The Kingdom

“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 di

“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 begi

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.”