False Horizon - Alex Archer [17]
But did such a place really exist?
It seemed too incredible to be real. And yet, here was the most powerful criminal in Katmandu telling Annja Creed and her friend Mike that he firmly believed it did exist. And here was an apparently famous adventurer and a learned man saying they believed the same.
If they thought the legends true, then Tuk supposed all that remained was to find out if it truly did exist.
He wondered what it would be like to discover such a land. With so much of his own past steeped in doubt and question, Tuk found the idea of seeing a place like Shangri-La a tempting diversion.
Perhaps when he was done working for the man on the telephone, he would try to find the place on his own. He didn’t have to become a farmer. He could wander the countryside and find his own path. And there was no telling where it might lead.
Nepal, after all, was a land of legends and myths. The swirling mix of religions and peoples made for all sorts of craziness. Tuk grinned as he thought about the creatures said to exist outside the boundaries of civilization.
The yeti still walked according to legends he heard told by traders who came down to Katmandu from up north. Tuk wasn’t sure what to make of that particular story, but he had enough memory of being outside the city to know there were many parts of the country that seemed to defy the modern age. Who knew what existed in the crevices of the vast mountain ranges that jutted out of the earth?
Anything seemed possible, he decided, when standing in the middle of the night in the shadows of the hotel.
Tuk frowned. This wasn’t like him. Seeing that woman upstairs had shaken him. He recognized that the fear had welled up from the bottom reaches of his soul. He’d never felt this before and the fact that he did now shook his confidence.
It was not good for what he was tasked with doing.
Tuk only hoped that he would not run into the woman again. He knew she would rend him from head to toe with those lethal fingernails.
He shuddered in the dark as another breeze blew over him. Judging from the position of the stars overhead, the hours had passed quickly.
Tuk leaned back and stretched himself like a cat. He heard several pops and felt his muscles lengthen as he flexed this way and that. A sudden urge in his bladder made him adjust himself and then urinate in the corner.
But always, he kept his eyes on the entrance of the hotel.
His vigilance was rewarded shortly after three o’clock in the morning. He saw a sudden movement and then Burton and Kurtz each emerged from the lobby. Burton had the woman and Kurtz walked with Mike.
A black car rolled up and Burton eased Annja into the backseat. Kurtz slid Mike into the backseat and then got himself in, as well. Burton walked around and opened the front passenger side. He took a quick glance around and then slid into the car.
Tuk stepped out and over to the motorbike rack nearby. In seconds, he’d freed one of the small bikes and started the engine just as Burton’s car pulled out of the hotel driveway.
Tuk let them get ahead by two blocks before following.
He glanced back at the hotel and couldn’t help but feel like someone was still watching him.
He frowned and turned his attention back to the car. They drove at a leisurely pace. There seemed no sense of urgency.
Tuk, as much as he despised Tsing, felt fairly certain that he didn’t mean Annja and Mike harm. He merely wanted them handled in such a way so as to prove that he was in absolute command of things. And certainly drugging them and positioning them in the plane would convey such a message.
Tuk wondered if Mike even had the map they’d spoken of with him. They would need it, after all, if they were going to fly and try to locate Shangri-La.