“Ko!” With a wrench of his gut Shan realized his son had deflected the shot that was meant to kill Tan. The two men wrestled on the ground. Blood spurted from the tangle of limbs. The gun fired again, and Huan went limp.

Shan ran to his son, but Tan was there first, pressing his palm against a bloody spot on Ko’s upper chest as he lifted him to examine his back. “A clean shot, out the shoulder,” the colonel explained as Shan desperately confirmed his son’s pulse remained strong. “Nowhere near a vital organ. That’s good. Not much blood coming out of his mouth. Looks like it only grazed his lung, mostly through muscle. A battlefield wound, not a death blow.” The colonel stared at Ko, who had passed out, and Shan realized the colonel was almost as stunned as Shan. The prisoner of the 404th had saved the life of the tyrant of the Lhadrung gulag.

Jaya reached down and with Tan’s help carried Ko into the camp, where she leaned him up against a tree then draped a blanket over his legs as she began tearing off the bottom of her shirt to bind the wound. Tan stripped off his own tunic and took off his shirt for her to use. Lhakpa lit a stick of incense and stuck it in the ground beside Ko.

Jiao gave an exaggerated sigh as he gazed at Huan’s body. “Always too excitable,” he declared, and made a gesture to Xun, who silently dragged the dead Public Security officer to the edge of the cliff and pushed the body over.

“You should go now,” Shan said to the remaining conspirators.

“We are not finished,” Xun spat, raising his own gun.

“You can still make that plane,” Shan pointed out.

“Or what?” Xun sneered. “You’ll try another cheap trick and call it the magic of the mountain god?”

“Cheap?” Shan replied.

As Xun looked over Shan’s shoulder the color drained from his face. He seemed to shudder, and then stepped backward. Natalie Pike, supported by Jaya, had stepped out of the shadows.

“Impossible!” Xun gasped. “I laid the final charges myself! She’s dead! She has to be dead!”

“This is Tibet,” Shan said. “The dead always live again.”

The American woman, the bandage still covering her eye, said nothing and extended the cell phone Xun so desperately sought. As Cato Pike emerged from the shadows, Shan’s heart sank. He had left Pike alone with his daughter, giving him the chance to retrieve his pistol where he had dropped it on the cave floor.

But then Shan saw he was not holding the pistol, but instead had the blue sledgehammer that had been adapted as a ritual weapon. As the American took a step toward Xun, the major raised his pistol. Shan inched forward.