15
WE WONDER WHY THE LAMA SPEAKS FRANKLY
ON A BOULDER JUTTING out into the valley below the camp, Lama Norbu stood with his head bowed, but he was not meditating. His mind was far from peaceful, and the words he muttered scared the birds from their perches. He was angry at the glowing device in his hand, and he whacked it with his palm.
“Come on, you lousy phone!” he cursed. “Get some reception already! What good is a smartphone without any stinking reception?” He smacked the small phone against the side of a tree and it made a series of unhappy beeps, but still didn’t dial the number he wanted. “No, I don’t want to play Scrabble! I want to make a call!!” he growled at it, and whacked it again. “Aaargh!!”
“That is not a very peace-loving thing to do,” a voice spoke from the darkness behind him. “In fact, I have never in my life met a monk whose meditation involved cursing at a phone.”
Sir Edmund stepped from the darkness with a smile on his face. He wore a khaki explorer’s outfit with dozens of pockets and a little pith helmet, like something out of an old movie. He strolled over to Lama Norbu like it was perfectly natural for him to be taking a late night walk in the Tsangpo Gorge.
“You,” was all Lama Norbu said as he moved his hand toward his rifle.
“Don’t bother,” said Sir Edmund. “I am not alone and, though you cannot see them, you are surrounded.”
“What do you want then? To finish what your abominable snowman could not?”
“Snowwoman”, Sir Edmund said, and laughed. “Anyway, the yeti was just a test. I knew a wise monk like yourself could handle it.”
“It nearly killed Dr. Navel.”
“They do get rather aggressive when you take their children away,” he said. “She’s one of the most vicious monsters in my zoo these days.”
“You are the monster, Edmund.”
Sir Edmund shrugged and looked out over the dark valley, and up to the canopy of stars. It was a beautiful sight, but he didn’t seem to be enjoying it.
“Let’s cut out the nonsense, shall we?” said Sir Edmund. “We are all impressed that you found the Navels before us. But we had a deal. The Council wants them and you are supposed to bring them to me. You should not have gone off on your own.”
“The Council keeps too many secrets.”
“The Council has a higher purpose.”
“This is also about revenge,” Lama Norbu added. He stood even taller and suddenly appeared many years younger than he had appeared moments before. He didn’t really look like Lama Norbu at all.
“You are so angry at the Navels you would dare defy us? What would your partner say after we went to all the trouble to arrange this?”
“We both feel the same. After what that Navel woman cost us in the Gobi Desert . . . our price has doubled.”
“You are hardly in a position to negotiate. I do wonder what would happen,” Sir Edmund chuckled, “if Dr. Navel were to find who you really are. Or if the Explorers Club were to learn what had really become of you, the long-lost Frank Pfeffer, discoverer of the Jade Toothpicks.”
“You want to blackmail us?”
“I want you to stick to the agreement. If not, you and your partner will be unmasked and, I promise you, destroyed. We had a deal and you will not break that deal.”
“Your threats don’t frighten me.”
“You may have learned the transformative arts from the Hyena People of Gondar, and you have done an admirable job disguising yourself, for such a freakishly tall man, but the truth has a way of shining through. I wonder if I can get Internet access here. Maybe I should update my blog. Does your phone take pictures?” He chuckled. “They make the most remarkable gadgets these days, don’t they?”
“You don’t have a blog.”
“I could start one just for you.”
“You are despicable.”
“I think the same could be said of you, Frank—I’m sorry, Lama Norbu,ʺ Sir Edmund sneered. “You don’t really have any choice. We’ll get what we want whether you help us or not. Our new friends are taking care of that.” He turned and walked back into the shadows, murmuring a song as he went. “The ants go marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah!”
Lama Norbu, who wasn’t really a monk at all, listened as Sir Edmund’s voice faded and then kept listening to the darkness to be sure he was alone once more. He smacked his phone with more urgency this time, and at last, his call got through.
“It’s me, Frank,” he said into the phone. “The Council found us. I’ll have to move quickly now. The tablets will be ours!”
He hung up and sighed into the night.
“And we will have our revenge,” he said to no one in particular. He hid the phone back inside his cloak. With a shake of his shoulders he resumed his calm and friendly pose, practicing the monk’s smile.
