Jiao laughed into his mug. “This had been a Beijing project from the very first brilliant suggestion made to the Minister of Public Works. A task force was created. Satellite photos were analyzed, and electrical demand algorithms constructed. They have computer programs calculating peak loads five and ten years from now and how the Five Claws will meet the demand.”

“Still, it’s my county.”

Jiao’s eyes flared. “Beijing’s county! The Party’s county! You haven’t even attended a Party meeting in years!”

Tan shot Shan a meaningful glance. Jiao had been investigating Tan. “I found I wasn’t learning much at those meetings. I memorized the Chairman’s book of quotations decades ago. I have a drawer full of citations and medals for bravery and protection of the socialist imperative.”

“Collecting dust! What you know about the socialist imperative is forty years old! This is the twenty-first century!”

“I’ll be sure to change my calendar when I return to Lhadrung.”

Shan found himself on the edge of his seat, actually worried that Tan might strike the deputy director. Men who knew Tan would be trembling under his icy stare, but Jiao’s arrogance blinded him to it. But the director understood and tugged at his deputy’s arm as he interrupted. “I have a wonderful video of the Three Gorges Dam, Colonel,” he declared. “We can view it in my office. We are planning to use some of their same turbine technology here.”

Jiao’s mocking stare took in the director as well now.

Tan nodded. “We have an hour before my helicopter returns. We can go straight to your—” he paused, seeing the chief of the cleanup crew darting toward them.

The chief bent and urgently whispered to Ren, whose face slowly drained of color. He abruptly stood, then remembered his guests. “Perhaps you should collect your things first. I will meet you in my office,” he said distractedly, then hurried after the crew chief, followed by his new Public Security guard. Jiao muttered under his breath, then drained his tea and hurried after Ren.

Shan and the colonel climbed into their own truck and followed the director as he and Jiao sped toward the southern end of the valley. Half a dozen vehicles were already parked beside a patch of smoldering earth as they approached. The air had a foul, acrid smell, tinged with sulfur and burning rubber. The director and Jiao stood with Lieutenant Huan beside a rapidly expanding crowd of workers staring at a bizarre pattern of objects lying on the ground. Arrayed in two opposing arcs, each about fifty feet long and perhaps thirty feet apart at their tips, were tools and weapons, with a boulder above the arcs that was burning with blue flames.

“I don’t understand,” Shan heard Director Ren say in a near-frantic voice.