Shan lingered at the top of the stairs by the office, tempted to venture inside. As the monk called for him to join the others and he slowly descended, voices were raised in anger in the chamber beyond the office, but he could make out no words. He followed the others to what appeared to be a rear door opening to the courtyard between the buildings, and had almost reached Lokesh, when a hand closed around his arm.

"Comrade Shan," a stern voice said behind him.

Shan turned to look into the black, pebble-like eyes of Director Tuan. Tuan gestured toward an open office door. Shan hesitated, watching his friends disappear out the door. His chest tightening, his throat bone dry, he entered the chamber.

A small metal desk was pushed against the window to make room for four overstuffed chairs arranged around a low table with a long lace doily. Tuan closed the door behind them, lowered himself into one of the deep chairs and motioned for Shan to do the same. "Comrade," he repeated, like a cordial greeting this time.

Shan sat on the edge of the chair opposite Tuan and nodded slowly. On top of the lace were several stacks of the Serenity pamphlets he had seen at the lake.

Tuan drummed his hand on the arm of the chair as he examined Shan, looking at his tattered boots and patched clothing. "It must be difficult for a man like you," he began.

Shan nodded again. They knew his name. But surely they had not had time to find out who he was, that he was still officially a lao gai prisoner.

"How long have you been in Tibet?" Tuan pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and placed them on the wide arm of the chair.

"Five years."

Tuan seemed to welcome the news. "Most don't last a year. I salute you. People like you are the real worker heroes. Anyone could work back home in a factory. But you are here, in the front lines of our great struggle." He picked up the cigarettes and tapped them on the arm of the chair. Shan had met Religious Affairs officials before. Most were soft and bureaucratic, biding their time before rotating back to a better office in eastern China. But Tuan was different. Tuan was like a hard-bitten soldier. Tuan had already finished one career at Public Security.

"Your friends said you were traveling north, and came out of your way to bring Padme home. Padme said you were traveling with salt."

Tuan wasn't asking about nagas, or Yapchi and Lhasa, none of the questions asked by Colonel Lin. Indeed, Tuan didn't seem to be interrogating him so much as testing him somehow. "It's a tradition they have," Shan said.

"There are taxes to be paid to the salt monopoly," Tuan observed. "You could get a bounty for reporting them. I could arrange it, even have it deposited somewhere. They need never know."

Shan forced a small conspiratorial smile which caused Tuan to raise his hand, palm outward. "You've thought of it. Excellent." He lifted the cigarette pack to his nostrils and inhaled, lit one of the cigarettes, and carefully set it in the ashtray on the table. "You could not be blamed for the companions you acquire when traveling. A man like you has the opportunity to meet all types of Tibetans."

Shan clenched his jaw. "My companions brought an injured monk here," he reminded Tuan.

The Director's lips curled in a thin smile as he inhaled the smoke drifting from the table. It was as if he were using the tobacco as incense. "It's an untamed land, this region. Criminal elements in hiding on every mountain. The one who killed Deputy Director Chao is out there. He must have attacked Padme."

"You make it sound as though you know who it is."

"Of course. It is the same war that started when the liberation army arrived. It has never really concluded, it's just less visible."

"You mean you don't care who it is."

Tuan shrugged and leaned toward the smoke. "Do they? They take one of us, we take one of them," the Director said in a disinterested tone, then smiled icily. "There will always be more of us than of them."

Shan studied Tuan as the Director smoothed the long hair on the side of his head. Was Tuan so disinterested because he had already taken one Tibetan to balance his equation, because he knew he had already fatally wounded Drakte?

"There will be an accounting soon," Tuan said. "In less than two weeks. But meanwhile someone like you, a Han among them, will be in constant danger. Let me help you."

"I am not afraid of them." But Shan was scared of Tuan and the strange game he was playing. Tuan was going to account for Chao's murder in two weeks. He made it sound like one more item on his busy schedule.

Tuan leaned forward. "Things are changing in this district. A Han who knows how to deal with these Tibetans could have a bright future. We can use a man like you. We'll be looking for someone to manage all the other teachers. You will need to decide soon. Glory is coming, and there will be enough to share."

Shan almost asked him to repeat himself. Glory is coming? "Other teachers?"

"Special knowledge is coming to Norbu. A new world is coming for the people here," Tuan said.

Shan stared at the piece of lace. He usually recognized the special language of senior officials, but Tuan seemed to have developed a code all his own. "But for now all those doctors," Shan said tentatively. "They are frightening the people. Surely you do not need them to catch the killer."

Tuan offered an appreciative smile. "They have orders from Lhasa. National security is at stake. A senior Cult leader has infiltrated from India."

"We're more than four hundred miles from India."

"He's giving them a good chase."

"But why doctors? Why would disrupting the local people help the effort?"

"National security," Tuan repeated.

The Director glanced at his watch and stood. He reached into his pocket and produced a business card, extended it to Shan. "I know things. When we win, after May Day, give me a call." He tossed the cigarettes on Shan's lap and left the room without looking back.

Shan stared after him. I know things. The words probably meant nothing, just the idle words of an arrogant bureaucrat. But they made Shan recall the terrible night at the hermitage again. He doesn't care who has to die, Drakte had said, with nearly his last breath. He kills prayer. He kills the thing he is. Tuan was the senior official responsible for religion, and he killed religion.

Shan dropped the cigarettes on the arm of the chair, and found his friends outside waiting with the young monk under the fluttering flags.

"What was it?" Nyma whispered nervously.

Shan shrugged. "I don't know," he said truthfully. "He wanted to give me some cigarettes."

The monk led them into the adjacent structure and a large whitewashed chamber, where twenty monks waited at two long plank tables. Some acknowledged their visitors with polite but restrained greetings, others looked away nervously. Gyalo was not present. An old monk, the oldest present, rose and recited the opening text from one of the early teachings, what the Tibetans called the Heart Sutra. His words, or perhaps his deep, resonant voice, had a calming effect on the assembly. But Shan could not relax. He fought the temptation to grab Lokesh and run. He could make nothing of his strange audience with Tuan. Tuan and Khodrak were going to win something, and glory would follow.

At last Khodrak, holding his mendicant's staff like a scepter, arrived with Tuan a step behind, each of them adorned in a fox-fur hat. The two sat at a smaller table at the head of the long ones, and moments later two young monks appeared with a huge steaming pot of thugpa, noodle soup cooked with vegetables. The attendants quickly served out the soup, then distributed bowls of steaming white rice. They ate quickly, with little conversation, the monks restlessly watching both their visitors and the two men at the head table. At the end of the meal, as Chinese green tea was served, Khodrak stood to explain how Comrade Shan and his companions had saved Padme. Comrade Shan. Khodrak had turned Padme's rescue into a political parable of the selfless Han saving a troubled Tibetan.