Entering the room behind the abbot, the two monks paused to offer each of the standing daggers a formal salute. Hands pressed flat together, they bowed low from the waist, lightly touching the tips of their fingers to forehead, throat, and heart in a gesture of reverence.
On the side of the room opposite the door stood a low dais, luxuriously carpeted and strewn with flat cushions of rich brocade. To this the abbot mounted, seating himself cross-legged on one of the pillows and beckoning his two subordinates to places before him. As they settled, a servant dispensed Tibetan tea laced with butter and salt into bowls of fine porcelain ornamented with gold leaf. Only after he had withdrawn did the abbot speak, lifting his bowl in salute.
"You have returned in good time," he said, in his fluent, unaccented Tibetan. "Tell me how you fared in your mission."
"The news we bring is mixed, Rinpoche," said the younger monk. "Finding the cave presented no difficulty. The signs were all there to be read with the eyes of knowledge. We entered and found the submarine resting where the records said she would be. Regrettably, however, our visit did not go unnoticed."
The abbot's brow furrowed. "Explain."
The elder monk inclined his head. "A man came ashore from a boat. A second remained with the craft. They must have glimpsed us from the water and become curious enough to investigate. An unfortunate trait. Both have been eliminated, and will cause no further interference."
' 'And what of the submarine itself?'' the abbot asked.
"The vessel appears to be intact," the first monk allowed, "but we were unable to gain entry."
"The hatches are rusted fast," the second monk explained.
"We were reluctant to apply such force as was available to us, lest we risk damage to what lies within."
The abbot paused to consider this piece of reasoning, then nodded his agreement.
"Your decision was wisely made. This is a task requiring ordinary tools, and men who know how to use them properly. Furthermore, they must be Westerners who will not arouse suspicion by their presence in the area where the submarine is hidden. I want no further instances of local people getting curious."
The two monks traded glances. The younger one pulled a slight frown, the first trace of emotion he had shown since his arrival.
"Where are we to find such men, Rinpochel If we hire such from the immediate vicinity, there is no way to ensure their silence."
"There are other difficulties, as well," put in his counterpart. "Now that we have seen where the submarine is hidden, it is clear there will be problems with transport. There are no roads readily accessible from the area in question. Moreover, we are given to understand that the political situation in this area is one that will demand careful handling."
He directed an inquiring look toward his superior. The abbot did not immediately respond, but after a moment's thought, he squared his broad shoulders.
"At dawn, I will instruct Lutzen to consult the oracle," he declared. "In the meantime, you have done well, and have earned your rest. You may retire until morning, when I trust I shall have further instructions for you."
Chapter Three
ON the Monday following Peregrine's wedding, Adam breakfasted early before driving off to the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, where he ranked as a senior psychiatric consultant. Checking at his office before his first appointment of the day, he found a message on his desk from one of the secretaries, informing him of a telephone call from Noel McLeod half an hour before.
The Inspector says not an emergency, the secretary had written, but would be grateful if you could ring him back at your earliest convenience.
Adam frowned slightly, wondering what was afoot, but a glance at his pocket watch confirmed that he had only a few minutes before he was due to see his first patient. The relevant case file was lying on his desktop. Since he wanted to review his notes from the last session, he decided to take McLeod at his word and leave off returning the call until after this morning's session.
He skimmed the top few pages from the file, then headed for the treatment room, while memory supplied the background details of the case. The patient, a young man named Colin Balfour, was suffering from an acute form of obsessive behavior. Morbidly repelled by dirt, he would spend hours washing his hands, sometimes scrubbing until his skin was rubbed raw. In the crisis that had led to his hospitalization, he had taken Jye to his hands; fortunateJy, a neighbor had heard his screams and gotten help. The hands would heal with little scarring, but the psychic scarring that had prompted the attempted mutilation would require more delicate treatment.
It was not a question of finding the underlying cause. That had become clear very early on in their work together. As a child of about seven or eight, Balfour had been sexually abused by an older cousin, who had terrorized him into keeping silent with threats of reprisals. Now, some fifteen years later, Balfour was desperately trying to wash away the psychic residue of shame, confusion, and misplaced guilt.
"Just thinking about it makes me feel unclean," he had told Adam, the day he finally had opened up about this shadow from his past. "I feel grimy right down to the marrow of my bones. 1 keep asking myself how I could ever have let myself be used that way, if some part of me didn't want it to happen. I mean, I let it go on and never told anyone. So I was as guilty as my cousin, wasn't I?"
The questions Balfour had posed for himself were ones Adam had encountered elsewhere in similar cases. For this young man, as for many other victims of abuse, the traumatizing effects of the experience itself had been exacerbated by anger and a soul-sickening conviction that somehow he must have been at least partly to blame for what had happened to him. Adam had helped him work through much of the rage in their earlier sessions; today, he hoped to begin working on the misplaced guilt.
That entailed getting at Balfour's memory of the traumatic episodes, which would have been distorted by time and his growing obsession. Fortunately, hypnosis offered one effective means by which the patient himself could bring the important details of the past into focus, whilst deriving needful comfort and support from the companion-presence of his therapist. Adam had explored the possibility of hypnotic regression at their last therapy session, and Balfour had agreed, though without much enthusiasm.
As soon as Adam entered the therapy room, however, he could see that his patient would be needing some renewed encouragement. Balfour was slumped despondently in his chair, bandaged hands resting listlessly in the lap of his tan hospital-issue dressing gown. Adam greeted him cordially, without alluding to the other man's moody behavior. Moving round to the chair on the opposite side of the desk, he made a relaxed show of sitting down and consulting his notes.
"Well, it seems we've got plenty of work to do today," he observed genially. "Are you still willing to try that experiment we spoke of last time?''
Balfour seemed to hunch down even further between his shoulder blades, like a turtle retreating into its shell.
"I suppose so," he mumbled. "I guess it couldn't hurt." His expression was morose, his manner withdrawn.