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.”
“So why did he go on the expedition?”
“I don’t know, but what you found in the cave-this Golden Man business-is a strong possibility. Unless King was lying, it sounds like soon after Lewis King immigrated to the U.S. he started his globe-trotting.”
“Maybe he found something on Himmler’s expedition that piqued his interest,” Sam speculated.
“Something he didn’t want to end up in the hands of the Nazis,” Remi added. “He kept it to himself, bided his time through the war, then picked up his work again years later.”
“The question is,” Rube said, “why is Charlie King picking up where his father left off? From what we know about him, he never showed the slightest interest in his father’s work.”
“Maybe it’s the Theurang,” Sam said. “Maybe to him, it’s just another fossil to sell.”
“You could be right. If the description of this thing is even remotely accurate, it would be worth a fortune.”
Remi asked, “Rube, do we know whether the Nazi accusations against Lewis ever impacted Charlie?”
“Not that I could find. I think his success speaks for itself. And given how ruthless he is, I doubt anyone has the guts to bring it up anymore.”
“That’s about to change,” Sam said. “Time to push King Charlie’s comfort zone.”
They hung up, talked strategy for a few minutes, then Sam dialed King’s direct line. The man himself picked up on the first ring. “King.”
“Mr. King. Sam Fargo here.”
“I was wonderin’ when you’d get around to callin’. Your pretty wife with you?”
“Safe and sound,” Remi replied sweetly.
“It seems our partnership has hit a rocky patch,” King said. “My kids tell me you ain’t playin’ ball.”
“We’re playing ball,” Sam replied. “Just a different game than you are. Charlie, did you have Frank Alton kidnapped?”
“Kidnapped? Why would I do somethin’ like that?”
“That’s not an answer,” Remi pointed out.
“I sent Frank Alton out there to do a job for me. He got himself in over his head, pissed off the wrong people. I have no idea where he is.”
“Another nonanswer answer,” Sam said. “Okay, let’s move on. All you have to do is listen. We’ve got what you’re after-”
“And what’s that?”
“You’re not listening. We’ve got what you’re after-what your dad spent his lifetime hunting for. And, as you probably guessed, we paid a visit to your concentration camp in the Langtang Valley.”
“I got no idea what you’re talkin’ about.”
“We collected thousands of photos-mostly of documents we found laying around in an office trailer-but a few of them of your wife, or concubine, or whatever you call her in the privacy of your Gulfstream. As luck would have it, when we took the pictures, she was murdering one of your employees. We’ve got a picture of his face as well.”
Charlie King did not respond for a long ten seconds. Finally he sighed. “I think you’re fulla horse crap, Sam, but clearly somethin’s got you excited. You’ve got my attention.”
“First things first. Release Frank-”
“I told you I don’t-”
“Shut up. Release Frank Alton. When we get a call from him saying he’s safe and unharmed in the comfort of his home, we’ll meet with Russell and Marjorie and reach an understanding.”
“Now who’s sayin’ a lot without sayin’ much?” King replied.
“It’s the only deal you’re going to get,” Sam replied.
“Sorry, friend, I’m goin’ to decline. I think you’re bluffin’.”
“Suit yourself,” Sam said, and hung up.
He laid the phone on the coffee table. He and Remi looked at each other. She asked, “Odds?”
“Sixty-forty it rings in under a minute.”
She smiled. “No bet.”
At the fifty-second mark, Sam’s phone trilled. He let it go off three more times, then picked up. Charlie King said, “You’d make a decent poker player, Sam Fargo. Glad we could reach an understanding. I’ll make some calls and see what I can find out about Frank Alton. Can’t promise nothin’, of course, but-”
“If we don’t hear from him in twenty-four hours, the deal is off.”
Charlie King was silent for a few beats. Then, “Keep your phone nearby.”
Sam disconnected.
Remi asked, “What if King thinks we’ve got the evidence with us?”
“He knows better than that.”
