Daoli glanced up with an oddly sheepish expression then looked away toward what sounded like a busy street. “The Public Security officer who came to interview me. The orders were from a famous soldier, a legendary officer in Tibet. Colonel Tan of Lhadrung County, who runs all those prisons. I hear that in the army they call him the Tibetan Mastiff, after the dogs that rip people apart.”

“You saw the orders from Tan?” Zhu asked.

“Affirmative. Issued by Tan and signed by his adjutant Major Xun.”

Although Tan had obviously seen the video already, Amah Jiejie nervously kept her hands pressed tightly around the phone, as if she expected that Tan might smash it.

The layers of deception ran deeper than Shan had expected.

“I’ll rip Xun apart with my bare hands,” the colonel hissed.

“You can’t,” Shan said. “Inserting your name was an insurance policy. If someone ever dug into Metok’s case, they would discover evidence that you were implicated. And if one of them went missing, the others would say it was your conspiracy, which would ring true because you rank higher than them. This knob’s testimony would prove it. He wasn’t lying, he was just obediently following orders from a renowned army officer.”

“Surely you don’t suggest we sit back and do nothing?” Tan snarled.

“I’m not saying that,” Shan replied. Amah Jiejie looked at him with a frightened expression. She understood. “What I’m saying is that they all have to be taken down for something other than what they did to Metok.”

“Huan and Xun, you mean.”

“Plus Deputy Director Jiao. And I suspect there’s someone else in Lhadrung involved, someone who has authority to order military supplies. You really don’t understand, do you?” Shan asked.

“I understand lying, overambitious pricks committing murder.”

“Metok and Jampa were just nuisances for them, minor obstructions they had to swat away. They have a much larger goal.”

“Speak plainly!” Tan snapped.

“Xun now has control over all government buildings and personnel in the county. Huan is getting authority in the county through his deployment on the Five Claws. Jiao is already acting like he is the supreme government in the Five Claws region. They didn’t kill Metok because he was slowing down the dam, they killed him because he was interfering with their bigger plan. Killing the professor and his American student was little more than an afterthought. Metok was criticizing their project, and trying to bring in Religious Affairs, which they don’t control. They destroyed him, then they thought they were destroying every connection Religious Affairs had to Lhadrung and the project by burning down that building. Religious Affairs isn’t a sister agency to them, it is a competitor.”

“Meaning?”

“You’re the only military governor left in Tibet. It’s very old-school, less and less palatable to the Party. Given an excuse, the Party won’t get in the way.”

“Shan!!” Tan barked.