The Kingdom

They did so, taking the bench across from Zhou. Marjorie said, “You’re not in uniform. Please don’t tell us you’re afraid of Nepalese Army patrols.”

Zhou chuckled. “Hardly. While I’m sure my men would enjoy the target practice, I doubt my superiors would look kindly on my crossing the border without going through proper cha

“This is your meeting,” Russell said. “Why did you ask us here?”

“We need to discuss the permits you have requested.”

“The permits we’ve already paid for, you mean?” replied Marjorie.

“Semantics. The area you wish to enter is heavily patrolled-”

“All of China is heavily patrolled,” Russell observed.

“Only part of the area in which you wish to travel falls under my command.”

“This has never been a problem in the past.”

“Things change.”

“You’re squeezing us,” Marjorie said. Her face was expressionless, but her eyes were hard, mean.

“I don’t know that expression.”

“Bribery.”

Colonel Zhou frowned. “That’s harsh. The truth is, you are right: you have already paid me. Unfortunately, a restructuring in my district has left me with more mouths to feed, if you understand my meaning. If I do not feed those mouths, they will begin talking to the wrong people.”

“Perhaps we should be talking to them instead of you,” said Russell.

“Go ahead. But do you have the time? As I recall, it took you eight months to find me. Are you willing to start from the begi

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Colonel,” Marjorie said.

“No more dangerous than illegally crossing into Chinese territory.”

“And, I suppose, no more dangerous than not having your men search us for weapons.”

Zhou’s eyes narrowed, darted toward the door, then back to the King twins. “You wouldn’t dare,” he said.

“She would,” Russell said. “And so would I. Bet on it. But not now. Not tonight. Colonel, if you knew who we were, you would think twice about extorting more money from us.”

“I may not know your names, but I know your kind, and I have a hunch about what you are after.”

Russell said, “How much to feed these extra mouths?”

“Twenty thousand-in euros, not dollars.”

Russell and Marjorie stood up. Russell said, “You’ll have the money in your account before day’s end. We’ll contact you when we’re ready to cross.”

He could tell from the chill in the night air, the utter lack of traffic sounds, and the nearby and frequent clanking of yak bells that he was fairly high in the foothills. Blindfolded as soon as he’d been shoved into the van, he had no way of knowing how far from Kathmandu they’d taken him. Ten miles or a hundred, it didn’t really matter. Once outside the valley in which the city rested, the terrain could swallow a person whole-and had done so, thousands of times. Ravines, caves, sinkholes, crevasses . . . a million places in which to hide or die.

The floor and walls were made of rough planking, as was the cot. His mattress was a straw-filled pad that smelled vaguely of manure. The stove was an old potbellied model, he guessed, from the sound of the kindling hatch banging shut whenever his captors entered to stoke the fire. Occasionally, over the tang of wood smoke, he caught the faint smell of stove fuel, the kind used by hikers and mountaineers.

He was being held in an abandoned trekkers’ hut, somewhere far enough off the regular trails that it received no visitors.

His captors had spoken fewer than twenty words to him since his abduction, all of them gruff commands given in broken English: sit, stand, eat, toilet . . . On the second day, however, he’d caught a snippet of conversation through the hut’s wall, and while his grasp of Nepali was virtually nonexistent, he knew enough to recognize it. He’d been taken by locals. Who, though? Terrorists or guerrillas? He knew of none operating within Nepal. Kidnappers? He doubted it. They hadn’t forced him to make any ransom recordings or letters. Nor had they mistreated him. He was fed regularly, given plenty to drink, and his sleeping bag was well suited for subzero temperatures. When they handled him, they were firm but not rough. Again he wondered, who? And why?

So far, they’d made only one major mistake: while they’d bound his wrists securely with what felt like climbing rope, they’d failed to check the hut for sharp edges. In short order, he’d found four of them: the legs of his cot, each of which jutted a few inches above the mattress. The roughly cut wood was unsanded. Not exactly saw blades, but it was a place to start.

5

KATHMANDU, NEPAL

As advertised, Russell and Marjorie pulled into the Hyatt’s turnaround precisely at nine a.m. the next morning. Bright-eyed and smiling, the twins greeted Sam and Remi with another round of handshakes, then ushered them toward the Mercedes. The sky was a brilliant blue, the air crisp.

“Where to?” Russell asked as he put the car in gear and pulled away.

“How about the locations where Frank Alton seemed to be spending most of his time?” Remi asked.

“No problem,” replied Marjorie. “According to the e-mails he was sending Daddy, he spent part of his time in the Chobar Gorge area, about five miles southeast of here. It’s where the Bagmati River empties out of the valley.”

They drove in silence for a few minutes.

Sam said, “If it was your grandfather that was photographed in Lo Monthang-”

“You don’t think it was?” Russell said, glancing in the rearview mirror. “Daddy thinks it was.”

“Just playing devil’s advocate. If it was your grandfather, do you have any idea why he would have been in that area?”

“Can’t think of a thing,” replied Marjorie flippantly.

“Your father didn’t seem familiar with Lewis’s work. Are either of you?”

Russell answered. “Just archaeology stuff, I suppose. We never knew him, of course. Just heard stories from Daddy.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but did it occur to you to learn what Lewis was up to? It might have helped in the search for him.”

“Daddy keeps us pretty busy,” Marjorie said. “Besides, that’s why he hires experts like you two and Mr. Alton.”

Sam and Remi exchanged glances. Like their father, the King twins seemed only marginally interested in the particulars of their grandfather’s life. Their detachment felt almost pathological.

“Where did you two go to school?” Remi asked, changing the subject.

“We didn’t,” Russell answered. “Daddy had us homeschooled by tutors.”

“What happened to your accents?”

Marjorie didn’t answer immediately. “Oh, I see what you mean. When we were about four, he sent us to live with our aunt in Co

“So he wasn’t around much when you were growing up?” Sam asked.

“He’s a busy man.”

Marjorie’s reply was without a trace of rancor, as though it were perfectly normal to bundle your children off to another state for fourteen years and have them raised by tutors and relatives.

“You two ask a lot of questions,” Russell said.

“We’re curious by nature,” Sam replied. “Comes with the job.”

Sam and Remi expected little to come of their visit to Chobar Gorge, and they weren’t disappointed. Russell and Marjorie pointed out a few landmarks and offered more ca

Back in the car, Sam and Remi asked to be taken to the next location: the city’s historical epicenter, known as Durbar Square, which was home to some fifty temples.

Predictably, this visit was as unrevealing as the first. Shadowed by the King twins, Sam and Remi walked around the square and its environs for an hour, making a show of taking pictures, checking their map, and jotting notes. Finally, shortly before noon, they asked to be taken back to the Hyatt.