Drake snorted. “Are you making this up?”
Collins stood. “Mr. Ramsey, we’re on a short fuse. As I said, it’s been over forty-eight hours since the plane vanished. Whitfield is distraught, and he needs closure. And if there’s any chance that she’s alive… well, you’d be doing your country, the director, and the senator an enormous favor they won’t forget. It’s never a bad idea to have people like that owing you one.”
Drake considered it. “How long do I have to decide?”
“Now would be good.”
Drake shook his head. “It’s too little time. I need to think about it first.”
“So think,” Ross snapped.
“Mr. Ramsey, this is really simple,” Collins said, his tone matter of fact. “You fly to Thailand. You go on an expedition accompanied by whomever you like, and one of ours. Maybe you find a treasure that will solidify your standing and show that Paititi wasn’t a fluke. You also keep your eyes open for a plane. In doing so, you earn the gratitude of some of the most important people in the nation. How is that anything but good for you?” Collins hesitated, gauging Drake’s reaction. “If nothing else, think of the girl. If she’s still alive now, in that jungle she won’t be much longer. And you could be the deciding factor in whether she lives or dies. Tell me, Mr. Ramsey, what do you have going on this week that’s more important than potentially saving a girl’s life and discovering a legendary treasure, all at the same time?”
Drake licked crusted sea salt from his lips. “I’d have to discuss this with my team.”
“We’d need you to be in the air tomorrow. It’ll take at least a couple of days to cut through the red tape and get you permission to mount an expedition in Laos and Myanmar.”
“That may not work. Let me make some calls and see.” Drake stood. “Assuming I decide to do it. Give me some breathing room to decide.”
“I’d like an answer now.”
“I’d like to ride a unicorn to Oz. What’s a number where I can reach you?”
“We’re not playing a game here, kid,” Ross said, taking a step toward Drake.
Collins raised a hand to silence Ross and fished a pen from his pocket. He looked around the room and moved to the breakfast bar, where he scribbled a number on a pad by the phone. He tore off the sheet and handed it to Drake. “Can you decipher my scrawl?”
Drake read off the number. “Give me a little time to digest all this.”
Collins shook his head in frustration. “We don’t have a plan B, Mr. Ramsey. You’re the senator’s only hope. If it will help you decide, we can call him right now and you can speak with him. Perhaps hearing a father’s desperation would sway you?”
“There’s no need. I get it. Let me think it over and research what I can of your story. I’ll call with an answer later today. That’s the best I can do.”
Collins nodded. “Sorry to barge in.”
“Don’t let the door hit you…”
The pair of CIA agents strode to the entry while Drake stood by the couch, the note in his hand, until Ross pulled the door closed. Drake covered the ground quickly, twisted the deadbolt, and then moved to his computer, lost in thought. He typed in Christine’s name, and then looked up when Kyra’s voice sounded from outside.
“Drake? Everything okay?”
He twisted and called out to her. “Yeah, Kyra. Thanks. It’s all good.”
“Okay. Remember about the margarita.”
“I’ll let you know.”
Drake watched as his search engine listed page after page of entries for Christine, and clicked on her Facebook profile. A picture of a pleasant-looking young woman stared back at him with startling intensity. Drake tried to imagine what it must be like to have a daughter and not know whether she was alive or dead, and shivered involuntarily.
Next, he ran a search on the Khmer Emerald Buddha and read about the legends, as well as about the smaller twin at the royal palace in Thailand. That one was considered a holy relic by the Thais, who believed that the safety and well-being of the nation depended on its sanctity. An entire ceremony was involved in the Thai king dressing it in gold at the changing of each season. The term ‘emerald’ was a misnomer, apparently, and described the color, not the gemstone — the Thai statuette was carved from green jasper, which he assumed was the case for the Khmer Buddha as well.
The legends claimed that the royal Khmer treasure was secreted in a hidden temple whose location had been a mystery for almost six centuries, the exact spot lost to history due to a garbling of the accounts in a war-torn land. Multiple searches had been mounted by hopeful Khmers, and later, fortune hunters of many stripes, but none had found it. Over the last hundred years the area thought to be the correct one had become progressively more dangerous, and as war, famine, floods, storms, hostile governments, and roving gangs of drug traffickers had claimed the territory, it had been impractical to continue to search for it.
Drake studied Christine’s Facebook page and read her public postings, perused the selfies under her images, and then returned to the photograph that had stopped him cold.
He looked at the photo for a long time. With a shake of his head, he swore softly under his breath and moved to the phone to call Allie and see if she was game.
But he’d already made up his mind.
He was going to Thailand.
Chapter 5
Two large personnel carriers rolled to a stop in front of a six-story chrome and glass building on the outskirts of Beijing, followed by a heavily plated mobile headquarters van with run-flat tires and gun ports dotting its sides. A squad of police in SWAT gear emptied from the vehicles and formed two columns on the sidewalk. Pedestrians paused and quickly detoured to avoid whatever was happening. Three men in neon emergency vests set up bright orange cones in the street and began waving traffic around them.
A black SUV pulled to the curb and the men stiffened to attention. A diminutive man in a black suit stepped from the vehicle and looked over the officers, and then nodded to the lieutenant at their head as more SUVs arrived.
“Let’s do this,” the little man said.
The lieutenant nodded and called out an order. The assembled gunmen chambered rounds in their weapons and prepared to storm the building.
Huang glared at the telephone on his desk and then back to the pile of paperwork he was plowing through, the phone’s ringing as insistent as an angry wife. He dropped his pen on the contract he was reviewing and reached for the handset.
“Yes?”
“Sir, there’s a group of men from the government on their way up. At least twenty of them. Armed.” It was the security guard in the lobby of the building headquarters for Moontech — Huang’s creation, a thriving technology firm that was bravely forging into the new world of global capitalism, hosting tens of thousands of websites and developing myriad programs and apps.
“What? Are you serious?”
“Completely, sir. They’ll be there any moment.”
Huang hung up and pushed back from his desk, alarmed. He operated his company honestly, paid off all the right people so he wouldn’t be disturbed, didn’t engage in piracy or any of the other schemes that had been the undoing of so many of his competitors. In other words, he was clean.
He moved to his door in time to see a squad of police carrying assault rifles tromping across the office floor, led by a suited man with a lupine face. Huang’s workers froze at the sight, nobody daring to move. The officers dispersed and rounded them up at gunpoint.