The Lord of Death is-6

by Eliot Pattison

  Shan took another step forward as Jomo’s eyes began to smolder. “I remember when I was young. You retrieved us out of the gutter. You would bring things. Food. Blankets. And he always had money to run the tavern, even when he couldn’t pay you rent. I thought it was kindness.”

  Tsipon seemed to collect himself. He straightened his tie. “I was in a position to help him. You would begrudge a favor? As the senior Tibetan Party member in the county I had an obligation to help with his rehabilitation.”

  “The help never came from a cooperative or a collective or the county welfare office. It came from you. And every time you made a delivery there was a bottle of alcohol with it.”

  “He had great pain. A lot of past that needed to be erased.”

  Jomo gazed into the trunk, reached in to extract a tire iron before shutting it.

  “There’s work to do, Jomo,” Tsipon reminded him. “Drive me to the trial and come back for an inventory.”

  “People never talk about the members of the resistance. It’s as if they were old demons whose names are taboo. I remember paintings of those demons. My father kept some in a chest. All around the big demons were little demons. You were one of the little demons.”

  “Ridiculous. The rebels were criminals. Worse, traitors.”

  “You were from a shepherd family in the high ranges, where the pastures have been closed by the border patrols. But what you don’t know is that some of those shepherds moved their herds to valleys west of here, past old Tingri town. I drove over there yesterday, while you were at your new hotel. I asked the old ones there about you. I found an old woman who knew your family. They are all in India, like you have said. They all fled when the last rebels were destroyed. Except you stayed. You came to town. You were made the head of the agricultural collective. A teenager, as head of the collective. Who appointed you?”

  “You’re a fool. I don’t have time-”

  With a single powerful swing of the iron Jomo smashed the back window of the sedan. “Who appointed you?”

  Shan took another uneasy step toward the pool of light by the sedan. Jomo was drifting far from their agreed script.

  “I can have you back in the gutter by tonight!” Tsipon snapped.

  Jomo inched forward, heaved the iron again and smashed the rear passenger window. “Who appointed you?”

  Tsipon backed away toward the door he had come in, seemed about to flee when a long iron rod, one of the scraps Jomo kept for repairs, materialized out of the darkness, pressing against his belly.

  “I remember your family,” came a raspy voice. Gyalo stepped out of the shadows, using the piece of iron like a staff for support.

  The color drained from Tsipon’s face. “You were dead!” he gasped.

  Shan took another step forward, prepared to leap between Gyalo and Tsipon. Jomo had dropped Shan off at the municipal building, with instructions to meet at the infirmary, but he had obviously sensed Shan’s intentions, and taken a detour to the stable. Shan never would have expected Gyalo to have enough strength to reach the warehouse but Jomo’s words seemed to have given him new life.

  “Good, simple people,” the former lama continued, both hands grasping the iron rod. “They tended the wounded, gave us milk and meat when they had some to spare. They had boys, two adolescents and a teenage boy I recall, all of whom helped, even in bringing in the bodies of our dead to the hiding place below the glacier, where I helped prepare them for the next life.” The old Tibetan stood tall and straight. He seemed to have lost several years of age.

  “You were nothing but a beggar with a baby boy when I found you,” Tsipon continued, “both half dead of the cold. I gave you life.”

  Gyalo’s hoarse laugh ended in a hacking cough. “I was a business proposition for you. You needed a floor show, a clown to attract customers to your new tavern.”

  As Tsipon took another step toward the door the iron rod slammed against his leg, nearly knocking him off his feet. “There was only one person who wielded political power in this county when you were made head of the collective,” the former lama observed. “You were doing business even then, even as your own family was fleeing to be with the Dalai Lama. You gave Wu the resistance fighters and she gave you a prestigious appointment.”

  “I told you it was Ama Apte. She traded her village for-” Tsipon’s lie died away as Shan finally stepped out of the shadows.

  “It is possible,” Shan said, “that a man of your particular talents might have found a way to survive even when the people in this county finally learn who betrayed them that day. You could always find another lie, offer more jobs to quiet them down.”

  “Exactly,” Tsipon said, as if Shan was offering to mediate. “You understand these things, Shan, you’re from Beijing. Tell them. The Youth Brigade was always going to win. I had nothing. It was over. Why shouldn’t I try to salvage my life? Everyone had to pick up the pieces and move on.”

  “Everyone else helped their families and the monks,” Jomo pointed out. “You helped the Youth Brigade.”

  Tsipon glanced uncertainly at the mechanic, then turned to Shan as if for help.

  “For you it was always about business, like Gyalo said,” Shan said. “Back then, and the day Minister Wu died.”

  Tsipon inched toward the door. “All that is over with. They have their murderer. I’m a witness, you know. Interfering with a witness is a crime.”

  “What I couldn’t understand was how you knew Megan Ross was going to get into that car with the minister, that she was going to reveal her discovery that Minister Wu was also Commander Wu of the Hammer and Lightning Brigade if Wu did not stop her development plan. But then I realized Ross had told you about it herself. You had been with Tenzin and Ross one night at the base camp, and she had told you about her plan. She trusted you, because you had helped with her clandestine climbs. Except Ross didn’t know your own connection to the Hammer and Lightning Brigade, didn’t know that exposing Wu would most likely mean exposing you. And in any event you recognized that Ross was going to destroy all your own business plans. The international community would never deal with Minister Wu once word leaked out. She would be ruined as Minister of Tourism, she would have to resign. The Compact would have instant credibility. Not only would you lose your protector in Beijing, you would lose the expansion of your hotel, probably lose business because of decreased climbing expeditions.

  “Ross must have spoken to Wu at your hotel, maybe gave her a glimpse of one of the old photos that you had tried to keep out of the library, to convince Wu to let her ride up the mountain with her. But the minister didn’t get in the car right away, she ran up to her room. Because she had to get the gun she had borrowed the night before, to gibe her old lover Colonel Tan. She was going to kill Ross. But since you were there, she told you to do it.”

  “Me? Why would I be there?”

  “Because you had your own private business with Wu. You had to speak about her secret stake in your guesthouse, about how she was going to block applications for any other new hotels and grant you an exclusive license to supply the trekking parties.”

  “The high altitude has finally baked your brain, Shan.”

  “Megan Ross didn’t understand that everything you did was a negotiation. You didn’t help her because she was a pretty American, you did it because she could help you with your business. She moved money in and out of China for the expeditions she worked on. You asked her to leave some outside of China, in Hong Kong, in a special account. She mentioned it in her journal, the day before she died. She was going to look into the reason for your request. She might have already found out,” Shan ventured, “that the account was in the name of Minister Wu. It would have taken one phone call to Hong Kong.”

  “She never said anything to Wu-”

  “So you were there. She never had time to say anything because Wu had already decided she had to die, for exposing her role with the Red Guard. But you realized as soon as you pulled the trigger that by forcing you to
shoot the American Wu was making you a slave, not a partner. You knew difficult questions would be asked about an American who died in the minister’s presence. If the questioning grew too difficult she would have given you up as the killer, would have exposed you as the traitor to the Dalai Lama’s fighters.”

  Tsipon seemed to shrink. He looked at Shan as if he was the only one who could understand. “She always wanted more. First it was ten percent of my new hotel in exchange for the permit, then when she arrived at the hotel she demanded twenty percent of the expanded hotel. She was always the commander and everyone else a lowly soldier. I worked on that hotel for years. But that morning she called it her hotel.” Tsipon looked forlorn, though not beaten. He looked at his watch. “I’ll be missed. The trial is about to start.”

  “We’ve already started the trial, Tsipon.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “For the real murderer of Minister Wu, and the one who arranged the murder of Director Xie of Religious Affairs.”

  Tsipon took a quick step toward the door and grabbed a large wrench from the workbench, slamming it down on Gyalo’s restraining rod. He reached the door, flung it open and froze. Two Public Security soldiers stood in the entry.

  He looked back toward Shan, real worry entering his face. “What is your game, Shan? You have no authority.”

  Shan stepped to the light switch by the garage door and illuminated the bay. The color drained from Tsipon’s face as he saw the diminutive woman sitting in a chair by the rear wall.

  “I think you know Madame Zheng,” Shan observed. “Surely someone in the Party must have told you she is the presiding judge of the tribunal? Did you know she has been visiting your office in your absence, looking at your records?”

  Tsipon hesitated a moment, unable to disguise his fear now. “You have no evidence!” he snarled at Shan.

  “We have your own words explaining your motive.”

  “What I said was nothing!” Tsipon glanced uncertainly at Jomo. “Give me the keys! I’ll drive myself.”

  Jomo did not move.

  “Shooting Tenzin in the chest, like Ross,” Shan continued, “must have seemed like an inspired trick at the time. If you were to substitute the bodies, the new victim would have to be shot, since the soldiers had already reported two dead of bullet wounds. But you had thrown Tan’s gun away before you encountered the mule on the trail. The holes you left in Tenzin’s chest were huge, no match for any weapon Public Security was familiar with. Forty-five caliber, the Americans call those bullets, big enough to stop a horse. Or a mule. No one here would have such a weapon. It was an impossibility that Cao chose to ignore in order to make his case. But Megan Ross explained it all to me.”

  Tsipon grew pale. “She’s gone. You never spoke with her.”

  Shan reached into his pocket and produced the folded photo he had taken from Ross’ gau. “She had taken this with her to prove you were connected to Wu, as leverage to get both of you to listen and comply with her terms. She didn’t know she would be implicating her own murderer.” Shan held the photo up for Tsipon to see. The Tibetan reeled backward, as if losing his balance.

  Shan tossed the photo on the hood of the car. The People celebrate the final victory in Shogo, said the caption. Names were printed below. A much younger Tsipon was there, with Wu and two other officers. Each face was upturned as they fired into the sky. Each held a heavy pistol, a forty-five caliber, captured from the American stockpiles.

  “You can’t prove I was there with Wu!”

  Shan gestured into the shadows and the young patient from the infirmary emerged. “You thought all the soldiers involved that day had been reassigned, unreachable. But one was forgotten, because he was sent for medical treatment. The corporal was the driver of the bus, and bravely walked up to the murder scene despite his wounds. He saw much that day. It was negligent of you not to arrange his transfer too.”

  Shan had warned the soldier to keep quiet, to let Tsipon assume he could testify not only about Megan Ross being killed, but also that he had seen Tsipon at the scene.

  “And we mustn’t forget that account you set up for the minister.”

  “Speculation. You have no idea-”

  “You probably weren’t aware that there are special anticorrup-tion protocols with all the banks in Hong Kong. You should have chosen Singapore. Madame Zheng will have all the names on the accounts by tomorrow.”

  “That was business as usual for people like Wu,” Tsipon protested. “You know Beijing, everyone-.” Tsipon’s words died away as he looked at Madame Zheng, Beijing’s special emissary.

  There was movement behind Tsipon. The two soldiers were at his side now. One glanced at Madame Zheng, who nodded, then began fastening manacles around Tsipon’s wrists.

  “You killed them,” Shan said, “you killed them both and let me be dragged away to take the blame.”

  “You’re nothing but a gulag convict,” Tsipon muttered. “Worthless to society. They were always going to take you for something.”

  Strangely, Tsipon tested the manacles, stretching their short chain tight as if he did not think they could be real. His expression as he looked up at Shan wasn’t anger but stunned disbelief. “They can’t run the mountain without me,” he ventured in a hollow voice.

  “Negotiate, Tsipon,” Shan offered. “Keep negotiating. The government’s priority is to pursue every scent of corruption, especially when high levels are involved. A new murder trial would be messy since Americans would have to be brought into it now. Madame Zheng came here not for the murder, but for the corruption investigation against Minister Wu. Who knows? You may have a chance to escape a bullet if you cooperate on the corruption charge and give evidence against those truck drivers.”

  “Once every Tibetan in this county wanted her dead,” Tsipon said to the floor. “They would have stood in line to pull the trigger.”

  More officers appeared, guns at the ready, eyeing the Tibetans suspiciously. Madame Zheng snapped a command and they lowered their weapons, then surrounded Tsipon and turned him toward the door. “They can’t run the mountain without me,” he repeated in a bleak voice as he was led outside. They were the last words Shan heard him speak.

  Shan turned to speak with Madame Zheng, but she was gone. He found her in her limousine, the rear door open, waiting for him. “I need a report from you,” she declared after he climbed in and the car began to move. “The kind you would have written ten years ago.”

  “I was sent to the gulag for writing reports like that.”

  She looked him over. “There’s nothing more we can do to you.” For the first time Shan saw the trace of a grin on her face.

  “Cao will not like it.”

  “Major Cao will be returning to Lhasa within the hour.”

  Shan looked out the window and considered her request. “I need doctors, real doctors,” he declared. “I want one to be sent to Tumkot village, to care for a woman who was stabbed. I want another one sent to the yeti factory. I will give you the patient’s name. And the monks from Sarma gompa. I want them all released.”

  Madame Zheng extracted a small tablet and began to write.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The sun was edging over the mountains when Tan and Shan were met at the entry to the yeti factory by the facility’s senior officer on duty, a plump Chinese knob still displaying crumbs from his breakfast on his uniform.

  “We’re here for one of your inmates,” Tan announced.

  “I’ll need orders.”

  “His name is Shan Ko,” Tan stated impatiently.

  “That one?” the officer replied with a sneer. “He’s in isolation. I couldn’t release him even if I wanted to.”

  The man’s defiance was like a salve to Tan’s wounds. Shan watched as a familiar fire rekindled in the colonel’s eyes. For a moment Shan almost interjected himself, to save the officer the torment that he knew was to follow but the man cast him a dismissive, arrogant glance and Shan stepped back to gi
ve Tan full rein.

  Like a bird stretching a wing that had been broken, Tan lifted his arm and with a perverse zeal gestured the officer into a vacant office and closed the door. Shan could not hear many of the words they spoke, but the tones of the knob were unmistakable, shifting quickly from petulance to anger to fear. When Tan emerged from the room, the officer sat at a desk, muttering orders into a phone. He looked as though he had been hit by a truck.

  Five minutes later Ko was wheeled toward them on a hospital gurney, his cardboard box of possessions at his feet. With a stab of horror Shan saw that half his scalp had been shaven clean. Then a quick inspection showed no incisions had been made. His son’s eyes were shut, his breathing shallow, beads of sweat on his brow. Shan whispered his name and shook his shoulder, with no response.

  They stood alone in the entry, Tan’s fury having scattered even the security guards. After a moment the colonel gestured toward a sign that said PROCESSING and helped guide the gurney down the corridor. The admissions office adjoined a double glass door leading to the parking lot, where two ambulances sat, their drivers leaning against one, smoking.

  Tan found the only uniformed man in the office, a junior officer who seemed to be in charge. “I want an ambulance and driver, now. With a full gas tank.”

  “It’s not permitted to take the ambulance out of the county,” the knob protested, stepping into Tan’s path.

  “You’ll get it back when I am finished with it,” Tan growled, fixing the man with his icy stare. “I am Colonel Tan, military governor of Lhadrung County. Keep talking and I’ll take you back with me.”

  The man swallowed hard, glancing in confusion at Shan and the gurney, then let Tan pushed him aside.

  Minutes later they were on the highway, heading east, Tan in the front passenger seat, Shan on a metal bench beside Ko’s narrow bed in the rear compartment. It would be several hours’ drive to Lhadrung.

  Shan watched the high peaks slipping into the distance, his eyes fixed on the indentation on the horizon that marked the valley where Tumkot lay. He had taken supper there the night before, a peaceful, intimate meal with Ama Apte, Yates, Kypo, and his daughter. As Yates had presented a compass and climbing boots to his new niece, Kypo and Shan had helped Ama Apte, her arm in a sling, serve the meal. When they began to sit Ama Apte had arranged two more plates on the table and as if on cue a figure had appeared in the doorway. Jomo had stepped inside with an anxious expression, his half-hearted protests ignored as Ama Apte silently led him to a seat beside Kypo. Then she had gone to the door and pulled in someone else, a figure who struggled against her at first, then allowed himself to be led, limping, across the floor. Gyalo, washed, freshly bandaged, and looking strangely serene, was wearing the robe of a monk.