The Breath of God (7 page)

Trying to keep his voice even, Grant asked, “May I see the manuscripts?”

Kinley shook his head. “Not possible. They are located in our library, on the top floor of the
utse
tower. Even if you could climb the steps, which you can't in your condition, the library is off limits to outsiders.”

Grant felt as if his mind were moving in fast forward and the rest of the world was in super-slow motion. Even Kinley's words seemed to be drawn out too long. How could he be this close and not see the texts?

“But—”

A knock on the door interrupted his protest. Kinley opened it. “We will talk about this subject another time. Now we must eat.” Jigme entered as silently as ever, carrying a wooden tray with three steaming bowls of food and cups of tea.

Grant stared at the two monks. Kinley couldn't just drop a revelation like that on him and then not allow him to see the evidence.
I've got to convince him to allow me access
, he thought. But watching the elder monk pass the bowls from Jigme's tray, Grant knew that the discussion had ended. As much as he needed to see the Issa writings, he feared appearing too desperate. Surely over time he would be able to reason with a man like Kinley—an Oxford grad who valued the Western world enough to have pursued his education at one of the greatest universities—that there was value in helping Grant complete his dissertation at the very least.
Not to mention the impact it would have on the masses.

Grant took a deep breath and said, “Three o'clock already? I'm starved. I don't know how you guys eat just two meals a day.” He thought he detected the corners of Kinley's mouth turn up ever so slightly.

For most meals Grant ate some kind of vegetable—green beans today—smothered in a bland white cheese sauce with a hint of ginger and served over a bed of coarse red rice. Jigme and Kinley ate the same dish, but theirs also
contained several bright red peppers that bled into the cream sauce. Only once did Grant make the mistake of tasting one of these peppers in the hopes of adding some flavor to his food. His lips burned for the next half hour.

The three men continued their meal in silence, Grant sitting upright on his bed, while the two monks sat with legs crossed on the stone floor. Grant observed the peculiar way they ate, deliberately chewing each bite like they were grinding wheat into flour. Watching them chew for a full ten minutes after he'd finished, Grant could no longer contain his impatience. “Okay, I get that by living in a monastery you immerse all aspects of your lives in your practice. Mindfulness, right? Everything you do—cleaning, walking, and even eating—you take your time, but doesn't doing everything so deliberately get old?”

Kinley set his wooden bowl on the floor and answered, “Meditation for us is not just sitting and watching the breath or chanting a mantra.”

Grant picked up his laptop from the side table and set it on his lap. He was in the habit of taking notes whenever Kinley launched into something interesting. The monk continued as Grant opened a blank document and began to type.

“Twenty-five hundred years ago, a young man traveled to Sarnath in India, where he spent several days observing the Buddha and his disciples. Confused about the nature of their practice, the young man approached the Buddha and asked him what exactly it was that the monks practiced. The Buddha smiled at the young man and said, ‘We sit, we walk, and we eat.' The young man became animated and responded, ‘But Master, everyone sits, walks, and eats!' To which the Buddha replied, ‘Yes, but when we sit, we know that we are sitting. When we walk, we know that we are walking. When we eat, we know that we are eating.'”

Grant stopped typing.
Clever
, he thought,
but simplistic
. “I get it from an intellectual standpoint, but how is that really different from what I just did? I know that I just ate too, only faster.”

Kinley stood, poured two cups of water from a pitcher on the table, and handed one to Grant, keeping the other for himself. “What is water?” he asked, holding up his cup.

The uneven but smooth surface of the tin cup felt cool in Grant's hand. He glanced at the water inside. “Two hydrogen molecules for every one oxygen.”

“True, but look deeper. What is water?”

Grant raised his cup and made a show of studying it. He'd figured out the monk's game. He might not agree with the conclusions, but at least he understood. He rattled off, “Water is a liquid now, but it can also change to a gas or a solid. Water doesn't smell or taste by itself, but it can take on the characteristics of the substances within it, just as it can mold into any shape of container.”

“Yes, but what is water?”

Grant continued without hesitation, “It's sixty percent of our bodies, and seventy percent of the earth. Water carves canyons, yet sits atop the tallest mountains. It's the origin of life on earth. Without it, we would all die. But with too much,” Grant said with a sweeping gesture to the cast on his right leg, “we also can die.” He grinned at Kinley, particularly pleased with his last insight.

“Yes, but what is water?”

Grant sighed. He didn't like being stumped. But what answer did the monk want? He stared at the tin cup for several moments and then closed his eyes. He reviewed the lessons he'd learned over the past three weeks. Kinley always brought the discussions back to the personal, to some internal insight. Then it occurred to him. He was thinking about water in general. Instead, he thought about the specific water in his cup.

He began slowly with his eyes closed, “This water was carried here by Jigme, but it originated in the river outside the dzong.” The same river, he realized, that had caused him to be in that bed drinking the water. “Before that the water was runoff from the mountain snow, and before that it was vapor molecules in a cloud.” He let his mind drift farther back in time, his eyes still closed. “Before the vapor was evaporated into the air by the sun's energy, those molecules were again water, part of some distant ocean or lake.” He thought back to the many generations of cycles the water he now held in his hand had been through. These molecules had traveled around the world for millions if not billions of years. Then Grant understood. “And when I drink the water, then all of that history, that energy, will become part of me too, just like the food we ate.”

The sound of clapping hands caused him to open his eyes. “Quite impressive. That is looking deeply,” Kinley said. A mischievous smile spread across his face. “But there is still more. What else is water?”

Grant frowned, finally out of ideas.

“Drink.” Kinley motioned to Grant's cup.

Grant opened his mouth to speak. Kinley cut him off. “No talking. No analyzing. No thinking. Just drink.”

Grant looked from Kinley to Jigme who sat silently with a bemused expression on his face as if he had been through this lesson before himself. He drained his cup. The cool, crisp water flowed over his tongue, leaving a faint metallic flavor from the tin container.

“That is water!” Kinley exclaimed.

Then the monk raised his own cup, as if to toast Grant. Without warning, he tossed his water onto Grant's head. Wetness ran down his hair and soaked into his shirt.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Grant sputtered.

“And that is water,” Kinley replied.

Grant heard him laughing until his orange robes disappeared at the end of the hall. Jigme gathered the empty dishes with a wide grin on his face and followed his master, leaving Grant wiping the water from his eyes.

T
IM HUNTLEY FELT the excitement course through his body. His gloved fingertips drummed to an imaginary beat on the steering wheel.

The rebroadcast of Reverend Brady's sermon crackled over the AM station on the van's radio: “Yes, my children of New Hope, you,
the Believers
, will be saved. But do not let down your guard, for Satan is manipulative. Carry the strength of your faith in front of you like a sword against those who blaspheme against the Word!”

Tim checked his rearview mirror and noted the headlights that were still about fifty meters behind him. The reverend's voice continued over the radio, “In chapter twenty-four of Leviticus, we see the fate of these blasphemers: ‘One who blasphemes the name of the Lord shall be put to death; the whole congregation shall stone the blasphemer. Aliens as well as citizens, when they blaspheme the Name, shall be put to death.'”

Stones
. Tim smiled to himself. What would Moses have done with the firepower produced by modern technology? “Aliens as well as citizens,” the Bible said. Tim had heard variations of this sermon many times. His usual thought was
which blasphemers should go first?
Tonight he knew. Tonight would be the night that he redeemed himself for his past sins. God had so many grand plans for Tim, and this night was just the beginning.

The Army had trained him well. After excelling in the elite combat training he'd received at Ranger school in Fort Benning, his unique intellectual talents were finally noticed and he was selected for INSCOM, the Army Intelligence
and Security Command, where he specialized in cyber ops. Tim was a natural with a computer. In another life, he might have been a software mogul, but Tim loved the Army. In the fifteen years he'd spent there, Tim not only got to direct drones at his nation's enemies, locate insurgents through their cell phone calls, and hack into enemy computer networks, he'd been born again. His life since his father's murder had been directionless, but once Tim found God and the Army, his life had purpose. Everything changed again, however, when his career was taken from him.

On this evening, Tim understood that for every setback, God had planned an even greater return.

The hours at the call center job he'd taken when he'd first returned from overseas three years ago had sucked, but the pay was decent. His long-range plans developed slowly, but as they began to crystallize in his mind, he realized that he would need funds to accomplish his goals. He may have left the Army, but he was still a soldier—only now he was working for a higher power than the U.S. government. He was a soldier for God. But then one day, six months into the job, his company announced that their call center was moving to Chennai, India. They offered to retrain many of the employees but told Tim he wasn't “a good fit going forward.” His penchant for emailing the other employees his political and religious ideology had resulted in more than one reprimand from his manager. He was happy to leave behind the bureaucracy of the call center, not to mention their bullshit sensitivity training classes.
Shortsighted idiots, all of them
, he remembered.

He had next moved to Birmingham to take a job working in the IT department of the UAB Hospital. That job lasted eight months after similar misunderstandings, plus accusations of missing medications and supplies. But those accusations were never proved.

Tim glanced at the glowing dial of his watch. Just under three hours. Not bad for sticking to the speed limit. The last thing he needed in his moment of glory was for the police to catch him speeding in a stolen van, especially one that contained a two-hundred-gallon plastic tank filled with ANFO in the strippedout rear passenger area. He and Johnny had stolen the black minivan just after midnight from the long-term parking lot of the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth
International Airport, driven it to their hunting trailer in the woods in the Sipsey Wilderness Area, removed the rear passenger seats, and then installed the tank. This had taken just under an hour, just as Tim had rehearsed it several times. Tim had been hesitant about including Johnny in his plans, but the simple doofus was good at taking orders. Even better, he was a true believer—a lifelong member of Reverend Brady's New Hope Church.

Unlike others Tim had teamed up with over the years, Johnny sat with rapt attention as Tim explained the things that weren't taught in churches because the ministers were afraid of offending the fragile sensibilities of their congregations. Just yesterday, he had explained to his groupie the tenets of British Israelism. Like much of his knowledge, Tim had uncovered this fascinating tidbit during the hours he spent every evening researching on the Internet while others slept.

Tim recounted for Johnny how, after the ten lost tribes of Israel were freed from their captivity by the Assyrians, they migrated to Europe rather than returning to Israel. Therefore it was people like him and Johnny—white American Christians, through their European forefathers—who were the original Old Testament Jews that God had picked as his chosen people. Those who called themselves Jewish today were actually the progeny of Cain. When Tim had read this account, he knew in his heart its truth. He had always felt that he was chosen, and now he understood the history behind that feeling.

After Tim had read Reverend Brady's new book for the second time last month, he emailed the minister links to this same research. Brady's book had spoken to Tim, especially the predictions that the End Times were near. When Tim read the chapter about the Book of Revelation predicting that the rebuilding of Babylon would occur before the Second Coming, a chill had crept along his spine. Ancient Babylon was located in modern-day Iraq, and Tim had been part of an operation in that area and had seen firsthand the American efforts to rebuild the city. An hour south of Baghdad, the U.S. military had established Camp Babylon early in the occupation. Tim had been shocked to learn that the huge palace behind the high wall in the center of the city was Saddam Hussein's attempt to reconstruct Nebuchadnezzar's palace. He had relayed all this to Brady in subsequent emails, but he hadn't yet received a reply. The reverend was a very busy man.