The Breath of God

by Jeffrey Small

  “I think if Kinley were here, he would say that you’re not supposed to believe.”

  He shook his head. Understanding wasn’t enough for him. He needed physical proof.

  He turned to the next scene: a pale Siddhartha lying on his deathbed, surrounded by his weeping disciples. He recalled Kinley’s explanation of how the Buddha instructed his disciples not to mourn the death of his body because the body of his teachings would live on. He also told them that one day he would return to them in a different form. How eerily similar it was to the concept of the resurrection of Jesus and predictions of a Second Coming.

  “Grant, over here!” Kristin no longer stood beside him but waved from the far side of the room at the end of the mural.

  He approached her. “What?”

  “This section of the fresco is new.”

  He saw that the segment of the painting she was standing in front of was brighter than the rest of the mural.

  “When I was here a few months ago, it ended there”—she pointed to where he’d just been standing—“with the Buddha’s death.”

  “Just like in Punakha.”

  “Right, but now ...”

  Grant studied the scene. It wasn’t part of the story he’d learned in Bhutan. A group of monks were crossing a mountain range.

  “A depiction of the spread of Buddhism east?” she asked.

  “They must be monks from India heading into Tibet across the Himalayas. Look at this monk.” He pointed to a seated monk on top of a forested mountain in a land divided in half by a long wall. “That must be the Indian monk who brought Buddhism to China.” He thought about his own journey to India in search of the history of Christianity.

  “This Buddha-looking guy riding an elephant probably represents Thailand,” he continued, “and this island must be Japan.”

  Then he saw it.

  “No way,” he said. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kristin staring at the same section.

  Near the top of the fresco, painted above the other scenes, was a man in flowing robes flying on the back of a tiger toward a cave opening on the sheer side of a cliff. Grant had not thought about this strange tale in weeks, but now it flooded back to him.

  The story was one of Bhutan’s most cherished: the Tibetan monk, Padmasambhava, also known as Guru Rinpoche, who flew to a cave on the side of a cliff near the town of Paro. After meditating in the cave for several months—like Muhammad did, Grant now realized—Padmasambhava hiked down to the valley and began teaching Buddhism to the people of Bhutan.

  “That’s the location of the Tiger’s Nest Monastery Kinley told me about,” Grant said.

  “It’s Bhutan’s most-photographed site, a stone monastery impossibly perched on a narrow ledge two thousand feet up the side of a sheer granite cliff. I’d planned to go there, until I met you and saw the texts.”

  Grant marched to the altar. This was surely the clue they were looking for. “Excuse me, sir, do you speak English?” he asked the old man arranging the flowers.

  “Yes, may I help you?”

  “We were wondering about the addition to the mural there. When was that done?”

  “Wonderful, yes? Finish just two days ago. We have painter young in age, but very talented.”

  “Yes, very talented. Why was this section added?”

  “We have need for money for renovations some time now. We receive generous donation from fellow Buddhist country Bhutan.”

  “Do you know the person in Bhutan who gave you the money?” Grant asked.

  “No, I only clean here and lock doors at end of day. You may talk to our director or one of his assistants.”

  “That would be great,” Grant said. “Where can we find them?”

  “Oh, they not here now. Gone to Dharamasala until next week.”

  Grant and Kristin strode down the dusty road from the temple to the parking lot in silence. On the one hand, Grant was disappointed that Kinley hadn’t met them in Sarnath, but on the other hand, he had a hunch that they would find what they were looking for at Tiger’s Nest. What better place for Kinley to hide the texts than in a monastery perched on a granite cliff in his own country? The texts would be out of the lama’s reach, but Kinley would not have had to violate Bhutanese law by removing them from the country. Grant also now understood Issa’s travels in a new light.

  One question nagged at him, though. Someone from Bhutan had arranged for the mural they just saw to be painted, and they knew from talking to Professor Deepraj Bhatt that Kinley had recently been here. But how had Kinley come up with that kind of money, not to mention the political pressure it must have taken to accomplish this feat so quickly?

  “Hey, do you have your phone?” Kristin asked, interrupting his thoughts. “Left mine plugged in at the hotel for when the power comes back on.” Another of the city’s frequent power outages had left the hotel dark for an hour that morning.

  “Yeah, here. Who’re you calling?” Grant waved to the front taxi queued along the dirt road.

  “I want to let Deepraj know we’re stopping by. We have to tell him about the new section of the mural.”

  After holding the phone to her ear for a minute, she gave up. “No answer. He must have stepped out of his office.”

  CHAPTER 41

  VARANASI, INDIA

  TIM’S ARMS SWUNG LOOSELY by his sides as he hurried out of the salmon-colored gate of Banaras Hindu University. He was relieved to be free of the basket containing the cobra as he headed straight on Assi Road. He wanted to distance himself as much as possible before the authorities arrived, but he didn’t want to draw attention by running. A brisk walk would do him good anyway. His interrogation methods had been brilliant but had yielded an unsatisfactory result. The effete professor hadn’t told him much he didn’t already know. Misaki and Matthews had traveled to Sarnath, and then they would return to Varanasi.

  A motorized rickshaw waited on the street corner just ahead. He would intercept them at their hotel.

  “He’s still not answering.” Kristin returned Grant’s cell phone.

  “It is Saturday. Maybe he’s taking the day off.”

  “No, he practically lives in his office, even weekends.” The taxi driver turned down the university’s tree-lined road, following Kristin’s pointed finger.

  “Why don’t we come back later? I’m anxious to get to the hotel and see if we have power yet. Email Jigme about our travel plans back to Bhutan.”

  She shook her head. “Drop me off at Deepraj’s building. If I can’t find him in the lounge, I’ll check his office.”

  Grant hesitated a moment before saying, “After what happened in Agra, wouldn’t you feel safer if we stayed together?”

  “Grant Matthews, I’ve traveled around the world for the past three years on my own.”

  “Okay.” He tried to catch her eye, but her gaze was focused outside the window. “After I email Jigme, I’ll book our flights.”

  “Stop here please,” Kristin said to the driver. The car pulled to the curb. The building was quiet without the frenzy of students attending class.

  “Here, take this.” Grant handed her his cell phone. “Call me at the hotel after you speak to Deepraj. I can send the car back to pick you up.”

  Kristin opened the car door, but before she stepped out, she leaned in and kissed him on the check. The brush of her lips against his skin sent an unexpected electricity through him. “See you in an hour.” She winked and closed the door behind her.

  Tim reclined on the torn vinyl bench of the motorized rickshaw, trying to ignore the annoying whine and noxious fumes coming from the small engine just beneath the driver’s seat. The driver gripped the handlebars of his cycle with one hand, while he used the other to hold a cell phone underneath a wide hat that flopped in the wind. Tim removed his phone from the inside pocket of his jacket and flipped open the leather cover. The red dot representing Matthews’s cell phone flashed at the university entrance he’d just left behind. His targets were heading to t
he professor’s office.

  Knowing that adaptability in a field operation was a hallmark of an effective combatant, Tim didn’t hesitate to modify his plan. The professor’s building was deserted, whereas their hotel would have workers and other tourists around.

  “Pull over there,” he yelled to his driver, pointing to a side street just ahead. Between the engine noise and his own screeching into his cell, the driver didn’t respond. Tim whacked him on the shoulder, and yelled louder, “Stop there!”

  Startled, the driver hung up the phone and slowed the rickshaw. Tim reached for one of the EpiPens but then decided that he didn’t need to waste one. Instead he drew his Glock from the holster hidden under his shirt and flipped it around in his hand, gripping the barrel. The driver stopped beside a building abandoned for so long the boards covering the windows had rotted. He turned to face Tim with a stupid grin on his face. Concealing the gun by his hip, Tim nodded that the location would work. He climbed out of the seat, placing his free left hand on the back of the cycle for balance. The only person he saw nearby was a toothless man squatting in a stoned stupor across the street.

  Tim’s left hand then bumped into his driver’s hat, knocking it to the ground.

  “Sorry,” Tim said cheerfully.

  “Theek hai, okay,” the driver responded, bending forward.

  Tim attacked swiftly and efficiently, much the way he’d attacked the Muslim on the steps at the Taj Mahal. The gun cut a wide arc through the air before cracking into the skull of the rickshaw driver, who collapsed to the ground. Not dead, Tim thought, but out for now. He picked up the driver’s hat. As he climbed on the cycle, he began to anticipate what lay ahead for him at the university. As soon as he pulled away from the curb, however, the itching began.

  Kristin’s hiking shoes squeaked in the empty hallway. The building seemed unnaturally quiet without students. She walked up to the closed door of the faculty lounge and pushed it open.

  Unlike the dark classrooms she’d passed in the hallway, the lounge had fluorescent ceiling lights illuminating two worn couches, a leather armchair, and a wooden coffee table. Steam rose from the teapot on the counter in the corner. He must have been here recently, she thought; his was the only faculty office on this floor.

  When she reached his office door, she knocked firmly. “Deepraj, it’s Kristin,” she said, not sure why she felt it necessary to announce her arrival. Her voice echoed down the empty hallway, but only silence came from behind his closed door. Maybe he left for home early today, she thought.

  Kristin tried the doorknob. “Professor?” It turned in her hand.

  The blood drained from her limbs. Professor Deepraj Bhatt sat behind his desk. He was slumped over, his head resting on a woven basket in the center of the desk. The normally neat but crowded office was in disarray. His papers lay scattered, as if someone had quickly searched them.

  “Oh, God!” she cried, running to him.

  Please let him be alive, she prayed. But her gut told her to expect the worst. When she reached his side, she saw that Deepraj appeared to be inhaling deeply from the interior of the basket, but he wasn’t breathing. His body was frozen.

  “Deepraj?” Kristin placed a hand under his shoulder and lifted his head out of the basket.

  The professor’s body flopped back into his seat, his head lolling to the side. She screamed. His naturally dark complexion had turned a creamy white with the exception of the fiery welts covering his face. Terribly swollen, his face appeared like an inflated blowfish covered in chicken pox. Deepraj’s lifeless eyes bulged out of their sockets.

  Kristin shivered involuntarily. She placed her hands on the desk in an effort to keep her entire body steady. Deepraj had been one of the most gentle men she’d ever met. He was the last person in the world who deserved to die like this.

  She squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head, trying to clear the image now burned into her memory. I have to call the police. Opening her eyes, she avoided the professor’s face and reached for the phone on the desk. Her hand paused over the open straw basket. Why was his face in there? Her instincts told her to run from the office, to call the police from outside, but the seeds of anger and frustration within her started to sprout.

  Kristin bent over the desk and peered into the basket. Empty.

  Her mind raced. Who could have done such a thing? Then a nausea rose from her stomach. The man from Agra. Could he have tracked them to Varanasi? Had he tortured Deepraj? And for what? She didn’t want to believe that she’d been responsible for her friend’s death, but the two attacks couldn’t be coincidence. The painful irony was that Deepraj was less involved with their search than Jigme.

  Her next thought sent a new shiver across her skin. What if he’s still in the building?

  She held her breath, listening, but heard nothing other than the percussion of her own pulse.

  Then the sensation of movement near her right ankle caused her to shriek and jump backward. Darting her eyes to the floor, she half expected to see the man from Agra with his crew cut and leering eyes staring up at her from the shadows under the desk. What she saw, however, chilled her even more. A black cobra flared up in the exact spot where she’d just been standing. With its tail tightly coiled in a circle on the carpet, the snake’s head stood a foot and a half off the ground, its neck spread in the shape of a deadly diamond. Kristin froze, fighting every urge in her body to scream again and run. The snake emitted a menacing hiss. Its head swayed back and forth, as if challenging her to pick a direction to move toward.

  Barely breathing, Kristin inched her left leg, now the closest to the snake, backward. The snake continued its bob and weave but didn’t strike. After seconds, which felt like hours, Kristin had backed away a couple of feet—out of striking range, she hoped. She slowly turned her body away from the animal but kept her eyes on it. Once she faced the door, she bolted, running faster than she had since her days on her high school tennis team.

  Kristin didn’t stop running until she broke through the main doors of the building, stumbled down the stairs, and collapsed on the lawn. After catching her breath, she peered over her shoulder at the building’s entrance, now anticipating anything. And yet the building looked as peaceful as it had when she’d arrived.

  She had to escape.

  Rising to her feet, she brushed off the blades of grass that clung to her jeans. Then she remembered the cell phone in her pocket. Her fingers fumbled with the phone. What’s the number for the police? She didn’t think 911 would work, but tried it anyway.

  Rapid beeping. Wrong number.

  Swiveling her head frantically, she saw a rickshaw parked on the curb. She broke into a full sprint toward the only means of transportation currently on the campus road this quiet Saturday. She hoped it wasn’t occupied.

  Kristin leaped into the back seat without bothering to ask the hunchedover driver in the floppy hat if he was waiting for anyone.

  “Hotel Taj Ganges.”

  Collapsing onto the worn vinyl, she pressed the menu button on the phone. Grant had the hotel’s number stored. They could connect her with the police. Scrolling through the list of numbers, she felt the vibration of the rickshaw’s engine, but the driver hadn’t pulled away from the curb.

  “Please, quickly. This is an emergency!”

  She found the number and pressed send.

  The driver swiveled in his seat to face her. “Yes, it is.”

  The sight of the man from Agra sitting inches away paralyzed her with a fear deeper than any she’d ever known. Before she could react, the man’s hand darted out as quickly as she’d assumed the snake would have struck had it been given the opportunity. His fingers cinched her throat. Instinctively, both her hands flew to his, clawing at the fingers which cut off her air, but he held on to her with a power that belied his size. The man then raised his free hand, balled into a fist. She flinched when he struck. But the expected impact to her face never came. Instead he punched Kristin on her upper thigh, deliver
ing an unexpected sharp, stinging blow.

  Her brain screaming for oxygen, Kristin kicked out with both feet and twisted her body, but he held on with his python’s grip. She couldn’t find any leverage in the rickshaw’s cramped back seat.

  A disembodied voice called to her in the distance, “Namaste. Hotel Taj Ganges.”

  She still held the cell phone in her right hand. Gripping it tighter, she thrust her hand forward straight into the face of her attacker. The phone struck him squarely on the nose, which made a crunching noise as it snapped sideways. The man let out a yelp, relaxing his grip on Kristin’s neck at the same time. She moved instantly. Dropping the phone, she catapulted herself out of the rickshaw, landing hard on the asphalt.

  “You fucking bitch,” the man screamed from behind her.

  Bruised and off balance, Kristin rose to her feet, ignoring the pain in her knees. I have to run! her mind screamed.

  But something was wrong with her legs. She couldn’t move them. Like a tree rooted into the road, she swayed, struggling to maintain her balance. She looked down at the capri-length cargo pants she wore. Move! But suddenly her legs no longer even supported her own weight.

  Overcome with vertigo, she collapsed to the asphalt.

  What’s wrong with me? Her mind pleaded with her to escape. Her hands and elbows scraped against the rough pavement. But her attempts to crawl were futile. She rolled onto her back. Confused, she sensed the overcast afternoon quickly fading to night. Kristin lay helpless on the warm ground, peering through the dark tunnel that had become her disappearing vision. At the end of the tunnel was the face of the man who had shot Jigme and killed Deepraj and Razi. Blood streamed from his nose.

  She succumbed to the blackness of the tunnel.

  CHAPTER 42

  HOTEL TAJ GANGES VARANASI, INDIA

  GRANT SAT ON THE BED’S burgundy cover with his laptop open before him. Too many thoughts raced through his mind. He felt that they were closer to the texts, but now they had to travel to another country, his hearing at Emory was only a week away, and some fanatical man seemed to be following them.