Eliot Pattison - Bone Mountain

Shan let himself be pulled by Winslow as he watched numbly. Lokesh and Tenzin were being photographed again, standing by the white trucks, wearing leg manacles now, their hands unfettered. For appearances, for the photographs, because the howlers would not want to show the abbot in chains. Shan stared, still perplexed, and did not protest when Winslow pushed him into the bay of a cargo truck and followed him over the tailgate. Shan hardly noticed when the truck began to move. He opened his mouth to call out for Lokesh but his tongue was too dry to speak. The truck passed quickly through the gap in the low saddle of land and the camp was gone.

Shan gazed out the rear of the truck for a long time, half expecting to see the white trucks speeding behind them. Lokesh and Tenzin would go to a Public Security lockup, which would most likely be in the nearest large town. He pulled out the map he had taken from Jenkins's conference room. Wenquan, or maybe Yanshiping. He would get out of the truck at whatever town they passed through. But maybe the soldiers would take their prisoners south, directly to Lhasa. In which case he should jump out at the first crossroads. And do what? Throw stones when the soldiers raced by?

"Best thing we can do is get some sleep," Winslow said as the truck began a steep descent through the long narrow gorge that led out of the mountains.

"Sleep?" Shan asked in confusion.

Winslow gestured at the map in his hand. "It'll be late by the time we arrive. At least seven hours' drive, if the roads are clear."

Shan looked about the cargo bay. It was mostly empty, a few cardboard cartons were stacked against the cab and secured with twine to the slats of the bay. There were ropes and a pile of what appeared to be dirty coveralls, and several empty shipping pallets with the oil company's name stenciled on them.

"Golmud?" he asked in disbelief.

Winslow nodded. "Venture headquarters. Center of operations. Where we can find out about Zhu's crew. Where Jenkins said somebody accessed Larkin's electronic mail account."

"When?"

"Two weeks ago."

"But that was before she died," Shan said in confusion.

"Right. Except she was supposed to be in the mountains on field work at the time. Someone used her pass code at Golmud two weeks ago."

Shan stared at the American and shook his head. "I can't," he protested, and put his hand on the side of the truck to lift himself up. "Lokesh-"

"Lokesh will get little help from you if you are arrested," a woman's voice interjected.

Shan and Winslow both spun about to see a shape rising out of the pile of clothing. Shan stared at the lean, sinewy woman, the only person in the oil camp who had known Lokesh.

"This is Somo," he heard himself say to the American.

"You know her?" Winslow asked in a skeptical tone.

"We met once. We have mutual friends. You saw her, too, handing us jackets and hats."

Winslow nodded with a grin at the purba. "We owe you for that," he said, then looked back at Shan. "So you're saying she's a-"

"A friend."

Winslow nodded again.

Somo stepped forward and sat beside Shan. "We will find out where he is taken. I know he was in lao gai for many years. He will know how to survive."

"Not if they consider him one of those who helped Tenzin hide. The abbot of Sangchi," he said, trying to get used to the thought of the lanky silent man, the gatherer of yak dung, as one of the most prominent lamas in all Tibet.

"Why would you go to Golmud?" Shan asked her.

"I am on the rolls of the venture as an administrative assistant. I have been reassigned," she said with a narrow smile, eyeing the American uneasily.

"Winslow has helped us," Shan said, and explained how the American had stopped Colonel Lin from arresting them earlier.

The woman nodded slowly, as if she had realized Shan was inviting her to share her secrets. "I asked for the reassignment. It was part of the plan. I am supposed to… I was supposed to get access to the central computer at the base camp to create a personnel file that showed Tenzin to be a worker in the venture. Then arrange for him to be assigned to a camp in the far north, near Mongolia. From there it would have been simple to get him out. Mongolia, then Russia, then Europe and America. He was supposed to meet important people in the West who can help Tibet."

"But the government was looking on the Indian border," Shan said, and fixed the woman with a pointed stare. "It's where Drakte went, isn't it, during those weeks after he took us to the hermitage. He disappeared. He went south to lay a false trail."

Somo looked into her hands a moment, biting her lip as though Shan's words caused her pain. "The one who planned all this, our leader, he said Drakte was the best for such a job. Drakte went to towns in the south with stories of seeing the abbot on the road at night, always farther south. He even had things of the abbot's, and said Tenzin had traded them for food. So the knobs would find a trail of evidence."

"What kind of things?" Shan asked.

"Personal things, objects which anyone investigating would know belonged to him: A pen case. An old book given to the abbot by his mother. A prayer amulet he had been photographed wearing. Tenzin was told nothing from his former life could stay with him, for even though we might disguise him, its possession would betray him."

Shan fingered the ivory rosary in his pocket. Had Drakte kept one thing, perhaps the most precious thing, to return to Tenzin when he left China?

"Then we changed Tenzin," Somo continued. "The way he walked. We had his hair grow long. We taught him mannerisms of the dropka."

"Should have been foolproof," Winslow said.

"Should have," Somo agreed. "But someone found out. Perhaps someone saw him who we didn't think would recognize him. We thought all the searchers would be in the south. We thought he would be safe at that hermitage, and on the caravan."

"Who?" Shan asked. "Who would have seen him in Lhasa, then again while he was fleeing in the changtang? When did he leave Lhasa? Was there a meeting, a conference where someone from the north would have seen him?"

"That Serenity Campaign. There was a big meeting to launch it. The abbot of Sangchi gave a speech, and two days later he disappeared, before the conference had even concluded."

"Colonel Lin," Winslow suggested. "He came to Yapchi, from Lhasa."

Somo gave her head a slight shake, and frowned. "Most of his troops are in the south still, watching out for purbas taking Tenzin across the border. As if Lin wanted to keep our sham alive. He must have come north because of that stone, because he knew it would be returned to the valley. Because he is obsessed with that stone perhaps."

"No," Shan said. "Not because of the stone. No matter what the Tibetans may think of the chenyi deity, to Lin it is only a stone. Drakte took the stone," Shan said, looking at Somo again. "And he had someone else with him." He unfolded the photograph he had taken from Lin's pocket. "This is why Lin was so interested in the stone- because it would lead him to Tenzin."

Somo stared at him with a hard glint, not of surprise, but of assessment, as if trying to decide how many more secrets she dare divulge. "All right. Tenzin took something, something secret about the soldiers, about the 54th Mountain Combat soldiers. Military intelligence."

"Tenzin?" Shan asked. "He's no spy."

"No," Somo agreed. "I don't know what it was. I don't think they planned it, from the way Drakte talked about it. He was angry at Tenzin for increasing the danger to them. Probably Tenzin wanted to help the purbas with something, because the purbas were making possible his escape."

But to Lin, Shan knew, it would still mean the abbot was a spy. It made it personal. Tenzin had shamed Lin, or even worse, might have information that could harm the entire army. "Lin's trying to cover himself," Shan said, the thought reaching his tongue as it crossed his mind. "He never told his superiors. He's trying to recover the missing papers before the damage is done. If the army command suspected military secrets were in the hands of the fugitive abbot, they would be scouring the countryside, erecting roadblocks everywhere."