Our Range Rover idled with the a/c rattling while we waited, and watched, and debated what to do. Some forty minutes had passed without us coming to a decision. Dan had grown impatient, Phoebe more reluctant, I increasingly uncertain, and Anand…
Anand wouldn’t say. He was peering silently across the fields through a pair of miniature binoculars. Even without them I could see the Assassins’ raven-black car, parked beside a nondescript, dust-covered sedan, and an aged white cargo van, windowless in back. While the van and dusty four-door likely belonged to the Buddhist monks, no one had any doubts about the Mercedes.
The growing anxiety took a toll on my temper. “What is it with these assholes and their fucking black Mercedes?”
“Vanity,” Phoebe said. “They should be driving a hearse.”
Anand held his binoculars steady. “Perhaps they hold a deep respect for German engineer—”
“I can’t sit here any longer,” Dan said. He threw open his door. “I’m going in.”
“Wait!” Anand called.
“For what? Their throats to be—”
“Someone’s coming out.”
We peered into the haze. It took a moment before I could spot him—a squat monk in a red robe, scurrying toward the vehicles.
“Curious,” Anand said, following with the glass. “He appears to be alone.”
The monk opened the door to the cargo van and climbed behind the wheel. Blue fumes belched out the back. Within seconds he was stirring up a dust cloud.
“Follow him!” Anand ordered.
I threw the Rover into gear and lurched into a U-y, heading back to where the dirt road met the paved road we were on. We were just west of the city of Hotan, by the ragged shores of the Karakash, and very near the site of the ancient oasis, the kingdom’s lost capital, Khotan. The glorious city of wood and clay had long ago rotted underfoot, and now the once-famous “Buddhist paradise” was nothing more than irrigated farmland. Only Kutana, a 19th-century monastery, stood amid the wind-blocking poplars on the plain.
For a man dedicated to the contemplative life, the monk was in one heck of a hurry. I drove at high speed to catch up with him. “Where do you think he’s going?” I asked.
“From the direction,” Anand said, “you’d have to guess the city.”
I pulled up behind. “What now?” I asked Anand.
“Let’s see if we can get him to stop.”
Aside from our two vehicles, the unlined road was empty. I hit the pedal and pulled up alongside the van. The young monk shot a frightened glance at us. He had a pudgy moon-face, with short black hair and thick black brows. Anand lowered his window and waved for him to stop. The driver slowed slightly. Then, reconsidering, he stepped hard on the gas. Black smoke billowed from his tailpipe.
“Stop him!” Anand shouted. “Pull out in front!”
I floored it and slid up alongside him again. The man stared forward, pedal to the floor, too scared to risk even a glance at us. We were flying near 100 km/h, our Rover rumbling noisily over the heat-wrinkled road, the van’s rotten exhaust pipe howling. Just as I started pulling ahead, another vehicle appeared coming toward us out of the haze.
A farm truck, stacked with hay. Quarter mile and closing.
I hesitated. Floor it and cut in front of the monk? Or slow down and fall in behind?
The hay truck’s horn sounded. “Take it!” Dan shouted.
Phoebe shouted, “No!”
Before I could make up my mind, the monk’s van suddenly slowed. I quickly cut in front of him. The farm truck whistled past.
“Our monk’s a good Buddhist,” Anand said.
Riding now in front of him, I gradually reduced our speed, forcing the van to slow. Anand and I gestured for the monk to stop. Resigning himself to fate, he made no further effort to avoid us and pulled to the side of the road.
Anand and Dan jumped out of the car. I waited behind the wheel with the engine running, watching the monk in the mirror.
“He’s not going anywhere,” Phoebe said, peering out the back. We climbed out to join Dan and Anand, standing outside the monk’s door.
The door was locked, his window shut. He watched us from behind the glass, his black brows arched in fright.
Anand put his palms together over his heart and bowed his head to the monk. “Tashi delek,” he said. Dan, Phoebe and I followed his lead, nodding to the young monk silently.
He flattened his palms together and nodded in return, but continued eyeing us warily.
“Please,” Anand asked, calling through the glass, “could we possibly talk with you a moment?”
The man shook his head, no.
Anand briefly gazed at us, then turned back to the monk. “We know that evil men have come to your monastery,” he said. “That is why we have traveled here—to help you.”
The monk’s gaze fell as he considered it a moment. Then he looked back up at us and shook his head again. He seemed to be convinced there was nothing we could do.
Anand stood back, opened his jacket and drew out his knife. For a second I thought he might smash it through the glass. Instead he laid it flat across the palms of his hands and displayed it openly before the monk. “My name is Anand Pandava,” he said. “I humbly place myself at your service.”
The monk stared at the kukri. His widening eyes rose slowly to Anand’s. Mouth agape, he reached down blindly and opened up his door. He stepped out, still gaping, and stood before Anand.
“My name, Jamyang,” he said.
79.
The Fifth Assassin
CROUCHED IN THE BACK of the cargo van, Dan and I peered ahead through the windshield as Jamyang nervously drove us toward the monastery. The Mercedes and the dust-covered Volvo sedan remained where they had been in the lot; apparently no one else had departed. Nor did anyone appear outside the monastery walls. The wooden entry door was shut, the windows all were shuttered. In the hazy half-light of the soma-moon sun, the scarred, bleached building looked forbidding.
Jamyang parked the van beside the other two cars. He turned to look beside him at Anand. “Fear, like fire,” he said.
“Yes,” Anand said. “Like fire.”
Anand was wearing a doctor’s white coat, at least one size too small for him. The red tilak had been wiped from his forehead. He pulled a stethoscope from a medical bag and hooked it around his neck. After a quick scan of the shuttered monastery, he turned to peer back into the darkness at us. “Are we all clear on the plan?” he asked.
Dan didn’t answer.
“Jamyang will hide the keys to the Volvo,” I said. “Dan and I’ll take care of the Mercedes, then wait here ‘til you come out. How long do you think it’ll take?”
Anand eyed the entry door, then looked back at us again. “Quarter of an hour,” he said.
“What if you don’t come out?” Dan asked.
“Then they’ll come out, looking for you. The moment you see them, start the van and leave. They won’t be able to chase you without the cars. You can meet up with Phoebe and return with the police.”
“Jack can go for the cops,” Dan said. “I won’t leave this place without Govindi.”
“Then you may never leave this place at all,” Anand said.
According to Jamyang, Dr. Fiore’s granddaughter had been stabbed by the leader of the Assassins—a man they called “Mahbood”—when she intervened to stop him from taking Fiore away. Mahbood drove off with him in a second black Mercedes, while Govindi and the monks were kept as hostages. Where the doctor had been taken, Jamyang couldn’t say. But in the hours since, Govindi’s condition had worsened. The Iranians, for some reason intent on keeping her alive, sent Jamyang to Hotan to retrieve the monastery’s doctor. The rest of the monks—more than forty in all—remained under the watchful eyes of three armed Hashishin. If Jamyang did not return—or brought back the police—he was told his fellow monks would have their throats slit.
This is why Jamyang had been so terrified to talk with us. And why he now app
eared anxious and uncertain.
“Jamyang, are you ready?”
The monk searched Anand’s eyes as if he thought they might reveal the source of the Gurkha’s courage.
Anand gripped his shoulder. “Introduce me as the doctor. I’ll handle it from there.”
We had accompanied Jamyang to the hospital in Hotan, a scene of utter chaos. With truckloads of riot victims arriving by the minute, the medical staff and E.R. had been completely overwhelmed. But Dr. Tzu, it turned out, was a Buddhist monk himself, and committed to the welfare of his fellows. When he heard from Jamyang that their lives were in danger, he agreed at once to Anand’s risky scheme, and rode back to wait in the Rover with Phoebe, parked now on the distant road across the paddy fields.
Jamyang gazed up at the ghostly walls, struggling to still his fear. At last he turned to Anand and nodded. The two men exited the van.
From the back, Dan and I watched through the windshield as they walked toward the entry door. Anand had transformed himself. He looked nothing like the bear of a man we had met on the train to Samarkand. Limping arthritically, he meekly ambled forth in his tight-fitting coat, hunched over and shrunken down as if he’d aged and withered. Dr. Tzu’s medical bag dangled from his hand. I noticed Jamyang peek at it. Buried inside was the kukri knife.
Anand intended to kill the three Assassins.
Jamyang opened the door. As they entered into the darkness, Anand threw a glance back at us, in warning or farewell. The door closed behind him. A terrible thought struck me that we’d never see him again. Just the mere imagining provoked a pang of grief. Anand remained a mystery but had somehow touched my heart. Perhaps because he’d risked his life in order to save mine. I had done the same for him, and now I wondered why. We hardly knew each other. My affection for him was, in truth, a kind of fascination. At the duality at play in him, the constant contradiction. The sacerdotal warrior. The sybaritic spy. His joyfulness and lethality. His serene lack of doubt. It seemed the lightness of his spirit came from somewhere deep.
I wanted to know him better. I didn’t want him to die.
We waited several minutes before opening the rear doors of the van and quietly slipping out. Dan kept watch as I crept to the Mercedes. Hiding behind it, I took out my Damascene dagger and crawled to the right rear tire. Anand had suggested I stab through the sidewall to avoid the steel wire under the treads. It took several blows before I finally broke through. The tire unhappily hissed.
I looked to Dan. The coast was clear. I scrambled to the left rear tire and slashed it like the other. With a whoosh it slowly emptied. The car appeared to sink.
Still no one at the monastery door.
I turned around and peered across the irrigated fields. In the distance, barely visible through increasing smoke and haze, the Range Rover wavered, a glinting mirage. Phoebe, I knew, would be watching through the glasses.
I waved to her.
Just as I did, a black car drifted past. On the same empty highway as the Rover. Slowing to a stop, it pulled a sudden U.
My heart leapt into my throat—I’d seen this act before. I scurried back to the cargo van. Dan was still crouched behind it, watching the entry door.
“Look—on the road!” I said.
We watched the car slowly roll up to face the sitting Rover.
“Late arrival,” Dan said grimly. With three Assassins in the monastery, and Mahbood off with Fiore, we knew at least two more Hashishin were unaccounted for.
“It could be Vanitar,” I said. I had asked Jamyang if he’d seen a man with a slight scar over his lip. He said he hadn’t noticed.
The driver climbed out and started walking to Phoebe’s door. From the distance, through the heat waves, he was little more than a blur.
Phoebe threw the Rover in reverse.
The driver rushed after her. She turned to drive away, but running he caught up with her and the Rover suddenly stopped.
“What’d he do?!” I said, rising to my feet.
Dan pulled me down. “Careful!” He glanced back at the monastery, then peered across the field. “He’s got them,” he said.
The man was hauling—or helping?—Phoebe out of the car. The doctor emerged from the other side to join her. From the distance it was difficult to see their interaction.
I imagined the worst. “He’ll kill them both,” I said.
Phoebe and the doctor were moving toward the Mercedes. We watched as the driver opened the rear door and the two of them climbed inside.
“C’mon!” I said. I started into the van.
Dan grabbed me. “Wait!”
The black car rolled off up the highway. “For what—?”
The driver turned onto the dusty road that led to the monastery. “He’s bringing them here,” Dan said.
80.
Doubt and Uncertainty
I COULD HEAR THE CAR COMING but couldn’t see it—I was lying face-down on the ground, hidden underneath the Volvo. Dan and I had hurriedly improvised a plan, but the second we split apart I started entertaining doubts. What if the car wasn’t a Mercedes? I thought. What if the driver wasn’t an Assassin? Had we really seen Phoebe being forced out of the car? At that distance, we couldn’t tell how they had interacted. Maybe she had discovered he was a friend.
It could be Faraj, I thought—he’d reported being on the trail of Mahbood. Even Harry Grant might have already arrived. Or called in someone else—perhaps the CIA. We’d seen no hint of them since the flower peddler in Rome. Harry had said it was possible they had gotten a man “inside.”
Then again, I thought, it might be Vanitar.
Lying under the Volvo, I began to shake again. Sweat dripped off my face making craters in the dirt. In my hand, the iron tire wrench felt peculiarly cold and heavy. I wondered if I had the nerve to actually bludgeon this man to death.
All I could see when the car came into view were the tires and the trimmed black bottoms of the panels, shrouded in a whirlwind of dust. The vehicle came to a stop on the other side of the van, which was parked beyond the flat-tired Mercedes beside me. When I heard the engine shut off, my pulse began to throb. Peering through the gap beneath the parked row of cars, I saw the driver’s feet hit the ground and heard his door slam shut. He opened the rear door, and two more pairs of feet joined his, one pair clearly Phoebe’s, the other Dr. Tzu’s. They all began walking toward the monastery.
Halfway there the man stopped. His feet turned in my direction.
I gulped, throat dry. My teeth freakily chattering. A fly buzzed my ear. The man said something I couldn’t hear, then started heading toward me. Phoebe and the doctor hesitantly followed. The man’s polished shoes—black laced leather under neatly creased slacks—paused a moment in front of the cars, then entered into the space between the Mercedes and the Volvo. They finally came to a stop less than one yard from my face. I gripped the iron tire wrench in terror.
The man’s dark hand suddenly lowered into view. But instead of reaching toward me, the fingers turned away. They stroked the Mercedes’ slashed sidewall.
I exhaled silently. The hand quickly withdrew. Now the shoes moved to the other side of the Mercedes, where I assumed the man must have been inspecting the other flat. He backed off, paused a moment, then walked very deliberately to the cargo van’s front door. I heard him try to open it, but the doors in front were locked. The man marched toward the rear doors.
Inside, Dan was waiting.
This was it. Time to move. I slid out from under the Volvo and crept behind the Mercedes. Peering through its windows, I saw the van’s rear door swing open. I gripped the wrench and charged.
Dan thrust a fistful of dirt into the man’s face. His hands went to his eyes and his head swung away.
I raised the wrench to strike him, but couldn’t see his face. Was it Faraj? Was it Harry? Was it Vanitar?
The man turned. Steel flashed—
Dan plunged the crescent dagger deep into his gut. The man bent over, retching. The blade poked out
his back.
THE FOUR OF US STARED at the corpse on the ground, curled, fetus-like, bleeding into the dirt. He’d finally stopped moving. Though the dirt Dan had thrown still covered his face, his eyes were frozen open, and with relief I saw the man was bearded.
He wasn’t my friend Faraj, and he wasn’t Harry Grant. In his hand was a Damascene dagger.
Phoebe, teeth clenched, clutched her upper arm. Blood trickled out through her fingers.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Imagine,” she said, glaring down at the Assassin. “He thinks he’s going to paradise.”
The kind-faced Chinaman, Dr. Tzu, stared at the body in silence. I bent down close to look at the man’s mouth. Blood was dribbling out of it. I saw no scar above his lip.
Dan removed the dagger from the corpse’s hand, and turned with it to face the monastery. In the rush of the attack, the bandage on his cheek had fallen off, and the cut there now bled freely. He didn’t seem to notice or to care. In fact his battered face looked flushed and excited, as if the brutal killing had aroused him.
“Something’s gone wrong,” he said. “Anand should be out by now.”
“Stay cool,” I said. “You heard what he—”
“What he told us doesn’t matter if he’s dead.” Clenching the dagger, he headed toward the monastery.
“Dan!” I hissed.
He ignored me.
“What the hell has gotten into him?” Phoebe said.
Govindi I wanted to say.
“Aiyah!” Dr. Tzu reached for something on the floor of the van, lying beside Dan’s open backpack. He brought it to his nose and sniffed it—a small glass vial, empty. A worried look of recognition settled on his face. He handed the vial somberly to me.
The Assassin Lotus Page 34