False Horizon - Alex Archer [7]
“Pay him back?” Annja sighed. “What are you paying him back? What did you need money for?”
The goateed henchman smiled. “He wanted to buy a map. A fifty-thousand-dollar map.”
Annja’s eyes widened in alarm. “Fifty grand? What kind of map costs that much money?”
The goateed man pointed at her. “You see? That’s exactly what Mr. Tsing would like to ask our friend Mike here.”
“Since when does Tsing care what his money is used for as long as he gets repaid?” Mike asked.
“Since he found out you were blowing fifty large on a map,” the man said. “Now, you can come along with us quietly and without any trouble. Or we can beat you senseless and then take you to Mr. Tsing. Makes no difference to us.”
Annja smiled. “Suppose we don’t feel like seeing Mr. Tsing just now? What about you guys go back to him and say you couldn’t find Mike?”
“We already told him we had you two in sight. He’s very interested in seeing Mike and apparently he’s very interested in meeting you. Says he loves your show.”
“How did you know who I was?” Annja asked.
“We have ways of finding out who is on airline manifests. It comes in handy for Mr. Tsing to know when he has business associates coming to town. Or other people that he’s interested in meeting.”
“Great. A fan,” Annja mumbled. “That’s just what I need right now.” She looked at Mike. “When were you going to tell me about this?”
“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to,” Mike said. “Tsing told me I had all the time I needed to pay him back. This is as much a surprise to me as it is you.”
“Fifty grand? That must be some map.”
“It is.”
The goateed thug cleared his throat. “Are you coming with us or do we have to drag you out of here?”
Annja eyed him. She could easily draw her sword and cut both men down before they could blink. But she wasn’t sure that unsheathing her blade in a crowded restaurant was the best way of handling this. At least, not in view of everyone else in the joint. Maybe she would try her luck once they got outside and into some narrow alley. She imagined Mr. Tsing would infest some tiny haunt on the back side of Katmandu.
Mike nodded. “Fine, we’ll go with you to see what Tsing has to say. I like this place too much to cause trouble in here, anyway.”
“Smart,” the man said. “I’m sure he won’t keep you long. This is more of a social call than a collection call.”
“What a relief,” Mike said.
The two men led them out of the Blue Note. Annja looked around but saw little chance for action. Throngs of people swelled around them and the two henchmen bracketed Mike and Annja between them. The tide of the foot traffic carried them along.
Mike whispered in her ear. “Don’t worry, I can handle Tsing.”
“Can you?”
“Sure. He’s a businessman. The last thing he wants is to spill any blood. He’d much rather make money.”
“And the map?”
“I believe it shows the true route to finding Shangri-La.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“An archivist for James Hilton.”
Annja glanced at him. “You mean the same James Hilton who wrote Lost Horizon?”
“The same.”
“But most people who read that book believed that Hilton based it on Hunza Valley in Pakistan,” she said.
Mike nodded. “Yep, and others think it’s actually in the Kunlun mountain range. But neither of those suppositions is correct.”
“And this map shows the way?”
“It’s true that Hilton visited Pakistan and particularly the Hunza Valley only a few years before Lost Horizon was published. But as for him basing the book on the area, that’s rubbish. Hilton knew what he’d discovered and didn’t wish for it to be torn apart by the curious.”
Annja saw the henchmen were steering them down a street with less traffic. They were on the outskirts of Thamel now. Ahead of them, more modern buildings loomed. They passed cell phone shops and nice restaurants.
“So, Hilton…lied?” she asked.
“Yes,” Mike said. “Throughout the early twentieth century and into the 1930s, there were many British explorers over in this region. It was a natural place to go to, given the British Empire’s India connection. Hilton and others