16
We head back to the hotel as quickly as humanly possible through the congested streets. Upstairs, inside my room, we clean up. Then, with both Rudy and Tony seated on the bed, I explain our mission. I start with the abduction of Rajesh by the militant Islamist Pakistani, Kashmiri, and continue with his plan to resurrect the Thuggee cult. I explain about the lost diamond deposit and how Kashmiri will need it not only to fund his new evil army, but also to tap into its powers. That is, the legend about the diamond mine turns out to be true.
“That’s where Elizabeth comes in,” I say, standing by the front door. “I believe she’s finally located the Golden Kali Statue. That would explain why she mailed the key to me along with the letter last month.”
“So you think this Kashmiri jerkoff has been holding her in captivity for at least a month?” Tony says. “And that she’s still alive?” He reaches into his back jeans pocket, pulls out a round green can of chewing tobacco. Opening the lid, he pinches some of the sticky black tobacco and presses it between his cheek and gum.
“That’s what I’m banking on. And if we find her, we find the boy and Kashmiri. What have you heard amongst the other diggers in Kathmandu, Tone?”
“Diamonds,” Rudy interrupts, his round face beaming. “Did you say diamonds?”
“Last I checked, Rudy, I don’t stutter.”
Tony interjects, “Rumors mostly. That Elizabeth Flynn willingly entered into Nepal to dig for the Kali Statue. But that was some years ago. To my knowledge, she hasn’t been heard of since. But, obviously. this Kashmiri character found out about her and set off after her.”
“Five years ago?” I say, seeing her standing on the concrete train platform in Varanasi.
“Sounds about right,” Tony confirms. “She went into the jungle five years ago. Not long after your old man kicked off.”
“Ummmm precisely how many diamonds?” Rudy presses.
“More than the world has ever seen before in one single deposit,” I say. “Or so legend has it.”
“The Golden Kali Statue and the map it supposedly contains,” Tony says. “That’s just a myth. You know how many people have died searching for it? It’s a fool errand. You of all people should know that, Chase. My guess is that Elizabeth has already died looking for it. Problem is, Kashmiri’s found her. If she sent you that key, she must have been desperate enough to know he was going to end her life.” Then, pointing to his tobacco-distended cheek. “Got something I can spit into?”
Looking over both shoulders, I head into the bathroom, grab the toothbrush glass, head back out and hand it to him. He spits a big wad of black goo into it.
“You should have quit that filthy habit by now, Tone,” I say.
“Hey, some habits are tough to break,” he insists like we’re talking about heroin.
Anjali breaks in, “Dr. Singh believes the statue exists and that after years of digging, Elizabeth Flynn has indeed finally found it, and that she is alive. If his sources on the inside are correct, that is.”
“So, if he has sources on the inside,” Tony adds, “it’s conceivable that some of the Thuggees are acting as double spies.”
“The statue was her life’s obsession,” I say to no one in particular.
I pull Elizabeth’s letter from my pocket, open it, hand it to Tony. He looks at the letter, reads it, studies the drawings for a moment.
“But once she was abducted by Kashmiri,” he says, “she wouldn’t be allowed to contact anyone on the outside. Least of all you. Somehow she managed it. But I guess he would want to keep her alive long enough not only to find the statue but, as the expert anthropologist, to have her reveal its secrets. And who knows how many secrets there remain to be revealed. I would not doubt she’s very much alive if there’s more mine yet to be discovered. She’s too damned valuable as an expert on the statue, its secrets, and the mine it is attached to.”
Locking eyes on Anjali. She doesn’t have to speak a word for me to see the relief on her face. If Elizabeth lives because of her value, then there’s an almost one hundred percent assurance that the God Boy would also be alive. After all, as the go-between for himself and Kali, the six-armed child is even more important than Elizabeth is to Kashmiri.
“Then you have an idea of Elizabeth’s whereabouts?” I say.
“I think I know where to find her general location,” Tony says. “She left Kathmandu with a group of archeologists who, at first, appeared to be legit. Sponsored by one of those Stan countries, I’m not sure which.”
“Pakistan, more than likely. When was this exactly, Tone?”
“Back in 2010.”
I recall my receipt of the letter and the bronze key a month ago.
“That would make sense,” I say. “I’m going to go with the theory that she’s being held against her will. Naturally, she assumed they would kill her once they located the Golden Kali Statue so she sent me the key. But maybe she’s been finding excuses to stall Kashmiri all along.”
“If she’s smart,” Tony says. “And if she values her life.”
“If the map on the statue is there,” I say, “it will lead them to the diamond deposit. That happens, there will be no stopping Kashmiri’s new Thuggee army.”
“It also means they will sacrifice Rajesh,” Anjali says, clearly disturbed. She raises her right hand, looks up at the ceiling as though facing heaven and makes the sign of the cross. Then, “Can you lead us to Elizabeth, Mr. Casale? If we can get to her, she will reveal everything to us. She will know precisely where Rajesh is being held and how we can get to him.”
Tony spits more tobacco juice into the cup, stands. The ever loyal Rudy also stands.
“I can try,” Tony says. His eyes shifting mine “But it’ll cost you, Baker. You of all people know I don’t come cheap. Plus, there’s the little issue of my burned up bar and my equally destroyed business.”
I remember the wads of cash in my pocket. I reach in, pull out the stack of Nepalese rupees. I cut the stack in half, hand it to him.
“Down payment,” I say. “I can get you the rest after I’ve located Elizabeth and the kid.”
Rudy goes wide-eyed at the sight of the cash.
“In US dollars,” Tony says, smoothing out his thick mustache with his thumb and index finger.
“Deal,” I say. Then, “Now, show me what you know.”
All four of us gather around my computer while, once more, I bring up Google Maps. I type in Chitwan National Forest and the entire one thousand square miles, rabbit-shaped wilderness appears. Tony takes a knee, stares at the map.
“You mind?” he says, setting his fingers on the keys.
“I don’t recall you being fond of computers, Tone.”
“People change, kid. When your old man died and my job was buried along with him, I was forced to learn a lot of new tricks.”
We watch pensively as the veteran digger clicks away, focusing in on a specific plot of forest that’s located all the way up to the northwest. An area of land that surrounds a town called, Dumkibas.
“According to what I’ve heard from some of the other diggers in Kathmandu who hang around the bar,” he says, “your old girlfriend went into the woods somewhere around here before she disappeared.”
Eying the cursor on the map. “That’s not even in the park. Technically speaking. You ever been to Dumkibas?”
“It’s just outside the park’s northwest buffer zone,” Tony says. “While the village is pretty densely populated with poor people living in tin and wood shacks, the town itself is a big nothing. A small street two-sided with a couple of bars and a general store of sorts. It’s like the Wild West, only in Asia. It’s surrounded by jungle that no one likes to enter because it’s also home to some nasty elephant and rhino poachers. Other than the Nepalese Army, there are no cops, no sheriff.”
Anjali elbows me.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” she whispers. “Now we must deal with poachers in the Wild West.”
“Not if we st
ay out of their way,” I say. Eyes back on the map. “Can you be more specific, Tony?”
He shakes his head. “Wish I could. I only know what I’ve heard, and what I’ve heard is that she entered the jungle somewhere around Dumkibas.”
“We gotta figure out a way to be more specific than that or it could take us weeks to find her in that thick stuff. By then she and the child could be dead. We just gotta hold out hope they haven’t worn out their usefulness.”
“I’m all up for ideas,” Tony says, spitting one last wad of black tar into the glass, then taking it with him into the bathroom to deposit the used up tobacco in the toilet.
“Disgusting habit,” I mumble as he flushes the toilet, washes out the toothbrush glass, and re-emerges from the bathroom.
“Perhaps we can visit one of the bars in Dumkibas,” Rudy adds with a smile. “Surly the bartender will know of any strange women who’ve passed through the town.”
“Not a bad idea,” Anjali says. “That’s how we located Tony.”
“I agree,” I say. “It’s like Occam’s Razor. The answer to our question is the simplest solution. But I’m afraid simple won’t cut it this time. The bad guys are already onto us, which means time is already tight. We need to know Elizabeth’s location right this minute. Not weeks from now, or even twenty-four hours from now. Like I keep saying, we find Elizabeth, we find the kid.”
“Maybe all your focus on is Elizabeth,” Anjali says, acid in her tone.
I turn quick. “Excuse me?”
“We’re supposed to be focused on Rajesh. But since we’ve arrived all you speak about is Elizabeth.”
I go to her.
“Look at me,” I say, recalling our late morning lunch in bed, our lovemaking. “You either trust me and my decisions, or you find a way to fire me right now and I’ll be on the first plane back to Florence. You got that?”
Truth is, however, I wouldn’t leave. Not without Elizabeth or, at least, not without knowing the truth about her.
Anjali’s eyes tear up. I wonder if she’s also remembering our lunch and what she said about there being no real feelings attached to it. Of course, she was lying and we both knew it at the time, but refused to admit it.
“I’m…sorry,” she whispers. “I just want my child back. So does Dr. Singh.”
After a heavy pause, I take a mini-walk around the bed, then go back to the window, look out at the diggers still working on the sidewalk. They aren’t using their jackhammers or excavators right now. Instead, a tracked skid steer is dumping gravel into a long trench while one man stands off to the side holding an aluminum pole that supports an electronic laser transit. Another man is holding what looks to be a remote control unit in both his hands while looking upwards at the blue sky behind Polaroid sunglasses. Following his lead, I too look up.
That’s when I see the flying machine or, what’s more commonly known in today’s high tech world as a drone. The construction crew is using a drone and its GPS and infrared camera technologies to achieve the specified height for the new gravel they’re installing.
I turn to the others. “I think I have the perfect solution to our time and Elizabeth location problem…a drone.”
“A drone,” Anjali repeats. “Like the unmanned airplanes Obama uses to kill terrorists within Pakistan?”
Shaking my head.
“No,” I say, raising my hand. “The little propeller-operated jobs that construction crews, like the one outside this window right now, are using.”
Everyone stands, gravitates to the window, and looks out at the airborne drone hovering over the hotel courtyard.
“Well, what do you know, chaps?” Rudy says. “It’s like the model airplanes I used to fly as a kid back in merry old England.”
“Tony,” I say, “how difficult would it be to get us one of those, say, within the hour?”
“I know a guy who knows a guy,” he says, turning away from the window, his eyes back on me.
“Won’t the bad guys be able to spot the drone?” Anjali says. “Just like we spotted this one?”
“Affirmative,” I say, “but by then, we’ll be ready to make our move and snatch both Elizabeth and Rajesh from their grasp,” I say this with a broad smile on my face as if it will be easy. Chase the optimist.
“And some diamonds,” Rudy adds.
“Assuming she’s alive,” Anjali says.
“Like I keep saying,” I repeat, “no time to lose. Tony, what time you got?”
“A little after one.”
“Can we get the drone within the hour?”
He pulls his cell phone from his jeans pocket.
“Let me make some calls,” he says.
“Meantime everyone, pack your bags,” I say. “We’re heading into the jungle.”
17
Tony’s calls prove productive.
His friend, who knows a friend, who knows a friend, leads us to the Kathmandu bazaar in the center of the city. It’s a congested place with narrow alleyways that access old brick and wood buildings that house vendors selling everything from metal cookware to jade jewelry to pet monkeys. The place smells of peanuts roasted outside on small gas-fired stoves and, unless you know your way or follow someone who knows how to navigate the maze of alleys and corridors, you might get lost for days on end. It’s that claustrophobic, that crowded, and that complicated to get around without a proper rudder.
When we come to a building that sports a glass façade displaying a sea of cell and smartphones, digital cameras, HDTVs, and all sorts of electronic junk, Tony turns to us, and barks, “This is it!”
We’d enter right away if not for the short procession of grieving men and women filing past. At the front of the procession, eight or so men shoulder a flat wooden platform that contains the body of a deceased man. The corpse is wrapped in a bright orange sheet covered in a colorful arrangement of flower petals. Soon, the body will be laid to rest on top of a large square platform of dried timbers that’s been constructed on the riverbank. The wood will be set ablaze and the fire will consume the flesh and blood of the dead while the soul enters the body of another in utero fetus so that it might live again. Or so Hindu faith has it.
Walking through the front door of the shop is like entering another dimension altogether as the air conditioning cools our perspiring skin and the noise from the bazaar gives over to the sound of televisions tuned to stations broadcasting in several different languages. The man behind a long glass counter, that displays more of the same electronics, is big and burly. He wears a long green tunic, the sleeves of which are rolled up past his elbows. His hair is black and slicked back while his round face sports a thick mustache. The overhead ceiling fan blowing warm air down on him does little to stem the flow of sweat dripping from his forehead and armpits. He spots Tony and immediately breaks out into a salesman Well-if-this-isn’t- your-lucky-day smile.
“And you must be Mr. Casale,” he says in his amplified baritone. “Your cousin described you perfectly.”
Turning to Tony. “Cousin?”
“Pays to have relatives living in Kathmandu,” he whispers over his shoulder. “Even if you have to invent them.”
While Anjali and Rudy hang back admiring the television programs broadcast on a dozen different wall-mounted LCDs, Tony and I belly up to the counter.
“You were made aware of our needs?” Tony says to the man.
He smiles broadly, holds out his hand. “First, allow me to introduce myself. I am Bishal, and this is my humble shop of electronics, communications, and entertainment. A high-tech paradise like no other on Earth, this side of the Himalayas. I trust you will not be disappointed.”
“That remains to be seen, Bishal,” Tony says. “You have drones?”
The big man raises his hand, points an index finger to the sky. “The world of electronic gadgetry has adopted a new dimension. And, in keeping with Bishal’s philosophy of cutting edge service, I am pleased to tell you that I not only have drones but several models in stock,
right this very moment, at very affordable prices.”
The big, perspiring man begins walking towards the back of the cramped store.
“Looks like we’ve come to the right place,” I say to Tony. “Even if he does stink to high heaven.”
“Gentlemen, please follow me,” Bishal insists.
Tony turns quick.
“Don’t get excited, Baker,” he says under his breath. “These crooks will rob you blind, if you’re not careful. Let me do the negotiating.”
“Tone,” I say, setting my hand on his shoulder. “It’s not our money we’re playing with.”
“See, that’s always been your problem, daddy’s boy. You have no concept of money. If you did, you would have kept the old man’s business going even while you write your silly books and travel the world hitting on women.”
Anjali turns then, shoots me a sour look.
“Let’s not start,” I say, as we meet back up with Bishal.
He’s standing beside a table that’s topped with three drones. Each of them different models but bearing the familiar cross shape. All three sport four, helicopter-like propellers on all four corners, and all of them are armed with cameras in their donut-hole-like centers. About the only difference between them is their size and perhaps their range. Or so it seems.
Bishal stands beside the three drones like he’s about to be filmed for a segment on the QVC Shopping Network.
“This first model is the largest but also our most popular model with engineers and real estate professionals,” he says, waving his hand over its propellers. “It’s a smart little flier because it contains a Wi-Fi module which talks directly with your smartphone. In other words, gentlemen, you see what it sees, while it records video and photos directly to an iOS or Android device in both day and nighttime situations. And best of all, no additional memory cards are needed.”
“Range,” I ask.
“Twenty-five miles. The maximum for any drone of this sort.”
“How much?” Tony says.
“We’ll take it,” I say.
Chase Baker and the God Boy: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book No. 3) Page 8
