Yates replied with a small, sad grin. “All these years, if only I had known, I could have-”

The shots came as two quick successive cracks and echoed off the rock face. Kypo grabbed his mother, trying to push her against the mound but she resisted, squirming away, leaping up and running toward the large clearing beyond the outcroppings. Shan was three steps behind her.

The coats of the three monks had been ripped open to expose the robes they had tucked underneath. Constable Jin wore a victorious smile as he paced in front of the monks, who stood in a line flanked by the two truck drivers who had assaulted Shan and Yates. Ama Apte slowed as she approached, then halted and silently complied as Jin aimed his pistol at her and gestured her toward the rock wall behind the monks.

The constable greeted Shan with an enthusiastic nod. “Comrade Shan! Imagine this. A few hours prospecting in the mountains and I strike gold!”

The larger of the Manchurians, with gray strands of hair blowing at the edge of his wool cap, glared at Shan, as his younger companion watched the pistol in Jin’s hand with a ravenous expression.

“These men are sought as witnesses to the murder of Minister Wu,” Shan ventured. “No doubt you will be commended for bringing them to Major Cao.”

Jin acted as if Shan had told a good joke. “My new friends and I are thinking more along commercial lines. We live in a free market economy now, I hear.”

“Your new friends,” Shan shot back, “killed Director Xie of Religious Affairs.”

“The official view,” Jin countered, “is that these monks committed that crime.”

Shan moved closer to the constable. “It’s a remarkable thing, Jin, when the truth starts to come out in a case like this, a little trickle becomes a sudden flood. Everything changes in an instant.”

“What are you saying?”

“I am saying that Public Security has all the evidence it needs,” Shan lied. “They will soon know the truth about these two truck-drivers. When they’re arrested they will sing like birds and you’ll be just one more conspirator. Worse, a law enforcement official who turned corrupt.” Shan mimicked a pistol with his fingers, pressed it to his head and pulled the trigger.

“Shoot him!” the older Manchurian snapped. “Shoot him and dump him with the other.”

“The other?” Shan asked. “So you did help dispose of the American woman.”

“Megan Ross is climbing somewhere,” Jin said in an uncertain tone.

“She was murdered with the minister. She is in the gully behind you.”

Jin took a step backward, aiming the pistol alternately at Shan, then at the monks. For the first time he appeared worried.

“Give me the pistol you fool!” the older trucker barked. As he spoke his companion jerked something shiny out of his pocket, flicking it with his wrist. A long narrow blade, a switchblade, appeared inches from Shan’s face.

“All we need are the gaus,” grunted the Manchurian with the knife.

“No,” Jin said. “They won’t give up their gaus.”

The oldest of the monks nodded. “We have blessings.”

The Manchurians guffawed.

“You are not able to force us,” the monk continued.

“We can force you with a bullet in your head,” the older man snapped.

“No,” the monk said calmly. “I don’t think you understand.” The youngest monk reached inside his clothes to extract the oversized lotus covered box Shan had seen at the base camp, opening it inside his coat, out of the wind. He produced a cylinder of paper fastened with a strip of red silk, which he unrolled for all to see. It held a drawing of a scorpion, with sacred words in Tibetan script running along its appendages.

“What the hell is that?” one of the drivers sneered.

“A protector charm,” came Ama Apte’s voice. She had approached Jin again, was only a few feet from his back.

“The night before those police came,” the young monk explained in an earnest voice, “our abbot went into his chambers and made this, speaking words of power over it. He only had time to make three. If he had made more, the others would be safe now.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” the older driver demanded.

“The charm,” Shan said with foreboding, “is against injury from demons.” He remembered his first confrontation with the monks in the depot tent, how frightened they had been of him, how they had clutched their gaus.

A frown creased Jin’s face as he stared at the charm.

“Fuck your mother!” the young Manchurian spat, and lunged for the constable’s gun.

As Jin dodged, Ama Apte leaped at the truck driver, pushing his arm down, causing him to twist about, slamming her shoulder with a fist, knocking her down so she gripped his legs. Then, strangely weakened, she let go. For a moment they all froze, looking at the Tibetan woman in confusion. Then she twisted, her hand to her shoulder, and they could see the knife embedded in her flesh.

Kypo, nearest the man who had stabbed her, crouched, about to spring, but then with a blur of motion Yates was on the man, hammering with his fists, slamming a knee into the man’s belly as he doubled over, clenching his fists together and pounding them into his head. As the Manchurian crumpled to the ground Shan prepared to block the attack of his companion. But suddenly Jin’s gun was aimed at the older Manchurian.

“I am the constable of this township, damn it!” he shouted in an uncertain tone. “No more!” He swung his gun back toward Shan and Yates. “But we are taking these monks with us.”

“No,” Shan stated. “Your new friends are just leaving. They have less than twenty-four hours left.”

“Twenty-four hours?” Jin asked as the older driver pulled his gasping companion to his feet.

“Go down with them and try to collect a bounty and you’ll be arrested. Public Security knows about the yellow bucket that summons them, and has the license number of their truck. Law enforcement isn’t as efficient as people think. It takes about twenty-four hours for the ownership and drivers of a commercial vehicle to be verified. Major Cao will have sent in the information just after daybreak. By this time tomorrow every border station, every police officer in Tibet will be watching for that truck.” He spoke to the Manchurians now. “Your only chance is to leave Tibet before then. That’s a lot of hard driving, but you might make it. Get out of Tibet and keep going. Mongolia always needs trucks.”

“Not without what we came for!” the older man snarled.

“When they catch you,” Shan replied in a level voice, “they will separate you. One of you is guaranteed a bullet in the head.”

“One?” the younger driver asked.

“They will work on you both, separately, with wires and blades and mechanics tools, later with chemicals. The one who talks first, providing evidence against the other, will get fifteen or twenty years’ hard labor. The other will be executed in less than two weeks. One of you will talk, it’s just a matter of which one.” Shan fixed the man with a meaningful gaze. “You’re still young, you can make a new life after fifteen years.”

The two Manchurians glanced at each other uneasily.

Shan looked up at the sun. “Of course by the time you get back to your truck you’ll have maybe twenty hours.”

“Fuck your mother,” the older man spat again.

Shan said nothing, just pointed at the man’s companion, who had begun running toward the passageway down the mountain.

As he watched the second man disappear into the rocks a frightened moan rose from beside him. Jin too had been watching the fleeing Manchurians, had ignored Ama Apte, lying on the ground beside him. The Tibetan woman, a long stain of blood spreading down her sleeve, had struggled to her feet. She was suddenly behind Jin, the switchblade at his throat. She grabbed the gun from the terrified constable and tossed it to Kypo. Her son quickly popped out the magazine, walked closer to the gully and tossed it in, then threw the gun into the rocks near the passageway. Jin’s face twisted in confusion as Ama Apte released him. He looked at the monks, then at Shan, as if help. “This fortuneteller is crazy!” the constable gasped.