Semi-denouement

>> Kaimuki, etc.

As they watched the tail lights of the police wagon carrying Fon Du disappear out the rear exit of Diamond Head Memorial Park, Bodhicita Guzman broke into tears.

"I can't believe he's gone! He'll never try to kill you again, Jey!"

She grabbed him, pulled him to her, hugged him hard, nothing tantric about it, just sheer, wonderful, joyous physical closeness and aliveness.

The second Lama Jey Tsong Khapa hugged her back, never having felt anything like this, suddenly understanding a term he'd heard as a boy back in the monasteries of the Himalayas, "a rise in the robes."

"Can I offer you two a ride?" Detective Leina'ala Smashowicz interrupted. "Khan's truck has to stay here until we get it all checked out."

For the first time they noticed a dark splatter of blood on the red paint.

"Actually, I would like to visit our friend Khan," the lama said. "How's he doing?"

"No idea, but we can find out real quick," she said.

Soon they were pulling into the Queen's ER parking lot.

Kamasami Khan was undergoing surgery to his shoulder. The bullet had bounced off his collar bone, traveled down his upper arm and exited just above the elbow. He lost a lot of blood and would require reconstructive surgery, but with rehab would one day fulfill his dream of taking serious action against the Chinese Communist occupiers of Tibet.

After they left Queen's, the young Lama visited Fon Du in jail. And just as the third Dalai Lama tamed the ferocious Khans of Mongolia, so did Lama Jey tame the dangerous Fon Du, who henceforth would seek only his Buddhahood, forsaking violence and all allegiance to China.

Fon Du was the eighth member of Te-Wu who had been arrested in the past two days. The information that police and the FBI extracted from them would help expose Chinese agents in a variety of cities across America and the rest of the world, "flipping" three into moles for the good guys.

And if we ended our story here, it would be a happy ending indeed.

We'd like to end it here. But we cannot.

Because there was one member of Te-Wu left on the streets of Honolulu -- the shy, quiet one who served as their cook and handled other household matters at the Kahala estate. He wasn't really one of them. The worst he did was follow the lama's limo on his mo-ped for a few blocks, and only because they needed help until reinforcements arrived from Beijing. So none of his colleagues mentioned him. Perhaps he could escape back to China.

So far, watching through the shadows of a mock orange hedge as the newest little living Buddha splashed in Lily Ah Sun's backyard pool, he had.

Lucky, he thought, his head wasn't the one glowing in the dark.