Eliot Pattison - Mandarin Gate

“You saw him! He attacked an officer!” Liang screeched, kicking Shan now.

To Shan’s horror he saw the grey uniforms of the men who had grabbed him. They were not the Tibetan constables who were supposed to have witnessed his performance. They were knobs. Liang had found soldiers to help him after all. They had kept Meng and the constables outside. No one had heard. No one had seen anything. His desperate plan had failed. He had given up his freedom for nothing.

Shan shut his eyes against the pain in his gut as he was thrown into the backseat of a car. He lay on the seat, his head reeling, trying to catch his breath after having the wind knocked out of him, trying to think only of the next moment and the next, anything to keep his mind off the cell that waited, the prison far away. In another day he would be hundreds of miles from Ko.

Moments before it stopped he realized the car was driving on gravel, not the paved highway. It was a constable who pulled him out of the car, and another who turned it around. Suddenly his hands were released. The Tibetan constable wiped at the blood on his face. “Lha gyal lo,” he whispered to Shan, then tossed something to his feet.

“What are you doing?” Shan shouted in confusion as they drove away. He was standing at the gate to the Jade Crow compound. Jamyang’s gun lay at his feet.

Lung Tso leaned against a post, smoking a cigarette, as if waiting for him. As Shan took a staggering step toward him another car drove up.

Meng was alone. “I told you Liang had officially departed,” she explained. “But I left a message for him at headquarters that they relayed to his car. I said Colonel Tan was looking for him, had questions about something called the Peace Institute. He didn’t dare take any more official action here, in Tan’s county, for fear of compromising what goes on in Chamdo.”

“You lied to him.” As his pain subsided he began to grasp the cleverness of her ploy. Liang knew Tan as the powerful bully who hated Public Security, but he was also experienced enough to know how furious an old veteran like Tan would be to learn of covert operations inside his territory that had been kept hidden from him.

“Words are such hollow things,” Meng reminded him. “He knew he never should have come here today. Like you said, it was too big a risk to his mission, too big a risk to him personally. He has to disappear. He’s gone. He is convinced his work is done, that his agent will take the American woman. That was enough for him, that and being able to rough you up.”

“But the soldiers…”

“You were wrong, Shan. He never would have spoken openly in front of Tibetan constables. Those soldiers were here to help me with traffic duties, because of the convoys. They had no idea what was going on.” Meng gestured to Lung and with a short bow of her head left him with the gang leader.

Lung Tso stomped out his cigarette as Meng drove away. “The girl won’t go any farther, says she won’t go near a monk without you.”

Shan followed Lung’s gaze toward the entry of the house, where Cora Michener stood with Ani Ama, watching him with a frightened expression. He had no words to comfort her. The only way for her to escape was for Shan to take her to the one man left in the county who wanted her dead.

Lung Tso eased the truck to a stop behind the long rock formation that flanked the highway, below a knoll that was surrounded by boulders on all sides like a natural fortress. A strange mist was building on the valley floor, its fingers reaching up into the rocks. At the top a monk appeared and gestured for them to join him. When Cora saw the man in the robe she shrank back, gripping Shan’s arm tightly as he led her forward.

Dakpo moved slowly. Although he was clearly still in pain, his serene expression had returned. He stepped into the evening light so that Cora could see his face.

The American cautiously studied him, then relaxed her grip as Dakpo stepped aside, pointing them down a short passage between the rocks. Trinle was in the clearing they entered but Cora stepped ahead of Shan as she saw Chenmo at his side, helping him tie off the top of a large backpack. As Cora and the novice embraced, a third man in a robe emerged from behind a rock.

As Cora looked up from her friend’s shoulder, a startled gasp left her throat. She began backing away, the color draining from her face.

“Cora, no!” Chenmo said to her friend. “Norbu, Norbu. The abbot!”

The lama snapped out an order for the monks to return to the gompa, then as they disappeared into the shadows he turned to Shan and sighed. “She was supposed to come alone,” he said in Chinese. He cast a puzzled glance at Dakpo as the monk disappeared into the rocks. “Dakpo was supposed to intercept her and leave her alone with me so I could console her.”

The American backed into one of the rock walls that enclosed the clearing, her face clenched in fear.

Shan replied in Tibetan. “She saw the monk who killed the three at the convent. But she couldn’t describe him in detail. She said she would recognize him if she ever saw him again.” Chenmo gasped and moved to Cora’s side.

Norbu sighed. “It’s not exactly courtroom testimony.”

“I was never expecting a courtroom,” Shan said. He inched forward, trying to get between Cora and the abbot.

“It could make for an awkward journey,” Norbu said conversationally.

He glanced at Jamyang’s pistol, now tucked into Shan’s belt, then back at Cora. Shan watched his hands move toward his own belt. A pen case hung there, and one of the bronze fire strikers issued to Peace Institute graduates. Not any fire striker, Shan knew, but the one that had killed the Lung boy.

“Major Liang had you in custody,” the abbot said with a peevish expression. “That makes you a fugitive.”

“The only one who could have told you that was the major himself,” Shan observed. “I do recall seeing him send a message. A secret message from a handler of undercover agents.”

Shan’s words brought a groan of despair from Chenmo. She tried to shield Cora with her body.

Suddenly there was movement at the back of the small clearing. Meng stepped into the light, the two Tibetan constables at her side. The lieutenant had a scrubbed, well-polished look about her. Her cap was cleaned, her uniform freshly pressed, her hair pinned back in a severe knot. She had become the knob Shan had first met at the convent.

Shan stared at her in disbelief. She would ruin everything. Purbas were nearby, probably approaching this very moment, ready for their passenger to India. They would flee at the first sight of her, taking Cora’s only hope of escape with them, leaving the killer in a desperate rage that he would turn against those left in the clearing. Shan tried to get her attention, to warn her away, but she would not acknowledge him.

Norbu too gazed at her in confusion for a moment, but quickly recovered. “Lieutenant Meng!” he greeted her. “For once you are a welcome sight.” He pointed at Shan. “This man is a fugitive criminal. He must have escaped from Major Liang.”

“Major Liang,” Meng explained, “has departed the region, back to his Peace Institute.” Norbu shot a chastising glance at Meng, then moved with surprising agility, feigning a move toward Meng before lunging at Shan and grabbing the pistol from his belt. “Lieutenant Meng,” Norbu said, speaking like a senior officer now, “you must take these two”-he gestured to Shan and Chenmo-“into custody. Contact Major Liang. Secure accommodations must be arranged for them. One of those institutions for the criminally insane would do nicely.”

Chenmo began a low, fearful mantra.

Meng dutifully stepped around Norbu and pulled the dazed novice from Cora, back to one of the constables. Shan stood frozen as he realized that Meng indeed was just a knob again. He had seen her changing, had seen her struggling with something inside. She had scared herself with her lies to Liang, had recognized the dangerous ground she had been treading and was retreating, making her amends to the government.