Miss Buddha (66 page)

“Will they try again?”

“Yes. Most likely.”

Ananda shook his head, this was spinning out
of hand, while the Tathagata was not even upset about it. To be
expected, was her much too flippant reaction.

“What do you suggest?” asked Ananda.

“Pack up and get back here. Now. Get out of
Europe.”

“We’re all packed and ready, leaving
soon.”

“And stay at home. Hire security guards.
Don’t leave the house. They’re not going to bomb it.”

“She’s been invited to speak at the Sorbonne
in Paris.”

“Turn it down, don’t go back to Europe.”

“She’s accepted the invitation. She insists
on going.”

“What?”

“She’s very stubborn.”

“So I gather.”

“There’s no changing her mind.”

“She’s a fool.”

“I agree.”

“When is the Sorbonne engagement?”

“Not until the fourteenth of next
month.”

“Try to talk her out of it. Really. You have
to.”

“I will try. Of course, I will try.”

“Call me when you return.”

“Yes. I will.”

::
117:: (Pasadena)

They were escorted the entire way from Berlin
to their house in Pasadena by a small army of men, most of them
German. These guys meant business and would have no accidents of
any kind on their watch. Ruth complained she felt like cattle,
something Melissa had to agree with, though she rebuked Ruth for
being ungrateful.

Ananda didn’t mind, as long as Ruth was
safe.

Once back, and once restored to some sort of
normalcy—which took a few days—Ananda again tried to talk Ruth out
of going to Paris, this time with the help of George Roth and Clare
Downes who both had come over that afternoon.

“They guarantee my safety,” said Ruth.

“So did the Germans,” said Clare. “And
they’re pretty expert at these things.” Then she looked over at
Roth. “Then again, as George says, they were most likely in on it.
So what’s to say that the French won’t cooperate with the CIA as
well.”

“The French don’t like the Americans,”
suggested Ruth.

“Don’t be flippant,” said Melissa.

“Don’t go,” said Roth. “That’s the only
advice I can give. Stay here. Request police protection or hire a
security firm to ensure it. Don’t leave the house. Not for a while
anyway. I will see what else I can find out.”

“You still have access?” said Clare.

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

“I’m going,” said Ruth.

“Why on earth?” said Ananda.

“Because it will get more coverage than any
lecture ever given,” said Ruth. “Because that is why I am
here.”

“That is why you are here?” said Roth,
clearly not understanding.

The others exchanged glances. That’s right,
Roth had not been briefed. Somehow, in the excitement of things
they had forgotten this.

When no one answered, Roth said, “What am I
missing?”

They exchanged glances again, an unspoken
“No, you go” tossed between them, none too eager to run with it. It
finally fell on Clare.

“George,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Ruth, here, is the Buddha.”

George said nothing.

“Remember when she spoke inside you?”

George nodded, yes he did remember that,
very clearly How could he forget?

“You saw the footage of the attempt.”

“Of course.”

“Do you think that it was edited?”

“No, I don’t.”

“So how do you explain, to yourself, her
sudden shift from standing to lying prone?”

“I haven’t. It’s not possible. But I mean to
ask her about that.”

“Well, that’s the answer.”

“What’s the answer?”

“She is the Buddha returned.”

“She is the Buddha returned.” George Roth
more to himself than anyone else while he took a long look at Ruth
Marten with the same intensity that he would study a section of the
starry night sky, opening all his senses for patterns for what was
truly there. And in that looking, Ruth quietly said within him, “I
am, you know.”

“Holy shit,” said Roth.

“That’s one way of putting it,” said
Ananda.

“I’m sorry,” said Roth, but it was doubtful
he meant it. And not taking his eyes off of Ruth, not even to
blink, said, “Are you telling me that the rumors, which I must
confess appeared farfetched to me, are actually true?”

Aloud this time, Ruth said, “Yes.”

“How is that even possible?” said Roth, but
again more to fill the silence than actually to answer a question,
because the pattern he perceived made sense, felt congruous to him.
The voice, she shifting, the voice that spoke within him, above all
the voice.

If she sensed this, Ruth did not let on.
Instead she said, “I’m not sure precisely how, just that it is, and
that I am.”

Roth only nodded his reply this time,
finally letting go her eyes, and looking over at the others. “And
you knew this, of course?”

Nods all around.

Then he looked back at Ruth, “And you are
still planning to go to Paris.” A statement made without much
hope.

“Yes I am.”

“And how did you? The shift? The stumble, as
you call it?”

“It’s one of these things I can do,” said
Ruth.

He had no answer to that. Instead he said,
“What can I say to persuade you not to go to Paris?”

“I am going, Agent Roth.”

“My question was, what can I say to persuade
you not to.”

“Oh, I heard it fine,” she said. “I will
keep my eyes open.”

“So there’s nothing?” said Roth.

“No, there is not.”

Again Roth looked to the others for support,
especially Melissa. But this was ground already thoroughly trodden,
that was the pattern he perceived. She was going then.

“Perhaps I can be of some help,” he said.
Then added, “If I come along, I mean.”

“I would like that very much,” said Melissa,
and Ruth nodded in agreement.

“I’d like to travel with you as well,” said
Clare.

“Sure,” said Ruth.

::
118 :: (Sorbonne)

The Sorbonne affair proved of a more
manageable size, and less of a nightmare for security.

After the near-catastrophe in Berlin, the
organizers changed their mind from a large off-campus, outdoor
venue to the much smaller on-campus Centre Universitaire
Malesherbes which only seated 500 odd people, plus another couple
of hundred standing in the isles. To compensate, and to accommodate
the well over one hundred thousand demands for seats, the lecture
would not only be televised in all lecture halls throughout campus,
but in all other auditoria and lecture rooms in schools throughout
the city. He address was now being touted as a “city-wide” Paris
lecture by the Sorbonne arrangers.

Roth was visibly relieved when he learned
the details about the event, “Much easier to control,” he said,
studying several maps of the auditorium—including the structural
ones—surveying the room’s layout for weak spots. Finding none he
returned the maps to the nervous official who wasn’t really sure
who Roth was, only that he was ordered to give him all the
assistance he required.

It was as he turned from
the nervous official back to Ananda that something, or
some
one
rather,
caught his eye, a pair of eyes a little too searching, a little too
cautious. And the face, only visible to Roth for a second, then
turned blond back of the head, then it was gone, swallowed by the
almost but not quite chaotic energy backstage.

“Well, that’s good,” said Ananda.

“Yes,” said Roth, more to himself.

“What is it?” said Ananda.

“Don’t know,” said Roth. “Not sure. Excuse
me for a minute.” He set out to follow the one piece that didn’t
fit this pattern, the one piece that sank and settled in the pit of
his stomach, with weight.

Rounding a narrow corner, having expected to
catch the back of that blond head again, he saw nothing: just a
short run of a narrow corridor, five meters perhaps, then another
door, which, when he reached it, proved to be locked. He turned, no
one. He looked again at the door, looked closer at the lock, and
saw what appeared to be fresh disturbance of the dust around the
lock itself, some motes seemed to still hover wondering if settling
would be safe yet: someone (with a key) had just gone through this
door.

Roth returned to Ananda in a run, then
looked around for the Sorbonne official assigned to him as a
liaison. He spotted him at the far side of the platform talking to
some of his colleagues. Roth made another brief run, “Follow me,
please,” he said. And then repeated it when the man didn’t seem to
comprehend. Then repeated it again as he grabbed the man’s arm.
“Follow me, this way.”

When they arrived at the door, Roth asked,
“Where does it lead?”

The guard pointed up. “The roof.”

“The roof, the outside roof?”

“No, not the roof, what do you call it,
inside?”

“The ceiling?”

“Yes, up to inside the ceiling.”

“And it has been cleared?”

“Of course.”

“Someone just entered through this
door.”

“No, that’s not possible. We entered through
the other side, no one used this door.”

“Someone just went through here,” said Roth.
“I’ve examined the lock.”

“Impossible,” said the man.

“Look,” said Roth. “I will speak to whomever
I need to speak to, but you need to sweep the ceiling area again,
someone’s up there.”

“Impossible,” said the man, apparently set
to defend French honor to the bitter end. Roth saw the writing on
the wall, turned, and ran back down the corridor and out onto the
stage, looked for another white shirt with epaulets, saw one, but
by then his own man had caught up with him, “Yes, okay, yes.” he
said, indicating his change of heart but not admitting to
defeat.

“Make sure they get this done before Miss
Marten goes on.”

“Of course,” said the man, then walked—not
quite ran—to the man Roth had spotted cross-stage. Roth followed,
and heard the French version of his request, while being pointed
at.

“Right now,” said Roth to the guy with a
pair of ribbons on his epaulets, bossy ribbons. “Someone’s up
there.”

The boss nodded, more concerned about the
safety of their guest than about being right, and within a minute
Roth saw a swarm of guards running past and—as he tagged on—run
through the now unlocked door and up what seemed to be stairs. It
turned out to be a narrow—one-man-at-a-time—spiral staircase. In
less than five minutes they came back down, leading the blond—and
upsettingly familiar—man between them. One of the guards was
carrying a small, but very high-tech rifle, apparently taken from
the would-be assassin.

The pair of ribbons on his epaulets, dark
and now sweating, came up to Roth. “Thank you mister. I don’t know
how we missed him.”

“You didn’t miss him; he just went up there
a few minutes ago.”

The man shook his head, a this-is-very-bad,
exasperated shake of disbelief. “There was never any access this
way,” he said. “That was part of the protocol.”

Roth did not answer, partly out of American
pride—he recognized the man and did not want to admit that someone
from his side of the Atlantic was doing this; partly out of sheer
apprehension. If one, why not two, or three?

“The rest,” he said to the man. “All
clear?”

“Yes.”

“Can you check again, please?”

“Miss Marten is due on any minute.” He
looked at his watch.

“Please,” said Roth, and the man nodded in
agreement.

:

Roth found Ruth, along with Ananda, Melissa,
and Clare Downes in a nicely appointed dressing room, or what had,
on short notice, been pressed into service as one.

“They found another one,” he said as the
burst into the room.

Four pairs of startled eyes asked the same
question.

“Another assassin,” said Roth.

“Oh, my God,” said Melissa, and almost fell
down. Clare Downes caught her, and eased her into a chair.

Roth turned to Ruth. “You have to cancel,”
he said. “There could be others.”

“I thought everything was clear,” said
Ananda. “They told us everything was searched and cleared.”

“I think they will say what they’re ordered
to say,” said Roth. “This, believe me, is not good.”

Ruth said nothing for a breath or two, but
stood stock still, appearing to be listening to some remote, faint
sound. Then she said, “There’s no one else.”

Roth was about to protest again, stressing
the danger she was in when he realized that she could indeed
perceive danger, and did know. “I see,” he said.

Ruth smiled at him. “Thanks so much for your
concern, Agent Roth. Well spotted.”

Roth believed he knew what she meant by that
and relaxed a little.

“You’re still going on?” said Melissa,
incredulous.

“It’ll be all right, now,” said Ruth. “Our
local agent has seen to that.”

Ananda drew breath as to weigh in on the
discussion, but changed his mind, knowing who he was dealing with.
Clare Downes, too, seem reconciled with Ruth’s perception that all
would be fine.

Then a small bell—also a temporary
arrangement—rang, and that (so they had been told) meant one minute
to go. They would come and get her when it was time.

And then the door opened into a room that
had stayed quiet for the last sixty seconds. “Follow me, please,
Miss Marten.”

She did so.

:

They told me there would be seven hundred
people in the room, and well over a hundred thousand through the
university video network. Also, for the first time, there would be
a live international feed courtesy of the Sorbonne. Apparently, USC
had agreed to that.

The room itself was filled to the bursting
point, some even shared seats, by the looks of it, those standing
were crammed shoulder to shoulder, not very comfortably. Probably
close to a thousand, all told.