"They're looking for us," Shan said.

"We're going," Winslow said. "Back to Yapchi."

"There's no transportation arranged," Somo said, searching the yard behind them with a worried expression. "No truck to Yapchi for two days. And even then, the army will be at the gate."

"We have to," Winslow insisted, and his voice dropped. "We have to keep Melissa from dying again."

They sat behind the bulldozer blade for more than an hour, listening to the sound of the utility vehicle moving through the yard and up and down the access road to the highway. Winslow stared absently into the red clay soil beneath them. Shan pulled the ivory rosary from his pocket and rolled the beads between his fingers.

The truck sped by again.

"I asked people here about Tenzin," Somo recalled suddenly. "No word of the abbot of Sangchi being captured or returned to Lhasa. A prominent lama like that, the Bureau of Religious Affairs had a lot invested in him. The head of my school walked out last year in a protest, tried to run away to India. They caught him but he wasn't sent to prison. Sent to somewhere else. Two months later he was back at work, giving speeches about the dangers of reactionaries and leading criticism sessions against other teachers."

Shan considered her words in silence. "You mean political officers might work with Tenzin."

"The government had so much invested him already," Somo said. "I think they will try to rehabilitate him. Reprogram him. Maybe with doctors. Maybe with special religious trainers from the howlers."

Her matter-of-fact tone chilled Shan. He recalled Gendun's words in the hermitage, when the lama had expressed concern over Tenzin. Tenzin was going north, because someone had died. It was the abbot of Sangchi who had died, Shan knew now. But no matter how hard the abbot tried to find a new Tenzin, the government would demand the old abbot back, the tame abbot who had helped so many of their political campaigns.

Shan looked at Somo. It was the slenderest of reeds, only a remote flicker of hope. But if they had not been imprisoned it was possible Lokesh and Tenzin could be found, and saved. He stood up and surveyed the equipment yard. "If no truck is scheduled then we have to find one that is not scheduled," he said in a determined voice.

Winslow sighed, and stood. "First I have to get to that equipment drop site," he said indicating the map in his pocket.

"In the mountains above Yapchi?" Somo asked skeptically. "By tomorrow? Impossible. It's over two hundred miles."

But Winslow was already jogging back toward the compound.

Minutes later they walked down one of the long alleys between the housing units, ducking into the shadows twice when they heard the sound of a truck nearby, then again when a helicopter flew low overhead. It was early afternoon, and the units appeared to be empty, the workers all engaged in jobs, or waiting for jobs in the buildings around the square.

When Shan opened the door to his assigned trailer the unit was lit only by the sunlight coming in the small high windows. But someone leapt up from a bunk at the back of the unit, hastily buttoning his shirt. It was the oily young Han who had taken Shan to the messhall. There was a movement on a bunk behind him and a sleepy face appeared above a sheet, a young woman, naked, with streaked makeup on her face. A single red boot lay on the floor beside the bed. One of the mai xiao nu who had been at the bar the night before. She sat up in the bed looking at them with a surprisingly cheerful expression, slowly raising the sheet to cover her breasts.

The youth looked at Shan nervously, then Somo stepped forward and he relaxed. "Plenty of room for everyone, brother," he offered with a roguish grin. But as the door slammed shut and Winslow appeared, the man's expression tightened. He stared uncertainly at Shan, and shrugged, shifting his gaze to the American.

"I was looking for some clothes," Shan said.

"No one's touched your stuff." The man gestured toward the bunk Shan had slept in.

"I had nothing," Shan said. For the first time he noticed a ring of keys hanging from the man's belt. Perhaps he was the attendant for the unit.

"So see a supply officer," the man said. "At the-" He was cut off by the shrill singsong squeal of a siren. "Ambulance to Golmud," he said knowingly.

"Who was hurt?" Shan asked.

"Manager in the warehouse. Bad fall. Broke both arms." The man eyed them suspiciously. "Sometimes people have bad joss. They say something wrong and bad things happen. I tell them, don't act like it's different here because of all the foreigners. It's just like the rest of the world."

Shan considered the man's words a moment, then exchanged a worried glance with Winslow. Someone in a brown jacket had caught up with the supply manager, and interrogated him. Probably, Shan thought with a shudder, Zhu himself.

"There're clothes here," the youth said in a new, tentative voice, the voice of one accustomed to bargaining. He gestured toward the other bunks and the lockers that stood between each. "But I'm in charge of the unit. I would get criticized if, say, thieves broke in when I wasn't here." It had the sound of an offer.

Shan looked at his companions. He had no money, and his meager belongings had been left behind in the mountains above Yapchi. Winslow lowered the small knapsack he still carried and looked inside. He frowned, looked up, then studied its contents again. He had given his stove and fuel to Dremu, his food to the children at Yapchi. He pulled out the sleek pair of binoculars. The young man's eyes widened as he accepted the glasses from the American. With the air of a diligent shopkeeper, he hung them around his neck and began unlocking the lockers with his set of keys.

When they left ten minutes later all three wore hard hats, and Shan a pair of brown, oil-stained coveralls over his own clothes. Somo and Winslow wore the green venture jackets, Somo a bulky sweater under hers that gave her the appearance of a thick-shouldered man.

"We still have no plan," the purba complained. "I should go back to the office. I can create some kind of distraction with the computer perhaps."

"No," Winslow said in a conspiratorial tone. "We're doing it cowboy style this time."

The American led them through the maze of trailers to the far side of the compound where two large helicopters sat in front of a small hanger. One of the machines was being loaded with crates of supplies. They had waited only five minutes before the machine was loaded and a trim figure wearing a tight red nylon jacket and an American-style cap over dark glasses strode out of the building, flicking a cigarette over his shoulder as he approached the aircraft. Winslow pointed to a stack of small cardboard boxes. Each of them picked up one and walked toward the helicopter as the man opened the cockpit door.

"They said all cargo was stowed," the man protested, studying them with an impatient gaze as they lowered the boxes onto the tarmac.

"They were right," Winslow replied, then quickly opened the cargo door behind the cockpit and climbed inside, pulling Shan and Somo in behind him before slamming it shut. The cowboy way, Shan thought uneasily.

The pilot sighed, as though he was used to such antics. "Sorry, no riders scheduled today. I get too many headaches from Personnel when I move people around without paperwork." He closed the cockpit door and began flipping switches on an overhead control panel.