"Saatch aur himmat," Abdullah called out as I rode past him.

I waved, and nodded, but I couldn't give the answering call to the slogan. I didn't know how much truth or courage was in my decision to join them on their mission to Sri Lanka. Not much, it seemed to me, as I rode away from them, from all of them, and surrendered to the warm night, and the press and pause of traffic.

A blood-red moon was rising from the sea as I reached the Back Bay road leading to Nariman Point. I parked the bike beside a cold-drink stall, locked it, and threw the keys to the manager, who was a friend from the slum. With the moon behind me, I set out along the footpath beside a long curve of sandy beach where fishermen often repaired their nets and battered boats. There was a festival on that night in the Sassoon Dock area. The celebrations had drawn most of the local people from the huts and shelters on the beach. The road where I walked was almost deserted.

And then I saw her. She was sitting on the edge of an old fishing boat that was half-buried on the beach. Only the prow and a few metres of the long boat's gunnels protruded from the surrounding waves of sand. She was wearing a long, salwar top over loose pants. Her knees were drawn up, and she was resting her chin on her arms as she stared out at the dark water.

"This is why I like you, you know," I said, sitting down beside her on the rail of the beached fishing boat.

"Hello, Lin," she replied, smiling, her green eyes as dark as the water. "I'm glad to see you. I thought you weren't coming."

"Your message sounded kind of... urgent. I nearly didn't get it.

It was just lucky that I ran into Didier on his way to the airport, and he told me."

"Luck is what happens to you when fate gets tired of waiting," she murmured.

"Fuck you, Karla," I replied, laughing.

"Old habits," she grinned, "die hard-and lie harder."

Her eyes moved across my features for a moment, as if she was searching a map for a familiar reference point. Her smile slowly faded.

"I'm going to miss Didier."

"Me, too," I muttered, thinking that he was probably in the air already, and on his way to Italy. "But I think he'll be back before too long."

"Why?"

"I put the Zodiac Georges in his apartment, to look after it."

"Ooooh!" she winced, making a perfect kiss of her perfect mouth.

"Yeah. If that doesn't bring him back quick, nothing will. You know how he loves that apartment."

She didn't answer, but her stare tightened in the intensity of her concentration.

"Khaled's here, in India," she remarked flatly, watching my eyes.

"Where?"

"In Delhi-well, near Delhi, actually."

"When?"

"The report came in two days ago. I had it checked. I think it's him."

"What report?"

She looked away, towards the sea, and breathed a long, slow sigh.

"Jeet has access to all the wire services. One of them sent a report about a new spiritual leader named Khaled Ansari, who walked all the way from Afghanistan, and was pulling in big crowds of followers wherever he went. When I saw it, I asked Jeet to check it out for me. His people sent a description, and it fits."

"Wow... thank God... thank God."

"Yeah, maybe," she murmured. Something of the old mischief and mystery flared in her eyes.

"And you're sure it's him?"

"Sure enough to go there myself," she answered, looking at me once more.

"Do you know where he is-now, I mean?"

"Not exactly, but I think I know where he's going." "Where?"

"Varanasi. Khaderbhai's teacher, Idriss, lives there. He's very old now, but he still teaches there."

"Khaderbhai's teacher?" I asked, stunned to think that in all the hundreds of hours I'd spent with Khader, listening to his philosophy lectures, he'd never mentioned the name.

"Yes. I met him once, right at the start, when I first came to India, with Khader. I was... I don't know... I guess you'd call it a nervous breakdown. There was this plane, going to Singapore.

I don't even know how I got on it. And I broke down-just, kind of, cracked up. And Khader, he was on the same plane. And he put his arm around me. I told him everything... absolutely... everything. And next thing, I'm in this cave with a giant Buddha statue and this teacher named Idriss-Khader's teacher."

There was a pause while she let those memories pull her into the past, but then she shook herself free, and back into the moment.

"I think that's where Khaled is going-to see Idriss. The old guru fascinated him. He was obsessed about meeting him. I don't know why he never got around to it then, but I think that's where he's headed now. Or maybe he's already there. He used to ask me about him all the time. Idriss taught Khader everything he knew about Resolution theory, and-"

"About what?"

"Resolution theory. That's what Khader called it, but he said it was Idriss who gave it that name. It was his philosophy of life, Khader's philosophy, about how the universe is always moving toward-"

"Complexity," I interrupted. "I know. I talked about it a lot with him. But he never called it Resolution theory. And he never talked about Idriss."

"That's funny, because I think he loved Idriss, you know, like a father. Once, he called him the teacher of all teachers. And I know he wanted to retire up there, not far from Varanasi, with Idriss. Anyway, that's where I'm going to start looking for Khaled."

"When?"

"Tomorrow."

"O-kay," I responded, avoiding her eyes. "Is this... is this anything to do with... well, you and Khaled, from before?"

"You can be such a fuck sometimes, Lin, you know that?"

I looked up sharply, but I didn't respond. "Did you know Ulla's in town?" she asked after a while.

"No. When did she get in? Have you seen her?"

"That's just it. I got a message from her. She was at the President, and she wanted to see me right away."

"Did you go?"

"I didn't want to," she mused. "If you got the message, would you have gone?"

"I guess," I answered, staring out at the bay where moonlight crested on the serpent curves of a gently rolling sea. "But not for her. For Modena. I saw him a while ago. He's still nuts about her."

"I saw him tonight," she said quietly.

"Tonight?"

"Yes. Just before. With her. It freaked me out. I went to the hotel and up to her room. There was another guy there, a guy named Ramesh-"

"Modena told me about him. They're friends."

"So, he opens the door, and I walk in, and I see Ulla, sitting on the bed, resting her back against the wall. And Modena, he's lying across her legs, with his head back near her shoulder. That face..."

"I know. It's a hell of a mess."

"It was weird. It was freaking me out, the whole scene. I'm not sure why. And Ulla, she tells me she inherited a lot of money from her father-they're very rich, you know, Ulla's family. They practically own the town in Germany where she was born, but they cut her off cold when she was heavy into drugs. She never got a thing from them for years-not until her father died. So when she inherited the money, she got this idea to come back and look for Modena. She felt guilty, she said, and she couldn't live with herself. And she found him. He was waiting for her. And they were together, when I went to see her, like some... some kind of a love story."

"Damn, if he wasn't right about her," I said softly. "He told me - he knew she'd come back for him, and she really did. I never believed it for a second. I thought he was just crazy."

"The way they were sitting together, with him across her legs.

You know the Pieta? Michelangelo? It looked exactly like that. It was so strange. It really shook me up. Some things are so weird they make you angry, you know?"

"What did she want?" "What do you mean?"

"Why did she call you to the hotel?"