by Matt Rogers
‘He’d better,’ King said.
Slater paused. ‘You really think he could have done something like this?’
‘I think anyone is capable of anything,’ King said. ‘I assume you feel the same. Given what we’ve both been through.’
‘I’m going to get whatever Parker knows out of him.’
‘Gently, at first. We don’t want to strong-arm him and then find out he’s got nothing to do with it.’
‘I’m not good at being gentle.’
‘Maybe I can take the reins at first,’ King said. ‘I’d say I’m a little more…’
‘Controlled?’
‘Let’s go with that.’
Slater shrugged. ‘You are. I’m not about to deny the truth.’
‘Are we good?’
‘Yeah, we’re good.’
King reached forward and tapped Utsav twice on the shoulder.
He slipped the headphones off.
‘You take care of business?’ the guide said.
They both nodded.
The jeep lapsed into silence as Kathmandu fell away, replaced by twisting winding mountain roads. They passed the beginnings of rural villages, and half-destroyed abandoned buildings, and in the strangest twist of all, a dormant water park sprawled across the bottom of a valley.
Then they reached the edge of the outskirts themselves, and there was nothing but endless mountains, rising and falling, with the odd villages or terraces skewered into the hillsides.
Slater watched the undulating landscape until his eyes grew weary and he drifted into a trance-like state — half-awake, half-not.
He thought about nothing, which was a reprieve.
His head pounded from the night before, but pain didn’t mean a thing to him.
He could deal with that forever.
12
King ran through the important details in his head.
Raya Parker, Oscar Perry, and the porter were all unaccounted for. Violetta and her colleagues were doing what they could to get accurate information from trekkers along the trail, but details were sparse, and even though they’d put the feelers out, so far there were no confirmed sightings.
The stretch of trail that Aidan Parker and his team had been trekking along was far quieter than the trail leading to Everest Base Camp. Most hikers flew into the village of Lukla, home to the world’s most dangerous airport, and then trekked up through Namche Bazaar on the road to Everest and Gokyo Ri. Parker had opted to begin from Phaplu instead — roughly four days’ walk from Lukla — probably with the hopes of conditioning himself to the trail before the altitude symptoms had the potential to interfere.
That had ended disastrously, because the desolate nature of the trail had given someone the perfect opportunity to snatch his daughter.
Who that might have been, King wasn’t yet sure.
All signs pointed to Perry. According to Violetta, the bodyguard had worked with Parker for five years. Even though Parker had clear instructions to never discuss his work outside the office, it could be imagined that over a five-year stretch certain crucial details would slip out. Parker was no doubt a cautious man, but Perry would have absolutely understood the man’s importance. That’s all the leverage he would have needed to snatch Raya, determining that mounting a rescue mission in the mountains would be a logistical nightmare.
And it was.
Hence King and Slater’s presence.
They didn’t play by the book.
They were six hours into the journey, and the jeep had been climbing for what felt like the whole time. Right now they were at an elevation of roughly eight thousand feet. King wore a digital smartwatch that he’d picked up at the airport en route — it tracked the altitude as accurately as possible.
That was one of the only factors that truly worried him.
Altitude sickness was impartial, uncaring. It didn’t matter how fit you were, or how young you were — it struck without bias, often sending even those in the best shape into near uselessness. If it struck you, you almost definitely had to get helicoptered out. It came with crippling headaches and nausea and an ache so deep in your bones it felt like you were made of lead.
So King was paying close attention to his watch. The last thing he wanted was to be inhibited that badly in the midst of a live operation.
And if Perry was behind this, the bodyguard would use it to his advantage, especially if he had previous experience at altitude and knew it wouldn’t faze him. He’d head further up the trail with Raya and the porter in tow. He’d use his tactical awareness as a trained combatant to make it as difficult as possible for a rescue to be attempted. That meant altitude. It was difficult enough to pull sick trekkers off the trail via helicopter — if King and Slater got themselves dropped closer to Gokyo Ri in an attempt to intercept the party coming down, word would spread quick, and Perry would disappear.
No, they needed to do it this way — posing as legitimate hikers, fooling the eyes that could very well be on them at any moment.
So that was the plan, but it could change at any moment. They still hadn’t met Parker, and King wanted to have a long chat to him about—
The jeep slowed and branched off onto a narrow path, tearing King away from his thoughts. His situational awareness heightened, and he glanced across to see Slater similarly concerned.
The sun disappeared behind the low cloud passing over the mountain.
Everything turned grey.
King realised, with sudden clarity, that they were in the cloud.
And the cold intensified.
He shrugged on a jacket as the jeep slowed at the mouth of a small cluster of buildings. Some were half-finished, mere construction projects in progress, but most were intact, made of stone and wood and surrounded by fields teeming with crops. It was a tiny commune in the mountains, but King couldn’t see a soul in sight, which made the whole place feel like a museum exhibit. Mostly because of the ethereal fog drifting through the village, obscuring their vision to only a few dozen feet in front of them. Driving in the cloud would be a nightmare.
The jeep pulled to a halt in the grey fog and the driver killed the engine.
In the sudden quiet, King said, ‘What are we doing here?’
Utsav peered over his shoulder. ‘Lunch.’
‘Right,’ Slater said, but he was similarly tense.
Utsav laughed. ‘You two are serious men. You relax, hey? We eat here. Then we go.’
‘We have to be serious,’ King said. ‘It’s our job.’
‘Now it is job to eat.’
With another hollow laugh, Utsav pushed the passenger door open and dropped out into the dewy grass.
The driver followed a step behind. He missed his door handle on the first go, and reached for it again. In the interim, he threw a glance over his shoulder with a half-smile of indifference.
When his hand clasped the door handle again, it was shaking.
King sat deathly still.
Watching.
Analysing.
Weighing it all up.
He said, ‘You got something to tell us?’
It was loud in the sudden silence of the cabin. The driver looked over his shoulder, flashed a sheepish grin, and shrugged.
‘No English,’ Slater said.
The driver pointed to him, and half-nodded.
King muttered, ‘Right. No English.’
The driver flashed a thumbs up.
He was definitely nervous.
Could be a coincidence. Could be because of the presence of American operatives, who weren’t your ordinary run-of-the-mill trekkers. They were cold hard men with cold hard gazes, and they meant business. Maybe that was enough to throw the guy off. Maybe he could subliminally sense that he was no longer in the civilian sphere.
Or maybe not.
King had survived half his career based on “maybe not.”
The driver’s instincts seemed to kick in, and he paused with his palm on the handle, looking expectantly over his s
houlder. He seemed to think it might be courteous for his guests to get out first.
King gestured to the driver’s door. ‘Please. After you.’
The driver got out. He opened the door and pivoted and stepped down into the fog. He stretched his limbs. He nodded to Utsav.
Nothing happened.
King and Slater sat there, saying nothing, listening to everything.
Finally Slater said, ‘You okay?’
‘Just a hunch.’
‘We do need to eat…’
‘Where is everybody?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘It’s too rundown. Too … empty.’
‘Have you looked out the window at all over the last six hours?’
King hesitated, then relented. ‘Just keep your guard up.’
‘You don’t need to tell me to do that.’
King popped the door and slid out of the jeep. The grass squelched underfoot, and the chill bit into his chest. He shivered involuntarily. On the other side of the car, he heard Slater mirroring his actions.
Utsav watched them from a distance. He said, ‘Okay?’
King nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘This way. Time to eat. Dal bhat sound good.’
Dal bhat. The dish of rice, lentils and vegetables favoured by all the Nepali guides and porters. They called it “twenty-four-hour-power,” and ate it for practically every meal on the trail. It hit all the nutritional requirements they needed.
King remembered those details from a brief conversation the night before.
He started to wonder if he really was paranoid after all.
Utsav and the driver led them past the rundown houses draped in fog. They didn’t see a soul. Up the back of the village, they found a long low building, mostly intact, with an empty shopfront skewered into one side. There were Cokes and Sprites and Mars bars and packets of crisps on display.
Trail food.
King said, ‘Where is everybody?’
‘Inside,’ Utsav said. ‘Cold out here.’
Sure enough, soft yellow light glowed in a couple of the windows. The building had the same aura as a mess hall, and King thought he could smell food.
He nodded. ‘Okay.’
Utsav ushered him toward an open doorway. There was no light emanating from that particular entrance. It was a dark gaping maw.
King said, ‘You first.’
Beside him, Slater rolled his eyes.
‘Relax, would you?’ Slater said. ‘We won’t get anywhere if you spend the whole trek like this.’
‘We haven’t started trekking yet.’
‘You know what I mean.’
Utsav smiled and gestured to Slater. ‘Please. It is customary for guest to go first.’
Slater nodded and turned to King. ‘See?’
Then he strode forward and disappeared inside the building.
Ustav followed.
Then it was just King and the driver, alone outside.
It was murky, and cold, and silent.
King said, ‘You first. I insist.’
The driver shrugged, and turned, and made for the entrance.
Then he paused, too quickly, too suspiciously, and looked left.
King followed the trajectory and saw the flicker of a silhouette against the corner of the building.
He took off at a sprint.
13
Slater stepped into a musty hallway with a total absence of natural light.
Except for the soft glow of a dining room at the end of the tunnel.
He peered through the doorway and noticed the familiar polished wooden tables and carpeted benches reminiscent of the traditional Nepali teahouses. They’d be staying at similar spots all the way along the trail. Violetta had told them that much, at least.
There was the soft aroma of warm food, but no-one in sight. No guests. No owner. No-one to greet them.
But it was overcast and foggy and moody, and the owners probably figured there’d be nobody stopping by for the rest of the day.
So then why do you smell food?
Instinct told him, Bait.
To make it feel legitimate.
But he’d sent King a message by going first, and he wasn’t yet ready to stoop to that level of paranoia. Now it was there, though. The doubt. Festering in the back of his mind. Creeping up on him, making him reconsider everything.
If it’s not Perry who snatched Raya, it’s the porter.
And if it’s the porter, then the whole trekking company can’t be trusted.
Had Violetta used the same company as Parker? Could she have been that stupid?
Slater doubted it.
But even if she hadn’t, he figured the staff knew each other. They probably communicated back and forth every now and then. They would have each other’s line.
To organise.
To coordinate.
To bribe.
Slater spun in the shadows just as Utsav backed off a few steps.
Separating himself from… what?
Slater sensed movement to his left. He wasn’t sure how, because there was nothing but an open doorway leading into dark musty living quarters, but there was something darker in there. A shadow. A silhouette.
When the guy lunged at him, Slater was ready.
He caught the knife hand as it protruded from the doorway and twisted at the hips and used the attacker’s momentum to hurl him on past. The hallway was tight, and the guy crashed into the opposite wall at full speed, which seems mildly disorienting in the movies but in reality can break bone with a single awkward impact. So the guy winced and froze up for a second as he crashed off the wood, his shoulder and elbow probably cracked, and Slater took the opportunity to throw his own elbow like a World Series pitcher swinging for the fences.
It connected with the force of a bat, and the accuracy of … well, an elbow.
Right on the jaw.
All that carnage took an eternity to process in Slater’s mind, but in reality it played out in a second and a half. There was the throw, the bounce, and the elbow, and suddenly the guy was out cold on the teahouse floor with a broken jaw, violently twitching in unconsciousness. He was small but strong, with a weathered face and light brown skin. Probably Nepali.
Slater twisted on the spot and pointed down and said, ‘Who the fuck is that, Utsav?’
The guide kept backing up, horror spread across his face.
But he couldn’t take his eyes off the unconscious guy.
So it wasn’t the horror of being ambushed.
It was the horror of the planned ambush failing.
Slater took a step forward, and Utsav turned and ran into the darkness. The guide cried out something in Nepali as he fled, his voice shaking.
Outside, Slater heard the faint commotion of a brawl.
King.
But he couldn’t concentrate on that any longer, because there was a cacophony of movement behind him.
Coming from the dining area.
Coming from the light.
So he spun and saw three men roughly the same size materialise in the doorway, backlit by the yellow glow. They were small like the first guy, and they were armed. All three had knives. Same as the first. Little sharp switchblades, like box cutters, capable of severing an artery with the slightest flick of the wrist.
Probably real hard to get your hands on a firearm all the way out here.
Slater’s heart rate shot through the roof, and he thought, Forwards, or backwards?
Easy answer.
He charged.
14
King had his hands on the guy before either he or the driver could react.
The silhouette turned out to be a man, maybe five-foot-five and a hundred pounds lighter than King, but he had a knife. He swung hard, narrowly missing King’s abdomen, sending King’s pulse skyrocketing.
King smashed the bones in the guy’s knife hand to pieces with a stabbing front kick, then bundled him up like he weighed nothing and bounced his skull off the wood
en corner of the building with a double-handed shove. Like the sound of a coconut hitting concrete as his skull rattled, the guy went down in a crippled heap.
King twisted on the spot and pointed down and said, ‘Who is that?’
The driver didn’t respond.
‘No English, right?’ King said.
The guy stood there sporting a guilty half-smile. Like there was something up his sleeve. Like he honestly didn’t expect to fail. He was being confronted by a six-foot-three two-hundred-and-twenty pound hulk of a man who’d just smashed one of his friends into unconsciousness, but he still seemed barely fazed.
Then sharp headlight beams lit up the fog, coming in off the main trail. Two, then four, then six.
Three sets.
Three cars.
They surged down the uneven road between the husks of long-abandoned buildings in the ghost town King suddenly realised they’d been led to like flies to shit. They were big vehicles, built to handle the trail, and they must have been keeping a respectable distance the whole time. Then again, the driver had spent half the journey on the phone, babbling in Nepali, and any number of those calls could have been to the backup crew, coordinating logistics, working out where the best place would be to silence their unwanted guests.
Evidently, it was here.
King hovered by the corner of the building, keenly aware that he wasn’t armed, debating whether or not to run for—
Then the SUVs arrived, one by one, and three men got out of each truck. Nine total. Six had knives. Three had their fists.
Probably real hard to get your hands on a firearm all the way out here.
King wondered if, inside, Slater was thinking the same thing.
As soon as he realised he wouldn’t have to dodge bullets, he bent down and snatched the switchblade off the guy he’d already smashed unconscious, and then he got up and charged for the closest vehicle. Instead of adopting any sort of tactical awareness, the trio of SUVs had pulled up maybe a dozen feet apart, so now all three were equidistant to one another, giving King more than enough time to make his way from one to the next.
They didn’t know that, though.
They thought they were dealing with a pair of nosy Americans.
