“Grad school. I’m ABD, sorry, all but—”
“Dissertation,” Kinley added. “I spent some time in a Western university.”
Grant raised his eyebrows. “Well, that explains the accent. Which one?”
“When I was a young monk, I often asked questions my elders felt were out of place. Spent quite a few hours in extra cleanup duty. The senior monk suggested to my parents that my taking a break from the monastery would be better for everyone. Fortunately, I earned the highest marks in my class and was given the rare opportunity to attend Oxford on scholarship.”
“Oxford? Impressive.” This gentle monk who had saved his life was also a scholar?
Kinley shrugged. “Once I finished, I returned to Bhutan and to monastic life. And you? You didn’t travel to the East on a spiritual quest?”
Grant shook his head. “My PhD is in religious studies, but my interests are strictly academic—historical.” Unlike my father’s, he thought. Grant’s sole regret concerning his father’s death was that he hadn’t had the opportunity to prove to him the many ways in which the preacher was wrong where religion was concerned.
“You believe that the nature of religion lies in history?”
Grant’s eyelids were becoming heavy from the effects of the doctor’s tea, but he willed them open. His body wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, but this Oxford-educated monk intrigued him. “I’m interested in the early development of Christianity during the first century, and”—he hesitated for a moment as he pondered how to phrase the next part—“how contact with other cultures may have influenced this development.”
“What kind of influence?”
“I’ve been tracking several apocryphal stories.” Grant remembered his promise to himself not to reveal too much. In spite of Kinley’s Western education, Grant knew that the culture of these monasteries was insular and cautious of outside disruptions. Finding what he was seeking would certainly cause a disruption. He decided to use an example from his first trip to India, rather than his most recent. “For example, some evidence suggests that in fifty-two AD, twenty years after the death of Jesus, the apostle Thomas sailed to India. A small Christian community on the coast in Kerala traces its founding to Thomas and the several churches he established before he was martyred.”
“Have you found what you came for?”
Grant shook his head. “I’m still missing a key piece of my research, which is why I’m ABD.” He closed his eyes, giving in to the weight of his eyelids.
Kinley rose from the bed. “Sometimes we find not what we are looking for, but what we should be looking for.”
Through closed eyes Grant noted that the pain was fading from his body. Whatever was in the tea was working. He heard Kinley’s voice as if from a distance. “And I wish you good fortune on your search for the story of Issa.”
Grant’s eyes snapped open.
The monk responded to the look of shock that Grant knew was plastered over his face. “You spoke aloud at night during your period of unconsciousness. Gave us quite a fright at times.”
Grant’s pulse quickened. How much did I say? He’d planned to reveal that name carefully, especially after the monks at Himis clammed up at the mere mention of the Indian saint.
“Ah, yes,” Kinley continued, “the legend of a boy on a journey through India seeking answers to his questions, much like you.”
Grant forced his face to relax. “You know the story of Issa?”
“Rest now. Karma’s medicine will help you sleep until tomorrow.” Kinley bowed from his waist and left the room in a flurry of orange robes. His apprentice, who had been standing so quietly in the center of the room that Grant had forgotten he was still there, followed him out.
Grant wanted to call after Kinley. Did the monk know the importance of the Issa story, that it could answer one of Christianity’s great mysteries? A mystery that would challenge everyone’s assumptions of how the religion came to be. Could it be possible that the evidence he’d been searching for—the evidence that his colleagues at Emory didn’t believe existed—was here in this very monastery? Despite the flurry of questions swirling in his mind, the narcotic effects of the tea finally won the battle, and Grant slipped into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER 4
GATEWAY BUSINESS PARK BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA
TIM HUNTLEY’S FINGERS stabbed at the keyboard. He used only the first three digits of each hand, but he entered code so quickly that the lines scrolled down the twenty-inch monitor as fast as he could read them. For the past three hours he’d sat military straight, immobile from the wrists up. He’d found the glitch in the program at five AM. Now it was just a matter of working around it. His coworkers had spent most of the past week searching for the bug. That was when his boss called him onto the project. Only he was smart enough to fix the issues the rest of them couldn’t understand.
He heard their voices as they filed into the cubicles, laughing and recounting their Saturday night activities. Tim always arrived first to the single-story, red brick building. He slept four hours a night. Only weak-minded people needed more than that, he knew.
“Yo, Tim. Bring the pics?” Johnny Meckle poked his fleshy pink face over the front of Tim’s cubicle. Johnny regularly complained to Tim about his difficulty in meeting the “hot babes,” as he put it. Tim tried to explain that if he washed his hair, lost some weight, and stopped talking about his programming prowess, he might have better luck. Johnny was two years older than Tim, but he followed his younger colleague around like a groupie. He hadn’t changed at all since grade school. The two had been friends when they were kids, until Tim was forced to move away during his sophomore year of high school—after the trial that changed everything.
“Check your email,” Tim replied.
“That’s what I’m talking about! Hey, y’all, come look at this.”
The other six staff members of Information Systems Group gathered around Johnny’s cubicle.
“Ew w w!” drawled Elizabeth, a twenty-six-year-old data clerk who stood a full head taller than Tim and wore oversized glasses that made her look like a giant bug from a sci-fi movie. “What is that? A pig?”
“A wild boar. Tim shot it when we were hunting yesterday.” Johnny’s face, illuminated by the monitor’s blue hue, was giddy with excitement. “Just look at those tusks.” Johnny gesticulated with both hands. “Must be six inches. He could have killed us, if he’d charged. Right, Tim?”
“Sure.” Tim returned to his work, but he had difficulty concentrating with the stares of his coworkers. The hair on the back of his neck stood on edge.
“Tim was in the Special Forces, you know.”
“So we’ve heard.” Elizabeth flipped her dirty blond hair and proceeded to her cubicle.
“Yeah, Afghanistan, Iraq, places like that,” Johnny told the remaining five.
Tim tried to look busy, wishing his officemate would shut up. He was starting to question whether reconnecting with him had been a mistake. Tim had moved back to Birmingham two years ago. Two decades had passed since they’d seen each other, but Johnny was easy to track down. He was living in the same neighborhood they grew up in and saw his parents every Sunday night. The only good part about the reunion was that Johnny had turned Tim on to the New Hope Church. Tim hadn’t missed a single Sunday since moving back to Birmingham. He sat in the front row every week. Now, however, he regretted having told Johnny about his military experience. Most of what he’d done was classified, but he had a few spectacular stories of mayhem from the front lines to share. But Johnny had been a loser when they were kids, and he was an even bigger loser now. Unfortunately, Johnny was the only one who’d hunt with Tim. At least hunting and blowing up homemade pipe bombs in the woods made time with Johnny tolerable.
Tim opened the metal drawer under his desk and removed a tube of Chapstick from the five he kept handy. His lips were cracking again. Even though he’d applied lotion to his face and arms before he left the house, the itching bega
n to crawl across his skin. His fucking eczema.
“Tim can’t talk much about it, though. Top secret stuff and all,” Johnny continued. “He was showing me some of the techniques they used to take down the terrorists. Our hunt was just like a real military op, right, Tim?”
The sides of Tim’s neck flushed. Without looking at the others, he knew they were watching him with skeptical expressions. Judging him.
“Yeah, something like that,” Tim said. He began typing again.
Why did Johnny have to broadcast everything told to him? Tim began to have reservations about including Johnny in the plan he’d been hatching. Johnny was a true believer, but he was dumb. Yet Tim couldn’t accomplish the plan on his own. Tim had been taking precautions, playing down his military experience, for example. He’d even kept a lid on his political and religious ideas around the office—ideas that had gotten him fired from his last job in Little Rock.
Tim had never been at home in the business world. The military should have been his career. And it had been, until a misunderstanding with his sergeant. The accusations. The bullshit. The early discharge handled quietly so that the Army would avoid embarrassment with one of its elite spec ops intelligence operatives. Having to return home to live in the apartment above his mom’s garage had been the ultimate insult. He knew in his bones that God had greater plans for him. Now he was stuck in a glorified warehouse in the dark with these other losers, working in the back office for a medical data processing company. He could do his job in his sleep, but the pay was good, and he needed the money for his plans.
“Hey, Tim, buddy,” a voice from behind him said.
Johnny ducked into his cubicle, while the others hurried to their stations.
Tim swiveled his chair to face Duncan Summers, vice president of ISG, his boss. Duncan towered over Tim, who remained seated. Even if he’d stood, at five foot six and a half, Tim would only have reached Duncan’s goatee. Tim’s relative height disadvantage to his boss didn’t bother him, though. He knew that his muscular build was far superior to the taller man’s. He’d snapped the necks of men taller than Duncan.
“Just reviewed your code on the new financial modeling package. Nice work solving the compatibility problems with our reports. We’ll implement it in November—two months earlier than planned.” The slap on Tim’s shoulder radiated a heat that rose to his face. “Great job, big guy!”
“No problem,” he replied.
Tim swung around to his desk. He removed the cap to a ballpoint pen. While he used one hand to scroll through the window of code on his screen, he used the other to scrape the edge of the cap across his forehead where the tingling was quickly developing into an itch. He worked the pen cap along the permanent crease between his brows. His mother had offered to pay for Botox during his last trip to the dermatologist for his eczema. She’d said he was “too young for such worry lines,” but the last thing he wanted was to look like his frozen-faced slut of a mother. Though she’d never remarried after his father’s death, she’d always brought home plenty of men. Anyway, he thought, his face gave him a serious look, and that’s what he was: a serious man.
“So, how’s the project going?” Duncan was still there, leaning down, his cheery voice now inches from the back of Tim’s head. Tim could feel the humid breath on his neck.
“Fine.”
“Great. Just great. Keep it up, buddy.”
Tim paused the scratching of his forehead. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Elizabeth peeking around the edge of her cubicle, her nose wrinkled in disgust. He opened the metal drawer an inch and dropped the pen cap inside. For some reason, Duncan still hovered over his shoulder. His boss seemed suspicious, checking on him.
Then a delicious thought sprang to his mind. A thought that caused him to lick his chapped lips, tasting the waxy strawberry flavor. A thought that caused him to forget his itchy skin.
Duncan was close enough to stick with the eight-inch commando knife Tim kept in the back of his desk drawer, behind his Chapstick. In seconds he could gut his boss, just like he’d done with the hog after he’d shot it. Would Duncan’s innards stink as bad as the boar’s had?
But then, Tim knew that killing his boss wasn’t part of God’s plan for him. No, God had something much bigger in mind. After three months of preparations, all the pieces were finally in place.
CHAPTER 5
PUNAKHA DZONG, BHUTAN
I’VE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE, Grant thought as he dropped the handmade wooden crutches on the stone floor. Supporting his weight on his quivering left leg, he placed both hands on the bed, twisted his body, and swung the bulky cast up and over the thin mattress. He collapsed on the bed, grunting from the exertion as well as the throbbing in his lower body. His T-shirt was soaked through the back, and he’d only crutched down the narrow hallway once. Karma had finally acquiesced and allowed Grant to use the crutches for the fist time that morning, three weeks since the accident. According to the doctor, Grant was a week ahead of schedule, but that wasn’t good enough for Grant.
Karma had spoken to Professor Harold Billingsly several times, updating Grant’s concerned mentor on his condition. Billingsly offered to fly over to help with Grant’s recovery, but Grant had relayed, through Karma, that he’d prefer the professor use his efforts to obtain funds to extend Grant’s dissertation deadline, again.
Grant knew that Billingsly didn’t hold out much hope. Most of their colleagues believed he was on some kind of Holy Grail search. Their lack of faith didn’t discourage him, though. Like his father’s admonitions when he was younger, their resistance only made him want it more.
He pushed himself into a seated position, folded his thin pillow in half behind his back, and took his laptop from the table. The doctor had been beyond helpful, bringing him his laptop, making the necessary calls to cancel his credit cards, and retrieving his passport from the hotel’s registration desk, where he’d left it for safekeeping the day of the kayaking trip.
While Grant waited for his computer to boot up, he reflected on the hours he spent each day talking with his new friend Kinley. The monk entertained him with ancient Bhutanese tales. Grant’s favorite was one about the Buddhist master who flew on the back of a tiger to a mountainside cave. Their conversations were often like epic tennis matches with ideas being hit back and forth like a ball crossing the net at Wimbledon. Kinley continued to enjoy Grant’s frustration, however, getting that same twinkle in his eye every time Grant complained about the vagueness of a particular parable or a koan—his Buddhist riddles with no real answers.
Grant imagined Kinley was trying to shock his mind into sudden understanding, but they approached their main topic of conversation, religion, from two very different angles. Whereas Kinley emphasized the importance of one’s personal experience of one’s religion, Grant viewed this approach as putting too much emphasis on subjective psychological states. The mystical, in his opinion, was only a step away from the supernatural. Instead, Grant believed that the historical and cultural study of religion better explained the competing doctrines of the various religions of the world. Grant had been raised in the church, his father a preacher, but ever since his teen years, he’d rejected the emphasis on the supernatural that was too often present in his own tradition.
What Grant understood now was that he was tantalizingly close to uncovering the key to his research and his future career. After his initial shock at having disclosed in his sleep his reasons for being in Bhutan, he’d been rewarded when Kinley told him several stories he’d never heard before about the mysterious Indian saint Issa. Grant could barely contain his excitement, but when he asked Kinley how he knew these stories, Kinley avoided answering. Yet something in the way Kinley told the stories caught his attention. It was as if Kinley were speaking from firsthand knowledge.
Grant recalled when he first learned the legend of Issa during his second year of graduate school. Russian journalist Nicholas Notovitch, who was traveling in northern India near Kashmir in
1887, made an extraordinary discovery at the Himis monastery in the town of Ladakh—the same monastery Grant had visited before coming to Bhutan. The ancient manuscript he saw told the story of Issa, who left his home as a teenager to explore the secret wisdom of the sages in the Himalayas. It was said that these wise men knew the mystery behind life and death. After Notovitch returned to the West and published a translation of the text, the original disappeared from the monastery. Notovitch was then portrayed as a fraud and pilloried by the academic community, and the story faded into obscurity.
Grant had wondered if anyone had ever followed up on this disappearance, and he made it his quest to uncover whatever became of the text, but none of the scholars he consulted could recall any further investigation. The whole story had been buried. Based on his original research and the tip he’d learned in India, Grant hypothesized that the Issa manuscript had been moved to another Buddhist monastery sometime after the publication of Notovitch’s book in 1894, in order to prevent the world limelight from shining on bucolic Himis. The thought that the treasure may have been moved to Bhutan—to this monastery even—started to torture him. He needed to be up, mobile, and investigating the grounds.
Grant deliberated over whether to come right out and tell Kinley how important the Issa story was to him. But as kind as Kinley had been, could he really trust him? He suspected that Kinley knew more than he was saying, and he was different from the monks at Himis. As an Oxford grad, he understood the workings of Western scholarship, and he had to realize the effect that the Issa legend would have on millions of people. Grant would keep working on him.
A gentle knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. “Come in.”
Kinley entered, dressed in neat orange robes and carrying a small fern in a clay pot. “Since you cannot venture outside yet, I brought some of it to you.”
“Who knows when I’ll be able to climb down those treacherous steps of yours. I can barely hobble down the hallway.” Grant was grateful for his friend’s attention to the small things, but it was not his style to be overcomplimentary.
The Breath of God Page 4
