33

EL ALAMEIN

British Embassy Compound, Lainchaur, Kathmandu, Nepal

Sir Jack’s wife, Betsy, cleared away the supper plates as Henrietta offered thanks once more for allowing her and Bodleian to stay the night.

“Don’t mention it, Henrietta,” she replied sympathetically. “The least we could do after such a rotten shock. You must stay as long as you want. I really don’t know what is happening in this city these days. Shall I make us some much-needed tea?”

“Yes, thank you,” Henrietta replied.

“We’ll take it in the study, m’dear,” Sir Jack said after his wife.

Together they walked to Sir Jack’s study, part of which was given over to a large diorama depicting Montgomery’s Eighth Army fighting Rommel’s Afrika Korps at the battle of El Alamein. As they stood over the rolling desert of model tanks and troops, each one painted exquisitely, the pear-drop odor of new paint still hanging over them, they discussed the break-in once more.

“I’m sure it was the Chinese,” Henrietta said. “Just before Sangeev was attacked that Lucky Cat virus of theirs swamped our laptop.”

“How is Sangeev?” Sir Jack asked.

“He’ll live, but he’s badly shaken up. Also mortified at everything being stolen.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t just that—a robbery? There’s a lot more crime in the city these days and those bloody viruses turn up all the time. Why do you think it must have been the Chinese? And if it was, why you?”

Henrietta was about to answer when the landline on the study desk rang loudly.

“You’ll have to excuse me, Henrietta,” Sir Jack said. “As the city’s power and the digital networks are down again, I need to take that. It’s on the embassy’s loop so it’ll be important. Sorry.”

Sir Jack took the call, listening more than he spoke, then returned to Henrietta. “I’m afraid that was your new friend, Green. To compound the problems of last night’s immolation and today’s riot at Bhoudhanath, it now seems that KTV, amongst others, are circulating a film showing Chinese soldiers murdering Tibetans in the mountains. Which is all we bloody need and undoubtedly explains why the city’s power has gone out again.”

“It just gets worse.”

“It does indeed, Henrietta.” Sir Jack paused, a grave look creasing his already craggy face as he fixed his gaze on her. “Particularly because the newscasters are saying that you released the film as a protest against the Chinese in Tibet.”

“What?” Henrietta questioned. “That’s complete nonsense!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, of course! The only film I have even received lately was Neil Quinn’s video of the Brocken specter on Shishapangma. We discussed it on the way to the Jatra. Don’t you remember?”

“I do. Well evidently this film is no trick of the mountain light. It is an all too real clip showing a squad of the People’s Armed Police—possibly one of their new Snow Leopard Commando Units—shooting a Tibetan nomad, then brutally arresting two others before throwing both the living and the dead from a flying helicopter as it leaves.”

He hesitated for a moment.

“Henrietta, the film was identified from its encryption as having been taken near to the mountain of Shishapangma . . .”

“I . . . I . . . I don’t . . . kn . . .” Henrietta stopped talking. She just looked at Sir Jack and struggled, through staggered seemingly useless breaths, to say, “This is a setup, Jack . . . This film . . . The break-in . . .”

“But it repeats the question, Henrietta: Why you?”

Henrietta paused before she could speak. “Jack . . . I can only tell you what I know so far.”

“Well, you are going to need to do that.”

“Okay but I need some water first. I’m not feeling too good.”

Quinn arrived at Henrietta Richards’s apartment building to find the door onto the street open. Blacked out like the rest of the city, the only light inside came from a low wattage emergency lighting system that lined the main staircase.

Despite the post-climb fatigue still in his legs, he took the stairs two at a time. He stopped at Henrietta’s door and pressed the doorbell. It didn’t ring.

Urgently he knocked instead. There was still no answer. Holding his head close to the wood to listen, he heard faint movement within as a slither of light at the foot of the door revealed itself by going out.

“Henrietta, it’s Neil Quinn,” he said quietly. “I can understand if you don’t want to see anyone, but we need to talk.”

The door clicked open.

Relieved Henrietta was there, Quinn stepped into the shadows of the apartment to the crunch of broken glass beneath his feet.

He stopped, still. Even in the gloom, he began to make out that Henrietta’s apartment was in complete disarray, the furniture overturned, books and papers everywhere, broken crockery and glass strewn across the floor.

“Henrietta?” he asked again, immediately concerned for her. In reply, a high-intensity beam illuminated and momentarily cauterized his eyes. Blinded, Quinn was struck by multiple unseen blows. Doubled forward and stunned, he gasped for breath as a hand grabbed the back of his neck and hurled him forward. Another light flashed, this time from the impact of his forehead being driven against the living room wall.

Stunned, Quinn fell to the floor into a deeper darkness, shadows descending swiftly on him from above.

Anthony Green strutted into the Sir Jack’s study unannounced. His eyes fixed onto Henrietta, sitting, hunched, sipping at a glass of water, and speaking slowly to Sir Jack. “So you’re here, Ms. Richards. At least that makes my life a little easier,” he said before looking at his colleague and acknowledging his presence with the words, “Sir Jack.”

Green turned back to Henrietta. “Ms. Richards, as it is your stated specialty, I am sure you will be interested to know that the Taiwanese mountaineer Lady Huang Hsu and her business manager were found dead at the Regency Plaza late this afternoon.”

The man carefully watched her reaction, a shocked wordless nod of the head, before he continued. “Murdered, it seems. I have also been advised that the Nepali police are now looking for an Englishman, a mountaineer called Neil Quinn, as their prime suspect. I understand he is well known to you, Ms. Richards, part of your little climbing club it seems. The police are saying he is the same man that sent you the spy-film that was stolen by the Taiwanese and released to the world this evening.”

Henrietta responded slowly, her voice weak, her breathing labored. “I don’t know . . . what you are talking about. Complete . . . and utter . . . rubbish.”

“So you were not in fact in dispute with Lady Huang Hsu over the veracity of her claim to be the first woman to have climbed all the world’s highest peaks?”

“Well . . . yes . . . I . . . was,” she admitted.

“But I thought you just said the whole thing was ‘utter rubbish’?”

“Don’t be pedantic, Green,” Sir Jack cautioned.

“I had nothing to do with any such film,” Henrietta said as firmly as she was able.

“Oh, you didn’t? Well I understand that your friend Neil Quinn emailed it to you this morning from the border at Xangmu and that Huang, having stolen it, released it to the media as payback for your nitpicking of her achievements. Was your apartment not broken into today, Ms. Richards?”

Henrietta immediately looked at Sir Jack who said to Green, “You seem to be very well informed.”

“I see part of my role here, Sir Jack, as one of immediately rebuilding certain contacts that have clearly been neglected by my predecessors. The Chinese ambassador has requested my assistance in managing the diplomatic firestorm he is currently experiencing, particularly given the fact that there are two British subjects at its center. Do you know how much trade this could potentially cost us?”

Sir Jack looked at his successor with obvious disgust. “May I remind you, Green, that not everything is about money and that you are not yet the acting ambassador. I deal with such matters until you are.”

“Am I not right here, right now, Sir Jack, telling you the facts just minutes after I have received them?” Green said smugly before turning his gaze back on Henrietta. “Ms. Richards, at lunch you described yourself as ‘an old-fashioned slave to the truth.’ So then let’s keep this simple, shall we? The Chinese believe that you knew the man who immolated in Durbar Square and that, prior to his action, he transferred something to you in a Tibetan prayer wheel.”

Shocked at what he was hearing, Sir Jack looked inquiringly at Henrietta, remembering the offerings—the prayer wheel and the mala beads—in her hands when he’d met her at the gates of the Royal Palace, but her gaze was elsewhere. She seemed to be being squeezed to breathlessness, her eyes fixed, her hands gripping the chair. “At first they thought it might have contained the spy-film but now, knowing the provenance of that item of espionage, they believe it must be something else intended to damage their interests.”

Ignoring Henrietta’s obvious distress, Green slowed to let what he was about to say next sink in. “So let’s keep this simple. You are going to hand over whatever it was to me, Ms. Richards, and then you will leave this city for good. Time for you also to retire and return to England, I think. Maybe Sir Jack can give you a lift back to Blighty as I’m not necessarily sure that his diplomatic pragmatism isn’t now somewhat clouded by a mutual ‘olden days’ romanticism.”

Green gave Sir Jack a sideways look as Henrietta replied, weakly but valiantly, “I’m not going anywhere . . . This is my home from before you—”

“Not anymore, Ms. Richards. Your residency status in Kathmandu has been revoked. If you do not cooperate with me, I will leave the matter to the locals. Then you will be deported just like the hippies you used to send home all those years ago. However, you can still avoid that cruel irony by telling me what you were given and where it is.”

Henrietta, suddenly conscious that her black tin box was placed alongside her hastily packed overnight bag in his guest room, turned to Sir Jack with a look of panic in her eyes.

“Jack, I—”

The heart attack struck before she could finish the sentence.