Lord of Death: A Shan Tao Yun Investigation Read Online Free PDF Page B

temple.
    “Damn it Shan,” Tsipon snapped, switching to Tibetan, “this American is fat with cash. His company has three expeditions already paid for. Do you have any idea how much money that means? He is going to charge them another twenty percent for coming to China, which I’m to get a quarter of.”
    As Shan pressed a napkin to his head the woman reappeared, setting a plate of steaming momo , Tibetan dumplings, in front of him. His free hand seemed to act of its own accord, darting out, stuffing one into his mouth.
    “I need sherpas,” Tsipon said, “mountain porters, mules, and horses. New camps have to be laid out, supplies staged, new safety lines rigged.”
    Shan glanced back and forth from one man to the other. “Just go up to the villages,” he said as he gulped down another momo. “Enough cash can work miracles.” He was suddenly ravenous, and recalled he had eaten only a few mouthfuls of cold rice during the past three days.
    “Not this time,” Tsipon explained. “There is a complication. The sherpas blame me. I blame you.”
    Shan glanced at the American, who sipped at his tea with a confused, self-conscious expression, obviously not understanding their Tibetan words but not missing the tension between the two. “For what?”
    “That sherpa you were carrying. Tenzin. He was well liked, came from a big family living on both sides of the border, famous for having reached the summit as a teenager years ago. They want his body.”
    The momo in Shan’s hand stopped in midair. “Surely someone found the mule. It wouldn’t wander far.”
    “No. Nothing.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Let me spell it out,” Tsipon said, still in Tibetan. “This fool American and his partner are offering the best opportunity I’ve ever had, the best this town has ever had. You agreed to work for me because I could get you into the yeti factory to see that worthless son of yours.”
    Shan’s head snapped up, strangely fearful over the mention of his son, even more alarmed that someone might overhear and guess the secret that had brought him to the region. A wild hope had nurtured him through the dreadful hours in the jail and many dark nights before, a dream, a fantasy, that somehow he would not only reach his son in the knobs’ secret hospital, but discover some means to get him out, at least back to the gulag camps in Lhadrung where Shan and his friends could help him.
    “I agreed to hire you because of your magic at fixing problems with those old-fashioned ones, up in the mountains.”
    Shan stared at his momo, shaking his head from side to side. “You were supposed to get me in. I’ve waited two months.”
    “That was Thursday, when you were going to join me on an official Party delegation to inspect the place. You missed your date.”
    The desolation that gripped Shan was so overpowering he had to brace himself with a hand on the table. “Then when’s the next one?” he asked in a hollow voice.
    “Find me that dead sherpa,” Tsipon said in a matter-of-fact voice, “or forget about seeing your son.”
    Shan stared at Tsipon in disbelief. He hadn’t been released from captivity. Tsipon and the knobs had just found a new form of torture.
    He gradually became aware that more napkins were being pushed toward him by Yates. Blood was dripping onto his dumplings. He pushed away his plate, nauseated, and with great effort rose. He swayed, took a single faltering step, and collapsed to the ground unconscious.
    HE WAS NOT aware of being moved, only of the pain coursing through his body then, later, of dim lights in the blackness, and more nightmares. The pain rose in tides, ebbing and surging, making it impossible to focus, to try to make sense of the events that had occurred since he’d left Tenzin’s body on the mountain. Faces from his past in Beijing mocked him. Visions of Ko being tortured intensified, mingled with questioning, lifeless faces: of the blond woman on the mountain asking why she had to