“You parked your car at Chobar Gorge. Why?”
“We heard it was a beautiful area,” said Sam.
“What time did you arrive?”
“Before dawn.”
“Why so early?”
“We’re restless souls,” Sam replied with a smile.
“What does that mean?”
“We like to stay busy,” said Remi.
“Please tell us where your hike took you.”
“If we knew that,” Sam said, “we probably wouldn’t have gotten lost.”
“You had a compass with you. How did you lose your way?”
“I flunked out of Boy Scouts,” said Sam.
Remi chimed in. “I only sold cookies in the Girl Scouts.”
“This is not a laughing matter, Mr. and Mrs. Fargo. Do you find this funny?”
Sam put on his best chastised expression. “Apologies. We’re exhausted and a little embarrassed. We’re grateful you found us. Who alerted you we might be in trouble?”
The officer translated the question. His sergeant grunted something, then spoke again. “My sergeant asks that you restrict yourselves to answering his questions. You said you planned to go on a daylong hike. Where were your backpacks?”
“We didn’t expect to be gone that long,” Remi said. “We’re not the best planners, either.”
Sam nodded sadly to emphasize his wife’s point.
The officer asked, “You expect us to believe you went on a hike with no equipment whatsoever?”
“I had my Swiss Army knife,” Sam said drily.
At this translation, the sergeant glanced up and glared at Sam, then Remi, then stood up and stalked from the room. “Please wait here,” the officer said, and left the room.
Not surprisingly, the sergeant walked straight through the squad-room door to the hallway. Sam and Remi could see only his back; Russell and Marjorie were out of view. Sam stood up, walked to the far-right side of the window, and pressed his face against it.
“Can you see them?” Remi asked.
“Yep.”
“And?”
“The twins look unhappy. Not a smarmy smile in sight. Russell’s gesturing . . . Well, this is interesting.”
“What?”
“He’s mimicking the shape of a box-a box that looks remarkably like the same size as the chest.”
“That’s good. I imagine they’ve searched the area in which they found us. Russell wouldn’t be asking for what’s already been found.”
Sam stepped back from the window and hurried back to his seat.
The sergeant and his officer stepped back into the room and sat down. The questioning resumed, this time with a bit more intensity, and in a roundabout fashion designed to trip up Sam and Remi. The gist of the queries remained the same, however: we know you had to have had belongings, where are they? Sam and Remi took their time and stuck to their story, watching as the sergeant’s frustration grew.
At last the sergeant resorted to threats: “We know who you are and what you do for a living. We suspect you have come to Nepal in search of black market antiquities.”
“On what do you base your suspicions?” Sam asked.
“Sources.”
“You’ve been misinformed,” said Remi.
“There are several statutes under which you can be charged, all of which carry serious penalties.”
Sam leaned forward in his chair and fixed the sergeant’s gaze. “Charge away. Right after we’re booked we’ll want to talk to the legal attache at the U.S. embassy.”
The sergeant held Sam’s eyes for a long ten seconds, then leaned back and sighed. He said something to his underling, then stood up and left the room, banging the open door against the wall as he left.
The underling translated, “You are free to go.”
Ten minutes later, back in their own clothes, Sam and Remi were out the front door of the police station and walking down the steps. Dusk was falling. The sky was clear, and a scattering of diamond-speck stars began to shine. Streetlights illuminated the cobblestoned street below.
“Sam! Remi!”
Expecting this, neither of them were surprised when they turned to see Russell and Marjorie hurrying down the sidewalk toward them.
“We just heard,” Russell said, trotting up. “Are you okay?”
“Tired, a little embarrassed, but no worse for wear,” Sam replied.
They’d already decided to stick to their got-lost-on-a-hike story with the King twins. It was a precarious dance; everyone knew Sam and Remi were lying. What would Russell and Marjorie do about it? Better question: as it now seemed clear that Charlie King had a wholly different agenda than the one he’d shared with Sam and Remi, how would they proceed? What was King after, and what was the true story behind Frank Alton’s disappearance?
“We’ll take you to your car,” Marjorie said.
“We’ll collect it in the morning,” replied Remi. “We’re going back to the hotel.”
“Better we get it now,” Russell said. “If you’ve got gear inside-”
Sam couldn’t help but smile at this. “We don’t. Good night.”
Sam took Remi’s arm, and together they turned and started walking in the opposite direction. Russell called, “We’ll call you in the morning!”
“Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” Sam replied without turning.
“Hell, yes, I’d say they’re off the reservation,” Charles King barked, reclining in his plush office chair. Behind him, the cityscape filled his floor-to-ceiling window.
Half a world away, Russell and Marjorie King said nothing over the speakerphone. They knew better than to interrupt their father. When he wanted to know something, he would ask a question.
“Where the hell were they all day?”
“We don’t know,” Russell replied. “The man we hired to follow them lost them southwest of the-”
“Hired? What d’ya mean, hired?”
“He’s one of our . . . security men at the dig site,” Marjorie said. “He’s trustworthy-”
“But incompetent! How about gettin’ somebody with both those glowin’ attributes? Ever consider that? Why’d you hire someone? What were you two doin’?”
“We were at the site,” said Russell. “We’re getting ready to ship the-”
“Never mind. Doesn’t matter. Could the Fargos have been in that cave system?”
“It’s possible,” replied Marjorie, “but we’ve been through it. There’s nothing to find.”
“Yeah, yeah. The question is, if they were, how’d they find out about it? You gotta make sure they’re gettin’ only the info we want them to get, understand?”
“Yes, Dad,” replied Marjorie and Russell in unison.
“What about their belongin’s?”
“We went through them,” said Russell. “And their car. Our man in the police department questioned them for an hour, but no luck.”
“Did he twist their arms, for God’s sake?”
“As far as he could.”
“The Fargos were unfazed, he said.”
“What’d they say they’d been doin’?”
“They claimed they got lost on a hike.”
“Bull crap! This is Sam and Remi Fargo we’re talkin’ about. I’ll tell you what happened: you two screwed up
