Lord of Death: A Shan Tao Yun Investigation (23 page)

“I promise I will survive long enough to destroy you.”

“You will have to choose. You can destroy me or you can find out the truth of what happened that day on the road to the Base Camp.”

As Shan began to open the door Cao spoke again. “I didn’t come just looking for hooligans tonight. There is a matter of a body that mysteriously vanished from the experimental hospital. Breach of a highly classified facility, that is an attack on the state. Theft of evidence in a capital case. Now this attack on me. I have enough to shoot you several times over.”

“I might understand losing a hand here, a leg there, but a whole body,” Shan replied evenly. “That sounds like negligence.”

“Imagine my surprise when I found out that you were responsible for taking that same body down from Everest, back to this village. I have learned to study my enemies, before I dissect them. You are a man, like me, of fanatical devotion to his responsibilities.”

Shan put one foot out the door, silently surveying the surrounding shadows, for a fleeting, desperate moment telling himself that there were men in the night who, with one word from Shan, would be eager to make a man like Cao disappear. “You are a victim of your own techniques, Major Cao. You need to speak with the doctor who performed the autopsy on that sherpa. Forget the report sent to you for the file. Make him understand that you need the truth. If you had bothered to look at the body even you could have seen that those two bullets were shot into him after he was dead, bullets with a much larger caliber bullet. But he
was
murdered, killed in his sleep on the slopes above the base camp. The foreign expedition leaders have photographs, have the evidence that proves it.

“When those foreigners release the photos of a leading sherpa murdered on Everest and tell how the government hid the body, it will be like an atom bomb detonating in the climbing community. No one will pay to climb on the Chinese side of the mountain, not for years. How many millions was the minister projecting for her new economic model? Fifty million? A hundred? You will be the man who lost it all. You will be the one who shamed China on the global stage. Your star will not fade. It will be extinguished overnight.”

These were were terms Cao understood. The major had no reply.

Shan studied his shadowed face, creased with worry now. “I will make you a deal, Major Cao, one that may yet save you.”

“You have nothing to offer me,” Cao snarled.

“Go to Sarma gompa tonight. Discover the next murder victim.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Director Xie is dead.”

“Impossible! I saw him a few hours ago.”

“You have a satellite phone I believe, as does Xie. Call him.”

Cao’s eyes seemed to glow as he glared at Shan, but after a long moment he opened the console, pulled out his phone and punched in a number. Shan could hear it ring, five times, ten times, before Cao shut it off and stared at it.

“I found his body at sunset,” Shan continued. “No one will have reported it. Seal the site. Call Lhasa. Tell them you believe it should be kept quiet to avoid rumors of civil disorder. Say it to them before they have a chance to say it to you. Tell them you need time to resolve it quietly, for the good of the state. Tell them you are following leads to discover why Xie was alone at the gompa. Then decide what to say to Madame Zheng when she asks about it. Lhasa will call Beijing. Beijing will call her. When you see her next, your head better touch the floor.”

The anger on Cao’s face was slowly replaced with worry. “Are you certain Xie is dead?”

“He is extremely dead, as you will see.”

“Why would you ask for a deal? You just gave me everything.”

“Find the body at the back of the gompa ruins. Call your headquarters. Arrange for an ambulance from the yeti factory to secretly take away what’s left of the body. All I ask is that you cancel the removal order on Colonel Tan.”

“Why would I do that?”

“To save yourself the embarrassment of having to recall him from prison when the real killer is found. To pay for the favor I am doing you.”

“You have already told me what I need to know.”

Shan gazed out at the moon rising between two peaks. “Then I will save your career. Keep Tan in town and I will give you the real murderer.”

“The antenna attached to the car has been disabled,” Shan added as he climbed out. “There will be men hidden in the rocks. If you don’t stay in the truck for at least an hour I cannot be responsible for what will happen.”

As Cao lit a cigarette Shan saw his hand tremble. “When this is over, Shan,” the major spat, “I will have you on your knees begging me to shoot you.”

Chapter Eleven

GYALO HAD GONE to another level of existence. He cursed the gods, rattled off the names of the levels of hell as if he were being examined by some ancient guru.

“All the way here,” Kypo explained in a pained voice as he sat on a stool in the sunken chapel, “he shouted verses from sutras and tried to get out of the truck. I had to hold him down.”

It was no surprise the drunken lama had been left for dead. One arm had been broken, the side of his head had been kicked until it looked like a pulpy, rotten fruit. Two fingers were splinted in place. An eye was swollen shut. Blood trickled from his mouth where a tooth had been knocked out. Whoever had attacked him and thrown him into the pit had thought they were disposing of a dead man.

“I sent Yates away,” Kypo explained. “He was very upset. He said he had work to do at the base camp but he acted like it was his fault this had happened.”

Shan examined the broken arm. It had been expertly set and splinted. “The American did this?”

“My mother. When we brought him to her, her first words were ‘let the old bastard die’ and she turned her back on him. But a few minutes later she came back with her first aid kit and worked on him. She said to tell him the gods would look after him despite himself. He woke up and starting shouting like this.”

“Saying the same things as now?” Shan asked.

“Mostly.” Kypo thought a moment, reconsidering. “He chanted monk’s words, charms against demons, in the voice of a terrified child. It was as if he were more scared of us than those who attacked him. He reached for me, and said ‘just let me die.’ She hit him.”

Shan looked up, not sure he had heard correctly. “Your mother hit Gyalo?”

Kypo nodded. “With a small club. She knocked him out. She said she couldn’t risk having neighbors hear, said he needed to be still so she could set his arm. But she seemed glad for the excuse to strike him.” He searched Shan’s face, as if hoping for an answer.

“How did she know him? I thought she never came to town.”

Kypo shrugged. “And Gyalo never left town. For a while, before she knocked him out, he was trying to crawl to the door.” He shrugged again. “He’s been crazy for years. An old man. An alcoholic.”

“I’ve known many Tibetans a lot older.”

“Old enough to have known another Tibet, I mean.”

Shan chewed on the words, sensing the passing, like a leaf on the wind, of a shard of truth. Once all of his investigations had been linear, one fact linking to the next in quick progression leading to the truth. But in Tibet all his puzzles were like giant tangkas, the traditional religious paintings with overlaps of deities, suffering humans, protector demons, even alternate worlds, linked not by events so much as expectation and hope, by relationships in other, earlier Buddhist lives.

“Has your mother always been an astrologer?” Shan asked.

“Of course. It is who she is.”

“Was her father an astrologer? Her mother?”

Kypo frowned, bending over the former lama. He was not going to reply.

They washed Gyalo in silence, dressing him in clean clothes from Shan’s meager wardrobe. Shan lit more butter lamps. Kypo produced a small cone of incense and lit it by Gyalo’s pallet.

“He could still die,” Kypo observed in a heavy voice. “I think he wants to die. What will the town do without him? People call him a mascot. But he’s something else, something none of us understand.”

“I think he is more like a teacher,” Shan said. “One who takes on roles to make us understand. Except long ago he lost the ability to go back to himself.”

Gyalo stirred, coughing, as Shan held a cup of water to his lips. The old Tibetan ignored it, instead grabbing his arm and studying it, close to his eyes, as if to confirm he was real. There was nothing but bitterness in his eyes when he looked up and recognized Shan. “I know I’m in hell now,” he muttered, then drifted into sleep.

Shan sat on a blanket in the corner of the dim chamber, intending to mentally reconstruct his puzzle using its new pieces. But the exhaustion he had been fighting finally overwhelmed him. When he opened his eyes briefly an hour later Kypo was gone. Later when he opened them for a few moments Jomo was there, with a kettle of hot tea, helping his father to drink. Much later, when he fully awoke, Jomo was gone and several fresh momo dumplings were stacked on a low stool between Shan and Gyalo.

The former lama sat upright, gazing with his one good eye at the dim images on the walls. He wore an oddly vacant expression, showing no pain, none of his usual alcoholic haze. He stared at the image of the central demon on the opposite wall. It was Mahakala the protector, in his four armed blue form, holding a skull cup and a sword, draped in a garland of human heads.

“I knew a place like this once,” the old Tibetan said in a ragged voice. “but that one was destroyed.”

“The tunnels that connected to the temple were filled with debris,” Shan explained. “But there was an exit through the stable, probably forgotten long before the gompa was destroyed. I cleaned away enough to be able to enter.”

“Why would you do such a thing?”

“All these deities. It felt like they had been buried alive. They needed to be released.”

“You were scared of them,” Gyalo growled. “They put you under a spell.”

“They put me under a spell,” Shan readily admitted.

The moist, rattling cackle that came from Gyalo’s throat became a groan as the Tibetan clutched his side, doubling over in pain. Blood was seeping into the bandage on the arm that was not broken, but Shan had no fresh one to replace it.

“Who did this to you, Gyalo?”

“I need a drink. A real drink.”

“Of the handful of people who know you are here, not one will bring you alcohol.”

“Then I may as well die.”

“Who did this?” Shan repeated.

When Gyalo finally spoke it was to the demon on the wall, as if he preferred to converse with the old god. “Two strangers in dark sweatshirts, hoods over their heads.” His voice was dry as stone. “Big men, built like yaks. They didn’t introduce themselves. Someone else stood in the shadows, as if enjoying the show.”

“What did they want?”

“They spoke a few words of greeting at first, and gave me a bottle, like maybe they came for a blessing. After I drank some they said more words.”

“What words?”

“Questions. Who had spoken with me about the Yama temple that had been up on the mountains. Who had I given a sickle to, with the writing on the blade.” A spasm of pain racked his body, and he spat up blood again. He began shivering.

Shan lifted an tattered sheepskin
chuba
coat from a peg by the entry and covered him with it. “So you told them about the American and me.”

Gyalo gazed at the demon. “Not at first.”

Shan looked up in surprise. Surely the drunken lama had not invited the beating by trying to protect Yates and Shan.

“In the cupboard,” the Tibetan said abruptly, and pointed to a little alcove in the dusty stone wall.

“There is no cupboard,” Shan said, confused. The small squared-out space in the wall might well have once held shelves but no trace of them remained.

With what seemed like a great effort Gyalo lifted a finger and pointed insistently at the alcove. Shan stood, carrying a lamp to show that the space was empty. But when the Tibetan grunted and jabbed his finger again he tapped his fingers along the surface of the wall until, on the left side at shoulder height, his drumming reached something hollow. He pressed his fingers into the dust-encrusted stone, scratching until he found the lip of a board and pulled. With a small cloud of dust, a door cracked open. He reached inside and extracted a six-inch painted figure, carved of wood. It was Mahakala, Protector of the Faithful, in his fierce blue skinned form, matching the painting on the wall. Shan blew away the coating of dust from the figure and placed it on the stool beside Gyalo.

The Tibetan seemed to relax as he saw the figure, and for a moment Shan thought he saw the lama of fifty years earlier. But then he began to sway, and he managed only a few words before passing out again. “Look at the old fool,” he said, speaking of the little god, “what does he know?”

Shan watched the forlorn lama a long time, working and reworking the puzzle in his mind, before gathering up several musty sacks for a pillow and draping the blanket over the sleeping Tibetan.

HE DID NOT seek the constable’s help this time before venturing to the rear of the jail. The cleaning crew arrived exactly on time, saying nothing as he joined them again. The invisible workers who kept Tibet functioning were often invisible to each other as well.

Cao had cancelled the order to transport his prisoner out of the county. Tan lay on the pallet, one filthy blanket covering his body, another rolled up for a pillow. His face was in shadow, but Shan saw Tan’s breath momentarily catch as he reached the cell door.

“I need to know how you knew the minister,” Shan said. “I need to know why you needed to see her.”

Tan stood up, retrieved the tin cup from the sink and, fixing Shan with a steady gaze, urinated in it. When he was finished he hobbled forward, dragging one foot.

“I am encouraged you still have your bodily functions,” Shan observed as he retreated several steps.

“Get the hell out of here!” Tan snarled. His face was directly in the light now. Shan could see the way it sagged, could see the bruises and lacerations. Although the eyes still burned with a cool fire, there was no arrogance left in them, only hatred.

“I had thought the killer had somehow stolen your gun. But then I discovered the minister had entertained someone in her room the night before her death. I have struggled to find some theory to explain how the killer got your gun. You would not have surrendered it without a struggle, and if it had been stolen you would have raised the shrillest of alarms with Public Security.

I have learned to be suspicious of complicated explanations. I find the simplest one is likely the truth. You were the one she entertained, and
she
took your gun. You were too embarrassed to report that you lost it to a minister of state. A female minister.”

Tan, apparently deciding he could not reach Shan, extended his arm through the bars and poured his urine in an arc across the front of the cell, as if casting a charm to ward off an evil spirit. Before he finished his hand started twitching, so that the contents of the cup splattered onto his hand. Tan dropped the cup and clamped the hand under his other arm.

Shan silently retrieved the mop and bucket he had left at the end of the corridor, mopped up the urine, then located another cup in an empty cell and tossed it onto Tan’s pallet. He then extracted a sack from his pocket and extended it through the bars. Tan slapped it away, launching it from Shan’s hand, spilling the contents onto Tan’s feet. Four momos, the last of the dumplings Jomo had left in the underground chapel.

With the reflex of a seasoned prisoner Tan bent and scooped up the momos. He had jammed one into his mouth and was gulping it down when he seemed to remember Shan. With a hint of shame in his eyes he glanced up, then hobbled to his cot and proceeded to eat the rest.

“Tell me about the gun,” Shan pressed. “If I can prove she had it Cao’s case against you is destroyed, because it is the only connection to you. A sherpa’s body was placed beside that of the minister’s, substituted for the American woman who died there. He was shot with a different gun. Not yours. A big one, a huge caliber. Not one issued by Public Security or the army.”

When Tan did not reply Shan retreated again, stepping into the first of the interrogation rooms that adjoined the corridor, opening drawers in its metal cabinet. When he arrived back at the cell he extended a small brown plastic bottle. Tan’s head snapped up. “Painkillers,” Shan announced. “Enough to get you through a couple more days.”

Tan extended his open palm. Shan tossed the bottle through the bars. Tan stared at the bottle, then clenched it so tightly his knuckles went white. “There was no dead American at the scene,” he announced in a thin voice. “Stealing that second body from the hospital was only a ploy to confuse the chief investigator.”

“How would you—” Shan began, his brow wrinkled in confusion. Then he understood. Tan was reciting the official version of events.

Tan replied with a bitter grin. “The monk said he saw the American woman running away after helping me commit the crime. The dead sherpa was patriotically trying to stop the murder and was shot.”

“What monk?” Shan asked, filled with new dread.

“That one,” he said, with a nod down the darkened cell corridor. “It was a busy morning in the interrogation rooms.”

Shan found himself halfway down the corridor before he was conscious of his own movement. He paused then followed the faint sound of breathing from a cell in the center of the corridor. He stepped hesitantly to the cell, discerning a small figure asleep on a pallet in the shadows at the rear. Scratched into the wall were several figures in a line about two feet above the floor, crudely drawn but still recognizable. A lotus blossom. A conch shell. The prisoner had been drawing the
tashi targyel
, the seven sacred symbols. Shan’s heart began rising into his throat. He knew before he spotted the shreds of a robe and a dirty prison shirt coat on the floor. Cao had brought back one of the captured monks.