CHAPTER 44
The 101 North was at a standstill. Across the median strip, the traffic heading south was no better. Impatience tightened around my temples.
Okay. Standing still was good—standing still offered the perfect opportunity to reflect and review.
I’d settled for a call-me-when-you-can text to Mike, and he hadn’t responded. He and Tricia were probably still fighting, eating, or making up after fighting and before eating. None of these options warranted further interruption.
But even without Mike, I knew I was nearer to discovering what lay behind Maha Mudra’s success at eluding everyone. And a step closer to finding Collie.
Fragments of information marched across my mind, a parade of partial clues.
Maha Mudra was a nomad—she had no “headquarters,” no website, no tangible (or intangible) home.
Maha Mudra was attracting followers, both here and abroad.
You could only reach Maha Mudra via sites located on Tor.
Even then, the contact sites were temporary.
She was part of a bhakti, or devotional tradition that was somehow connected to a preexisting network of underground techno events.
I edged left to allow for a Harley splitting traffic. He roared past with no acknowledgment. Typical HOG behavior.
And, she rode a Vyrus. Time to track down that lead.
Maha Mudra was linked to Nawang.
But how?
Acolyte, probably.
I frowned. She didn’t sound like anyone’s acolyte.
Partner then. Partner, lover, coconspirator.
Maybe.
Or maybe my first instinct was right. Maybe Nawang was this guru’s guru. Her personal sage. Her Adi Buddha. Maybe Maha Mudra’s job was to spread Nawang’s teachings, and she was here in Southern California, a nexus of spirituality, to prepare the way for him. The Buddha had his first cadre of monks, Jesus his disciples. Mohammed his early converts.
All men.
My mouth formed a grim smile; it would be just like Nawang to enlist a beautiful woman as his principal devotee.
The traffic tourniquet loosened and cars began to flow.
DCI Garfield had mentioned “grooming” as the latest online technique for attracting converts to radical belief systems. Was that what we had here? Was she bait? A seductive lure to hook new followers?
And was Nawang directing her every move—the actual power, the mantra in the center of the mandala?
It’s time.
My pocket vibrated. I fumbled for the phone and somehow managed to put the call on speaker.
“Boss.”
“Hi, Mike.” I asked without asking. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, s’cool. Tricia and I just had to backspace a little. Clear up a few things. We’re good.”
“Good.”
“I got your text. What’s up?”
I explained my new theory.
“Whoa. Okay, so normally I’d say you were on crack, but you may be onto something.”
A car flashed its brights at me. I switched on my headlights. Somehow dusk had fallen. I couldn’t wait to be out of this car.
“Explain, please,” I said.
“Well, there’s this new thing happening. Raja rap, they call it. Weird shit—like . . . who’s that famous Hindu goddess? The one with all the arms?”
“Lakshmi?”
“That’s the one. So, raja rap’s like if Lakshmi and Fatboy Slim had a baby.”
“English, Mike. Speak English.”
“I’m trying! Look, you’re the one suggesting this Maha Mudra chick might be a part of the underground electronica circuit. I’m saying, there’s a new kind of gig happening. I went to one, which was plenty by the way. I mean seriously. Bletch.”
“In what way?”
“In every way. Picture a woman chanting Hare Krishnas and pumping a harmonium, and right next to her a pimply kid throwing down house beats. Meanwhile a dude in dreadlocks is spouting some kind of quasi-spiritual rap. Not to mention the guy in the corner blowing a hella horn. Had to be eight or nine feet long. A didgeridoo maybe.”
Or a Tibetan long horn.
“How did you find out about the concert to begin with?”
“Oh, you know,” Mike said. “Once it gets around you’re interested in this kind of thing, they find you.”
He fell silent, as the import landed. I shivered, remembering the haunted eyes of a young Bosnian girl, just a child, but the victim of terrible things. Mike must have been nosing down the same trail. The dark web provided the ultimate venue for communicating things best kept secret.
“Raja rap retreat,” I said, realizing. “R. J. R. P. R. T. R. T.”
“Shit,” he replied. “Maybe this is connected to the old Indra’s Net.”
“Mike, what if they’re letting their followers know about events the same way your electronica raves do? You know, with last-minute texts to a private list? Remember that downtown deal you deejayed last year? The one I came to?”
“Of course.”
“Well guess what? Maha Mudra used the same warehouse to meet with Lia Pootah.”
“No shit.”
“It’s the same communication model. I’m sure of it.”
“Makes total sense.”
My Mustang crested the ridge and slalomed down Topanga Canyon Boulevard. Almost home.
“Mike, I need to get on that invitation list. If it exists. But they can’t know it’s me, okay? Is that something you can do?”
“Sure. But boss, I’m starting to think you’ve got a serious banana problem.”
“What does that even mean?”
“You’re like that kid, the one who said, ‘I know how to spell banana. I just don’t know when to stop.’”
I rolled into my gravel driveway. The house was dark. Julie must still be eye-shopping, or else she was stuck in her own sheet metal nightmare, aka rush hour.
The headlights landed on my living room window, illuminating a pair of green spheres; emeralds in a Persian feline setting. So he wasn’t hiding this time.
The eyes vanished. Tank preferred to greet me at the kitchen door—closer to his favorite cupboard, the one filled with cans of cat food.
“Mike? You still there?”
“I’m just giving you one last chance to change your mind.”
“I can’t. I have to find these people.”
I turned off the ignition. The silence was interrupted by the tick-ticking of cooling exhaust-pipe metal.
“Give me a couple of days,” Mike said.
CHAPTER 45
Making love when half-awake has a quality of timelessness. Our boundaries were indistinct, our rhythm gentle and unhurried in the pale shadows of almost dawn. First Julie reached her peak of pleasure, looking down at me as she rocked, her eyes widening in that way I loved. I grasped her hips and we rolled over in one smooth motion. She hooked her legs tight around my back. Her smile was an invitation.
I let myself go and dissolved into piercing sensation.
We stayed physically connected for as long as we could.
“That’s better,” Julie murmured.
“So much better,” I echoed. Our skin cooled. I touched her cheek. “Can you go back to sleep?”
“Already there,” she said, turning onto her side.
Tank had commandeered the rumpled bedclothes for a nest. I straightened the top sheet, pulling it high enough to cover Julie’s shoulders.
Wrapping my cotton kimono tight, I walked to work.
The office phone weighed heavy in my hand. There was nothing concrete to report. If I were Lord Purdham-Coote, I’d demand a refund.
I flipped open the file for Purdham-Coote’s number.
A ping announced an incoming text on my iPhone. Mike’s message was succinct: CALL ME. IT’S ABOUT NAWANG.
Saved by a techie who kept vampire hours.
Mike answered immediately. “Seriously? Now who’s up early?”
“Forget that. What have you
found out?”
“Before you get too excited, the scent on Nawang went cold a few years ago. But I’ve managed to piece together quite a few things.”
“I need whatever you’ve got.”
“Okay. So. I pulled most of this early stuff off an old bio I tracked down—from your monastery in India, actually. Nawang Gephel was born in a small village in the foothills of northern Tibet, although village is pushing it—more like four huts on a rocky slope. Farming, yaks, stuff like that. His mother raised him as best she could. Tough, lonely life for a kid, reading between the lines. Then . . .”
“Hang on.”
“What?”
“What about the father?”
“No mention of a father.”
Anger flared. I tamed it with a deep, cooling breath.
“Go on.”
“So—this is according to an official temple bio, meaning it follows a certain predictable path—but Nawang showed an early propensity for the monastic way of life. Like, almost before he could talk. Always running off to meditate under trees. Wouldn’t wear regular clothes, only robes. Insisted on shaving his head. Like that. He begged his mother to let him take vows, and finally she agreed. He entered the . . . hang on . . . the Dhankar monastery at the age of eight. By that time, the mother had married a herdsman and had another son, so I guess that made the decision easier.”
This was news.
“He transferred to your monastery, Dorje Yidam, when he was sixteen, ‘to advance in his studies,’ it says here. Then there’s more stuff about empowerments and further teachings. A bit of a prodigy, sounds like.”
That part I knew.
“Anyway, all that stopped the following year, I guess when he turned seventeen. They pulled the biography, and he pulled a disappearing act.”
I was almost 12. “Nineteen ninety-three?”
“That’s right.”
“Then what?”
“Well, as far as I can tell, he started guru-hopping all over India. We’re talking years. I found evidence of him joining ranks with a guy called Sri Sri Baba Sai, another dude called Karoli Maharaj, etcetera etcetera.”
Siddhartha Gautama had traversed India in the same way, sampling different paths, seeking a solution to human suffering.
“I can send you names if you like.”
“Yes, please.”
How on earth had Mike found all this out?
He answered the question before I could ask it. “They’ve all gone digital now, so if you know what you’re doing, you can search through their membership lists. It’s all about branding and fund-raising, my man. Gurus included. Nawang still stayed connected to Buddhism, though. He did something called kala . . . kala sha . . .”
“Kalachakra inititiations. Ten years ago, in Bodh Gaya, right?”
“Eleven. And that was the second time. First time was in ’96, in West Benghal.”
Only 20 years old. Nawang had not lost any of his passion for spiritual transformation. If I weren’t so threatened, I’d be intrigued.
“So the final hit I got was from three years back. He briefly joined some Buddhist offshoot in the UK. Another tongue twister. Bear with me: Doll-gee-al Shug . . .”
“Dolgyal Shugpa.” I cleared the knot of fear forming in my throat. “His Holiness issued a warning about their practices.”
“Yeah. Well you’d know more about that than me. After that, nothing.”
“It’s a pretty dark road to go down.”
“Speaking of dark roads, maybe six or seven months later, Indra’s Net first came into being. Coincidence?”
“I’m guessing not.”
“I’m sorry to say I agree.”
“Thanks, Mike. This helps a lot.”
“One last thing,” he said.
“Go ahead.”
“It has to do with his family in Tibet. This was a while ago.”
My chest tightened. Something about Mike’s voice.
“The circumstances were gruesome enough to make the news.”
“What happened?”
“So, no one had seen them for a while. I guess a neighbor went to check. The smell was the first clue. He found Nawang’s family inside their hut. They’d been dead for several days. All three of them.”
My mouth was dry. “How?”
“Stabbed. And skinned in some places. Some sort of ritualistic murder-suicide. They believe the mother was responsible.”
I carried the phone out onto the deck. I needed air.
“You still there?”
“I’m here,” I said. The sky was marbled pink and gray.
“Anyway, about that other thing? About getting you onto the concert list?”
“Yes.”
“It’s done.”
A pair of mourning doves traded their five-note refrain, a sorrowful call and response.
“That’s good, Mike.” I turned away from the canyon. “So, what’s next?”
“What’s next is, I keep digging, and you wait for the next event. And Ten?”
“Yes?”
“While you’re waiting, do me a favor. Pay a visit to the target range. I don’t like where any of this is heading.”
I left messages for Lord Purdham-Coote and Bertie, letting them know I was zeroing in on Maha Mudra.
A hard, sweaty run helped clear my head, a six-mile loop through Topanga Canyon Park via Trippet Ranch. By the time I got home, Julie was up and gone. The deconstruction ceremony started at noon, and there was a lot for her to do before then.
For me, as well.
A cold shower and two mugs of hot coffee kept fatigue at bay. I added a squeeze of tuna juice to Tank’s can of mixed grill—I’d been neglecting him lately—and fueled up with a quick fried egg sandwich.
I transferred my .38 Wilson Supergrade and S & W snub nose AirLite into a hard nylon pistol case. I double-locked the zipper—I’d learned my lesson. I’d buy bullets there. No hollow points were allowed, and I was out of full metal jackets.
I headed downtown to the Los Angeles Gun Club to rent a booth and do exactly what Mike suggested. Practice pointing and shooting. The doors opened at 11:00 A.M. on Sunday, and I planned on being first in line. My goal was to achieve consistent 1.5-inch groups at 21 feet with both weapons, but it had been a while, so I might have to settle for 2-inch groupings.
Target practice followed by sacred sand mandala deconstruction.
My story, in a nutshell.
CHAPTER 46
The clanging reverberation of the drilbus faded into silence. Five mouths pursed into O shapes, and Geshe Sonam led the others into another round of throat singing.
Sonam stepped forward and the crowd pressed even closer. It was standing room only, and the misguided few who’d arrived a little late, such as me, were forced to squeeze inside the doorways. The combination of heat and bodies was stifling. Here and there, wilting observers fanned themselves with shiny brochures describing ancient Tibetan arts. Baking alive was not one of them.
Sweat trickled down my spine and pooled at the small of my back. Someone needed to turn on the air-conditioning.
The completed mandala glowed on its black frame, a perfect circle in jeweled tones. Breathtaking. Impossible. The chamber at the center, with its scepter and orb, seemed to pulse with life.
Maude and Lola hunkered in the front row, held tight by Martha and Bill. Bill’s son Sasha was there, too, looking fit; apparently the police academy training was agreeing with him.
I experienced a surge of appreciation for what my Tibetan friends had created: at their commitment, and sheer skill. The Buddha called this feeling mudita: sympathetic joy, and it was the polar opposite of resentment.
Sonam’s face was calm yet focused as he began to circle the mandala in a clockwise direction. Moments earlier, Lobsang had dropped a magnolia blossom onto the right-hand quadrant.
Sonam scooped up the bloom and now placed it in the center. He circled a second time.
My gaze followed, tracing the multicolored rim,
alternating parallelograms of color etched with scrolled black lines.
One of the patterned sections didn’t match.
Impossible. It had to match. Equanimity demanded absolute balance. I craned my head to better see what had snagged my vision.
And recognized the tiny stack of symbols. Namchuwangdan. My knees buckled.
“Easy, buddy,” the man next to me whispered. “You okay?”
I straightened, steadying myself. “Sorry,” I murmured. “The heat.”
Was Nawang here?
The sense of déjà vu almost overwhelmed me as I again scanned a crowd for a malignant presence and again found only friendly faces. Bill and his family; Eric and Adina; Julie, with Homer leashed and panting between her feet. Others I recognized from the Highland Park temple, along with a slew of smiling strangers. All benign. All absorbed in the dismantlement ceremony proceeding before them.
Sonam pressed together two fingers and a thumb to form a point with his right hand. He knelt close. He placed the makeshift plow at the center of the mandala and carved a furrow, passing through the first of the four gates to the outer circumference. Returning to the midpoint, he repeated the action three more times until he had divided the mandala into equal quadrants.
The Power of Ten symbol remained where it was, a flaw on the far edge of the cosmos, promising chaos.
Why had no one removed it?
Whoever put it there knew what he was doing, for the image was expertly applied. While the need to correct mistakes was rare, if errors occurred the chak-pur could also be used to suck up errant grains, using the breath. Someone had carefully vacuumed up the initial design before replacing it with this new symbol.
The chanting increased in volume.
Lobsang and Sonam switched places. Lobsang was holding a paintbrush. Hand steady, he brushed from the midpoint outward. Each swipe transformed vivid blocks of color into a blended mixture. Strip by curved strip, Lobsang eradicated the exquisite design with crescent-shaped strokes of the brush.
Even though this was expected, the crowd seemed stunned by the methodical act of benevolent destruction.
All that beauty, all that effort, reduced in a moment to a blurred pile, like so much dust. Nothing is permanent. Nothing.
The Fifth Rule of Ten Page 23
