As usual, Amah Jiejie responded with cunning efficiency once Shan explained their plan. The memo he had just transmitted to Colonel Tan on the old fax machine, which he knew was safer than email, was only two short paragraphs, although he and Pike had taken an hour to compose it. The first paragraph reported that Shan had discovered a secret report prepared by Metok sewn inside the old janitor’s shirt. The engineer had reported that he was in touch with the Bureau of Religious Affairs in Lhasa about the astounding artifacts in the Valley of the Gods, and he believed the agency would soon declare the valley a major heritage site. Metok, Shan explained, knew that while Religious Affairs for the most part just collected and destroyed artifacts on the grounds that they belonged to the state and were counter to socialist imperatives, the agency was practical enough to understand the enormous economic benefit from the tourists who flocked to significant sites. Just as the Dalai Lama’s restored Potala Palace in Lhasa brought in millions in revenue, so too could the sacred valley. Metok had therefore taken several cartons of the valley’s best artifacts to the Religious Affairs processing center on Kunming Road on the outskirts of Lhasa, along with a file he had compiled with the help of a renowned archaeologist.

In the second paragraph Shan simply asked permission to go to the Kunming Road facility to interview Religious Affairs about their contact with Metok, which might reveal that the engineer had not been driven by corruption but simply by an inconvenient belief that the dam was being placed in the wrong valley. While doing so, Shan wrote, he would examine and memorialize the unique artifacts that might provide the basis for stopping the dam project. If he could verify Metok’s assertions, then Colonel Tan could contact the Commissar to address what was rapidly developing into a conflict between different arms of the government.

Shan had to admit that Pike’s plan was a clever ploy. Tan’s entire staff knew that in some more remote regions of Tibet, Religious Affairs had become the dominant government agency, with direct lines to Beijing. Adding a reference to the Commissar had been Shan’s idea. No one in Tibet needed an explanation, or a name added to the title, and nearly everyone shuddered at the mention of his name. Commissar Yang Chouzi had been in Tibet since the original occupation, and though he had had many titles, the one that had stuck was the one used for the Party counselors who shadowed high officials and often were the real decision makers. After decades of ruthless manipulation, the aged, retired Yang lived in a compound outside Lhasa and was still the unofficial Party boss of central Tibet.

Shan had asked Amah Jiejie to place a copy of the memo on the colonel’s desk.