Grandmaster (A Suspense and Espionage Thriller) Page 6

  Swiftly, his face blank, the dark man at the end of the bar rose. As he walked toward Justin's father, who had collapsed across the bar, he reached into the short cloth jacket he wore and popped open a knife with a six-inch-long blade.

  All conversation stopped. The only sound in the bar was the rhythmic chant of a frothy French jazz tune. The bar patrons quickly slinked off their stools and away like unseeing worms. The barman stood stock-still as if to convince the man with the knife of his discretion. The man with the knife jerked his head toward the door.

  Donald Gilead, his hands held shakily above his head, staggered wildly toward the exit, the man and the blond woman behind him.

  Justin was frozen. He stood up on rubber legs and looked around the bar frantically, searching for someone who would help, but no one paid any attention to the boy. Running, he made his way out the door in time to see the dark man jab the blade into his father's bloated, exposed belly. Donald Gilead stared ahead stupidly for a moment, shuffling on his feet, then crashed backward into the slime of the stone-paved street.

  The boy stared at the scene, breathing shallowly, watching his father's open eyes glaze over like those of some huge felled beast. A trickle of filthy water from the street formed a black pool around the dead man's face and mixed with the thread of blood oozing from between his lips. A wave of shock and revulsion rippled up through Justin's insides. For a moment, the man lying dead in the street looked no more human than the carcass of a slaughtered bull.

  He looked up uncomprehendingly at the two figures standing over the body, the blond woman with her nose blackened comically with smeared blood, and the dark man holding the switchblade. By the harsh blue-white light of the street lamp, the knife glinted like a moving, living thing as the man walked slowly toward Justin, his breathing audible in the quiet night.

  Justin backed away. Slowly at first, his hands shielding his face like a childish mask, he watched the silver gleam of the blade alternately disappear into shadow and shine brightly under the light as the dark man came closer, faster, toward him. His head bumped against the rough surface of a wall. The bump sent one message shooting through his body, and that was that this man, this stranger, was going to kill him.

  He ran. Through the street, past heaps of rotting garbage and half-open back doorways reeking of liquor and stale smoke he ran, panting, not daring to look back, trying to keep his footing on the slippery stones of the pavement.

  Two men walked out of one of the dingy bars along the street. Justin scurried up to them, clutching one of the men by the leg of his trousers.

  "Stop him!" he yelled, pointing. "He's got a knife. He killed my father, and he's going to kill me, too."

  Shrugging profusely, the man said something in French that was meant, Justin guessed, to sound comforting. Justin kept pointing, trying to indicate through his gestures that someone was after him. The two men looked at each other, then took a few steps down the street. The running footsteps had stopped. The dark man was gone. There was no one in view except a man and a woman, strolling arm in arm at a leisurely pace.

  The Frenchman with Justin gestured to the couple and spoke something that sounded like a question.

  "No," Justin said, relief flooding through him.

  Then, as the couple passed beneath the street lamp, Justin recognized the blond woman. And beside her, the man with the knife, now hidden from view.

  The woman smiled and called a name, holding out her arms.

  "Ah," the Frenchman said, lifting Justin off the ground. He laughed and called something to the dark man and the blonde as he offered Justin to them.

  Justin screamed, kicking the Frenchman in his side. "Put me down!"

  The Frenchman dropped him with a curse and shouted at the couple. They paid him no attention. They were running after the boy.

  The two sets of footsteps dropped off to one. The dark man was alone again. The winding street grew darker. Several of the street lamps had been smashed, and the seedy bars had given way to abandoned buildings and vacant lots. There was no one here, and Justin's limbs were trembling from the long exertion.

  Still the footsteps came.

  Justin forced himself to keep running, searching for a wider cross street, where he could lose himself, find a taxi, a policeman... No. He had learned his lesson with the Frenchman. Anyone he stopped would smile and shrug, not comprehending his pleas for help. And then turn him over to the dark man with the shiny knife. There was nowhere for him to go but straight into the darkness, running as long as he could, until the dark man caught him, until...

  His legs buckled. With a groan, Justin hit the pavement on his knees and slapped forward, skinning his face. He heard his breath whistling out of him. He closed his eyes. He couldn't run anymore.

  Farther.

  He looked up. There was no one. Only the silent night broken by the sound of the dark man's footsteps, walking now.

  Farther.

  It was not a word, exactly, but a command nonetheless, some unspoken will that was drawing him up, pushing him forward.

  The chess pieces, think only of the chess pieces.

  He propelled himself ahead, his knees hurting, the bits of gravel embedded in his cheek beginning to sting.

  1 am the game.

  The silent force was stronger. It pulled him, enveloped him like strange music growing louder. It was all around him, along with the scent of almonds and lush flowers. It was overpowering, an eerie chorus of voices calling to him, leading him to them.

  He picked up speed, traveling as fast as he could, his lungs bursting, his body wracked. He wished it were all a dream, and that he would awake in Aunt Jane's house or Uncle Sid's apartment and he would be safe in Houston or Cincinnati or in any of the other places he'd been instructed to call home. But he knew it was no dream. The street was real, the footsteps behind him were real, the knife the dark man carried was real.

  Still, something peculiar was happening to him, something like a dream. The music, the flowers, the scent of almonds: Peculiar yet somehow . . . familiar.

  I am the game.

  When he saw the darkened alleyway, he knew he could go no farther. It led to a dead end. There was no light at the end of the alley. No place to hide. Nowhere to go from there. It was the end of his journey. Yet this was where the music had called him.

  Exhausted, he sat down in the alley and waited for the dark man.

  When he arrived, the dark man stood squarely in the middle of the alley entrance, in silhouette. Justin watched him reach into his jacket. Holding his arm aloft, the dark man pressed the switch of the knife, and the blade shot upward, casting a long shadow. He closed in.

  With a cry, Justin scrambled to his feet. Once again he heard the man's labored breathing.

  "Go away!" he screamed.

  The breathing grew louder.

  "Please," Justin whispered.

  The dark man lunged.

  Justin leaped backward. As he did, he felt the brush of something soft against his face. Soft... and smelling of almonds.

  He gasped at what came next. In a split second the darkened alleyway was filled with billowing forms, graceful as the flapping of birds' wings. Something had been waiting in the shadows of the alleyway, something so silent it could not be heard even in dead silence. That something whirled now in formation around the stunned man with the knife. He crouched down, babbling, and still the forms moved, too swiftly to see.

  The dark man stabbed viciously into the circle that surrounded him, but the blade cut only through empty air. He arced, thrusting frantically, attacking the floating, unearthly forms like a caged animal.

  Justin watched in awed terror. For behind the strange, blurred forms, surrounding them and filling the alley, was the music he had heard, powerful and sweet, as loud as a symphony.

  The dark man lunged again. The circle broke, spitting him out like a seed. The moving forms became still. The music stopped.

  They were men, Justin noted with astonishment. The me
n at the tournament. Six small men in yellow robes, almost identical with their shaved heads, who could move so fast that his own eyes saw nothing but a blur. They formed a line now, blocking the path between the dark man and the opening of the alley. One of them stepped forward two paces and stopped, silent.

  Snarling, the dark man raised his switchblade overhead in warning as he backed up toward Justin. With a swat, he grabbed the boy by his collar and yanked him forward, the knife held at his throat, and began inching forward.

  Justin shuddered, feeling uncontrollable, noiseless tears streaming hotly down his cheeks. He had been caught, and the six little men in front of him had helped to catch him. The blade against his throat felt cold. He would be killed in minutes, maybe sooner. The music was gone now. It had betrayed him.

  Behind him, the dark man gave a little laugh that sounded like a bark as he edged past the yellow-robed man standing in front of the others. There was no other movement. The yellow-robed man in front, older than the rest of his band, was as still as a tree, his lined face expressionless except for something in his eyes, something more felt than seen, a question unasked, a command unspoken.

  Is it your will?

  As if he had been hit by a hammer, Justin looked up, oblivious to the constricting pain of the knife against his skin. The yellow-robed man was looking straight ahead, not at him. Yet he was watching Justin, the boy felt it, knew it, watching from somewhere behind his eyes. And Justin knew this man as well as if he had spent a lifetime with him.

  "It is my will," the boy whispered, understanding nothing, yet as sure of his authority over the yellow-robed men as he had been of anything in his life.

  Instantly the yellow-robed man was in the air, kicking the knife out of the hands of the killer with what seemed like effortless ease. Justin watched the blade whirl upward like a propeller. With another blow to his back, the dark man shrieked and reeled toward the far end of the alleyway, clutching behind him. Then he looked up, his eyes widened in terror. Before he could scream, the blade of the descending knife struck with a thud and buried itself deep in his throat.

  The dark man's arms shook spasmodically. In the moment before he fell, he jerked his head to the side and looked directly at Justin. The dazed expression in his eyes looked to the boy exactly like his father's at the moment of his death.

  Justin stared at the dead man, the knife growing out of his neck. The exhibition he had just witnessed was a more terrifying act than he could ever have imagined. The knife, alone, had killed from the air, like some vengeful sword sent by the gods. It had been a display not so much of strength as of—magic.

  Who were these men? Justin began to tremble violently. What were they planning to do with him?

  At that moment, the yellow-robed man standing apart from the others fell to his knees in the dirty alleyway. The others formed a circle around the boy and followed suit, spreading their fanciful garments on the stone pavement.

  "Who are you?" the boy asked as he looked down on the circle centered around him.

  "I am Tagore," the man answered. "We have sought you for many years, O Patanjali."

  Justin blinked. "But that's not—"

  The little man held up his hand, commanding silence. "There is no question now. You do not yet understand, but you have shown yourself to be the one we seek. I welcome you back to your home in the world of men."

  He bowed low, his head touching the pavement in front of him. The others bowed as well. Justin Gilead alone remained standing among them. He wanted to tell them that they had made some kind of mistake, that he wasn't who they thought he was, that he didn't know what was going on, didn't understand anything that had gone on since the dark man had stabbed his father on the street. He was tired and hungry and frightened, and all he wanted to do was to rest somewhere.

  But he remained where he was, standing inside the circle of men prostrated in obeisance to him, because the music had come back, and the scent of almonds, like a memory, filled the air.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Justin was hungry.

  The journey overland had taken more than three months through the European countryside and the vast stretches of wild, uninhabited hill country that had once belonged to the Saracen Empire. Tagore and his band of yellow-robed men paid no heed to modern boundaries, nor to the wars that raged along those boundaries. Always, he seemed to have an instinct for the least traveled ways, leading his men and their young charge into the most desolate regions, from the tall pine forests of the west into the arid plains of southern Asia, where even in summer the icy winds from the Himalayas shook the patches of scrub grass and could freeze a man to death.

  But not these men, Justin thought as one of them prepared a fire from small sticks. His hands moved with incredible speed as he twirled a stick into the base of a chip of stone. It ignited at once. Justin was no longer amazed at the skills these small men possessed. After the meal was cooked, Justin knew, another of the yellow-robed men would hold his hand directly over the flames and press them into the earth, leaving no mark on either the ground or his flesh.

  He had questioned at first. He had complained of the welts and blisters on his feet, despite his shoes, of the constant ache in his legs. At a command from Tagore, the men all removed their sandals and walked barefoot, carrying Justin on their backs. When he objected to the gruel they ate as daily fare, an unpleasant mixture of brick tea, sour milk, salt, rancid butter, fragments of dried white cheese and roasted barley, one of the men killed a goat and brought it to their camp. To Justin's delight, they roasted the goat and placed a huge shank of meat before him.

  The man who had brought the dead goat bowed to Justin, then to Tagore, and left.

  Justin ate ravenously, barely noticing that the others were not eating at all. He offered some of the meat to Tagore, but the old man refused.

  "Aren't you hungry?" Justin asked.

  "No," Tagore said simply.

  The meal finished, Justin wrapped himself in a blanket, as usual, while the others lay on the bare ground with only scattered shrubs and rocks for shelter against the night winds. He couldn't sleep. Rising, he saw only four of the six men. Some distance away, Tagore knelt on a rocky stretch of ground, facing the mountains to the north. Justin went up to him and knelt beside him, wincing at the sharp stab of the rocks. "Where is the other man?" he asked.

  "He is dead," Tagore said. The flesh of his face sagged. The eloquent long nose of the old man jutted with dignity toward the northern mountains.

  "How?" Justin asked.

  "That was for him to decide. There are many ways to will the body to die. He has gone into the shadows. We will not find him."

  "Then how do you know he killed himself?"

  "He had no other choice," Tagore said. "Like all of us, he was a monk who devoted his life to holiness. Yet this night he performed an act by which his karma was sullied."

  "Karma?"

  "The life force," Tagore explained. "Each of the Creator's beings on earth possesses a soul. In the beginning of life, this soul possesses all things, all possibilities. But as one s life grows, he forges by his actions the quality of that soul. The beauty or ugliness of his destiny is charted by the wisdom and care he places into his spirit. Do you understand?"

  Justin nodded. "But why did the monk die?"

  "He knew he could never again attain the spiritual purity necessary for our way of life," Tagore said. "His only course was to relinquish this life and wait for the next, in which he might justify himself."

  Justin shifted his weight to sit, rather than kneel, on the sharp stones. "He must have done something terrible," he said.

  "Not terrible. Necessary."

  "What's that mean?" Justin asked.

  Tagore fixed him with reproachful eyes. "You were not pleased with your food. Because there is so little edible vegetation in the area, he was obliged to kill the goat whose meat you ate. In doing so, he violated one of the laws of our religion."

  "But it was food."

/>   Tagore shook his head. "We had food. We would not have starved without the goat. And the beast was not attacking us. Its life was not taken in defense of our own. It was killed only for your pleasure."

  The boy scrambled to his feet. "I don't believe you," he hissed.

  Tagore only turned again to the mountain.

  Justin was crying. "Did he know?" he asked in a small voice. "Did he know what would—happen to him?"

  "Yes, my son," Tagore said.

  "Then why didn't he tell me? I didn't have to eat the goat. Not if he was going to die for it."

  Tagore took his hand. "One does not learn from words," he said. "And he obeyed because you are Patanjali."

  That night, Justin took his blanket to the base of the mountain and left it there. He did not complain again.

  Tagore and his men spoke little during their long sojourn. By day, they moved swiftly, stealing silently over the land, leaving only Justin's footprints in their wake. At night they watched, barely moving, listening for the faintest sounds, seeming to communicate with one another without words. Justin watched with them, trying to achieve the perfect stillness of his fellow travelers, but always he was aware of the sound of his own breathing, the obtrusive clumsiness of his own body. When he slept, he still shivered in the cold. When he walked, he alone, of all the men, frightened birds and small animals with the noise of his footfalls.

  "I am not like you," he told Tagore.

  "No being is like another. But you will learn what we know."

  "Will you teach me?"

  "Yes. That is why I have come," Tagore said.

  "How?"

  "In time, you will understand how."

  "And when I learn?"

  "Then you will understand how much you have yet to learn."

  It was dawn. In the distance, the towering Himalayas rose out of a pink mist. Below them, just ahead of the group, was spread a large mountain lake, still as glass and surrounded by a purple ring of flowering wild rhododendron.

  At the edge of the lake, one of the men wound his robe between his legs and walked slowly into the water. With a short bow toward the men on shore, he dived under and was gone.