Eliot Pattison - Mandarin Gate

“You mean your main assignment is pacification.”

The lieutenant did not disagree. “There was a new memo. We are supposed to speak of it as assimilation now. Embracing the indigenous population with the open heart of the Chinese motherland.” She spoke the words with raised eyebrows. For a moment Shan thought he detected sarcasm in her voice.

“Liang’s solution will no doubt make some political officer proud,” Shan observed. “Solving a murder by throwing a grenade in a crowd.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

Shan watched with foreboding as the big Chinese men in plainclothes positioned themselves around the market. “Beijing expects bold responses to murders. In Tibet it’s always simple. Round up a couple dozen Tibetans, sweat a few in interrogation so accusations of disloyalty start flowing. Collect enough statements to arrest a dissident and close the file with a press conference and an article in the Lhasa Times that warns about the ongoing dangers of splittists,” he said, using the Party’s euphemism for those who sought Tibetan independence. “It may sound good in Beijing but it doesn’t stop a killer. It will make your job a hundred times more difficult, Lieutenant.”

Meng frowned. “People in Beijing went into a blind fury when they saw those crime scene photos. A Chinese flag in red paint and blood. Two dead Chinese men with their boots on some peasant woman. Of course it was a dissident.”

“You mean they want it to be a dissident. And in doing so they become the murderer’s puppet. You’re in charge of local assimilation. Special troubleshooters sent by Beijing come and go. You’ll still be here. You’re going to let them set things back by years. And set your career back.”

She lowered her sunflower seeds. “I’m listening.”

“They haven’t thought it through yet but eventually they will. It will begin like a little bell ringing down a long tunnel. In a case like this it could take weeks before anyone even stops to listen to it. But eventually it will be heard. Eventually the clapper on the bell feels like a hammer on the skull to some of those involved.”

Meng’s mouth twisted in a half frown. “Do you always speak in riddles?”

“The truth will come back to haunt you. No matter what public label is put on it, those in Beijing will eventually realize this could not have been an act of political resistance. It was too clumsy, too inconspicuous, too simple.”

“These are simple people.”

“They are simple. Not simpletons. Arresting a few random agitators may feel good today but eventually those in Beijing will see it has caused a bigger problem. There’s a new term used by the Party, civil unrest with physical manifestations. The kind of problem it takes a battalion of troops to solve. Colonel Tan runs this county. They will be his troops, led by him personally. Do you know him?”

“Tan the sledgehammer. He chews bullets for breakfast.”

“When he comes he won’t care if you’re Chinese or in a uniform. If you are in the way of his machine it will roll right over you.”

Meng studied Shan as if for the first time. “You speak like someone wise in the ways of Beijing.”

“I spent twenty-five years beside those who define those ways.”

The announcement seemed to worry Meng. “Everything I do is consistent with guidance from Beijing,” she quickly explained.

“Guidance from Beijing is kept intentionally vague. That way when some remote cadre makes that excuse she can be blamed for misinterpreting it, even abusing it.” He glanced at the distant mountains. Lokesh was up there. He had to keep Lokesh safe, had to keep Jamyang’s secret life safe. He gestured toward the market. “Of course, you can round these people up today. But that will just light the fuse. It will be weeks before the powder keg explodes, before the folly of it becomes apparent. Then more weeks of meetings, even secret hearings. I used to prepare scripts for such hearings. In the end it will be the field officer’s mistake. The senior local officer always should have known better.” Shan spoke in a slow, level voice. “You’re going to need political reeducation, Lieutenant Meng, at one of the big institutes back east. Living in a dormitory, reciting Party scripture for hours every day, sitting for more hours in criticism sessions, looking over your shoulder for the one who is going to make you the subject of the next session. You will be expected to volunteer for one of those patriotic brigades that wave banners in parades. Some cadres find it quite invigorating. Like taking an extended vacation with the Great Helmsman.”

She returned his steady gaze without expression then broke away to study the Tibetans once more. He was not sure he had scared her so much as piqued her curiosity.

“I need more,” she said at last. “I need a reason to talk to headquarters, a reason to change their orders.”

Shan nodded toward the Tibetans. “The market is where the truth gets told. You are doing your job, always sifting for local intelligence. You picked up a rumor. People know about the dead woman.”

“Know what? Whoever she is, she has been abandoned. No one has reported her missing. No one has asked about the body.”

Shan stared at her a moment. “No one told you? She was a nun.”

Meng’s hand crushed the bag of seeds. Her face clouded.

“Explain that it changes the entire interpretation of the crime scene,” Shan said. “The flag, the boots pressing down on the woman, the cap covering her short hair was all a pose for police photographers, a ruse of the killer to point suspicion at a dissident. You realize that now because no dissident kills a nun.”

After a long moment she rose and took several steps before lifting the small radio on her belt. The truck of armed police, still waiting in the street, drove away. The men in plainclothes began retreating back toward the grey vehicles.

The lieutenant watched the police drive away before turning back to Shan. “Fine. I have done what you asked. It’s going to cost me several unpleasant hours back at headquarters.”

Shan heard her expectant tone and cocked his head. “Is this a negotiation, Lieutenant?”

“Of course it is,” she shot back. “North. South. West. I need the fourth to go with the others. I’ve heard the prayer horns that mock us from the heights. They sounded again the night after the murders.”

“Now you are speaking riddles.”

“You’re going to tell me about that lama who slinks around the hills like some damned outlaw.”

When Shan did not respond, Meng turned and pointed down the dusty street, toward the center of the town. They walked in silence, past another gas station, past a post office in a prefabricated building, then into the small structure that appeared to be Baiyun’s main food store. One of the Tibetan constables sat by the front door. A matronly clerk at the counter saw them and fled into a rear corridor.

Meng led Shan into the same corridor, into the back storeroom. A door leading outside hung ajar. The clerk had not only fled from the counter, she had fled the building. Meng stepped to the closetlike meat locker, opened the heavy metal door, and gestured Shan inside.

The freshest meat lay outstretched on three long tables, with frozen chickens tossed in a pile at the rear of the metal-lined chamber. Two tables were against the walls and the third so filled the center of the locker that Shan barely had room to squeeze between the tables. The bodies were covered with sheets. Adhesive tape around their thumbs identified them only according to their positions at the crime scene. Bei. Nan. Xi. North. South. West.

“These should be in a forensics lab,” he said uneasily.