“Helping Jampa recover!” Lokesh explained in Tibetan. “He had written to me, said terrible things were happening in Lhadrung, and that he and I should take some days together to build a mandala in the old style, so the gods would pay better attention to events here.” He was referring to the sand paintings of intricate symbols and patterns that once had been one of the most sacred elements of Buddhist ritual.

Shan helped the old man to his feet. Xun had fixed Tan with an expectant look, waiting for the signal to detain Lokesh. If arrested, he would spend the rest of his life in prison, assuming he would survive his interrogation. “It’s too late,” Shan said as Lokesh rose. With a wrenching groan Lokesh stumbled to the dead man’s bed. Low sounds of despair escaped his throat, and he bent over Jampa, urgently whispering the first words of the Bardo, the death ceremony that was needed to ease the old man’s passage into the next life.

Surprisingly no one uttered a word, and no one tried to stop Lokesh. After two or three minutes he straightened and spoke to Shan, but switched to Mandarin as if to taunt Tan and Xun. “In the letter Jampa sent me he said a man named Metok was being falsely condemned to death, that Metok was being executed because he knew certain things about that new project on the sacred mountain.”

A tight knot formed in Shan’s belly. “You need to go,” he said, pulling on Lokesh’s arm. “My truck is outside.”

“No, not possible. I will have to stay here, to help Jampa. Someone has to say the death rites.”

Xun laughed. Tan glared at Shan, who desperately looked about the chamber as if it might reveal a solution. He spied a bag of clothing on a chair in the corner.

“You don’t have to be beside his body,” Shan reminded Lokesh. “You just have to be in touch with his spirit.”

“It’s better to be with the body for the first day or two of the rites,” Lokesh replied.

“Not possible,” Shan pushed back as he retrieved the bag of clothing. “This is an army base.”

“He was one of my closest friends in prison during my first twenty years. I knew him as a boy even, Shan, before I was…” Lokesh had the sense not to announce his old role in the Dalai Lama’s government. “I knew him before.”

Shan lifted the bag. “We will take his mala and his gau. We will take his belongings. His spirit will follow. We will arrange them somewhere in Yangkar, and you can sit with them and continue the Bardo.”

“But I need to confront the evil men here with the truth,” Lokesh protested, still speaking in Mandarin. “I promised Jampa. They need cleansing, or more evil will follow.”

Tan looked like he was close to erupting. Xun watched with a ravenous expression.