“Are you sure you won’t change your mind, Jack?” asked Remi. Behind her, on the dirt tarmac, was a blue-on-white Bell 206b Long-Ranger III helicopter, its engine whining as the rotors spun up for takeoff.
“No, my dear, I’m sorry. And apologies for abandoning you. I have a hate-hate affair with all flying contrivances. The last time I flew back to Britain, I was under extreme sedation.”
After leaving the cave complex the day before, the group had returned to Lo Monthang to regroup and brainstorm their next move. There was only one, they knew: follow Dhakal the Sentinel’s path east across Nepal, eliminating the locations Karna had gleaned from the mural map.
The altitude and remoteness of the target areas left them only one transport option—a charter helicopter service—which in turn brought them back to Kathmandu and into the lion’s den, as it were. With luck, Sam and Remi would find what they needed within a few days, before King could discover their route.
“And if the Kings follow our trail?” asked Sam.
“Goodness, didn’t I tell you? Ajay here is ex–Indian Army—and a Gurkha, in fact. Quite the tough bloke. He’ll look after me.”
Standing behind Karna’s shoulder, Ajay gave them a shark-like smile.
Karna handed them the laminated map he’d spent the previous night annotating. “I’ve managed to eliminate two points from today’s search grid that are improbable, both from summits that would have been covered in ice and snow at the time of Dhakal’s journey . . .”
Karna’s research into the “real” Shangri-La had led him to believe it was in a comparatively temperate location with regular seasons. Unfortunately, the Himalayan range was rife with such hidden valleys, little slivers of near-tropical paradise nestled amid the forbidding peaks and glaciers.
“That leaves six targets to search,” Karna finished. “Ajay’s given your pilot the coordinates.” On the tarmac, the Bell’s rotors were accelerating. Karna shook their hands and shouted, “Good luck! We’ll meet you back here this evening!”
He and Ajay trotted off to Ajay’s Land Cruiser.
Sam and Remi turned and headed for the helicopter.
Their first target lay thirty-two miles northeast of Kathmandu, in the Hutabrang Pass. Their pilot, a former Pakistani Air Force flier named Hosni, took them directly north for ten minutes, pointing out peaks and valleys and letting Sam and Remi get the lay of the land, before veering east toward the coordinates.
Hosni’s voice came over their headsets: “Entering the area now. I’ll circle it clockwise and try to get as low as possible. The wind shear can be treacherous here.”
In the cabin behind Hosni, Sam and Remi each scooted sideways for a better view out the window. Remi said to Sam, “Eyes open for mushrooms.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Karna’s translation of the cave mural had offered a vague but hopefully useful description of Shangri-La’s most prominent feature: a mushroom-like rock formation. As the mural predated flight, the shape would likely only be recognizable from the ground. Exactly how large the formation was, or whether Shangri-La was supposed to be on it, in it, or simply nearby, the mural didn’t specify. Sam and Remi hoped/assumed that the planners of the Golden Man’s evacuation had chosen a formation large enough to stand out from its neighbors.
In anticipation of numerous landings and takeoffs, they were paying Hosni almost double his usual fee, and had booked him for five days, with a nonrefundable deposit for five more.
The Bell passed over a forested ridge, and Hosni nosed over, descending into the valley below. Three hundred feet over the treetops, he leveled off and decreased his airspeed.
“In the zone now,” he called.
Binocul
ars raised, Sam and Remi began their scan of the valley. Remi radioed, “Remind me: how accurate did Jack say the coordinates were?”
“Half a kilometer. About a third of a mile.”
“That doesn’t help me.” Though adept at it, Remi was not a fan of math; gauging distances especially vexed her.
“About four hundred fifty yards. Imagine a standard running track.”
“Got it. Imagine it, Sam: that Sentinel was required to hit each of these coordinates almost dead-on.”
“A remarkable bit of orienteering,” Sam agreed. “Karna said it, though: these guys were the equivalent of today’s Green Berets or Navy SEALs. They trained for this their whole lives.”
Hosni flew on, dropping as close to the trees as he dared. The valley, which the Bell traversed from end to end in less than two minutes, yielded nothing. Sam ordered Hosni to proceed to the next set of coordinates.
The morning wore on as the Bell continued ever westward. The going was slow. Though many of the coordinates were but a few miles apart, the Bell’s ceiling constraints forced Hosni to skirt some of the higher peaks, flying through alpine cols and passes that lay below sixteen thousand feet.
Shortly after one in the afternoon, as they were flying northwest to avoid a peak in the Ganesh Himal range, Hosni called, “We have company. Helo at our two o’clock.”