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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
Commie party crashers
>> Honolulu
Bodhicita Guzman had no way of knowing this would be her last night with Fon Du in the master bedroom of the Kahala estate he shared with other employees of the Bank of Lhasa, whom she had helped identify as members of Te-Wu. Perhaps if she'd known she would never again make love with Fon Du she would have slept better. Instead she tossed and turned, barely able to wait until morning when she could tell Kamasami Khan that the Chinese secret police were crashing the lama party.
Time passed as if pacing a glacier until Fon Du dropped her at UH for a class, a post-graduate lecture on comparative animal deities throughout Pacifica. Fortunately, because she really wanted to attend this lecture, he was in a hurry to get to the bank, so she was early.
Good thing. At that point minutes counted.
She called Khan from a pay phone in the Campus Center, told him what she knew. On orders from "superiors back home," the bank purchased several seats for this evening's event at the Blaisdell, where the 14th Dalai Lama would introduce the first Hawaiian-born lama, the second Lama Jey Tsong Khapa. It was to show that the bank and the Dalai Lama both wanted good for the people of Tibet. Fon Du would be there, and would not be able to see her afterward. Oh, and hopefully their plane would crash.
"You're the greatest," Khan said. "You gonna be there?"
"Of course."
"You never met me."
"You'll never recognize me."
Khan summoned the young lama's big brother Joe Kharma from the lab where he was perfecting a virtual reality program. Joe fascinated Khan. On the surface, well, that's really all there was. A good guy, but totally into popular music, TV, sports, computers and having a good time. Amazing that a guy shallow as a saucer had a brother who was a living Buddha.
A living Buddha whose life was at risk. "Te-Wu is crashing the party."
Joe swore, and Khan could see fear in his face. Joe Kharma was no warrior, at least not outside of VR. "So call HPD or the FBI or ... "
"Even if they believed us, there would be an official probe, and alert Te-Wu they've been compromised. No, this one we must do on our own. Good training for when we begin our operations against the Communist Chinese in Tibet."
He's training, Joe thought, and my little brother's life is at stake.
Khan got on the phone and made a series of calls, setting in motion a seat-of-the-pants operation that would put soon put a lama on the lam.
"Yeah," he said to the last one, "the blond surfer boy wig is good. Go with that. Last thing the Communists will suspect."
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Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek. His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin. He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com