The Commissar had been a dark cloud at the edge of Shan’s sky for years. During his life in Beijing Shan had known, and reported to, many tyrannical Party operatives who behaved more like members of the imperial court than representatives of the people. His loathing of them had not started immediately, only after he had recognized among a gathering of such Party bosses one of the men who had persecuted his own family and destroyed the gentle intellectuals who had been his parents. The fact that he had gradually withdrawn, declining to kowtow to them, was probably the biggest reason he had been sent into his gulag exile. They had been frightened by him, because he did not tremble and obey. He had thought he had left them all behind, that they could not harm him in remote Tibet. But then he had heard of the godfather of Lhasa and for years had felt the old familiar fear whenever anyone had mentioned his name. The Commissar was seldom visible, but he made his presence known, the phantom planet that affected the orbits of all the others.

Their demure guide led them past several opulently furnished rooms whose walls were hung with antique Chinese paintings. The corridor itself was lined with photographs of the Commissar with nearly every important Beijing official of the past six decades, including more than one with the Great Helmsman himself. They turned down another hall, this one lined with exquisite Tibetan thangka paintings. Some of the furnishings, like the decorations along the driveway, had obviously been provided by the Bureau of Religious Affairs. Shan did not even realize he had stopped before a breathtaking, vibrant image of Yamantaka, Lord of Death, until Tan tugged at his sleeve.

“He got himself appointed the head of Religious Affairs in Tibet for a few years,” Tan explained in a low voice, “and sent the best paintings to ministers and Party secretaries. Now he keeps the best for himself. He used to lecture at Party meetings, saying that Religious Affairs was the most important agency in Tibet, that the army might be Beijing’s hammer, but Religious Affairs was its precision scalpel.” Shan was well aware of how Religious Affairs ruthlessly used its policies to silence all dissent, since by definition any contrary word from a Tibetan was a form of Buddhist impertinence.

They emerged into the gardens enclosed by the high walls Shan had seen from the driveway. Bamboo grew in huge ceramic pots along the inner wall. Shaggy flowering shrubs and hedges, badly in need of maintenance, delineated several smaller enclaves. The closest held a small archery range with shredded targets at the far end and a table close to the entrance with several crossbows and baskets of the sharpened metal bolts used for ammunition. In the center of the row of targets was a post the height of a man. The wood of the post was heavily punctured and showed several dark stains.