Prayer of the Dragon (10 page)

Gao proclaimed in a contemplative voice, “Proof is a dangerous concept. The essence of science is showing that most truth is opinion.”

“A dangerous proposition,” Shan said, “when your government is dedicated to the opposite.”

Gao lowered his cup. “I’m sorry?”

“You’ve lived in Beijing. The stronger the opinion, the greater the truth.”

Kohler glanced at the doors—a habit, Shan suspected, from a career spent worried about who might be listening. “Truth is what the people need,” the German said in a pious tone. It was an old slogan, one blazoned on public walls.

“Who
are
you?” Gao’s question, though whispered, was as sharp as a blade. The promised dissection had begun.

“Just someone else who has difficulty adjusting to the rest of the world.”

Kohler gazed at Shan as if trying to decide whether to take offense. “
We
conquered the rest of the world,” Kohler declared, “and are enjoying the fruit of our labors.”

Gao, still staring at Shan, seemed not to hear the German. As a female appeared and began removing dishes, the older man rose and silently followed her into the kitchen.

Thomas’s silence was one of amusement, but Kohler’s was becoming one of unease. He seemed to have seen something in Gao that disturbed him. Down in the valley, beyond the small white buildings, a squall brewed.

“How many years have you and Dr. Gao been in Tibet?” Shan inquired.

“Draw a radius of five hundred miles and we have spent almost our entire careers inside it,” Kohler said.

“Which makes you very good at doing something the government finds important,” Shan observed. The circle Kohler described included most of China’s key nuclear weapon research and missile establishments.

“The ruler who brings a nation’s enemies to their knees is beloved of his people,” Kohler replied, “but the men who give that ruler the means to do so are beloved of the ruler. Gao was never interested in public displays of affection.”

“Beloved enough to dictate the terms of his retirement.”

“A small price. An infinitesimal price.”

Shan gathered up several dishes and darted into the kitchen, before Kohler could protest. Gao was nowhere to be seen.

“Tashi delay,”
he greeted the housekeeper in Tibetan. She replied in kind with a polite smile.

He asked her if she was from Drango village. She did not answer and hurried away as Kohler appeared to herd Shan back to the dining room. The youth was at the window, watching the storm below. He hesitantly answered Shan’s questions, explaining that he had lived in Shanghai until his uncle had arranged for him to study astrophysics at Beijing University.

“Perhaps you can compare notes about the faculty,” a cool voice interjected. Gao had returned, and fixed Shan with an analytical stare. “Or perhaps,” he said to his nephew, “you should start by asking our guest what kind of fool rejects the offer of a senior Party status sponsored by a minister of state.”

Shan’s gut began to knot.

Gao came closer. “You netted a unique specimen, Heinz,” he observed. “A special investigator for the Ministry of Economy, in charge of secret cases for the State Council. Cases of great importance. Once an official Hero Worker, privy to the most confidential matters of state.”

Gao had focused on Shan’s tattoo for no more than five seconds, yet he had not only memorized the numbers but in the span of a few minutes been able to reach one of the very few cadres left in Beijing who knew how to locate Shan’s file.

“A highly strung pedigreed hunting dog who turned on his handlers,” Gao continued, studying Shan suspiciously. “After a few years of hard labor he was let loose in the Tibetan wilderness by a colonel he did a favor for. He defies the laws of physics. In an age when scientists can turn dirty rocks into diamonds, he is the diamond who became a dirty rock.”

“In Beijing there are so many diamonds their radiance was blinding,” Shan replied. He eyed the exits, mentally gauging how quickly he could make it to the pass, comparing that to the response time of Gao’s soldiers, and wondering how good a shot Kohler might be when his target was moving.

“You thought you could send one of the most powerful ministers in Beijing to the gulag. A personal friend of the Great Helmsman.”

“I started tracking the dollars he had sent to secret accounts in Switzerland. I lost count after twenty million.”

“Where is he today?”

“He died in office and was given a hero’s funeral while I was in prison.”

Kohler laughed first, but Gao soon joined in, followed by young Thomas. Shan stared out the window. His gaze settled on the lammergeiers’ nest. The predators on top of the food chain on this particular mountain liked to consume their prey while it still breathed.

Eventually he became aware that the others had left the room. When he tried to follow he found that the doors were locked. He pressed his ear against each door, but no sound betrayed his captor’s activities. He paced around the table, then slipped his shoes off and sat, lotus style, atop the bare table, his eyes on the mountain across the valley, his hands folded into a mudra. His fingers were intertwined, the index fingers raised and pressed together like a steeple. It was called Diamond of the Mind, for keeping focus.

He wasn’t aware of the door opening, only of Thomas appearing in the chair nearest him, holding two bottles of water. The youth, new excitement in his eyes, handed Shan a bottle, a peace offering.

“How many criminals have you killed?” Gao’s nephew asked.

Shan shuddered. “I never carried a gun,” he finally replied.

Thomas seemed disappointed.

“But my investigations sent over a dozen men to firing squads,” he offered.

Thomas brightened. “I have told my father and uncles that I plan to enter the Academy for Forensic Science.”

“I once taught there,” Shan said, slipping off the table to sit close to the youth, eye to eye. “A guest lecturer.”

Thomas saluted Shan with his bottle. “My uncles tell me I am destined for great things. They want me to become an astronomer, for when China has its own space station. Uncle Heinz calls me the first citizen of the new world. He says they can get me into the astronaut corps when I finish university. But when I arrived here this summer I told them I wanted to enroll in the forensic academy, because that is where science and real life come together. They laughed at me.” He took a swallow from his bottle. “But they’re wrong. I saw the head of a murder investigation squad in Beijing, driving a Mercedes. In America they have red convertibles.”

A dozen rejoinders came to mind, but as Shan sifted them, realization burst upon him. “Give me your opinion of the murders.”

Thomas glanced nervously toward the closed doors.

Shan said in a quiet, conspiratorial tone, “Surely there is only one other person on this mountain who knows how to treat a murder scene. The trick with the glue, that shows great resourcefulness. Did you use a spoon and match?” It was an improvisation Shan himself had used more than once in his prior life. The isocyanate of the industrial glue adhered to the oils in fingerprints, producing a print of gray raised ridges.

Thomas flushed. Then he admitted, “I took photographs. I took fingerprints. Everything. I put particles of bone in plastic bags. I am making a special portfolio for my academy application, to guarantee my admission.”

“Everything?”

“You know. Tissue samples, for DNA. Blood samples The dirt from their boots. I recorded the direction of the wind, the time of sunrise, air temperature. The entry wound to the back of Victim One was inflicted by a heavy-edged weapon and probably severed the spinal cord. The puncture wound in the skull of Victim Two could have been from a large-caliber bullet.”

“I think the killer stood right beside his victims,” Shan explained. “I doubt if he used a gun. Did you see any stippling on the skin around the hole? When a gun is fired at close range particles of burning gunpowder leave traces.”

Thomas’s eyes widened. He pulled a piece of paper from a pocket and scribbled a quick note, then began to brag again. “I took a fly larvae out of the flesh and froze it. We can correlate the life-stage development of the larvae with other indicia, to confirm my finding of the time of death.”

“And how exactly did you make your finding?”

“Rigor mortis. The hardening of the skeletal muscles begins within two to three hours and begins to dissipate within twenty-four hours. When I found the bodies in the morning the stiffness was just disappearing.”

“It may be dangerous to rely on such criteria when the limbs have been severed.”

“The hands. Only the hands were cut off at first. I do wish I had the hands.” Thomas fixed Shan with a meaningful gaze. “Even if the flesh of the fingertips was deteriorating we could inject them with saline solution to raise the ridges enough for prints, right? And I could probably match the hands to the bodies from my photographs and even draw inferences about their professions.”

Shan went very still. “Are you saying you have photographs?”

Without another word the boy leapt up and shot out the door. He returned panting, extending a small silver digital camera. “I haven’t printed anything out, but you can view them right here. The hands were gone when I discovered the bodies. When I returned with my equipment the bodies had been dismembered and some of the limbs were missing.”

His camera held a dozen photos, and though the small screen did not display much detail, there was enough. Shan had to calm himself before taking a second look. Unfortunately, Thomas had taken pictures only of the small clearing where the bodies had been, not of the campsite itself, and none of the two men’s faces. Their clothes were blood drenched. The shirt on one of bodies also bore soil stains showing its wearer had been dragged. One appeared to be younger; on his back was a long wound, as Thomas had described. The flat rock in the center of the little clearing still had one arm stretched across it, in the direction of the low sprays of blood. Shan pointed to the puncture wound on the older man’s skull. “The edges are not uniform enough for a bullet entry.”

Thomas nodded. “And there was no stippling. You have changed my theory of the case.”

“You have a theory?”

Thomas nodded again. “I have to have a case theory, a hypothesis, for my project. The criminals were runaway soldiers, that was my first idea, deserters turned bandits. But if there was no gun, then I will say the culprits were Tibetans, a gang of hooligans with axes and hammers.” He looked up, his eyes brighter. “Ragyapa! It could be a gang of criminal fleshcutters. This could be a movie script!”

“Ragyapa remove the clothes from corpses before cutting them up,” Shan pointed out. “And they don’t take away body parts. They leave them all at the scene. And they crush the bones.”

Thomas frowned. “Reactionary Tibetans then. The first victim lingered. A cloth was stuffed in his mouth to silence him.”

Shan nodded solemnly, wondering about the boy who coldly took photos of dismembered men for a school project. “What exactly did you do,” he asked, “after your first visit?”

“I went back for one of Heinz’s guns. When I returned there were dogs circling about the rocks. I fired the rifle and they ran.”

Shan stared at the boy in disbelief. “Another approach,” he observed in a steady voice, “might have been to wait in hiding with your camera, in case the murderer returned to dispose of the bodies.” If Thomas had scared away the dogs, then certainly he would have spooked the murderer.

“But then my portfolio would have been incomplete,” Thomas pointed out. “I still had to lift the fingerprints and evaluate the angle and force of the cutting instrument. The dogs would have destroyed evidence and contaminated the crime scene.”

“And your conclusion about the instrument used to cut off the hands?”

“It had to go through bone and ligament. A surgical bone saw would fit.”

It wasn’t so much an investigation, Shan told himself, as a word game.
Sound bites from famous detective shows I have watched.
“I’m old-fashioned,” he said. “How about something that fits the context, like a small ax? It would account for the wound in the back and the severed hands.”

Thomas nodded, making more notes.

There were four more photos of the dead men. The young one had worn denim pants and a sweatshirt; the older man, a T-shirt and sweatpants. The other eight photos were all of bloodstain patterns.

“Why were you really imprisoned?” Thomas asked. “I saw a movie once where an investigator was sent to prison to infiltrate a criminal ring. Did you kill anyone in prison? A good policeman doesn’t need a gun. I have a book about the ten ways to kill with your hands.”

Shan clenched his jaw. As unlikely an ally as Thomas might seem, Shan needed the boy. “I saw many people die in prison.”

Thomas hesitated, then nodded. “Of course, if it was true, you would deny it. The best ones never break their cover.”

“I can see you have a brilliant career ahead of you in Beijing.”

“Would you write a letter of recommendation for me?”

The charade was getting out of hand. “Your family has imprisoned me,” Shan pointed out.

“But I unlocked the door,” Thomas declared.