44

SNATCHED

Lainchaur, 5, Kathmandu, Nepal

October 26, 2014

“We should just pack it with explosives,” Neil Quinn said looking into the kapala’s eye sockets, the deep pits grotesquely magnified by the illuminated lens Sir Jack was using to glue the bone back together under the regimented gazes of painted soldiers and a half-assembled panzer tank.

“I don’t quite think so, Neil. Even doing this seems utterly sacrilegious,” Sir Jack said, mixing white and brown paint on a saucer then focusing his attention on working in tiny spots of yellow to produce a color as close to the skull’s aged bone as he could. Quinn, surprised at Sir Jack’s passion for military model-making and impressed by the man’s evident artistry, said, “But surely Yama needs to be . . .”

“No buts, Neil,” Sir Jack interjected as he began to mask imperfections in the rebuilt skull with the tiniest of brushstrokes. “It is what Chering’s sons have decided. They have a plan and I think we should follow it. We are all guests in what is their house and if they wish to put it in order then, I think—and I’m sure Henrietta would have agreed—they have that right.”

“Okay, so be it, but we are playing for high stakes here,” Neil said, worried about Beth.

“They’re up to the task. Their father was a strong, resourceful man. They take after him.”

“I hear you are going to be staying on for a bit,” Quinn said, changing the subject.

“Indeed. A complete bore really, Betsy and I were looking forward to retirement,” Sir Jack said, clearly delighted that he was staying. He turned the skull to begin masking another of the cracks. “Sadly, my rather detailed report to London about recent events has caused my replacement to be ordered back to London for the exciting opportunity to be Her Majesty’s trade commissioner to Europe. Good riddance, I say!” Sir Jack raised his eyebrows at Quinn to emphasize the point then asked, “So are we all agreed on what you’ve got to do?”

“Yes. Do you think he’ll stick to the deal?”

“Yama wants the kapala in return for your American friend and that is what he is going to get. He knows from her that we are no nearer than he is to finding any missing child that Fuji might have brought out, but that the kapala is somehow key. We set off at nine p.m. What do you think?”

Sir Jack pulled back from the old skull to let Quinn see his finished work. It looked perfect once more—even if that was not the right word.

Quinn got out of Sir Jack’s new car and walked into Durbar Square alone, his back illuminated by the vehicle’s headlights. His long shadow stretched ahead to divide the white river of light that pointed into the ancient place. Everything around him was vacant and still, the stacked temples silent and aloof, the normally busy thoroughfares empty, devoid of their usual tourists and vendors.

Alone and conspicuous, Quinn walked on until he reached the central area of the square. It was lit with streetlights that danced with insects, but almost the instant he reached their softer light, there was a click and the fiery filaments at their center were extinguished.

Power cut! Quinn thought as the surrounding darkness instantly flooded the square. Walking on, he braced himself for some sort of attack, holding the day pack that contained the kapala tight to his chest to prevent it from being snatched; but his progress was uninterrupted.

Just as his eyes—still raw from the Makalu climb—grew accustomed to the dark, they stung anew when, ahead and above, a single lamp illuminated to momentarily reveal the high plinth of the Maju Deval temple, then quickly extinguished.

Quinn followed the jagged smear the light left on his retinas to arrive at the stone staircase that led up to the podium of the building. Slowly and carefully he stepped up to the pillared platform beneath the stacked pagoda roofs. The moment Quinn arrived at the top, the light went back on. To the front of it appeared the black silhouette of Yama.

“The relic?” he said.

“Here.”

Quinn’s still bandaged hand patted the bulky contents of the day pack slung across his chest.

“Show me.”

With difficulty Quinn took the kapala out and held it forward in both his hands, the single light haloing the old skull.

“Give it to me.”

“Not yet. Show me Mrs. Waterman. Prove that she is okay.”

Yama spoke into a small handheld radio.

“Over there.”

A light went on across the square within another of the temples. Quinn saw Beth, hands bound, kneeling on the stone floor of the temple platform, a dark figure standing on either side of her.

“If you have hurt her . . .” Quinn threatened.

“You’ll do what exactly, Englishman? Take another video of me? I don’t think so.” Yama gave another command into the radio. The lights in both temples went out.

In the darkness, the skull was snatched from Quinn’s numb hands and he was shoved backward.

Quinn, all balance lost, his legs still weak from Makalu, toppled back into free air, momentarily suspended high above the long stone staircase that led up to the dais.

The microseconds of movement defied the laws of time to expand into a clear and lengthy preview of the inevitable impact.

He had always known it would end in a fall.

And fall he did.

But the impact never came.

Strong hands caught and gripped his body, strong hands that carried him down to the flagstones of the square below. There a headlamp beamed into his eyes, a shadowed yet familiar face below saying, “Mr. Neil? Mr. Neil?”

It was Gelu.

Around them, more moving lights zigzagged through the darkness like neon strands of barbed wire. Quinn got to his feet to understand that a great crowd of Sherpa and Tibetans had appeared from the shadows to fill the plaza.

He followed those nearest, toward the ghostly white form of Gaddi Baithak palace, where an open square had been formed by a silent, waiting crowd. The light of their headlamps, flashlights, and phones lit the boundaries like an electric fence.

Quinn watched as Yama was suddenly flung forward into the space.

The black-suited man ran from edge to edge, ordering, shouting, cursing but every time he was pushed back by the crowd into the open area.

He stopped and just stared at the crowd from which a group stepped forward. They seized him and wrestled him to the ground. Yama was held down as Sherpa and Tibetans went to work on him to the growing chant of, “This is our city! We are all its people! You must go!”

The shouting of the crowd began to be drowned by the sound of thunder from the air above. Bigger, brighter lights burned down from the heavens. The rush and rotation of wings beat the open area. If Henrietta could have been there, she would have told Quinn that the place where Yama was being held down was the exact same spot where the immolation had happened.

A long line hung down.

The sprung hook at the end momentarily danced on the flagstones, discharging its static, before a figure—Quinn thought it might have been Pema Chering—stood up from the scrum holding Yama down, and drew the line into it.

A hand was raised and the group dispersed at a run to the edges of the open square.

The noise above crescendoed.

The man in black was wrenched up into the night sky like a rag doll, arms and legs flung back by the force of the elevation.

As he watched, Quinn felt a set of arms reach around him. Beth clung to him as they both watched the flashing lights of the helicopter disappear to the north.