The Forbidden Temple Read Online Free PDF Page B

Chen motioned him to back off and then, with a heavy sigh, pulled on the door handle.
    Outside the air was maddeningly hot. Everything was caked in dust: houses, vehicles, people. Everything was grey, and still as the grave.
    Straightening his back so that he brought himself up to his full height, Chen motioned for the man to come closer. He was not Tibetan. Indian perhaps, or a mixture of the two, with fast, shifting eyes that like a fly never seemed to settle on anything for more than a moment. His teeth were badly worn, the discoloured roots visible behind crooked stumps.
    ‘Where is he?’ Chen asked, staring down at him.
    ‘Money first,’ the man said, rubbing his fingers together slowly. Chen reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small wad of fifty-yuan notes held together by elastic bands. He tossed the money over, keeping his distance.
    The man took his time, creasing back the corner of each note as he counted. Eventually he simply pointed to an unremarkable house set back from the central square.
    ‘You’re certain?’
    ‘Certain,’ the man replied in a low voice. ‘I have been watching.’
    Chen signalled to the soldiers with a couple of fast jabs of his hand and they fell in behind him. As they walked the few paces to the house, he could already feel the sweat prickling up in the small of his back and armpits. He marched on, reaching the battered wooden door in just a few strides and slamming it open.
    At first all he could see was blackness.
    Thin shards of light pierced through the uneven woodwork of the house and eventually he could make out a tiny living area: central fire, a few pots and pans, and a couple of low wooden stools. From round the corner, a young woman in a dirty apron suddenly appeared and screamed with shock at the sight of the soldiers. Chen motioned again and two of his men moved forward quickly, dragging her out through the doorway.
    Stooping under the low ceiling, Chen moved through the house and located two further rooms. In the second, a boy was sitting cross-legged on the floor. As Chen stepped into the room, the boy’s startled brown eyes followed his every movement.
    He was wiry and dirty, his face streaked with mud. Despite his age there was a certain calmness to the way he stared, as if in the battle between confusion and fear, he had not yet decided between the two.
    He remained seated, his chin tilted upwards as he took in the entirety of the man looming over him.
    ‘What is your name?’ Chen said in Tibetan, feeling the words fall from his mouth.
    ‘Gedhun,’ the boy replied quietly.
    At this response Chen shut his eyes for a moment, blocking out the world. When he opened them again, the boy was still staring at him.
    ‘Come here,’ Chen said, gesturing with his hands.
    The young boy stood and took a hesitant step forward across the room, his small hands balled nervously into fists.
    ‘Everything will be OK,’ Chen heard himself saying. ‘Shut your eyes.’
    He was looking at those hands, trying not to think of his own son.
    ‘Go on,’ he said again. ‘Shut your eyes.’
    The boy squeezed them shut and as the lids closed a couple of tears rolled down his dusty cheeks, leaving two clean tracks.
    His lips were still moving in prayer when the bullet came. With a deafening crack, his small body was thrown back across the room, slamming into the far wall before sliding down into a pile of disjointed limbs.
    The dying noise of the shot left an eerie stillness behind it. Chen sagged to his knees, trying to fight against the suffocating feeling that seemed to cramp his entire abdomen.
    It wasn’t imaginary – suddenly he couldn’t breathe. The air just wouldn’t pass into his lungs. He clawed at his shirt collar, desperatelytrying to loosen his tie. Lurching forward on to his feet, he stumbled out through the living area, toppling a pot resting on the corner of the fire. He heard it crash to the ground just as he arrived outside and into the terrible