THREE YEARS LATER

 San Rafael Mountains, California

 His moving hands cast sharp shadows on the arid earth.

He was tall and graceful, powerfully built but surprisingly delicate, pushing and stretching his arms and body in an harmonious display of Tai Chi high in the crisp mountain air.

Mike Delaney was dressed in a loose fitting black silk suit. He was barefoot. His eyes were partially closed and his facial expression fathomless. The casual observer would never guess how much deep emotional pain and suffering was being suppressed beneath his inscrutable exterior.

Behind him towered the San Rafael Mountains and in the distance the smoke from a controlled chaparral burn drifted slowly into a brilliant blue sky. In a clearing below lay the monastery and the long dirt track that led to its gates and then on for miles of wilderness to the coast.

He moved with fluid grace and power, his energy compressed into a ball in his solar plexus, able to explode in an instant to deadly effect. His focus was fixed on his shadow, etched with clearly defined contours on the outcrop before him.

Suddenly, he noticed the edge of another shadow merging with his. It was fragmentary. Fleeting. It almost blended, but not quite. There was no sound, no breath, not even a footfall, yet he knew something or someone was behind him. No animal could have been that silent. Delaney’s hearing had been trained to detect the smallest sound. He altered his balance imperceptibly, moving his weight onto the balls of his feet, 220 pounds of trained muscle condensing.

When he moved, it was with bewildering speed for such a big man yet not even a grain of dust rose from the earth as he turned, sank his weight, blocked and prepared to strike. What he saw as he spun caused him to hesitate. Such hesitation, he knew as soon as he paused, could cost him his life. Instead he relaxed and smiled at the elderly monk smiling up at him, his simple white robe plucked by a slight breeze. Delaney noticed the moving fabric, realising it was this and not lack of skill that had alerted him to the play of shadows.

The little monk seemed to move yet appeared motionless. But it was an optical illusion. As Delaney raised his striking fist, the monk drifted out of range yet Delaney, for all his consummate skill, did not see his feet move.

"Brother Rama," Delaney greeted him. "I still can’t see how you do that."

"Can you hear the Earth breathe, Michael, or feel the universe expand?" smiled Rama. He paused for a moment. "I am personally very pleased you have come back to us, even for a short time."

"There was nowhere else I could think of going," said Delaney.

"We did have hopes that you would join the brotherhood," said Rama. "Don’t forget, you spent two years here with us as a novice. Are you sure now, with all that has happened to you since then, that you wish to live in the outside world?"

"I’m certain, Brother Rama," Delaney answered. "There are things I have to do. But you know I carry everything I have experienced here within me, don’t you?"

"Yes," replied the little monk. "And that knowledge will never leave you." Rama paused and looked steadily into Delaney’s eyes. "You know how sorry we all are for the pain you now feel. You know where to come if you ever need to talk, or cry."

Delaney said nothing. He took a deep breath.

Rama continued. "Oh, there is a telephone call for you. We only have one telephone as you know and it seldom rings. It caused a good deal of excitement amongst the brothers, I can tell you. I explained to the caller that I would have to come and find you so he would have to hold on for a while."

Rama trotted by Delaney’s side as they made their way back down from the rocky platform along a dusty path to the monastery. It had been constructed near the site of an old Chumash Indian settlement, a collection of simple buildings surrounding a courtyard. Water containment was by way of a series of connected wells and conduits laid out to exploit the seasonal rains. There were meditation and contemplation areas shaded from the sun and one or two battered vehicles to collect supplies - usually more than a day’s trip.

The order of The Brothers of Light existed to explore the true nature of consciousness, which it saw as being all pervasive. Everything in the universe and in any other universe that may exist was all part of one, timeless, consciousness from which everything, including all creation, emanated. To become a fully-fledged monk an individual had to make a personal choice for life. But no one or nothing could stop a Brother leaving the monastery at any time.

The two years that Mike Delaney had spent here had been the most challenging and yet the most satisfying of his existence. It had been a momentous change in his life direction from his US army days with the exclusive and secretive G-Force and later with the Hong Kong Police elite. He believed at the time that he would have been unable to shake off the effects of the traumatic events he had experienced in Hong Kong without such a dramatic change. He realised after two years, however, that he was not cut out for monastic life, not in the long term, not forever.

The reason for this was simple. He had fallen in love and got married.

Delaney followed Brother Rama into the main building, its ancient stucco walls peeling, and removed his sandals. It was cool inside. Delaney noticed once again with bemusement and wonder how Brother Rama, also barefoot, could walk noiselessly ahead of him. They came to what passed as Brother Rama’s office, a shabby, untidy room, stacked with books and dusty papers, a yoga mat, a few handmade chairs and a large desk, piled with more papers and bric-a-brac. There was a little bowl of sweets perched close to an ancient black telephone with the receiver lying on its side. Brother Rama picked it up and spoke into it.

"Hello," he paused. "Thank you for holding. Yes, he is here now. I will pass the telephone to him."

He held the receiver out to Delaney, smiled and inclined his head, pressing his palms together before gliding out of the room. The door closed behind him with a creak.

Delaney put the receiver to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Mike, is that you? About bloody time, my old mate. It’s Bob. Bob Messenger."

Delaney brightened at the sound of the clipped English accent. Messenger had been his closest friend in the Hong Kong Police Force, to which they had both been seconded to provide specialist training. Messenger had been his operational partner and was an expert in IT systems, neural networks and covert electronic surveillance. In the intervening period between then and now, Messenger had created an Internet phenomenon, the confess-confess website. This was the first site of its kind dedicated to exposing crimes and injustice, scams and confessions, scandals and secrets. It had a global army of amateur sleuths and investigators and was continually battling against legal writs, threats and intimidation. And yet, it had captured the imagination of the public and was now used by officials, the media, law enforcement agencies, and organised crime, to leak both real information and misinformation. Bob Messenger himself had become one of the most potent voices and champions of freedom and truth.

"Bob, good to hear from you. You still in the UK?"

’You bet. We’re still in Oxford. But we’re opening offices all over the world. In a couple of days we’re launching our second US office in Chicago."

"You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to find me."

"I guessed where you’d be when you weren’t at the house," Messenger said quietly. "Remember, I called you as soon as I heard about Maria. The police have only issued a series of brief press releases up to now despite the media speculation. When you told me what had happened I just found it totally incredible. So, I’m one of few people right now who knows most of the details," he paused. "Look, Mike, this is not just a social call, old friend. I need to see you."

"It would be great to get together again. It’s been a long time. What’s the urgency?"

"We’ve had a disturbing post on the site. I haven’t made it public and I’m not going to yet."

"It sounds mysterious."

"It’s more than that, Mike. It’s grim. And it concerns you."

Delaney remained silent for a long moment. Then he said.

"What do you mean?"

Messenger paused this time. "Mike, it’s about Maria."

Delaney stiffened, suddenly deadly serious and intense. "Go on," he said.

Messenger seemed to be struggling for words. "It’s probably a hoax or a weirdo crank. But there is something about it that makes my skin prickle."

"Bob, get to the point."

"It’s a confession, Mike. He claims to be the one who murdered Maria. The post includes an audio clip. I remember you mentioned the tape recording but this is the first time I’ve heard it. Mike, he knows details that you never told me about. It just might be genuine."

Delaney said nothing for a long moment. He walked around the office. He was thinking hard. A well of emotion was bubbling under his usual iron self-control. Maria Montalban had been the most important thing in his life. She had changed his world beyond recognition. And she had been carrying their child when she met her untimely and gruesome death at the hands of a maniac, someone whom Delaney would passionately like to find.

"Who else knows about this?" he asked Messenger.

"Only Laura."

Laura was Bob Messenger’s loyal and long serving personal assistant. Delaney knew her and trusted her.

"What about the police?" he asked.

"No, not yet."

"What’s your gut feel?"

"You’ve got to see this for yourself. Who knows? It could be a crank. It could be a cop with a grudge. It could be someone who’s uncovered a little information and is just making waves but the confession tape details have never been made public and this sick individual knows things that give me the impression that it just might be authentic. How else would he have the recording? And I think you were right. Whoever murdered Maria was not the same person that torched your house."

"I know. I’ve salvaged everything I could from Maria’s office, which is what they were trying to destroy, and I’ve cleared the wreckage. I just haven’t been able to go back since the funeral."

"I understand, old friend. So, what do you think?"

"Okay, I’ll meet you in Chicago. And thanks for the call, Bob."

Delaney scribbled down details of the time and the launch venue and replaced the receiver. However hard he tried, he could not prevent the here and now, with all its stabbing pain and heartache, from overwhelming the deeply meditative states he was able to reach. The wounds were still too raw; the memories too recent; the feeling of bereft loss almost impossible to bear. He would never be a saint or a sage that was for sure.

Only advanced human beings like Brother Rama could ever hope to achieve that state of mental and spiritual development beyond the confines of religion and science. But he had made himself a promise, if not a vow, that he would endeavour never again to take another human life. He deliberately blocked out the memories of those deaths he had already been responsible for. That was then. This is now. And they all were mostly, in crude terminology, bad guys; even though his conscience told him they had as much right to life as he did.

The phone call from Bob Messenger had fanned the burning rage inside him. He knew that one day he would find Maria’s killer. He would track down the one who had murdered his wife. He would never give up. And when he did find him, there would be no agonising over right and wrong, no anguished discussion or metaphysical musings. He knew he would be in for the battle of his life. And not just a physical battle with someone that had infected his soul with hate. When it came to it, and he was face-to-face with his wife’s killer, would he be able to keep his pledge?

Or would he take his revenge and enjoy every moment?               

Next Chapter: Confess-confess