Prayer of the Dragon by Eliot Pattison Page B

studying Shan suspiciously. “After a few years of hard labor he was let loose in the Tibetan wilderness by a colonel he did a favor for. He defies the laws of physics. In an age when scientists can turn dirty rocks into diamonds, he is the diamond who became a dirty rock.”
    “In Beijing there are so many diamonds their radiance was blinding,” Shan replied. He eyed the exits, mentally gauging how quickly he could make it to the pass, comparing that to the response time of Gao’s soldiers, and wondering how good a shot Kohler might be when his target was moving.
    “You thought you could send one of the most powerful ministers in Beijing to the gulag. A personal friend of the Great Helmsman.”
    “I started tracking the dollars he had sent to secret accounts in Switzerland. I lost count after twenty million.”
    “Where is he today?”
    “He died in office and was given a hero’s funeral while I was in prison.”
    Kohler laughed first, but Gao soon joined in, followed by young Thomas. Shan stared out the window. His gaze settled on the lammergeiers’ nest. The predators on top of the food chain on this particular mountain liked to consume their prey while it still breathed.
    Eventually he became aware that the others had left the room. When he tried to follow he found that the doors were locked. He pressed his ear against each door, but no sound betrayed his captor’s activities. He paced around the table, then slipped his shoes off and sat, lotus style, atop the bare table, his eyes on the mountain across the valley, his hands folded into a mudra. His fingers were intertwined, the index fingers raised and pressed together like a steeple. It was called Diamond of the Mind, for keeping focus.
    He wasn’t aware of the door opening, only of Thomas appearing in the chair nearest him, holding two bottles of water. The youth, new excitement in his eyes, handed Shan a bottle, a peace offering.
    “How many criminals have you killed?” Gao’s nephew asked.
    Shan shuddered. “I never carried a gun,” he finally replied.
    Thomas seemed disappointed.
    “But my investigations sent over a dozen men to firing squads,” he offered.
    Thomas brightened. “I have told my father and uncles that I plan to enter the Academy for Forensic Science.”
    “I once taught there,” Shan said, slipping off the table to sit close to the youth, eye to eye. “A guest lecturer.”
    Thomas saluted Shan with his bottle. “My uncles tell me I am destined for great things. They want me to become an astronomer, for when China has its own space station. Uncle Heinz calls me the first citizen of the new world. He says they can get me into the astronaut corps when I finish university. But when I arrived here this summer I told them I wanted to enroll in the forensic academy, because that is where science and real life come together. They laughed at me.” He took a swallow from his bottle. “But they’re wrong. I saw the head of a murder investigation squad in Beijing, driving a Mercedes. In America they have red convertibles.”
    A dozen rejoinders came to mind, but as Shan sifted them, realization burst upon him. “Give me your opinion of the murders.”
    Thomas glanced nervously toward the closed doors.
    Shan said in a quiet, conspiratorial tone, “Surely there is only one other person on this mountain who knows how to treat a murder scene. The trick with the glue, that shows great resourcefulness. Did you use a spoon and match?” It was an improvisation Shan himself had used more than once in his prior life. The isocyanate of the industrial glue adhered to the oils in fingerprints, producing a print of gray raised ridges.
    Thomas flushed. Then he admitted, “I took photographs. I took fingerprints. Everything. I put particles of bone in plastic bags. I am making a special portfolio for my academy application, to guarantee my admission.”
    “Everything?”
    “You know. Tissue samples, for DNA. Blood samples The dirt from their