Eliot Pattison - Soul of the Fire

Choi’s mouth opened and shut without a sound. “You!” she finally spat.

“I am the ghost Commissioner,” Shan reminded her. “The one who represents the neglected.”

Choi struggled to contain her fury.

Sung lit a cigarette and leaned forward. “What do they want?”

“The stable must be shut down and all its prisoners released. There shall be no reprisals on Yamdrok or its people. The Commission must be disbanded, its foreign members sent out of the country immediately. There are international flights to Singapore and New Delhi leaving early tomorrow morning.”

“Nonsense!” Choi snapped. “We do not bend to the demands of traitors!”

Sung ignored her. “In exchange for what?”

“Dawa. She will surrender when she has confirmation the foreign commissioners are in the air.”

“Pao will never forgive you, Shan. Whether or not he accepts, he will have your head.”

“He will accept. This gives him a bigger victory than any he might have expected from the Commission. And the Commission’s outcome is still far from certain. The Americans can be so unpredictable.”

“Is that all?”

“One more thing. I want Tuan out of it, not involved in any way. You know how spies stir up ill will.”

Two hours later, the Commission was convened for the announcement that its services were no longer required. Vogel, who still seemed in an alcoholic haze, was booked on a flight to Singapore with a connection to Germany. The Americans would fly to New Delhi, where medical experts could treat Hannah for her altitude sickness. Choi announced that there would be no time for an official banquet, but certificates of appreciation would be sent to each of them.

A grim-faced Judson met Shan in the corridor as he stared at the German, who was speaking with Choi. “It isn’t that he got away with the murders that bothers me so much,” Shan said. “It’s that he feels no guilt.”

The American leaned close to Shan. “I have friends in the German government. Vogel will never serve in a diplomatic post again.” He studied Shan’s hard expression and grimaced. “I’m sorry it has to end so fast,” the American said. “I would have liked to come and inspect your ditches. But it has to be this way. Hannah is getting worse. I would have asked for a medical evacuation if this hadn’t happened. You killed the Commission, Shan. Call it a victory and go hide in the hills of Lhadrung, out of Pao’s reach.”

“I’ll see you off.”

“No. It will be the middle of the night.” Judson awkwardly extended his hand. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I never got to ask you,” Shan said as they shook hands, “you said you joined the Commission after you got a call. You never said who called.”

Judson seemed reluctant to answer. A hollow smile grew on his face. “Hannah called. She had a problem, and the Commission was the answer.”

Shan nodded uncertainly. “I’m afraid you didn’t find salvation on your trip to Tibet.”

Judson offered a bitter grin. “That remains to be seen.”

Shan did see the foreigners off, from the roof of his building. The wind was cold, a harbinger of a bitter winter ahead, but he stood with it in his face to watch as the three foreigners, Vogel in one car and the Americans in another, loaded their bags and departed. The red ember of a cigarette marked where Major Sung watched from beside the town gate. In the light of the full moon, Shan could see half a dozen shadowed figures observing from the slope above the town.

A knob arrived for Shan at first light, escorting him to Sung’s command center. The major had an open line to the airport and was confirming that the foreigners had boarded their planes. “Hold them!” Sung ordered, and handed the phone to a sergeant as he gestured Shan to a corner. Shan wasn’t there to assist, but to be watched. The major snapped a question to a lieutenant, who looked up from a screen to report that Dawa’s cell phone was now less than a mile away. The major lifted a handheld radio. “Confirm her identity!” he barked. “You are out there to confirm she is there!”

“She is in the grove where the old chapel was,” came a familiar voice. Dawa had not let Shan hear her plans for Tuan, but she wanted him involved, and the Religious Affairs officer’s role had been guaranteed when Shan demanded of Sung that Tuan play no role. Tuan, Pao’s obedient servant, could be relied on to confirm Dawa’s identity.

“Weather is closing around the Himalayas,” the sergeant on the line to the airport reported. “Ten minutes, no more.”

The lieutenant monitoring Dawa’s cell phone looked up in alarm. “She’s opened a line to the airport herself!”

Sung snapped an order, and his team gathered up equipment and ran out the door, Shan a step behind.

Madame Choi waited at an outpost by the Yamdrok road near the corner of the town wall. Knobs were scanning the slopes with binoculars. “Five minutes!” called the sergeant connected to the airport. Sung glared at Shan, who had made it clear that Dawa would not surrender without confirmation that the foreigners were en route out of the country. She could still lose herself in the maze of mountain trails rising up on the far side of Yamdrok. “Where is she?” Sung shouted into his handheld radio.

“Climbing the hill toward you,” came Tuan’s voice. “She has a phone to her ear, talking to someone!”

“Major!” a sergeant called out. Sung and Shan turned to see a convoy of black cars speeding from the highway. Deputy Secretary Pao was arriving.

“Three minutes!” came the report from the airport.

Sung gave an angry command for his units in the field to converge on the slope below the prison.

“There!” Choi shouted, pointing toward a patch of color that had appeared above them.

“She’s on the slope, unfurling the flag of Free Tibet,” came Tuan’s report.

“We have her!” Sung called out. “Release the planes!”

His sergeant spoke into the phone, and after a long moment nodded. “They are in the air.”

“Good riddance,” Sung spat as Pao’s car rolled to a stop.

The Deputy Secretary trotted to Sung and grabbed his binoculars. “The bitch is challenging us to come get her!” Pao snarled.

Sung snapped a command, and half a dozen of his men began racing up the slope.

Suddenly Shan understood. There is nothing I would not do for our cause, she had said. There are many ways to die. “No!” he shouted. “Get an ambulance!”

As he spoke, Dawa settled onto the ground. She thrust a hand to the sky and burst into flame.

Shan stumbled on the loose gravel of the steep slope, recovered, and ran harder, passing several of the knobs running toward Dawa. It was just another nightmare, he tried to tell himself, another of his terrible visions. Surely it couldn’t end like this. He was a hundred feet away when the blackened, still-burning figure toppled over. He staggered to his knees. Not even the knobs would approach any closer. One of them pulled out his pistol as if to deliver a coup de grâce but they knew none was needed. There was no life left in the charred flesh before them.

He turned at the sound of sirens. There was no ambulance, only police cars loaded with knobs, as if they feared a disturbance. Pao was standing on the hood of his car on the road below, speaking urgently into his phone. On the top level of the nearest building, a solitary figure in a medical tunic stood in a corner window. To the east, along the edge of the orchard, a line of Yamdrok villagers watched. They seemed strangely subdued, not screaming in grief, not consoling each other, just watching.

One of the knobs lifted a radio to his ear and grimaced as he listened, then hesitantly stepped forward, pulled up the Tibetan flag and threw it into the dying flames.