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- Herausgeber: Firebrand Publishing
- Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
- Sprache: Englisch
"Deep Into the Fire: A Thriller Beyond Time" follows the extraordinary life of Agent Norbu LaNart. Norbu is just a normal intelligence agent, except that he is a reincarnated Tibetan lama. His partner, Fiona, just shot the beloved director of the agency, a genius deviant is trying to steal their DNA, the Russian mob has him surrounded and he fulfils a Tibetan prophecy.
“From a gentle world of light and goodness, he was cast into a churning reality of violence and suspicion that challenged everything he had been. It challenged his easy openness with the callous persona of an operative working at the highest levels of a very complicated world, fighting the guile and dark brilliance of grotesque opponents and sociopathic organizations.”
Norbu, trained since birth in the deepest Tibetan spiritual and medical arts, and later, the intricacies of world intelligence, by his father an American agent. His partner, NSA wunderkind, Fiona Church, was hacking mafia bank accounts at the age of twelve sending funds to charities. Together, they must face the insidious technologies of Rene Benovoir, the Russian mob, Brazilian gangsters, Guatemalan crime lords, and political tensions leading to a mole in the white house. Desperate to hold onto their sanity, lives on the line, facing chaos, terror, subterfuge, and the energetic manipulation of their DNA, they still find a moment for the intensity of their quirky and smoldering connection.
Connected across time by a 4th-dimensional sphere to Norbu’s previous incarnation, an enlightened 16th-century yogi, and helped by their destiny with the US president and the brilliant crew at the agency.
The story unfolds until the final battle. Seven Years in Tibet meets The Bourne Identity, while riding in a taxi with Jack Ryan.
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Seitenzahl: 531
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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Copyright © 2023 by Peter Fairfield
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form on by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
A Norbu LaNart Thriller Beyond Time By Peter Fairfield Copyright 07/20 TXu 2-212 355
Firebrand Publishing publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. For more information about Firebrand Publishing products, visit https://firebrandpublishing.com
ISBN 978-1-941907-62-7 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-941907-63-4 (eBook)
Published by Firebrand Publishing
Acknowledgments
So many to thank for all the teachers, gifts, adventures and insights that have allowed this book to become. A huge thank you to my dear friend David Taran who let me live in his wonderful house north of Kona, where the bulk of the book was written, each morning staring out at the turquoise sea. To Sarah West who let me finish the book in her traditional Hawaiian house high above Hilo nestled in the tropical rain and jungle sounds. To my dear son Namkai and all the folks in my life that love and tolerate me. And to my heart friend Cynthia whose love and pommeling got me through the final phases of this journey. And last but hardly least, to Steven Osarczuk, whose name I can finally pronounce, for his masterful narration.
Finally, to Rodger, Amy and the Firebrand gang, whose joyous and professional atmosphere allowed an outcome beyond even my exuberant expectations, thank you, thank you.
Contents
Foreword
Prologue
1. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Present Day
2. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Present Day August
3. Bamako, Mali. Africa
4. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil One Year Later. Present Day
5. Mali, Africa One year before
6. Kham, Tibet March AD 1637
7. Kham, Tibet AD 1649
8. OAS Offices, Washington, D.C. Present Day
9. White House, Washington D.C Present Day
10. MIT Labs, Cambridge, Massachusetts August 1993
11. Rockefeller’s 40-Room Apartment, 740 Park Avenue, New York October 1940
12. Outside Moscow April 1989
13. MIT Labs, Cambridge August 1993
14. Ambicore, Palo Alto, California August, Present day
15. Cabo Frio, Brazil Present day
16. Kham, Tibet 1635
17. Kham, Tibet Early 1632
18. Denver to Crestone, Colorado Present Day
19. Lhasa, Tibet 1991
20. Crestone, Colorado Present Day
21. Lhasa, Tibet 2011
22. Beijing, China 2011
23. Palo Alto, California Present day
24. Beijing, China 2011
25. Beijing, China 2011
26. To America 2011
27. Virginia 2011
28. Crestone, Colorado Present Day
29. Crestone, Colorado Present Day
30. Crestone, Colorado Present Day
31. Tibet A.D 1647
32. Guatemala City Present Day
33. Ambicore Corporation, Palo Alto, California Present Day
34. OAS Offices, Washington, D.C. Present Day
35. Ambicore Corporation, Palo Alto, California Present Day
36. OAS Offices, Washington, D.C. Present Day
37. Washington, D.C. Present Day
38. Mipam Rinpoche’s Cave, Tibet & Washington D.C A.D 1662 & Present Day
39. Washington, D.C. Present Day
40. Ambicore Corporation, Palo Alto, California Present Day
41. OAS Offices, Washington, D.C. Present Day
42. OAS Offices, Washington, D.C. Present Day
43. OAS Offices, San FranciscoPresent Day
44. Ambicore, Palo Alto & Portola Valley Present Day
45. Tibet; San Francisco 17th Century; Present Day
46. OAS San Francisco; Ambicore Present Day
47. San Francisco Present Day
48. San Francisco One Week Later
49. OAS Research Facility, Embrey-Riddle Aeronautical University. Present Day
50. Just north of Albuquerque Present Day
51. Ambicore Benovoir Present Day
52. Ambicore Benovoir Present Day
53. Ecstasy
54. Western White House Present Day
55. Taos, Present Day Uncle Peter’s House
56. Benovoir’s, Lake Tahoe Present Day
57. Benovoir Lake Tahoe Present Day
58. Western White House Present Day
59. Prescott, Arizona Present Day
60. Harry’s Roadhouse Present Day
61. Hilo, Hawaii Present Day
62. Benovoir’s House, Lake Tahoe Present Day
63. Benovoir’s House, Lake Tahoe Present Day
64. Lake Tahoe, Hilo Hawaii Present Day
65. Secret Wing of the Naval Clinic Oahu, Hawaii Present Day
66. OAS Headquarters Washington, DC Present Day
67. Lake Tahoe HQ Santa Fe Present Day
68. Secret Wing of the Naval Health Clinic Santa Fe Present Day
69. Secret Wing of the Naval Health Clinic Santa Fe Present Day
70. Secret Wing of the Naval Health Clinic Santa Fe Present Day
71. ABQ and Mill Valley
72. Norbu Taken
73. Mill Valley
74. Nicasio
75. Aftermath
76. Capture
77. Fiona’s assignment
78. Tallinn and St. Petersburg
79. Benovoir Backroads
80. The Final Battle
81. Wuhan, China Three Days Later
Epilogue
Notes
About the Author
Foreword
Author’s Note
This story is fiction. Most of the scientific, Tibetan, and esoteric details are real. Einstein and Tesla never had, as far as I know, the meeting described in this book.
Prologue
Central Tibet 791 CE
...The story of Norbu LaNart begins a long time ago…
The battle was fierce. Guru Rinpoche, the great Maha Siddha, had been summoned by King Tritsong Detson, the thirty-ninth king of Tibet, to subdue the ravaging elemental beings plaguing Samye, Tibet’s first Buddhist monastery.
Attacks from the nagas, the earth snake spirits, plant entities, and sky beings, terrorized the lamas and yogis who came to meditate and perform ceremonial rites. The nagas imprinted horrific dreams of snakes slithering in and out of their orifices, dancing in front of them, with huge black eyes staring. All the meditators left, vowing not to return until something was done.
The elementals had lived beyond the veil of the human realm since before time; now, they were angry and disturbed by the transcendental power emanating from the site. As the intensity of the monks spiritual ceremonies grew, entities from all the subtle realms swarmed in hostile curiosity, called to witness, and repel. Their domain had been invaded and their existence disturbed.
After a month of arduous travel over the mountains from Udian, Guru Rinpoche took a day to prepare himself.Then, entering the bliss power of profound meditation, he called in the energy of all the Buddhas and Dharmpalas, the wrathful protectors, from the directions of the universe. He opened to the undulation of their fierce emanations. Drawing them into himself, an internal furnace and shield of infinite consciousness, he radiated a field of power out through the gompa’s, or monastery’s, walls to the surrounding area, attempting to offer a strong presence and clarity to calm and placate. He had compassion for them, but like hungry foxes, they had to be dealt with. The elementals caught on to this quickly, not trusting the intent of their new adversary, and refused to acquiesce.
They reacted with arrows of poisonous light and cast the energy of heavy substances from molds and minerals. Trying to confuse his mind and upset his focus, they sent screaming visions and powerful beams of terrible pain. The first days stagnated into revolving waves of inner and outer struggle. On the third afternoon, Guru Rinpoche chose a different way. Gathering the purifying energies of his spiritual army, he quietly moved through the unseen warrens of the surrounding area. With powerful streams from his wisdom-heart, he emanated stronger waves of harmonizing compassion beyond the resistance of any spirit being. He broadcast power and a path for mutual existence. After many hours, the resonance in of area gradually changed. He had negotiated a balance and peace.
The battle for submission of the elemental beings had taken a toll. It sapped the power of his physical stamina. After several days of meditative rejuvenation, he felt renewed. His consciousness dwelled in the three kayas, the primal realms of form, energy, and space beyond the polarity of form and no form. He reaffirmed his physical and energetic strength through direct meditative union with the subtlest dimensions of the universe. The monastery was now at peace with the hidden forces of nature, which became guardians and helpers. Resting in equipoise in a flower-laden indentation on the hilltop high above, he settled into the direct perception of pure essence. A vision of the future came without his bidding. A montage of a being, one to be born into a complicated world to subdue the dark forces of his time. He would recreate a potential for the human frequency unifying power and compassion with a remarkable consciousness that would perfectly fit the needs of the time. The names Mipam Rinpoche and Norbu LaNart came to his awareness. “Is that two or one,“ he asked himself.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Present Day
The first shot shattered the wall sconce just above him at the bar. Then three more. Their sharp popping sound cut through his head, like a fishhook scraping across his skull into his alcohol-soaked brain. By instinct, he crouched to the floor and reached for the gun he no longer carried, thinking the bullet was meant for him, though it had been a year since that had been a frequent reality.
The thundering wave of rushing chaos broke through the last of his mental fog, and the rest of his instinct and training kicked in. Someone, dripping blood from the abdomen, rushed by him, followed by shooters entering the doorway a few yards behind. The recognition hit his adrenals and frontal cortex in the same instant. He knew the bleeding man. Without forethought or rationality, and initially unnoticed because of his appearance, he rose, reaching behind the bar in one fluid motion. He hit the first chasing gunman hard in the forehead with a full-liter bottle of cold Antarctica beer. The second gunman, noticing him, fired as Norbu LaNart rolled and hurled a heavy glass ashtray at the gunman, simultaneously driving his nasal bones into the front of his brain and incidentally ending the chase.
As he went to his wounded friend, Norbu yelled to Eduardo, the emaciated bartender, still smoking his cigarette, unfazed by what had just happened. Eduardo had seen it all in his years as a Brazilian barman but until that moment he had no idea that Señor Chink, as he called Norbu, was anything other than what he appeared to be for the year he rented the small dingy apartment upstairs.
“I have never seen you move that fast, except maybe to catch a drink about to spill,” quipped Eduardo.
“I’ll try not to do it again,” answered Norbu. “Put the dead one in that big box down at the end of the alley and tie the hands of the one groaning. Stick him in the back room until I can question him.”
Flicking his ash on the floor, Eduardo replied in an especially sarcastic tone, “Sure, Boss.”
Norbu went to his friend, who had collapsed under a table. He was bleeding profusely, and his breathing was labored. His eyes opened slightly, then widened as he realized who was tending to him.
“Norbu, what the fuck? I thought you were dead. Christ! Thanks for saving my ass again. What are you doing here?” he added weakly, in his thick Louisiana drawl, almost passing out and losing all the color from his face.
“You’re not in heaven yet, my friend. I’m alive, but it’s not your ass I’m worried about. We must get this bleeding stopped, and then you can tell me what kind of mess you have gotten yourself into. How odd that in all of Rio, you picked this bar.”
Outwardly Norbu was reassuring to his friend. Inwardly he knew that Jay Waterworth had only minutes left.
Pulling his friend off the floor and onto the table, Norbu grabbed several cloth napkins and pressed them against the abdominal wound with one hand while removing his belt with the other. Then he wrapped it around his friend’s torso and cinched it to hold the napkins in place to stanch the bleeding. Norbu spent several minutes stimulating various points on his injured friend’s hands, arms, and left ear. This eased his breathing and brought a better color to his face.
“Eduardo, help me get him up the back stairs to my apartment in case others come.”
“Yes, Boss,” Eduardo replied with a smirk, not quite used to Señor Chink’s new persona.
“Is the man in the back room conscious yet?”
“Not yet, but he is alive. I kicked him a couple of times just to make sure,” said Eduardo, moving away to close the front window blinds and putting the Fechado (‘closed’) sign on the door.
Together they carried Jay up the narrow stairway and put him on the couch in the living area of Norbu’s apartment. The movement started the bleeding again. While Norbu removed the bloody napkins, Eduardo brought a warm, wet cloth and some real bandages. As Norbu began to wash the wounds, he noticed three entrance holes in the back and only two exits in the front. He knew internal tissue damage was extensive and the internal bleeding was severe. The entrance wounds on the back were small, probably from a .22, which, though not powerful, tended to ricochet off the bone and do more damage than larger calibers. Professionals often used these. He knew his friend had only a few breaths of life left.
This man, his friend, Jay Waterworth, had been as much of a partner as one could have in the intelligence services, where doubt and professional suspicion were part of any friendship. First with Norbu’s temporary assignment to the CIA, where they had met and received advanced training together, and later under Norbu’s father, Jack LaNart, for the über-classified organization the OAS—Office of Ancillary Services—often working directly for the President of the United States. A short while after that, with Norbu’s recommendation, Jay was permanently recruited into the OAS to work with Norbu and Jack, focusing on North Korea, just prior to the resulting failure of its nuclear missile program.
Norbu looked directly into Jay’s eyes, focusing the energy of his will into the brain centers involved in language perception behind the temples and into several subtle energetic centers involved in the transitional process of dying.
“Jay, we don’t have much time. Do you get my meaning? Tell me as much as you can.”
Clearer now, and revived enough by the work that Norbu had done, Jay became lucid and took a deep breath.
“Thank you, my friend. I can feel that you have done something to me and that it won’t last long. Here is what I know.” Jay coughed and wheezed.
“Seven months ago, we intercepted a series of nano bursts in our OAS lab behind Embry-Riddle University in Prescott, Arizona. It was accidental and very lucky that we even noticed what we picked up,” Jay started to wheeze, then took a deep breath.
“We had previously been watching the Ambicore Corporation because their current work in fourth-dimensional crystals and zero-time seemed way out in left field. We knew this work was beyond what anyone else had. Because of the secrecy and denials, we got curious. It seemed more than proprietary policy. After that, we discovered that nano bursts were generated from a converted tanker truck that is constantly on the road, its sole job being a relay nano bursts from their California facilities to their satellite and back down again.” Drool dripped from the corner of Jay’s mouth. He took another deep breath.
“OAS sent me undercover to Ambicore’s main headquarters in Palo Alto after the first two of our agents disappeared. From their preliminary reports, we deduced that Ambicore is developing a way to create flashes of zero-time through a fourth-dimensional crystal. It will allow them to somehow triangulate to any point in space-time to influence specific individuals through samples of their DNA.”
“They are working…” A severe hacking cough shook Jay. He took a deep breath, then continued.
“We think they can use that same technology to influence any computer. Surprisingly, quantum computers might be especially vulnerable. We suspect that they were developing a way to focus into an individual personality, again through DNA samples, eventually to the specific genetic telomeres in any living creature, to be able to change someone’s mood or opinion, or even the fundamentals of personality. From what we can tell, their results have been sketchy, but our agents reported that the mood and facial expressions of the observed workers leaving the most secure areas at lunchtime appeared happy and confident, as if they were having success.” Jay paled and passed out for a moment. Norbu used his middle finger to stimulate a point on Jay’s forehead. Jay came back, blinked, and breathlessly started where he had left off.
“Ambicore’s president, René Benovoir, has shepherded the development of a process that somehow uses quantum entanglement. We think it has to do with their development of these 4D crystals and something about focusing zero-time…,” said Jay, starting to repeat himself.
“Focus, Jay,” asked Norbu softly.
Wheezing, Jay said, “Apparently, Ambicore’s security team found me out because one night about ten days ago, two armed men entered the condo where I was staying during my infiltration at Ambicore and tried to kill me. Fortunately, I had placed sensors by the door in the main room and was awakened in time to be ready for them. I got them with two clean headshots before they could get me.”
Jay gasped a few raspy breaths and went pale again.
“Take it easy, my friend,” said Norbu, using his early training in Tibetan medicine to send calming energy into Jay’s chest. After a moment, the blood returned to Jay’s face, and he continued.
“They even had a key to my door, which the team is looking into. So far, we haven’t uncovered any conclusive information, but it seems clear who sent them. Since during the time I was undercover, I found nothing suspicious and was obviously blown, I packed up and moved on. That was last week.” Jay gagged again. “The OAS flew me down to Rio on another assignment earlier this morning,” he gasped. “As I was driving from the airport, I noticed a tail. Finally, after an hour of driving around without seeing them, I thought I had lost them. I hid the car in an alley and went to get some food. As I entered the restaurant just down from here, they came in the back door, shooting. I ran out the front door and ended up here.”
Jay was losing strength. He turned pale, and his voice was weaker and coming in gasps.
“I have no idea how they found me. Let Stuart at OAS know. There must be a leak.”
Norbu nodded. “I will,” he said.
“The worst part is …” Jay coughed out a large bolus of bloody phlegm and seemed to waver. Norbu put one hand on his chest and the other on the top of Jay’s head.
Once again his face cleared, he took a deep breath, and his tension again eased a little.
“Take it easy,” Norbu said, pulling him up a little more. “Try to relax and absorb energy from the air, like I showed you in Mali when we were both holed up in that rat-infested safe house in Bamako.”
Jay smiled at the memory.
“I’m okay. Where was I? Oh, yes…”
As he said this, his last utterance, Jay Waterworth died.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Present Day August
Norbu got nothing from the second gunman. He was just a hired high-end local by the looks of him: flashy Brazilian suit, black silk tie, gold watch, and Italian woven shoes. The liter bottle of Antarctica to the forehead had rendered him senseless, making his frontal brain unusable for probably a long time, perhaps indefinitely.
It was a year since Norbu had killed or hurt anyone. It surprised him to feel the impact of his violence. It had been almost a decade since he had felt this. His early life had been simple and pure. Right and wrong had been obvious. His spiritual and medical training was founded on compassion in the most physical sense with a profound continued focus on the spiritual implications of what was at hand. Everything in his young small world had supported the simplicity and clarity of an open and vulnerable heart. Then his karmic ticket was called. The need to be trained as a warrior to fulfill an unknown destiny was as much a surprise as the unexpected realities of life can be to anyone. Eight years of violence and subterfuge had wrenched most of that delicate purity from him. Not to mention the torture and death of his father. From a gentle world of light and goodness, he had been cast into a churning and constantly changing reality of violence and suspicion that challenged everything he had been. It replaced his easy openness with the hard and callous persona of an operative working for the highest levels of a very complicated world, fighting grotesque opponents and sociopathic organizations whose guile and dark brilliance often defied even the most skeptical imaginations of politicians and the public.
His father had replaced his Tibetan tutors as a teacher and guide. Jack LaNart continued to feed Norbu the reminder and clarity of positive intent. Had it all been for a good cause? Yes, of course. He could not have done it, could not have moved so far from his center, could not have let his center be moved so far from its true resting place, if he had not felt that strong sinew of purpose and worthiness that his father pushed him to maintain. But as the chasm between the two parts of him widened, a deep numbness and disconnection began to fill his heart and emotional body with a thickness and density that crept over him during the first few months of his new life as an agent. It seeped in unnoticed, the tentacles of it finding deeper purchase in the ensuing years. It was the continued accumulation of darkness and alienation, combined with the Bamako events, that sent him, after eight difficult years, running from the insanity, eventually to Brazil and the groggy bar in Rio de Janeiro.
Now it was time to connect these separate two islands of himself together. Was it even possible? At this moment, he couldn’t quite see it, but he had a good idea of how and where to begin.
Norbu knew there would be people sent to find out what had happened from both the local syndicate and, more importantly, he guessed, the security resources of Ambicore.
Norbu threw his few meaningful personal articles into a small bag. This was a process he had planned since arriving in Rio.
“Eduardo! Please come up here for a minute.”
Refraining from his usual sarcastic reply, Eduardo came up at once.
“Eduardo, I am renting your bar. Here is $120,000. That is about five times what it’s worth, but it should get you through. Come back to it in a year or so. Don’t tell anyone who asks you about the money,” said Norbu, throwing an envelope to Eduardo. “Tell them your aunt is very ill, and you need to attend to her. I don’t think it’s going to be safe for you here for a while. Visit your family in Florianopolis. Time for a new start.”
“You know, my sister just called yesterday to tell me about a reading she had just gotten from our family medium. He said to tell me that I was going to experience some slight changes in my work and living situation,” Eduardo said with a wry smile.
“Maybe you should pay him extra next time,” said Norbu. “If you will be so kind, please put the body of the dead one in the dumpster in the alley. Leave the dopey one leaning against it, and give your sister my love. Leave my friend on the bed. Someone will be here soon to pick up the bodies. Just say that Señor Chink did it. Tell them anything you want. It doesn’t matter. I’ll be gone.”
“If I had known you had a few extra bucks, I would have charged you a lot more to rent this luxury suite, Señor Chink,” said Eduardo, trying to cover up his surprising sadness that his tenant was leaving.
“I always thought there was something odd about you. Look me up next time you want to rent something overpriced in Rio or perhaps in Florianopolis.”
“I will,” answered Norbu as he quietly went down the back stairs and out the door to the alley.
He walked three blocks and into another alley to a garage he secretly kept. It contained an old BMW motorcycle, a trunk, a big metal tub, and a small wooden box containing hand weapons, various ID packets, several stacks of euros and dollars, and two charging phones. He stripped and filled the tub halfway with freezing water from the tap on the wall. Stepping in, he rinsed off as much as he could and washed his hair with shampoo from the trunk, painfully shaved in the cold water, and dried with a towel. From the trunk, he dressed in better clothes than he had worn in a long time and covered them with foul-weather gear and a motorcycle helmet. He put the contents of the wooden box and a few items of clothing into a weathertight bag and stored them in the bike.
He made two calls. One to a prearranged number. “Sua na 347. It’s on,” he said in his rough Portuguese and quickly hung up. The second he did with greater hesitation.
He called the OAS. “This is Druk active. Please pass me through to Red One ASAP. Code is Norman Noman. “
“That is not an active code, Sir,” replied the no-nonsense female voice.
“It will be. I am reporting a 378 with a blue code one.”
“Sir, I can’t …”
“Just check with Stuart,” said Norbu.
“There is no one here by that name. Do you have the correct number? Just a minute.” The line began to play a commercial for a tire shop in Louisville. Norbu waited.
“Norbu, is that you? Of course, it is. The voiceprint just confirmed you,” came the voice on the other end. “We thought you were dead.”
“Hi, Stuart. I have been. I’ll fill you in on that soon. This is a 378 blue code one. Jay is dead. An urgent exfil for his body is needed within an hour. Use Mr. Chink as an acceptance code for a bartender named Eduardo. He knows nothing.” Norbu filled him in on the details.
“Norbu, thank you for this. Do you want to come back? If so, you have a severe debriefing to go through before we can even think about reviving your clearances and fully reinstating you.”
“I have a few things to do. I don’t know yet what I really want. It would have to be different from last time.”
“Figure it out quickly,” said Stuart Blackman, the Director of Intelligence Services at the OAS. “The fact that you are appearing suddenly after a year with the dead body of your former partner will set off alarms. I know you, Norbu, and I will do my best to run interference, but without knowing more, my options are limited. Are you all right?”
“Yes, mostly. I’ll need a couple of weeks before I can tell you much. If an urgency arises, you can leave a message for Señor Chink on the old site. Jay’s body is in the apartment above the bar, and two bodies of the Brazilian gunmen are in the large metal refuse container in the alley. Maybe the lab can find out something.”
“Jesus, Norbu, is there anything else?”
“No,” Norbu said and hung up.
He tossed the phone into the sewer, threw everything unneeded into a trash can in the alley, closed the door to the garage, and left his life in Rio behind him.
He rode his motorcycle for several hours in the dark gusting cold and piercing rain north to Cabo Frio. During the long ride, he thought of the history that had led him to Rio.
Bamako, Mali. Africa
The torture and death of his father had finally pierced the tender heart he had tried so hard to keep in his long journey from his earlier life in Tibet. The final remnants of who he had been had given way to the violence and depravity in the aftermath of the uprising. The intensity of the eight years with his father and the agency had broken through the last shards of emotional protection he had used to tether himself to purpose and sanity. For the first time in his life, he felt lost.
“In great darkness, keep your eyes open. Look for the unexpected”, he remembered his teacher, Tenzin Yangdu, saying. He took a breath to find himself again.
He remembered being on the tarmac at the Modibo Kieta airport, nine miles south of Bamako, while he waited for the chopper out to Marrakesh.
At the sound of distant gunfire, he automatically took stock of his surroundings. He was safe.
An instinct made him curious about the box he was sitting on. His mind said this was just killing time. Drawing his tactical knife, he pried open the wooden top. Inside was a large metal chest with two locks. Norbu recognized what kind of box it was. He pulled his H&K 9mm and shot the locks. He took a deep breath, opened the damaged lid, and looked at the next major departure in his life: $11.8 million (as he would later count) in plastic-wrapped bundles of $500s, plus small gold bars and a bag of perfect diamonds.
Realizing that this might be an important karmic signal for whatever the next stage of his life would require, he surveyed his options. The chopper would arrive in seconds. He stuffed the gold, diamonds, and as many stacks of bills as he could into his backpack. Looking around at the debris, he found an old worn prayer rug, in which he rolled the remaining money. After emptying his duffle into a box of decaying food, he stuffed the money-filled rug into it, covering the top few inches with a blood-stained T-shirt and flak vest. He finished just as the chopper landed.
“What a mind fuck,” he thought. “What a terribly complicated mind fuck of a day!” He could barely keep the tears back, then the emotional “freeze” took over again. His face hardened, and he loaded his two bags into the chopper.
“Clear?” the pilot yelled over the intense dust, grit, and rotor noise.
“Yes!” shouted Norbu. “Very clear.”
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil One Year Later. Present Day
After Bamako, exhausted, burnt out, and grieving for his father and the life he had lost, Norbu handled a few details and disappeared. Rio had been a place he kept hidden, buried in the recesses of his mind. A place to go. When… If…
It had been a year.
Rio could be nasty in August, cold and wet. The Blue Donkey was a small, local bar with few foreigners, generally more empty than not, which was why Norbu had picked it. Three blocks off the Ipanema strip and hazy from the damp and cigarettes and the residual energy of the few usual patrons. “Champions of lethargy,” as he thought of them. Norbu really didn’t give two shits and had generally felt that way for the year he sat there from late morning until late afternoon, when he would walk to the water’s edge to stare at the sea, then come back to his little room, drink, and pass out. He had never been a late-night person.
Norbu looked the way he felt: matted black hair, a scraggly beard, a shirt that smelled like the alleys he walked through most days. He easily passed for a local, but his stocky body still carried the latent remnants of readiness.
After a year, the alcohol in his blood felt toxic. He tried his first caipirinha within an hour of arriving in Bahia by boat the year before. It became his drink of choice. You could easily get the more expensive cachaça rum here in Rio, but he had gotten used to the burn of the cheap stuff as both his pleasure and his punishment. If the limes were fresh, he was good. He had never been much of a drinker. It was his first new skill in his life in Brazil.
The memories of the intense years with his father had continued to emerge over time no matter how hard he resisted them, occasional parasites trying to sneak into his dreams on the nights when the alcohol wore off too soon. He had lost the thread that kept him going. Almost.
His lifelong training, first in Tibet and then in the West with the agencies, had kept him in line, focused on the big picture, reminding him why he had chosen this path of service. Now, all that he held sacrosanct was gone, like forgotten food in the back of an old refrigerator. In the congealed darkness of his core, he occasionally remembered that this was only supposed to be a temporary ruse, but that important detail had been mostly fogged away.
In the deepest corners of his heart, Norbu LaNart knew he had reached his limit. He was losing touch with what he had come to Brazil to lose, and now that he was at that edge, he found he couldn’t let go, no matter how much he wanted to, and besides, he had that feeling. Again. Things were about to change. Radically. And that morning, he heard the crows cawing outside his window. One had watched him carefully. The fog of the last year was about to lift.
On what would turn out to be his final day in Rio, Norbu thought of his last moments on the tarmac in Bamako. The rest of his team had left overland. The discovery of his father’s tortured and mutilated body in the burned-out hotel the rebels had used for their headquarters stunned them all. Hurt them.
His father, Jack LaNart, had been revered and respected as much as any leader could have been. For Norbu, the second loss of his father had cauterized and sealed the wound so deeply that his sense and senses were gone in the dusty heat of the hellhole that Mali had become. So many times, he had tried to push away the last mission with his father, now the entirety of burst into his mind like a movie…
Mali, Africa One year before
To go from the Niger river into old city of Segou they chose the fastest donkey cart they could find. The very concept of a fast donkey was a funny game that made them laugh in the sun of that hot dry afternoon. It was months since the intensity of their missions had eased, allowing them time like this. Jack and Jay wore bright colored shirts of wild African cloth made while they had a beer across the from the street tailor. Norbu exaggerated his face of horror when they wanted him to wear one too. They were having fun. It was that kind of day. The path from his life in Tibet and since, had been regimented. He had been tight most of this life, maybe in many others. He knew he needed to loosen up, but starting today, with these shirts, was not going to happen.
The week before, Norbu LaNart, his father Jack and their team member, Jay Waterworth, had been sent to the north of Mali to survey the nomadic Taureg people in the Berber region of the Adar des Ifores desert, in the mid Sahara. They were to tasked to report on the current political winds. The rebels and the opposition parties had been weakened under the President Konare in the 90’s, but rumors had them organizing again and that they were now well armed.
The three of them had set up an observation point on a rooftop a block from
the house the rebels were using. Jay was monitoring electronic transmissions. Norbu was observing the house and street. Jack was on the radio to HQ. They thought they were unnoticed. Then, out of nowhere, a bullet hit Norbu’s scope knocking it out of his hands. Several other rounds hit the water tank above them, spraying them with hot fetid water. In the ensuing firefight, the grandson of the local mullah was left bleeding in the street, further enraging their pursuers, who were charging towards them in the street below. They quickly belayed down the rope left for that purpose to the back alley. In the fading light they ran beyond the edge of town and into the eastern hills. Using their night scopes, they made it into the third valley over, where, several hours later they were picked up by Comanche RAH-66 stealth helicopter and taken back to the temporary base on the edge of the airport tarmac in Bamiko, the main city in Mali, Africa.
This was their ninth mission in a row. They were ordered to take short break.
Sitting at an outdoor café, in the central area of Bamako, drinking strong mint tea, Jack and Jay were getting high-fives for their shirts from the waitress. .
“Let’s go to the beach in Essaouira,” suggested Jay. “I love Morocco”.
“Cote D‘Ivoire has great beaches too, and it’s closer” offered Norbu.
“I think we have a better option here,” said Jack.
“Here we are in Mali, surrounded by some of the greatest African music? Let’s do a musical pilgrimage to the local music here. We relax here at the hotel, for a couple of days by the pool, then head out. I heard the Festival Du Dessert is starting up again next week in Timbuktu. The southern desert has been trouble free for months. We’re here. Let’s go!”
A week later they caught a UN helicopter to Niafunke, the home of legendary guitarists Ali and Vieux Farka Toure, then flew to another field south of the airport, near the river, 12 clicks south of Timbuktu. They wanted to keep a low profile.
Timbuktu is an ancient Muslim city of sand. The colors go from tan to beige and back again. The dusty streets are lighter than the banco clay that covers the walls of the mosques and crumbling buildings. The infinite sand hues are punctuated with sparse patches of green and blue from the tiny leaves of the thorn trees, pieces of blue sky, and the helmets of the UN peacekeepers.
Ten years before, the rebellion disrupted the annual Festival Du Dessert, a magnificent three-day gathering of the greatest west African musicians and a few from other places in Africa and even Europe and the states. It had been deemed too dangerous to continue then. This year, finally, a smaller version was being held in in a giant discolored tent several kilometers beyond and north of town. This year, hundreds rather than thousands were expected. They were trying to keep it small. The event was supposed to be secret, but Africa has a poor record for such things. The moon would be almost full tonight.
“Listen, we can already hear the music,” said Jack. “So loud and frenzied already.”
“Non merci, nous n’en voulons pas, we don’t want any”, said Norbu, to the women street seller in her faded clothes, as she tried to push several small green melons into their cart.
“You have been practicing your French,” said Jay, poking Norbu in the ribs.
“Been listening to videos on YouTube,” smiled Norbu deflecting Jay’s finger.
“Let’s jump off here.” Said Jack. “There is the tent. We can move faster than this
speedy donkey!”
They mingled through the crowd, each wearing blue Kufis, the traditional long cloth that wraps around the head, and when needed, most of the face. Their faces were covered now. Wanting to blend in, speaking French to each other in muffled thick accents, they easily moved through the crowd to the table by the entrance, paid and went in. The large discolored tent was already packed with hundreds of people, most moving to the loud rhythms coming from the stage. The smell of sweat, tobacco, camels, spices, ganja, and the dust permeated the smoky air. Gusts of wind from a coming storm, challenged the giant canvas flaps surrounding them and added to the building power of the pulsing drums and staccato chimes of the guitars .
“Look on stage,” shouted Jack. “It’s Baaba Mal with Amadu and Mira bai, never thought I would see them together. And look, on the edge of the crowd, it’s Bossekou Kouyte.” Jack was barely able to contain himself. I met him in London a couple of years ago. I have got to say hello. I’ll be right back,” said Jack moving away.
Jay grabbed him by the arm.
“Be careful, they may have pictures of us here, the rebels must be looking for us.”
“Thank you, my brothers-in-arms, whispered Jack, looking at both Norbu and Jay. Let’s keep each other in sight and turn on your ear pieces. Your right of course.”
They watched him surprise his old friend, who eagerly hugged him and slapped his back. Things seemed ok. Norbu found himself moving with the hypnotic rhythms.
“This feels good, letting go for a change,” he thought. Jay was into it too.
Their radio squawked. “Hello Norbu, Norbu,” came a strong voice from HQ.
“Yes, Here.”
“Several buildings and a hotel have been taken over here in Bamako by an unknown armed militia. Be on alert.
“Things seem fine here. We will report in if anything comes up. Over”, answered Norbu.
They both yelped at sudden screech from their pieces.
“Mine is dead.” Shouted Norbu grabbing his ear and looking towards Jay, also grabbing his ear.
“HQ just reported some one attacked central Bamako.’
BOOOM! BOOOM!
Ragging explosions tore open the right side of the tent, spewing fire and smoke, collapsing one of the supports and igniting the canvas. The storm wind carried the flames and fumes into the crowd, furthering the stampede of already trouble-weary Malians.
A woman carrying two babies on the right of Jack and Jay collapsed in a fit of panic, gaging, trying to clutch her children. Instantly going to her aid, the were distracted from watching Jack. They could barely get back up to their feet as waves of on-rushers pushed against them in in their frenzied attempts to escape.
“Where is Jack?” Shouted Norbu looking back toward the stage.
“I don’t see him either,” yelled Jay, Where Jack had been, now stood six rebels holding automatic weapons, wearing camo fatigues, ammo belts slung around their necks, tan Kufis wound fully, only their eyes exposed. Suddenly two of them held up a photo and pointed at Norbu and Jay.
“Shit,” yelled Jay. “Kyak,” yelled Norbu in Tibetan.
They ducked down, trying to hide in the moving but now thinning crowd.
“Let’s try to get behind them,” shouted Norbu over the din. The stage erupted in flames. The two rebels appeared right beside them in the crowd only inches away. Jay shot the first one in the chest, the second came from behind, grabbing Norbu by the throat with his left hand, coming at his eye with a tactical knife. At the last instant Jay grabbed the hand with the knife and shot the attacker in the ear. The bullet passed through his head easily, but just missed Norbu’s nose, spraying him with grey and red fluids.
“Thanks, but Yuk,” said Norbu. Jay made a face, “Sorry”.
“We have to find father.”
They quickly moved outside, now raining, to see Jack being loaded in the back of an old Toyota land Cruiser that spun away in the direction of the airport
“We Have to follow them,” said Norbu, exhaling a breath, trying to get his baring.
“Let’s take that,” said jay moving to an old motorcycle hidden behind a tree, its back wheel sticking out from a muddy wet hole. There was nothing else around. The exiting crowds had striped the area clean of anything that could move.
It took a lot of tries and many minutes to get it started, which they finally did by pushing it and then jumping on. The old motorcycle could barely putter down the pot-holed filled road. They were desperate to rescue Jack. Then, a helicopter flew south over their heads in the direction of Bamiko as huge fiery explosions lit the stormy sky and filled the air with thunderous booms from the airport still miles away.
There was very little intact when they finally reached the airport. The military planes and all but one UN helicopters were ablaze, decimated from the attacks. The single runway had several deep craters, making it temporarily unusable.
“We have to get on that chopper. My father is known to them. They will want revenge for the mullah son’s death,” said Norbu in an angst-ridden voice.
“Norbu, breathe! This is your father. He will figure it out and yes, we must get to him,” said Jay with a steadying look into Norbu’s eyes.
They rushed to the last chopper, which was surrounded by casualties and UN personal trying to get in.
“Look”, it’s the same pilot that flew us here earlier,” shouted Norbu running towards the man.
“We have to get on, they have captured my father, and it looked like they have taken him to Bamiko.”
The Indian pilot looked pained.
“I am so sorry, Norbu. The airport fuel tanks were shelled. We only have enough gas to get these injured people to the hospital outside Bamiko. There won’t be enough room or fuel to take even one of you. I am so sorry,” he said holding his hands together by his heart.
“The rebels are encamped on the main road. For the moment it is impassible. If you can find a vehicle, it’s only 14 hours overland, instead of the main road which is more than two days. It is a horrendous ride, just driving over land. I believe it is your shortest option. There is no telling long it will take for another flight from here. Most of the aircraft in the area were here. They must have known it.”
The pilot reached under the seat of the chopper, and pulled out a radio.
“Here, take this, it is a spare. Use it to get reports on the conditions where you are going. Good luck. Your father was, is a good man.”
“Thanks, we have one, but we will take it as a spare,” replied Jay.
They used the radio to contact the OAS offices in Marrakesh. Through them they were promised to get an old Toyota Land Cruiser. Thirty minutes later, a crippled man drove up in a dirty and very worn looking vehicle with four extra tires on the roof rack. The local man had been a driver for various services who had operated in the area for decades. He was crippled, but moved well enough with two wooded crutches.
“The controls are set up for me, so you will have to get used to the hand controls. Jack was a good man. He saved my life once, in fact when this happened to me,” he said in a thick French accident, looking down at his legs.
“Please rescue him. Bon chance,” he waved getting into an ox cart.
They looked inside. They found four containers of gas, a basket with food, bottles of water, and a wooden box containing sidearms, two AK-47s and ammo. They both starred at the mechanical hand controls by the steering wheel. On the left side was an upright handle that was both the brake and accelerator.
The overland route had no roads of any kind. The going was hard, bumpy, with challenging areas of sand and loose gravel. Always hot, dry, and dusty with a few camels, goats, dogs and fewer people and curious children. The decades of drought kept the vegetation to a minimum. The giant billabong trees were quiet unexpected sentinels with huge wide and tall trunks and tiny dwarf branches. About every hundred kilometers a giant reddish clay mosque would appear with spiked parapets and often white designs covering some or all of the high flat walls.
The drive took them over sixteen hours, and included three flat tires, a stop to repair the tires and a food stop. The food in the basket contained dried goat leg, which neither of them could chew and a covered bowl of something mushy, with a very unfamiliar smell. The hand controls were very fatiguing and required unfamiliar motor skills and sensory reactions. They had to switch off often.
They didn’t need the radio as much as they thought. With foreign investment, the Malian government had forgone landlines and focused solely on developing a coherent cellular system. Their service was loud and clear most of the way, even in the most remote areas. Reports from the agency had been sketchy at first, but over the long and frustrating hours of their trip. Reports had solidified. The rebels were using a tourist hotel in central Bamiko and had tried to take over two other buildings but were rebuffed. With thirty kilometers to go and finally back on paved roads, they pushed the old land cruiser to its limits. They were worried and reluctant to find what the most recent reports indicated. The local police were locked in a fierce battle with the last few rebels who were trying to flee.
Arriving at the hotel, Norbu jumped out of the car, showing his credentials to the police.
“The head of our team was captured in Timbuktu, and we believe taken here. Do you know where they were holding any prisoners?”
An RPG exploded and blew out a window on the upper deck off the courtyard.
The policeman was pointing to the room, when the explosion went off.
“Reports had them there,” he said still pointing, making a concerned face.
Norbu ran up the stairs. A women came at him with a knife as he reached the second landing. Without missing a step, using her own momentum, he threw her over. As he reached the smoking room, slipping on the broken glass covering everywhere. He shot a man who had pretended to be dead, then entered the room full of smoke and burning chards, and froze. There on the floor, tied to an over turned chair were the remains of his father. His head was split in two, front back. His hands were pulp where they had been hammered. Burn marks covered much of the skin.
“Father.” Norbu whispered through his tears.
Kham, Tibet March AD 1637
The boy, Lopon, had trudged up this steep mountain trail many times. Today was especially difficult. The roaring weather kept changing from snow to sleet and back again. The giant rhododendron trees on the lower part of the trail kept showering him with successive waves of freezing slush and water. Now, above the snow line, the crisp, cold, thin air whipped his face with sudden, powerful gusts of ice and grit and froze the moisture on the outside of his tunic.
The light was ever-changing. One moment dark and grey; the next, the piercing sun woke the earthy smell of the green scrub poking through patchy snow, blinding him in the white glare. Above, in constant high-altitude wind-driven flux, primal blue patterns of the deep sky contrasted with the immense peaks and made him feel at once dangerously exposed and yet held safe in the land of his ancestors.
At fifteen, Lopon was half man, half boy. He was a hard worker and thoughtlessly dedicated to his family and village and, in some vague way, the Buddha. Yet the boy in him yearned to play with his friends and explore the valleys and hills.
He always had mixed feelings coming up here, especially in hard weather. The trail was a long, narrow climb to the highest peaks above his village. His feet were cold in his yak hide boots, though still dry from the continued coats of yak butter his mother applied to them. His hard, thin body was used to the raging mountain winters from the eighteen generations his family had spent in this valley, yet in his layers of yak wool and hide, he still shivered in the wet chill and sweat. It was not about the discomfort. Like all hill people, he was used to that and the life he was born into. And like the weather, bringing food and supplies to his uncle, Mipam Rinpoche, was a changing experience of challenge and revelation. It was his duty, his offering to Buddha and to a deep inexorable calling that he had yet to comprehend.
Lopon brushed his long black hair out of his eyes and took a moment to stop and catch his breath, sitting on a large rock by the trail’s edge staring out, his feet dangling several thousand feet above his village far below. In the distance, he could see the black speck that was the round yak hair tent in which his family lived in the grassy meadows. His attention moved off with random thoughts about what he would do and especially what he would eat on his return home.
Then the sound of a sudden scratch caught his attention. A few pebbles fell from the ledge above. He instantly returned to the instinctual awareness of those who live close to primal forces.
A sense of danger and a hot, fetid smell, alerted him even before hearing a feral growl. From the ledge above a snow leopard leaped through the air. Sixteen razor claws flew at him, ready to shred the intruder who had come so close to the cubs she had given birth to the night before in the rocks just above. By instinct, he turned, missing most of the onslaught, but a claw caught him in the shoulder, ripping his black tunic as well as the outer flesh and the muscle of his upper arm. He instantly regained his balance, moving to face the cat, and rolled away, pulling his knife. The cat leaped at him again. He fell on his back, dropping the knife, slippery from his own blood. Catching her front legs, he kicked out with his two feet. For a gnarling, thrashing moment, he held the cat in the air as she ferociously tried to bite his face. His weakened, torn arm blazed with fiery pain, barely able to hold her off. In a last effort of strength, he kicked up again, sending the enraged animal head over heels. He sprang up, expecting the worst, hoping he was ready for whatever came as he picked up his knife, but he was not ready, not at all.
His body stopped all movement in an instant. He stared dumbly, oblivious to the dripping blood from his arm and the intense burn of his wound. The viciousness of the animal suddenly calmed. As stunned as Lopon was, she shook her head and blinked, then settled to lick Lopon’s blood from her paw. He was both terrified and electrified as the snow leopard began to purr, moving to rub herself against his leg. He found himself shaking uncontrollably as the entranced cat began to lick his wound. Then the sound of the hungry cubs penetrated the moment, and she woke up, back to her normal self, growled at Lopon, spewing saliva and specks of his own blood across his face, and moved off silently, back to her cubs, as if she had never been there.
As the big cat disappeared into the rocks, Lopon got to his feet unsteadily. The bleeding from his wound had mostly stopped, and he felt no real pain, just an ache and a buzzing from his neck down to his right hand. He had not an idea how to think about what had just happened. There had been surprising moments with animals, especially birds, before. These sometimes felt like wordless communications with them while he was in the woods on his adventures. Especially the crows. They always felt like family. He had had no experiences like this with the larger animals of the area.
A sudden madness in the wind woke him from his thoughts, and he realized he was both cold and late. Still in an altered state, he began rapidly ascending the trail to the cave in which his uncle, Mipam Rinpoche had lived and meditated for the last twelve years.
Kham, Tibet AD 1649
Lopon quietly entered the cave, trying not to disturb his uncle’s meditation or bleed on the floor of the tunnel leading to the back.
“Come, Lopon, it’s all right. You are not disturbing me. In fact, thank you for the excitement. It’s usually a bit quiet around here,” laughed his uncle mischievously.
“You are all right. I hope you don’t mind me shifting the energy of your meeting with the snow leopard. It was a good teaching for both of you.”
“Both…?” asked Lopon.
“You and the leopard,” answered Mipam Nyima with his mischievous smile.
“Sit here in front of me,” said Mipam Nyima, patting a spot. Lopon sat down. His uncle began to chant a deep, resonant mantra and put his hand over the wound.
“Om Tayata, Bekanze, Bekanze Maha Bekanze, Radze Sum Um Gate Soha,” he repeated, using the sacred mantra of the healing essence of the Buddha. The sound reverberating in the candle-lit cave was engulfing. Lopon knew the mantra of the medicine Buddha and, with fading recognition, felt his whole body transported to a dimension beyond his comprehension. A while later, he awoke to the smell of hot tukpa1 to find his arm had stopped bleeding and that there was only a warm tingling through his shoulder.
“You’ll have to fix your jacket yourself,” his uncle said with a twinkle, “mantras only do so much. Have something to eat.”
Lopon’s uncle, Mipam Nyima, had been living way above Lopon’s village in a deep cave for many years now. It was high up, at almost 15,000 feet. Its entrance was under a rock outcropping, behind a large boulder. Its location had been a gift of past karma and inner guidance. He had first seen the cave’s hidden location in a dream twelve years earlier. When he woke the next morning, he knew it was finally time to take the next and last step in his training. After tea and a small breakfast of bread and yak cheese and without the slightest doubt that what he had seen in the dream was real, he began packing his few things and making arrangements. Two days later, he left at first light with a small Tibetan pony carrying the basics. He had one of his many nephews accompany him so that his location would be known and food and supplies could be brought to him from time to time.
