“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.

HOUSTON, TEXAS

“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 somehow, and the Fargos got suspicious. They’re runnin’ circles around you two. Put a bunch of people on ’em. I want to know where they’re goin’ and what they’re doin’. You got that?”

“You can count on us, Dad,” said Marjorie.

“That’d be a nice change,” grumbled King. “In the meantime, I’m not takin’ any more chances. I’m sendin’ reinforcements.”

King leaned forward and stabbed the speakerphone’s Disconnect button. Standing on the other side of the desk, her hands folded before her, stood Zhilan Hsu.

“You are hard on them, Charles,” she said quietly.

“And you coddle ’em!” King shot back.

“Until this latest incident with the Fargos, they’ve done well for you.”

King frowned, and gave an annoyed shake of his head. “I s’pose. Still, I want you to get out there, make sure this thing don’t go too far off the rails. Somethin’s got the Fargos’ backs up. Take the Gulfstream and get out there. Fix ’em. That Alton character too. He’s useless now.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“Get the Fargos to play their part. Failin’ that . . . Nepal’s a big place. Plenty of room for people to disappear.”

HYATT REGENCY HOTEL,

KATHMANDU, NEPAL

In the early morning, the phone on Remi’s nightstand was ringing. “Sam, did you do this on purpose? A wake-up call. Do you know what time it is?”

Sam picked up the phone and said, “We’ll be there in forty-five minutes.”

“Be where?” Remi demanded.

“As I promised. A Himalayan hot stone massage for you and a deep tissue massage for me.”

“Fargo,” said Remi with wide smile, “you’re a treasure.”

She slid out of bed and dashed to the bathroom as Sam answered a knock on the door. Room service delivered the breakfast he’d ordered the night before: Remi’s favorite, corned beef hash and poached eggs, and, for him, scrambled eggs with salmon.

He’d also ordered coffee and two glasses of pomegranate juice.

While they ate, they turned their attention to the mysterious chest that sat on the couch across from their table. Remi poured a second cup of coffee as Sam dialed up Selma.

“Do you think King had Alton kidnapped?” Selma asked.

“To get us here,” Remi offered, taking a sip of coffee.

Selma chimed in, “Get you there on the pretext of looking for Frank and then . . . what?”

“False flag,” Sam murmured, then explained: “It’s an espionage term. An agent is recruited by an enemy posing as an ally. The agent thinks his mission is one thing, but it’s actually something altogether different.”

“Oh, great,” Remi remarked.

“It’s a house of cards,” Sam agreed. “If that’s what King is up to, his ego wouldn’t let him entertain the idea of the plan derailing.”

“Then you don’t know if you’re actually looking for Lewis King or not. Or whether there was even a sighting of him.”

“Charlie doesn’t strike me as the sentimental type. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s not so much his father Charlie is chasing but perhaps what his father was chasing.”

“The chest you found?” Selma suggested.

“As I said, a guess,” replied Sam.

The night before, rather than returning to the hotel, Sam and Remi had walked south of the police station until they were out of view, then turned north and flagged a cab. Sam ordered the driver to meander around the city for ten minutes as he and Remi watched for signs of surveillance. They had little doubt the King twins intended to follow them, and they were giving them no time to set up.

Once certain they were not being followed, Sam ordered the driver to take them to a rental car agency on the southern outskirts of Kathmandu, where they hired a battered green Opel. An hour later they pulled into a motel parking lot a half mile from Chobar Gorge, where they left the car and walked the remaining distance.

Having memorized landmarks while being driven away by the police, they took less than an hour to find their exit tunnel. Their gear was still inside and apparently untouched.

“We’re sending it to you via FedEx,” Remi told Selma.

“If it is what King is after, better we get rid of it. Besides, Selma, you like puzzles; you’re going to love this one. Solve it, and we’ll buy you that fish for your tank . . . the, uh-”

“Aquarium, Mr. Fargo. A tank is something you put in a child’s bedroom. And the fish is a type of cichlid. Very rare. Very expensive. Its scientific name is-”

“In Latin, I’m sure,” Sam finished with a chuckle. “Open our Nepali puzzle box, and it’s yours.”

“You don’t need to bribe me, Mr. Fargo. This is part of my job.”

“Then call it an early birthday present,” Remi replied. She and Sam shared a smile: Selma did not enjoy celebrating birthdays, especially her own.

“By the way, I heard back from Rube,” Selma said, rapidly changing subjects. “He looked into Zhilan Hsu. He said she’s-and I quote-‘all but invisible.’ No driver’s license, no credit cards, no public records of any kind save one: her immigration record. According to it, she emigrated here on a work visa from Hong Kong in 1990 at the age of sixteen.”