Текст книги "The Kingdom"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

“Sam?” Remi called.

“It didn’t work!”

“So I gathered!”

“How do you feel about the wanton destruction of fossil artifacts?”

“Generally against it, but this a special occasion!”

“Buy me some time!”

Remi began braking, then speeding up, in hopes of spoiling the shooter’s accuracy. Sam flipped over onto his belly, groped until he found the first ratchet strap securing the crates, and hit the Release button. In short order he had the remainder of the straps free. He crawled to the tailgate and flipped the release; it crashed down.

“Bombs away,” Sam called, and shoved the first crate out. It bounced off the bridge deck, slammed squarely into the truck’s bumper, and burst open. Wood shards and packing hay went flying.

“No effect,” Remi called.

Sam waddled backward, put his shoulder to the entire stack of crates, then braced his feet against the cab wall and began pushing. With a groan, the stack began sliding along the bed. Sam paused, coiled his legs, and shoved hard, like a linebacker going after a blocking sled.

The line of crates slid off the tailgate and began tumbling toward the pursuing truck. Sam didn’t wait to see the results but instead sidestepped to the other stack of crates and repeated the process.

From behind came the squeal of brakes. Shattering glass. The crunch of metal impacting wood.

“That did the trick!” Remi called. “They’re stopped dead in their tracks!”

Sam rose to his knees and looked through the slot at Remi. “But for how long?”

She glanced at him, offered a quick smile. “However long it takes them to dislodge a half dozen crates from under their chassis.”

15

HYATT REGENCY HOTEL,

KATHMANDU, NEPAL

Sam stepped out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and rubbing his hair with another. “You hungry for a nice breakfast?”

“Famished,” replied Remi. She was sitting at a table in front of a mirror, tying her hair into a ponytail. She wore the standard white towel of the hotel.

“Room service or go down to the dining room?”

“The weather is perfect. Let’s dine out on the balcony.”

“Sounds good.” Sam walked over to an end table, picked up the phone, and dialed room service. “I’d like one salmon and a bagel, one eggs Benedict, a bowl of fruit, and sourdough toast and coffee.” He waited until the voice in the kitchen repeated the order correctly. Then he rang off and called the bar.

When the bartender answered, Sam asked, “I’d like two Ramos Fizzes. Yes, a Ramos Fizz.”

“You know how to treat a lady,” said Remi.

“Don’t get your hopes up. He doesn’t know how to make one.” Sam tried again.

“How about a Harvey Wallbanger. Wallbanger. It’s made with vodka, Galliano, and orange juice. I see, no Galliano.” Sam shook his head and tried once more. “All right, send up a bottle of Veuve Clicquot.”

Remi laughed. “You really know how to treat a lady.”

“That’s the best you can do?” said Sam into the phone. “Okay, send it up well chilled.

He set the receiver back in its cradle. “No champagne. The only thing left after a political convention is a sparkling white from China.”

“I didn’t know the Chinese made anything sparkling.” She looked at him with a sarcastic smile. “Is that the best you can do?”

Sam shrugged. “Any port in the storm.”

The phone rang. Sam picked it up. “One moment.” He switched on the speaker.

“Morning, Rube,” Sam said into the speakerphone.

“For you, maybe,” Rube replied. “It’s dinner time here. I hear you and your lovely bride are enjoying yet another relaxing vacation.”

“Everything is relative, Rube,” Remi replied. “How’re Kathy and the girls?”

“Great. They’re at Chuck E. Cheese’s right now. Your call saved me from going.”

“Don’t let us keep you,” Sam said with a half smile. “We can talk later.”

“Oh, no, my friend. There’s nothing more important than this. Trust me. Okay, brief me. Are you in jail? How many local laws have you broken?”

“No. And none that we’re aware of,” Remi replied. “I’ll let Sam explain.”

Though aware Rube had already received some information from Selma, Sam started at the beginning, with Zhilan Hsu boarding their boat near Pulau Legundi and ending with their escape from King’s covert archaeological site.

The night before, after leaving their pursuers stalled on the bridge, Sam had driven through the darkness, looking for signs or landmarks that Remi could match to her map. After several hours of fruitless turns and dead ends, they finally crossed a recognizable mountain pass-the Laurebina-and not long after pulled into the outskirts of Pheda, some twenty miles due east of the camp. Predictably, they’d found the village dark and lifeless save a cinder-block and tin-roofed building that turned out to be the local pub. After breaking through the considerable language barrier, they managed to make a trade with the owner: their truck for his car-a thirty-year-old orange-and-primer gray Peugeot-and directions back to Kathmandu. Just before dawn, they pulled into the Hyatt Regency’s parking lot.

Rube listened to Sam’s story without speaking. Finally he asked, “Let me make sure I understand this: you snuck into King’s camp, witnessed a murder, wreaked havoc with what were probably a guard contingent of Chinese soldiers, then stole one of their trucks that happened to be loaded with black market fossils, which you then used as depth charges to stop your pursuers. Does that about cover it?”

“More or less,” Sam said.

Remi added, “And the thirty or so gigabytes of intelligence we collected.”

Rube sighed. “You know what I did last night? I painted our master bathroom. You two . . . Okay, send me your data.”

“Selma’s already got it. Contact her, and she’ll give you a link to a secure online storage site.”

“Got it. I know my bosses at Langley will be interested in the Chinese angle, and I’m sure we can find someone at the FBI interested in King’s black market fossil operation. I can’t promise any of it will pan out, but I’ll run with it.”

“That’s all we ask,” Sam said.

“There’s a better-than-average chance that King’s already ordered the site shut down. By now, it could be just an abandoned pit in the middle of the forest.”

“We know.”

“What about your friend Alton?”

“We’re half hoping, half guessing we’ve found what King wants,” Remi replied. “Or at least enough to get his attention. We’re calling him after we hang up with you.”

“King Charlie is scum,” Rube warned. “People have been trying to take him down all his life. They’re all dead or ruined, and he’s still standing.”

Remi replied, “Something tells us what we’ve got is very personal for him.”

“The Theurock-”

“Theurang,” Remi corrected. “The Golden Man.”

“Right. It’s a gamble,” Rube replied. “If you’re wrong and King doesn’t give a damn about the thing, all you’ve got are allegations of black market fossil trade-and, like I said, there’s no guarantee anything will stick to him.”

“We know,” Sam replied.

“And you’re going to roll the dice anyway.”

“Yes,” said Remi.

“Big surprise. By the way, before I forget, I’ve learned a little more about Lewis King. I assume you’ve both heard of Heinrich Himmler?”

“Hitler’s best friend and Nazi psychopath?” Sam asked. “We’ve heard the name.”

“Himmler and most of the upper echelon of the Nazi Party were obsessed with the occult, especially as it pertained to Aryan purity and the Thousand Year Reich. Himmler was arguably the most intrigued by it. Back in the thirties and throughout World War Two, he sponsored a number of scientific expeditions to the world’s darkest corners in hopes of finding evidence to support the Nazis’ claims. One of them, organized in 1938, a year before the war started, was dispatched to the Himalayas in search of evidence of Aryan ancestry. Care to guess the name of one of the lead scientists?”

“Lewis King,” Remi replied.

“Or, as he was known then, Professor Lewes Konig.”

Sam said, “Charlie King’s father was a Nazi?”

“Yes and no. My sources tell me he probably joined the party out of necessity, not zealousness. Back then, if you wanted government funding, you needed to be a party member. There are plenty of accounts of scientists joining and doing perfunctory research into Nazi theories so they could conduct pure scientific research on the side. Lewis King was a perfect example of this. By all accounts, he was a dedicated archaeologist. He didn’t give a damn about Aryan bloodlines or ancestry.”

“So why did he go on the expedition?”

“I don’t know, but what you found in the cave-this Golden Man business-is a strong possibility. Unless King was lying, it sounds like soon after Lewis King immigrated to the U.S. he started his globe-trotting.”

“Maybe he found something on Himmler’s expedition that piqued his interest,” Sam speculated.

“Something he didn’t want to end up in the hands of the Nazis,” Remi added. “He kept it to himself, bided his time through the war, then picked up his work again years later.”

“The question is,” Rube said, “why is Charlie King picking up where his father left off? From what we know about him, he never showed the slightest interest in his father’s work.”

“Maybe it’s the Theurang,” Sam said. “Maybe to him, it’s just another fossil to sell.”

“You could be right. If the description of this thing is even remotely accurate, it would be worth a fortune.”

Remi asked, “Rube, do we know whether the Nazi accusations against Lewis ever impacted Charlie?”

“Not that I could find. I think his success speaks for itself. And given how ruthless he is, I doubt anyone has the guts to bring it up anymore.”

“That’s about to change,” Sam said. “Time to push King Charlie’s comfort zone.”

They hung up, talked strategy for a few minutes, then Sam dialed King’s direct line. The man himself picked up on the first ring. “King.”

“Mr. King. Sam Fargo here.”

“I was wonderin’ when you’d get around to callin’. Your pretty wife with you?”

“Safe and sound,” Remi replied sweetly.

“It seems our partnership has hit a rocky patch,” King said. “My kids tell me you ain’t playin’ ball.”

“We’re playing ball,” Sam replied. “Just a different game than you are. Charlie, did you have Frank Alton kidnapped?”

“Kidnapped? Why would I do somethin’ like that?”

“That’s not an answer,” Remi pointed out.

“I sent Frank Alton out there to do a job for me. He got himself in over his head, pissed off the wrong people. I have no idea where he is.”

“Another nonanswer answer,” Sam said. “Okay, let’s move on. All you have to do is listen. We’ve got what you’re after-”

“And what’s that?”

“You’re not listening. We’ve got what you’re after-what your dad spent his lifetime hunting for. And, as you probably guessed, we paid a visit to your concentration camp in the Langtang Valley.”

“I got no idea what you’re talkin’ about.”

“We collected thousands of photos-mostly of documents we found laying around in an office trailer-but a few of them of your wife, or concubine, or whatever you call her in the privacy of your Gulfstream. As luck would have it, when we took the pictures, she was murdering one of your employees. We’ve got a picture of his face as well.”

Charlie King did not respond for a long ten seconds. Finally he sighed. “I think you’re fulla horse crap, Sam, but clearly somethin’s got you excited. You’ve got my attention.”

“First things first. Release Frank-”

“I told you I don’t-”

“Shut up. Release Frank Alton. When we get a call from him saying he’s safe and unharmed in the comfort of his home, we’ll meet with Russell and Marjorie and reach an understanding.”

“Now who’s sayin’ a lot without sayin’ much?” King replied.

“It’s the only deal you’re going to get,” Sam replied.

“Sorry, friend, I’m goin’ to decline. I think you’re bluffin’.”

“Suit yourself,” Sam said, and hung up.

He laid the phone on the coffee table. He and Remi looked at each other. She asked, “Odds?”

“Sixty-forty it rings in under a minute.”

She smiled. “No bet.”

At the fifty-second mark, Sam’s phone trilled. He let it go off three more times, then picked up. Charlie King said, “You’d make a decent poker player, Sam Fargo. Glad we could reach an understanding. I’ll make some calls and see what I can find out about Frank Alton. Can’t promise nothin’, of course, but-”

“If we don’t hear from him in twenty-four hours, the deal is off.”

Charlie King was silent for a few beats. Then, “Keep your phone nearby.”

Sam disconnected.

Remi asked, “What if King thinks we’ve got the evidence with us?”

“He knows better than that.”

“Do you think he’ll follow through?”

Sam nodded. “King’s smart enough to have insulated himself. Whoever took Frank probably made sure their faces were hidden. There’ll be no trail leading back to King, so he’s got nothing to lose and everything to gain by going along.”

“Then why do you look so worried?” Remi asked her husband.

“Do I?”

“You’ve got the squinty-eyed thing going on.”

Sam hesitated.

“Tell me, Sam.”

“We just got done beating up on one of the world’s richest men, a sociopathic control freak who got where he is by crushing his enemies. He’ll release Frank, but something tells me King is sitting in his office planning a counterattack.”

HOUSTON, TEXAS

Eight thousand miles away, Charles King was doing just that.

After hanging up the phone, he paced his office, staring straight ahead but seeing nothing beyond his rage. Muttering to himself, King stalked to his office window and stared out over the city. To the west, the sun was setting.

“Fine, Fargos,” he rasped. “Round goes to you. Enjoy it. Ain’t gonna happen again.” He walked to his desk and stabbed the Intercom button. “Marsha, get me Russell and Marjorie.”

“Yes, Mr. King, one moment.” Thirty seconds passed, then, “Dad-”

“Shut up and listen. Is Marjorie there?”

“I’m here, Daddy.”

“Zhilan?”

“Yes, Mr. King.”

“What in blazes do you three idiots think you’re doin’ out there! The Fargos just called me and whipped me from pillar to post. They say they got pictures of you, Zee, killin’ some local at the Langtang site. What went on there?”

Russell answered, “I got a call this morning from the head of site security. He said they found a suspicious vehicle and raised the alarm. They found one man unconscious, but nothing appeared to be missing.”

“How’d he get knocked out?”

“They’re not sure. He may have fallen.”

“Bull! Did we have any pendin’ shipments?”

“Two trucks,” replied Marjorie. “As soon as the alarm was raised, they were evacuated by Colonel Zhou’s men. It’s standard procedure, Daddy.”

“Don’t lecture me, girl. Did the trucks arrive at the transfer point?”

Russell replied, “We haven’t gotten confirmation yet, but allowing for delays-”

“You’re assumin’. Don’t assume. Pick up the phone and find those trucks.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Zee, what’s this about a killin’? Is it true?”

“Yes. One of the workers was caught stealing. I had to set an example. His body has already been disposed of.”

King paused, then grunted. “Okay, then. Good work. As for you two morons . . . The Fargos told me they’ve got the Golden Man.”

“How?” Marjorie asked. “Where?”

“They’ve got to be lying,” Russell added.

“Maybe so, but this kind of stuff is their bailiwick. It’s why we brought ’em into this. Guess we underestimated them. Figured Alton would be enough to keep ’em in line.”

Marjorie said, “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Daddy.”

“Shut up. We gotta assume they’re tellin’ the truth. They want Alton set loose. Is there any way he could’ve seen anything or could identify anybody?”

Zhilan answered. “I looked into it when I got here, Mr. King. Alton knows nothing.”

“Okay. Go rescue him. Feed ’im, clean ’im up, and put ’im on the Gulfstream. The Fargos said as soon as Alton’s home, they’ll meet with Russell and Marjorie and talk about handin’ over the whatchamacallit.”

“We can’t trust them, Daddy,” said Russell.

“I know that, dummy. Just put Alton on the jet and leave the rest to me. The Fargos wanna play hardball? They’re about to see what real hardball feels like.”

16

JOMSOM VILLAGE,

DHAWALAGIRI ZONE, NEPAL

The single-engine Piper Cub banked sharply and descended through three thousand feet. Sitting on opposite sides of the aisle, Sam and Remi watched the chalky gray cliffs rise up, seemingly swallowing the plane as it lined up for the final approach to the airstrip. Above and beyond the cliffs rose the dark snow-veined peaks of the Dhawalagiri and Nilgiri ranges, their upper reaches half hidden in clouds.

Though they’d left Kathmandu only an hour earlier, their arrival here was just the beginning of the journey; the remainder would take another twelve hours by road. As with everything in Nepal, distances measured on a map were all but useless. Their ultimate destination, the former capital of the Kingdom of Mustang, Lo Monthang, lay only a hundred forty miles northwest of Kathmandu but was inaccessible by air. Instead, their chartered plane would drop them here, in Jomsom, a hundred twenty miles due east of Kathmandu. They would then follow the Kali River Valley north for fifty miles to Lo Monthang, where they would be met by Sushant Dharel’s local contact.

For Sam and Remi, it felt good to be far from the relative bustle of Kathmandu and, hopefully, beyond the reach of the King clan.

The plane continued to descend, rapidly bleeding off airspeed until it was, Sam estimated, flying only a few knots above stall speed. Remi looked at her husband questioningly. He smiled and said, “Short runway. It’s either bleed airspeed up here or slam on the brakes when we’re down.”

“Oh, joy.”

With a squelch and a shudder, the landing gear kissed the tarmac, and soon they were coasting toward a cluster of buildings at the southern end of the runway. The plane braked to a stop, and the engines began winding down. Sam and Remi collected their backpacks and headed for the door, which was already open. A ground crewman in dark blue coveralls smiled and gestured to the stepladder below the door. Remi climbed down, followed by Sam.

They started walking toward the terminal building. To their right, a cluster of goats nibbled at brown grass beside the hangar. Beyond them, on a dirt road, they could see a line of musk ox being herded by an old man in a red beanie and green trousers. Occasionally, he tapped a wayward ox with a switch while making a clucking sound with his mouth.

Remi gathered the collar of her parka closer to her neck and said, “I think this qualifies as brisk.”

“I was going to go with bracing,” Sam replied. “We’re at about ten thousand feet, but there’s a lot less cover.”

“And a lot more wind.”

As if to punctuate Remi’s point, a gust whipped across the tarmac. Clouds of ochre dust obscured their vision for a few seconds before clearing, revealing in greater detail the scenery behind the airport buildings. Several hundred feet tall, the taupe-colored cliffs were deeply grooved from top to bottom, as though carved by giant fingertips. Smoothed by time and erosion, the patterns looked almost man-made-like the walls of some ancient fortress.

Behind them a voice said, “Most of Mustang looks like that. At least the lower elevations.”

Sam and Remi stopped and turned to see a mid-twenties man with shaggy blond hair smiling at them. He asked, “First time?”

“Yes,” Sam replied. “But not yours, I’m betting.”

“Fifth. I’m a trekking junkie, I guess you could say. Jomsom’s sort of the base camp for trekking in this region. I’m Wally.”

Sam introduced himself and Remi, and the trio continued walking toward the terminal buildings. Wally pointed to several groups of people standing along the tarmac’s edge. Most were dressed in brightly colored parkas and standing beside heavy-duty backpacks.

“Fellow trekkers?” asked Remi.

“Yep. A lot of familiar faces too. We’re part of the local economy, I guess you could say. Trekking season keeps this place alive. Can’t go anywhere here without being attached to a guide outfit.”

“And if you’d prefer not to?” asked Sam.

“There’s a company of Nepalese Army troops stationed here,” Wally replied. “It’s a bit of a racket, really, but you can’t blame them. Most of these people make less in a year than we make in a week. It’s not so bad. If you prove you know what you’re doing, most of the guides just tag along and stay out of the way.”

From a nearby group of trekkers a woman called, “Hey, Wally, we’re over here!”

He turned, gave her a wave, then asked Sam and Remi, “Where are you headed?”

“Lo Monthang.”

“Cool place. It’s downright medieval, man. A real time machine. You already got a guide?”

Sam nodded. “Our contact in Kathmandu arranged one.”

Remi asked, “How long should it take to get there? According to the map, it’s-”

“Maps!” Wally replied with a chuckle. “They’re not bad, fairly accurate on the horizontal, but the terrain here is like a piece of wadded-up newspaper that’s only been half flattened out. Everything changes. One day you could pass a spot that’s nice and flat, the next day it’s half choked by a landslide. Your guide will probably follow the Kali Gandaki River ravine most of the way-it should be mostly dry right now-so you should figure sixty miles total. At least twelve hours’ drive time.”

“Which means overnight,” Sam replied.

“Yep. Ask your guide. He’ll either have a nice tent set up or a trekkers’ hut reserved for you. You’re in for a treat. The trail that follows the Kali Gandaki ravine is the deepest in the world. On one side, you got the Annapurna mountains; the other, the Dhawalagiri. In between, eight of the twenty highest mountains in the world! The ravine trail is like a cross between Utah and Mars, man! The stupas and caves alone are-”

The woman called again, “Wally!”

He said to Sam and Remi, “Hey, I gotta go. Nice meeting you. Travel safe. And stay out of chokes after dusk.”

They shook hands all around, and Wally starting jogging toward his group.

Sam called, “Chokes?”

“Your guide will tell you!” Wally called over his shoulder.

Sam turned to Remi, “Stupas?”

“Most commonly known as a chortens here. They’re essentially reliquaries-mound-like structures containing sacred Buddhist artifacts.”

“How big?”

“They can range from the size of a garden gnome to a cathedral. One of the largest is back in Kathmandu, in fact. The Boudhanath.”

“The dome draped in all the prayer flags?”

“That’s the one. Mustang’s got a huge concentration of them, mostly of the gnome-sized variety. Some estimates put the number in the low thousands, and that’s just along the Kali Gandaki River. Up until a few years ago, Mustang was all but off-limits to tourism for fear of desecration.”

“Fargos!” a male voice called. “Fargos!”

A bald Nepalese man in his mid-forties picked his way through a crowd of milling trekkers and trotted toward them, panting, “Fargos, yes?”

“Yes,” Sam replied.

“I am Basanta Thule,” the man replied in decent English. “I am your guide, yes?”

“You’re a friend of Pradhan’s?” Remi said.

The man’s eyes narrowed. “I do not know who that is. I was asked by Mr. Sushant Dharel to meet you. You were expecting someone else? Here, I have identification . . .” Thule began reaching into the side pocket of his jacket.

“No, that’s fine,” Sam replied with a smile. “Good to meet you.”

“And you, and you. Here, I will take those.”

Thule grabbed their backpacks and gestured with his head toward the terminal building. “My vehicle is this way. Follow, if you will.” He trotted off.

Sam said to Remi, “Very tricky, Mizz Bond.”

“Am I growing paranoid in my advancing age?”

“No,” Sam replied with a smile. “Just more beautiful. Come on, let’s catch up or we’re going to lose our guide.”

After a cursory stop at the customs desk to satisfy what Sam and Remi guessed was Mustang’s firm if tacit belief in its semi-autonomous status, Sam and Remi stepped outside and found Thule at the curb beside a white Toyota Land Cruiser. Judging by the dozens of nearly identical vehicles lining the street, each of which seemed to bear a unique trekking company logo, Toyota was the four-wheeler of choice for the region. Thule smiled at them, shoved the remainder of Sam’s backpack in the Toyota’s cargo area, and slammed shut the hatch.

“I have arranged accommodations for the night,” Thule announced.

“We’re not leaving for Lo Monthang immediately?” Remi asked.

“No, no. Very bad luck to start a journey at this time of day. Better to start tomorrow morning. You will eat and rest and enjoy Jomsom, and then we will depart first thing in the morning. Come, come . . .”

“We’d prefer to leave now,” Sam said, not moving.

Thule paused. He pursed his lips, thinking for a moment, then said, “It is your choice, of course, but the landslide will not be cleared until morning.”

“What landslide?” replied Remi.

“Yes, between here and Kagbeni. We would not get more than a few kilometers up the valley. And then there will be the traffic jam, of course. Many trekkers in Mustang now. Better to wait until morning, yes?” Thule opened one of the Toyota’s rear passenger doors and flourished his arm toward the backseat.

Sam and Remi looked at each other, shrugged, then stepped into the SUV.

After ten minutes of the Toyota winding through the narrow streets, Thule brought it to a stop before a building a few miles southeast of the airstrip. The brown-on-yellow sign read “Moonlight Guest House. Tub Baths-Attached Bathrooms-Common Bathrooms.”

With a smile and a raised eyebrow, Remi said, “It appears bathrooms are the big draw in Jomsom.”

“And monochromatic architecture,” Sam added.

From the front seat Thule said, “Indeed. Jomsom offers the best accommodations in the area.”

He got out, hurried around to Remi’s door, and opened it. He offered his hand to her. She graciously took it and climbed out, followed by Sam.

Thule said, “I will collect your luggage. You go inside. Madame Roja will assist you.”

Five minutes later they were in the Moonlight Guest House’s Royal Executive Suite, complete with a queen bed and a sitting area filled with an assortment of wickeresque lawn furniture. As Madame Roja had promised, their bathroom was in fact attached to their suite.

“I will return for you at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning, yes?” Thule said from the doorway.

“Why so late?” Sam asked.

“The landslide will have-”

“The traffic jam,” Sam finished. “Thanks, Mr. Thule. We’ll see you then.”

Sam shut the door. From the bathroom he heard Remi say, “Sam, look at this.”

He found a wide-eyed Remi standing beside a gigantic copper claw-foot tub. “It’s a Beasley.”

“I think the more common term is ‘bathtub,’ Remi.”

“Very funny. Beasleys are rare, Sam. The last one was made in the late nineteenth century. Do you have any idea what this is worth?”

“No, but something tells me you do.”

“Twelve thousand dollars, give or take. This is a treasure, Sam.”

“And it’s the size of a Studebaker. Don’t even think of trying to fit it into your carry-on.”

Remi tore her eyes from the tub and looked at him mischievously. “It is big, isn’t it?”

Sam returned her smile. “Indeed.”

“Care to be my lifeguard?”

“At your service, madam.”

An hour later, clean and happy and prune-skinned, they settled into the sitting area. Through the balcony windows they could see the peaks on Annapurna in the distance.

Sam checked his phone. “Voice message,” he said. He listened to it, gave Remi a wink, and redialed. Selma’s voice came over the speaker thirty seconds later: “Where are you?”

“In the land of wicker and copper,” Sam replied.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing. Do you have good news for us?”

“Here, hang on.”

A moment later a male voice came on the line. It was Frank Alton. “Sam, Remi . . . I don’t know how you did it, but I owe you my life.”

“Nonsense,” Remi replied. “You saved ours in Bolivia a few times over.”

“Are you okay?” Sam asked.

“A few bumps and bruises, but nothing permanent.”

“Have you seen Judy and the kids?”

“Yes, as soon as I got home.”

Sam said, “Selma, how are things?”

“Absolutely awful,” she replied.

“Glad to hear it.”

Based on a healthy respect of Charles King’s reach, and perhaps a tinge of paranoia, Sam and Remi had instituted the “duress rule”: had Selma or any of them been at gunpoint or otherwise in jeopardy, an answer other than “awful” would have raised the alarm.

Remi said, “Frank, what can you tell us?”

“Not much more than you already know, I’m afraid. Selma’s brought me up to speed. While I agree King’s a snake and he’s not telling the whole truth, I have no proof he was behind my kidnapping. I was knocked out and snatched off the street. I never saw them coming. Can’t tell you where I was held. When I woke up, I was blindfolded until they shoved me out of the van again. When I took the blindfold off, I was standing before the stairs to a Gulfstream jet.”

“Speaking of eerie, did you meet the King twins?”

“Oh, those two. They were waiting for me at the airport. I thought I’d walked into a Tim Burton remake of The Addams Family. I’m guessing they’re the product of King and his Dragon Lady?”

“Yes,” Sam replied. “What’s your take on Lewis King?”

“A hundred-to-one that he’s been dead for decades. I think I was just bait for you two.”

“Our thought as well,” Remi agreed. “We’re still working out the details, but we think it was something to do with an old Himalayan legend.”

“The Golden Man,” replied Frank.

“Right. The Theurang.”

“From what little I was able to gather before I was taken, that’s what Lewis King was after when he disappeared. He was obsessed by it. Whether the thing is real or not, I don’t know.”

“We think it is,” Sam replied. “We’re going to see a man in Lo Monthang tomorrow. With any luck, he’ll be able to shed more light on the mystery.”