Depth Charge by Jason Heaton (carter reed .txt) 📗

the site where the Taprobane went down,” Sam said as she unpacked the water bottles and shoved them into a small refrigerator.

“Well, why don’t we all chat about it after we get settled in our room,” Ian said, his arms still full of dive gear from the van.

“Sure thing,” Sam said. “I tried to tidy it as best I could. I put Upali’s things in a duffel bag in the corner and laid some clean sheets on the table. Sorry, it’s as far as I got.”

“No problem, we’ll manage,” Tusker said. “So, I didn’t ask. You work here with Sebastian?”

Sam chuckled. “Sometimes I help out here. I’m a marine biologist by training, but this time of year, a lot of people come to dive the Hermes and I dust off my old dive instructor certificate.”

“Sorry, I didn’t realize…” Tusker stumbled. He felt silly. Now her accent and style made sense. She’d probably studied in England or Australia.

Sam winked. “No worries. Most of my work is now in a lab or office, but every once in a while I like to get wet.”

Tusker blushed. Ian broke in with an exaggerated cough, staring at Tusker.

“Alrighty, then,” Tusker said then turned to leave and picked up his duffel. “We’ll go get settled and catch up with you later. We’re meeting with Dinesh from MOCHA this evening at the China Bay Club to see what he’s found out.”

“Sounds good,” Sam said. “If you need to eat, we serve dinner anytime after seven.”

Ian had turned and was walking up the path towards Room 4, his arms full of dive gear. He gave a side glance at Tusker and grinned. “Careful there, Romeo. She’s clearly out of your league.”

Tusker blushed. “Romance is the last thing on my mind,” he said, as much to convince himself as Ian. He heaped his dive gear against the bare wall and caught sight of Upali’s duffel. Focus, Julian, focus, he thought.

“Right, so what’s the plan then?”

“Let’s hear what Dinesh knows. Then I’d like to get out and dive the Taprobane as soon as possible,” Tusker said as he emptied his duffel on one of the beds. He wondered which one was Upali’s.

As if reading his mind, Ian stepped back and huffed. “Man, it’s hard to believe he’s gone. I mean, just last week…” his voice trailed off.

The room was quiet and cool and dark. The ceiling fan ticked rhythmically above them.

“We’ll find out what happened,” Tusker said finally. “We owe it to Upali.”

The Buddhist Power Army

Kandy, Sri Lanka. Present day.

The Buddhist kingdom of Kandy was the last defiant holdout in Ceylon to foreign rule, fending off Portuguese and Dutch colonists for centuries, while the rest of Ceylon was subjugated. Finally, in 1815, the Kandyan royalty negotiated a truce with the British while maintaining a reputation for dignity and fierce resolve. While Colombo went on to become Sri Lanka’s seat of government and commerce, the city of Kandy, and the mountainous interior that surrounds it, has long remained known as the hub of Sri Lankan Buddhism.

On the shores of picturesque Kandy Lake sits the Sri Dalada Maligawa, the temple of the sacred tooth relic, said to house a molar of the Buddha himself. It is a place of pilgrimage and ceremony for Buddhists and tourists alike. The annual Esala Perehara celebration sees elephant parades, music, and colorful dancers crowd the streets of Kandy in celebration of the tooth relic and Lord Buddha.

The city rises from the rectangular lake’s banks, filling steep, verdant slopes with terraced gardens, old colonial houses, and humble neighborhoods. Orange robed monks are a common sight and the sound of Buddhist chanting mingles with the calls of tropical birds, often from dusk until dawn.

Its headlamps piercing a slashing rain, a black Toyota Land Cruiser crunched up the winding driveway, its mirrors brushing back branches of the banyan trees that tightly lined it. The big truck came to a stop in front of a low slung white building set in a clearing. Its wide eaves, built to fend off just such monsoon rains, were lined with carved wooden filigree—a row of swastikas, the ancient Buddhist symbol said to represent the footsteps of the Buddha. Colorful striped flags hung damp in the deluge. A loudspeaker echoed with the evening chants, lending an eerie reverence to the woodsmoke-tinged air.

Malcolm Rausing climbed out of the passenger seat and deployed a large black umbrella. He waved off Scholz, his driver, and walked towards the temple stairs, deftly stepping around the growing puddles. From the cool interior of the temple emerged a portly monk with a saffron robe slung over his shoulder. Rausing was struck by how smooth the man was: No eyebrows or body hair, head entirely shaved. He smiled and bowed, his palms together in the traditional Buddhist greeting.

“Ayubowan,” said Venerable Udugala Dhammasara, wishing Rausing a long and blessed life, and gestured for him to enter. “Please remove your shoes, Mr. Rausing.” It was a high-pitched, soft voice that was incongruous with his bulk.

“Ayubowan,” Rausing said, half-heartedly pressing his palms together. He slipped out of his shoes and ascended the stairs.

Rausing wondered just how old the Venerable Udugala Dhammasara was. His soft physique and lack of body hair lent him the look of an overgrown infant, yet the creases near his eyes and the way he labored to walk hinted at a man in his sixth or even seventh decade. As his name indicated, he was born in the town of Udugala and joined a monastery near Kandy as a young monk.

During the tumultuous 1980s, when the civil war divided Sri Lanka along ethnic and religious lines, splinter groups of Buddhist monks grew more and more aggressive, inciting riots and violence against the largely Hindu Tamil minority. One vocal leader, Venerable Pahathgoda Gnanaatissa, could even be seen on the front lines of mobs marching through the streets of Colombo, encouraging his followers to burn Tamil businesses, and sometimes, their owners.

This crystalline resolve and singular focus resonated with Dhammasara and he became an acolyte