"Just walking across the ground could have ruined the test!" he shouted as he advanced.

The stranger replaced his helmet as he reached Shan, as though to say he was prepared for violence. He was a Han, slightly taller than Shan, square-shouldered, with knuckles that bore the scars of having been laid open many times. He wore a green nylon coat that bore the emblem of a golden oil derrick on the left breast.

"We could have been killed," Shan said quietly.

"You could have ruined our test and been killed," the man shot back loudly, his eyes still blazing.

"You did kill some birds." Anya appeared a few feet behind Shan.

The words, or perhaps just the soft, disappointed way Anya spoke them, seemed to deflate the man. He frowned. "Walking in the test quadrant, so close to the charges, can distort the results," he growled, his anger seeming to ebb into frustration.

"How could we know?" Shan asked.

"Know? All you need to know is that the whole area was off-limits. Don't you read? Posters in every village below, with dates for testing in each quadrant. Only a fool would-"

As he spoke another man approached, a short man wearing dark glasses. His heavy cheeks and compact features had the look of a Mongolian. A number of instruments hung from his neck. A small, expensive camera. Binoculars. A compass, and a small black-cased device that may have been an altimeter. He wore a red nylon vest and, rather than a helmet, a red American-style cap with a broad front visor, that also bore the image of a golden derrick. The hair exposed below the cap was long, but trimmed and oiled. He looked surprisingly well-groomed for climbing the mountain trails.

"We didn't come that way," Anya announced.

Again her words seemed to take the strangers by surprise. The man in the sunglasses studied Anya, then Shan, and looked behind them. Chemi stood there, and Tenzin stepped out of the shadows. The man in sunglasses turned to the first man, who cocked his head as if suddenly very curious. He pulled a map from his pocket and studied it intensely.

"Which way then?" the man in the helmet asked.

"Sometimes sheep get lost in the hills," Shan interjected, taking another step forward.

"You have no sheep," the man observed.

"I said they were lost," Shan shot back.

There was a sudden mechanical clicking. The second man, with the sunglasses, was shooting photographs of them, rapidly pressing the shutter and winding as he aimed the device at each of them. An instant later a similar clicking and whirling answered the first, and Shan turned to see Winslow photographing the oil crew, answering each of the man's shots with one of his own. The man with the dark glasses lowered his camera and glared at Winslow; Winslow lowered his camera and the man saw the American's face. He straightened and stepped closer, then twisted about and ordered the rest of the work crew back, leaving only the man in the green jacket by his side.

"I am the foreman," the man in green hesitantly announced, looking to the second man as though for a cue. "Team leader for this field study. For the Qinghai Petroleum Venture." He looked from Shan to Winslow and back again, obviously uncertain which to address. "There must have been a misunderstanding." He studied Shan's frayed clothes and decided to look at Winslow as he spoke. "You should have been warned about the blasting zone."

"Why would you look for oil so high in the mountains?" Winslow asked in an offhand tone, taking off his hat and pushing back his hair.

"Not oil, not here. The blasting is monitored by seismometers positioned in the mountains and in the valley where the exploration is focused. These are very complex geologic formations. We need to record the way the vibrations travel through the rock to define the geologic structure, so we can understand how large the deposit of oil is, how economic it would be to extract."

"And?" Winslow asked, still in his disinterested tone.

"So far the results are inconclusive. It will depend on what the drilling strikes in the valley," the geologist said with a thin smile. "Our models suggest a strike big enough to justify at least a ten-year project here."

"Were you blasting three days ago, on the south side of the mountain? Or this morning?" Winslow demanded. "Have you been on the ridge on the far side of that big plain?"

The foreman glanced at his companion again. "No. We do not operate outside our concession area."

Winslow studied the two men. "Qinghai Petroleum," he observed, "has American partners."

"Italian," the foreman replied, "French, British. And American. We work with Americans on this project."

"So you know Melissa Larkin."

The geologist's expression froze, and he threw a pleading glance toward the man in the sunglasses.

"A horrible thing," the short man observed in an earnest tone. "Tragic, so far from home. So sudden." He removed his glasses and fixed Winslow with a steady gaze. There was sympathy in his words, but not in his eyes.

"You knew her?" the American asked. "I was at Yapchi. I didn't see you."

"Zhu Ji is Director of Special Projects for the entire company," the foreman said. "He works with the foreign experts."

The short, sleek man called Zhu nodded slowly. "But I haven't met you before," he said pointedly. "You are not with the venture. I would know."

Winslow sighed, then pulled out his wallet and handed a business card to Zhu.

It was printed in Chinese on one side and English on the other. Shan saw the image of an American eagle, in blue ink, and gold stars. Zhu stared at it a long time, before handing it to the geologist, who repeatedly turned the card over in his hand, seeming to read it each time, as though the lettering might change when he turned it. "I heard someone from your government came," Zhu said dryly.

"Are you suggesting Miss Larkin suffered an accident?" Winslow asked.

"Miss Larkin is dead," Zhu said abruptly. "She fell off the mountain into a river. I saw it happen."

Shan heard a sharp intake of breath from Winslow. "You were there?"

"I saw it, but not close. You know she had stayed out in the field without properly clearing it- supposed to be on a three day mission but never returned. We had been watching for her, because her superiors were quite angry about it. Her team had expensive equipment and was gathering important data. Only two of her team came back, only the Chinese, who said they had become lost. The others with her were Tibetans," he observed in an accusing tone. "I said maybe she was just lost as well. It is so easy to become disoriented in these ranges. We watched for her when we were traveling in the mountains, and saw her through binoculars on a ledge high above us. I think she was delirious from hunger. Or maybe the altitude. Foreigners often have trouble with the altitude."

"Why wasn't I told this when I visited the camp?"

"I was in the mountains. When I returned I reported it. Forms have been sent to Beijing. And to her American employer."

It was Winslow's turn to fall silent. He sat on a flat rock and surveyed the barren landscape. "Is her body at the camp?" he asked after a long moment. "I need to take the body."

"No body," Zhu said soberly. "Into the river, washed away. It happens. Sometimes people are found floating hundreds of miles away."