The Breath of God (31 page)

Grant and Kristin reached the halfway point between the monument and the gate—the raised marble platform where they had encountered Jigme just an hour earlier.

Kristin shivered slightly. “I never think of this area of India getting cold.” She moved closer to Grant.

“Why didn't Kinley meet us in Agra himself?” he asked, enjoying the closeness of her body. “I hate to think we're some pawns in an elaborate game.”

“You know Kinley better than I. Do you really believe that?”

Grant thought for a moment. “No.”

“Me either. Let's see ...” She gazed across the reflecting pool beside them, scrunching her brow in concentration. “First Kinley sends us to the most famous Islamic monument in India.”

“And next he sends us to Sarnath, the birthplace of Buddhism.”

“Right, and Sarnath just happens to be located next to Varanasi, where he knows we will stay because of my contacts there.”

“Hold on. Varanasi is the holiest city to the Hindus.”

She nodded. “The Ganges River flows through the city. Thousands of Hindus make pilgrimages there every year to purify themselves in its holy waters.”

“So Kinley has sent us from an important Muslim site to a Hindu one and then to a Buddhist one—all in the search for information about the origins of Christianity?”

“Wait!” Kristin stopped.

“What?”

“I can't believe I didn't make the connection earlier.” She tugged on his sleeve. “The Issa texts describing his travels through India—”

“Jesus may have traveled to Varanasi and Sarnath too!”

“Varanasi was considered a pilgrimage destination even during his day. And if he was on his way to the Himalayas, as described in the texts, the waters of the Ganges originate in the mountains there. Following a river in a hot climate would have made sense.”

“So Kinley wants us to retrace a key path on Issa's journey?” Grant turned to face the Taj Mahal.

The strange movement of two figures heading across the wide sandstone plaza toward the immense guest house building on the east end of the grounds captured his attention. He raised his hand in front of his face attempting to block out the glare of the landscape lighting against the white marble.

“What ...” He pointed, unable to decipher exactly what he was seeing, but a growing feeling of dread rose from his gut. Squinting his eyes, Grant
recognized the figure being dragged along—the one wearing blue jeans and an untucked white shirt. The one with the bald head.

“Oh my God,” he said.

“Jigme!” Kristin shouted a second later.

Grant grabbed her hand and broke into a sprint toward the plaza. It was the first time he had run since his accident, but he felt no pain in his leg.

Sweating from the effort of dragging the monk across the plaza, Tim realized that the drug had worked too well. He'd hoped for the monk to be able to walk with assistance, but instead he only moaned and drooled. Tim must have put too much Versed into the EpiPen, and now he would have to wait for the effects to lessen before he could effectively question the man.

The open-air guest house, built from massive red sandstone blocks, lay a short distance ahead. He coaxed his burning thighs onward. Unlike the Taj, this building was open to the sandstone plaza via several vaulted arches rising to their pointy apex thirty feet off the ground. Once concealed within the building's shadows, he would rest a minute before transporting his prize down the construction lift at the building's side wall. When they were safely away on the skiff, he would question the monk without being interrupted.

They were making slow progress when Tim sensed a commotion behind him. He turned his head toward the noise.

Running across the grass were Matthews and Misaki, yelling and pointing wildly. They would reach him before he could drag the monk to the scaffolding.

Tim pumped his legs, ignoring the intense burn from the effort. Then he heard new voices, but this time in an unintelligible tongue. Swiveling his head, he cursed loudly.

Two of the Indian security guards hustled toward him from the upper marble plaza. The idiots still had their Kalashnikovs slung, bouncing across their backs.

Tim pressed on. If he could just reach the scaffolding, he could dump the monk on the lift and lower it to the riverbank. The guards wouldn't know what was going on until he'd left. He glanced over his shoulder again.

He wasn't going to make it.

Matthews and Misaki were now on the sandstone plaza and closing quickly, the guards forty meters away. Tim made a decision. The open-air building was only ten paces in front of him.

Although Matthews and Misaki were closer, they were not as dangerous a threat as the two men with automatic rifles. With his free right hand, Tim reached underneath his shirt to the holster hidden in the small of his back. Both guards stopped in midrun when he drew the Glock. Tim raised the gun to eye level. The guards struggled to swing their rifles around.

Tim squeezed off four shots in succession. Forty meters was a long distance for a pistol in a combat situation, especially when he was dragging a man, but Tim didn't need to actually hit the guards for his shots to be effective. As he expected, both guards forgot about their rifles and dove for the ground behind the knee wall that separated the upper plaza from the lower one. Tim relished the rush of combat that he'd missed for years.

The gunshots surprised Grant. Although his eyes registered the pistol in the man's hand, his brain hesitated before interpreting that Jigme's kidnapper was actually shooting at people. His paralysis evaporated as the guards hit the plaza for cover. He jerked Kristin's arm toward him, pushed her to the ground, and fell on top of her. He winced when his right leg collided with the stone.

“No!” she cried.

“Stay down!”

With Kristin protected by his body, Grant focused on his friend fifteen meters away.
Something's wrong with him
, Grant thought. The gun's explosions inches from Jigme's face had only caused him to blink rapidly. The man with the gun then rotated the monk's body to face Grant and Kristin. The man's face was red and sweaty with effort but his gray eyes didn't hold the look of a crazed
lunatic. He had a military demeanor to him: efficient and quick. Something struck Grant as familiar too. Then he remembered. The night of the debate he'd been concerned when this same man slipped into the auditorium.
He was one of Reverend Brady's followers.
The shock of this new reality weighed on Grant. This man had followed them halfway across the world, he was trying to kidnap Jigme, and he'd just shot at two guards with machine guns
.

Kristin whispered into his ear, “He was the one staring at me outside the entrance to the Taj.”

Her words solidified Grant's suspicion:
He's after the Issa texts
.

“Follow me and I'll put a bullet through the monk's head.” The man's voice was even but strong with an American accent from the South.

“Don't touch him, you son of a bitch!” The furor exploded from Grant involuntarily. After the words escaped his mouth, he realized the barrel of the gun was pointed at them.

“I think it's you and your girlfriend you should be worried about now.”

Grant's attention now focused only the gun. He could almost sense the man's finger tighten on the trigger. Kristin's body tensed under his. The hollowness of fear quickly replaced the heat of anger. Grant knew he was helpless to protect either of them.

Tim was now faced with his second opportunity to scatter this troublemaker's brains. But as tempting as the idea was, he still wanted them alive, at least until he secured the texts. He turned and dragged the monk toward the guest house. The two poorly trained guards would keep their heads down for a few minutes, but the shots would draw the attention of more guards.

He entered the first arch of the red building and turned left toward his escape route. Every few paces, he checked behind him to see if they dared follow him into the open-air structure. After two exhausting minutes of hauling his prize through the building's shadows, he approached the wall at the north end where the construction work was taking place.

Tim hesitated.

He would have to step out onto the open plaza again to reach the scaffolding on the other side of the wall. He let the monk fall to the ground with a thud and gripped his Glock with both hands in front of his body. Pressing his back against the rough sandstone wall, he slid to his left until he reached the edge of the last archway.

The moment he stepped outside, the distinctive chatter of automatic gunfire rattled across the plaza. Shards of stone exploded from the wall inches from his head. He dove back into the building.

“Shit!” he exclaimed.

Tim crawled on all fours across the stone to where he'd dropped the unconscious monk. The incompetent guards had gotten their act together quicker than he'd expected. He didn't have much time before the guest house was surrounded. His handgun was no match for automatic weapons.

“Damn it!” he cursed to himself. He scratched his forearm with the butt of his pistol.

What was supposed to have been a stealthy grab and run had somehow turned into a firefight.
Stop and think
, he told himself. A quick survey of the dark interior of the building didn't reveal any openings along the rear wall where he could slip out unnoticed. His only escape was onto the plaza, over the wall, and down the scaffolding.

A groan beside him brought his attention to the monk.

The monk would be his ticket out of there.

He lifted the monk's stubble-covered head. Shaking him, Tim asked, “Where are the Jesus books?”

The monk emitted an unintelligible noise, but his eyes remained closed. Tim slapped the face, stinging his own hand as the sound echoed in the vaulted ceiling above them. The monk's eyes fluttered open.

“Grant Matthews and Kristin Misaki—where are they going?”