“We are all soldiers in the service of the motherland,” Xie replied, then turned away as another deputy handed him a radio.
Shan retreated, back to Jomo. He quickly spoke to the Tibetan, then eased into the cab of the blue truck.
Entering the base camp below the North Col of Everest was like entering a war zone. Stacks of materiel for doing battle with the mountain lay under tarps fastened with rocks and ropes, each labeled with a trekking company name. Clusters of tents were scattered across the rocky landscape-some elaborate, brightly colored nylon structures, others, from less well-endowed expeditions, affairs of tattered canvas. Porters-the ammunition carriers of the annual spring war-scurried about under heavy loads, weaving in and out of small groups of climbers. The foreigners could instantly be identified as new recruits or veterans. The haggard veterans, back from the oxygen-starved, frigid upper slopes, looked as if they had come from weeks of artillery barrage. Sometimes stretchers would move among them, urgently being carried to waiting trucks. Kypo had made sure Shan knew the statistics before he ventured to his first advance camp weeks earlier. Nearly two percent of all those who ascended Everest died. One in twenty of those over sixty died. It was too dangerous to bring down those who died on the upper slopes, so they were left as grisly, contorted monuments slowly being mummified by the dry, cold wind. Others, the walking wounded, came back with injuries that would mark them for life. Two weeks earlier Shan had seen a man writhing in agony on a stretcher, half his face dead from frostbite.
Completing the battlefield effect were the many foreign flags that fluttered near the groups of tents. On a low, gravelly knoll between two rutted tracks a familiar figure in a uniform sat in a folding chair, as if expecting to direct traffic. Except Constable Jin was fast asleep.
Shan did not bother to search for the striped red, white, and blue flag before hoisting a crate to his shoulder for cover. He aimed for the most populous of the encampments.
With a businesslike air he entered the largest tent in the base camp, an expansive pyramidal structure used as a supply depot. Confirming that he was alone, he set down the crate and studied the chamber. To his right was a tall wooden tool chest with folding chairs around it, a makeshift table. Small nails had been driven into the wooden tent posts near the table, from which hung lanyards with compasses, whistles on chains, several open padlocks, and a small net bag filled with hard candy. In the far left corner, taking up at least a fourth of the space inside, was a huge square stack of supplies in cardboard cartons. Opposite was a little alcove, separated from the rest of the tent by felt blankets hung from climbing ropes. Shan glanced behind him, then slipped through the curtain of blankets.
A piece of heavy canvas covered the gravel and sand underfoot. A folding chair sat between a metal cot and a folding camp table, which was covered with papers. He sifted through them quickly. Lists of climbers, schedules for future expeditions, weather reports for the summit and the Bay of Bengal, correspondence between Yates and the Ministry of Tourism on the payment of climbing fees, inventories of equipment.
He moved to the cot, searched the bedding, then pulled out a heavy foot locker that was under the bed. Secured with a large padlock, it bore the legend Nath. Yates in large black letters on its top. Behind it were three pairs of boots, a plastic bin of pitons and a nylon climbing harness. On an upended wooden crate at the other end of the bed lay several personal items. A plastic bag of toiletries. A bottle of Diamox tablets, for altitude sickness. A small basket holding dozens of small denomination coins from several countries, with a deck of well-worn playing cards. He sifted through a pile of clothing thrown on the canvas rug, scanned the chamber once more, then found himself gazing again at the padlocked trunk. The padlocks by the main entry had been almost identical to the one before him. The wooden tool box there might hold one of the heavy bolt cutters sometimes used for slicing through the thickest climbing ropes. He moved back to the entry then, as voices were raised outside, slid open the front tent flap to survey the camp. Four weary figures in parkas were descending the trail from above, three Tibetans and Nathan Yates. Shan watched as the American was hailed by a bearded man near a tent flying a German flag, who gestured for Yates to join him. Shan lingered long enough to confirm that Yates was moving toward the German, then darted to the languid form of Constable Jin, still sprawled in the lounge chair.
Jin jerked upright as Shan touched his arm. “You know the American Yates?” Shan asked.
“Buys me a beer whenever he’s in town.” Jin studied Shan uncertainly. “So you’re back to work then?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s nothing more you can do about the murders. You forced his hand. Cao called my office to arrange for Colonel Tan to be transported to a jail outside the county. He says he wants him safe from tampering while he completes his file.”
Shan clenched his jaw. With Tan out of his reach he had little hope of finding the truth or helping Ko. “I am going inside,” he said, pointing to the Americans’ depot tent. “If Yates enters and I do not come out in five minutes, you must come inside, with your gun ready.”
Jin looked up with a hopeful expression. “Is he going to attack you?”
“Five minutes,” Shan repeated, then slipped back towards the tent. With relief, he discovered bolt cutters in the tool chest and was about to dart back to the Yates’ sleeping quarters with them when he noticed two unfamiliar objects at the bottom of the chest, a long flexible black tube and a black oval box the size of his hand. The box had an eyepiece at one end. He held it to his eye, saw nothing, then noticed a battery compartment. He found a small sliding switch, pushed it, and an intense light spilled out the end opposite the eyepiece. The hole emitting the light was threaded. He studied the tube and found it was filled with a clear plastic material, with one end threaded. He screwed the tube into the box, looking into the eyepiece, then switched on the light again and gazed through the eyepiece. A pebble at the end of the tube leapt into view, brilliantly lit by the optic cable. With a thrill of discovery he experimented, bending the tube, seeing pebbles, the back of his boot, the back of his head, the inside of an empty beer bottle on the table.
He carried both the optical instrument and the bolt cutters with him into the sleeping quarters, pausing for a moment to study the huge block of cartons again. He tapped several cartons as he returned to Yates’s quarters. Several on the top tier seemed to be empty.
Moments later he had cut off the padlock on the American’s trunk and tossed it behind the bed before bending over to examine its contents. Several pairs of thermal socks and underwear, in original packages. Two large boxes of matches. A small, sophisticated stove with several canisters of fuel. An envelope containing several black-and-white photos curling with age, of an athletic looking man in a uniform, posing by a large airplane with four propeller engines, then on a horse, then with a dozen other soldiers in a group in front of a barracks.
He shut the trunk, locked it with the spare padlock, and studied the area again, certain he had missed something, looking under the upended crate, lifting the cot, studying the aluminum bed frame. The hollow metal legs had rubber caps at the bottom. He popped off two caps to no avail but as the third twisted away a rolled paper slipped out. It held nothing but six rows of numbers. They could have been international dialing numerals. They could have been bank account numbers. Shan extracted a scrap of paper from his pocket and hastily transcribed the digits. He returned the rolled paper to the bed frame and was about to leave when he noticed something in the shadows behind one of the heavy tent poles, suspended from a small nail. It was a silver gau, a Tibetan prayer amulet. He lifted it with reverence, and not a little awe, for he could immediately see that it was exquisitely worked, from the intricate brass hinge that allowed it to be opened for insertion of blessings to the rows of sacred images engraved on the top and bottom. He lingered over it, moved as always by the centuries old artifacts of the Buddhists.