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and snapped a picture. She forgot about the flash.
    The room burst with brilliance.
    The old man cried out. He swung around, dagger in hand. He swiped through the air. Ang Gelu, startled, fell back. But Ang Gelu had not been the target. Lama Khemsar cried out a smattering of words in abject fear and drew the blade’s edge across his own throat. A line of crimson became a pulsing downpour. The cut sliced deep into the trachea. Blood bubbled with the old monk’s last breaths.
    Ang Gelu lunged and knocked aside the blade. He caught Lama Khemsar and lowered him to the floor, cradling him. Blood soaked the robe and across Ang Gelu’s arms and lap.
    Lisa dropped her camera and bag and hurried forward. Ang Gelu tried to put pressure on the wound, but it was futile.
    “Help me get him to the floor,” Lisa said. “I have to secure an airway…”
    Ang Gelu shook his head. He knew it was hopeless. He simply rocked the old lama. The man’s breathing, marked by the bubbling from the slash, had already stopped. Age, blood loss, and dehydration had already debilitated Lama Khemsar.
    “I’m sorry,” Lisa said. “I thought…” She waved an arm at the walls. “I thought it might be important.”
    Ang Gelu shook his head. “It’s gibberish. A madman’s scribblings.”
    Not knowing what else to do, Lisa freed her stethoscope and slipped it under the edge of the man’s robe. She sought to mask her guilt with busywork. She listened in vain. No heartbeat. But she discovered odd scabbing across the man’s ribs. Gently she peeled back the soaked front of his robe and bared the monk’s chest.
    Ang Gelu stared down and exhaled sharply.
    It seemed the walls were not the only medium upon which Lama Khemsar chose to work. A final symbol had been carved into the monk’s chest, sliced by the same dagger, by the same hand most likely. Unlike the strange symbols on the walls, the twisted cross could not be mistaken.

    A swastika.
    Before they could react, the first explosion rocked the building.
    9:55 A.M .
     
    He woke in a panic.
    The rumble of thunder shook him out of a feverish darkness. Not thunder. An explosion. Plaster dusted down from the low ceiling. He sat up, disoriented, struggling to fix himself in time and place. The room spun a bit around him. He searched down, throwing back a soiled woolen blanket. He lay in a strange cot, wearing nothing but a linen breechclout. He lifted an arm. It trembled. His mouth tasted of warm paste, and though the room was shuttered against the light, his eyes ached. A paroxysmal bout of shivering shook through him.
    He had no idea where or even when he was.
    Shifting his legs off the cot, he attempted to stand. Bad idea. The world went black again. He slumped and would have slipped into oblivion, but a spat of gunfire centered him. Automatic fire. Close. The short burst died away.
    He tried again, more determined. Memory returned as he lurched toward the only door, struck it, held himself up by his arms, and tried the knob.
    Locked.
    9:57 A.M .
     
    “It was the helicopter,” Ang Gelu said. “It’s been destroyed.”
    Lisa stood to one side of the high window. Moments before, as the explosive blast echoed away, they had freed the window latches and shoved the shutters wide. The soldier had thought he’d seen movement in the courtyard below and strafed wildly.
    There was no return fire.
    “Could it have been the pilot?” Lisa asked. “Maybe there was a problem with the engine and he evacuated in a panic.”
    The soldier kept his post by the window, resting his stock on the sill, one eye to the scope, scanning and sweeping.
    Ang Gelu pointed to the roil of oily smoke rising from the potato fields. Exactly where the helicopter had been parked. “I don’t believe that was a mechanical accident.”
    “What do we do now?” Lisa asked. Had another of the crazed monks blown up the chopper? If so, how many other maniacs were loose in the monastery? She pictured the sickle-wielding wild man,