"I thought it was a simple request."

"It's not. I just told you. Somehow I think you never make simple requests."

"I think Jao was taken to the South Claw to be killed because of something seen on one of your maps."

"Seen by Jao?"

"Maybe. Or by the murderer. Or both."

"Ridiculous. We're the only ones who see the maps."

"You said eight people. With eight people secrets can be difficult to keep."

"If you think I'm going to invite half the Bureau to climb all over us for some security violation, you're crazy." She took a step toward the door. "I thought you and I, we were-" She shook her head and sighed. "When we first got the satellite license Kincaid said Colonel Tan might try to trick us into giving up the maps."

"Why would Colonel Tan do that?"

"To catch us in a security violation, then use it against us."

"Do you think I am trying to trick you?"

Fowler sighed. "Not you. But what if you are being used?" She took another step toward the door. "Get someone to put it in writing."

"No."

She looked back over her shoulder.

"Because then you would be caught in a security violation," he observed.

She shook her head slowly and moved toward the door again.

"I knew a priest once. When I lived in Beijing. He used to help me." Shan spoke to her back. "Once I had a similar dilemma. About whether to seek justice or to just do what the bureaucrats wanted. Do you know what he said? He told me that our life is the instrument we use to experiment with the truth."

Fowler stopped and slowly turned again. She looked at him in silence, then tore herself away to pour a cup of tepid tea from a thermos. She sat and studied the cup. "Damn you," she said. "Who the hell are you? Every time things are calming down, you…" She didn't finish the sentence.

"We want the same thing. An answer."

She rose, threw the tea in the sink, and stepped into the computer room. Unlocking a large cabinet with long narrow drawers, she quickly sifted through the top drawer and laid a sheet on the table. "We only print them once a week, sometimes only twice a month. This is two weeks ago. Twenty-mile grid. Best for our purposes. We also have a hundred miles and five miles."

"I need more detail. Perhaps the five-mile grid."

She searched through the drawer and looked up, confused, then opened a second drawer. "It's not there. None of them for the South Claw." She gazed at the empty drawer.

"But you can print more," Shan suggested.

"Kincaid would be furious. Comes out of his budget. He's responsible for the mapping system."

"You said you wanted this thing over."

"At this point I'd be satisfied just to know what over means," Fowler said, then stepped to the console and began typing instructions. Five minutes later the printer came to life.

As she laid the photo on the table she handed Shan a magnifying lens. He followed the slope of the ridge toward the bottom of the map. At its end, where the small valley to the south began, was a V-shaped blackness. "Are they all taken at the same time of day?" he asked. There was an hour written on the margin. 1630 hours. "Can we obtain something from earlier in the day? Noon, perhaps."

She printed one, dated two months earlier, taken at 1130 hours. The shadow at the south end of the ridge was gone. He could see them now, in the remote gorge, a smudge of brilliant color where none had been before. The big horse flags of Yerpa were visible to the satellite.

"That night with Jao," Rebecca Fowler said abruptly. She had been watching him, from across the table. "There was something else. I didn't tell you. It wasn't just because of the wager that we met. We could have done that later. I think he wanted to meet because he had asked some questions. He pressed for answers that night."

"Questions for you?"

"We talked about it. Kincaid and I. We didn't want to obstruct anything. But with all of our production problems we didn't need to become part of some investigation."

"But you changed your mind later."

"When the ponds were being laid out, before I arrived, the mine got its water permits. Rights to take water for the ponds and processing unit as needed. You have to be registered, so irrigation in the valley can be planned. When I got here I saw there was a mistake. The permit covered a stream that doesn't flow here. It's on the other side of the mountain, the far end of the North Claw and beyond, a different watershed. I told Director Hu. He said he would take care of it, that we wouldn't have to pay for the water. We didn't pay. But the permit was never changed."

"What does it mean, having the permit for that watershed?"

"Not much. Just keeps anyone else from using the water, I guess."

"So it was a bureaucratic oversight."

"It's what I assumed. But Jao, as soon as he sat down to dinner, wanted to know about it. He had found out about it somehow, and he was excited. He asked who issued the permit. How much water was available in that area. I couldn't tell him. He asked if I had a copy of the permit somewhere, with an official signature. When I said I did, he was very pleased. It seemed like he wanted to laugh. He said he would call from Beijing with a fax number, so I could send it to him. Then he dropped the subject. Ordered some wine."

Voices rose from outside. Workers were approaching the building. Fowler sprang up to close the red door. She leaned against it, as though bracing for intruders. "I forgot about it. Then Li came into my office. Trolling for information about the permit."

"Trolling?"

"He knew about it. He had questions but didn't seem sure of what he wanted to know. He asked me to explain what Jao had asked for."

"He's the assistant prosecutor," Shan said. "Probably Jao's replacement. There may have been a file he needed to follow up on."

"I don't know," Fowler said. She looked at the floor as she spoke. "What if they had to do with Jao's being killed? The water rights. That's not something a Tibetan would kill for. Why would that monk care?"

"I told you before, Sungpo did not kill him."

She fixed him with a forlorn stare. "Sometimes I wonder. If it got Jao killed, then what about me? That dinner. We talked a long time. Maybe the killer thinks I know what Jao knew. Someone may want to kill me and I don't even know why. Nothing makes sense. If it wasn't this monk Sungpo, then who is trying to frame him? Colonel Tan? Assistant Prosecutor Li? The major? They all seem in such a rush to get him to trial."

"They say they're just eager to get the file closed, because of all the visitors."

"Someone may be lying for personal reasons, not just political ones."

Shan offered a nod of respect. "You've learned fast, Miss Fowler."

"It scares me."

"Then help me."

"How?"

"I need more maps. The skull cave, perhaps."

"We don't have them. We only have maps of our watershed."

"But the computer can give you access."

"We have a contract for this area. Outside that, it's expensive. Fifty dollars an order. U.S. We type in the grid reference. Some computer back home processes the order, verifies our account number, processes it for download, and invoices us."

"A grid reference?"