The Breath of God (39 page)

A motorized rickshaw waited on the street corner just ahead. He would intercept them at their hotel.

“He's still not answering.” Kristin returned Grant's cell phone.

“It is Saturday. Maybe he's taking the day off.”

“No, he practically lives in his office, even weekends.” The taxi driver turned down the university's tree-lined road, following Kristin's pointed finger.

“Why don't we come back later? I'm anxious to get to the hotel and see if we have power yet. Email Jigme about our travel plans back to Bhutan.”

She shook her head. “Drop me off at Deepraj's building. If I can't find him in the lounge, I'll check his office.”

Grant hesitated a moment before saying, “After what happened in Agra, wouldn't you feel safer if we stayed together?”

“Grant Matthews, I've traveled around the world for the past three years on my own.”

“Okay.” He tried to catch her eye, but her gaze was focused outside the window. “After I email Jigme, I'll book our flights.”

“Stop here please,” Kristin said to the driver. The car pulled to the curb. The building was quiet without the frenzy of students attending class.

“Here, take this.” Grant handed her his cell phone. “Call me at the hotel after you speak to Deepraj. I can send the car back to pick you up.”

Kristin opened the car door, but before she stepped out, she leaned in and kissed him on the check. The brush of her lips against his skin sent an unexpected electricity through him. “See you in an hour.” She winked and closed the door behind her.

Tim reclined on the torn vinyl bench of the motorized rickshaw, trying to ignore the annoying whine and noxious fumes coming from the small engine just beneath the driver's seat. The driver gripped the handlebars of his cycle with one hand, while he used the other to hold a cell phone underneath a wide hat that flopped in the wind. Tim removed his phone from the inside pocket of his jacket and flipped open the leather cover. The red dot representing Matthews's cell phone flashed at the university entrance he'd just left behind. His targets were heading to the professor's office.

Knowing that adaptability in a field operation was a hallmark of an effective combatant, Tim didn't hesitate to modify his plan. The professor's building was deserted, whereas their hotel would have workers and other tourists around.

“Pull over there,” he yelled to his driver, pointing to a side street just ahead. Between the engine noise and his own screeching into his cell, the driver didn't respond. Tim whacked him on the shoulder, and yelled louder, “Stop there!”

Startled, the driver hung up the phone and slowed the rickshaw. Tim reached for one of the EpiPens but then decided that he didn't need to waste one. Instead he drew his Glock from the holster hidden under his shirt and
flipped it around in his hand, gripping the barrel. The driver stopped beside a building abandoned for so long the boards covering the windows had rotted. He turned to face Tim with a stupid grin on his face. Concealing the gun by his hip, Tim nodded that the location would work. He climbed out of the seat, placing his free left hand on the back of the cycle for balance. The only person he saw nearby was a toothless man squatting in a stoned stupor across the street.

Tim's left hand then bumped into his driver's hat, knocking it to the ground.

“Sorry,” Tim said cheerfully.

“
Theek hai
, okay,” the driver responded, bending forward.

Tim attacked swiftly and efficiently, much the way he'd attacked the Muslim on the steps at the Taj Mahal. The gun cut a wide arc through the air before cracking into the skull of the rickshaw driver, who collapsed to the ground.
Not dead
, Tim thought,
but out for now
. He picked up the driver's hat. As he climbed on the cycle, he began to anticipate what lay ahead for him at the university. As soon as he pulled away from the curb, however, the itching began.

Kristin's hiking shoes squeaked in the empty hallway. The building seemed unnaturally quiet without students. She walked up to the closed door of the faculty lounge and pushed it open.

Unlike the dark classrooms she'd passed in the hallway, the lounge had fluorescent ceiling lights illuminating two worn couches, a leather armchair, and a wooden coffee table. Steam rose from the teapot on the counter in the corner.
He must have been here recently
, she thought; his was the only faculty office on this floor.

When she reached his office door, she knocked firmly. “Deepraj, it's Kristin,” she said, not sure why she felt it necessary to announce her arrival. Her voice echoed down the empty hallway, but only silence came from behind his closed door.
Maybe he left for home early today
, she thought.

Kristin tried the doorknob. “Professor?” It turned in her hand.

The blood drained from her limbs. Professor Deepraj Bhatt sat behind his desk. He was slumped over, his head resting on a woven basket in the center of the desk. The normally neat but crowded office was in disarray. His papers lay scattered, as if someone had quickly searched them.

“Oh, God!” she cried, running to him.

Please let him be alive
, she prayed. But her gut told her to expect the worst. When she reached his side, she saw that Deepraj appeared to be inhaling deeply from the interior of the basket, but he wasn't breathing. His body was frozen.

“Deepraj?” Kristin placed a hand under his shoulder and lifted his head out of the basket.

The professor's body flopped back into his seat, his head lolling to the side. She screamed. His naturally dark complexion had turned a creamy white with the exception of the fiery welts covering his face. Terribly swollen, his face appeared like an inflated blowfish covered in chicken pox. Deepraj's lifeless eyes bulged out of their sockets.

Kristin shivered involuntarily. She placed her hands on the desk in an effort to keep her entire body steady. Deepraj had been one of the most gentle men she'd ever met. He was the last person in the world who deserved to die like this.

She squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head, trying to clear the image now burned into her memory.
I have to call the police
. Opening her eyes, she avoided the professor's face and reached for the phone on the desk. Her hand paused over the open straw basket.
Why was his face in there?
Her instincts told her to run from the office, to call the police from outside, but the seeds of anger and frustration within her started to sprout.

Kristin bent over the desk and peered into the basket. Empty.

Her mind raced.
Who could have done such a thing?
Then a nausea rose from her stomach.
The man from Agra
. Could he have tracked them to Varanasi? Had he tortured Deepraj? And for what? She didn't want to believe that she'd been responsible for her friend's death, but the two attacks couldn't be coincidence. The painful irony was that Deepraj was less involved with their search than Jigme.

Her next thought sent a new shiver across her skin.
What if he's still in the building?

She held her breath, listening, but heard nothing other than the percussion of her own pulse.

Then the sensation of movement near her right ankle caused her to shriek and jump backward. Darting her eyes to the floor, she half expected to see the man from Agra with his crew cut and leering eyes staring up at her from the shadows under the desk. What she saw, however, chilled her even more. A black cobra flared up in the exact spot where she'd just been standing. With its tail tightly coiled in a circle on the carpet, the snake's head stood a foot and a half off the ground, its neck spread in the shape of a deadly diamond. Kristin froze, fighting every urge in her body to scream again and run. The snake emitted a menacing hiss. Its head swayed back and forth, as if challenging her to pick a direction to move toward.

Barely breathing, Kristin inched her left leg, now the closest to the snake, backward. The snake continued its bob and weave but didn't strike. After seconds, which felt like hours, Kristin had backed away a couple of feet—out of striking range, she hoped. She slowly turned her body away from the animal but kept her eyes on it. Once she faced the door, she bolted, running faster than she had since her days on her high school tennis team.

Kristin didn't stop running until she broke through the main doors of the building, stumbled down the stairs, and collapsed on the lawn. After catching her breath, she peered over her shoulder at the building's entrance, now anticipating anything. And yet the building looked as peaceful as it had when she'd arrived.

She had to escape.

Rising to her feet, she brushed off the blades of grass that clung to her jeans. Then she remembered the cell phone in her pocket. Her fingers fumbled with the phone.
What's the number for the police?
She didn't think 911 would work, but tried it anyway.

Rapid beeping.
Wrong number
.

Swiveling her head frantically, she saw a rickshaw parked on the curb. She broke into a full sprint toward the only means of transportation currently on the campus road this quiet Saturday. She hoped it wasn't occupied.

Kristin leaped into the back seat without bothering to ask the hunchedover driver in the floppy hat if he was waiting for anyone.

“Hotel Taj Ganges.”

Collapsing onto the worn vinyl, she pressed the menu button on the phone. Grant had the hotel's number stored. They could connect her with the police. Scrolling through the list of numbers, she felt the vibration of the rickshaw's engine, but the driver hadn't pulled away from the curb.

“Please, quickly. This is an emergency!”

She found the number and pressed send.

The driver swiveled in his seat to face her. “Yes, it is.”

The sight of the man from Agra sitting inches away paralyzed her with a fear deeper than any she'd ever known. Before she could react, the man's hand darted out as quickly as she'd assumed the snake would have struck had it been given the opportunity. His fingers cinched her throat. Instinctively, both her hands flew to his, clawing at the fingers which cut off her air, but he held on to her with a power that belied his size. The man then raised his free hand, balled into a fist. She flinched when he struck. But the expected impact to her face never came. Instead he punched Kristin on her upper thigh, delivering an unexpected sharp, stinging blow.

Her brain screaming for oxygen, Kristin kicked out with both feet and twisted her body, but he held on with his python's grip. She couldn't find any leverage in the rickshaw's cramped back seat.

A disembodied voice called to her in the distance, “
Namaste
. Hotel Taj Ganges.”

She still held the cell phone in her right hand. Gripping it tighter, she thrust her hand forward straight into the face of her attacker. The phone struck him squarely on the nose, which made a crunching noise as it snapped sideways. The man let out a yelp, relaxing his grip on Kristin's neck at the same time. She moved instantly. Dropping the phone, she catapulted herself out of the rickshaw, landing hard on the asphalt.