At the restaurant in town the stout woman was cooking a sheep's head while Fat Mao hit the keys of his computer at the kitchen table and yelled at Swallow Mao for not having the latest admission records for Glory Camp. It didn't matter, she said, Jakli had been seen twice on the road to Kashgar. The boot squad took her to the special processing center they operated in Kashgar. It was lao gai after that, the young Kazakh woman said, as if to deliberately goad Fat Mao. Glory Camp was like a hotel compared to where they would take Jakli, she added.

Fat Mao stared with venom in his eyes until suddenly a hard rap on the door sent the Maos scrambling for their cellar chamber. The woman admitted Ox Mao and another man, who pulled in a third man roughly, a burlap sack tied over his head.

They silently led the man down the cellar steps, past Gendun and Lokesh, who sat meditating in a pool of light by the front window. Shan quietly followed as Jowa rose from the table and disappeared down the stairs. The Maos sat the man in a chair at the table and wrenched the sack away. Their prisoner's face was badly bruised along one side, and a trickle of blood ran from his nose into his moustache and down his chin. It was Wangtu.

Fat Mao paced around the table in silence.

"I was released," Wangtu said quickly, in a voice full of fear as he searched each of their faces. "The prosecutor questioned me about Lau and I was released from Glory Camp. I didn't have a way to town. I knew they were rounding up horses. I said, Let me ride that horse to the sheds, I'll leave it there."

"No," Fat Mao growled. "They gave it to you for something. You paid for it. Told them something."

Wangtu looked at the floor. "I hate them," he said in a hollow voice. "They are my enemy. I was going to look for you, for the lung ma. I can help you. I hear things when I drive the cars."

Shan felt the Uighur's stare and expected Fat Mao to order him to leave or have the others take him away. But the Uighur turned back to Wangtu.

"Which is the lie?" he barked. "That you didn't cooperate with them or that you want to help?"

Shan rose, took a towel from a pile in the corner and wiped the blood from Wangtu's face. No one, not even Wangtu, seemed to notice.

The blank stare remained on Wangtu's face. "Sometimes I know when people are coming on the highway. Important people," he said weakly. "Sometimes I could make cars break down." He looked up at Fat Mao. "That horse was magnificent. Jakli loved that horse. I just wanted her to have it. In the old days, when I was a boy, friends would bring horses to weddings. Don't you understand?" he croaked. "It was the last nadam." He looked into the Uighur's grim face, then turned to Shan. "Did you see her face when I brought it? Like the old days…" His lips curled up as if he was trying to smile, but the effort ended in a grimace of pain. "He gives it to me, then he shoots it," he said in a desolate voice, staring at the floor.

"I don't think you told him anything," Shan said. "Because you didn't know anything. I think you agreed to do something for him."

"A stupid thing. A small thing. A lie to the prosecutor. Bao acted like it would be a good joke." Wangtu tried to smile again and grimaced once more.

"What kind of lie?" Fat Mao demanded.

Wangtu looked at Shan as he spoke. "About the boys. See that Xu got word tonight that another boy has been killed, high in the mountains."

"What boy?" Jowa gasped.

"Any boy. Not a real boy. Just say it, make her go to the mountains."

"An ambush against Xu?" Fat Mao suggested.

"Did Bao tell you where to say it happened?" Shan asked.

"No. Just a place in the Kunlun, on one of the bad roads where you have to drive slow. A place two or three hours away. Bao didn't care where."

"Not an ambush," Jowa concluded. "A distraction."

"Because," Shan said with a chill, "Bao doesn't want her anywhere near Stone Lake."

The Brigade compound on the south side of Yoktian was like a private club compared to the rest of the town. Its stuccoed walls wore a fresh coat of white paint, and its courtyard was covered with that peculiarly Western convention, a grass lawn. Red vehicles abounded, sedans, utility vehicles, and heavy trucks, all bearing the gold emblem of prosperity.

Fat Mao had refused to go, refused to risk any Maos in such a foolhardy venture. "Go home," he told Shan in a taut voice. "You found your old men. You're all still alive. You've done better than the rest of us. Quit before the knobs reach out again." It wasn't simply that Fat Mao was angry over Jakli's arrest, Shan realized as the Uighur watched Jowa and Lokesh join Shan. He was humiliated.

The compound seemed deserted. Shan stepped past the empty gatehouse. It had the feeling of a trap, but he could not stop. He quickly turned to Lokesh and told him to wait with Jowa across the street. The old Tibetan nodded agreement, but as Shan put his hand on one of the double doors leading into the office building, someone reached out and held it open for him. Lokesh was standing at his shoulder.

There was an unexpected noise from nearby. Shouts. Cheers. The sound of a crowd, but still there was no one in sight. They ventured into the lobby and saw an elderly Chinese woman sitting stiffly at a reception desk. As they walked by her she smiled and nodded repeatedly, and Shan saw she was wearing blue work clothes. A mop and bucket of water sat behind her.

There was no mistaking Ko's office. Its entrance consisted of a garish imitation of French doors, with red plastic grilles set over sheets of clear plastic. On one of the chairs near the entrance was a pile of American magazines, and above it hung a poster of a towering building, a nighttime skyline, over which was written New York, New York, in English. On the opposite wall was a banner, which Shan assumed held a political slogan until he glanced at it, then read it twice. Get Rich with the Brigade.

The office was empty. Shan rushed past a secretary station into a large room with a gleaming desk made of chromed metal and glass. There was nothing on the desk but a red telephone and a photograph of a red sports car.

Lokesh, at the large plate glass window behind the desk, made a quiet chuckling sound. Shan pulled the Tibetan back from the center of the glass and peered around the edge. The window opened onto the center of the compound, a yard framed on three sides by buildings. A baseball game was being played. Vehicles had been pulled to the side, and at least two dozen spectators sat on the hoods and roofs of the vehicles to watch the spectacle. Ko was there, running about the way Deacon had at the nadam field, directing the players to stand a certain way, showing them how to hold the wooden bat.

Shan stepped back to his search as the batter hit the ball and the onlookers cheered again. The enterprising Ko did not appear to be involved in the details of his enterprises. The two drawers in the narrow table under the window held paper clips and pencils. Bookshelves held an assortment of mementos and books on management, including several in English. Thriving on Chaos, one said. The momentos were mostly familiar political tokens. A bust of Mao tse Tung. A piece of wood into which the words Persist Unswervingly had been carved, an abbreviation for a favorite motto of a past decade. Two cigarette lighters mounted in polished stone with brass plates noting Party conferences. Several pen and pencil sets. And a string of dingy plastic beads. Shan picked them up. A mala. Remembering that the demon who killed Alta had taken the boy's rosary, Shan put the beads in his pocket.