Once, during a winter storm that kept them confined to their prison barracks, Shan and his cellmates had listened to a young monk who had just begun a five-year sentence. The monk had explained that his crime was refusal to sign a statement swearing to patriotism and pledging never to protest against the policies of Beijing, a pledge required by those who ran his gompa. What the older monks hadn't understood, and what the new prisoner had had to explain repeatedly, was why abbots and lamas would request such a pledge, and how they could send him to a Chinese prison for refusing to accept it. The reason, the monk patiently explained, was that a new body had taken over administration of his gompa, a Democratic Management Committee. The Committee tested monks on their knowledge of correct political thought, and would call upon monks in assembly to recite Chinese versions of Tibetan history, in addition to their sutras- the version that said Tibet had always been Chinese and that Tibetans were descended from Chinese stock.

The attending monk appeared by Khodrak with a stack of slender, six-inch-long boxes. "Please," Khodrak announced, "you deserve something in honor of your contribution." He said it in a gracious tone, speaking slowly and loudly, as if he were accustomed to public speaking. The young monk distributed one of the boxes to each of them and gestured for them to open their gifts. Inside was a heavy red plastic dorje, the thunderbolt symbol used in many Tibetan rituals. The monk showed Nyma how to push one end so it clicked. A ballpoint pen. Along the bottom was inscribed, in Chinese characters, Bureau of Religious Affairs.

Shan looked up, his throat dry. Khodrak was smiling broadly, studying each one of them with intense interest now as his hand absently straightened the monogram on his robe. Shan had heard somewhere that members of Democratic Management Committees were paid salaries by the Religious Affairs Bureau. He gazed out the window. It was getting dark, too late to leave the gompa.

"Perhaps an extra one for our special friend?" Khodrak said to the attendant, in the tone of an order.

"Yes, Chairman Rinpoche," the monk replied woodenly.

The young monk appeared at Shan's side, another of the pen boxes extended toward him. Shan looked at Khodrak. His special friend. Because Shan was Han. "Thank you, no," he said to the monk in a taut voice. "Unfortunately I can write only with one hand."

Khodrak chuckled, then laughed loudly, and Director Tuan took up the laughter, followed by the attending monk. Shan's friends offered strained smiles. Abruptly Khodrak stopped laughing and clasped his hands, the index fingers extended together. Not a mudra. He was pointing with the fingers, pointing at Tenzin.

"Perhaps your friend should see a doctor. We have specialists here, all the way from Lhasa."

See a doctor. The expression sparked a flash of pain in Shan. The words had been a code in the gulag, a threat used by the guards for recalcitrant prisoners like Shan who were sometimes taken to knob specialists with cattle prods and small hammers and needle-nosed pliers.

"Have you had your affliction long?" Khodrak asked Tenzin in his solicitous tone. He seemed to be studying Tenzin's hands. Shan recalled the rongpa village, where Colonel Lin had studied Lokesh's hands. What was it? Was there something special about Tenzin's hands? They were not, Shan realized, the rough calloused hands of a rongpa or herder.

"We told you," Nyma interjected. "Tenzin was struck by lightning. He doesn't speak. We don't mind. He is a good worker."

Khodrak tossed the napkin by his cup across the table. Tenzin still wore the dust from the dung pile on his face. "You should wash," he said in an offhand tone. He studied the faces of the others at the table.

Shan watched Tenzin and Khodrak with a chill. Tenzin kept his gaze on the table with studied disinterest, then pulled his hands from the table and folded them on his lap where Khodrak could not see them. But Shan could. They formed a mudra, with the little fingers linked, the middle two fingers of each hand bent inward, and the tips of the index fingers and thumbs touching. It was called the Spirit Subduer, and it seemed aimed at Khodrak. Suddenly a light flashed, and Shan looked up to see the attendant with a camera, busily snapping photographs of Shan and his companions.

"Perhaps you have heard," Tuan said in an oily voice, "that my deputy was assassinated."

Tenzin stared at his hands a moment, his gaze drifting slowly toward Khodrak. The two men exchanged a hard, challenging stare. Shan watched the exchange in confusion. Tenzin had disappeared the night of Chao's killing. But surely they didn't suspect him or they would have seized him already. Suddenly he recalled Gyalo's words to his yak. Shan didn't know what swam in sacred waters. Gyalo had meant nagas. Khodrak might have been searching for a man connected to the water deities. Tenzin had gone from the hermitage once to get black sand from the nagas. He could have been seen by an informer as he performed a ceremony at a river. The howlers despised nagas as symbols of the Tibet's oldest traditions. If they were to detain Tenzin and interrogate him about his interest in water deities, even if they had to wait for the mute Tibetan to write his confession, they would eventually find out about the hermitage, about Gendun and Shopo.

"Was that the reason Padme Rinpoche was walking on the high plain?" Shan asked abruptly, trying to deflect Tuan's attention. "Helping restore public order?"

Tuan looked at Shan intensely, but without showing emotion.

Nyma and Lhandro frowned at Shan and fixed him with an annoyed stares. Shan was implying that Padme had been engaged in something other than religious pursuits.

But Khodrak seemed to find nothing extraordinary about the inquiry. "Everyone must be vigilant in times like these," the chairman suggested, with an appreciative nod toward Shan. "When so much important progress is at hand, that is when reactionaries are most apt to strike. Murder. Kidnapping. At least it validates our work."

"Kidnapping?" Shan asked.

"Surely you heard about the abbot of Sangchi. The blessed leader of such an important institution. A model of right thinking for all Tibetans. Creator of the Serenity Campaign. Another martyr of our cause."

"The newspapers say the abbot of Sangchi is being taken to India."

"We know now the abbot was kidnapped by the most radical elements of the resistance," Tuan interjected. "Possibly the same ones who killed Deputy Director Chao not fifty miles from here. They will doubtlessly try to harm the abbot as well."

Shan looked at the table, trying to steady his nerves. What were they suggesting? That they knew the infamous Tiger was in the vicinity? That the lost abbot was imprisoned by the Tiger somewhere nearby? Surely not, or the region would be saturated with Public Security troops.

"Dinner," Khodrak announced abruptly, smiling smugly. "Dinner will be served soon, in the assembly hall. Take a moment. Enjoy our hospitality." The Chairman rose and left the room, Tuan following close behind. Shan looked after Khodrak. Take a moment. The words seemed to be an idiom for Khodrak, a signature. The chairman spoke them gently, even graciously. But Shan had heard those words before. They were also an idiom of tamzing, the struggle sessions where correct thought was beaten, figuratively and literally, into wayward citizens. Take a moment, a tamzing leader would say to show his or her good nature. Take a moment to reconsider before we resort to more painful means to wrench you back to the Party's true path.