

“Then why should you be so offended by what is in the
Lotus Book?”

“Because it is a lie.”

“You mean because it is a lie about you.”

“Sergeant Feng!” Tan bellowed.

Feng's head appeared at the door.

“Where was I in 1963?”

“We were at Border Security Camp 208. Inner Mongolia. Sir.”

Tan pushed the folder toward Shan. “My service record. Everything. Postings. Commendations. Reprimands. Assignment orders. I didn't come to Tibet until 1985. If you want, talk to Madame Ko. I want the lies stopped.”

“Do you want Sungpo executed or do you want the lies stopped?”

Tan glared across the table. In the dim light, as he exhaled the smoke through his nostrils, his bony face seemed to hover, disembodied, above the table. “I want the lies stopped,” Tan repeated.

“That's not going to help the monk who was executed at the 404th.”

“That's the knobs. They didn't consult me.”

“Somehow I find it hard to believe, Colonel, that you couldn't stop the knobs if you wanted to.”

There was a low, surprised curse by the door, and Shan caught a glimpse of Sergeant Feng as he retreated toward the parade ground. He did not want to be caught in the imminent explosion.

Tan's glare continued, hot and silent.

“I had an offer from Assistant Prosecutor Li. A way to resolve it all,” Shan announced.

“An offer?” Tan repeated ominously.

“To tie it all up in a neat package. He said Prosecutor Jao was engaged in a corruption investigation against you.
So you had him killed. Said if I testified against you, he could make me a hero.”

Tan's eyes narrowed to two dangerous slits. His hand wrapped around the cigarette package on the table and began to slowly squeeze its contents. “And your intentions, Comrade?” Shreds of tobacco fell from the package.

Shan's gaze stayed steady. “Colonel, I could say you are insensitive, stubborn, short-tempered, manipulative, and quite dangerous.”

Tan shifted in his seat. He seemed on the verge of leaping for Shan's throat.

“But you're not corrupt.”

Tan gazed down at the ruined package of cigarettes. “So you didn't believe him.”

Shan shook his head slowly. “You never trusted Li. That's why you found me. You thought he might try something like this. Why?”

“He's a sniveling Party pissant, that's why.”

Shan considered the words and sighed. “No more lies, you said.”

With an angry sweep of his hand Tan batted the mess he had made off the table. “Miss Lihua caught him a few months ago, about to send a secret report to Party headquarters in Lhasa. Complaining that Jao and I were incompetent, not in touch with modern governmental technique, petitioning for our forced retirement.”

“You could have told me.”

“It's hardly evidence for a murder case.”

Shan clasped his hands and looked into them. “Li is in it, I know it. There is no direct evidence. But everything he says, everything he does, the smell is all over him.”

“Smell?”

“Like why he went to Kham.”

“He went because you went.”

“Not because he was following me, but because he sensed I was getting too close, because Li realized that if I thought there might be a witness I would go in search of him. Back in Balti's tenement, Li tried to make us believe that Balti had stolen the car and left for a city to sell it. But Li knew differently. If I was getting close, then Li had to get to Kham
urgently, because he knew for certain that Balti was still alive. Which meant he saw him running away that night. Or the murderer told him.”

The colonel breathed heavily. “You're saying it's not only Li.” He searched the crushed pack for an intact cigarette, then threw it down in disgust.

“There was something else, something he said when he made me the offer. That if I cooperated he would have the knobs pulled out of the 404th.”

“Impossible. Li does not control the Public Security Bureau.”

“Exactly.” Shan let the words sink in. “But all he would need is the cooperation of a senior officer in the regional command. Maybe the same officer who brought Lieutenant Chang up from the border.”

A different kind of fire began to burn in Tan's eyes. “What do you want me to do?”

“Send for Miss Lihua. We need her here, to interview face to face.”

“Done. What else?”

“One of the gold skulls from the cave. I want one, a sample, as evidence.”

Tan nodded. “Director Hu sent one to my office. My driver will drop it off tonight.”

“And the prosecutor had an important meeting in Beijing. Something to do with water rights. Something about a Bamboo Bridge. We need to find out everything about it. It is not something I can do, not something you can do. But you have someone who can.”

There was movement at the door. Feng had drifted back. Yeshe was standing in the shadows just outside the entrance.

“One more thing, Colonel. I need to know. In the Lhadrung uprising, did you have the thumbs of monks cut off?”

“No!” Tan spat. He stood up so fast his bench toppled over. He looked at Feng and back to Shan. The fire in his face did not stop Shan's steadfast stare. Slowly, the defiance in Tan's eyes faded and he seemed to swallow something hard. “The damned Buddhists,” he said in a beseeching tone. “Why can't they give up?”

Tan dropped his eyes to the table. “Yes,” he said in a
much lower voice. “I knew the Bureau was cutting thumbs and I could have stopped them.” He grimaced, straightened his tunic, and marched out of the barracks.

There was a heavy silence as Sergeant Feng and Yeshe stepped in. Feng righted the bench and began to sweep up the tobacco.

“How about you, Sergeant?” Shan asked. “Do you want it to stop this time?”

The sullen expression had not left Feng's face all day. “I don't understand anything anymore.” He wrung his fingers together. “They shouldn't be killing my prisoners.”

“Then help me.”

“I am. It is my job.”

“No. Help me.” Shan glanced at Yeshe, who had moved toward his bunk. “Sungpo will be executed in three days. If he is, we will never know who the murderer is. And the 404th will be sacrificed.”

“You're one crazy son of a bitch, thinking you can stop them,” Feng muttered.

“Not just me. All of us.” He gazed at his two exhausted companions. “In the morning, early, the Americans will come with maps. Photo maps. Yeshe will need to study them, and examine these disks.” Shan pulled the envelope from his pocket and handed it to Yeshe. “It will take several hours.”

He turned to Feng. “I want you to join Jigme in the mountains. Four eyes are better than two. I want you to stay until you find where the demon lives.”

The sergeant seemed to shrink. Then his eyes turned up, sad but determined. “How?”

“Go to the shrine by the Americans. See if the hand of Tamdin is still there. If it is, follow it when it leaves. If it's gone, find who has been leaving prayers for protection against dogbite. And follow them.”

Feng dropped into the bench. “You mean leave you. It's not in my orders.” The words were spoken not in protest, but as a chagrined declaration. “I don't know how to read prayers,” he muttered. “That Jigme, he won't either.”

“No. You will take someone with you who does know.
An old man. I will arrange for you to meet him in the market.”

“How will I recognize him?”

“You already know him. His name is Lokesh.”