Kincaid kept snapping photos as Shan and Fowler examined the ledger. Beginning a month earlier, it recorded the removal of an altar and reliquaries, offering lamps and a statue of Buddha. Dimensions, weight, and quantity were fastidiously recorded.

"What does it say?" Fowler asked. It was not unusual for foreigners learning Chinese to study only the conversational, not the written language.

Shan hesitated, then quickly summarized the contents.

"How about books?" Tyler Kincaid asked. "The old manuscripts. Jansen says they are usually well preserved, the kind of thing that can easily be saved."

There was a page recording the removal of two hundred manuscripts. "I don't know," Shan replied. He knew about recovered manuscripts. Once at the 404th a dump truck had deposited several hundred old religious tracts. Under gunpoint the prisoners had been forced to rip the volumes into small pieces which were boiled in big pots, then mixed with lime and sand to make plaster for the guards' new latrine.

"And on the first page?" Fowler asked.

"First page?"

"Who wrote this? Who is in charge?"

Shan turned to the overleaf. "Ministry of Geology, it says. By order of Director Hu."

Fowler shoved her hand forward to hold down the overleaf and called for Kincaid to photograph the page. "The bastard," she muttered. "No wonder Jao wanted to stop him."

Was it possible, Shan considered, that Fowler was in the cave not about the antiquities but about her mining permit?

Kincaid changed lenses and began photographing the pages, pausing over the detailed entries. "They took an altar, you said. Where's it say that?"

Shan showed him.

Kincaid placed his finger on a column on the right side of the page. "What's this?"

"Weights and dimensions," Shan explained.

"Three hundred pounds, it says." The American nodded. "But look, here is something even heavier. Four hundred twenty pounds."

"The statue."

"Can't be," Kincaid argued, following the line of data. "It shows it's only three feet high."

Shan studied the entry again. The American was right.

Yeshe, over their shoulders, explained. "In these old shrines," he said in a brittle voice, "the altar statue was often solid gold."

Kincaid whistled. "My God! It's worth millions."

"Priceless," Fowler said, excitement in her eyes. "The right museum-"

"I don't think so," Shan interrupted.

"No, really. Do you have any idea how rare this statue would be? A major find. The find of the year."

"No," Shan shook his head slowly. He found himself almost angered by the Americans' passion. No, not their passion. Their innocence.

"What do you mean?" Fowler asked.

Shan answered by shining his light around the room. He found what he expected under one of the other tables, a pile of hammers and chisels. "Four hundred pounds of gold would be inconvenient to transport in one large piece." He picked up one of the chisels and showed the Americans the flecks of brilliant metal embedded in its blade.

Rebecca Fowler grabbed the chisel and stared at it, then threw it against the wall. "Bastards!" she shouted. Angrily she grabbed several of the computer disks and stuffed three of them into her shirt pocket, staring at Shan as she did so, as if daring him to defy her.

Kincaid gazed at the woman with obvious admiration, then began shooting photos again. Yeshe began leafing through the ledger, pausing at a loose sheet near the back. He looked up excitedly and handed the page to Shan. "An audit page," he whispered, as though to keep the Americans from hearing. "From the Bureau of Religious Affairs."

"But it's blank."

"Yes," Yeshe said. "But look at it. Columns to identify the gompa, date, relics found, distribution of relics. If Religious Affairs does audits, we could find if any gompas had a Tamdin costume."

"And if so, when it was found, and where it is now." Shan nodded, with an edge of excitement.

"Exactly."

Shan folded the sheet and was about to put it in his pocket, then paused and handed it to Yeshe, who stuffed it in his shirt with a look that for the first time might have been satisfaction.

Shan slowly moved out of the alcove, leaving his three companions with the murals as he moved into the tunnel where Colonel Tan had taken him. He paused just before the circle of his light reached the first of the skulls, trying to find words to prepare the others. But no words came, and he forced his feet ahead.

Even the dead were different in Tibet. He had been in mass bone-yards back home, after the Cultural Revolution. But there the dead had not felt holy, or wise, or even complete. They had just felt used.

As he moved along the shrine, he found himself gasping. He stopped and surveyed the rows of empty eye sockets. They all seemed to be watching him, the endless lines of skulls like the endless rosary of skulls Khorda had pressed into his hands before making Shan call for Tamdin. With a start, he realized they had been witnesses. Tamdin had been there with Prosecutor Jao's head, and the skulls had seen it all. The skulls knew.

Behind him he sensed a shudder. The others had discovered the tunnel. Fowler groaned. Kincaid cursed loudly. Something like a whimper escaped Yeshe's lips. Shan clenched his jaw and moved on to the shelf where Jao's head had been deposited. He tried to sketch the scene, but stopped. His hand was trembling too much.

"What is it you expect to find?" Yeshe whispered nervously over his shoulder. He stood with his back to Shan, as if expecting to be ambushed at any moment. "This is not a place we should stay in."

"The murderer came here with Jao's head. I want to find the skull that was moved from here to make room for Jao. Why was this particular shelf disturbed? Was there a reason for this particular skull to be moved? Where was its skull moved to?" Shan felt almost certain he knew the answer to the last question already. It would have been thrown into the shed with the other skulls being processed.

Yeshe seemed not to have heard. "Please," he pleaded. "We must go."

As the Americans approached they were speaking of Tibetan history. "Kincaid says this was probably a cave of Guru Rinpoche," Fowler announced. She too was whispering.

"Guru Rinpoche?" Shan asked.

"The most famous of the ancient hermits," Yeshe interjected. "He inhabited caves all over Tibet in his lifetime, making each one a place of great power. Most were turned into shrines centuries ago."

"I had no idea Mr. Kincaid was such a scholar," Shan observed.

"Jao wanted to stop them," Fowler announced suddenly, her voice cracking. Shan looked up. A single tear rolled down her cheek.

"What's that?" Yeshe asked in an urgent whisper. "I thought I heard something!"

There was something, Shan sensed. Not a sound. Not a movement. Not a presence. Something unspeakable and immense that seemed to have been triggered by Fowler's sadness. He lowered his pad and stood silently with the others, transfixed by the hollow sockets of the gleaming skulls. They weren't in the heart of the mountain. They were in the heart of the universe, and the numbing silence that welled around them wasn't silence at all, but a soul-wrenching hoarseness like the moment before a scream.

Choje was right, Shan suddenly knew, it was meaningless to ask whether Tamdin was indeed the grotesque monster he had seen painted on the wall. Whoever or whatever the killer had been, the killer had been a demon, not because it had decapitated Prosecutor Jao but because it had brought the ugliness of the act to such a perfect place.