Eliot Pattison - Beautiful Ghosts

“But that robe, the old decree.”

“They were real, planted to lend authenticity.”

“You’re saying Ming faked his discovery.”

“No, someone else, to trick Ming. You know Ming lied about finding a letter suggesting the emperor’s fresco had been taken to Lhadrung, to have an official excuse to come here. Now someone is lying to him. There were no complete skeletons there. Many people know where old skulls and bones can be found. I had seen the robe in the hills.” Even as the words came out Shan was not certain whether he was offering himself, or many others, up for sacrifice. There were parts of Yao he had grown to grudgingly trust, other parts he would never trust.

“The robe-why would anyone give up anything so precious, just to fool Ming? And surely whoever it was would have wanted him to think the amban’s grave was in the north.”

“They still do. But they are desperate now. All they can do is distract him here, because here is where they are. They gave him political treasure today, enough to distract him for a few days. Soon enough he will realize it was faked for his benefit. He will keep to the official story, because it is so politically convenient. But what he wants most of all is the amban’s treasure. He thinks his competitors do not know about the Tibetans uncovering the Mountain Buddha in the hills, so he can take that at his leisure, that was why he wanted to hire me, to slowly reap the fortunes lying in shrines here. But he is desperate for the records that will tell him where the amban’s treasure can be found. When he realizes the tomb was faked, he will decide it was because his competitors are close to victory, that they have confirmed the treasure is in the north, and wanted to keep him in Lhadrung.”

Yao nodded agreement. “He will conclude that Khan and Lu would never give up something so valuable as that robe unless they were confident that they had something much more valuable.”

“That will be his biggest mistake,” Shan said, “thinking that it was Khan and Lu. He would never consider that Tibetans could devise such a trick. And all they wanted was to keep Ming in the valley, to protect something more valuable than the robe.”

“His workers are going into the mountains.”

“They know nothing of his true purpose, only that they must call Ming if they find anything. They are no threat to his plans.”

“He won’t stop,” Yao stated. “Not until he finds the records that tell him where in the north the amban’s treasure was left.”

“Which means you’re investigating the wrong crime.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ll never get to the truth about the emperor’s fresco and Dolan’s stolen art until we unlock the mystery of the amban’s death. That is why we’re not going to the cave Ming assigned us to,” Shan said. “The emperor has told us where we need to be, even Ming has shown us where we need to be.”

“What do you mean?”

Shan pulled out the map he had taken from Ming’s car. “It marks the destinations of each team,” he explained, pointing to circles drawn in the remote ranges, a double circle around each of the suspected pilgrim shrines which were the targets of the new search teams. “Ming has concluded that Lodi was killed at Zhoka for a reason. He will go back eventually, when he thinks it safe. But the imperial decree at the tomb today was also a decoy. Whoever wrote the words at the bottom was trying to push the search to Zetrul Puk.” He pointed to a location twenty miles north of Zhoka. “Of all the search targets, that is the most distant from Zhoka. Whoever created that tomb wanted Ming as far from Zhoka as possible, wanted to buy some time.”

“The ones who killed Lodi must still be there,” Yao said after a moment, “hidden underground. Corbett will eventually understand that as well and return to the ruins. But how can we go there, with all of them?” Yao asked with a gesture toward the column of figures ahead of them. “They have radios. If we leave they will tell Ming.”

“One of us is going to fall, and twist an ankle. Here,” Shan said, indicating a place where a path to the south crossed their trail. “About an hour from now. The other will stay to help while we send the party on. I can find the way to the gompa.”

“Not much of a plan,” Yao said, then shrugged. “I have weak ankles,” he offered quietly.

But a quarter hour later the soldier in the front of the column halted and raised a hand in warning. A figure was frantically running down the trail above them, stumbling one moment, leaping over rocks the next, pausing to look behind him then lurching forward at a desperate pace. One of the herders, Shan assumed, it must be one of the hill people trying to avoid the soldiers. The soldier at the front of their column studied the solitary figure with binoculars, cursed, then motioned them into the rocks by the trail.

Shan hid with the others for nearly a minute then ventured a look. The figure, nearly upon them now, wore a black wool cap pulled low over his head and a dirty green army jacket. He was fifty feet from Shan when the soldier leapt out of the rocks and slapped the stock of his rifle against the man’s lowered head. As the figure swayed and crumpled to the ground, the cap dropped from his head. It was Ko.

Shan was not aware of leaping forward, of scrambling over the loose rocks on the trail, only of being at the boy’s side, cradling his head, dabbing at the blood where the rifle had struck.

“Damned escapee,” the soldier growled, and reached for his radio.

Ko’s eyes fluttered open. They looked about wildly, unfocused, then settled on Shan a moment. He seemed to recognize Shan, and pushed away Shan’s hand with a look of revulsion.

“You’re bleeding,” Shan said in a tight voice.

Ko’s lips curled into his familiar sneer. He pushed himself up on his elbows and crawled away, then started to rise. The soldier gave an exaggerated sigh and thrust a boot onto Ko’s leg, pinning him to the ground as he lifted his radio.

Shan stared numbly at his son, his fingers reaching out toward Ko, then retracting, the boy glaring at him hatefully, as if Shan had been the one who had hit him.

“You don’t know anything,” Ko snarled at Shan.

Shan became aware of voices arguing and looked up to find Yao pushing the soldier’s radio down. “Not what you think,” Yao was saying. “No need to overreact.”

“He’s a criminal,” the soldier growled. “One of those trusties, escaping from his team. A little too much trust. Should never have used them. They’re like animals after a year or two behind wire. I could shoot him and no one would question it.”

Shan stood and stepped between the soldier and Ko. Yao glanced at Shan nervously. “He’s not from Lhadrung, not from the 404th,” Yao told the soldier. “He was brought here from Xinjiang just to help us. And he’s not escaping.”

Shan watched as Ko’s fingers wrapped around a sharp stone he seemed about to slam into the soldier’s shin.

“I asked him to meet us,” Yao announced. Ko stopped moving. “I lost my navigation unit and I asked him to bring me one from the stockpile.”

“We wouldn’t trust the likes of him with that kind of equipment,” the soldier grunted, shifting his eyes back and forth from Shan to Yao.

Yao pulled out the small leather folder with his identification card, and held it in one hand, flipping it open. “I did,” Yao said, and extended his other hand, palm open, toward Ko.

The rock slipped from Ko’s hand. He stared at Yao, jaw clenched, glancing at the rifle, then the hand reached inside his jacket, extracted a palm-size plastic instrument, and handed it to Yao.

The soldier seemed to deflate. He looked at the navigational device, then at the leather folder in Yao’s hand. “Yes sir,” he said, then pulled his boot from Ko and signaled the others to continue up the trail. “He’s your problem now, Comrade Inspector,” the soldier said in a resentful tone. “I’ll let the other team know. They’ll be glad to be rid of him. Criminals,” the man spat, staring not at Ko this time, but at Shan, then slung his rifle onto his shoulder and turned to follow the column.