40

BRICKSTACK

Tengboche Monastery, Khumjung, Nepal

The H125 returned quickly from dropping Quinn into Makalu. As the gorak flew, the mountain was only twenty-five miles away.

The seats and equipment that had been removed to permit maximum lift were reinstalled, and Beth, Sir Jack, and Temba were ferried back to Lukla to pick up another ride to Kathmandu in a larger, older, Russian-made helicopter. As they left Tengboche, Beth looked out silently through the side window, trying to imagine what it would be like to be dropped so high and alone on one of those distant snow giants.

Quinn had made the task seem possible, even logical, but the sight of those immense peaks made her heart sink. The crackly sound of Sir Jack’s voice filling her headset interrupted her thoughts. Turning to look at the British ambassador, he said, as if reading her mind, “Don’t worry. Henrietta thinks Quinn is the best there is—even if she’d never admit it to him.” That might well be so, but Beth feared for the Englishman.

She was also concerned about what to do next in Kathmandu. When Beth had raised her and Quinn’s idea that Fuji might have smuggled out a last child, Temba had been particularly skeptical. “I’m sure we would know at least something about it. Fuji left Henrietta with all the clues about the kapala we needed. If there is a child, then why would he say nothing about it?”

“He only approached those he had to,” she replied. “Why did he not come to you Temba about the kapala? He knew you. You know a lot of Sherpa climbers. I also think that you knew Pema Chöje, who originally smuggled it out of Tibet.”

“It’s true, I did know Pema Chöje, Miss Waterman, and I still miss him. We grew up together in the same village in Tibet. It was called Amling. I was there the day he found the kapala.” The old businessman’s face seemed to weary a little as he told Beth about Amling, the day the soldiers came, and what followed. It was a tragic story and a deep loss hung over his every word.

“Pema and I would meet again here in the Khumbu Valley as refugees, orphans of that Chinese storm. We began carrying on expeditions to survive,” he finally said. “He was a special person and the Western climbers we met recognized it, particularly Anderson. He already knew about our people’s struggle and was determined to help. When Geshe Lhalu and the Khampa fighter had told Pema to fly from Amling like a ghost moth with the kapala, Anderson’s group saw in that story the example of what they too could do to help.

“Pema became mortally ill so he asked Anderson to specifically rehide the kapala—his most precious responsibility—as he knew only Anderson could truly put it out of reach until it might be needed. You must remember that we were really just porters, not expert climbers like the Ghost Moths. That was the reason Fuji went to Henrietta, because he knew only she had the facts behind Anderson’s Makalu climb. He also knew from the Sherpa that Quinn had the ability to retrace Anderson’s steps up the mountain.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Temba, but there’s more to it, I think. Fuji did nothing by accident. Perhaps he left the child at the Hello Welcome Home Orphanage just as they used to back in the day? Perhaps the prayer wheel and the beads were also given to Henrietta as tools of recognition? Perhaps he deliberately showed Quinn to the child so he would link him to the kapala? Perhaps the child is a new Panchen Lama . . .”

“Miss Waterman, I understand that as a journalist questions are your trade but that orphanage has been closed for years,” Temba Chering replied. “There are now at least six hundred orphanages in the Kathmandu Valley alone. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

The remark reminded Beth of her conversation with the Dalai Lama. She wondered if that was coincidence or not.

Back in the city, Sir Jack returned to his embassy determined to clear the allegations against Quinn and Henrietta and to end Green’s tenure in Nepal before it had even properly started. For both, he had an ace up his cuff-linked sleeve: Temba’s introduction to Detective Thanel.

Beth accompanied Temba to the Blue Poppy to find the place bustling, more operations center now than restaurant, and clearly awaiting their leader’s return. Temba disappeared into private meetings after telling Beth to check back into the Tibet Guest House and giving her the help of one of his assistants to identify the biggest and most centrally located orphanages in the city to, at least, test her theory. Gelu would have to go with her, he insisted, and his other conditions to the search were also firm: no cellphone usage, no computer searches, no visible blond hair, nothing that might permit Yama to track her.

The American’s fluorescent highlighter soon dotted a city map with possible locations. The following morning, Gelu arrived in an aged Land Rover to crisscross the city from establishment to establishment. At each old building—many little more than stacks of red brick with battered tin roofs—Gelu would talk to the most recent arrivals, questioning them about their journey to that place while conspicuously running the mala beads through his fingers.

The assembled boys responded to his questions gladly and enthusiastically, but none reached for the beads. Instead they constantly looked at Beth in the hope that they were auditioning for foreign patronage even if they saw nothing curious in the prayer wheel strapped to the side of her day pack. None of the newest arrivals were even from Tibet, abandoned by fate much closer to no home. “That way is shut now,” was the consistent answer from orphanage staff when asked about any children from beyond the mountains.

The sad plight of so many parentless children weighed on Beth alongside a growing worry as to how Quinn was faring on Makalu. When she quizzed Gelu about what it would be like to climb such a mountain at that time of year, the veteran Sherpa couldn’t help but paint a bleak picture.

“Not good for the fingers or the toes. In fact . . .” The Sherpa began to say something more about a famous French climber who had tried to climb Makalu alone in winter but then, looking at Beth hanging on his every word, cut the rope by changing the subject.

Only at the end of the second day when they had returned to the Tibet Guest House from another fruitless search was the subject of Quinn even mentioned again.

“Pertemba has told his father that he is in position,” Gelu reported. “Tonight we must pray to all our different gods to unite for good weather so that tomorrow he can find what he is looking for and return. Perhaps we will too.”