Shan was ready to face imprisonment by Huan, Tan’s bullying, Ko’s suffering, and the murders of Metok, Gangfen and Natalie Pike, but he had not been prepared to encounter the woman who had briefly been his lover years earlier. Meng Limei had been the Public Security officer in the town of Baiyun, where Shan had been unofficially investigating several brutal killings. Their relationship had been shattered when she had killed a clandestine Public Security agent who had been about to infiltrate the exiled Tibetan government in India. The man had been responsible for the murders, but Shan had been arranging a nonviolent resolution so as not to upset the Tibetans. Afterward he had come to realize that she had been right, and her bullet had saved Shan and several Tibetans from disaster. She had killed the murdering spy, then anticipating his reaction, got in her car and drove away to a new assignment in Inner Mongolia. He had not heard from her since.

“Your town is out of one of those American Western movies,” Meng said. “Horses tied up outside stores, tumbleweeds blowing down the streets.”

Shan had no idea what to say. “The wind seldom stops here,” he tried. “I thought of writing you last year but didn’t know where you were.”

“No problem,” Meng replied with an awkward smile. “An awful place at the edge of the Gobi. The wind blew there too. There was always sand in the food.” She gestured to a battered bust of Mao at one end of the square. It was made of fiberglass and losing its color in blotches. He seemed diseased. She jerked a thumb toward the statue by the chorten at the opposite end, the old Buddha made of stone. “That one seems to be healthier.”

“The Chinese citizens were removing him every few weeks, but he always makes it back. Then the town astrologer told them they were upsetting the local spirits and they must stop harassing him or all their rice would be infested with weevils and their vegetables rot.”

“Ah, Mrs. Lu and her committee. Onions, underwear, and a cabbage. She has a long list of unresolved crimes, Constable.”

“A goat and the wind are prime suspects in the first two. I still have an open file on the cabbage.”

A wider smile lifted the lines on Meng’s face. She had always had the most compassionate countenance of any knob he had ever known, with a deep intelligence behind her dark eyes. Her face, however, had grown thinner, tinged with sadness.

Somehow he knew she was not on duty. “I doubt many officers stationed in the Gobi Desert would choose Yangkar as a vacation destination. Although Marpa’s soup is becoming famous.”

“Come back inside and finish your lunch, Shan.”

“My deputy thinks you are here to arrest me.”

“I left my handcuffs in the car.”