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“Whichever one I can eat the fastest,” Remi replied. “I’m ready for bed. Got a terrible headache.”
“It’s the thin air. We’re around nine thousand feet. It’ll be better tomorrow.”
Sam had both food packets ready in minutes. Once they finished eating, Sam brewed a couple cups of oolong tea. They sat before the fire and watched the flames dance. Somewhere in the trees an owl hooted.
“If the Theurang is what King is after, I wonder about his motivation,” Remi said.
“There’s no telling,” Sam replied. “Why all the subterfuge? Why the heavy-handedness with his children?”
“He’s a powerful man, with an ego the size of Alaska—”
“And a domineering control freak.”
“That too. Maybe this is how he operates. Trust no one and keep an iron thumb on everything.”
“You may be right,” Sam replied. “But whatever is driving him, I’m not inclined to hand over something as historically significant as the Theurang.”
Remi nodded. “And, unless we’ve misjudged his character, I think Lewis King would agree—alive or dead. He’d want it handed over to Nepal’s National Museum or a university.”
“Just as important,” Sam added, “if for whatever twisted reason King had Frank kidnapped, I say we do our level best to make sure he pays for it.”
“He won’t go down without a fight, Sam.”
“And neither will we.”
“Spoken like the man I love,” Remi replied.
She held up her mug, and Sam put his arm around her waist and drew her close.
They were up before dawn the next day, fed and packed and back on the road by seven. As they gained altitude and passed through hamlet after hamlet with names like Betrawati, Manigaun, Ramche, and Thare, the landscape changed from green stair-step fields and monochromatic hills to triple-canopied forest and narrow gorges. After a brief lunch at a scenic overlook, they continued on and reached their turnoff, an unmarked road just north of Boka Jhunda, an hour later. Sam stopped the Rover at the intersection, and they eyeballed the dirt road before them. Barely wider than the Rover itself and hemmed in by thick foliage, it looked more like a tunnel than a road.
“I’m having a bit of déjà vu,” Sam said. “Weren’t we on this road a few months ago, but in Madagascar?”
“It bears an eerie resemblance,” Remi agreed. “Double-checking.”
She traced her index finger along the map, occasionally checking her notes as she went. “This is the place. According to Selma, the mining camp is twelve miles to the east. There’s a larger road a few miles north of here, but it’s used for camp traffic.”
“Best to sneak in the back window, then. Do you have a signal?”
Remi grabbed the satellite phone from between her feet and checked for voice messages. After a moment she nodded, held up a finger, and listened. She hung up. “Professor Dharel from the university. He made some calls. Evidently there’s a local historian in Lo Monthang who is considered the national expert on Mustang history. He’s agreed to see us.”
“How soon?”
“Whenever we get there.”
Sam considered this and shrugged. “No problem. Providing we don’t get caught invading King’s mining camp, we should make Lo Monthang in three or four weeks.”
He shifted the Rover into drive and pressed the accelerator.
Almost immediately the grade steepened and the road began zigzagging, and soon, despite an average speed of ten miles per hour, they felt like they were on a roller-coaster ride. Occasionally through the passing foliage they caught glimpses of gorges, surging rivers, and jagged rock outcroppings, soon gone, absorbed by the forest.
After nearly ninety minutes of driving, Sam came around a particularly tight bend. Remi shouted. “Big trees!”
“I see them,” Sam replied, already slamming on the brakes.
Looming before the windshield was a wall of green.
“Tell me it isn’t so,” Sam said. “Selma made a mistake?”