Bulletproof Monk

By J.M. Dillard

1943 -- the Year of the Ram. In the Temple of Sublime Truth, high in the Himalayas, a master monk prepares to transfer an ancient scroll to his young protégé. The scroll holds the key to an unspeakable power, one which in the wrong hands could destroy the world. According to prophecy, the young monk will become the steward of the scroll for the next sixty years -- five times the Year of the Ram. But to do so, he must sacrifice everything he has -- including his name.
Present day -- the Year of the Ram. It is time to pass the scroll and its secrets on to a new guardian, one chosen by destiny and revealed through the fulfillment of the three Noble Prophecies. But the bulletproof monk has no students. He's far from home, in another world, another time, and an old adversary from one of history's most evil chapters is closing in. Though he is hunted and alone, fate throws the monk together with a very talented but undisciplined -- and unorthodox -- young pickpocket named Kar. Could this be the disciple he's been searching for? Could Kar possibly have the strength and the will to be entrusted with this task? Can a common thief possibly be enlightened? Maybe -- but they may not survive long enough to find out.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Release date: Apr 11, 2003
• ISBN: 9780743482653

J.M. Dillard

J.M. Dillard grew up coddled in the wilds of central Florida. After leaving her mother’s sheltering arms, she left Florida to reside in various locales, including Washington, DC, Vermont, and southern California. She herself now coddles a two-hundred-pound husband and two ninety-pound Labradors, all of whom are well-trained but persist in believing themselves to be lapdogs. She is the author of a plethora of Star Trek® books; as Jeanne Kalogridis (her evil alter-ego), she is the author of the acclaimed Diaries of the Family Dracul trilogy, and the historical fantasy The Burning Times.

Book preview

1

Waiting on the platform, Kar was already whistling a brisk, tone-deaf little melody by the time the subway car came screaming into the station. Bishop Square was his favorite station, and he watched as the doors of the train opened, and his plump and juicy prey came spilling out: Wall Street types, most of them, with thousand-dollar briefcases and glistening gold Rolexes on their wrists.

He hoisted his well-worn duffel bag over his shoulder and jostled his way into the crowd. He liked his work, he told himself; he was cheerful, he told himself. Today was just like any other day.

Truth was, for the past several weeks, a restlessness had come over him: he had begun to question himself, his life, why he lived as he did. This morning, he had crawled from his bed with an uncharacteristic tightness in his gut, a sense—was it foreboding, or anticipation?—that today everything was about to change.

He had scolded himself then:Quit with the sensitive jerk stuff—so you feel your life is empty, blah, blah, blah. Quit letting your nerves get to you. You’re just worried about getting caught, that’s all. And it’s not going to happen. You’re too good.

It was bogus, this sense of guilt—he hadn’t exactly had an easy life. And he was at least decent enough to steal only from the rich—me and Robin Hood—who could easily afford to lose a twenty-thousand-dollar watch here, a Prada bag there, an Hermès scarf or a wallet loaded with cash and credit.Hell, they’re probably all insured. At least they all had mothers and fathers—rich ones, most likely, who’d sent them to the best schools, given them every opportunity in life. And they had real names and knew their family history, and hadn’t had to grow up fighting for survival on the streets.

Kar set to work. Not exactly the nine-to-five variety: this particular job required exquisite skill and even better timing. He conjured up a look of innocence in his wide eyes and accidentally bumped into his first victim: a guy in a three-piece gray pinstripe Armani and polished wing tips that cost more than Kar’s annual rent. Kar brushed an elbow against him, slipped a hand into the guy’s rear pocket—too quickly for the victim to feel, much less see—and deftly slipped the captured wallet into the duffel bag.

Victim number two: female in high-heeled Manolo Blahnik pumps, wearing a diamond Rolex. Kar pumped up the charm, accidentally brushing against her arm, then smiled in apology—such a dazzling little grin that she smiled back, oblivious of the fact that her Rolex was now safely inside the duffel bag.

Kar turned away, slightly disgusted. He bore no ill will toward the young woman, but—diamonds, no less. The watch must have been worth thirty, forty grand…and people in the city were going hungry.

He turned to his next mark, scarcely noticing the person itself, only the pocket, bulging with cash, that called to him from a pair of nearby khaki pants. Almost of its own accord, his hand fished into the pocket, effortlessly withdrew a wad of cash…

…and was immediately slapped with a steel cuff. A snap, and suddenly both hands were cuffed.

Kar stared up into the face of his intended mark: a uniformed cop, who held the chain leading to the cuffs tightly in a large, thick-fingered fist.

You picked the wrong pocket to pick, prick, the cop sneered. He was a large man, broad-faced, broad-shouldered, used to intimidating others with his bulk. Beside him, Kar looked like the skinny kid he was. Anyone standing on the subway platform with spare change to bet on the outcome of the encounter would have put all their money on the cop.

Kar was not in the least bit shaken: he’d made the same mistake before, with similar results. For an instant, he regarded the policeman with a purely pleasant expression.

And then he spun around, hands a blur, moving so quickly his eyes could not even follow what his own fingers were doing—but his brain knew, and that was all that mattered. He snatched the key from the burly man’s grip and wriggled his hands from the cuffs, then just as swiftly slapped one on the cop’s wrist and the other one to a railing.

Before the policeman could even register what had happened, Kar favored him with his best, boyish Kar grin. Sorry about that, Officer. Nice cuffs. His tone wasn’t particularly sarcastic; Kar in factwas sorry that the cop had caught him, and forced him into the unpleasantness. And theywere nice handcuffs: cold, quality steel.

He took off into the crowd, listening with one ear as the officer pulled out a walkie-talkie and shouted into it. Officer needs assistance! Perpetrator on foot, heading northbound on Bishop Square platform! Repeat: northbound on Bishop Square platform!

Outside on the street level, the dirty sidewalk was filled with rush-hour commuters, all hurrying to make their way home; a few stopped at the corner newsstand to make a quick purchase of a magazine, a newspaper. One man among them, however, stood calmly studying a headline: from him radiated a sense of quintessential stillness. He was in no rush to go home; it had been destroyed by Germans some sixty years before, followed shortly by the Chinese Communists.

Yet in all that time, the monk had not aged: his hair was still jet black, his face unlined, his body as strong and firm as it had been the day his beloved master transferred the power of the scroll to him. Indeed, the overcoat he wore, acquired soon after he had made his escape to the West, showed more signs of his travels than he did himself: the fabric was shiny, almost threadbare in places.

And, slung over his shoulder, he still bore the bamboo case that housed the sacred scroll, just as he had every day for the past six