‘See? I think I can get you to cut loose a little more going forward.’
Parker smiled. ‘Maybe.’
‘Night, Dad.’
‘Goodnight, Raya.’
‘I love you.’
He hesitated.
Maybe it would all be okay. He couldn’t be paranoid forever.
He said, ‘You too.’
Then he rolled over and exhaustion took hold and, utterly spent, he drifted into the deepest sleep of his life.
5
As soon as he woke up he knew something was dreadfully wrong.
The fog of deep sleep took a few moments to lift. Parker peeled one eye open, saw the faint tendrils of daylight snaking across the wooden ceiling, and lay on his back as his mind and body came back to reality. He shifted slightly in his sleeping bag, and his muscles groaned in protest. His ankles and knees were swollen from repetitive blunt impacts on the steep descents. He shimmied his arms out of the bag and stretched them over his head.
His chest was tight — that worried him.
Other than that, he figured he’d be okay.
It’d soon be time for breakfast.
He rolled over to wake up Raya.
She wasn’t there.
The sleeping bag was open, zipped all the way down. The silence became more pronounced. Parker listened to the nothingness and stayed still for a beat. He kept listening. Figured she’d be using the drop toilet, or up early, tapping away at her smartphone in the communal building.
But that didn’t make sense, because her bag was gone, too.
Maybe she’d packed early.
Unlikely.
The last few days had been a constant battle to get all her gear stowed away so they could set off on time and maintain some sort of coherent schedule. He didn’t figure she’d had a total overhaul of her habits within twenty-four hours.
He looked at the bedroom door. It lay ajar, cracked open a few inches. Wind whistled in softly. Through the gap, he could see the door of the opposite room. Winston and Oscar’s. It was firmly shut.
He unzipped his sleeping bag and clambered to his feet. His joints were stiff, and his muscles were sore, and his neck was tight. He cracked his neck left and right and padded across the thin carpet, feeling the concrete underfoot.
He didn’t say a word.
He creaked the door open and stepped out into the tiny alcove separating the two bedrooms in this module. The drop toilet lay in a small room between them. The door was open, and it was unattended.
Leaving only the communal building.
Parker thought about letting Winston and Oscar rest, but instead he raised his hand and knocked sharply on their door. Three times, to let them know it was him.
No response.
He looked down at the entranceway. Winston’s Scarpa hiking boots rested diagonally against the wall, caked in mud and dirt and grime.
Oscar’s were gone.
The foundations of unease crept in. Parker’s throat tightened, and he felt the sudden thud of each heartbeat in his chest.
He knocked again.
Silence.
He reached down and tried the handle.
Unlocked.
Hesitant, he pushed the door open.
Oscar was gone.
Winston was there.
His head had nearly been ripped off his shoulders.
He’d been strangled to death with a garrote. Parker would have recognised the handiwork anywhere. It might have taken a civilian minutes, if not hours, to work out what had happened, but Parker took one look at the pale corpse splayed across the bed with a deep red line of ruptured skin winding all the way around his clammy throat, and knew the cause of death immediately. Winston’s mouth was open in a twisted grimace, and his bloodshot eyes had crimson stains around them. He’d struggled and strained so hard against the metal wire that his eyeballs had nearly popped out. The sockets had bled as he’d fought for his life with a silent scream in his throat. His hands were still clenched tight, having locked up as he died in unimaginable pain.
Parker sat down hard in the middle of the alcove.
His own mouth fell open.
No sound came out.
His lips flapped like a fish out of water.
His hands started to twitch imperceptibly.
He looked back into his own room.
No sign of Raya.
He looked forward.
No sign of Oscar.
Fighting back vomit, he clambered shakily to his feet and stumbled out into the pre-dawn light. Steam billowed out of his mouth in clouds as he rasped for breath. Reality shimmered, like this wasn’t really happening. But it was. His heart rate was dangerously high. He found a plastic table resting on the concrete patio and clutched it hard, stabilising himself as his legs nearly collapsed.
The trail was dead ahead.
It was quiet.
Movement sounded to his right, and he looked over. He was barely lucid. Like a zombie. He couldn’t concentrate on anything. But through vision blurred by tears he saw Sejun, perched uncomfortably on a step, hands in his pockets. The guide seemed disoriented. Out of sorts. But he still noticed Parker’s condition.
‘Are you okay, Aidan?’ Sejun said.
Parker didn’t respond. He fought back an overwhelming wave of nausea.
Sejun said, ‘Have you seen Mukta?’
‘W-who?’
‘The porter.’
‘No.’
‘He’s not in his room. Very strange. I go looking.’
Parker raised a shaking finger and pointed at the bodyguards’ window.
As if that would explain everything.
Sejun raised an eyebrow. ‘What?’
Parker couldn’t fight back the urge any longer.
He turned and vomited on the table, then collapsed from the shock.
Part I
6
Kathmandu, Nepal
The civilian flight touched down at Tribhuvan International Airport to audible sighs of relief.
A particularly vicious bout of turbulence had plagued the passengers for the better part of the last hour, and they were relieved when the wheels found solid ground and coasted toward the terminal. The wails and sobs of children dissipated, replaced by the steady murmuring of nervous laughter.
Jason King and Will Slater barely noticed.
They sat side-by-side in economy class. Not exactly the norm for a pair worth well over four hundred million dollars, but sometimes allowances had to be made. The flights had been booked on an hour’s notice, and the small first-class section aboard was sold out.
It was okay.
They could handle a little discomfort.
The leg room wasn’t optimal. King was six-foot-three and two hundred and twenty
