We got these. Chong, lifting his hands off the steering wheel, dropping them back. But our hands weren't going to be enough. I would have liked to know what was in his mind, Chong's, as we stood here in the blinding light. He nursed a hate for these people, the people in uniform who took orders from the overlords, who themselves had thought fit to turn women into cattle and drive them behind trucks through the streets; but I could only hope that he could control it, his hate, and not let it reach flashpoint and tempt him to rush the gun.

He wouldn't of course do it without thinking: he wasn't mad. But he might let the idea simmer, might watch for a chance. That could be fatal. He might watch for a chance and see it suddenly and take it and get it wrong and go flying back with his feet coming off the ground and the smoke curling out of that thing and the echoes banging their way among the rocks and the people up there at the roadblock turning their heads, go and see what's happening with the sergeant down there, fatal, not just for Chong but for Bamboo, and for Dr Xingyu Baibing, and for me.

I'd have to speak to him, to Chong, if I could. You will not make a move. I repeat: you will not make a move. That is an order. There exists, within the structure of command laid out by the Bureau, a form of ranking that is designed not with any kind of military pecking order in mind, but the concept of safety. It is safer, when a shadow executive is in the field with other people — support, couriers, contacts, sleepers — for this ranking to be recognized and observed, so that everyone knows where he is and what he can do and above all who calls the shots.

'Dao chehoumian qu!'

In any given situation it's the executive who calls the shots, and if this man Chong has been trained in Bureau lore and mores he would know this, and observe them.

'We got to walk to the rear of the truck, okay? He didn't go for our stories. He says you must be a journalist.'

Merde.

I said: 'Don't do anything.'

He didn't answer. I didn't expect him to. Any kind of exchange between us would sound like connivance, and the sergeant would be onto it straight away, no talking, so forth, and that would make things more difficult for us. It was all we had left to save ourselves with, if we could: communication.

More shouting.

'C'mon over here. He wants us side by side.'

I walked past the big radiator, feeling its heat on the side of my face.

We couldn't do anything with heat.

'Not too close, okay?'

I stopped, turning my back to the light, and heard the sergeant's boots crunching across the shale away from us. He was getting into the jeep. It occurred to me that it could suddenly be over, that he'd positioned us close together in the beams of the headlights so that he could pump out a dozen or so shells from the assault gun and then drive away, they tried to sell some kind of story about being geologists but I think they were just a couple of underground revolutionaries and we're better off without people like that, send someone to take the truck in to the barracks, leave them where they are, because that was the way of life in the People's Republic of China now, you wave a placard with the word Democracy on it and they'll shoot you dead, you kneel on a prayer mat and they'll burn your monastery from under you, these are the dark ages in a totalitarian country and if you try to run counter to the requirements of the state then the state will require you to be shot, so it is written so it shall come to pass-

'Zhou!'

'Walk,' Chong said.

The engine of the jeep was throttled up a little, and there was more shouting.

'We keep in front of the headlights.'

Began walking, the jeep behind us, its tires crunching across the ground.

'Chong. Don't do anything.'

'You got it.'

'If I think there's anything we can do, I'll give you time.'

More shouting.

'Keep in front of the headlights.'

The jeep was turning in a curve and we moved with it, our shadows going ahead of us, reaching into the darkness beyond the range of the headlight beams.

'Sure, okay, you'll give me time.'

The spread of light turned in a half-circle and we turned with it, walking, the four of us, two men and two shadow men, across the roof of the world.

We couldn't do anything with shadows.

The truck came into view again and we approached it from the rear, and there was another shout.

'Halt,' Chong said.

Boots rang on metal, then a third shadow moved in as the sergeant walked into the light.

Orders.

'You stay right where you are, okay?'

Chong went forward to the tailboard and hit the pins clear of the posts and it swung down, banging against the stops.

The sergeant walked past us at a distance of fifteen feet with the gun trained on us; then he climbed the side of the truck and sat on the roof of the cab facing the rear. High on the big truck, he was above the full glare of the beams.

He barked an order, and Chong pulled himself up to the bed of the truck and stood there, waiting, his back to me now, his shadow beside the sergeant's legs on the rear of the cab.

'La shi xie shenme?' Pointing.

Chong looked down, then up at the sergeant again. What are those! Something like that. They're drilling rods.

'La xiene?'

Chong began shifting the equipment, dragging the steel bars to one side, heaving a canvas bag off the floor and dumping it out of the way. The sergeant sat with the big gun sloping downward, keeping us both covered.

Some of the equipment was light: short steel rods, five-pound hammers, a set of levers with a strap around them. Chong pulled them aside, stacking them out of the way. I watched him. They would make good weapons.

We couldn't do anything with weapons.

There were three crates, and that was what the sergeant was interested in. He barked more orders, and Chong snapped the fasteners open and lifted a lid. In the first crate there were instruments of some sort; I couldn't see into the crates from where I stood because the bed of the truck was more or less at eye level, but Chong was taking a few things out, holding them up. In the second crate there was camping gear for the drilling crew: billy cans, butane stoves, a frying pan, blankets. Chong dropped them back into the crate and swung the lid down.

I knew now.

The exhaust gas came clouding through the wash of light, giving it a bluish tint, and sometimes the engine's note faltered and picked up again, perhaps because of impurities in the fuel, or a loose spark-plug lead. My shadow stood against the tailboard of the truck, stark, sharp-edged at this distance.

I knew now what the soldier was looking for, what they were all looking for, the soldiers up there manning the roadblock, the soldiers manning the roadblocks in a huge circle right around the city of Lhasa.

Chong worked on the fasteners of the third crate and swung the lid open.

'Laer shi shenme?'

Chong pulled out a blanket, then a cushion, then another one.

I got crates back there, one of them empty. He'll be snug as a bug in there, got a blanket and some cushions, nothing too good for that guy.

A lot of questions now from the sergeant, and answers from Chong.

'Wei shenme chule zhe xie dongxi wai zhe xiangzhi shi kongde?'

'Ling yige xiangzhi mei kong.'

'You heng duo kong. Da kai xiangzhi.'

Chong went to the first crate, the one with the drilling gear, and opened it.

'Bu shi laige xiangzhi. Shi di er ge.'

Chong let the lid fall and went to the second crate and opened it. I think the sergeant had asked why there were only a blanket and a few cushions in the last crate and Chong had said there wasn't room in the other ones, but it didn't matter very much what construction I was putting on things because the sergeant was standing upright suddenly.