Chapter 1
Onatah, Illinois
Just before midnight, Sunday night
Zhang San slipped through the garden on silent feet. Guided only by the moon and the faint glow of lights from the distant highway, he crept confidently along the path leading to the meditation labyrinth.
He reached the maze and skirted its left edge. Then he continued into the tall grass of the meadow buffering the property from the narrow road. He emerged from the grass and swung his head around. He dropped down into the drainage ditch and landed in a crouch.
When he straightened to standing, his mouth was dry. This brief period of visibility from the road was the most nerve-wracking part of the trip. He broke into a run.
Just two tenths of a kilometer, he reminded himself. A mere minute—slightly less, actually. At his pace, he generally covered the distance in just over fifty-five seconds.
He flew over the uneven ground until the road curved to the right. He kept running, no longer exposed to any cars that might happen by at this hour. He stopped when he reached the corner of a metal cattle fence.
He counted in three posts from the end, crouched directly to the right of the third post, and felt around on the ground for the top of the hollow metal spike. A cloud that had been covering the moon graciously moved, providing more light. He spotted the spike’s head, just slightly protruding from the dirt, and yanked it out of the damp earth.
He pried the cap off and turned the spike upside down over his palm. A folded slip of paper fluttered into his hand. He pocketed the scrap and placed a wadded-up tissue inside the spike.
As he recapped the spike, he scanned the empty fields around him. He’d yet to encounter another living soul on one of his dead drop runs, but complacency was an agent’s worst enemy. Especially in a place like this—all wide open spaces and windswept fields. There were no choke points at which to shake a tail—or at least make him for what he was. San felt as though the prairie itself had eyes and was watching him.
He was ready for this assignment to be over. He longed for congested urban streets, elbow-to-elbow pedestrians jostling for place, as cars, trucks, and buses sped by in the streets. He missed the noise.
He returned the spike to the dirt and used the heel of his shoe to drive it into the ground. He took a deep breath and filled his lungs with the cool night air. Then he turned back the way he’d come and ran.
* * *
From his post in the old barn, Gavriil trained his binoculars on the Chinese man and watched his quick, economical movements. San was fast. He held the dead drop spike in his hand for less than twenty seconds before it was back in the dirt and he was sprinting away.
Gavriil pushed himself up from the floor and brushed the hay from the elbows of his sweater. Now, he had a decision to make: Did he intercept San and take the paper from his right front pocket; remove the item San had deposited in the spike; or wait to see who came to get it—getting a bead on San’s contact?
Back when he’d worked for the agency, it would have been a no-brainer. Identify San’s contact. Anyone San had turned was already vulnerable and could be a wealth of information—or, even more valuable, a prospective double agent.
But, Gavriil reminded himself, he didn’t work for the agency anymore. And he hadn’t been hired to turn a Chinese spy. He also hadn’t been hired to tail San, although doing so made his work easier. But he knew where to find San. He could keep his paper—for now.
Decision made, he crept out of the barn and stepped in among the tall rows of corn. The soft swish of cornstalks giving way as he brushed past them was covered by the whisper of the wind. Like a shadow, he wound his way through the corn.
When he reached the last row, he cut a fast diagonal line to the fenced-in pasture. At the third post from the left, he dug the spike out of the ground. Still crouching, he uncapped it and removed a tissue that had been folded into a small, thick square, as if an elementary school kid had lost a tooth at lunchtime and was keeping it safe inside until he could slip it under his pillow.
He unfolded the tissue to reveal a smooth item roughly the size and shape of a baby tooth. But this was no pearly white. It was a single, pale yellow seed. Gavriil allowed himself a small smile before he removed a tiny plastic bag, the type that held extra buttons for a jacket, from his pocket.
He shook a darker yellow seed out of the bag and dropped the one from the spike into it. After carefully resealing the bag, he returned it to his pocket. Then he wrapped his replacement seed in San’s tissue, stuffed it into the spike, and jabbed the spike into the ground.
Only then did he return to standing. He cracked his back, stiff from the hours of surveillance, then rolled his neck.
He jammed his hands into his pockets and walked along the berm of the road, the binoculars bouncing on the strap hung around his neck. He strolled at a casual pace, just an owl lover, out for his nightly nocturnal walkabout, hoping to catch a glimpse of a great horned owl, a barn owl, or maybe, if he was very lucky, a snowy white.
Chapter 2
Chicago, Illinois
Monday afternoon
Bodhi King closed his eyes for just a moment after he settled in the back of the cab. He’d left the hotel in Quebec City well before dawn to make the day’s first flight to Toronto, only to encounter a delay on the second leg.
After a long, unexplained wait, the prop plane took off for Chicago nearly two hours late. He’d been traveling for ten hours by this point and yearned for a still, quiet moment.
The driver had other plans. “You in town for business or pleasure?”
He opened his eyes. “Just passing through. I’m meeting a friend for lunch then heading to Onatah.”
In the rearview mirror, he could see the cab driver furrow his forehead. “Onatah, huh? Never heard of it. What’s there?”
“Mainly cornfields,” Bodhi told him, unsurprised that a Chicagoan had no familiarity with the postage-stamp town just about ninety minutes due south. “But there’s also a monastery. I’m going for a retreat.”
“A retreat. You a monk?”
“No.”
He wasn’t a monk. Just someone in need of seven days of silence to clear his mind, reset his course, and work through an issue that had arisen out of nowhere.
After more than a decade of celibacy and solitude, he’d just spent a week in the company of the only woman he’d ever loved. To say the encounter had knocked him off-balance didn’t begin to do justice to the unmoored feeling in his center.
A week spent in contemplative quiet at The Prairie Buddhist Center would put him back on his path. Or, at least, it would point him in the right direction.
“Huh.” A brief silence. Then, “How ‘bout those Bears?”
It took him a moment to realize the man was talking football, not asking him his thoughts on the animal.
He flashed a wry smile. “Sorry, pal. I’m a Steelers fan.”
“Bah.” The cab driver lifted a hand and batted the thought out of the air. For the rest of the drive, he delivered a running monologue on the comparative greatness of the Steel Curtain Defense of the 1970s versus the Bears’ famed 46 Defense of 1985.
Bodhi settled back against the seat, stopped listening, and let the words rush over him like water.
* * *
Nolan was waiting for him in front of the Thai restaurant when the cab driver pulled over, still waxing poetic about Buddy Ryan’s defensive genius. Bodhi paid the fare, shouldered his bag, and exited the back seat.
Nolan greeted him with an enthusiastic handshake and a slap on the back.
“Long time, no see, man. How’s it going?”
“Great. You could’ve waited inside.”
Nolan waved his hand. “Nah. I’ll be inside for eighteen hours today.”
As the Chief of the Emergency Medicine Department of a busy urban hospital, Nolan McDermott worked an unforgiving schedule. But Bodhi had never seen the man without a grin on his still-boyish, freckled face.
“Does this place have patio seating? Or we could get it to go—eat in a park somewhere?” Bodhi offered.
“No worries. I’ll walk to the hospital after lunch. I’ll get my allotment of Vitamin D and fresh air on the way.” He pulled the door open and ushered Bodhi inside.
The restaurant was spa-like with simple furnishing, bamboo, and natural fabrics. Nolan greeted the waiter like an old friend and ordered water and jasmine tea for the table.
“Do you mind leaving ourselves in Chef Aran’s hands? He’s a magician with vegan food.”
Bodhi blinked. “Sure. But since when are you a vegan?”
“Since I hit the big 4-0 and cheeseburgers started collecting at my waistline.” He laughed then turned to the waiter, “Please tell Aran to wow my vegan friend.”
The waiter bowed his head and smiled. As he turned to leave, he said to Bodhi, “You’re in for a treat.”
Nolan leaned back and arranged his long legs under the table. “So, what were you doing in Canada anyway?”
He was one of a handful of friends who Bodhi considered like brothers—and, in one case, a sister. Bodhi and Nolan weren’t particularly diligent about staying in contact, but they could seamlessly pick back up as if there’d been no lapse—no matter how many years had gone by without their having spoken. In this case, it had been eight—the last time he’d seen Nolan was on his wedding day. He made a mental note to ask how Katie was doing.
“I was on a panel at the North American Forensic Pathology Symposium.”
“Sweet. That’s a nice get.”
“Eliza Rollins was on the panel, too.”
Nolan’s red eyebrows shot up and met at his hairline. “Eliza, whoa … have you seen her since med school?”
“No. And, if you remember, we weren’t exactly on good terms when we graduated.”
He nodded slowly. “That’s right. You broke up with her to focus on your residency.”
It was an oversimplification, but Bodhi resisted the urge to defend his younger self’s actions. “Basically.”
Nolan sucked in his breath. “Awkward. How’s she doing?”
“It was awkward, at first; but we ended up spending a lot of time together.”
“Oh, really?” His grin spoke volumes.
“Not like that. Eliza’s doing great. She’s the parish coroner in some small town in Louisiana. And she’s dating the local chief of police. It sounded like they were pretty serious. We didn’t really talk about it—we were too busy figuring out what happened to a woman who’d been declared dead but we found wandering along a country road.”
The waiter returned with two glasses of water, a small teapot, and a set of mugs. He placed the drinkware and teapot on the table and asked if there was anything else they needed.
“We’re all set,” Nolan assured him.
Bodhi poured the tea while Nolan mused under his breath.
“Declared dead woman hanging out on the side of the road.” He lifted his head and twisted his mouth to the side. “What kind of symposium was this, exactly?”
“It was a standard medical conference. The interesting stuff was all extracurricular. Well, except for one of our co-panelists trying to have us killed. Look, it’s a long story—”
“You don’t say,” Nolan deadpanned.
Bodhi nearly spit his tea on the tablecloth when he burst into laughter. After he caught his breath, he summarized the highlights for Nolan.
“There’s a designer drug—at least in Canada, it’s called Solo. You should be on the lookout for it in your ER because it’s nasty. The developer’s in custody and working with the authorities on an antidote, but you know how it goes. Some other enterprising dealer is no doubt trying to reverse engineer the formula as we sit here. I hope it doesn’t cross the border.”
Nolan nodded sadly. “Me, too. We’ve got enough to deal with here without a hot new killer drug. What is it?”
“A combination of neurotoxins that apparently caused an animating, invigorating high. But can cause central nervous system and respiratory paralysis and, eventually, the arrest of brain function.”
Nolan grimaced. “Not a nice way to go.”
“Or not go. Some of the overdoses didn’t actually die. They were more or less zombified. Anyway, Eliza and I worked together to help the victims and find the black market chemist.”
“And then she went back home to her hunky police chief and you realized you’re approaching middle age all alone?”
Bodhi sipped his tea. “Something like that.”
“Which brings you to Chicago, why?”
“I’m on my way to the Prairie Buddhist Center for a week-long silent retreat. I figure it’ll do me good to have some quiet contemplative time.”
“Where’s this center?”
“A town in central Illinois called Onatah.”
Nolan snorted. “It should be plenty quiet down there. Nothing but cornfields and ... cornfields.”
“It sounds perfect.”
“So, really, no talking for a week? What will you do?”
They paused as steaming dishes of fragrant curries and bowls of soup arrived at the table. After the food had been served, he tried to explain the allure of a silent retreat to a man who thrived on the cacophony of the emergency room at work and the more joyous racket of a five-year old and three-year old at home.
“The Prairie Center is sort of unusual. Here in the U.S., many of the retreat centers are secular. Of those that aren’t, most are Mayahana, or Zen focused. A handful practice Theravada Buddhism. Even fewer are esoteric or tantric. But The Prairie Center is explicitly not secular and isn’t tied to a specific school or sect of Buddhism.”
“So it’s the equivalent of a nondenominational or nonsectarian church?”
“Right. So, at Prairie, retreats are an opportunity for practitioners to expand their knowledge of other practices. That means there are lectures, meditations, and readings based on the various sects and schools, in addition to the usual mindful eating and working sessions, noble silences, and seated and walking meditations.”
“Sounds boring.”
Bodhi shrugged. “I could use some boredom.”
He lifted a spoonful of soup to his mouth. An explosion of ginger, lemongrass, and chilies burst onto his taste buds. Nolan watched his face.
“Pretty amazing, isn’t it?”
“It really is.”
Nolan laughed. “Told you.”
They ate in silence for a few moments. Then Bodhi rested his spoon on the side of his saucer. “How are Katie and the kids?”
“They’re great, man. Katie’s planning to join a pediatric practice in our neighborhood next year when the little one starts pre-K. It’s a wild ride with Noah and Serena; I won’t pretend it’s not. But they’re fun, you know? Exhausting, but fun.”
Bodhi nodded. A week ago, Nolan’s idea of fun would have struck him as a messy attachment. But now? Well, now he didn’t know. That’s why he was headed to Onatah. To figure it out in a place of peace.
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