The challenge in their plan had been to find a way to detonate the fissures without having it blamed on the Tibetans. Cato Pike had at first refused to leave his daughter’s side, just as Shan would not leave Ko’s, but after two days the doctor had declared his patients out of danger. Ko would have an impaired but functioning lung and Natalie Pike, with therapy, was expected to regain full use of her limbs. Dr. Anwei was not as sanguine about her eye but was hopeful that doctors in America could find a treatment. Both patients had urged their fathers to go rest, and Cato Pike and Shan had joined Tan and Amah Jiejie at a dinner where Pike and Tan had finished a bottle of vodka, during which the American had learned of Tan’s own bitter attitudes about Beijing. It had been near the end, when Tan had poured fiery bai jin whiskey for all, that Pike had offered the suggestion that would put all the blame on Beijing.

It was, Shan had to admit, a brilliant strategy. The fabricated note, dated nearly forty years before, was a report from a quartermaster that addressed the problem of excess and aging munitions left from prior hostilities. He recommended that they be dropped into a fissure in a distant uninhabited place called by the Tibetans the Valley of the Gods. Amah Jiejie had artfully affixed old stamps reflecting its authenticity and had verified that the quartermaster had conveniently died years earlier. The finishing touch had been Pike’s inspiration as well. They had baked the paper in Amah Jiejie’s oven to age it, with Tan hovering over the oven with ebullient anticipation, clapping the American on the back as they waited. The unexpected explosion had not been the work of Tibetans, it had resulted from the arrogance of Jiao and his patrons in Beijing, who could now readily blame the fugitive deputy director for the catastrophe.

The wind on their backs began to rise, slowly clearing the dust cloud. The high V-shaped pass was no more, replaced by a wide, jagged opening with a gaping crevasse below it. There would never be a dam across the valley.

Shan went to the director’s side, who stood alone, still staring at his ruined project.

“There was no way for you to have known,” Shan said. It had the sound of a suggestion. “You were brought in after the project was conceived and its plans laid.”

“No way I could have known,” Ren repeated in a dull voice. “I was…” he seemed to have trouble speaking, “I was brought in later.”

“Jiao was a criminal who committed a fraud on the state. His friends Lieutenant Huan and Major Xun have also disappeared. No doubt they were part of the conspiracy.”

“A conspiracy against the state,” Ren mumbled.