Zhu considered his words then reached into the canvas case at his feet, used for carrying orders and maps in the field, and extracted a copy of the weather wizard’s prosecution file. Shan sipped at his tea and watched the earnest young officer, wondering if he fully grasped the danger of working for Shan. “The hail chaser was a zealot,” Zhu suggested. “The Tibetan Yankay Namdol was engaged in feudalistic behavior that was an affront to the motherland.” The lieutenant saw Shan’s confused glance. “It was what Huan wrote, his words from his report.”

“Not enough,” Shan said. “Perhaps he knew the managers of the Five Claws project? I mean from somewhere before, somewhere in the east,” he added, meaning outside Tibet. A deep foreboding was falling like a shadow over Shan. Powerful, unseen forces were at work, the kind of forces that had once condemned Shan to the gulag, the kind of forces that had killed four people with impunity. If the Commissar was behind the conspiracy there could be no hope for justice. The Commissar was the demon deity of the Party. He didn’t trouble himself with meetings or conference calls to resolve differences, he just sent thugs in dark suits to silence opposition. “Do you have family, Zhu?” Shan asked.

“Only my parents, no one else.” It was a familiar story. After two generations Beijing’s one-child policy had transformed a society which for millennia had been built around large families by eliminating siblings, uncles, aunts, and cousins. “They’re old, had me later in life. They’ve moved into one of those homes for the elderly.” He shrugged and for a moment Shan saw the awkward boy who still lived inside the young soldier. “I met a girl in Lhadrung. I’m thinking of asking her out.”

“Good. Go back and ask her out. I’ll tell the colonel about the great job you have done and tell him you are ready for a new assignment.”

Zhu seemed offended. “You think I’m frightened?”

“That’s the problem. I don’t think you are, but you should be.”

Zhu seemed about to argue, then calmed and drank his tea. “You have family too.”

“A son,” Shan said, though if Ko were ever released he knew he would have a daughter-in-law soon thereafter. He acknowledged Zhu’s point. “I’m an old warrior scarred from many such battles. We are going into dangerous terrain.”

“I’m a mountain commando, not some military clerk,” Zhu reminded him. “That’s what I do, fight in high-risk terrain.”

Shan shook his head. “You won’t see them coming until it is too late. Go back to Lhadrung. There’s work you can do there. Locate that Institute crate from the train and find out what’s inside.”