“Well, that was interesting,” Sam said a few seconds later.
“She’s a real charmer,” Remi said. “Did you catch her choice of words?”
Sam nodded. “‘Mr. King has authorized.’ If she understands the connotation, then we can assume Mr. King is going to be just as genial.”
“Do you believe her? About Frank? Judy would have called us if anything had happened.”
While their adventures often led them into dicey situations, their daily lives were fairly calm. Still, Zhilan Hsu’s unexpected visit and mysterious invitation had both their internal warning alarms going off. As unlikely as it seemed, the possibility of a trap was something they couldn’t ignore.
“Let’s find out.” Sam said.
He knelt down by the driver’s seat, retrieved his backpack from under the dashboard, and pulled out his satellite phone from one of the side pockets. He dialed, and a few seconds later a female voice said, “Yes, Mr. Fargo?”
“Thought this was going to be the lucky call,” Sam said. He had a running bet with Remi that someday he’d catch Selma Wondrash off guard, and she’d call either of them by the first name.
“Not today, Mr. Fargo.”
Their chief researcher, logistical guru, and keeper of the inner sanctum, Selma was a former Hungarian citizen who, despite having lived in the United States for decades, still retained a trace of an accent-enough that it gave her voice a slight Zsa Zsa Gabor lilt.
Selma had managed the Library of Congress’s Special Collections Division until Sam and Remi lured her away with the promise of carte blanche and state-of-the-art resources. Aside from her hobby aquarium and a collection of tea that occupied an entire cabinet in the workroom, Selma’s only passion was research. She was at her happiest when the Fargos gave her an ancient riddle to unravel.
“Someday, you’ll call me Sam.”
“Not today.”
“What time is it there?”
“About eleven.” Selma rarely went to bed before midnight and rarely slept past four or five in the morning. Despite this, she never sounded anything less than wide awake. “What have you got for me?”
“A dead end, we’re hoping,” Sam replied, then recounted their visit from Zhilan Hsu. “Charles King comes off like the anointed one.”
“I’ve heard of him. He’s rich with a capital R.”
“See if you can dig up any dirt about his personal life.”
“Anything else?”
“Have you heard any news from the Altons?”
“No, nothing,” replied Selma.
“Call Judy and see if Frank’s out of the country,” Sam requested. “Look into it discreetly. If there is a problem, we don’t want to alarm Judy.”
“When do you meet King?” Selma asked.
“In four hours.”
“Got it,” Selma said with a laugh in her voice. “By then, I’ll know his shirt size and his favorite flavor of ice cream.”
PALEMBANG, SUMATRA
Twenty minutes early for their meeting, Sam and Remi pulled their scooters to a stop beside the hurricane fence bordering Palembang Airport’s private terminal area. As Selma had predicted, they found the tarmac before the hangars crowded with a handful of private planes, all of them either single- or twin-engine prop models. Save one: a Gulfstream G650 jet. At sixty-five million dollars, the G6 was not only the world’s most expensive executive jet but also the fastest, capable of nearly a Mach 1 top speed, with a range of over eight thousand miles and a ceiling of fifty-one thousand feet-ten thousand feet higher than commercial jets.
Given what Selma had discovered about the mysterious Mr. King, the presence of the G6 was of little surprise to Sam and Remi. “King Charlie,” as he was known to his close friends and enemies alike, was currently ranked eleventh on Forbes’s Richest People list, with a net worth of 23.2 billion dollars.
Having started out in 1964 as a sixteen-year-old wildcatter in the oil fields of Texas, King had by the age of twenty-one started his own drilling company, King Oil. By twenty-four, he was a millionaire; by thirty, a billionaire. Through the eighties and nineties, King expanded his empire into mining and banking. According to Forbes, if King spent the rest of his life playing checkers in his penthouse office in Houston, he would still be earning a hundred thousand dollars an hour in interest.
For all that, however, King was in his daily life unostentatious to a fault, often tooling around Houston in his 1968 Chevy pickup and eating at his favorite greasy spoon. And while not quite at the same level as Howard Hughes, he was rumored to be something of a recluse and a stickler for privacy. King was rarely photographed in public, and when he did attend events, whether business or social, he usually did so virtually via webcam.
Remi looked at Sam. “The tail number matches Selma’s research. Unless someone stole King’s jet, it appears the man himself is here.”
“The question is, why?”
In addition to giving them a brief biography of King, Selma had done her best to trace Frank Alton, who, according to his secretary, was out of the country on a job. While she hadn’t heard from him for three days, she was unconcerned; Alton often dropped from communication for a week or two if the job was particularly complex.
They heard a branch snap behind them and turned to find Zhilan Hsu on the other side of the fence only five feet away. Her legs and lower torso were hidden by foliage. She regarded the Fargos with her black eyes for a few seconds, then said, “You are early.” Her tone was slightly less severe than that of a prosecuting attorney.
“And you’re light on your feet,” Remi said.
“I’ve been watching for you.”
Sam said with a half smile, “Didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s not nice to sneak up on people?”
Zhilan’s face remained stoic. “I never knew my mother.”
“I’m sorry-”
“Mr. King is ready to see you now; he must depart promptly at seven-fifty. I will meet you at the gate on the eastern side. Please have your passports ready.”
With that, Zhilan turned, stepped into the bushes, and disappeared.
Eyes narrowed, Remi stared after her. “Okay, it’s official: she’s creepy.”
“Seconded,” Sam said. “Let’s go. King Charlie awaits.”
They pulled their scooters into a spot beside the crossbarred gate and walked up to a small outer building where Zhilan was standing beside a uniformed guard. She stepped forward, collected their passports, and handed them to the guard, who glanced at each before handing them back.
“This way, please,” Zhilan said, and led them around the building, through a pedestrian gate, then to the Gulfstream’s lowered stairs. Zhilan stepped aside and gestured for them to continue on. Once aboard, they found themselves in a small but neatly appointed galley. To the right, through an archway, was the main cabin. The bulkheads were covered in lustrous walnut inlaid with silver teacup-sized Texas Lone Star emblems, the floor in thick burgundy carpet. There were two seating areas, one a grouping of four leather recliner-type seats around a coffee table, the second, aft, a trio of overstuffed settees. The air was crisp and air-conditioned. Faintly, through unseen speakers, came Willie Nelson’s “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.”
“Oh, boy,” Remi muttered.
Somewhere aft, a voice with a Texas twang said, “I think the fancy word for all this is ‘cliche,’ Mizz Fargo, but, heck, I like what I like.”
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