The soldiers began raising and lowering the blade of their bulldozer, giving the machine the appearance of a hungry monster, impatient to chew its food. Kincaid moved back and forth, vigorously gesturing at the ponds, at the mountains, and the equipment sheds.

"Mr. Kincaid," Shan observed, "is an unusually zealous man." He saw Fowler's confused glance. "For a mining engineer."

"Tyler Kincaid is a treasure. Could have his pick of jobs in the company. New York. London. California. Australia. He chose Tibet. Is he zealous? We're eight thousand miles from home, trying to open a mine with unproven technology in an unproven location with an unproven workforce. Zealousness struck me as something of a credential."

"His pick of jobs. Because he is so qualified?"

"That, and his father owns the company."

Shan watched Tyler Kincaid as he moved to the lead soldier and shook him by the shoulders. His father owned the company, and Kincaid was at what had to be the most remote, inaccessible outpost of the company anywhere on the planet. "He said something. MFCs. What does it mean?"

"Just his way of talking."

"Talking about what?"

"Bureaucrats, I guess." She saw that he would not give up, and shrugged. "An MFC is a Mother Fucking Communist," she explained, and turned back toward the workers with an amused grin.

Yeshe arrived in front of the soldiers and began pointing toward Shan. The bulldozer blade stopped and the soldiers peered toward the dike in obvious uncertainty. Kincaid used the reprieve to dart to the administration building, from where he reappeared at full speed carrying a black box. Fowler raised the glasses for a moment, gave a grunt of amusement, and handed them to Shan.

Kincaid had a portable tape player. He set it in front of the bulldozer and began playing American rock music, so loud Shan could hear it from the dike. The American engineer began to dance.

At first both sides just stared. Then a soldier began to laugh. Another soldier joined the dance, then one of the Tibetans. The others all began laughing.

Fowler sighed. "Thanks," she said, as if Yeshe's intervention hadbeen Shan's idea. "Crisis averted. Problem still not solved," she said, and began walking toward the office.

Shan moved to her side. "Have you thought about a priest?" he asked.

"A priest?"

"The Tibetans won't work because they believe something has released a demon."

Fowler shook her head sadly, surveying the valley. "Somehow I can't believe it. I know these people. They aren't pagans."

"You misunderstand. It's not that most of them believe a monster is roaming the hills. What they believe is that the balance has been disturbed, and an imbalance produces evil. The demon is just a manifestation of that evil. It could be manifested in a person, in an act, even an earthquake. The balance can be restored with the right rituals, the right priest."

"You're saying all of this is symbolic? Jao's murder wasn't symbolic."

"I wonder."

She turned to gaze down the Throat as she considered Shan's suggestion. "The Religious Bureau would never permit a ritual. The director is on our board."

"I was not suggesting a Bureau priest. You would need someone special. Someone with the right powers. Someone from the old gompas. The right priest would make them understand they have nothing to fear."

"Is there nothing to fear?"

"I believe your workers have nothing to fear."

"Is there nothing to fear?" the American woman repeated, threading her fingers through her auburn hair.

"I don't know."

They walked on in silence.

"It's not exactly something that was covered in my environmental impact statements," Fowler said.

"It was not necessarily the result of your mining work."

"But I thought that was the whole-"

"No. Something happened here. Not Jao's murder, because so few know about it. Something else. Something was seen. Something that scared the Tibetans, that had to be explained to their way of thinking. A ready explanation would be the excavation of the mountain. Every rock, every pebble has its place. Now the rocks and pebbles have been moved."

"But the murder is involved, isn't it." It was not a question. "The demon. Tamdin." Her voice was almost a whisper now.

"I don't know." Shan studied her. "I did not realize you were so upset about the murder."

"It's got me spooked," she said, looking back at the workers. The machines were backing away from each other. "I can't sleep at night." She looked back at Shan. "I'm doing strange things. Like talking to total strangers."

"Is there something else you need to tell me?" As they approached the compound, Shan noticed movement at the end of the farthest building. A line of Tibetans extended out of a side door, mostly workers but also old women and children in traditional dress.

Rebecca Fowler seemed not to notice. "It's just that I keep thinking that they're connected. My problem and yours."

"You mean Prosecutor Jao's murder and the suspension of your permit?"

Fowler nodded slowly. "There is something else, but now with my permit suspended it will just sound spiteful. Jao was on our supervisory committee. Before he left here on his last visit, Jao had a big argument with Director Hu of the Ministry of Geology. After the meeting, outside, Jao was yelling at Hu. It was about that cave. Jao said Hu had to stop what he was doing at the cave. He said he would send in his own team."

"So you knew about the cave before their argument?"

"No. I didn't understand their argument. But later Luntok mentioned the trucks he had seen. I didn't connect any of it until I went to the site that day. Even then I was so upset with Tan that it was only afterward I remembered Jao's argument with Hu."

They were nearly at the truck, where Yeshe and Sergeant Feng waited. She paused and spoke with a new, urgent tone. "How do I find the priest I need?"

"Ask your workers," Shan suggested. Was it possible, he wondered, that she would defy Hu, even Tan, to keep her mine open?

"I can't. It would make it official. Religious Affairs would be furious. The Ministry of Geology would be furious. Help me find one. I can't do it myself."

"Then ask the mountaintops."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. It's a Tibetan saying. I think it means pray."

Rebecca Fowler grabbed his arm and looked at him desperately. "I want to help you," she said, "but you can't lie to me."

He responded only with an awkward, crooked smile then looked longingly toward the distant peaks. He would never lie to her but he would always believe the lies to himself if they were his only hope of escape.

News flash," Sergeant Feng muttered to the commando in battle fatigues who stood at the 404th gate. "The Taiwan invasion is going to be on the coast, not in the Himalayas."

The 404th had the appearance of a war zone. Tents had been erected along the perimeter. New wire had been strung on top of the barbed fence already in place, a vicious-looking strand with razor-sharp strips of metal dangling from it. The electricity had been cut off, except for the wire leading to a new bank of spotlights at the gate, leaving the compound in shadow as the last glimmer of dusk faded across the valley. Bunkers of sandbags were being built for machine guns, as if the Bureau troops expected a frontal assault. A freshly painted sign declared that a fifteen-foot strip inside the fence was now the dead zone. Prisoners entering the zone without authorization could be shot without warning.