Eliot Pattison - Prayer of the Dragon

But it wasn’t about Abigail, not for Gao. It was about Thomas, and the utter failure of a man who, in all his esteemed career, had never known failure.

“I don’t know what you expect, Gao.”

“My expectations,” Gao sighed, “have meant very little lately.” He pointed to the demon, and a chalk drawing of a thunder snake beside it. “Explain this.”

Before Shan could do so, a low, steady voice rose from behind them. Hostene and Yangke had joined them. “The world begins with thunder,” Hostene said. “The early Tibetans said so. The Navajo said so. Abigail came to confirm this with the deity that lives inside the mountain.” Gao cast a worried glance at Shan. Hostene was beginning to sound like a lama.

Gao turned to the Navajo. “The altitude is affecting your brain, Hostene. I brought medicine for that.” Then he faced the painting. “And where exactly does this earth deity live?” He seemed to fear the answer.

“In the paradise at the top of the mountain,” interjected Yangke.

Gao looked up, not toward the summit but to the east, as if wondering if he might summon his helicopter back. Shan set off up the trail.

As they walked, Gao quizzed Shan relentlessly about his experiences on the mountain, making him repeat the puzzles they had encountered before he heard their solutions, then falling silent as Shan told him about Bing’s death.

“Did he know my nephew?”

“He did.”

Gao nodded. “Thomas would not have been drawn into a trap by a total stranger.”

“Your nephew knew more people on the mountain than you might think.”

“I keep reminding myself,” Gao observed in a brittle voice, “that I live a fairy-tale life in a make-believe castle, unconnected to the world.”

“When I said that,” Shan offered, “I did not intend to hurt you.”

“You are an escaped prisoner with a meaningless life,” Gao replied in a hollow tone. “How could you hurt me?”

“I meant-”

Gao interrupted with a raised hand. “No more.”

“No more of that,” Shan agreed. “But now I have a question for you. Did you bring your satellite phone?”

As Hostene and Yangke ate some of the grain bars Gao produced from his pack, Shan and Gao sat on a rock and tried the number for Heinz Kohler. Gao held the earpiece so Shan could hear. An automated reply reported that the receiving phone was switched off.

“Where does Heinz stay when he goes to Lhasa?”

“Always with an old colleague who retired there. They discuss new reports in the scientific journals.”

“Do you have that number?”

“Our satellite phones have always been sufficient.”

“Except today. Call your office in Tashtul,” Shan said. “Your office manager probably has some way to contact him in emergencies.”

Gao frowned, then pressed a number on the phone’s memory and handed it to Shan. The conversation was short. Kohler’s emergency number was that of the most expensive hotel in Lhasa.

“Mr. Kohler has gone to the border on business,” came the soft female voice at the hotel’s reception desk.

“Did he leave a forwarding number?” Shan asked.

“He will be back in a few days,” the woman said. “Is there a message?”

“How often does Heinz go to Lhasa?” Shan asked Gao.

“Once every month in the warm weather. There are always details of shipments to be arranged.”

“That night in Tashtul when you said Heinz knew about Public Security,” Shan asked, “what did you mean?”

Gao stood and fidgeted with the zipper on his jacket. “We always referred to it as his vacation. It was nothing really. A misunderstanding. He was pronounced rehabilitated, the record wiped clean.” Gao began walking up the trail.

Shan followed. “You mean he had been in a Public Security prison.”

“Half the great men in Beijing have had such episodes. A rite of passage.” Gao stopped. “A foreigner like that, trying to succeed in Beijing, surpassing nearly all his colleagues. What do you expect? Jealousy was inevitable.”

“I need to borrow your phone,” Shan declared.

“Impossible. It holds many secret numbers.”

“Just one call, to the colonel who runs Lhadrung County. You can sit beside me. And I need the name of the scientist you said Heinz stays with.”

Gao did not reply, did not even look in Shan’s direction, as he reached into his pocket and handed Shan the phone before stepping to the edge of a nearby ledge.

Shan was gripped by the cold fear he always felt when he heard the voice on the other end of the line. They weren’t friends, they weren’t allies, merely two men who had been chewed up and spit out by Beijing. After a difficult opening, during which the colonel threatened to hang up, then warned Shan that his photo was being distributed by one of the most rabid Public Security officers in all of Tibet, it took less than five minutes to explain what he desired and another five minutes before a much friendlier, female voice returned with the information he had sought. The colonel’s matronly assistant relayed the requested information, then recited the phone number twice. Shan gestured for a pen and wrote it on a slip of paper. “Have a wonderful day,” she called out as he disconnected.

He went to Gao’s side and held the phone as Gao had before, so both could hear. Shan asked for Heinz Kohler. “Mr. Kohler has gone to the border on business. He will be back in a few days. Is there a message?” They were not only the same words but it was the same young female voice they had heard on their first call to Lhasa.

“I don’t understand,” Gao said after Shan had hung up.

“I asked about his scientific colleague. Then I asked if there was a private, confidential listing for a Heinz Kohler residence in Lhasa. His old colleague moved to a retirement home on the southern coast over a year ago. The number the colonel gave me was the private line of the Kohler apartment in Lhasa. Only nothing is private to a man like the colonel. Heinz has an apartment at the top of the hotel. The woman who spoke to you wasn’t working for the hotel, she has an arrangement with the switchboard. She’s living in Kohler’s apartment.”

Gao snatched the phone from Shan’s hand and without a word marched up the trail, which was turning into a wide causeway leading to another tunnel near the top of a high cliff.

Shan followed at a distance, recalling the words of the old groundskeeper, Trinle. The mountain sought people out. It was true. Here before him was the mystery of the murders, the mystery of Abigail Natay, the mystery of the lost gold, the mystery of Gao. The mountain had already dealt with the mystery of Bing. Shan looked up at the summit, surrounded by patches of snow. They were nearing the end of the climb. Somewhere between where he stood and the top, all mysteries would end.

The station at the top of the windblown section of trail might have been constructed as a classroom for Abigail. The walls of the high rectangular cavern, sealed at the far end, were smooth, covered with paintings, though only along the top of the walls, ending nearly eight feet above the ground. Below the paintings were more of Abigail’s own drawings, though not only Abigail’s. At least one other hand, which had written nearly illegible passages in Tibetan, was evident. Halfway down the cavern a rope hung from the ceiling. Yangke pulled it, producing the pleasing peal of a heavy bell chime.

“It’s a dead end,” Hostene declared. “A deception. We missed a hidden turnoff.” But he seemed in no hurry to leave as he paced along the walls, perplexed. Had his niece also been deceived?

Oddly, Abigail’s chalk marks looked faded, as if they had been there for years. As Yangke began reading the Tibetan words out loud, Shan fought mounting unease. Several cavities punctuated the upper walls, some like small bowls, others holes without visible ends. Light filtered through a perfect circle chiseled at the top of the rear wall, which displayed no paintings. Below it was a dark shelf, an opening that ran the width of the cave, nearly two feet high. Shan pointed to a chalk mark he had never seen before, a circle divided by a horizontal line through the center, vertical lines running down from the center line to the edges.