Prayer of the Dragon by Eliot Pattison

Author:Eliot Pattison [Pattison, Eliot]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, blt, rt
ISBN: 9781569475348
Google: ozT2qZ9y4uwC
Amazon: 1569475342
Barnesnoble: 1569475342
Goodreads: 1483994
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2007-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

THEY APPROACHED THE granary as they had before, running together from rock to rock, using the shadows for cover until they reached the plank door of the low stone structure. If Gao happened to open the monitoring program, he might assume the movement on the screen was caused by Thomas. Shan glanced at the padlock that hung open from the door’s hasp and peered inside. He saw a second door beyond a stack of rice and onion sacks, on top of which sat a small lantern. There was no sign of Thomas. He withdrew, whispered to Hostene, then both men slipped around the side of the structure.

Thomas emerged fifteen minutes later, setting his basket, now filled with foodstuffs, on a rock in front of the door before he turned to fasten the padlock.

“Did you know the miners tried to kill us yesterday?” Shan asked as he came around the corner.

For a moment Thomas looked as if he was going to attack Shan. Then he shrugged. “That Bing,” the youth said, “he tells people that they should still consider him to be Public Security, but without all the red tape.”

“They’re not hard to beat, Thomas,” Shan observed, pointing to the nearest motion detector. “By shifting each a quarter turn you could create a corridor where they are blind. Or if you set a lighted candle in front of one, you blind that sensor.”

Thomas cast an uncertain glance toward Shan. Then, acting on Shan’s suggestion, he began turning the little metal box. Shan sensed Hostene behind him, going inside. Thomas paused, as if he too had sensed something. They heard a low moan from within the building.

Thomas sagged, and for a moment looked as if he was about to flee. “You tricked me,” he said, wounded.

The sounds from inside turned to muffled cries of joy, then a low, feminine sobbing.

Thomas lowered himself onto a rock. “You wouldn’t believe what she knows about rock and roll,” he said. “She drives a car with satellite radio. It receives two hundred fifty stations. She says when I finish in Beijing she’ll help me gain admission to a graduate program in America.”

Shan gave Hostene five more minutes. Inside, Abigail Natay was crying on her uncle’s shoulder. She scrubbed away her tears with the sleeve of her denim shirt and extended a hand to Shan, shyly smiling. “Some of the old Tibetans have told me there are things too important to be put into mere words,” she said in a voice husky with emotion. “I guess one of those would be how I feel about your bringing my uncle back from the dead.”

A remarkable opening from a stranger, Shan thought. But she wasn’t a stranger, he reminded himself. She was the familiar image on the video camera screen. He self-consciously accepted her hand. “The old Tibetans would say he still has a destiny in this incarnation,” he said.

Abigail replied, “Your mountain is the most beautiful and terrifying place I have ever known.”

“One thing I have not been able to figure out,” Shan replied, “is just whose mountain this is.

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