of the New Hope Community. Just twelve miles from here and twenty-four months from completion, our new church is truly evidence that the Lord is smiling down on us. Our community will be a place where you and your children can live and grow in God’s image, a sanctuary of hope away from the evil influences of other religions. Our new gym will offer Christian stretching classes,” he said, winking at Barbara, who smiled up at him, “set to the sounds of our own gospel choir. Your kids can learn martial arts, but they will bow before the Ten Commandments posted on the walls, not some self-proclaimed sensei spouting confusing Zen statements.”
He softened his voice. “I feel so humble to be in the presence of each of you. For you are the ones making God’s plan for our community a reality. Your generous contributions to the Lord have made this dream possible. And we are so close. We are so close, but we are not there yet. I must ask each of you to look deep inside yourselves and ask whether you can give just a little more. We don’t want to shortchange God’s vision. I hope that when you get a phone call next week from our volunteers, you will do what you can.”
Reverend Brady moved to the altar in the center of the stage. “Please take a moment with me to pray silently as we ask for God’s guidance with this holy project.”
Brady knelt at the altar, turning his back on the congregation, who dutifully bowed their heads. A stillness fell over the sanctuary. After three minutes of silence, interrupted only by a few muffled coughs, Brady rose just before the audience grew restless and turned to face his people. His eyes remained closed. Tears streamed down his face. He opened his arms wide, palms upwards. “Can you feel it?” he cried. “The power of our prayer. Can you feel it? The presence of God is here, today, right now. Can you feel it?”
An elderly man in a wheelchair at the back of the church proclaimed in a voice that seemed too strong for his frail body, “God is with us! Hallelujah!” A number of people joined the reverend in his tears.
“Something special is happening here today,” Brady cried out. “We are witnessing something sacred and holy. Come to us, Lord Christ!”
With his last exclamation, the people erupted into a chorus of amens and praise Gods. Brady opened his eyes and surveyed the upturned faces in their ecstasy. The man in the front row had cinched his eyes closed, while his chapped lips mouthed a silent prayer. Leaning on the altar railing, Brady bent over and removed his black Ferragamo loafers. He presented his shoes to the crowd. “We are on sacred ground here today. Let us not soil it with our dirty shoes.” As the five thousand rustled to remove their shoes as well, Brady knelt again in prayer, but this time he faced the audience. His shoes lay on the ground in front of him.
After the rustling quieted, Brady opened his eyes and said, “Praise Jesus.” Without waiting for a response, he picked up his shoes, stood, and walked past the band off the stage.
Once he disappeared through the side curtains, the stunned congregation erupted into the loudest cheers Brady had ever heard. The band and choir took their cue and launched into “Cruising with Jesus,” one of their popular rock-inspired songs. Backstage, Brady strode past the lighting and sound technicians who hovered over their control boards. He stopped by a bank of video monitors overseen by a thin, balding man in a charcoal suit. Brady took the towel the man offered and wiped his face.
“I was really good today, William, wasn’t I?” Brady said more as a statement of fact than as a question needing an answer.
“It was one of your best. You owned them,” replied William Jennings, director of operations of New Hope.
Brady smiled at his number two as he tossed the damp towel, stained with tears, sweat, and smudges of bronze foundation, back to him and continued walking down the corridor.
CHAPTER 3
PUNAKHA, BHUTAN
IN THE DARKNESS, GRANT COULD HEAR soft voices speaking in a language he didn’t understand. He became conscious of an unfamiliar smell: some sort of incense infused in a musty atmosphere. He shifted his weight; his arms felt heavy, as did his head. Gradually, the light returned, as if someone had slowly turned up a dimmer switch on his temple. He lay on a lumpy cot in a small room with a stone floor and sand-colored plaster walls. A pair of candles burned on a simple wooden desk by a narrow window. A second smaller table by his bed contained a carved wooden bowl and a hand-hammered tin cup.
Three men stood by the door, whose heavy timbers, painted a kaleidoscope of reds, yellows, and blues, provided the only color in the drab room. The men stopped speaking and turned their heads toward him.
“Where am I?” Grant croaked. His swollen tongue filled his dry mouth. He tried unsuccessfully to raise himself on his elbows. “What happened?”
The men approached his bed. Grant recognized two as monks because of their robes, sandals, and shaved heads, but the third was dressed in a gho—a plaid, knee-length woolen robe whose sleeves were rolled into cuffs exposing a hint of a white shirt worn underneath. On his feet the man wore leather shoes and argyle socks. Grant had first encountered the traditional Bhutanese garb on his arrival at the Paro airport. How many days ago, he was no longer sure.
The man in the gho responded in heavily accented in English, “Don’t try to move.” In answer to the confused look on Grant’s face, he said, “My name’s Karma. I am the Punakha drungtsho—the town’s doctor. You suffered a complete fracture of your right tibia. Worst I’ve seen.”
For the first time, Grant became aware of his right leg, elevated on a folded blanket. He touched the rough plaster cast that ran from his hip to his toes. Then he glanced at his watch, a digital sports model with a waterproof band of rubber. The push of a button gave him the barometric pressure, altitude, and temperature—all for under a hundred dollars. Grant’s favorite feature, though, was the tiny radio receiver that kept the time and date precisely set to the second. He was never late to an appointment.
When his eyes focused on the date, he shouted, “Four days!”
“You’ve been unconscious,” Karma told him. “Should have died on the river from loss of blood, but your wet suit acted as a compression bandage and restricted the bleeding until these two rescued you.” He nodded toward the monks.
Grant turned to catch a better look at them. The older one was dressed in a neatly wrapped orange robe that fell to his ankles. Judging from the salt-and-pepper stubble sprinkled across his shaved head, the monk was in his late fifties. His face was angular, with prominent cheek and jaw bones that joined to a point at his chin. The monk studied Grant with black eyes that were Asian in character but wide in shape, and placed close together. His unblinking gaze should have been disconcerting, but for a reason Grant couldn’t explain, he found it comforting. His younger companion, who couldn’t have been much over twenty, had a rounder face with a mixture of Tibetan and Chinese features. Several inches shorter than the older monk, and wearing crimson rather than orange robes, he was skinny in a still-filling-out sort of way.
“Thank you,” Grant said to all three men, his fingers tapping his cast. “But what ...” As if a projector in his head had suddenly come to life, the recent events replayed for him: the river, the rush of the cold water, grasping for his guide’s kayak, the panic of being trapped underwater. From the corner of his eye he spotted his PFD on the floor by the table. Instinctually, he touched the wool blanket covering his chest. He guessed what had happened. When he blacked out from the breaking of his leg and lack of oxygen, the current must have pulled him free of the boulder. The flotation device would have shot him to the surface.
“My
