"It's too early to weed our barley," Lhandro ventured weakly.
Lin gestured to the sergeant, who trotted to the cab of the first truck and marched back with an expectant gaze, holding a foot-long metal object in both hands.
"Have you been to Lhasa?" the colonel asked, gripping Lhandro's arm tightly. "Where's your bags? Your packs? I must see them!" The sergeant snapped his heels together and extended the object to Lin. Something frigid seized Shan's stomach. It was Public Security's favorite import from America, an electric cattle prod.
Nyma also recognized the instrument. She gave a high-pitched moan and stepped in front of Lhandro. Shan stared at the colonel in confusion. The prod was something the knobs used, seldom the army. It was for interrogation cells, not a remote roadside at the edge of the changtang. The colonel was desperate to extract information from his prisoners.
As Lin shot an amused glance toward Nyma and accepted the prod from the soldier a loud, bold voice rang out from the rocks.
"Yo, General, your majesty! My friends and I were having a peaceful picnic. No one invited the Boy Scouts." Shan turned to see the American at the split in the rocks. He spoke in Mandarin. His mouth was turned up in a grin but his eyes were cool, and fixed on the colonel.
The colonel's lips pursed in a silent snarl, and the officer stepped closer to the American. A green nylon rucksack hung from one of Winslow's shoulders. In his hand was a water bottle, from which he drank with a casual, unconcerned air as several soldiers closed about him.
"You've made a serious mistake," Colonel Lin growled. Lhandro's papers, still in his hand, disappeared into the pocket of Lin's tunic.
"Someone has," Winslow agreed, in English, and slipped his free hand into a pocket of his rucksack. The nearest soldier lifted the barrel of his gun. The American produced a thick carrot, leveled it at the soldier as if it were a weapon, then raised it to his mouth and loudly bit off the end. Several of the freed villagers, watching now from beyond the army trucks, laughed.
"You have no idea," Lin said icily. With a gesture of his hand two soldiers sprang into action, one leaping to each side of the American, pinning his arms behind him. The rucksack and water bottle dropped to the ground. The carrot flew through the air and landed at Shan's feet.
Winslow seemed not to notice the rough treatment. "Not much," he agreed, in Mandarin, grinning at Lin as the soldiers, still holding his arms, pressed him against the rock wall.
The sergeant jammed his hand into the breast pocket of the American's shirt and pulled out a bundle of papers, with half a dozen photographs of the Dalai Lama, which he dropped in disgust, grinding them into the soil with his boot. The American looked forlornly at the ruined photos. "You know," he sighed, "they say that man is the reincarnation of the Compassionate Buddha." His gaze drifted toward Colonel Lin, and Shan shuddered. The American was deliberately badgering the colonel. Lin returned the American's stare, then pointedly looked at the cattle prod. With a nod from him the soldiers began dragging Winslow toward the first truck.
Lin spat a curse under his breath and turned back to Lhandro, the prod still in his hand. The American was but a momentary distraction. A clanging of metal rose from the rear of the second truck and a soldier began tossing leg manacles onto the ground.
Lin stepped back to Lhandro and abruptly hit his face with the back of his hand. "Answer my questions!" he snarled, and hit him again. The farmer gave a small, surprised whimper, then swayed. Lin looked at his hand and frowned again. There was fresh blood on it. A metallic snap punctuated the momentary silence. The sergeant had fastened the manacle on Lhandro's ankles.
As Shan watched Lin, the icy knot in his gut grew tighter and more painful. Everything- first Lhandro's evasiveness, then the American's appearance and his disrespectful attitude, and finally the stain of blood on Lin's fingers- had only served to fan the flames of Lin's rage. His hand made a tiny, almost imperceptible motion toward his belt, snapping open the holster that held a small automatic pistol.
"You are going to write statements," Lin barked. "Every detail of how you arrived at this place, why you are traveling so far from your home, who else is with you, whom you encountered on the way, where you have been for the past three months." As he spoke, the soldier who had produced the manacles held up a roll of heavy, wide grey tape. It would be used, Shan knew, to seal their mouths as they wrote. "You will write them separately, and if your reports do not perfectly match you will be charged with conspiracy to obstruct administration of the people's justice."
"Hell, General, you're not Public Security," Winslow said in a loud, glib voice. Never in his life had Shan encountered anyone so foolish as to deliberately mock a senior PLA officer. "Just the damned army." One of the soldiers twisted the American's arm behind him, and pain erupted on Winslow's face. But as the soldier kept twisting the American forced his mouth back into a grin.
Suddenly the short Tibetan in the business suit emerged from the rocks. He stared in dismay at the American, and seemed about to shout. He turned to the colonel and opened his mouth, but still no words came out. Then his shoulders sagged and he stared at the black cap in his hands, stepped toward Winslow and placed it on the American's head. Everyone stared, confused, except Winslow, who laughed.
An instant later the sergeant gave a cry of alarm and darted to Lin's side, handing him Winslow's documents. As Shan stared in confusion the colonel's eyes grew round, then he threw the papers on the ground with a look of disgust and barked out a series of orders so quickly Shan could not understand them. The men behind Winslow released him. The soldier holding Lokesh's hat threw it at the old Tibetan and followed the others of the squad into the second truck. The sergeant released the manacles from Lhandro and threw all the chains, and the colonel's chair, into the rear of the truck.
Colonel Lin stepped backwards toward the first vehicle, silently watching Lhandro and Lokesh, fury back in his eyes. In another thirty seconds he had climbed into the lead truck and both vehicles were speeding down the road. As the Tibetans watched in disbelief Shan unwrapped the wire from his wrist, then bent and picked up the carrot and the papers. He studied the American's passport a moment and looked up, more confused than ever. The passport in his hand said that Shane Winslow was an American diplomat.
"It was just a piece of paper," Nyma said in confusion as she watched the American and the short Tibetan jog toward their own truck. Winslow had said nothing after the soldiers sped away, only cast a satisfied grin toward Shan and his companions before gesturing his nervous escort toward the red truck. They seemed in as much a hurry to leave as Lhandro, who had sent Nyma to run and bring the caravan to the road.
"But it had powerful words," Lokesh suggested in a tentative voice.
Shan glanced at his friend, who had been taught that there were adepts who could write special, secret words that would unleash powerful forces upon those who read them. In a sense Shan knew Lokesh was right. He could not imagine any paper a foreigner could show a man like Colonel Lin that would cause him to reverse his behavior, except the very paper Winslow had produced. Lin would gleefully help deport a troublesome foreigner, and would not hesitate to detain suspicious citizens in front of a foreigner. But whatever he had had in mind for Shan and his companions, he would not do it in front of a foreign government. And Winslow's paper said he was the U.S. government, or at least its only representative for probably hundreds of miles.