Namaste (2 page)

The man only mumbles.
 

How many were there, at least?
the police ask, their manners growing frustrated.

One,
the man in the suit finally manages to say.
There was only one man.
 

Sitting cross-legged on the grass in the park, Amit shuffled his light-blue robes and opened his eyes. A thought entered his mind unbidden — a thought that had, when he raised sound and logical reasons for its validity, frightened (maybe threatened) his order:

The time for peace will come later. The time for vengeance is now
.
 

He placed his palms together over his heart chakra and bowed his head forward, honoring his soul’s promise in a greeting to itself.

Chapter 2

8:33
P
.
M
.
ON
S
ATURDAY

There were two men at the front door, but the front door itself was open. This was fortunate, because only a master locksmith or a tank could open the heavy doors, once closed. The guards should have been protection enough, plus the inner doors between the foyer and the home’s interior, a high fence topped with razor wire surrounding the property, guards at the front gates, and a surveillance room that monitored the grounds. There was no reason to keep the big doors shut.
 

Amit had already handled the guards at the gate. They hadn’t opened the fence before dying, but he had easily scaled it. Amit could have scaled it while being shot at, which of course he hadn’t been because the men with the guns were all lying on the ground. Once you’d shimmied your way up bamboo trees all day for weeks, a fence posed little challenge. The grounds hadn’t been difficult to cross. All men thought the same, more or less. It seemed like a very Zen thought, but really it was just common sense; the cameras were laid out in logical ways — logical to those who designed the system, and those who monitored it. It was impossible to watch every section of the grounds at every moment, so instead the system was installed to watch the largest areas, those most likely for an intruder to cross.
 

Accordingly, as with so many things in life, the difficult path turned out to be the right one. After breaking the front gate’s camera from its mount, killing the guards, and climbing the fence, Amit simply crossed the lawn in a serene state of determination, asking himself in each moment which was the more difficult path to take. Each time that was the one he had taken.

It would be logical and quick to run up the yard’s slope between the topiaries. So he had leapt from tree to tree and hedge to hedge along the sides.
 

It would be simple to cross around the pond, sticking to shadows, and approach the house from the rear. But it would be nearly impossible to crab-crawl beneath the horizontal trellis then swim beneath the pond’s huge surface without surfacing for air, so he’d done that next.
 

The guards were surprised to see Amit at the front door. They took in his wet, light-blue robes spattered with blood, and his shaved head, then traded glances. What could this crazy vagabond possibly want? The fact that the crazy vagabond had gotten past all of their security didn’t matter. They saw nuisance rather than threat. One raised his palm and said there was no soliciting, but when he did, Amit crossed to the guard and broke the warding hand at the wrist.
 

“What the hell?” the other guard yelled, fumbling at his belt. He had a gun; Amit saw it on approach. He knew every detail of their weapons, and had been tracking them since allowing himself to be seen. With the guard’s eyes on Amit, he wasn’t able to get the gun by feel. It was strapped in like an officer’s. Without looking down, his brain hadn’t remembered.
 

Amit stepped forward and, in one deft movement, used the heel of his palm to smash the guard’s nose up into his brain. The guard went limp and crashed to the steps. Amit looked over, eyes calm — opposite of the guard’s. Amit held the guard’s dominant hand, he flailed and reached for something — anything — on his belt with the other. But his second hand was clumsy; most people didn’t train as the shadow monks did and could only use some of their muscles.
 

Amit pulled the guard’s hand around his own neck, then used momentum and positioning from his opposite hand (neither was dominant and never had been) to snap the man’s neck.
 

He looked up, knowing he’d see a security camera. This part was unavoidable. In fact, desired. The Right Hand would never barricade himself inside. He’d fight, because he had something to prove. But like all cowards, he’d fight with the hands of others.
 

Amit gave the camera a sarcastic smile and nodded at the men behind it.
 

Then he sat on the stone steps and waited. While waiting, he pulled a set of prayer beads from his robes and started to rub them.
 

He looked at the dead guards. No, the others would never have understood. They’d have said that violence begat violence and that an evolved soul transcended the need to inflict harm on another. They’d tell him a man should never kill — that to do so polluted his soul. But as Amit looked on the guards, he felt no guilt, no sense of wrong. These men had chosen their station. They knew who they worked for. And if he was wrong, they’d be reborn with an advantage and ratchet down his next time through. When the big wheel kept spinning, there were no dead ends. Only detours and diversions. The best a man could do was what he felt was right.
 

Amit didn’t think he was wrong. Events had unfolded before him, and certain things had become inevitable. It wasn’t resistance to do what he was doing now. What would have been resistant — what would have been fighting the very will of all that existed — would have been turning his cheek after what had happened.
 

Peace could come later, after what had gone wrong was righted.

The door opened behind him. He heard minute clicking — the hammers of handguns. He kept his eyes down, feeling the beads between his fingers. He looked at the bodies, wished for their release to a better existence, then stood.
 

A voice screamed, “Drop it!”
 

“They are only prayer beads.”

“I don’t give a motherfucking fuck what they are, cue ball! Drop that shit like it’s hot or we’ll put you down!”
 

He turned slowly, robes already starting to dry and swish at his legs as he was accustomed. His hands were still together at his stomach, beads still between his thumbs and fingers. He looked at the two men who’d emerged from the inner door. Of course they had left it open behind them. They were well trained, but scared. Amit watched as their eyes darted from his face to his hands, then to the two dead guards. He could read them as if they were holding signs. Few men had been tried in fire. Rules and procedures meant little once nerves took over. Non-holistic training didn’t understand the power of rituals — of habituating your body to respond without need for conscious thought.
 

“I was given these beads by my first teacher and do not wish to scratch them. I am going to place them in my pocket.”
 

“The fuck you are!” yelled the same guard. The second man hadn’t spoken. Both had their guns clasped in their hands, arms stiff and elbows locked. Even if their hands weren’t in a death grip (which they were; Amit could see the white from their fingertips) the locked elbows would betray them once they pulled triggers. He was five feet away. In the men’s current states, they would miss him for sure.
 

Keeping his hands plainly visible, Amit dropped the beads into his pocket.
 

“Okay, fucker, you’ve got your beads. Now get down and kiss the concrete!”

“I do not wish to dirty my robes beyond their current and unfortunate state of soil.” Amit looked down at the blood crusted fabric. “Standing should suffice.”
 

The second guard took one hand from his gun and drew a police nightstick.
 

“Get down or I knock you down,” said the second guard, who wore a long scar on one cheek.
 

Amit looked at the man and made a few calculations. He shrugged, lifted his robes, and knelt.
 

“I said, lie down.” The second guard advanced.
 

“Tell me,” said Amit. “Will I find the Right Hand inside?”
 

The guard stopped. The man with the gun looked over. His eyes again flicked to the dead guards on the steps.
 

“What do you want with the Right Hand?”
 

“What does one always want with a hand? To follow it up the arm, to eventually find and remove the head.”
 

The second guard hauled back in a very predictable arc, then swung his nightstick at Amit’s face. Amit allowed the guard to strike him, shifting his shoulder into the blow and ruffling his robes behind the strike. He moved with the blow behind the robe’s flutter, dimming its impact. Then he flinched away as the guard followed through, yelling in feigned pain. The guard would think he’d struck Amit hard across the face, but he’d actually only given him a light glancing blow on the shoulder. Of course, in time, the fact that Amit’s face didn’t redden would give him away, but by then the guards would be dead.
 

“Shut your fucking riddling mouth,” said the second guard.
 

The first guard said, “I don’t like this.”
 

“Of course you don’t ‘like this.’ He just killed Tom and Barry. Call the cops. We’ll hold him until they show.”
 

“Don’t forget to mention the dead men at the gate,” said Amit.
 

The second guard hit him again. Amit once more rolled with the blow, this time deflecting off his back. He screamed.
 

“You sick fuck. You just murdered four men.”
 

“Four bad men,” said Amit.
 

“And you would have murdered us, too?”
 

“I will, yes. I am sorry.”
 

The guard raised his nightstick again, but this time Amit ducked the blow entirely. The guard’s momentum carried him around. Amit stood, hardening his fist so the first two knuckles were protruding, then drove those two knuckles with years of focus-trained force into the back of the guard’s neck. He was dead before his follow-through finished.
 

The other guard fired his weapon, but Amit was watching the gun’s muzzle while killing the first man. As he’d known it would, the shot went high. Amit took two steps before the man could react, folded his gun hand back on itself, and squeezed the guard’s hand so he shot himself in the head with his own weapon. A blossom of spatter bloomed on the fluted column behind the guard. Amit dropped the dead hand, stepped over the body, and entered the lobby.
 

He wanted to yell for the Right Hand, but there was little point. The Right Hand would not respond to his summons. If anyone responded, it would be more guards.
Would
there be more? There were already six. The Right Hand had a lot of money and a risky position, but was, in the end, only a right hand. He wouldn’t have an army protecting him like the boss. Maybe killing was done for the day. Amit hoped so. He looked down and smoothed his robe, annoyed at the blood spatters salted across it. He’d tried to be so careful.
 

Amit stopped and listened.
 

For a while, the house seemed silent, but true stillness held no breath. While Amit couldn’t hear a heartbeat through walls (well, more than one, anyway), a heartbeat was but one electrical stimulus. Amit had spent hours in the monastery opposite another monk, listening to the minute sounds the other man made by simply
existing
. Feeling his energy.
Sensing
him: the opposite of the suspicious feeling a person gets when he or she is being watched — an itch that speaks of eyes on their body. Sensing another was like that, and in time, a monk in practice could learn to feel and hear and sense the difference between an occupied room and an empty one.
 

He walked into the study off the foyer. Empty.

He walked into the formal dining room. Empty.
 

Kitchen, second study, living room, library. Empty.
 

Amit approached the grand central staircase, which wound from curled ends to a second story balcony leading into the home’s deeper rooms. The newel posts looked pearlescent, marble or ivory. The wide staircase seemed almost made of stone, though it couldn’t be; it wasn’t supported, and a solid stone staircase would crumple without supports. It must have a metal infrastructure, faced in stone.
 

He decided it would probably not creak.
 

Still, Amit treaded lightly up the stairs, minding each motion, along with his breath, sinking into each muscular contraction in his legs, slowly spreading his weight like batter poured into a pan. Step by step he reached the top, then tested the landing, found it silent, and made his way into each of the upstairs rooms. Finally he found a room that felt different.