Eliot Pattison - Mandarin Gate

He lost track of how long he stared at the shadow figure. Moonlight moved across the floor. The Tibetan prisoner murmured on, his mantra sometimes coming out in sobs. Shan wasn’t staring at another knob, he was staring at a wraith, at the dark soulless phantom that was his government.

He was so fatigued, so caught in the spell, that he gasped when he suddenly realized the wraith had risen and was moving toward him. The light was so dim its face was unclear until it stopped in front of him. It was no wraith, it was Lieutenant Meng, a pale and brittle Meng in a starched uniform with her hair tightly tied behind her head.

Meng opened her mouth but her tongue found no words. Shan pulled the folded letter from his pocket and shoved it through the bars. She hesitated, as if scared of the paper, then with a quick motion grabbed it and stuffed it inside her tunic. She did not look at him, but spun about and marched back to the table, where she made a show of opening the drawer and pulling out another paper. She crushed his letter, threw the wad into the trash can, and then walked back, tossing the new paper into his cell before leaving. Another prisoner assignment form.

Shan stared in confusion as Meng disappeared into the compound. He sighed, then turned back to sit on the cot. After a long time he rose, picked up the piece of chalk and whispered to the Tibetan.

He was asleep on the cot when the surprised shout of a guard awakened him. Early morning light filtered through the window. The Tibetan still sat on the floor, though he was singing a quiet song now. The guard ran out of the building and returned moments later with two more guards. All three men began shouting angrily, pointing at Shan, then the Tibetan, then the little creatures placed around their cells and the circle on the Tibetan’s floor. Using Shan’s chalk and his careful instructions, the Tibetan had created a mandala around the round drain plate in the floor. Using the entire pad of paper meant for his confession Shan had created origami birds. Small flocks roosted on the windowsills of the two cells, others were scattered around the cells. One guard ran back to the doorway, to warn his comrades of any approaching officer as the others opened the cell doors, cursing the two grinning prisoners as they quickly gathered up the birds and scuffed away the prayer circle with their boots.

With angry taps of their batons they pushed Shan against a wall, then fastened manacles to his feet before dragging him to the interrogation table. They disappeared and returned with a tepid cup of tea, which he slowly sipped. He made a show of stretching, ignoring his watchers to better survey the area around the table. His gaze lingered on the chair where Meng had sat for so long, watching him, then he scanned the walls and ceiling.

The small black instrument blended into the shadows of the corner where walls and ceiling met. A camera. Meng had sat in the only chair that was invisible to the camera that monitored the room, had kept her back to it and her head bent so she would not have been identified when she had stepped to his cell.

He drained the cup, then clutched his stomach and convulsed, spitting up the brown liquid, looking about desperately before leaping toward the trash basket to spit up more. One of the guards laughed, the other barked a curse and stepped away from Shan. As he leaned into the basket he grabbed the wad of paper at the bottom and stuffed it down his shirt.

A moment later the door opened and Liang marched in. The guards darted to Shan and heaved him back into the chair. As Liang silently stepped behind him, his neck exploded in pain. Shan’s body was wracked in a convulsion that slammed his back into the metal chair, leaving him gasping.

“Excellent,” Liang declared as he paused at the opposite side of the table. “I have your attention.” In his hand was a small electronic taser device. The knobs had once preferred electronic cattle prods. They were keeping up with technical advances.

A guard dropped one of Shan’s little paper cranes in front of Liang. The major sighed. He picked up the crane, then carefully tore its wings and head off. A cool grin grew on his face as he tossed the remains of the bird at Shan, then made a show of increasing the intensity of the taser.

“You got yourself thrown into that reeducation camp to see someone,” Liang stated. “I think it was some of those nuns who knew the dead abbess. What do they know of the murders? Tell me now and we can be more gentle with them.”

Shan spoke first in Tibetan, watching the anger build in Liang’s face, then translated into Chinese. “Nuns are the messengers of the gods. Be careful what you ask them.”

Liang lifted the taser and paced along the table again. “In India I hear there used to be huge, unnaturally strong men who were kept by the rajas to conduct torture. They could twist a man’s head off. I read once how they would drive a spike into a man’s skull with their bare fists.” He lifted the little electronic box in his hand. “When I trained for this device,” he explained with a mock fascination in this voice, “they said it sent a spike of lightning into the flesh, said to be sure to only use it on muscle tissue.” Shan gripped the arms of the chair as Liang moved back around the table. “But I’ve always wondered if the skull could block lightning.”

The pain was like none Shan had ever known. His back arced, his eyes saw nothing but explosions of light. His body moved involuntarily, convulsing, slamming against the chair, then slamming his head against the table, pounding the table again and again. Tea and stomach acid dribbled down his chin. Liang laughed and pressed the instrument into his scalp again. The spike was in Shan’s brain, driving deeper and deeper.

Shan was surely dying. Surely no one could feel such pain and live. His hands on the arms of the chair jerked up and down. His skull was going to explode. The white-hot fire in his head ebbed and flared, ebbed and flared, as if someone kept blowing on its coals. His head slumped onto his chest. He was aware of nothing but the roar of his pain.

He jerked upright, moaning, as cold water was poured over him.

“We will talk about those nuns,” Liang growled.

Shan’s eyes had difficulty focusing. He made out Liang’s hand, adjusting the taser again. He thought of his son, and of Lokesh. This was the end. He was always going to die at the hands of some knob, he had just not known when.

“Anyone who aids that American bitch is a traitor to the motherland!” Liang snarled. “Anyone who-” His words choked away as the door was wrenched open.

A tall thin man with a hatchet face appeared, wearing the field uniform of a senior army officer, flanked by two rock-hard men in the fatigues of mountain commandos. The tall man grabbed the taser and threw it against the wall so hard it shattered.

As a guard moved to protect Liang, the officer gestured and one of his escorts flattened the man with a short, swift chop.

“My name is Colonel Tan,” the officer announced. “I am governor of Lhadrung County.” His voice was the low growl of a predator ready to spring.

Liang’s mouth moved but no one words came out.

Tan pointed to Shan. “That man is mine!”

Tan ordered their car to stop when they crested the ridge that meant they were back in Lhadrung County. He gestured Shan out, then ordered his men to stay with the vehicle as they walked to a ledge that overlooked the valley.

Tan said nothing until he had lit a cigarette. “You’re a fucking mess. What did he do to you?”

Shan couldn’t stop the tremors in his hand. He stared at it a moment, then gripped it tightly with his other hand. “An experiment. He called it driving lightning into my skull.”