Shan realized that Tan had expected the Tibetan to go north. “I don’t quite understand, Colonel,” he said. “Are you asking me to start investigating crimes that have not yet been committed?”

He expected an angry reply, but Tan considered his words for several long breaths. “Tibet is a land of broken places and broken people,” he said in a contemplative voice. “And you, Shan, are better at fitting those pieces together than any person I know.” Without another word the colonel rose and began walking back to his car.

A young officer from the camp awaited them. “The warden said you should be aware. The earthquake ruptured our cisterns,” he reported to Tan. “We have no water. We’ll need tankers. And the new mural of the Chairman on the wall of the instruction hall has cracked, split down his face.”

Tan cast another pointed glance at Shan. Camp New Awakening had become one more broken place.

CHAPTER TWO

Shan pulled onto the shoulder of the road as Yangkar came into view at the far side of the valley before him. When he had been forced by Tan to move there he had considered the dusty wind-battered town to be little more than a forlorn exile, but it had come to feel more like home to him than any place he had known since childhood. He had grown fond of many of its Tibetan residents, who greeted him with tired smiles and did what they could to shield him from those few who would always hate any Chinese constable. The town harbored deep secrets, and bitter memories, like Shan himself, but it endured as a scarred, weary survivor, also like Shan. Perhaps the reason he treasured it the most was his discovery that beneath its surface, Tibetan traditions still ran deep because its remoteness and inhospitable weather meant that it had been largely ignored by the zealots who ran Beijing’s Bureau of Religious Affairs, the agency dedicated to eliminating religion in the People’s Paradise. Since the Bureau had helped annihilate the ancient monastery of Yangkar decades earlier, it had almost never been seen in the town again.

As three sheep bounded out of the late-day shadows to cross the road in front of him, Shan groaned with sudden recollection, then put the truck in gear and sped toward town. Ten minutes later he skidded to a stop on the gravel drive of the schoolhouse, and the young Tibetan woman sitting on the steps stood and slung a backpack onto her shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Yara,” Shan said as he climbed out. “I had to drive to Lhadrung. I should have called you from there.” He extended the keys to the Tibetan teacher, whose forgiving smile burnt away his guilt.