Unholy alliance

>> Dole Street

Bodhicita Guzman, wearing her Sister Mary Miraculoso disguise -- gray habit, more-salt-than-pepper wig -- sat down at TheBus stop, glanced at her watch. She could hardly wait to rendezvous with the second Lama Jey Tsong Khapa at his Waikiki hotel. Even though he was the one Te-Wu tried to kill, it was she, his eternal consort, who needed comforting after the attack moments ago at the East-West Center's Jefferson Hall.

Fon Du, her former lover, had said Te-Wu would strike the lama with an agent dressed as a Muslim imam at his meeting with Hawaii's religious leaders. There had been two imams, and one had indeed pulled a plastic knife from the leather cover of his Koran and tried to attack Jey.

Oh, and there was the other imam now, approaching her, with his traveling companion the rabbi. Inexplicably, for she did not know what the FBI was learning -- that the imam who attacked Lama Jey had no connection to the Chinese secret police -- her heart raced as they came closer.

As they did, a big, reassuring smile spread across the rabbi's face.

"Greetings, sister," he said, holy man to holy woman. "I saw you inside for the event with the young lama. Quite something, eh?"

"Yes," she said, dipping her head, the humble nun.

"I am Rabbi Sol, this is Imam Sharif."

Both men kind of bowed.

"Yes, I heard what you said about Jews and Muslims living in peace."

"Christians too, of course. And you are?"

"Mary Miraculoso."

"Catholic?"

"Yes."

"I hope you're free, we have a speaking engagement soon, it would be wonderful if you could join us. You seem to have a certain ecumenical spirit."

Bodhicita nodded, her head beginning to spin. The rabbi had a slight British accent, not unlike Fon Du's. Still, they seemed to be who they said they were. "Where? What time?"

"In Waikiki, it begins in just over an hour."

"Waikiki? I'm going that way. Which hotel?"

"I'm not sure, but our friend David will know. He's the one who brought us to Hawaii. There he is now."

A white commercial van, no windows on the sides or back, pulled up to TheBus stop. Because of glare from the afternoon sun on the windshield, Bodhicita could not see the driver's face.

The rabbi opened the passenger door. "Hello, David. We've met a new friend, would it be all right to give her a lift to Waikiki?"

So it was that Bodhicita, in a hurry to see Jey, got into the back of the van with the imam, the Te-Wu agent known to his colleagues as Devil Snake, rape king of Dharamsala.