The Kingdom fa-3 Read online

  Together, they sat down at the table. The space in which the Kathmandu police were keeping them wasn’t so much a cell as it was a holding room. The cinder-block walls and the floor were painted a light gray, and the table and chairs (all bolted to the floor) were made of heavy aluminum. Before them, across the table, was a four-foot-wide mesh-embedded window through which they could see the squad room. Half a dozen uniformed officers were going about their business, answering phones, writing reports, and chatting. So far, except for a few polite but firm commands in rough English, no one had spoken to them in the two hours since they’d been “rescued.”

  Riding in the back of the police van in the rapidly fading dusk light, Sam and Remi had watched the passing scenery, looking for the slightest clue as to where they had emerged from the cave system. Their answer had come almost immediately as they crossed over the Chobar Gorge bridge and turned northeast toward Kathmandu proper.

  Their underground march to freedom had brought them to the surface a mere two miles from where they’d entered. This realization brought first a smile to Sam’s and Remi’s lips and then, to the bewilderment of the two police officers in the front seat, a gale of laughter that lasted a full minute.

  “Any clue as to who raised the alarm?” Remi now asked Sam.

  “None. As far as I can tell, we’re not under arrest.”

  “We have to assume they’re going to question us. What’s our story going to be?”

  Sam thought for a moment. “As close to the truth as possible. We came out here a little before sunrise for a day hike. We got lost and wandered around until they found us. If they push, just stick with ‘I’m not sure.’ Unless they found our equipment, they can’t prove otherwise.”

  “Got it. And providing we don’t get thrown into a Nepali prison for some obscure crime?”

  “We’ll need to retrieve the-”

  Sam stopped talking, his eyes narrowed. Remi followed his gaze through the window to the far left side of the squad room near the door. Standing at the threshold were Russell and Marjorie King.

  “I wish I could say I was surprised,” Remi muttered.

  “Just as we suspected.”

  Across the squad room, the sergeant in charge spotted the King twins and hurried over to where they were standing. The trio began talking back and forth. Though neither Sam nor Remi could hear the conversation, the sergeant’s mannerisms and posture told the tale: he was subservient, if not a little frightened. Finally the sergeant nodded and hurried back into the squad room. Russell and Marjorie stepped back into the hallway.

  A few moments later Sam and Remi’s door opened, and the sergeant and one of his underlings stepped inside. They took the seats opposite the Fargos. The sergeant spoke Nepali for a few seconds, then nodded to his underling, who said in heavily accented but decent English, “My sergeant has asked that I translate our conversation. Is this acceptable?”

  Sam and Remi nodded.

  The sergeant spoke, and a few seconds later the translation came: “If you would, please confirm your identities.”

  Sam replied, “Have we been arrested?”

  “No,” the officer replied. “You are being temporarily detained.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “Under Nepali law, we are not required to disclose the answer to that question at the present time. Please confirm your identities.”

  Sam and Remi did so, and for the next few minutes they were taken through a series of routine questions-Why are you in Nepal? Where are you staying? What prompted your visit?-before getting down to substance.

  “Where were you going when you got lost?”

  “Nowhere in particular,” Remi responded. “It seemed like a lovely day for a hike.”

  “You parked your car at Chobar Gorge. Why?”

  “We heard it was a beautiful area,” said Sam.

  “What time did you arrive?”

  “Before dawn.”

  “Why so early?”

  “We’re restless souls,” Sam replied with a smile.

  “What does that mean?”

  “We like to stay busy,” said Remi.

  “Please tell us where your hike took you.”

  “If we knew that,” Sam said, “we probably wouldn’t have gotten lost.”

  “You had a compass with you. How did you lose your way?”

  “I flunked out of Boy Scouts,” said Sam.

  Remi chimed in. “I only sold cookies in the Girl Scouts.”

  “This is not a laughing matter, Mr. and Mrs. Fargo. Do you find this funny?”

  Sam put on his best chastised expression. “Apologies. We’re exhausted and a little embarrassed. We’re grateful you found us. Who alerted you we might be in trouble?”

  The officer translated the question. His sergeant grunted something, then spoke again. “My sergeant asks that you restrict yourselves to answering his questions. You said you planned to go on a daylong hike. Where were your backpacks?”

  “We didn’t expect to be gone that long,” Remi said. “We’re not the best planners, either.”

  Sam nodded sadly to emphasize his wife’s point.

  The officer asked, “You expect us to believe you went on a hike with no equipment whatsoever?”

  “I had my Swiss Army knife,” Sam said drily.

  At this translation, the sergeant glanced up and glared at Sam, then Remi, then stood up and stalked from the room. “Please wait here,” the officer said, and left the room.

  Not surprisingly, the sergeant walked straight through the squad-room door to the hallway. Sam and Remi could see only his back; Russell and Marjorie were out of view. Sam stood up, walked to the far-right side of the window, and pressed his face against it.

  “Can you see them?” Remi asked.

  “Yep.”

  “And?”

  “The twins look unhappy. Not a smarmy smile in sight. Russell’s gesturing . . . Well, this is interesting.”

  “What?”

  “He’s mimicking the shape of a box-a box that looks remarkably like the same size as the chest.”

  “That’s good. I imagine they’ve searched the area in which they found us. Russell wouldn’t be asking for what’s already been found.”

  Sam stepped back from the window and hurried back to his seat.

  The sergeant and his officer stepped back into the room and sat down. The questioning resumed, this time with a bit more intensity, and in a roundabout fashion designed to trip up Sam and Remi. The gist of the queries remained the same, however: we know you had to have had belongings, where are they? Sam and Remi took their time and stuck to their story, watching as the sergeant’s frustration grew.

  At last the sergeant resorted to threats: “We know who you are and what you do for a living. We suspect you have come to Nepal in search of black market antiquities.”

  “On what do you base your suspicions?” Sam asked.

  “Sources.”

  “You’ve been misinformed,” said Remi.

  “There are several statutes under which you can be charged, all of which carry serious penalties.”

  Sam leaned forward in his chair and fixed the sergeant’s gaze. “Charge away. Right after we’re booked we’ll want to talk to the legal attache at the U.S. embassy.”

  The sergeant held Sam’s eyes for a long ten seconds, then leaned back and sighed. He said something to his underling, then stood up and left the room, banging the open door against the wall as he left.

  The underling translated, “You are free to go.”

  Ten minutes later, back in their own clothes, Sam and Remi were out the front door of the police station and walking down the steps. Dusk was falling. The sky was clear, and a scattering of diamond-speck stars began to shine. Streetlights illuminated the cobblestoned street below.

  “Sam! Remi!”

  Expecting this, neither of them were surprised when they turned to see Russell and Marjorie hurrying down the sidewalk toward them.

  “We just heard
,” Russell said, trotting up. “Are you okay?”

  “Tired, a little embarrassed, but no worse for wear,” Sam replied.

  They’d already decided to stick to their got-lost-on-a-hike story with the King twins. It was a precarious dance; everyone knew Sam and Remi were lying. What would Russell and Marjorie do about it? Better question: as it now seemed clear that Charlie King had a wholly different agenda than the one he’d shared with Sam and Remi, how would they proceed? What was King after, and what was the true story behind Frank Alton’s disappearance?

  “We’ll take you to your car,” Marjorie said.

  “We’ll collect it in the morning,” replied Remi. “We’re going back to the hotel.”

  “Better we get it now,” Russell said. “If you’ve got gear inside-”

  Sam couldn’t help but smile at this. “We don’t. Good night.”

  Sam took Remi’s arm, and together they turned and started walking in the opposite direction. Russell called, “We’ll call you in the morning!”

  “Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” Sam replied without turning.

  HOUSTON, TEXAS

  “Hell, yes, I’d say they’re off the reservation,” Charles King barked, reclining in his plush office chair. Behind him, the cityscape filled his floor-to-ceiling window.

  Half a world away, Russell and Marjorie King said nothing over the speakerphone. They knew better than to interrupt their father. When he wanted to know something, he would ask a question.

  “Where the hell were they all day?”

  “We don’t know,” Russell replied. “The man we hired to follow them lost them southwest of the-”

  “Hired? What d’ya mean, hired?”

  “He’s one of our . . . security men at the dig site,” Marjorie said. “He’s trustworthy-”

  “But incompetent! How about gettin’ somebody with both those glowin’ attributes? Ever consider that? Why’d you hire someone? What were you two doin’?”

  “We were at the site,” said Russell. “We’re getting ready to ship the-”

  “Never mind. Doesn’t matter. Could the Fargos have been in that cave system?”

  “It’s possible,” replied Marjorie, “but we’ve been through it. There’s nothing to find.”

  “Yeah, yeah. The question is, if they were, how’d they find out about it? You gotta make sure they’re gettin’ only the info we want them to get, understand?”

  “Yes, Dad,” replied Marjorie and Russell in unison.

  “What about their belongin’s?”

  “We went through them,” said Russell. “And their car. Our man in the police department questioned them for an hour, but no luck.”

  “Did he twist their arms, for God’s sake?”

  “As far as he could.”

  “The Fargos were unfazed, he said.”

  “What’d they say they’d been doin’?”

  “They claimed they got lost on a hike.”

  “Bull crap! This is Sam and Remi Fargo we’re talkin’ about. I’ll tell you what happened: you two screwed up somehow, and the Fargos got suspicious. They’re runnin’ circles around you two. Put a bunch of people on ’em. I want to know where they’re goin’ and what they’re doin’. You got that?”

  “You can count on us, Dad,” said Marjorie.

  “That’d be a nice change,” grumbled King. “In the meantime, I’m not takin’ any more chances. I’m sendin’ reinforcements.”

  King leaned forward and stabbed the speakerphone’s Disconnect button. Standing on the other side of the desk, her hands folded before her, stood Zhilan Hsu.

  “You are hard on them, Charles,” she said quietly.

  “And you coddle ’em!” King shot back.

  “Until this latest incident with the Fargos, they’ve done well for you.”

  King frowned, and gave an annoyed shake of his head. “I s’pose. Still, I want you to get out there, make sure this thing don’t go too far off the rails. Somethin’s got the Fargos’ backs up. Take the Gulfstream and get out there. Fix ’em. That Alton character too. He’s useless now.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “Get the Fargos to play their part. Failin’ that . . . Nepal’s a big place. Plenty of room for people to disappear.”

  11

  HYATT REGENCY HOTEL,

  KATHMANDU, NEPAL

  In the early morning, the phone on Remi’s nightstand was ringing. “Sam, did you do this on purpose? A wake-up call. Do you know what time it is?”

  Sam picked up the phone and said, “We’ll be there in forty-five minutes.”

  “Be where?” Remi demanded.

  “As I promised. A Himalayan hot stone massage for you and a deep tissue massage for me.”

  “Fargo,” said Remi with wide smile, “you’re a treasure.”

  She slid out of bed and dashed to the bathroom as Sam answered a knock on the door. Room service delivered the breakfast he’d ordered the night before: Remi’s favorite, corned beef hash and poached eggs, and, for him, scrambled eggs with salmon.

  He’d also ordered coffee and two glasses of pomegranate juice.

  While they ate, they turned their attention to the mysterious chest that sat on the couch across from their table. Remi poured a second cup of coffee as Sam dialed up Selma.

  “Do you think King had Alton kidnapped?” Selma asked.

  “To get us here,” Remi offered, taking a sip of coffee.

  Selma chimed in, “Get you there on the pretext of looking for Frank and then . . . what?”

  “False flag,” Sam murmured, then explained: “It’s an espionage term. An agent is recruited by an enemy posing as an ally. The agent thinks his mission is one thing, but it’s actually something altogether different.”

  “Oh, great,” Remi remarked.

  “It’s a house of cards,” Sam agreed. “If that’s what King is up to, his ego wouldn’t let him entertain the idea of the plan derailing.”

  “Then you don’t know if you’re actually looking for Lewis King or not. Or whether there was even a sighting of him.”

  “Charlie doesn’t strike me as the sentimental type. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s not so much his father Charlie is chasing but perhaps what his father was chasing.”

  “The chest you found?” Selma suggested.

  “As I said, a guess,” replied Sam.

  The night before, rather than returning to the hotel, Sam and Remi had walked south of the police station until they were out of view, then turned north and flagged a cab. Sam ordered the driver to meander around the city for ten minutes as he and Remi watched for signs of surveillance. They had little doubt the King twins intended to follow them, and they were giving them no time to set up.

  Once certain they were not being followed, Sam ordered the driver to take them to a rental car agency on the southern outskirts of Kathmandu, where they hired a battered green Opel. An hour later they pulled into a motel parking lot a half mile from Chobar Gorge, where they left the car and walked the remaining distance.

  Having memorized landmarks while being driven away by the police, they took less than an hour to find their exit tunnel. Their gear was still inside and apparently untouched.

  “We’re sending it to you via FedEx,” Remi told Selma.

  “If it is what King is after, better we get rid of it. Besides, Selma, you like puzzles; you’re going to love this one. Solve it, and we’ll buy you that fish for your tank . . . the, uh-”

  “Aquarium, Mr. Fargo. A tank is something you put in a child’s bedroom. And the fish is a type of cichlid. Very rare. Very expensive. Its scientific name is-”

  “In Latin, I’m sure,” Sam finished with a chuckle. “Open our Nepali puzzle box, and it’s yours.”

  “You don’t need to bribe me, Mr. Fargo. This is part of my job.”

  “Then call it an early birthday present,” Remi replied. She and Sam shared a smile: Selma did not enjoy celebrating birthdays, especially her own.

  “B
y the way, I heard back from Rube,” Selma said, rapidly changing subjects. “He looked into Zhilan Hsu. He said she’s-and I quote-‘all but invisible.’ No driver’s license, no credit cards, no public records of any kind save one: her immigration record. According to it, she emigrated here on a work visa from Hong Kong in 1990 at the age of sixteen.”

  “Let me guess,” Sam said. “Employed by King Oil.”

  “Correct. But here’s the kicker. She was six months pregnant at the time. I’ve done the math. Her due date roughly coincides with the birth date of Russell and Marjorie.”

  “It’s official,” Remi said. “I doubly don’t like Charlie King. He probably bought her.”

  “A safe bet,” Sam agreed.

  Selma asked, “What’s your next step?”

  “Back to the university. We got a voice mail from Professor Kaalrami. She’s finished the translation of the Devanagari parchment-”

  “Lowa,” Remi corrected. “She said it was written in Lowa.”

  “Right. Lowa,” Sam replied. “With any luck, her colleague can shed some light on the tomb we found-or at least rule out a connection.”

  “And what about Frank?”

  “Assuming King’s behind his kidnapping, our only chance to get him back is leverage. If King thinks we have something he wants, we’ll be in a better position to bargain. Until then, we can only hope King is smart enough not to kill Frank.”

  KATHMANDU UNIVERSITY

  After making certain they were not being followed, Sam and Remi found a FedEx office and mailed the chest. It would take two days and six hundred dollars, the agent told them, but the package would be on a plane by early evening. A bargain, Sam and Remi decided, knowing the chest would be beyond Marjorie and Russell’s reach-provided it was, in fact, of interest to King. Anyway, they had neither the time nor the resources to devote to opening the chest. It was better off in the hands of Selma, Pete, and Wendy.

  Sam and Remi reached the university campus shortly after one o’clock and found Professor Kaalrami in her office. After exchanging pleasantries, they settled around her conference table.

  “This was challenging,” Professor Kaalrami began. “The translation took me nearly six hours.”