The Breath of God

by Jeffrey Small

  “The cave?” he asked. The only interior detail he could make out in the darkness was a single candle flame, which flickered, as if suspended in midair. He thought that he could almost feel the warmth of this light, as if it burned inside him rather than in the cool air of the cave before them.

  “Over twelve hundred years ago, Padmasambhava sat here for three months, alone and silent, deep in meditation,” Jigme said with reverence.

  “Just as Muhammad did two hundred years before him on Mount Hira,” Kristin said softly.

  Jigme removed the lock and swung open the heavy door. The temple walls were built flush into the rock. They stepped into a twenty-foot-deep cave in the side of the cliff. Surrounded by black granite, the air was dry and cool but not cold. Grant could now see that the candle, which had appeared to float in midair, actually sat on a small altar at the rear of the cave.

  Jigme led them to the altar, which contained other unlit candles, incense burners, and a bowl for offerings. Grant examined the uneven stone floor beneath his feet. He imagined the guru sitting, legs crossed, eyes half closed, free from the distractions of life in the valley below.

  Jigme disappeared behind the altar. “Here!” he cried. He bent over and lifted a wooden box.

  “The box from the Punakha library!” Kristin said.

  Jigme carried it to where they were standing, set it on the floor, and opened the latch.

  “I can’t believe it,” she said. She gently picked up a narrow, silk-wrapped book while Jigme shined his light over them.

  Grant’s eyes fixated on the book in Kristin’s hands. After all the sacrifices, they had the texts. “Jigme, do you read Pali?” he asked.

  “Not as well as Kinley, but I can manage.”

  Grant consulted the mental checklist he’d reviewed countless times in anticipation of this moment. “We need to go through each book and confirm what we have,” he said.

  “Not here.” Jigme closed the box and relatched it. “We need to move the texts quickly, without the other monks’ knowledge.”

  “But I thought Kinley spoke to them about helping us,” Kristin said. “The old guy even brought us the key to the cave.”

  “Kinley is no longer with us. Last night at the Paro dzong, I learned that the Je Khenpo himself assigned Kinley to watch over Taktshang Goemba. The other monks do not know anything about the Issa texts or why we needed the key to the cave. In light of what’s happened, I think it prudent to keep it that way.”

  “What do you suggest?” Grant asked.

  “My cousin and his partner will escort you down the mountain. They will carry the box. If anyone questions them, they’ll say the box contains important evidence.”

  “You’re coming with us, aren’t you?” Kristin asked.

  “As Kinley’s senior student, I must stay here and help prepare his body for cremation. I will meet you in the afternoon.”

  “But the killer. He’s still out there,” she said.

  “I know. That’s why I want you and the books to leave with these officers. Both are armed and will protect you. I trust my cousin with my life. The other police will remain here with the monks and me.”

  “Where do we go?” Grant asked. “Somehow this guy knows our plans before we do. Our hotel isn’t safe anymore.”

  “Agreed. You’ll stay at my cousin’s house. The man won’t know to look for you there.”

  “Okay,” Kristin said, “but somehow after all that’s happened, that’s not too comforting.”

  They descended the stone steps, leaving the monastery behind them. Jigme stopped in the open doorway of the dorm building, presumably telling his fellow monks that the Americans had suffered greatly by Kinley’s loss and were being escorted down the mountain. His body obscured the view of Grant, Kristin, and the two officers passing with the box.

  Grant and Kristin followed Sangay, who carried the books. His partner, a step ahead, lit the staircase with his powerful light. The image of the killer’s face—the fiery complexion—burned in Grant’s mind. Who is he? Grant wondered yet again. He glanced to his left at the void below the narrow steps. They had an hour-and-a-half hike down the mountain in the shadow of night, and this killer was out there somewhere. Although Grant was comforted that both officers were armed, he wished he were carrying a gun himself. He didn’t have any real shooting experience beyond video games, but he felt the need to be able to protect Kristin and the texts himself.

  Stepping carefully so he wouldn’t trip on the uneven stones, Grant pondered how their lives had changed. After all they’d been through—the derision in America, the deaths of their friends in India and Bhutan—they finally possessed the books. This was the moment he’d dreamt about, a moment for which his entire academic career had prepped him. Although they still had a long way to go to bring the texts safely to the States, a new chapter of his life had begun, yet he didn’t feel the excitement he’d always expected he’d feel.

  His mind replayed their journey. By sending them to Agra, Varanasi, Sarnath, and Paro, Kinley had forced them to understand that neither the historical veracity of the stories of the great religions—the virgin births, the miracles, the flying tigers—nor the religious doctrines about the ancient prophets ultimately mattered. Instead the monk wanted them to learn from the spiritual connection each of these men shared through their similar mystical practices. Grant knew that Kinley wanted them to experience this same connection to the divine ground within themselves. But with the glow of the monastery fading behind him, the strange calm he’d felt at the moment of Kinley’s death had passed and now he only felt regret and anger.

  Why did my friend have to die?

  The distant lights in the valley from the small town of Paro caught his attention. He stopped, allowing the others to proceed ahead, and followed the dancing lights with his eyes. Inhaling the brisk air, he recalled one of Kinley’s favorite Chinese proverbs: “The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon itself.” Couldn’t that same expression be applied to each of the prophets of old? he wondered. Neither Muhammad, nor the Buddha, nor Padmasambhava, nor even Jesus was the moon itself. But each was a finger pointing to the moon—to the light in the darkness. Then he recalled the image of the lotus flower embedded in the wall of the Taj Mahal: beauty and life arising from the stagnant muddy water. He felt a stirring within.

  Grant suddenly understood how much of his motivation in finding these texts came from a desire to prove his dead father wrong, a desire that he’d imprinted on Reverend Brady and other fundamentalists like him. Grant knew that even if scientific dating proved the texts to be of first-century origin, the Reverend Bradys of the world would still dispute their authenticity.

  These narrow books are just another finger pointing to the moon, he thought.

  Five minutes later they reached the last of the steps, where a small wooden building with a tin roof was perched on a spit of land jutting off the mountain. Sangay motioned to the door. “Water?” he asked.

  Grant glanced at Kristin. They had a long hike back and needed to move quickly.

  “Please,” she said.

  They entered the one-room restaurant. Jigme’s cousin lowered the box of ancient texts onto the single table in the center of the room. Grant imagined how dishes would be laid out communal style on the table for the tourists who came to see the spectacular site of the monastery, but on this night the table was bare except for an oil lamp whose glass had yellowed with use. They left the lamp unlit because the three bare bulbs strung across the ceiling provided more than enough illumination. Grant watched Sangay walk to a small bar in the corner of the room by the door. He guessed that the large window to the right of the bar provided a spectacular view of Tiger’s Nest during the daytime, but at night with the bulbs burning brightly, the only image in the window was his own disheveled reflection.

  “The other officer?” Grant sat beside Kristin on a wooden bench against the wall. Although he was anxious to keep moving, his leg was throbbing. The hike up the moun
tain had taken its toll.

  Sangay pointed toward the door. “Guarding outside.”

  “At least someone is finally taking our security seriously,” Kristin said.

  A thump echoed through the wall. Sangay placed the two bottles of water he’d just found on top of the bar. He called to his partner.

  No answer.

  Sangay drew his revolver and stepped from behind the bar. He held up a hand, indicating for Grant and Kristin to stay in place. Grant straightened, his sore leg momentarily forgotten. Sangay pushed the swinging door to the outside open with his left hand; his right held the gun by his side. The creaking of the rusty hinges was the only sound in the room.

  Grant saw no sign of the other officer in the darkness. Sangay called into the night. Still no reply. He stepped outside, raising his weapon.

  “See anything?” Grant asked. He stood and stepped forward.

  “Nothing,” Sangay said from outside. “Going to check corners. No move.”

  Grant opened his mouth to suggest radioing to the monastery, which was just a hundred yards away, but the door swung closed behind the officer. Grant glanced at the box on the table next to him. He made a quick decision. A half a minute later, he was back, standing next to where Kristin sat. When the door opened, Grant held his breath. He relaxed when Sangay appeared. Maybe everything is normal. But as soon as the thought occurred to him, he saw that everything wasn’t normal.

  The officer staggered into the room, a wild look in his eyes. No longer carrying his gun, he clutched his throat with both hands; his mouth worked wordlessly. A fraction of a second passed before Grant realized that Jigme’s cousin had been wearing white, not red, gloves when he left the room. Kristin must have comprehended the same thing. Her scream pierced the silence.

  Sangay fell to his knees. Blood ran freely from his neck down the front of his uniform like a faucet someone forgot to turn off. The officer’s eyes seemed to apologize to them as his life slipped away.

  The door opened again.

  CHAPTER 53

  PARO, BHUTAN

  THEIR PURSUER STOOD dressed in black like a shadow against the night behind him.

  “Don’t make another sound.”

  He leveled a black semiautomatic pistol at Kristin, whose scream caught in her throat the moment he turned the gun on her. In his other hand, a serrated commando knife dripped blood onto the wood-plank floor. Grant immediately saw that the killer’s face had been disfigured from Kristin’s beating.

  Grant shifted sideways, placing his body between the gun and Kristin. “Who the hell are you?” he asked.

  “Tim Huntley.” The man pointed the pistol steadily at Grant’s chest.

  “You’re one of Brian Brady’s people?”

  “Reverend Brady is a voice of God, and I am his servant!” Tim shouted. “You and your half-breed girlfriend are what’s wrong with my country, poisoning people’s minds. Jesus Christ is the one and only Son of God, and I will not let you take that away!”

  Grant’s mind raced. He needed to buy time, but he didn’t want to push this man, who already seemed over the edge. Did the officers in the monastery hear Kristin’s scream?

  Kristin spoke in a remarkably calm voice from behind him. “All we want to do is to open people’s minds to—”

  “Shut up! I told you not to make another sound.” Spit flew from his mouth. “Where are the Jesus books you got from the monk?”

  Grant flinched at the mention of Kinley. His eyes narrowed at the man with the gun and the bloody knife. An intense heat spread outward from his core to his arms and legs. This son of a bitch had just killed Kinley and the elderly monk. He tortured the gentle professor in Varanasi and murdered Razi at the Taj Mahal. He would have raped and killed Kristin too had she not escaped.

  Grant made his decision. He was going to fight back. “We never found the texts.” Grant struggled to keep his voice level. He resisted the urge to glance either at the empty table in the center of the room or toward the bar in the corner where he’d moved the box. “Kinley died before he could tell us their location.”

  “I watched from the woods as the policeman carried a box inside here.” The man sheathed the knife on his belt and strode toward them; the gun held steady in his hand. “Where is it?”

  Grant felt a trickle of sweat form along his hairline, even though the unheated building was freezing. Kristin’s breath came in rapid bursts behind him. He swallowed back the metallic flavor of fear on his tongue. If the man found what he was there for, he would kill them both.

  Grant had only one option left. The assassin was a full head shorter, and the graying of his crew cut implied he was several years older than Grant. But he was compact, solid. Tim Huntley was obviously well trained, and Grant was just a lanky grad student; he wasn’t some Indiana Jones. But he had nothing to lose.

  Grant softened his knees, released the breath he’d been holding, and inhaled from his diaphragm, just as Kinley had shown him in their meditation exercises. The stale aroma of foreign spices cooked earlier in the day permeated the air. Grant felt the effects of the nine-thousand-foot elevation; his lungs craved oxygen. He anticipated that his next action would result in his being shot, but maybe he could create an opportunity for Kristin to escape.

  The moment Tim stopped within range, Grant sprung. He lunged like a tiger pouncing on its prey.

  Surprisingly, the gun pointing at his chest never fired. Instead their pursuer moved. Only he moved faster and more gracefully than Grant. With a twist of his body and a shift of his weight, he sidestepped Grant’s hurtling mass. Simultaneously, he swung the gun.

  The blow connected with the side of Grant’s face while he was still in midair. Smacking into the splintered floor, Grant’s head exploded in a shot of pain. A groan escaped his lips.

  “No!” Kristin jumped to his side. Her dark hair fell around his face like a protective veil. She pulled him up by his shoulders with slender but strong hands.

  Wincing, Grant rose to all fours. Pink saliva drooled from his mouth. It tasted salty. He never saw the kick to his stomach that lifted him off the ground.

  “Show me the box!” Tim screamed.

  Grant’s vision blurred. He fought away the encroaching darkness. He had to confront the murderer.

  “If you kill us, you get nothing!” Grant heard Kristin yell.

  The assassin’s shriek echoed through the shack. “I won’t permit your heresy to destroy our faith!”

  The man kicked Grant again and again.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” Kristin screamed. “You’re going to kill him.”

  To Grant, her voice sounded distant although she knelt beside him. He gasped to reclaim the wind knocked from his lungs by Tim’s repeated kicks.

  “Tell me where the books are!” the murderer screamed.

  “We don’t know!” Kristin cried, keeping up Grant’s bluff.

  Grant sucked in a chest full of air. “Just a minute,” he grunted, pushing to his knees. The room gradually came into focus. Tim stood a safe distance from them, covering both with his gun. “Let Kristin leave. Then I’ll take you to the texts.”

  “Grant, no!” she pleaded.

  Tim swung the barrel of the gun a few degrees to Kristin’s head. “You have five seconds to tell me where they are, or I blow off her face. You saw what a forty-caliber bullet did to that monk.”

  “Wait!” The anger that had fueled Grant’s desperate lunge drained from his body. He wouldn’t allow Kristin to be harmed. “You shoot her, and I won’t give you shit. You can shoot me too; I don’t give a damn anymore. But the sound of the gunfire will draw the men from the monastery here in a minute. You won’t have time to search for the books and get away.”

  Tim reached his free left hand into his jacket and removed a silver butane lighter, one of the torch lighters cigar smokers used. “If that’s the way you want to play, I’ll shoot both of you, and then set fire to this place. The books are here somewhere. They’ll be destroyed before the others arr
ive.”

  Grant hung his head. His bluff hadn’t worked. Tim’s finger tightened on the trigger.

  Grant pointed to the bar. “Over there.”

  Tim’s trigger finger relaxed. “Where exactly?”

  “I’ll show you.” Grant put one hand on his knee and another on the leg of the center table, slowly pulling himself to a standing position.

  “No, stay there. Tell me.”

  “Under the far bench, next to the bar.”

  “Behind the milk crates?” Tim shuffled toward the bar, but the gun never wavered.

  “Yes.” Grant cast his eyes to the dusty floor.

  Tim turned toward the bar, searching the dark corner where the box was hidden. Grant saw Tim’s left hand move to his right forearm, scratching in a slow circular motion with the edge of the lighter. The gun shook.

  This time Grant reacted in one fluid motion. He didn’t think or prepare himself. He no longer felt the various pains in his body. His entire awareness narrowed on the glass lantern on the table beside him. The yellowed glass felt sticky in his palm from the oil residue. He flung the lantern directly at their tormentor’s head.

  The glass shattered on impact with Tim’s skull, peppering his face with shards and oil. Tim shrieked, bringing both hands to his eyes. Grant lunged, but on this attempt, he hit the murderer in the midsection like a linebacker sacking the quarterback on the final play of the game. They both toppled to the ground, but Grant’s fall was broken by Tim’s body. The murderer wheezed, trapped underneath Grant’s weight. Grant grabbed the gun. Gripping it in his right hand, he thrust his left at the killer’s neck. Clenching the man’s throat, Grant brought the barrel of the gun to his forehead.