Shan stood by the table, looking at the coin in front of Bao. It was worth more than some herders made in a year.
"Your model worker had secrets. Good citizens don't keep secrets. A true believer in the socialist imperative keeps no secrets." A row of yellowed teeth showed as he offered a narrow smile. "There are those in Yoktian who want to unravel the fabric of society. It all starts with a few loose threads."
"What do you imply?" Xu shot back. "She was one of those holding it together. We needed her."
As Bao shook his head he exhaled, creating a cloud of smoke about him. Then his gaze settled on something under a piece of paper on Xu's desk. He leaned forward and snatched it up. Shan instantly recognized it, a wedge-shaped tablet like that in Suwan's belongings. Not the same, for this one had a crosshatch design across the top edge, but bearing the same Sanskrit-type writing. Bao slid the top out, then slammed it shut and stood. "Where did you did you find this?" he demanded.
"Lau's things." The prosecutor lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, then shot a stream of smoke toward Bao. Like a duel of dragons, Shan thought. He found himself stepping closer, looking at the wooden tablet.
Bao's eyes widened for a moment, and he looked back at the items he had scattered across the table. He said something to himself in a low venomous tone, so low Shan was not sure he had heard correctly. "Bitch," it sounded like, "the traitorous bitch." Then he met Xu's puzzled gaze. "You haven't called anyone about this?" Bao barked. "The Ministry? The Antiquities Institute?"
Xu shot an uncertain glance toward Shan, then slowly shook her head. "Just a toy of wood some children made."
Bao's eyes closed to two narrow slits. "Fine. Keep thinking that, comrade," he spat. "Treason all around and you only see toys." He spoke to the wooden wedge now. "Think of all the work that has been done, all the sacrifices we have made to establish the most glorious society on the planet. The government gives us everything. We owe it everything. To think that there could be those in this very county who seek to tear our state apart, it sickens me," the knob growled. "You're wrong about her, Comrade Prosecutor. She wasn't who she said. There is no lower life form than those subversives who seek to undermine the state. Insects. Maggots, all of them, especially Westerners who foment it. We will crush them. And I will also crush those who stand in our way." He stuffed the wooden tablet into the big flapped pocket at the bottom of his jacket.
Shan found himself standing at the desk. He quickly sat back in the chair near Xu.
Xu's face drew tight as she stared at the pocket where he had stuffed the tablet. "I thought we were speaking of caravans." Did she recognize the dangerous ground Bao was pushing her toward? Shan wondered. Or was she simply reacting to the wild gleam in his eyes?
Bao's hand moved to a breast pocket, from which he extracted a folded piece of rice paper. "You've never seen this, I suppose?" He unfolded it and extended it in his hands a moment, then turned it over. It was a strip sixteen inches long, a poem inscribed in a child's hand, in Mandarin on one side and Tibetan on the other.
Master's gone to gather flowers
, the first line said.
Pollen on his funny robe.
"Discovered hidden in her quarters," Bao stated. "Fortunately Public Security was able to intercept it instead of another office," he added pointedly, then folded the paper and stuffed in back in his pocket.
"A child's imagination," Xu offered stiffly, though the writing seemed to shake her.
Shan stared at the floor, avoiding eye contact with either. The poem was written about the waterkeeper. Bao suspected there was a lama somewhere, an illegal lama, and that Lau had been connected to the lama.
"I was in Turfan too," Bao said, giving no sign of having heard the prosecutor. "I heard the speeches. Some have lost sight of their essential duties. If you neglect your essential duties, no matter how hard you work, you are a liability to the state." It was a familiar code Bao was using now, speaking in political slogans.
As the major finished, his gaze rested on Shan for the first time. "Do you know your essential duties, comrade?" Bao asked him with a narrow, lightless smile. "Do you recognize treason when you see it?"
"I remain ever mindful of what I owe the state," Shan said woodenly. He fought the almost overwhelming urge to bolt. Xu's enforcer was outside the door, then the man at the stairs, perhaps others who had returned from their rest. With luck, Shan might get past them. But Major Bao was not the type to travel without an escort. There would be more knobs outside.
Bao let the smoke drift out his mouth so that it curled around his cheeks. "Tell your prosecutor to do the same."
Shan clenched his jaw so tightly his teeth hurt.
"I am not his—" Xu began. Shan turned toward her with an empty expression, resigned to his fate. Xu locked eyes with him for a moment, then looked back at Bao, without continuing.
"I do not consider Prosecutor Xu a woman who forgets her duties," Shan offered.
Bao gave Shan another narrow smile and leaned toward him. "I thought I knew all of the trained hounds here. You're new?"
His incredible luck had failed. For a moment there had been hope that both would end the meeting with mistaken assumptions about him. But now there were only two ways to leave the room. With Xu or with Bao. He couldn't say he worked for the knobs, as Xu had assumed. He couldn't say he worked for Xu, for any disclaimer from her would mean immediate arrest by Bao. Shan's only hope was to give Xu something, perform for her now, make her curious enough that she might offer him cover.
Bao stared at him with sudden, intense interest.
"I am new," Shan said. "I am from Beijing."
"Who are you?" Bao pressed. "Your name."
"Someone who is wondering why you seem more concerned about smugglers than the murder of one of your officers."
Bao's eyes flared and his upper lip began to curl at one edge, exposing a large yellow tooth, like a fang. He stood and threw his cigarette, still lit, onto Xu's desk. "You don't know that."
"On the highway. Two days ago."
Bao did not take his eyes from Shan. "Accidents happen on the highway," he muttered.
"His name was Lieutenant Sui." Shan heard a sharp intake of breath from Xu, behind him. "Two bullets in the heart. Surely you have reported it. Beijing takes great interest in attacks on Public Security officers." Could it be possible that Xu didn't know about Sui?
Bao's face paled. His lip curled higher, toward his nose. It was not a sneer— more like the way some animals bare their teeth before tearing into the flesh of their prey. Without looking Shan sensed Xu's body tighten, but he did not take his eyes off Bao. The major reached Shan's side in two quick steps, then raised his open hand and slapped him, hard.
"No officer was killed," he snarled. Then, in his next breath, as only one trained in the peculiar logic used by political officers could do, he asked, "How do you know this? This is a Public Security matter." His furious question was directed at Shan but Bao's eyes came to rest on Xu. Then, as if his remark needed further punctuation, he raised his thick pawlike hand and slapped Shan again.
Shan tasted blood from the inside of his cheek. He would sit there and let Bao slap him all day but he would say no more. Shan had found a place inside, an oddly serene place, a little room he had constructed in prison and not visited since. Some prisoners had called him the Chinese Stone for never breaking from physical punishment. Some of the Tibetans had said it was because his soul had sufficiently evolved so that he was always prepared to leave his body. He had never thought they were right. He only knew that he had evolved sufficiently that, no matter what, even under the threat of death, he would not cower before men like Bao. It didn't mean much to the world if such men couldn't get what they wanted from physical torture, for they could usually obtain it through chemicals. It only meant something to Shan.
As he braced for another blow Shan reminded himself of the Tibetan prisoners who, after all the torture, the starvation, the freezing, even the amputations, thanked the Lord Buddha for allowing them the opportunity to test their faith.
Through a fog of pain Shan heard Xu push back her chair and step away from her desk. He had lost. She was going to join in Bao's fun, he thought numbly.
"This is Prosecutor Xu Li of Yoktian County," he heard her say in a loud, professional tone, the way she might speak before a tribunal. "In the name of the Ministry of Justice I am demanding that Major Bao immediately desist."
Bao had found a place within himself too. Not a place of serenity. Perhaps the opposite of serenity. As the Major looked toward Xu he made a sound like a snarl, a sound of disgust. Shan followed his gaze. He had to blink hard to focus on the prosecutor, blink several times before he fully understood what she was doing. Xu stood with a video camera. She was recording Bao's actions.
Bao picked up a tea mug and threw it, not at Xu, but at the wall beyond Xu, who kept filming as the mug shattered behind her. Then he grabbed the gold coin, spun about and marched out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
A brittle silence lingered in the office. A thin line of smoke rose from Bao's cigarette, still on Xu's desk. Xu approached her desk and stood looking at the door, then looked at Shan. She raised the smoldering cigarette with the paper it had landed on and dumped it into a mug at the side of her desk, then picked up the phone and asked Loshi to bring in two teas.
The prosecutor circled her desk twice, her arms folded over her chest, not speaking until the tea arrived.
"I could have you behind the wire at Glory Camp before nightfall," she said.
"I've been to camps," Shan said quietly, returning her stare over his steaming mug. "Good exercise, bad food."
"I thought you were working for Public Security when I met you. One of the new agents brought in for the project."
"The Poverty Eradication Scheme?"
Xu did not respond. "Let's say you're not Public Security. Let's say you're not Ministry of Justice, not here on a corruption investigation. Just theoretically. But you know that Sui was killed, a secret kept even from me." Xu had not challenged Shan's announcement about Sui. Bao's reaction, he realized, had been confirmation enough. And Shan had been wrong. Xu had not known about Sui's death, he was certain. But Bao had. The knobs knew one of their own was murdered, and they were doing nothing about it.
"Walk around one of the markets and listen for twenty minutes. You'll see how big a secret it is."
She still ignored him. "So let's say you were associating with bad elements. Say, independence-minded herdsmen. Maybe subversive hatmakers."
The words hit Shan harder than Bao's hand ever could. Xu had seen Shan at the garage with Jakli, maybe also checked at Glory Camp for the names of anyone on the rice truck known to the guards. He glanced across her desk, looking for the second half of Jakli's file, the active half.
"I don't wear hats," he said weakly.
"Then maybe you're with the smugglers. We'll have lots of time to decide."
"I'm not with anyone."
"But you are from Beijing. I can tell. Your accent maybe. Or your arrogance in getting around my office."
"As I said, I am an investigator. My name is Shan. And I am from Beijing."
"But not investigating for Beijing. Surely not an independent investigator? Please, comrade. This is not some American movie."
"I am retired."
Xu studied him over the top of her teacup. "And you say you've been in camp before? Maybe you were forcibly retired."
Shan raised his mug. "I salute your deductive powers."
"And what? You're investigating as a pastime?"
"I was asked by friends to look into something. Nothing that concerns you," he offered, though he didn't believe it.
"Except you wind up breaching security at Glory Camp, then rummaging through my files."
Shan looked into his mug. "I have interesting friends."
Something that might have been amusement passed over Xu's countenance, then her features hardened again. "If I weren't so overworked I could spend hours just thinking of all the charges against you. Entering Glory Camp, a state security facility, without authorization, breaching the security of my files, that's a few years right there. But I think we'll keep it simple." All she had to do was to ask for his papers, for the required identity documents he did not possess, or the required travel permit. Then she would order him to roll up his sleeves, and find the tattoo on his arm.
Shan fixed his gaze on a carved bird at the edge of the table. "I am here about the children," he said quietly. "The children who are being killed. Lau's children."
Xu stared at him in silence. She seemed about to speak more than once but reconsidered each time. Then she slowly stood and walked to the shelf behind her desk.
