Through the Third Eye; Book 1 of Third Eye Trilogy

by Bob Frank

  “And who, might I ask, told you that we could help you?”

  Shali had known this question was coming, but she still wasn’t sure how to answer in Mandarin. She took a deep breath before she continued. “We use special techniques to hypnotize people and take them to the previous lives that their souls have lived. They sometimes tell us of things they knew in their previous lives, things that are no longer known. During these past-life regressions, we speak to elder souls who act as guides for the souls. Sometimes they also tell us about these hidden things. In this case, an elder soul told us the Drukpa could help us locate the writings we seek.”

  Even though Clay did not understand Mandarin, he saw the clearly surprised expression on the monk’s face.

  The monk continued questioning Shali, but in a slower, less confident tone. “And, may I ask, could you please describe this soul or person who told you that we could help you?”

  “The person whose soul told us about you is a native Indian in Central America. Her soul, in her past lives, has been many very prominent people.”

  The monk now showed constrained stress; his body language was giving him away. “And just who were some of these previous lives?”

  Shali reached into her bag and pulled out a folder containing the information of the three key regression subjects. She explained the succession of lives they had identified in Sogui, and her description had an obvious impact on the monk. When she concluded, he remained silent, closed his eyes and took a long, deep, slow breath. Then he exhaled slowly.

  Finally he opened his eyes, smiled and looked first at Shali and then at Clay. “Mr. Barton and Miss Shali,” he said in clear, crisp English with a slight British Accent. “You have had a long journey; you must be tired and hungry. We will talk more tomorrow. I invite you to your rooms to refresh yourselves with a warm bath, perhaps. We will then have a meal together, if you please. Shall we meet here at, say, seven-thirty?”

  Clay stuttered and stammered from shock at hearing the English. “Of course. It will be our pleasure, for sure. Seven-thirty. Yes. Fine. Thank you. Uh, Xie Xie, Ni.”

  Clay’s effort at Mandarin elicited a smile from the old monk.

  At dinner, the conversation was much lighter and, fortunately for Clay, in English. However, they did not discuss the writings or regressions. The dinner talk focused on the Drukpa sect and their flavor of Buddhism.

  After several glasses of a deep, red wine, the monk engaged them in lively dialogue about Hinduism and the Abrahamic religions. After another glass of wine, he rolled into an emotional damnation of the Chinese occupation and colonization of Tibet. Soon the three said their goodnights and retired for the evening.

  * * * ~~~ * * *

  Following a hearty breakfast of hot yak milk, chunky rice congee and fried breads, the three met in the monastery’s library. This time, two other monks joined them. The discussion lasted all day but this time it was almost entirely in Mandarin. Shali provided Clay with periodic translations of the discussions and occasionally solicited his responses to questions.

  One of the two new monks did most of the talking. The other one was busy taking notes and referring to documents bound in an old leather folio. The discussions almost seemed to be a test. They would ask questions, and then rephrase the questions in a slightly different context and ask them again. Several times during the day, the two monks excused themselves and went to another room down the hall while another young monk politely served Clay and Shali with hot tea and sweet sesame-paste buns. Despite the closed door, it was obvious from the voices echoing through the hall that the monks were in intense discussion about what they were hearing. Unfortunately, they spoke in a sharp dialect of which Shali had little comprehension.

  Late that afternoon, the interrogation suddenly concluded. The two monks politely excused themselves and left. They got into the back of a car waiting outside and were whisked off down the dirt lane, away from the monastery.

  Clay and Shali freshened up in their rooms and later met the first monk for a more elaborate meal.

  As they sat down to dinner, Shali opened the conversation in English: “May I ask what the next steps may be?”

  The older monk smiled, tilted his head slightly and said, “Yes, of course. We need more time to discuss among ourselves how we might assist in accommodating your request for more information. This will take time, and you must meet more people. You are no longer in need of your driver from Lhasa, so we will send him home.”

  Clay responded, “Oh, but we need to pay him — ”

  “That will not be necessary,” the monk responded, cutting Clay off politely but tersely. “We are taking care of this. The driver confirmed that you are photographers and writers for a magazine. Did you ever discuss these secrets with the driver, or talk about them while you were in his presence?”

  Shali sensed urgency and responded before Clay had a chance to absorb the question. “No. Never. We only asked questions of a geographical and cultural nature; things that might be relevant for our photography and magazine articles. We asked him about the Drukpa sect while we were in Lhasa, but we just said that we had heard the Drukpa have no problems with the Chinese and did not want any problems. There was never any discussion of the secrets or the writings. We did not know him and could not trust him, so we were very careful.”

  The monk smiled. “I see,” he said in a lighter tone. “I just ask, because sometimes our people understand a lot more English than you might believe. We watch a lot of American television and movies, you know.”

  Clay added, “But we’re sure he could not speak English.”

  The old monk nodded. “Yes, of course. Anyway, we will accommodate your transportation needs from this point. For much of the next week, you will fulfill your role as photographers. One of our monks will take you on a wonderful travel tour of the region and you will see many beautiful sites and be very visible to the Chinese authorities — as the photographers that you are, of course.”

  As dinner progressed, the discussion lightened up as they discussed the sightseeing they would do over the coming days.

  * * * ~~~ * * *

  The next morning, Clay and Shali met in the library after breakfast. Peering out the small front window, Clay saw their driver, escorted by a monk, walking to his waiting minivan. He nudged Shali to look out the window.

  The monk pulled his hand out of his robe and handed a large roll of Chinese yuan to the driver. The driver smiled and fanned his thumb through the wad of money. The two politely bowed a farewell, and then the driver got in his van and drove off down the dusty lane.

  Even though they were alone, Shali whispered, “We’re onto something, but we have got to be careful. I’m uncomfortable about the whole situation.”

  “Me, too,” Clay said in a low voice. “I think we’re still being tested.”

  Shali looked directly into Clay’s eyes. “I sense there are others who are higher and more authoritative than the monks we’ve seen so far.”

  Clay saw a young monk wearing street clothes enter the library and then walk in their direction. He turned to Shali and said, “Alright, Madam Photographer, I’ll bet this is our tour guide. Get your camera and let’s go.”

  To Clay’s relief, their new guide spoke a little broken English. He took them outside to a rugged well-used Toyota SUV. The three of them spent the next three days touring areas within a day’s driving distance of the monastery. The tour included a great deal of time navigating up and down the valleys which were populated with trailheads to the base camps of Mount Everest. The villages seemed to be alive with Western hikers and bicyclers, most likely who had come across from Nepal. The Himalayas had an amazing beauty, even though the topography was rough and barren.

  On their way back to the monastery at the end of the third day, Shali nudged Clay and boasted, “I’d say we played our photographer roles pretty well.”

  Clay responded, “And if we don’t find what we are looking for, we can publish a great photo jour
nal about life in remote Himalayan Tibet.”

  Shali said, “We’re supposed to get a reprieve tomorrow. Evidently we have more meetings at the monastery.”

  As they pulled up to the monastery, Clay said, “Hurrah. I’m soaking in a tub tonight before dinner.”

  Shali only smiled at her partner’s demeanor.

  * * * ~~~ * * *

  The next morning after breakfast, they were met by the English-speaking monk. After a casual exchange about their tour, he took them to the library. There they were met by two older gentlemen in heavily worn business suits. They spoke Mandarin to Shali, but she could not place their strange accents. That day consisted of nearly six hours of intense interrogation interrupted only one hour for lunch. Clay and Shali met for tea before dinner in a back courtyard.

  “What’s your take on today?” Shali asked.

  “We’re being tested hard. You remember when I took a bio break? When I walked down that back hall I walked past a door to some room and there was a slight crack in the door. I saw five or six people watching you on a monitor. There are hidden cameras in that library. They weren’t monks but they are studying our every move. I couldn’t tell you until I got you out here.”

  Shali sat in silence. The serious look on her face was only interrupted by her occasional sip of tea. She finally said, “We don’t know what we have gotten ourselves into, but there’s no way we can back out of this now.” Nothing was said the rest of the evening.

  * * * ~~~ * * *

  The discussions the next day were a near repeat of the first day but with a different middle-aged woman and man, dressed in business suits. That session was over by noon.

  At lunch Clay said to Shali, “Today’s questions were more focused and seemed to go into more detail. I sensed yesterday was fact finding. I would say that today was the real test.”

  Shali nodded agreement, “It seems like it to me.”

  “Do you know what’s up this afternoon?”

  “We are to go back to the library and wait. He said it could be a while and asked us to be patient.”

  When they finished eating, Shali and Clay were taken back to the library. They entertained themselves with their laptops for almost three hours. Finally, Shali got up and walked around the room to stretch.

  She noticed a regional Chinese newspaper on a reading table in the corner, inadvertently left behind by one of the visiting businessmen. She flipped through the paper but stopped abruptly when she saw the headline on page six.

  Shali exclaimed, “Oh my God, Clay — the driver!”

  “What?”

  Shali’s voice cracked as she translated the Chinese: “A Lhasa taxi driver was killed in a car crash two days ago on the Friendship Highway going east toward Shigatze.” She hesitated. “The brakes failed on the van he was driving, and it plunged down the side of the mountain into a river. He was killed instantly.” She began to tremble. “The authorities are still investigating — ”

  At that moment, the English-speaking monk walked into the library from the hallway. The monk saw her near-panicked expression and asked, “Are you alright? Is there a problem?”

  Shali stammered out a response. “Uh, no, uh. Well, maybe. I — I don’t know. I saw this article in the newspaper. I think this might have been our taxi driver. The picture of the van looked like the one he was driving. Do you know if this was him?”

  “How tragic. Please let me see.” The monk took the newspaper from Shali and quickly read the article. “Ms. Faisal, there are many vans and taxis that drive along that road every day. As you know, our mountain roads can be very dangerous. Unfortunately, this type of accident happens more than we like to see. If it was your driver, then I suggest you are very lucky it did not happen on his way here, while you were with him.”

  Shali said, “But I feel badly if it was him. We hired him to bring us out here.”

  “Please, you should not feel guilty. He may not have been so innocent. He knew much more of your quest than you realize. During the two days he was here, his questions to our staff were clearly focused on your search for secret documents.”

  Clay and Shali abruptly looked at each other with expressions of surprised guilt, compounded by fear that the mishap may not have been so accidental.

  “Could we have been so careless to have talked in front of him?” Clay asked Shali.

  Shali replied in a staccato tone: “I’m pretty sure we didn’t. I don’t remember doing so. We tried to be careful.”

  “Our rooms,” Clay said. “They could have bugged our rooms, or the restaurants.”

  “Who would have done this?”

  “I don’t know. But Jordan, our condos. It could be whoever has been trying to find out what we are doing.”

  The monk sat quietly observing their expressions and dialogue. They stood looking at each other until the monk finally broke the silence. “There are obviously other people looking for your same secrets. We should be more careful. But for now, my friends — ” the monk smiled, shifted his shoulders and demeanor, “you will have one more day of touring. The following day you will move to a new location.”

  Shali asked, “Is it far from here?”

  The monk gave them a courtesy smile. “It will be a bit of a journey. But for tomorrow, you must start very early in the morning. Your breakfast will be at 5:00 a.m. I will allow you to dine alone tonight; I have to make preparations for your journey.”

  He smiled again, bowed and left the room.

  They were then escorted to their rooms to relax before dinner. Dinner that night was uneventful and extremely quiet.

  “He took the paper with him,” Shali said. “It was tightly rolled in his hand and he left with it. I just can’t shake the thought of the driver.”

  “Shali, it probably was not even our driver. And like he said, if it was, it was just an unfortunate accident.”

  “No, I just don’t feel that way. I’m afraid that if we make a wrong move, we’ll suffer a similar fate. We are dealing with something beyond our control here. The Chinese just lock you up; but our driver was silenced. Maybe rightfully so, but nonetheless he was ruthlessly taken out of the picture.”

  Clay’s face became stern. “I hope you’re wrong. Either way, I’m not sure what we’re into here, either.”

  Not another word was said the rest of the night. They ate together in silence.

  “When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, do not adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.”

  Confucius

  Chapter 17

  After an early morning breakfast, they met their young tour guide monk and drove off down the road in the SUV. Hours later, without stopping for photo opportunities, they drove through Tingri once again, but this time they turned west up the Friendship Highway, which led to the Peace Bridge river crossing from Tibet to Nepal. As their SUV wove up and down the steep, narrow mountain roads on the way to the border, Shali wondered if the brakes would fail or if they would meet a fate similar to the driver from Lhasa.

  At the border crossing, the guide took their passports and went into the Chinese border control office. Sitting in the SUV, they strained to see through the window of the small office. They could see a low-key dialogue between the guide and the officers. The guide was then escorted to the supervisor’s office and the door was closed behind him. Several minutes later, the guide returned to the SUV. Without saying a word, he pulled the SUV into the line of cars and trucks already waiting to cross the bridge into Nepal.

  Once across the bridge in Nepal, the guide showed their passports to the immigration officer, who stamped their passports and waived them on. In the Nepalese border town of Kodari, the driver pulled over in front of what appeared to be a prominent main-street location. The guide asked Clay and Shali to get out of the SUV. When they did, they were introduced to a dark-complexioned Nepalese man who, oddly enough, was standing behind another SUV with a set of luggage on the ground beside him. The Tibetan tour guide asked Clay and Shali to sta
nd next to the Tibetan man beside the luggage. The guide positioned Clay and Shali in such a way that the Tibetan license plate would be visible between them in the photograph and the main street of Kodari would clearly be in the backdrop.

  Smiling for the photo, Clay whispered to Shali, “This is being staged. Do you have any idea why the hell we are in Nepal?”

  “No idea whatsoever, Sherlock. I should have used more deodorant this morning. I’m sweating like a horse after the Kentucky Derby.”

  Clay cranked his head to look at her. “You’re telling me.”

  “There’s not a thing we can do right now except play along. Our fate is in their hands. But I tell you, Clay, if we make it out of here alive, you owe me a huge bonus and giant pay raise.” She nervously giggled under her breath to cover the stress.

  Clay chuckled and said, “Deal. I’m giving myself a raise, too; and two more weeks of paid vacation.”

  The guide snapped several more pictures, and then the three climbed back into the Toyota and drove back down to the Peace Bridge crossing to China. At the Chinese immigration point, the driver went into the supervisor’s office with their passports. Within minutes he returned, and they were on the long trip back to the monastery.

  Ten minutes after leaving the bridge, Shali calmly asked the guide, in English, to explain why they crossed to Nepal to have a photo taken in Kodari.

  “Ms. Faisal, picachur is for case to show you go Nepal from this place. You leave China, you know? We have picachur you leave Tibet to Kodari in Nepal.”

  Clay and Shali looked quizzically at each other after his response in broken English. There was total silence on the long bumpy ride back to the monastery.

  * * * ~~~ * * *

  The next morning, they were met by the English-speaking monk. “Ms. Faisal and Mr. Barton, I ask that you please be patient for a few more days. We must make travel arrangements, and this will take some time.”

  Clay politely questioned, “Can you please tell us where we will be going or what we will be doing?”

  “Just a few more days, please. You will learn more after you leave our monastery. It will be safer there.”