Beautiful Ghosts (52 page)

He stood and took a step away before trying one more time to reach the old man’s memories. “There is a great struggle for the riches of Zhoka,” Shan said. “People have come from far away to oppose the lamas for it.”

“Such people only fight themselves,” the old Tibetan said. “It is just the way of things for them. Everyone has a different path to the center of their universe.” He set down his bowl and rose. “The nature of earth taming is not in the earth, but in the people,” he said, and paused, questions rising on his face as though he were surprised by his own words. Then, after a moment, he shrugged and stepped back into the stable.

Shan watched the empty doorway, considering the strange words. They had the sound of prophecy.

The haulers had stopped working and were gathered behind one of the rusty tanks, exchanging worried glances when Shan left the courtyard. Colonel Tan was in the street, standing by his car. Tan said nothing as Shan approached, but opened the door for Shan to climb into the front seat. There was no sign of his driver or usual escort, and Tan drove himself, speeding out of town, past the army barracks, never speaking, not even looking at Shan, until they reached the hill above the 404th People’s Construction Brigade. He pulled the car to the side of the road and climbed out, immediately lighting a cigarette.

The big supply tent that had been erected for Ming’s field teams was gone. In its place were two dozen smaller tents, the mobile camp of an army unit. Tan had ordered new troops to the prison. He had brought Shan here as a warning, to remind him of the power he still wielded.

“Do you have any idea who this man is?” Tan said with a strange, almost contemplative tone. “The American who went into the mountains with Ming?”

“He is a criminal.”

“No,” Tan said flatly. “He is one of the richest men in the world. He has been a great benefactor to the Chinese people. He has dined with the Chairman of the Party, has the Chairman’s personal phone number to use whenever he wants. He can speak to the President of the United States.” Tan paused to inhale on his cigarette again, then shrugged. “It is not possible to define him as a criminal. I received two calls from different generals about him, one in Beijing.”

Shan studied Tan. “I thought you brought me here to warn me.”

“What the hell do you think I am doing?”

“It sounds more like you are trying to protect me.”

Tan turned his back to Shan and kicked a stone into the air, then walked away several paces.

“He had the British woman, McDowell, killed,” Shan said to his back. “The one who helped hungry children.”

When Tan turned back toward Shan he was pulling a piece of paper from his pocket. “Your Inspector Yao has been recalled. He is to return immediately to Beijing for reassignment.” He showed Shan the facsimile addressed to Yao, bearing the elegant legend of the Council of Ministers at the top.

“Yao knows this?”

“I went to give it to him at the compound. I left it in an envelope in his bedchamber.”

Shan studied Tan. “You mean you don’t officially know. You didn’t officially tell him.”

Tan’s head moved slightly up and down in a nod, his mouth curled downward in a frown. He turned to face the prison. “A recalled investigator. An American without authority to act in China. And you. There’s no chance you can stop them.”

Shan had to clench his jaw not to show his surprise. Tan was secretly telling Shan he would not prevent Shan and his friends from returning to the mountains.

“I have a helicopter coming out of repairs. It needs a test flight, that’s how it will be recorded. It can take you and the others to Zhoka. Or a mile away if you prefer. But that’s all I can do.”

“My son. I want my son to go with us.”

“He’s a prisoner. The paperwork is on my desk, for his transport back to his coal mine. I’ve already held it up too long.” Tan studied Shan’s face a moment. “You don’t have enough pain in your life? You have to go out of your way to find more? If he runs, then there will be new charges against you, for aiding an escape. Five years at least.”

“I would have thought ten.”

As Tan lit another cigarette a perverse pleasure entered his eyes, as if he were grateful to be badgered by Shan. “If Ming calls for the army to help, or that American Dolan, my troops will go to assist.” He let the smoke drift out of his open mouth as he studied Shan. “I just want them out of my county.”

*   *   *

They landed a mile south of Zhoka, and headed north in silence, Ko hanging back as if reluctant to reenter the ruins. A chill wind, strange for midsummer, had begun to blow behind them, so loud they could not hear each other speak. It seemed to be blowing them toward Zhoka, as if the old earth temple was summoning them. They were less than half a mile away, on the high ridge that first brought them into sight of the ruins, when Corbett lifted his hand in warning. A figure was jogging up the slope toward them, a sturdy Tibetan with a shambling gait, as if his foot hurt. As he approached he slowed, staring at them in confusion, then stopped and took off his cap, wringing it in his hands. It was Jara.

“We thought you had gone,” he said in an apologetic tone. “They are ordering all the herders and farmers in the hills to help,” he explained as Shan and his friends approached. “That man Ming and the rich American. Someone saw you and they sent me to bring you. They thought you were Tibetans.”

Shan surveyed the ridge. “Saw us how? From where?” They had only just come into sight of the ruins.

“A man they call Khan, he’s in that old stone tower with binoculars. He called them on a radio.”

Any chance of surprise was lost. Corbett frowned in disappointment. Yao wore a satisfied expression, as if he welcomed the news. Ko just stared at the ruins with a cold, determined glint.

“Who else is here?” Shan asked.

“Six herders. The old lama. My niece and Lokesh. Dawa insisted I bring her back to the chorten. Liya was there but ran away last night. After that the American had that man Khan watch, with a rifle.”

“Gendun?” Shan asked. “Gendun is with Dolan?” He began running down the slope.

The central courtyard had been turned into an operations base, with a large blue nylon tent at one wall, piles of boxes, and a cooking station in front of the chorten. Dawa, squatting by the cooking fire, gave an excited cry of greeting and ran to leap into Corbett’s arms.

Dolan was standing with his back to them, at the far wall, studying the glowing screen of a small, sophisticated piece of machinery. A thin metal band over his head held a small cup to one ear and suspended a microphone near his mouth. He was speaking urgently into the microphone, a finger tracing a pattern of lines on the screen.

Gendun sat against the wall, using his finger to draw in the dirt. Lokesh, squatting next to Gendun, straightened as he saw Shan, a look of alarm on his face. Gendun greeted Shan with a weary nod and returned to his drawing. Ko paused, staring warily at the lama, and Shan remembered that the two had met before, in the dark, when Ko had thought Gendun a ghost.

A shrill whistle blew. Dolan was summoning everyone. He kept blowing the whistle, waving those in the courtyard toward him. Shan recalled the reports of Dolan’s early experiences in China, as the sponsor and sometimes manager of archaeological digs.

“We have discovered a chamber,” the American called out in Chinese. “Precisely in the center of the gompa, under the rubble, right where our theory suggested.” There was a smug sense of victory in his voice. “Ming!” he shouted. “We can be in by sunset! Get these people moving to—” He stopped midsentence as he saw Shan and Corbett. He flung his headset onto the table and marched toward them.

“You must be suicidal Agent Corbett,” he barked as he approached. “This will be entertaining, watching an FBI agent ruin his career.”

When his eyes shifted to Shan his face filled with a cold anger. “And you must think you’re very clever, Comrade Shan. It changes nothing,” he said dismissively. “All you did is guarantee that I find the amban’s treasure.”

“It changes everything. You’re here now,” Shan said with a gesture encompassing the ruins. “It is a dangerous place to misunderstand, and you have always misunderstood it.” He realized Dolan was looking over his shoulder, but pointing at him, and suddenly Shan felt hands on his shoulders. It was Lu, patting him down. When Lu was done Corbett raised his arms, inviting Lu to do the same for him.

“As long as you’re here,” Dolan said, after Lu confirmed they carried no weapons, “you will join our little project. We are about to open the vault.”

“It’s an old monastery,” Shan said. “A place of reverence. Many people died here.”

“No doubt,” Dolan said with a cool smile, and motioned Gendun to rise. “Everyone helps move the rubble!” he barked. When the lama seemed not to notice he nudged Gendun’s legs with his boot. Gendun smiled as if just seeing him, and slowly rose.

Ming was piling equipment onto a canvas sheet near the center of the ruins, small metal canisters attached by long wires to another sophisticated instrument panel from which a small antenna projected.

“Ground sensing radar,” Dolan explained, “borrowed from the Ministry of Petroleum. It confirmed a chamber under that central pile of rubble,” he said, pointing to a mound of rocks nearly twenty feet high. A square, ten feet to the side, had been marked on the mound with orange spray paint. “We’re going to open it, extract what’s inside, and leave. Cooperate and we’ll just tie you up when we fly out. I’ll be on the way home before you make it to Lhadrung. Everyone lives. You get your ruins back.”

There was a murmur at the rear of the group. Gendun was speaking.

“What did the old man say?” Dolan demanded.

Lokesh stepped forward. “He said perhaps you should take this.” He offered the American a little tsa-tsa, an image of the future Buddha. “He said you will need it.” Dolan accepted the little figure with a frown. “He said,” Lokesh explained in a matter-of-fact tone, “if you don’t understand what’s there it will go very badly for what’s left of the deity that dwells within you. A very powerful thing is buried.”

Dolan’s eyes flashed with anger again. He threw the little tsa-tsa against a rock, shattering it. “Tell him I understand exactly what is there. There’s nothing like it in all the world, and it’s mine. It will be mine forever,” he said in a taunting voice. “And tell him, of all the people in the world, I know about power,” he added with a sneer.

“I am sorry,” Lokesh said with a sigh.

Dolan muttered under his breath and pushed the nearest man toward the rubble. It was Ko, who paused only for a quick, inquiring glance at Lokesh before pulling the first rock away. Had his son understood, Shan wondered, had he known that Lokesh had not been apologizing, but saying he was sorry for Dolan?

Jara joined Ko, followed by the other herders, wearing curious, expectant expressions as they studied the wealthy American. Only Gendun lingered, his eyes sad, settling to the ground in the shadow of a wall as he gazed upon the orange square in the rubble.

As Shan approached and squatted beside him Gendun began drawing in the soil again. It was another of the ancient symbols, Shan thought at first, but then he saw the block shapes and gaps like gates or arches between the blocks. He was sketching buildings, the buildings that had stood before the ruin, the way they had appeared from where Gendun now sat. Two long graceful buildings, walls canted slightly inward at the top in the traditional Tibetan fashion, stood over the east and west stairways to the underground temple. Between them was an unusual structure, one that probably dated to the days when gompas also served as fortresses, a tall tower, twice as high as the other buildings, that would have allowed those at the top to survey the surrounding lands from the center of the walled gompa, and from which sacred banners or giant thangka would have been suspended on festival days. A tower whose first purpose may have been to guard over the sacred treasure chamber which must have been directly below it.

Dolan watched with cool amusement as Lokesh wrote a prayer on a piece of paper and directed the Tibetans to stack the rocks they removed into a cairn over the prayer. The old Tibetan’s action seemed to energize the herders, who worked quietly to excavate a hole in the center of the orange square. Dolan did not seem to notice when Jara handed Gendun the pieces of tsa-tsa broken by the American to bury with the prayer.

They worked an hour, then two, exposing a hole in the center nearly five feet deep, building their cairn higher and higher. They exposed long fragments of wooden beams, then heavy slabs of stone Dolan declared to be the roof supports for the vault. Shan kept looking back toward the drawing Gendun had made in the earth.

Ming seemed to no longer share Dolan’s enthusiasm. He shot nervous glances toward Yao and Corbett, and leaned into Lu’s ear repeatedly, Lu always shaking his head as if disagreeing. Shan carried rocks with the others, and was standing in the rubble, waiting for Jara to hand him a rock to carry, when he saw that Gendun had disappeared. He visualized the sketch the old lama had made in the soil. The old tower must have been erected on a base of solid rock, and the treasure room would have been built beneath that base, far below the solid surface. But Dolan’s equipment had shown a chamber inside the rubble.

The American magnate seemed to have worked himself into a strange euphoria, driving his workers on with a glint in his eyes, encouraging them not with sharp words but with what sounded like bribes. “Twenty dollars to each of you if we finish with daylight left,” he announced after another half hour of excavating. An hour later he raised the payment to fifty dollars, never joining the work himself but seeming to work almost as hard, blowing his whistle, cajoling the Tibetans, telling them of the new shoes they could buy, the new hats, the new sheep, sometimes standing expectantly by the instruments again, sometimes consulting Ming, who seemed to watch his American partner with growing unease. Partner no more, Shan realized. Dolan had taken over, Dolan and the two men who worked for him had killed both of Ming’s allies, and Dolan had seemed to have dropped any pretense he might share the treasure with Ming.