"I have never expected to depart the worker's paradise," Shan said slowly, in English, fixing the man with a steady stare.
The man returned his gaze uncertainly, then broke into a grin. He looked from Shan to a table at the far corner of the room before grinning at Winslow. "Glad Comrade Zhu has his team on the case," he said, then hurried away.
Winslow and Shan exchanged a worried glance, and Shan found himself slowly surveying the messhall. Workers were rapidly filing out of the chamber. Several of the aproned staff wheeled food carts through a set of double doors while others began wiping tables with rags from buckets that reeked of ammonia. But near a door that opened to the interior of the operations center a slender man with hooded eyes, wearing a stylish brown nylon jacket, leaned against the wall, repeatedly glancing at them as he spoke into a portable radio. Shan rose, slowly, without fully standing, to look toward the corner where the American had glanced. The entire table was occupied by men and women in brown jackets. With a pang of fear he recognized the sleek man sitting at the head of the table, gesturing emphatically as the others listened, as if he were holding court. Special Projects Director Zhu.
Shan ducked down and stared at the table, evoking a quiet curse from Winslow as he explained what he had seen.
"I was wondering," Shan said as he calmed himself. "Why Larkin would come here just to access the computer? Why not do it from Yapchi?"
Winslow shrugged, watching in the direction of the distant table. "Secrecy. Maybe a better internet connection. They just have that little satellite phone there. Or maybe that's not why she came. Maybe she just happened to check her e-mail while she was here."
"But she came in secret, when she was supposed to be in the field. A two-day journey, here and back. It was important to her. What else is here? What else does this base do?" As if in reply a heavy truck laden with supplies tied under canvas covers pulled past the windows of the messhall.
A quarter hour later they stood at the back of the long building opposite the operations center. Much of the rear of the structure was open, consisting of ten oversized garage bays, several holding heavy trucks undergoing repair. A long loading dock lined the remainder of the building, at which several cargo trucks of varying sizes were being loaded. They climbed the dock, but as Winslow took a step toward the warehouse, Shan put a hand on his arm. "Perhaps we should just watch a moment," he suggested.
"What for?" Winslow asked, casting nervous glances about the facility.
"For the one thing," Shan said.
"One thing?"
Shan gazed intently at the warehouse workers who were supervising the loading. "When I was starting my career in Beijing I worked with an old investigator who said that despite what I had been told in my training at the university the easiest part of the job was knowing who to ask, and where. He said the hard part was inviting those you questioned to give you more than you ask, for if you know what to ask you already have most of the answer. He said there was always one thing in any situation that would open a person up, one thing that was the essence, not the one truth but the one lever to the truth."
"Sort of like the zen of interrogation," Winslow quipped, anxiously watching the workers. Shan asked the American to wait near the door and he slipped into the shadows behind one of the high stacks of crates that lined the warehouse floor.
A few minutes later they entered the warehouse together, Shan holding a clipboard stuffed with papers, Winslow wearing a worn green cap with the symbol of an oil derrick on it.
They stood near the center of the huge open warehouse space, Winslow with his hands on his hips, wearing an impatient expression, an unlit cigar hanging from his lips, Shan looking forlorn. In less than a minute a balding Han man wearing the blue shirt that seemed to indicate senior administrative personnel hurried to their side. Shan had watched the man from the shadows, had seen the way he had obsequiously watched three Westerners who entered the warehouse and darted to assist them, ignoring all else, even the man who had helped Somo the night before, the Chinese administrative manager.
"The accounts for the field teams at Yapchi are out of order," Shan sighed, with a long, exasperated glance at Winslow. Winslow's task, Shan had told the American, was to say nothing, look irritated, and give no clue of understanding Mandarin.
"Surely not," the man in the coveralls stated, nervously looking at the American. He wore an American-style baseball cap, black, with an orange bird on its front. Shan felt guilty about playing to such an obvious, even sad, weakness, but the one thing that most of the venture workers seemed to be obsessed with was making contact with foreigners, for help with immigration.
"I told him," Shan said, "these things are very complex. Multiple deliveries. Sensitive equipment that may be shipped directly to the camp. Sometimes boxes with food supplies and field equipment get confused."
The warehouse manager examined Winslow carefully. The American offered a forced, impatient grin, then glared at Shan.
Shan retreated a step, as if expecting to be hit. "Please," he said in a plaintive tone. "He's been to Yapchi already. He has their records for verification. He's American."
The man nervously motioned them toward a computer terminal on a table in a corner of the warehouse. Moments later he had a screen displayed that read Yapchi: Supply Balances. Shan looked at the screen with a satisfied smile. Running the petroleum venture was as bureaucratic and disorganized as running the army.
The man tapped a few more keys and a subheading appeared: Field Teams. "They all have the same equipment," the man said, pointing at a column on the left side. "Team One," it said. Metallic water bottles, twelve, the listing began. Tent, four man, one. Sleeping bags, four. Butane cooking stoves, one. Fuel cylinders, eight. Rations, sixty meals. Shan quickly scanned the rest of the list. Ropes, axes, mineral hammers, seismic explosive charges. The four-member teams were equipped for five days in the field. "Tell him I know baseball," the manager urged Shan. "They play tapes of baseball games one night a week. Baltimore Orioles," he added in a hopeful tone.
Shan gave an impatient nod in reply. "But one of these field teams left behind some of their equipment."
"Which team number?"
Shan gestured toward Winslow. "What team do you think? The one headed by the American."
Strangely, the man seemed to deflate. "Ah," he said slowly, "Melissa." His eyes clouded.
"You knew Miss Larkin?"
"Sure. I mean-" the man searched their faces warily as if trying to assess how slippery the ground had become. "She brings things for us when she visits. Fossils sometimes. Pretty pink quartz. Once some American sweet biscuits. She is…" he studied their faces again, then fixed his gaze on the computer, "easy to remember." When he felt Shan's inquisitive stare, he sighed and continued in a more distant voice. "Once when she was here there was a big storm and the electricity was gone. No one could work. Most people went to the operations center and drank all day. But Miss Larkin, she made a fire here, in a big iron bucket," he explained, pointing to the center of the concrete floor. "Some of us sat around it and told stories. She taught us American songs that day. Row, Row, Row Your Boat," he said in English, having difficulty with the r's. "Jingle Bells. Oh Susannah."
"But that last time she was here, she wanted something special, didn't she?" Shan suggested. "She left food supplies at Yapchi because she had to carry something else."