The Breath of God (40 page)

“You fucking bitch,” the man screamed from behind her.

Bruised and off balance, Kristin rose to her feet, ignoring the pain in her knees.
I have to run!
her mind screamed.

But something was wrong with her legs. She couldn't move them. Like a tree rooted into the road, she swayed, struggling to maintain her balance. She
looked down at the capri-length cargo pants she wore.
Move!
But suddenly her legs no longer even supported her own weight.

Overcome with vertigo, she collapsed to the asphalt.

What's wrong with me?
Her mind pleaded with her to escape. Her hands and elbows scraped against the rough pavement. But her attempts to crawl were futile. She rolled onto her back. Confused, she sensed the overcast afternoon quickly fading to night. Kristin lay helpless on the warm ground, peering through the dark tunnel that had become her disappearing vision. At the end of the tunnel was the face of the man who had shot Jigme and killed Deepraj and Razi. Blood streamed from his nose.

She succumbed to the blackness of the tunnel.

G
RANT SAT ON THE BED'S burgundy cover with his laptop open before him. Too many thoughts raced through his mind. He felt that they were closer to the texts, but now they had to travel to another country, his hearing at Emory was only a week away, and some fanatical man seemed to be following them.

Then he thought of Kristin:
What's going on with her?
God, she was beautiful. He'd noticed that from the moment they'd met, and despite his initial impression of her as the flighty, artistic type, the more time they spent together, the more he admired her. She liked him too; she'd even just kissed him. But ever since that uncomfortable night at his apartment, he couldn't help but wonder where they were heading. He'd been careful not to push things with her physically since then, not that he didn't want to, but after the tragedy in Agra, the timing wasn't right either. Once he had the Issa texts safely in hand, he would focus on figuring her out.

Grant rubbed his hands on his jeans, observing the sweaty imprints left behind on the laptop's keyboard. He could feel the tension creep from his back to his neck. The uncertainty of the future ate at him.

He closed his eyes and inhaled the air-conditioned hotel room air. He recalled Kinley's words from one of the days he lay trapped in the monastery and struggling with his predicament. “You have a strong intellect, Grant—too strong. You've become a slave to your mind, so much so you don't even realize it. Your mind causes your unhappiness, leading you down multiple paths of uncertainty and fear.”

“Don't our minds control all of us?” he'd asked.

“Only if we allow them to. The carpenter should be master over his tools; the tools should not rule the carpenter.”

Grant inhaled again, attempting to remember more of his friend's advice, but Kinley's voice faded into the distance of his memory. At one moment the path in front of him looked so clear, but then without warning the way became obscured. He returned his attention to his breathing. Exhaling, he felt the tension in his body subside marginally.

Opening his eyes, he typed “Druk Air,” the national airline of Bhutan, into the browser. While he waited for the flight schedules to load, he glanced at the series of icons at the bottom of his screen. He squinted.

Both his virus protection and spyware software programs were deactivated.

He sat up straighter. Had he deactivated them recently in order to install new software? He didn't remember doing so. He closed the airline schedules, reactivated both programs, and downloaded updates for them. He didn't like surfing the web in a foreign country unprotected. After the software finished scanning the hard drive, he scrolled down the list of its discoveries. In the middle of a list of advertising cookies were two programs, MailTrac.exe and GhostKeys.exe. He reopened his browser and ran a search of both names. His mouth went dry. The first file was an email spying program popular with hackers, while the second recorded whatever was typed into the computer and then covertly transmitted the data to the person who installed the program. Grant selected the entire list and clicked on the button that read “Clean.”

His computer had been hacked. Someone was reading his email.

The realization of the most likely culprit nauseated him.
The assassin in Agra
. That's how he'd tracked them to the Taj Mahal. The questions Grant had been repeating to himself played again:
Is this man trying to prevent the Issa texts from revealing the truth about Jesus? Is he a lone psychopath who believes he's on a divine mission? Or is he part of a broader conspiracy?
None of the possibilities appealed to Grant. He wondered how much the murderer knew about their quest for the texts. Then a single thought froze all the others swimming in his mind.

Kristin
.

He snatched the hotel phone from the bedside table and punched in his cell phone number. After an interminable wait while the signal traveled in search of his phone, he heard his own voice telling him to leave a message. His cell phone was turned off. But he knew that it had been on when he gave it to her. Something was wrong. He dropped the receiver on the bed and ran from the room. He had to get to the university and Deepraj's office.

T
HE SHRILL SOUND OF HINDI music grew in the darkness like a movie soundtrack fading in at the beginning of a film. The world was dark, distant, and cold. Only the music provided evidence to Kristin that she was still alive. Gradually the fog in her mind began to clear. She blinked her eyes at the increasing light. She was shivering.

The space around her came into focus. She was sitting on a wooden chair in the center of a small living room in a run-down apartment. The chair creaked in protest as she shifted her weight and glanced up. A single bare bulb hung from the ceiling, casting a harsh light on the gray plaster peeling from the walls. A simple wood-laminate coffee table sat beside the only other piece of furniture, a ragged sofa. The screeching music she heard came from a clock radio on the bedside table in the bedroom just ahead of her. She was alone.

Where am I?
She shook her head, trying to rid it of the sluggishness she felt. Her whole body was limp, and she had to fight the urge to close her eyes and return to sleep. She licked her lips. She was parched.

Then the memories flooded her mind.
Sarnath. Deepraj's office. The snake. The man from Agra
. The final thought provided the jolt of energy she needed to wake up. She willed her body to rise from the chair but discovered she couldn't move. Panic quickly replaced the lethargy she'd experienced moments before. She shook her limbs, scraping the rickety chair against the floor. She looked to her arms. They were duct-taped to the armrests.

The horror of her situation came to her:
I've been drugged and kidnapped, like Jigme
. Thrashing anew in the chair, she realized that her legs were free to move; they were unbound. She awkwardly stood, hunched over, and began to shuffle toward the door on the room's left wall. She had to escape, before the man returned.

“Going somewhere?” the voice behind her asked.

She stumbled and fell forward, hitting the wood floor with the chair on top of her.

“I step in the bathroom for two minutes, and you wake up.”

“What are you doing with me?” Her words came out slurred.

Kristin's breath quickened at his approaching footsteps. He lifted her off the ground. The old chair protested when he set her down hard, back where she'd started.

“Since our chat earlier, I've been debating what to do with you.” He spoke in a southern twang, but his words were short and clipped, in military style.

What chat?
she wondered. She'd been unconscious. But before she could pursue the thought, he bent over, covering her taped-down arms with his rough hands. He leaned close enough that she felt his stale breath on her cheeks. As terrified as she felt to be helpless in front of this man, she refused to turn away from his leering face. Her captor appeared to be in his late thirties, with a forehead creased into a permanent frown between his steel gray eyes. His complexion was fiery red and flaky, and he looked as if he were peeling from a severe sunburn. His crew cut had sprinkles of premature salt through the dark pepper. His nose sat slightly askew and a hint of crusted blood poked from his nostrils.

He broke the stare-down first, dropping his eyes down the length of her body. Feeling his gaze linger on her breasts before moving to her stomach and legs, she shuddered. She recalled his giving her the same look in front of the Taj Mahal: a look not really of lust, but of study—like a butcher pondering a cut of prime beef to decide how best to carve it into the most succulent pieces. She felt exposed under his gaze, as if he could see through her clothes to the bare flesh beneath.

“What do you want?” She struggled to keep her voice from wavering. By engaging him, maybe she could buy herself more time to think of a way out.

He cocked his head. “Why do you think I'd reveal my mission to you?”

“I think that you feel threatened that Grant's discovery will shake your faith.” She was surprised by her own brazenness.

His voice was controlled. “You're slippery, aren't you? Just like your boyfriend was with the reverend.” He stood and paced in front of her.

The mention of Brady surprised her.
Is this man one of his fanatical followers?

He spoke as if lecturing to a group of military recruits. “That's the way you work, isn't it? You redirect the debate from your wrongdoing to the other person. I've studied psychological warfare, and your tactics won't work on me. The Angel of Darkness masquerading as an Angel of Light.” The man began to lightly scratch his forearms.

She had no idea what paranoid fantasy her captor entertained, but at least he was talking instead of mentally undressing her. She wondered how long she'd been unconscious.
When will Grant realize I'm missing?
She shifted her weight in the creaky chair and softened her tone. “All Grant wants is to bring out the facts about what made Jesus the man he was. His journey is truly uplifting, you see—”

“The facts! For too long you atheists and agnostics have dominated the media, turning our country away from the principles of Christianity—the same principles our forefathers fought for.” He began to scratch his arms more vigorously; flakes of dead skin fell like snow flurries to the floor. “But you've underestimated us true Christians.”

Kristin had the impression that this man wasn't speaking to her at all but to someone else.

“But the time has come to take preemptive action,” he said, no longer scratching but instead gesticulating with his arms to an imagined audience. “A David to take on Goliath.” In a quieter voice he concluded, “Then our sins will be forgiven.”

The lunatic propped his right foot on the coffee table and hiked up his pants leg. Kristin's eyes widened when he withdrew an eight-inch serrated military knife from the sheath attached to his calf.

“Please, don't hurt me.” The words escaped her lips before she could stop them. Her attempt at bravery evaporated upon seeing the glint of the blade. This man had tortured Deepraj and now appeared ready to do the same to her. “What do you want to know?” she asked, following the knife with her eyes as it approached her.

“I have what I need to know.” The man lightly traced the sharp point of the commando knife down the center of her shirt. His leering expression had returned. Reaching buttons, he hooked the knife under the bottom one. With a flick of his wrist, the button flew off. One by one, each of the next four buttons sailed across the room, making soft clinking noises when they scattered on the wood floor.

A deep nausea rose within her. He opened her shirt with the knife's edge, revealing a black sports bra now damp with perspiration. Her breathing came in quick and shallow gasps. She was unprepared for the tears that involuntarily fell from her eyes. His free hand reached toward her. Her stomach turned at the vision of the red scaly skin on his forearm. He pushed the shirt off her shoulders.

“Please, don't.”

He didn't respond. He seemed transfixed by the honey complexion of her torso and shoulders.

Kristin knew that begging wouldn't stop this man; he might even enjoy it. His calloused fingers traced the flesh of her bare arm to her collarbone, raising chill bumps of revulsion on her skin. When the fingers moved down her chest, she snapped her eyes closed, wincing. His hand paused at her left breast, cupping it through the fabric of her bra with enough force to bring discomfort, but not enough to cause true pain. Kristin thought of her sister. The memory of the night her sister described her own rape seemed to reach up to strangle her.

She forced her eyes open. The man released her breast and let his fingers trail down her stomach to the waistline of her capris. She no longer felt his touch. She seemed to look at herself from a distance. His fingers quivered, fumbling with the top button.

Kristin moved without warning. She kicked her right foot out as hard as she could from her seated position. Her powerful leg muscles were magnified
by the pent-up rage at her helplessness. Her foot connected with the man's groin. She felt the soft, squishy flesh give way to the pubic bone beneath.

The effect was instantaneous. Her captor dropped to his knees. A low moan escaped his lips. The knife clattered to the floor beside him as he grabbed his crotch with both hands. Her second kick was as effective as the first, but this time her foot connected with the crooked nose she'd broken earlier in the day. He howled as blood sprayed across the floor.