"There's a catalog with map grids, identified by a code for the grid number."

Shan reached into his pocket and pulled out the numbers transcribed from Jao's secret file. "The catalog," Shan said with new urgency. "Is it here?"

The numbers fit the format perfectly. It took less than five minutes to find the reference. It was for the North Claw and farmland beyond. Jao had seen photos of the area where Fowler had mistakenly received water rights.

"But he didn't get these from us," Fowler protested. "They're unrelated to our operations. We would never order maps outside our operations area."

"Are you sure? Is there a record?"

"The invoices show all the orders. I'm about three months behind in checking the details." They moved into her office. Five minutes later she located the entries. Someone had ordered a three-month sequence of photos of the northern site two weeks before the prosecutor had been killed.

Shan put the invoice in his notebook. "Can you print them out, the same ones Jao saw?"

Fowler nodded weakly.

Shan stood in the doorway to verify that no one was in earshot. "Bring them to me tomorrow at Jade Spring. And I need to take the disks. The ones you took from the cave."

Fowler hesitated. "I need them, too."

"Have you looked at them?"

"Sure. Mostly files in Chinese that Kincaid and I can't read. Some in English, listing contents of the shrine. They sent the altar to a new restaurant in Lhasa. Jansen will want to know."

"Why would they put them in English?"

Fowler cocked her head at Shan. "I hadn't thought about it."

"Because," Shan suggested, "it is a trap."

She sat down heavily at her desk. "For us?"

"For you. For me. For Kincaid. Whoever might take them. I think the major put them there."

"I want to give them to the United Nations office."

"No."

"Why the major?"

Shan dropped into a chair by the wall. "Sort of an insurance policy." He leaned over, placing his head in his hands for a moment. He had an overwhelming temptation to just curl up on the floor and sleep. He looked up. "If you were forced out as manager, who would replace you?"

Fowler grimaced. "You're talking about the permit suspension," she said with a sigh. "There's a procedure in the contract. The company appoints the first manager. After that, the committee would have the choice."

"An American?"

"Not necessarily. Kincaid, maybe. But it could be Hu."

"If you want to keep your job, Miss Fowler, I need those disks."

She considered Shan for a moment, then with a quick, urgent movement pulled some books from a top shelf. Reaching behind the other volumes, she produced a thick envelope and dropped it into his hand.

"I need something else," Shan said apologetically. "I need you to take me to Lhasa."

Colonel Tan was waiting in their room at Jade Spring, sitting in the dark, smoking. Feng and Yeshe hesitated as they saw Tan's expression, then moved out to the front step as Shan turned on the light and sat across from him. Five cigarette butts stood end up in a row beside a folder on the table.

Tan's face was drawn and tense. He seemed worn out, as though he'd just returned from extended maneuvers. "You believed them, didn't you?" He spoke to the cigarette. "That I did those things in the Lotus Book."

"I only repeated what I read," Shan said. The air was so brittle it seemed about to shatter. "Is it so important what I believe?"

"Hell no," Tan snapped back.

"Then why should you be so offended by what is in the Lotus Book?"

"Because it is a lie."

"You mean because it is a lie about you."

"Sergeant Feng!" Tan bellowed.

Feng's head appeared at the door.

"Where was I in 1963?"

"We were at Border Security Camp 208. Inner Mongolia. Sir."

Tan pushed the folder toward Shan. "My service record. Everything. Postings. Commendations. Reprimands. Assignment orders. I didn't come to Tibet until 1985. If you want, talk to Madame Ko. I want the lies stopped."

"Do you want Sungpo executed or do you want the lies stopped?"

Tan glared across the table. In the dim light, as he exhaled the smoke through his nostrils, his bony face seemed to hover, disembodied, above the table. "I want the lies stopped," Tan repeated.

"That's not going to help the monk who was executed at the 404th."

"That's the knobs. They didn't consult me."

"Somehow I find it hard to believe, Colonel, that you couldn't stop the knobs if you wanted to."

There was a low, surprised curse by the door, and Shan caught a glimpse of Sergeant Feng as he retreated toward the parade ground. He did not want to be caught in the imminent explosion.

Tan's glare continued, hot and silent.

"I had an offer from Assistant Prosecutor Li. A way to resolve it all," Shan announced.

"An offer?" Tan repeated ominously.

"To tie it all up in a neat package. He said Prosecutor Jao was engaged in a corruption investigation against you. So you had him killed. Said if I testified against you, he could make me a hero."

Tan's eyes narrowed to two dangerous slits. His hand wrapped around the cigarette package on the table and began to slowly squeeze its contents. "And your intentions, Comrade?" Shreds of tobacco fell from the package.

Shan's gaze stayed steady. "Colonel, I could say you are insensitive, stubborn, short-tempered, manipulative, and quite dangerous."

Tan shifted in his seat. He seemed on the verge of leaping for Shan's throat.

"But you're not corrupt."

Tan gazed down at the ruined package of cigarettes. "So you didn't believe him."

Shan shook his head slowly. "You never trusted Li. That's why you found me. You thought he might try something like this. Why?"

"He's a sniveling Party pissant, that's why."

Shan considered the words and sighed. "No more lies, you said."

With an angry sweep of his hand Tan batted the mess he had made off the table. "Miss Lihua caught him a few months ago, about to send a secret report to Party headquarters in Lhasa. Complaining that Jao and I were incompetent, not in touch with modern governmental technique, petitioning for our forced retirement."

"You could have told me."

"It's hardly evidence for a murder case."

Shan clasped his hands and looked into them. "Li is in it, I know it. There is no direct evidence. But everything he says, everything he does, the smell is all over him."

"Smell?"

"Like why he went to Kham."

"He went because you went."

"Not because he was following me, but because he sensed I was getting too close, because Li realized that if I thought there might be a witness I would go in search of him. Back in Balti's tenement, Li tried to make us believe that Balti had stolen the car and left for a city to sell it. But Li knew differently. If I was getting close, then Li had to get to Kham urgently, because he knew for certain that Balti was still alive. Which meant he saw him running away that night. Or the murderer told him."

The colonel breathed heavily. "You're saying it's not only Li." He searched the crushed pack for an intact cigarette, then threw it down in disgust.