Page 34 of Circle of Death
Roskow brushes a wad of wet leaves off his shoe. “You want somebody to pronounce them dead?” He waves his hands over the bodies like a cheap magician. “Okay. Presto. They’re dead.” He stands up and clicks off a couple of photos of the bodies with a digital camera, then turns to the two cops. “Bag ’em.”
He steps up to one of the security guys. “As soon as we’re gone, lose the screens and rake this area. Back to nature. One hundred percent.”
And that’s it. No crime scene markers. No search for weapons. No pathologist to take body temperatures or check for hidden wounds. No crime scene investigators. The cops place the two black vinyl bags flat on the damp ground and lift the kids by their underarms and ankles. First the boy, then the girl. Their legs and arms are folded inside the plastic, then the zippers are pulled up over the faces. One lock of the girl’s black hair is still sticking out when one of the cops throws her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. The other cop takes the boy the same way.
I make the short flight through the trees from the murder scene to the back exit.
When the cops get there, I’m perched on top of the barrier that hides a paved service road. There’s no ambulance waiting. No hearse. Just a black unmarked van. The two cops load the bodies into the back and climb in with them.
Roskow pounds the side of the truck twice with his fist and the truck takes off down the narrow road. He leans back against the barrier and pulls out his walkie.
“Yeah. Tell Bates we got two more. All clean. No witnesses.”
I make a short hop to a pole directly above where Roskow is standing. Suddenly, I have an irresistible urge to shit on his head.
CHAPTER 40
Kalu Ganga River, Sri Lanka
THE CEREMONY BEGINS at dawn in the shadow of a huge stone dam, seven centuries old. A temple built from the same stone sits at the base of the dam, surrounded by thatched cottages.
As the first flicker of light kisses the river, clerics and families wade into the gently flowing water. They’re all dressed in colorful gowns with flowered headdresses. The head priest stands thigh-deep in the green current and raises a long ceremonial stick over his head. He starts chanting in a low singsong cadence. The others echo him, slowly building in confidence and volume. The only sounds in the deep valley are the rising voices of the worshippers and the gentle rush of water.
Suddenly, the air is split by a series of loud booms. Flames and smoke belch from the center of the looming dam. The stone towers collapse and the belly of the structure bows out. Then the river blasts through.
Two seconds later, the foamy torrent hits the worshippers with the force of a hurricane, propelling two-ton stones like pebbles. Everybody turns toward shore, but nobody reaches it. Many are crushed to pulp before being swept away in the powerful current.
In seconds, the temple is gone. The cottages are gone. Everything is gone.
The high priest swirls downstream in a pinwheel pattern, impaled on his sacred stick.
CHAPTER 41
“ARE YOU SURE?” says Dache. “This is a step beyond.”
I nod. I’mmorethan sure. I’m itchy and impatient. The skill I’m about to learn is calledchuanghu. In my boyhood training, it was known as a forbidden skill, considered out of our reach. Dache has made it clear that it’s powerful and dangerous. But I don’t care. Let’s getmoving!
The two of us are in the middle of the garden behind my mansion, sitting on opposing stone benches. We’re surrounded by flower beds and decorative trees. My senses are on full alert. I can smell the lilacs and crab apples. I can hear the twitters from ten different species of birds. Just being in the presence of Dache has always made me more aware and attuned. When I’m with him, I’m eager to absorb all I can.
If I’m being totally honest with myself, I realize that I’m a little jealous of all the new skills Dache has been teaching Maddy. Stupid, I know, to be competing with a nineteen-year-old. Maybe I miss the feeling of being the star pupil. But what I mostly want is to find the World’s Fair killer. And Dache says this technique might help—as long I’m willing to risk losing my mind.
I settle on the bench, bare feet flat on the soft grass. Grounded and steady. But my heart is pounding hard. “What will it feel like?” I ask. “What will I see?”
“If I knew that, I would tell you,” says Dache. “Chuanghu opens a channel based on something you’ve already experienced, or a place you’ve already visited. It allows you to see what happened there through the eyes of somebody else who has been in the same place, like tapping into another person’s memory. A parallel past.”
“Whosepast?”
Dache shakes his head. “I can help you open the window. I cannot control what you see. Or who you become.”
“And the risk?” He told me before, but I need to hear it again.
“The risk is that you don’t come back. The risk is that your mind becomes somebody else’s mind. And that your mind ceases to exist.”
Dache is right. That’s a truly terrifying concept—to be alive, but not myself. I worked hard for my life. Spent a century and a half in a coma waiting to live again. Maybe there’s another way. Something that’s not quite so radical. But, like I said, I’m impatient. And I didn’t live this long bynottaking chances. I don’t have time for any more second thoughts.
I nod to Dache. “Do it.”
He stands up and walks behind me. “Eyes closed,” he says.
