‘The girl is Raya Parker,’ King said, recapping what they already knew. ‘She’s missing, along with Oscar Perry and the porter. She doubts the guide or porter are involved, because no one out here knows who or what Aidan Parker really does, least of all the trekking company. He had the bodyguards along with him, but anyone who’s paranoid and has a bit of disposable income can get protection. Violetta says they knew nothing about how truly important he is.’
‘How important is he? What does he do?’
‘That’s where it gets vague.’
Slater raised an eyebrow.
King said, ‘Violetta doesn’t know all the details.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘I believe her.’
‘You would.’
‘Are we going to start down this road again?’ King said. ‘Let’s not fight over everything. We’re not toddlers.’
Slater held up both hands in protest. ‘I’m not trying to start anything. Relax. I’m just saying — don’t you think there’s the possibility you’re wearing rose-tinted glasses?’
‘Why would she withhold that?’
Slater paused, and said, ‘I don’t know. But nothing would surprise me anymore.’
‘We haven’t exactly had the best history with handlers, I know.’
‘Lars, then Ramsay. What is it about power-hungry pieces-of-shit?’
‘Isla was a good handler,’ King said.
‘And look where that got her.’
Killed in Dubai. Shot in the head.
That’s where it got her.
King said, ‘The waters are murky. Think about how little we know about the inner workings of our government. You think Violetta knows everything?’
‘She knows people who would.’
‘Parker himself stays very secretive. Apparently he’s always been a private man. He used to coordinate Black Force operations, but now that division doesn’t exist anymore. He’s been keeping busy, but on what exactly … it’s darts at a dartboard. Some say he’s pioneering new divisions. Some say he’s still working on the same backend stuff. No-one knows for sure.’
‘Does that make you suspicious?’
‘Everything makes me suspicious.’
‘I’m sure he’ll enlighten us on the details when we get to Phaplu.’
‘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
