The Skull Mantra (56 page)

He did not know what he sought, but measured the interior depth of the canister with a long screwdriver retrieved from the truck. The screwdriver's head was barely visible above the rim. He held it along the exterior. It was six inches short of reaching the bottom. For several long moments he examined the cylinder, then finally found a seam, an almost invisible seam. He twisted the container to no avail. Fowler called for two large wrenches. Together they freed the bottom
compartment, pulling the ends of the container in opposite directions. Inside was a dark brown, acrid paste.

“This,” Shan announced with a nod toward Tan, who stood a hundred feet away, directing the machinery, “is what will make the colonel a hero. Murder is only murder. But smuggling drugs, that is an embarrassment to the state.”

Fowler was pale as a ghost. Kincaid stumbled forward. He grabbed another of the cylinders and opened it as Shan had done, then a third. By the fourth he began to shake. He shoved his hand inside and pulled it out, covered with the thick ooze. “The pigs,” he moaned, “the greedy little shits.”

“As I said, you were the only one who was friendly both with the Bei Da Union and with someone close to the
purbas.
” Shan's hand found the American's
khata
around his neck and pulled it off. “They fed you information about the victims and you got it to Jansen. Jansen knew the
purbas,
so he gave it to them and it was recorded in the
Lotus Book.
But it wasn't meant for the book. It was meant for you. Because they knew you had to believe in what you were doing. You wouldn't do it if you thought it was just to help them advance in office. No. You did it to punish. You did it for your cause. Only with Prosecutor Jao you went too far. It was probably easy to persuade them to entice him to the South Claw. After all, if killing Jao on the 404th's road caused the Tibetan prisoners to react and the knobs to be brought in, your friend the major would always be in control, he could go through the motions without really hurting the Tibetans, right? But the skull shrine. That upset them, because they were taking so much of the gold for themselves. What you did with his head threatened to shut their gold reclamation down. They had to discipline you. Maybe they decided they didn't need you anymore. So they went to the hiding place and incapacitated the costume, then suspended the permit. And when you tried to go back to the costume there were guard dogs. They bit you on your arm. Not a cut from the rocks. A dogbite.” He dropped the
khata
on the ground beside Kincaid and looked at Fowler. What had she called Kincaid? The lost soul who had found his home.

There was still a glimmer of defiance in Kincaid's eyes. “Tamdin is the protector of the Tibetans,” he said slowly.
“The people have to believe again in the old values. That's all I did, protect the Buddhists. We saved them. We saved the Lhadrung Five.”

“What do you mean?”

“They're in Nepal, the others. That was part of the plan. Once they were officially reported as executed, no one would notice if they were actually smuggled across the border. The major got them across. They're all alive.”

Shan sighed and reached into his pocket. Only a slender thread remained of the American's delusion. Shan handed him the photographs of the three executions. By the time Kincaid had seen half a dozen he had fallen to his knees. When he looked up it was not to Shan but to Fowler. A dry sob wracked his chest.

“It wasn't about drugs,” he cried. “You gotta believe me. If I'd ever thought—”

The tears that streamed down his cheeks seemed to revive Fowler. When she spoke it was as if she were comforting a child. “Then you wouldn't have put on the costume for them, would you, Tyler?”

“It was Hitler. It was Stalin. You know what they have done here. We were going to change it. You would understand, Rebecca. I always knew you would understand. Someday you were going to be proud of me. They can't be forgiven. Someone has to—” He stopped as he saw the revulsion in her face. “Rebecca! No!” he screamed, and collapsed to the ground at her feet, pounding the earth with his fist.

The arrests were made swiftly, Colonel Tan reported. Li Aidang, Hu, and Wen Li had been at their private compound, loading boxes of records into their Land Rovers. The major had gone straight to his helicopter, confidently expecting to fly across the border. But Tan had disabled the machine the night before, and staked it out with a hand-picked squad of soldiers. Fifty more of Tan's troops had been sent to search the Bei Da Union's buildings. It took them six hours to locate the vault built into the old gompa's subterranean shrine. It held bank records for Hong Kong accounts, names in Hong Kong, and an inventory of processed opium paste.

Shan worked all night on his report. In the morning, just after dawn, Sungpo and Jigme were released from the warehouse at Jade Spring Camp where Tan had secreted them. He stood at the gate and watched, wanting to say something but finding no words. They did not acknowledge Shan as they passed through the gate. They refused the offer of a ride. Twenty feet down the road Jigme turned and gave him a small, victorious nod.

Two hours later Shan was in Tan's office, dressed in his prison garb. The phone was ringing incessantly. Two young, well-scrubbed officers were assisting Madame Ko.

“The Ministry of Justice has already decided to declare Prosecutor Jao a Hero of the People. A medal will be sent to his family,” Tan announced impassively. “They expect arrests in Hong Kong later today. Li talked all night. Tried to make us believe he was in it as part of his own investigation. Gave enough evidence to fill a book. Won't make any difference. A general from the Bureau's office in Lhasa has arrived. They have a special place in the mountains they use for such things. In tomorrow's newspaper the people will
be told of a tragic accident on a high mountain road. No survivors.”

Shan was looking out the window. The 404th was still not at work.

Tan followed his gaze. “With the bridge gone there's no need for a road,” he announced. “The project is terminated.”

Shan turned in surprise.

“There is no money for a new bridge,” Tan explained with a shrug. “The Bureau troops are already moving back to the border. The 404th will not be punished. It starts a new project tomorrow. Irrigation ditches in the valley.” Tan joined Shan at the window for a moment, looking down at the street where Sergeant Feng was leaning against the truck. “You've ruined him, you know.”

“Feng?”

“All these years in my command, and now he asks for a transfer. As far from a prison as possible. Says he wants to go see if any of his family is still alive. Says he has to go to his father's grave.” Tan gestured awkwardly to a paper bag on the table. “Here. Madame Ko's idea,” he said. There was a strange tension in his voice, not the jubilation Shan had expected.

It was a new pair of military boots and work gloves.

Shan said nothing, but sat and began unlacing his shoes. “What about the American?”

Tan hesitated. “Not a problem anymore. The U.S. embassy has already been contacted.”

“Deported already?”

Tan lit a cigarette. “Last night Mr. Kincaid climbed the cliff over the skull cave. He secured a rope to his neck and leapt off. The work crew found him there this morning, hanging above the cave.”

Shan clenched his jaw. So many lives had been wasted. Because Kincaid had been too hard a seeker. “Fowler?”

“She can stay if she wants. There's a mine to run.”

“She'll stay,” Shan said as he eased off his shoes and tied the laces together to carry them. He would wear the boots for Madame Ko, and give them to Choje later.

Tan stared at a folded sheet of newspaper with an indecisive
ah. As Shan pulled on the boots, Tan shoved the paper across his desk.

It was a press report dated ten days earlier. A full-page obituary. Minister Qin of the Ministry of Economy was mourned as the last Eighth Route Army survivor in active government.

“I called Beijing. He left no instructions about you. Big housekeeping already done in his office. Seems lots of people wanted his records destroyed, fast. Files all gone. The new staff, no one's heard of any instructions about you.”

Shan folded the sheet into his pocket. It wasn't necessarily good news. With Qin alive, there had at least been someone who remembered him, someone with authority over his tattoo. He wouldn't be the first person to be forgotten in a Chinese prison.

Tan fingered the small brown folder Shan had seen on his first visit. “Right now this is the only official evidence of your existence.” Tan closed the folder.

“There was something in Beijing, though.” Tan lifted a parcel wrapped in oilskin. “They didn't find a file, but they found this on his desk, like some kind of trophy. Had your name on it. I thought you would—” The words drifted away as he opened it. On the cloth lay a small, worn, bamboo canister.

Shan stared in disbelief. His eyes moved slowly from the familiar canister to Tan, who was gazing at it. “I used to watch the Taoist priests,” Tan said solemnly. “They would throw the sticks and recite verses to groups of children.”

Shan's hand trembled as he reached for it and opened the lid. Inside, the lacquered sticks were still there, the throwing sticks of yarrow used for the
Tao Te Ching,
passed down from his great-grandfather. Because they had been the only physical possession Shan had valued, the Minister had made a show of taking them away. Slowly, making his hand remember the motion that once had been reflexive, he scattered the sticks in a fanlike movement. He looked up, embarrassed.

“It makes you remember,” Tan said with an odd, haunted tone. He looked at Shan, his face narrowed in question.
“Things were different once, weren't they?” he asked with sudden emotion.

Shan just smiled sadly. “The set is an heirloom,” he said very quietly. “You are kind. I had no idea they had been preserved.”

He rolled them in his fingers, surprised by the pleasure of their touch. He gripped them tightly, with his eyes shut, then returned them to the canister and cradled it in his hands. For the most fleeting of moments there was a faint scent of ginger and he felt his father was near.

“Perhaps,” Shan said, “I could ask a great favor.”

“I have spoken to the warden. You are to get light duties for a few weeks.”

“No. I mean about this.” He reverently set the canister back on the cloth. “It will be confiscated. A guard will throw them in a fire. Or sell them. If you or Madame Ko could keep them, I mean until later.”

Tan looked at him with pain in his eyes. He seemed about to speak, then awkwardly nodded and covered the canister with the cloth. “Of course. They will be safe.”

Shan left him there, staring at the sticks.

Madame Ko was waiting, tears in her eyes. “Your brother,” Shan said to her, remembering her devotion to the sibling lost so many years ago in the gulag. “I think you have honored him by what you have done.”

She embraced him, like a mother would embrace a son. “No,” she said, her lip quivering. “It is you who have honored him.”

Shan was halfway down the corridor when Tan called out from behind him. He walked slowly, uncertainly, toward Shan. The canister was in one hand, Shan's official folder in the other.

“I can't do anything officially about a Beijing file,” Tan said. “Not even a lost file.”

“Of course,” Shan said. “We made a deal. It has been honorably concluded.”

“So you'd have no travel papers. Not even work papers. You'll be in jeopardy anywhere outside this county.”

“I don't understand.”

As he spoke Tan's eyes began to shine with a light Shan
had never seen in them. He handed the folder to Shan.

“There. You no longer exist. I'll call the warden. You'll be removed from the rolls.” Tan slowly extended the canister, and their eyes locked as though for the first time.

“This land,” Tan sighed. “It makes life so difficult.” He nodded, as though in reply to himself, then dropped the canister into Shan's hand and turned back toward his office.

 

Dr. Sung asked no questions. She gave him the fifty doses of smallpox vaccine without a word, then made him wait for a booklet on its administration. “I hear they're gone,” she said impassively. “The Bei Da boys. As if they never existed. They say a special clean-up squad came from Lhasa.” She found a small canvas bag for the medicine, then followed him into the street as though unable to say good-bye.

She stood, the wind tugging at her smock, while Shan shrugged a farewell. At the last moment she produced an apple. As she stuffed it into his bag he offered a small smile of gratitude.

It would be a long trek to Yerpa.

 

Read on for an excerpt from the newest Inspector Shan Tao Yun novel by Eliot Pattison:

Soul of the Fire