The Prince of Risk

26

Concealed in a grove of birch trees on a hilltop across the road, the monk watched the house.

He’d known that Astor and Sullivan were coming. He had been listening as they drove from the city. He was listening now. He could hear them speaking, though their voices were muffled and at times indistinct. This was to be expected, as Astor carried his phone in his pocket.

Wind rustled the branches and made the sound of a flowing river. For a moment he knew serenity. The feeling took him back to his years at the temple. He was there again, a shaven-headed boy running barefoot across the cold stone floors, bowing before his masters, waiting for his commands.

He had arrived at age six, a thin, weak boy. The master had asked him one question: “Are you prepared to eat bitter?”

“Yes,” he responded. And so the training had begun.

For twelve years he rose at dawn and went to bed at midnight. He studied and meditated. He did as he was told. But mostly he trained. Three hours of calisthenics and physical exercise every morning. Four hours of wushu, or martial arts, in the afternoon. His discipline was Baji kung fu, the most rigorous of the schools. He trained until his fists bled and his legs would not carry him. He suffered. He did not complain. He ate bitter.

And in the end, he was awarded the monk’s orange robe.

But that was not to last.

For he had desires that life in a temple could not satisfy. Desires not appropriate for a man or a monk. Not even a warrior monk.

“Ten minutes,” he heard someone inside the house say. It was the older man, with white hair and red face.

He considered his instructions. It would be so easy to return to the home and finish the business. He knew the value of cleaning one’s trail. He saw himself moving up the stairs, his bare feet caressing the warped wooden floorboards, moving effortlessly, silently. Floating. He loved the feel of the knife in his hand, its weight, its promise of death quickly delivered.

At the temple they had taught him the way of the fist and the staff and, later, of more exotic instruments: nunchakus, swords, pikes, and lances. In countless shows and exhibitions, he had thrilled audiences with his mastery of them all. No one moved more quickly, more elegantly, more forcefully. But exhibitions were not enough. The warrior monk had wished to put his skills to more practical use.

It had started when he was sixteen and his blood ran hot for the first time. He would leave the temple at midnight. Even then, he walked so quietly the master could not hear him. He would roam the hills and pass through surrounding villages. He would peer into homes until he found a suitable choice, inevitably a girl, young, innocent, unsuspecting. He would enter and stand beside her. He would wait until his heartbeat matched her own and he knew serenity.

He was invisible.

He was silent.

He was death.

The warrior monk stared at the home. Fingers that could crush a larynx caressed the knife’s handle. It would be so easy. They would not know he was among them until it was too late.

It was not to be.

Above all, he was an obedient brother.

The warrior monk called 911.

“Hello,” he said, in an English an American would swear was his own. “I’m walking my dog and I saw some men breaking into the house at 1133 Elm.”

He hung up before they could ask his name.

Five minutes later, he heard the sirens approaching.

He turned and retraced his path up the hill through the birch trees. He walked as he had been taught so many years before. His feet touched the leaves but left no track.

He did not make a sound.

He floated.