Neither of them were starry-eyed enough to remember their first meeting as instant love, but the spark was undeniable; talking and laughing over drinks, they closed down The Lighthouse without noticing the hours slipping by. Six months later, they were married there in a small ceremony.
With Remi’s encouragement, Sam had been pursuing an idea he’d been tinkering with, an argon laser scanner designed to detect and identify alloys at a distance, through soil and water alike. Treasure hunters, universities, corporations, mining outfits, and the Department of Defense came begging for licenses, checkbooks open, and within a couple years Fargo Group Ltd was turning a seven-figure profit. Four years later they accepted a buyout offer that left them undeniably wealthy, set for the rest of their lives. Instead of sitting back, however, they took a monthlong vacation, then established the Fargo Foundation, and set out on their first joint treasure hunt. The wealth recovered went to a long list of charities.
Now the Fargos stared in silence at the island before them. Remi murmured. “Still a little hard to fathom, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is,” Sam agreed.
No amount of education or experience could have prepared them for what they’d found on Pulau Legundi. The chance discovery of a ship’s bell off Zanzibar had mushroomed into discoveries that would occupy the attention of generations of archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists.
Sam was shaken from his reverie by the double whoop of a marine horn. He turned to port; half a mile away, a thirty-six-foot Sumatran Harbor Patrol boat was headed directly for them.
“Sam, did you forget to pay for gas back at the rental place?” Remi asked wryly.
“No. Used the counterfeit rupiah I had lying around.”
“That might be it.”
They watched as the boat closed the gap to a quarter mile, where it turned first to starboard, then to port in a crescent turn that brought it alongside them a hundred feet away. Over a loudspeaker, an Indonesian-accented voice said, in English, “Ahoy. Are you Sam and Remi Fargo?”
Sam raised his arm in the affirmative.
“Stand by, please. We have a passenger for you.”
Sam and Remi exchanged puzzled glances; they were expecting no one.
The Harbor Patrol boat circled them once, closing the distance, until they were three feet off the port beam. The engine slowed to idle, then went silent.
“At least they look friendly,” Sam muttered to his wife.
The last time they’d been approached by a foreign naval vessel had been in Zanzibar. There it had been a patrol boat equipped with 12.7mm cannons and crewed by angry-looking sailors bearing AK-47s.
“So far,” Remi replied.
On the boat’s afterdeck, standing between two blue-uniformed police officers, was a petite Asian woman in her mid-forties with a lean angular face and a hairdo that bordered on being a crew cut.
“Permission to come aboard?” the woman asked. Her English was almost flawless, with only the barest trace of an accent.
Sam shrugged. “Permission granted.”
The two policemen stepped forward as though preparing to help her cross the gap, but she ignored them, taking a single fluid stride that vaulted her off the gunwale and onto the Fargos’ afterdeck. She landed softly, cat-like. She turned to face Sam and Remi, who was now standing at her husband’s side. The woman stared at them a moment with a pair of impassive black eyes, then handed them a business card. It said simply “Zhilan Hsu.”
“What can we do for you, Ms. Hsu?” asked Remi.
“My employer, Charles King, requests the pleasure of your company.”
“Our apologies, but we’re not familiar with Mr. King.”
“He is waiting for you aboard his private aircraft at the private charter terminal outside Palembang. He wishes to speak with you.”
While Zhilan Hsu’s English was technically flawless, there was a disconcerting stiffness to it, as though she were an automaton.
“That part we understand,” Sam said. He handed the card back to her. “Who is Charles King and why does he want to see us?”
“Mr. King has authorized me to tell you it concerns an acquaintance of yours, Mr. Frank Alton.”
This got Sam’s and Remi’s attention. Alton was not just an acquaintance but rather a close, longtime friend, a former San Diego police officer turned private detective who Sam met in judo class. Sam, Remi, Frank, and his wife, Judy, had a standing monthly dinner date.
“What about him?” Sam asked.