Shan had never been on one of the trains, had only watched in chagrin with crestfallen herders as one had sped over their ancient pastures. Consistent with the boasting in countless newspaper and magazine articles, the car was the epitome of modernity, everything made of shiny metal and plastic. Tan made a point of showing Shan the two chambers for train staff, each with a narrow upper and lower berth, and the tiny washroom they shared, then entered four digits on a wall keypad and with a hiss the door to the rest of the car opened. It was sharply colder in the cargo compartment. Shan could see his breath.

Tan pointed to an electronic control panel on the wall inside the door that had been smashed. “Door controls, temperature controls, oxygen controls all inoperable from this side,” he explained.

Oxygen. Shan remembered reading how oxygen was pumped into the train compartments to ease the altitude sickness many passengers suffered, in addition to the individual oxygen access at every passenger seat. It was why advertisements for the train sometimes claimed the train was pressurized.

They passed racks of food supplies in cartons and large cans, two of which were bulging after enduring the railway’s huge changes in elevation and air pressure, then reached stacks of wooden crates marked prominently with the insignia of the People’s Liberation Army and the words “Munitions, Lhadrung Depot.”

“Most of these are special fuses for the new generation of howitzer shell,” Tan stated in a tight voice. “I keep telling them we should move them in military convoys, but some clerk always comes back with proof of the great savings to be had by rail transport. Just a way to make up some of the train’s operating losses.”

“Surely no one would try to steal your munitions,” Shan stated.

The colonel did not reply. He continued to a space where a single large crate had been packed between the higher stacks, creating a little alcove. Quilted packing pads, used to cushion cargo, had been piled in a heap on the solitary, four-foot-high crate. Tan lifted the pads and tossed them in the aisle. Shan froze, then stepped back.

“My men were on board for the cargo as soon as the train stopped. They called me immediately.”

The dead man sitting on the crate was Chinese, in his forties. His arms were wrapped around his knees. His fingertips were dark blue, his fingers a lighter shade. His face, contorted in pain, had a distinctly bluish tint. His eyes stared out in silent anguish.

“He’s blue,” Tan observed.

“Cyanosis,” Shan said. “Pulmonary edema.”

“Meaning?”

“His body couldn’t adapt to the low oxygen at the high elevation. Fluid built up in his lungs. Although with the heat off in here he may have frozen to death before the fluid killed him. Was he an escort to your cargo?”