“I told you. No one. But there’s one funny thing. When they saw it everyone came running out of the warehouse to help. Except Kypo. He ran to one of the cars and sped away.”

“Toward Tumkot?”

“Just being a good son.”

“What does this have to do with Ama Apte?”

“Nothing. Like I said, we’re calling it an accident.”

Shan leaned over the constable. “Why,” he said slowly, insistently, “would you connect it to the astrologer?”

“She has a thing about certain foreigners. An American writer was here a couple years ago, researching Western connections to the region over the past century. There are some great stories about the spies the British sent across the border dressed as monks or pilgrims.”

“And?”

“I caught her putting dirt in the writer’s gas tank.”

Shan considered Jin’s words a moment. “But you let her go.”

“Damned right. She threatened to tell my fortune.”

As Shan’s gaze fixed on a basket of shiny metallic objects on the desk Jin rose and looked anxiously toward the door. “You said you had a call to make.”

Shan lifted a steel carabiner, one of half a dozen in the basket. “What are you finding in the hills?”

“Nothing.”

“The snaplinks were supposed to lead you to the monks.”

Jin shrugged. “The American woman apparently hands them out to children like candy. Snaplinks with prayer beads attached.”

“Beads?”

“Every link she leaves has a bracelet of prayer beads strung through it. Like she’s some kind of itinerant nun.”

Jin took a hesitant step toward the door.

“Everything’s changed, Jin. Publicly they will call it a criminal conspiracy. Behind closed doors, where it counts, it will be termed another uprising. More gompas will be closed. Monks will be considered a threat to border security. You can’t suppose they will keep local Tibetans in law enforcement. You’ll be sweeping streets in Shogo. That’s assuming Cao doesn’t find out the entire crime hinged on your leaking a state secret to Ross.”

The constable’s desolate gaze told Shan that Jin understood perfectly. The Tibetan cast a longing glance toward the glossy image of surfers on the white-sand beach, then he shut the door. “I saw two men in dark sweatshirts that day, coming down the trail, hoods over their heads,” he said. “They were running down the trail, toward the murders. Big men, strong, smelling of onions. At first I thought they were Public Security,” he said with apology in his voice. “If I had seen them in the marketplace that’s what I would have thought.”

“But there was no need for undercover guards on the trail.”

“I couldn’t see their faces.”

“And they ran toward the murders. Which means that, if they weren’t knobs, they were probably accomplices.”

Jin winced, opened the door.

Shan picked up the phone receiver.

Jin’s face clouded. “There are other phones.”

“I am reasonably certain Public Security isn’t listening to this one.”

Jin cast Shan a sour look, and fled.

Shan lifted the phone and dialed. The satellite phones used by the trekking companies typically took a long time to connect. But after a few seconds there was a short ringing sound and Yates’s voice came through.

“You need to be more careful with your matches,” Shan began, speaking in English.

“I wasn’t anywhere near that cottage,” the American growled. “Now I’ve got nowhere to sleep but up here. It’s like someone wants to drive me away.”

“Did Megan Ross keep her gear there?”

“Sure, some of it. It’s where she was staying, until she went to the hotel the night before,” the American added.

“We need to move those extra porters,” Shan said. “Give them some heavy mountain clothes and meet me on the base camp road.”

The American took a moment to grasp Shan’s meaning. “They’re gone. They pushed the boxes out at the back and sneaked away. Like they were suddenly afraid of me. Whoever helped them wants me out of China.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re allowed to burn trash in a barrel behind the compound. As I was burning a Public Security officer came up, took pictures.”

“What exactly were you burning?”

“Nothing but trash I thought. But in a box I was about to burn they found a monk’s robe. They took me inside to search my room here. Under my cot they found a box of carabiners with a strand of prayer beads inside each one. One of the knobs fingered his baton.

If there hadn’t been a lot of foreign witnesses I’d probably have a broken skull now.”

“I need to see you.”

“I’ve got equipment being staged from base camp today. Tomorrow morning I could meet you in town.”

“Not tomorrow. Not in town. Tumkot village, in an hour.”

Shan was climbing into the old Jiefang truck at Tsipon’s depot when two of the warehouse workers rounded the corner, sootstained and carrying buckets. He paused, waited for them to enter the building, then slipped around the corner. Although the cottage was intact, smoke still wafted out of the gap in the open door. He glanced over his shoulder to confirm no one was watching then darted inside. Smoke hung heavy over the ceiling. The acrid scent of burned nylon and plastic mingled with the stench of singed down. The remains of what had been a bed under the window on the wall opposite the door was heaped with smoldering clothes, charred magazines and papers. Tsipon, always wary of strangers on his property, had probably sent away the fire crew prematurely. If given enough oxygen, the bed would probably burst into flame.

Shan found a T-shirt on the floor, pressed it to his mouth and nose, and searched the ruin of the room. A nylon pack, mostly melted into a blue plastic lump. Several novels in English. Three long metal poles, the trekking sticks favored by foreign trekkers. Clothes strewn everywhere, some clearly belonging to a woman. A small chest of drawers under a window on the side wall, the drawers all hanging open. Two empty duffel bags. Four cardboard boxes, sealed, labeled YATES EVEREST EXPEDITION. He returned to the entry and considered the scene. Before the fire someone had been searching, looking for something that belonged to the Americans. He considered where he would hide something in such a simple open space, then moved along the walls looking behind the few pieces of furniture, under the drawers. Nearly gagging on the smoke, he cracked the window on the side wall and studied the ceiling as the smoke was drawn away. He stepped on a chair, then on the chest of drawers by a window on the side wall, studying the angled roof and its beams. Finally he spotted a dark patch in the shadow of the corner nearest the door. He grabbed one of the trekking sticks and probed, feeling resistance, jerking the stick sideways to dislodge a small gray backpack.

Urgently Shan searched the zipped compartments, discovering at last a compact notebook festooned with pencil drawings of flowers, mountains, and birds. He was opening the inside cover as the glass on the back window shattered. Three small metal canisters were thrown in quick succession onto the bed. The sudden rush of oxygen ignited the bed’s smoldering contents as the door was slammed shut from the outside.

Shan, still standing on the little chest, kicked out the window as the far side of the room burst into flame. He was halfway through the opening when the first of the fuel canisters exploded.

He found himself on the ground ten feet from the building, face in the dirt, his ears ringing, his fingers aching from their white-knuckled grip on the American’s notebook. The bungalow was already a ball of fire. If he had not been at the window, in a position to kick it out, the first explosion would have knocked him out, the second and third would have killed him.

With what seemed to be a great effort he climbed to his feet, stuffed the notebook inside his shirt, and was staggering away as the first of the workers ran around the corner of the warehouse.