"Ann Maxwell - Risk unlimited 02 - Shadow and Silk" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maxwell Ann)

with fatigue and an elation that was strikingly similar to that of the pilgrims.
Motionless, Dani watched as a cadre of Chinese security policemen in dark green uniforms marched up the street
toward the broad stairway that slanted across the front rampart of the palace. The soldiers walked stiffly, warily.
Despite official proclamations to the contrary, the Chinese knew they were in hostile territory.
More than forty years had passed since the PeopleтАЩs Republic of China had invaded the mountain kingdom of
Tibet. In that time the PRC had tried to break the Tibetan spirit in a thousand overt and subtle ways.
Tibetan cultural practices, most of them based in the countryтАЩs ancient religious traditions, had been outlawed.
Buddhist priests had been persecuted and debased. TibetтАЩs government had been secularized.
Thousands of ethnic Chinese had immigrated into the harsh mountain land. It was a conscious effort by the PRC to
break the hold of the indigenous peoples on Tibet itself. Chinese dominated the civic and commercial life of Lhasa.
But Dani had shared the lives of the native Tibetans outside the cities. In the domed tents and barren highlands,
the Buddhist religion was still the blood and bone and breath of the people. Their very lives were a prayer offered to
their gods.
Even inside the cities, animosity existed between the pervasive spirituality of Tibetans and the determined
secularity of the PRC. Within the past five years, the friction had flared into full-scale riots.
Although the infant insurrection had been crushed by the PRCтАЩs superior arms, there were still places in Lhasa
where the Chinese security police went only in squad strength. There were other places where they went not at all.
No matter how many years the Chinese had ruled, no matter how many promises of prosperity, communism, and
community were made, most Tibetans still regarded the Chinese as an army of occupation.
For ten minutes Dani waited at the edge of what was no-manтАЩs land for the Chinese. Eyes narrowed against the
cold wind, she searched her back trail and the streets.
There was no sign of the two Westerners who had been following her. Nor did she see anyone who looked like he
might be a plainclothes agent of the Public Safety Bureau.
Finally Dani turned to confront her uncertain future.
The white wings of the earth-and-stone building that had once been the residence of the Dalai Lama rose up
thirteen stories above her. The Chinese army had sent the holiest of all Tibetans into exile and turned his sacred palace
into a museum for curious Westerners.
Not that there was a great deal to see except the building itself. The objects of greatest spiritual focus for the
Tibetans had been removed to Beijing for тАЮsafekeeping.тАЬ
Yet nothing the Chinese had done could break the hold of Buddhism on Tibet. Loosen it, yes.
Otherwise Dani wouldnтАЩt have been standing alone and shivering in the failing light, waiting to buy a very sacred
piece of TibetтАЩs past.
Now or never, Dani reminded herself forcefully. If the silk isnтАЩt handled correctly, it will be lost for all time. Get
moving!
She left the cold shadows and made her way to the sacred palace itself. A long flight of cobblestone steps led up
to the stone ramparts. Instead of setting off up the stairs, she stood at the bottom.
A pair of monks wrapped in orange robes against the cold wind were coming down the steps. One of them saw the
young, dark-haired woman and called out something in Tibetan.
The words sounded to Dani like a warning that the museums and strong rooms in the palace were already closed.
She nodded in respect and kept on waiting.
The monks passed by. They were headed into the city.
For five minutes she was alone at the base of the long stairway. The shadows darkened. From one of the alleys
close by came the furtive rustlings of rats. A few hundred feet away a dog howled, startling her.
Dani stamped her feet. The stone steps were cold despite having stored up a day of sunlight. At this altitude, the
heat of the sun was as thin as the air itself.
While Dani waited, the Dalai LamaтАЩs former residence took on an eerie radiance in the slowly dying light. Ancient
yet timeless, solid yet grounded in transcendence, the holy palace rose out of the land, shining against the descending
twilight.
For an instant Dani felt dwarfed, alien, almost overwhelmed by millennia of human lives and prayers whose center
had been the palace.