Desperate and P.O.’d

Kamasami Khan jotted down the e-mail address on a notepad beside the hotel phone. It ended with "@fbi.gov".

"Thanks, Officer Ah Sun, we're on the way," Khan said, ending the call.

Turning to Bodhicita Guzman, he said, "The FBI wants Fon Du's photos, ASAP, to get 'em on the 10 o'clock news. We gotta go."

"Where are we going," the second Lama Jey Tsong Khapa said.

"To my house, you can see where I live," Bodhicita, the lama's eternal consort, said enthusiastically. "I could even make you dinner!"

"Whoa whoa whoa," Khan said. "Your holiness, you're staying here."

"Khan," Bodhicita said, half protest, half whine, stretching the lone vowel into two syllables. "It's only like 10 minutes away."

"May I remind you both that Fon Du is still out there, and we don't know exactly how many more Te-Wu guys are still running around. Or may be on the way. The Chinese have taken a big hit the past couple of days, but the danger is far from over. Fon Du has an assignment to kill Lama Jey. If anything, I'd expect him to be really pissed off and ... "

The young lama tilted his head, mouthed the words, trying to make sense of their seemingly unrelated meanings. "Pissed off? Of what?"

"Oh Jey," Bodhicita chuckled, her fingers brushing his. "It's an Americanism, meaning he's angry."

"Ah," he said, filing it away.

"And desperate," Khan continued. "The only way he saves his career with Te-Wu is to fulfill the mission. That's desperate. Desperate men try desperate things."

Khan paused, turned to his Free Tibet Warrior Society partner Michael Tenzin Campbell, who had been the lama's stunt double for two days. "I want you to come with us. It occurs to me that Fon Du knows where Bodhicita lives. If he wanted revenge, he'd start there. I want to check the house."

"I would be interested to meet this Fon Du," the lama said. Bodhicita's former lover. The man who had orders to kill him. "You know, I've never actually met a Chinese Communist before. Perhaps if I met this one, I would understand why they hate Buddhists so much. Maybe he misunderstands Buddha's teachings."

Khan couldn't help snorting. "Members of the Chinese secret police are beyond conversion," he snapped. "Um, no offense, your holiness."

"Be that as it may, I want to see where my lovely consort has lived." Turning to Michael he added, "Time for the next costume."

Khan shook his head, turned away muttering to himself, "How the hell do you say no to a living Buddha?"

So it was that Michael and the lama emerged from the suite's master bedroom minutes later wearing garish tourist garb and bleached-spiked wigs.

"Konichiwa. I am Shiro," the lama said with a toothy grin. "This is my friend Yoshi."