"I found something out, Johnny," Marco said in a conspiratorial tone. "Sometimes the more you watch, the less you see."

The edge of the moon appeared so brilliant, so crisp, that it seemed like a shining piece of porcelain. In the distance, high snow fields glowed.

"They have huge caves, the army," Marco said. "Brought in thousands of gulag slaves to hollow out entire mountains. Some say the whole Tibetan border is just a series of hollowed-out mountains, full of soldiers. They have their damned missiles and radar dishes. An Indian plane goes through, or a Pakistani, and they can shoot it down in seconds. But say an eagle goes through- they never see it, because they use machines to do the watching. They watch for metal things, not real things. You and I, we would watch the sky. But they just sit and watch screens inside the mountains.

"And if army trucks or tanks come across one of the passes, they see them on their detectors. But maybe not a camel or two. Elsewhere they have patrols, but in some places it's so important they use only electronic surveillance. A small group, if it's careful, can sneak through. Don't carry metal. Don't make sharp noises. Don't do it often, got to use different routes, many techniques." He sighed and pointed toward a falling star. "Things can be arranged from a hundred miles away. Sometimes a wise man may even find ways to smuggle without smugglers."

"I don't understand."

"Trucks, for example. Big market for heavy trucks in Xinjiang. So last year I brought in five heavy trucks, filled with Indian dyestuff for the carpet factories. The border patrol, they searched those trucks good, but everything is legal. Never realized I was smuggling in the trucks. Even had trucks going out, with the same paperwork. But they were twenty years older and about to fall to pieces." Marco chuckled to himself. "Even did it with a bus.

"And something else I have learned. When is contraband not contraband?" He turned to face Shan, leaning on the old stone parapet. "When the government brings it in."

Shan nodded. In his Beijing incarnation his main activity had been investigating corruption. Once he had discovered that an entire shipload of equipment had breezed through customs clearances because the smugglers had falsified papers saying it belonged to the Ministry of Petroleum Industry.

"Sometimes, if someone in the government has a shopping list, they won't ask where you got it. They may even be willing to turn a blind eye at a checkpoint."

"You mean, you work for the government sometimes?"

Marco spat a curse. "Never. I mean sometimes, if a certain greedy officer wants some Western goods, he may want to place an order, and may want to misdirect a patrol so his order gets through."

"And sometimes," Shan said, "people go out. People go out to stay. Nikki, he goes in and out."

"Sure. You can sneak past the missile silos, once in a while. And there are places you can use, between snows, high passes no good for trucks or Chinese soldiers. Places that only a few old hunters know about. Where you can die from the cold or wind as easily as a bullet. Nikki knows them well. He went across for horses. He knows a horse trader in Ladakh, across the border."

"White horses," Shan suggested.

"Right. For Jakli."

"For getting married. At the nadam festival."

Marco nodded. "All the Kazakhs will be there, the few old clans left here. Starts in four days. The last one for the clans in Poktian County," he added somberly.

Shan thought a moment. "Lau was going to be there, wasn't she?"

"Jakli asked Lau to stand for her. Lau was the closest she had to a mother."

"But why get horses if they're leaving?"

Marco grunted. "You can't stop, can you? Can't stop asking questions."

"Not while there is a murderer stalking boys."

Marco made a frustrated, rumbling sort of sound that Shan took to be a token of surrender. "Nikki has to get the horses. You have to understand about Kazakhs and their horses. Not like anything Chinese. Or anything Russian. Horses can be as important as family."

"Like some camels."

"Different than me and Sophie. The old ones, they talk about how the souls of horses and the souls of Kazakhs are intertwined. They name horses after their children, and children after their horses. The rite of passage for a Kazakh is when he gets his first saddle, meaning he is old enough to ride alone. They have a whole vocabulary for types of horses and movements of horses. They tell stories about horses that lived five hundred years ago. They have old shamans who can speak to horses. The old Kazakhs, they won't go near a Chinese clinic for themselves. But if their horse gets sick, they'll do anything, even ask a Chinese doctor for help. Nikki knew how important it was to Jakli, to observe the tradition by giving at least one white horse to the bride's family. To honor her, to honor Akzu. To honor her lost father. In the old days, there would have been many horse gifts, from friends and cousins. Once I saw a nadam camp with two hundred white horses."

"So Akzu gets the horses," Shan said. Akzu, whose clan was being dissolved, whose herds were being surrendered to the government. "But Jakli and Nikki, they are going. Out of China. To America. It's why she isn't worried about Prosecutor Xu anymore, only angry at her. But how? Out of Aksai Chin?"

Marco made one of his growling sounds. "Don't ask what cannot be told."

"This isn't about Lau anymore," Shan said. "It's about keeping Jakli and Nikki safe. About the boys. About the Red Stone clan."

Marco put both hands on the parapet and looked out over the moonlit range. "Okay," he sighed. "A special route. Foolproof. Can only be used once. By boat."

"But the rivers aren't navigable," Shan said in a puzzled tone.

"In the missile region they still use laborers to dig out mountains. Prisoners- Kazakh, Tibetan, and Uighurs, mostly. There's buses that take them, shuttle them in and out twice a month. Big project at the end of the road, past the main base at Rutog, in Tibet."

Shan knew about Rutog. About one hundred twenty miles from Xinjiang. Close to India. A nuclear zone, a missile command center.

"There's a village called Ramchang, on a lake about twenty miles long. The border with India, the real border, cuts right through the lake."

"Then the army must have surveillance."

"Sure. Electronic, it's so important. You know, in case the Indians launch a battleship at them. But we know a man there, a Tibetan hunter who was allowed to stay on the border because his daughter was in a special Party school in Lhasa."

"A hostage."

"Right. Except Lhasa forgot to tell the army that his daughter died in a traffic accident a few months ago. He's leaving, and he needs some money."

"Even if he takes you over the lake the army could detect-"

"He has stealth boats," Marco said with a hint of amusement. "Coracles, made of willow branches and yak skin. They can't be detected on radar. It works."

"You mean," Shan said, "that the purbas use them."

"A boy named Mao went too, with some scientific specimens. They have their own boats. We have the Panda boats."

"Panda boats?"

"That's what he charges. Four people in a boat. One gold Panda per boat."

Shan's hand clenched the stone wall in front of him. "Auntie Lau," he whispered.