Flanking the Buddhas were figures less familiar to Shan. They had the bodies of warriors, wielded bows and axes and swords, and stood over the bones of humans. To the left, closest to Shan, was a cobalt blue figure with the head of a fierce bull. Around his neck was a garland of snakes. Beside him was a brilliant white warrior with the head of a tiger. Around them were the much smaller figures of an army of skeletons.

Suddenly Shan understood. They were the protectors of the faith. As he moved forward he saw that the feet of the tiger demon were discolored. No, not discolored. Someone had crudely attempted to chisel out a piece of the mural and failed. A small pile of colored plaster lay on the ground below the figure.

His light began to fade. The soldiers were moving down the wall to the far side of the huge chamber. Two more demons came into focus, a green-bodied one with a huge belly and a monkey's head, holding a bow and waving a bone, then finally a red beast with four fangs set in a furious expression and, on an appendage above its golden hair, the small green head of a savage horse. A tiger skin was draped over one shoulder. The beast stood in blazing flames surrounded by bones. Shan's hand clamped around the disc in his pocket, the ornament torn from the murderer. He resisted the temptation to pull the disc from his pocket. He was certain the images of the fanged horse matched.

The lights shifted away from the wall and focused on Colonel Tan's boots, giving him the eerie, larger-than-life appearance of yet another demon. "Things have changed," he announced suddenly.

Shan studied the grim faces of their escort. His heart lurched again. He knew what men like Tan did in such places. Deep in the mountain nothing would be heard outside. Not a scream. Not a gunshot. Nothing could be heard, and nothing would be found afterward. Jilin was wrong. Not all murders were done for forgiveness.

Tan handed Shan a piece of folded paper. It was his copy of Shan's accident report. "We won't be using this," he said.

His hand trembling, Shan accepted it.

Tan followed the soldiers toward a side tunnel. Before he entered it he turned and impatiently gestured for Shan to join them. Shan looked back. There was nowhere to run. Another twenty soldiers waited outside. He looked again at the painted images, empty with despair. Wishing he knew how to pray to demons, he slowly followed.

There was a vague odor in the tunnel. Not incense, but the dust that remains when the scent of incense has long settled. Ten feet into the passage, past a small pair of demon protectors painted on either wall like sentinels, shelves appeared. They had been constructed of stout timber decades, maybe centuries, earlier, over a foot wide, four shelves on each wall connected to vertical risers with pegs. For the first thirty feet along the passage they were empty. After that they were packed full, from floor to ceiling, their glittering contents extending beyond the the reach of the lamps.

A deep chill wracked Shan's gut. "No!" he cried, in pain.

Tan, too, halted suddenly, as though physically struck. "I had read the report of the discovery weeks ago," he said in a near whisper. "But I never imagined it like this."

They were skulls. Hundreds of skulls. Skulls as far as Shan could see. Each sat in a tiny altar created by a semicircle of religious ornaments and butter lamps. Each skull was plated with gold.

Tan touched one of the skulls with a tentative fingertip, then lifted it. "A team of geologists found the cave. At first they thought they were sculptures, until they turned one over." He flipped the skull and rapped the inside surface with a knuckle. "Just bone."

"Don't you understand what this place is?" Shan asked, aghast.

"Of course. A gold mine."

"Sacred ground," Shan protested. He put his hands around the skull in the colonel's hands. "The holiest of artifacts." Tan relented, and Shan returned the skull to its shelf. "Some monasteries preserved the skulls of their most revered lamas. The living Buddhas. This is their shrine. More than a shrine. It has great power. It must have been used for centuries."

"An inventory was taken," Colonel Tan reported. "For the cultural archives."

Suddenly, with horrible clarity, Shan understood. "The chimney." The word came out in a dry croak.

"In the fifties," Tan declared, "an entire steel mill in Tientsin was funded with gold salvaged from Tibetan temples. It was a great service to the people. A plaque was erected thanking the Tibetan minorities."

"It's a tomb you're-"

"Resources," Tan interrupted, "are in tight supply. Even the bone fragments have been classified a byproduct. A fertilizer plant in Chengdu has agreed to buy them."

They stood in silence. Shan fought the urge to kneel and recite a prayer.

"We're going to initiate it," Tan declared. "Officially. The murder investigation."

Shan suddenly remembered. He looked at the report in his hand, his heart racing. Tan had a real investigator. He wanted to eliminate traces of his false start.

"The investigation will be in my name. You're not just a trusty now," Tan said slowly, distracted by something ahead. "In fact, no one is to know. You will be my-" he searched for a word "- my case handler. My operative."

Shan took a step back, confused. Had Tan actually brought him to the cave simply to taunt him? "I can rewrite the report. I spoke to Dr. Sung. But the 404th is the problem. I can be better used there."

Tan held up his hand preemptively. "I have thought about it. You already have a truck. I can trust my old comrade Sergeant Feng to watch you. You can even keep your tamed Tibetan. An empty barracks at Jade Spring is being readied where you will sleep and work."

"You are giving me freedom of movement?"

Tan continued to survey the skulls. "You will not flee." When he turned to Shan there was a cruel flash in his eyes. "Do you know why you will not flee? I have had the benefit of Warden Zhong's advice." He turned to Shan with a sour, impatient countenance. "There is still snow in the highest passes. Soft snow, melting fast. Threat of avalanche. If you run, or if you fail to produce my report on time, I will assign a squad from the 404th. Your squad. No rotation. On the cliffs above the roads, testing for collapse. The 404th still has some of the old lamas arrested in '60. Some of the originals. I will order Zhong to start with them."

Shan stared at him in horror. Nothing about Tan made sense except his compulsion for terror. "You misunderstand them," he said in a near whisper. "My first day at the 404th, a monk was brought in from the stable. For making an illegal rosary. Two ribs cracked. Three fingers had been broken. You could still see the lines in his flesh where the pliers had gripped his knuckles. But he was serene. He never complained. I asked why he felt no rage. Do you know what he said? 'To be persecuted for traveling the correct path, to be able to prove your faith,' he said, 'is an event of fulfillment for the true believer.' "

"It is you who misunderstand," Tan snapped. "I know these people as well as you. We will never physically force them into submission. Otherwise my prisons would not be so full. No. You will do it, but not because they fear death," Tan said with bone-chilling assurance. "You will do it because you fear being responsible for their deaths."

Tan stepped another twenty feet down the tunnel to where the lanterns had stopped. The two guides wore wild, frightened expressions. One of them was shaking. As Shan stepped beside him, Tan grabbed the soldier's lamp and held it up to the third shelf. There, between two of the golden skulls, sat another head, a much more recent arrival. It still held its thick black hair and flesh and lower jaw. Its brown eyes were open. It seemed to be looking at them with a tired sneer.