The Skull Mantra (41 page)

“I have no doubt of it.”

“But it just proves my point about the destabilizing force of the minority hooligans.”

“No. The
purbas
wanted me to know about it to protect themselves.”

“What do you mean?”

“They want us to solve the murders, too. They realized that if the Bureau found out about the book and thought it was connected to the killings, it would be used to destroy them. There's still one more of the Lhadrung Five left. One more murder to frame him for. And if someone in the top rank is assassinated, the knobs will move in permanently. Martial law. It would set Lhadrung back thirty years.”

“Top rank?”

“There was another name in the book,” Shan said. “Listed for elimination of eighty gompas. Destruction of ten chortens to construct a missile base. Responsible for the disappearance of a truckload of
khampa
rebels being transported to
lao gai.
In April 1963.

“It's the only other
Lotus Book
name in Lhadrung. The only one still alive. A man who supervised the burning of another fifteen gompas. Two hundred monks died inside as the buildings burned,” Shan reported with a chill. He tore the entry he had transcribed from his notebook and dropped it onto the table in front of Tan. “It's your name.”

Outside, Sergeant Feng stood uneasily between two knobs.

“Comrade Shan!” Li Aidang called from a dark gray sedan parked across from the restaurant. The assistant prosecutor opened the door and gestured for Shan to climb inside. “I thought we might chat. You know. Colleagues on the same case.”

“So you returned safely. Kham is such an unpredictable place,” Shan said dryly. He hesitated, seeing the uncertainty in Feng's eyes, then slid into the back seat beside Li.

“We found him, you know,” Li announced.

Shan willed himself not to take the bait.

“That is to say, we persuaded a clan in the valley to tell us where his camp was.”

“Persuaded?”

“Doesn't take much,” the assistant prosecutor said smugly. “A helicopter, a uniform. Some of the old ones just whimpered. We found out where to look, but when we arrived they had gone. Fire ashes still warm. Not a trace.” Li studied Shan. “As if they had been warned.”

Shan shrugged. “Something I've noticed about nomads. They tend to move about.”

The door was slammed shut by one of the knobs, who climbed behind the wheel and started the engine. As they drove away Shan turned to see the remaining soldier step in front of the driver's door of their own truck, blocking Sergeant Feng's way.

A shadowy figure in the front seat turned and looked at Shan without speaking.

“You remember the major,” Li said.

“Major Yang, I believe,” Shan observed. “Minder of Public Security.”

“Exactly,” Li confirmed tersely.

One side of the officer's face curled up in acknowledgment of Shan, then he turned away.

They moved out of town quickly, the horn blaring intermittently to scatter pedestrians and any vehicles that dared to get close.

Ten minutes later they entered an evergreen forest, in a small valley three miles from the main road. As they passed through the ruins of an ancient
mani
shrine wall, the trees began to assume an orderly appearance. They had been groomed. Spring flowers bloomed along the road, beside raked gravel.

They passed another wall, taller than the first, and entered the courtyard of a very old gompa. It had one tower of stone and gray brick and a small chorten, twice the height of a man, on the opposite side of the courtyard. Newly laid flagstone lined the courtyard. The walls had been replastered and were being painted. Along the far wall was a collection of statues of Buddha and other religious figures, several plated with gold. They were in a disorganized row, some facing the wall, some listing sharply, some propped against each other. Shan had the sense of visiting a wealthy, neglected villa. A faint aroma of peonies wafted through the courtyard as they climbed out of the car.

The major disappeared behind a large gate. Li led Shan into the anteroom of the assembly hall, switched on a light-bulb and gestured toward a rough wooden table surrounded by stools. Shan studied the wiring, which was new. Few of the remote gompas were wired for electricity.

Li made a gesture that swept the room. “We have done what we can to preserve it,” he said with affected humility. “It is always a struggle, you know.”

The floor was of the original wood planking, hand-cut centuries earlier. It was pockmarked with cigarette burns.

“There are no monks here.”

“There will be.” Li roamed about the room with the eye of an owner inspecting his premises. On pegs along the interior wall, robes had been arranged to give the effect of a lived-in gompa. “Director Wen is arranging everything. A
stop for the Americans. A few reenactments. Let the Americans light some butter lamps and incense.”

“Reenactments?”

“Ceremonies. For atmosphere.” Li selected one of the robes, an antique ceremonial robe with gold brocade and silk panels depicting clouds and stars. He slipped off his suit jacket and with a grin tried on the robe, stroking the sleeves with satisfaction as he continued speaking. “We're finalizing things. Just a few more days before they arrive.” He strolled the room like a proud cockbird, trying to catch a reflection of himself in the small window panes. “For a few dollars extra we'll let the Americans put on robes and spin prayer wheels. Soundtracks of mantras will play in the background. For a few more dollars we'll offer a one-hour course on how to meditate like a Buddhist.”

“Sort of a Buddhist amusement park.”

“Precisely! We think so much alike!” Li exclaimed, then sobered. “Which is why I had to speak to you, Comrade. I have a confession to make. I have not been totally open with you. But now I must be, to make you understand something. I have a concurrent investigation, separate from Prosecutor Jao's murder. More important. But what you are doing, you have no idea of how damaging it could be. You make it very difficult.”

“Difficult?”

“Difficult for us to do the right thing. You are out of your element. You are being used.”

“I'm confused,” Shan said, studying a shelf of trinkets behind a table. “Exactly which right thing are you speaking of?” There were small ceramic figures of yaks and snow leopards, and an entire row of muscular Buddhas carrying Chinese flags.

Li moved to a stool beside Shan, oblivious to the sound of popping threads in the shoulders of the old robe as he sat. “Tan can pretend all he wants. It is a luxury of office. But you. You cannot pretend. I am sorry. We must be frank. You are a prisoner. You were a prisoner. You will be a prisoner. Neither you nor I can do anything to change that.”

“Assistant Prosecutor Li. I lost the capacity to pretend many years ago.”

Li laughed, and lit a cigarette. “Go back to the 404th,” he said abruptly.

“It is not within my power.”

“Join the strike. We can let you resolve it. Big hero. Notation in your file. Maybe save a lot of lives.”

“What exactly are you offering?”

“We can reassign the troops.”

“You're saying you will recall the knobs if I stop investigating?”

Li walked over to the shelf of ceramic novelties. He picked up one of the Buddhas and blew into the bottom. Smoke came out the eyes. “It would solve a lot of problems.”

“You haven't said why.”

“Obviously there are things I am not permitted to tell you.”

“So you brought me here to tell me that you would not be telling me anything.”

Li stepped back to his side and patted Shan on the back. “I like your sense of humor. I can tell you're from Beijing. Someday, who knows? You could fit well with us.” He paced around Shan. “I brought you here to save you. The major and I are trying to find a way to be generous. There've been too many victims. There's no need for you to be hurt further. If Minister Qin in Beijing wants you in
lao gai,
that's between you and him. But Minister Qin is very old. Someday you may have another chance. I can see you are an intelligent man. A sensitive man. You will be of use to the people again one day. But not with Colonel Tan. He is very dangerous.”

“I am no danger to him.”

Li studied his cigarette. “I don't mean it that way. He manipulates you. He thinks he can ignore state procedures. Have you considered why he avoids the prosecutor's office?”

Shan did not answer.

“Or why he makes you work with unreliables?”

“Unreliables?”

“Discredited sources. Like Dr. Sung.”

“I respect Dr. Sung's medical expertise.”

Li shrugged. “Precisely my point. You weren't told about her problems. Her prejudices. Was refused her normal rotation home for neglect of duty.”

“Neglect of duty?”

“Went off for a week on her own decision to work on unauthorized patients.”

“Unauthorized patients?”

“A high mountain school. Very remote. Forgotten by anyone in Lhasa. Kids dying of something. They get things up there, diseases that have disappeared in the rest of the world.”

“So the doctor was punished for helping children who were dying?”

“That's not the point. The stated procedure is for such parents to bring their children to the clinic. She left a number of important patients at the clinic. Some were Party members. She won't be going home. Not for a very long time.”

“And no opportunity if she stays.” Shan was tempted to ask when the doctor's indiscretion happened. She had been invited to dinner but later denied membership in the Bei Da Union. He remembered the nervous way she had recited to him Party dogma on the inferiorities of the Tibetan minorities and policy on treating unproductive patients in the mountains. They had been words from a
tamzing.

“You understand,” Li said with affected gratitude. “You put me in a very awkward position, Comrade Shan. What you are saying is that you want me to trust you, aren't you?”

Shan did not reply.

“This is most unorthodox. The prosecutor's office confiding in a convicted criminal.”

“I never had a trial, if that helps.”

Li raised his brows and slowly nodded. “Yes, Comrade, good point. Not a convict, just a detainee.” He lit a second cigarette from the butt of the first. “All right. You need to know. There is a corruption investigation. The biggest ever in Tibet. We were almost done. Jao was about to announce his conclusions. We can move soon. But you will make them flee.”

“So Jao was killed by a suspect in his corruption investigation?” Shan asked. It would be a very balanced solution.
The kind of ending that would please the Ministry of Justice.

“Not exactly. It's just that this hooligan monk Sungpo, he had no idea of the effects of his murder. With Jao gone, the corruption case is in ruins. We've had to piece it together. We owe it to Jao to finish. We owe it to the people. But you are stirring up too much dust. You are beginning to frighten our suspects. You will ruin it.”

“If you're saying that Prosecutor Jao was going to arrest Colonel Tan, then Tan had more reason than anyone to kill Jao. Accuse him of the murder and Sungpo can be released. The knobs can stand down at the 404th. That's a solution.”

“Give me some evidence.”

“Against Colonel Tan?” Shan asked. “I thought you meant you already had evidence.”

“One might surmise you could have reason to celebrate the passing of the old guard.”

“I have a preference,” Shan said contemplatively, “for natural causes.”

“You can't possibly think he would protect you.”

“I have been relieved of the need to worry about protection. I have been entrusted to the custody of the state.”

A sneer built on Li's face. “You are his fallback. His safety net. If you fail to build a case, he will create one. He will have his own case file even if you do not finish yours. All your actions can be construed as an effort to protect the radicals. Obstruction of justice is a
lao gai
charge in itself. I told you. I made inquiries about you. You weren't picked by Tan simply because you were an investigator. You were selected because by definition you are guilty. And expendable.”

It was the only thing Li had said that Shan believed. Shan watched his own fingers move, seemingly of their own volition. They made a
mudra.
Diamond of the Mind.

“No one will defend you. No one will say Shan is a model prisoner, a worker hero. Tan can't even put your name on the report. You don't exist. There is no need for you to be a victim also.”

It was the closest Li had come to putting his threat into words.

Shan studied his
mudra.
“This place,” he said with sudden
realization as he surveyed the room again. “It is the Bei Da Union.”

Behind him, Shan sensed an abrupt movement by Li, as if his head had snapped up. “It is an old gompa. It has many uses.”

“I saw a list of gompas licensed for reconstruction. This wasn't on it.”

“Comrade. I fear for you. You don't want to listen to those who want to help you.”

“Does it have a license?”

Li sighed as he eased off the ceremonial robe and tossed it on a stool. “It has been classified as an exhibition facility by Religious Affairs. It does not need a license.”

Shan raised his palms in a gesture of frustration. “I admire your ability to reconcile it all. For me, it is so confusing. If a group paid by Beijing meets to discuss educating the people it is socialism at work. But if people wearing red robes do so it is an unlicensed cultural activity.”

Li was studying Shan closely now. They were both aware of how dangerous the game was becoming. “You have been out of touch, Comrade. Much progress has been made in defining the socialist discipline for ethnic relations.”