“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.