Bao did not take his eyes from Shan. "Accidents happen on the highway," he muttered.

"His name was Lieutenant Sui." Shan heard a sharp intake of breath from Xu, behind him. "Two bullets in the heart. Surely you have reported it. Beijing takes great interest in attacks on Public Security officers." Could it be possible that Xu didn't know about Sui?

Bao's face paled. His lip curled higher, toward his nose. It was not a sneer- more like the way some animals bare their teeth before tearing into the flesh of their prey. Without looking Shan sensed Xu's body tighten, but he did not take his eyes off Bao. The major reached Shan's side in two quick steps, then raised his open hand and slapped him, hard.

"No officer was killed," he snarled. Then, in his next breath, as only one trained in the peculiar logic used by political officers could do, he asked, "How do you know this? This is a Public Security matter." His furious question was directed at Shan but Bao's eyes came to rest on Xu. Then, as if his remark needed further punctuation, he raised his thick pawlike hand and slapped Shan again.

Shan tasted blood from the inside of his cheek. He would sit there and let Bao slap him all day but he would say no more. Shan had found a place inside, an oddly serene place, a little room he had constructed in prison and not visited since. Some prisoners had called him the Chinese Stone for never breaking from physical punishment. Some of the Tibetans had said it was because his soul had sufficiently evolved so that he was always prepared to leave his body. He had never thought they were right. He only knew that he had evolved sufficiently that, no matter what, even under the threat of death, he would not cower before men like Bao. It didn't mean much to the world if such men couldn't get what they wanted from physical torture, for they could usually obtain it through chemicals. It only meant something to Shan.

As he braced for another blow Shan reminded himself of the Tibetan prisoners who, after all the torture, the starvation, the freezing, even the amputations, thanked the Lord Buddha for allowing them the opportunity to test their faith.

Through a fog of pain Shan heard Xu push back her chair and step away from her desk. He had lost. She was going to join in Bao's fun, he thought numbly.

"This is Prosecutor Xu Li of Yoktian County," he heard her say in a loud, professional tone, the way she might speak before a tribunal. "In the name of the Ministry of Justice I am demanding that Major Bao immediately desist."

Bao had found a place within himself too. Not a place of serenity. Perhaps the opposite of serenity. As the Major looked toward Xu he made a sound like a snarl, a sound of disgust. Shan followed his gaze. He had to blink hard to focus on the prosecutor, blink several times before he fully understood what she was doing. Xu stood with a video camera. She was recording Bao's actions.

Bao picked up a tea mug and threw it, not at Xu, but at the wall beyond Xu, who kept filming as the mug shattered behind her. Then he grabbed the gold coin, spun about and marched out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

A brittle silence lingered in the office. A thin line of smoke rose from Bao's cigarette, still on Xu's desk. Xu approached her desk and stood looking at the door, then looked at Shan. She raised the smoldering cigarette with the paper it had landed on and dumped it into a mug at the side of her desk, then picked up the phone and asked Loshi to bring in two teas.

The prosecutor circled her desk twice, her arms folded over her chest, not speaking until the tea arrived.

"I could have you behind the wire at Glory Camp before nightfall," she said.

"I've been to camps," Shan said quietly, returning her stare over his steaming mug. "Good exercise, bad food."

"I thought you were working for Public Security when I met you. One of the new agents brought in for the project."

"The Poverty Eradication Scheme?"

Xu did not respond. "Let's say you're not Public Security. Let's say you're not Ministry of Justice, not here on a corruption investigation. Just theoretically. But you know that Sui was killed, a secret kept even from me." Xu had not challenged Shan's announcement about Sui. Bao's reaction, he realized, had been confirmation enough. And Shan had been wrong. Xu had not known about Sui's death, he was certain. But Bao had. The knobs knew one of their own was murdered, and they were doing nothing about it.

"Walk around one of the markets and listen for twenty minutes. You'll see how big a secret it is."

She still ignored him. "So let's say you were associating with bad elements. Say, independence-minded herdsmen. Maybe subversive hatmakers."

The words hit Shan harder than Bao's hand ever could. Xu had seen Shan at the garage with Jakli, maybe also checked at Glory Camp for the names of anyone on the rice truck known to the guards. He glanced across her desk, looking for the second half of Jakli's file, the active half.

"I don't wear hats," he said weakly.

"Then maybe you're with the smugglers. We'll have lots of time to decide."

"I'm not with anyone."

"But you are from Beijing. I can tell. Your accent maybe. Or your arrogance in getting around my office."

"As I said, I am an investigator. My name is Shan. And I am from Beijing."

"But not investigating for Beijing. Surely not an independent investigator? Please, comrade. This is not some American movie."

"I am retired."

Xu studied him over the top of her teacup. "And you say you've been in camp before? Maybe you were forcibly retired."

Shan raised his mug. "I salute your deductive powers."

"And what? You're investigating as a pastime?"

"I was asked by friends to look into something. Nothing that concerns you," he offered, though he didn't believe it.

"Except you wind up breaching security at Glory Camp, then rummaging through my files."

Shan looked into his mug. "I have interesting friends."

Something that might have been amusement passed over Xu's countenance, then her features hardened again. "If I weren't so overworked I could spend hours just thinking of all the charges against you. Entering Glory Camp, a state security facility, without authorization, breaching the security of my files, that's a few years right there. But I think we'll keep it simple." All she had to do was to ask for his papers, for the required identity documents he did not possess, or the required travel permit. Then she would order him to roll up his sleeves, and find the tattoo on his arm.

Shan fixed his gaze on a carved bird at the edge of the table. "I am here about the children," he said quietly. "The children who are being killed. Lau's children."

Xu stared at him in silence. She seemed about to speak more than once but reconsidered each time. Then she slowly stood and walked to the shelf behind her desk.

With a chill Shan saw the tiny red light that indicated that the video camera, now on the shelf, was still operating. She had been recording their conversation. But now she retrieved the camera, shut it off, and returned it to the shelf, facing the wall.

She came back to sit not at her desk but in the wooden chair beside Shan. "What children?" she asked. Her voice was still hard, and filled with suspicion.

"A boy named Suwan, nine years old, shot in the head. A boy in the Kunlun mountains, named Alta, beaten and stabbed to death. The same age. Both part of her orphan class."

Xu frowned. "You're desperate, comrade." She had apparently decided not to believe him. "There have been no reports."