"What for?" Winslow asked, casting nervous glances about the facility.

"For the one thing," Shan said.

"One thing?"

Shan gazed intently at the warehouse workers who were supervising the loading. "When I was starting my career in Beijing I worked with an old investigator who said that despite what I had been told in my training at the university the easiest part of the job was knowing who to ask, and where. He said the hard part was inviting those you questioned to give you more than you ask, for if you know what to ask you already have most of the answer. He said there was always one thing in any situation that would open a person up, one thing that was the essence, not the one truth but the one lever to the truth."

"Sort of like the zen of interrogation," Winslow quipped, anxiously watching the workers. Shan asked the American to wait near the door and he slipped into the shadows behind one of the high stacks of crates that lined the warehouse floor.

A few minutes later they entered the warehouse together, Shan holding a clipboard stuffed with papers, Winslow wearing a worn green cap with the symbol of an oil derrick on it.

They stood near the center of the huge open warehouse space, Winslow with his hands on his hips, wearing an impatient expression, an unlit cigar hanging from his lips, Shan looking forlorn. In less than a minute a balding Han man wearing the blue shirt that seemed to indicate senior administrative personnel hurried to their side. Shan had watched the man from the shadows, had seen the way he had obsequiously watched three Westerners who entered the warehouse and darted to assist them, ignoring all else, even the man who had helped Somo the night before, the Chinese administrative manager.

"The accounts for the field teams at Yapchi are out of order," Shan sighed, with a long, exasperated glance at Winslow. Winslow's task, Shan had told the American, was to say nothing, look irritated, and give no clue of understanding Mandarin.

"Surely not," the man in the coveralls stated, nervously looking at the American. He wore an American-style baseball cap, black, with an orange bird on its front. Shan felt guilty about playing to such an obvious, even sad, weakness, but the one thing that most of the venture workers seemed to be obsessed with was making contact with foreigners, for help with immigration.

"I told him," Shan said, "these things are very complex. Multiple deliveries. Sensitive equipment that may be shipped directly to the camp. Sometimes boxes with food supplies and field equipment get confused."

The warehouse manager examined Winslow carefully. The American offered a forced, impatient grin, then glared at Shan.

Shan retreated a step, as if expecting to be hit. "Please," he said in a plaintive tone. "He's been to Yapchi already. He has their records for verification. He's American."

The man nervously motioned them toward a computer terminal on a table in a corner of the warehouse. Moments later he had a screen displayed that read Yapchi: Supply Balances. Shan looked at the screen with a satisfied smile. Running the petroleum venture was as bureaucratic and disorganized as running the army.

The man tapped a few more keys and a subheading appeared: Field Teams. "They all have the same equipment," the man said, pointing at a column on the left side. "Team One," it said. Metallic water bottles, twelve, the listing began. Tent, four man, one. Sleeping bags, four. Butane cooking stoves, one. Fuel cylinders, eight. Rations, sixty meals. Shan quickly scanned the rest of the list. Ropes, axes, mineral hammers, seismic explosive charges. The four-member teams were equipped for five days in the field. "Tell him I know baseball," the manager urged Shan. "They play tapes of baseball games one night a week. Baltimore Orioles," he added in a hopeful tone.

Shan gave an impatient nod in reply. "But one of these field teams left behind some of their equipment."

"Which team number?"

Shan gestured toward Winslow. "What team do you think? The one headed by the American."

Strangely, the man seemed to deflate. "Ah," he said slowly, "Melissa." His eyes clouded.

"You knew Miss Larkin?"

"Sure. I mean-" the man searched their faces warily as if trying to assess how slippery the ground had become. "She brings things for us when she visits. Fossils sometimes. Pretty pink quartz. Once some American sweet biscuits. She is…" he studied their faces again, then fixed his gaze on the computer, "easy to remember." When he felt Shan's inquisitive stare, he sighed and continued in a more distant voice. "Once when she was here there was a big storm and the electricity was gone. No one could work. Most people went to the operations center and drank all day. But Miss Larkin, she made a fire here, in a big iron bucket," he explained, pointing to the center of the concrete floor. "Some of us sat around it and told stories. She taught us American songs that day. Row, Row, Row Your Boat," he said in English, having difficulty with the r's. "Jingle Bells. Oh Susannah."

"But that last time she was here, she wanted something special, didn't she?" Shan suggested. "She left food supplies at Yapchi because she had to carry something else."

The man tapped a few more keys at the computer, then sat down heavily on a nearby stool. A new screen appeared, showing resupply orders for the Yapchi camp. "She said she didn't have time to do all the paperwork." He looked around the warehouse, suddenly wary not of Shan and Winslow but of the shadows beyond them. "Said no one would miss them, that months would go by before anyone would ask for them and I could reorder by then. I said only six, but she insisted on taking all twelve."

"Twelve what?"

The man winced. "It didn't make sense. I still think about it sometimes. I still don't understand." He looked into Shan's face with a pleading expression. "I'll have replacements by next month."

"Twelve what?" Shan repeated.

"Dye markers," the man whispered. "Used to mark currents, or measure the flow of water. Where we usually work, in the new fields, it's almost like a desert. The markers were all covered with dust. I reported that they had all expired," he said, as if once he had decided to confide in Shan, as a fellow Han who shared the burden of dealing with Americans, he had to tell it all, "too old to use. I didn't check. Probably true," he added quickly.

"You just did your job. She was a team leader, after all," Shan said and looked at the screen. There was a line blinking at the bottom of the screen, the last entry under Larkin's name. Replenish, it said, and referenced a date. The date was tomorrow. He pointed at the line of text.

"Resupply," the man said hesitantly. Shan leaned over and moved the cursor to the line and clicked the mouse. A new list appeared, with the same date, and map coordinates. Butane fuel cylinders. Blankets. Five hundred feet of rope, and seismic charges. Four cases of seismic charges.

As Shan studied the screen a chill crept down his spine.

"Why, if it's for Larkin's team," he asked slowly, "would you keep this in the system?"

The color drained from the man's face and he stared at the screen a long time before answering. "I don't put the supply assignments in the system, just assemble the supplies for the orders that appear on the screen. That team may still be working. I hear they haven't found her body," the man said in a subdued, worried voice. Then, as he saw Shan's intense interest in the screen, he stood in front of the monitor.