“But you’re leaving so much on the table…”
Allie smiled sweetly. “Yeah, I’ve had dozens of wealth managers fly in and try to talk me into going with them, but I never got a good feeling from any of them. They like to talk down to you, like you’re an idiot or a child. Sort of that whole, ‘Don’t you worry your pretty little head over all that complicated stuff’ thing. I frigging hate that.”
Drake interrupted the discussion with the more pressing topic of the Emerald Buddha.
“As far as I can tell, it’s all hearsay. The Khmer king never retrieved the treasure, either because the territory was too dangerous to mount a campaign in, or because he did and they simply couldn’t find it. That’s if the story’s even true. For all we know, there is no treasure, and it’s all an invention that got bigger over time. It’s unclear where the truth lies.”
“Sort of like every lost treasure, right?” Allie said.
“There’s that. But one of the things that makes this particularly difficult is that the region was at constant war for so much of the following centuries. There are no records. It’s all oral traditions and speculation.”
“Too bad we don’t have a handy journal to follow,” Spencer quipped.
They were interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Come in. It’s open,” Drake called out.
Collins and a tall, serious-looking man in his late thirties entered, Collins carrying a briefcase, his companion empty-handed. Beneath his untucked blue striped dress shirt and jeans, the newcomer was clearly fit and athletic, his face all hard planes and sharp angles.
Collins introduced himself to Allie and Spencer and then held a hand out toward the other man. “This is Alex Banyon. He’ll be your field liaison, and will accompany you into the jungle.”
“Pleased to meet everyone,” Alex said, his tone as gruff and as no-nonsense as his profile. “Mind if I sit? I’ve heard all this before.”
“Sure,” Drake said, and rose to get a chair from the dining table. When they were seated, Collins cleared his throat and set his briefcase beside him.
“Let’s take the matter of the plane first. As I told you, Christine was on it when it went down.”
“How do you know?” Allie asked.
Collins didn’t blink. “We have our sources. She was flying from China to Thailand, and there were storms over Laos and Myanmar. Our working assumption is that the plane had to ditch due to a malfunction. Could have been due to weather. No way of knowing for sure until we find the wreckage.”
“What was she doing in China?” Spencer asked.
“Some kind of spiritual retreat, as far as we know. Yoga, meditation, that kind of thing.”
“Isn’t that usually something kids go to India to practice?” Allie asked.
Collins’ eyes drifted to Allie and then back to Spencer. “Maybe she saw too many reruns of Kung Fu. I honestly have no idea about her motivations. I’m going by what her father has told us.”
Spencer rubbed his hand along his chin. “How about the transponder?”
“For unknown reasons, it was turned off. Possibly because it didn’t want to be tracked. It’s fairly common with drug-running planes along that corridor.” He opened the briefcase and removed a manila folder. Alex took it, quickly scanned the contents, and passed it to Spencer.
“That’s the last snapshot from Thai radar. Laos doesn’t have much reach in that region and it didn’t show up on theirs, and Myanmar… Myanmar doesn’t talk to us,” Alex said.
Spencer put a satellite image on the coffee table and studied the red circle drawn on it. “That looks like it’s partially over Myanmar.”
“That’s part of the challenge. We’re working through a third party to get you permission to cross the border. To look for the temple, of course.”
“Of course,” Spencer said. “But how are we supposed to find a needle in that haystack? Says here that it was a Cessna 172. That’s barely more than a kite.”
“Why not use a drone?” Allie asked. “I see them all over the TV. Isn’t that more efficient than having us go in?”
“Good question. The problem with smaller drones is battery time. Even the military models only go so long, and an hour is the outside max for the little ones. Anything larger tips our hand — both Myanmar and Laos would smell government agency all over it. Finally, the drug cartels that operate in that area would try to shoot down anything suspicious. So it’s a bad idea all around.” Collins frowned. “As to how you’ll search for the plane, we’re arranging for a helicopter. You’ll perform a standard grid search at low altitude. It’s doing it the hard way, but I don’t see any other option.”
“Why don’t you zoom in with a super satellite? Like I’ve seen on the news?” Drake asked.
“Cloud cover, for starters. You can fly beneath it, but a satellite can’t. We’re of course doing exactly that anyway, but so far haven’t turned up anything,” Alex said.
They discussed the ins and outs of the plane search, and then turned to the temple.
“You mentioned you had intelligence for us,” Drake began. “Let’s see it.”
Collins nodded and withdrew another file. “First, you’ll all need to sign this security clearance. The file I’m about to show you is still classified.” He set three forms down on the tabletop and handed Alex a pen.
They read the documents and, after a couple of questions, signed. Collins collected the forms and then set the file on the coffee table. “That’s the transcript of an interrogation of a top Khmer Rouge commander who was operating in Cambodia and Laos. We captured him in 1970. The questioning goes on for hours. This is the relevant part.”
Spencer read the four pages and handed them to Allie, who did the same, wincing in spots. Drake read it last and, when he was finished, set the pages in front of him. “That’s it? A man who was being tortured spun some yarn about twin sisters guarding a hidden temple?”
“It’s a little more than that. He claims to have seen the spot.”
“Right, but it’s gibberish. Twin sisters? What is that, trees? Rock formations? Mountains? Boulders?”
“Our analysts have narrowed it down to three possible locations. We know from him that it was in the western section of Laos or the eastern part of Myanmar. One of the things we did with our satellites was to look for likely suspects.” Collins withdrew another satellite image from his case and laid it on top of the transcript. “The circles mark the three.”
They all leaned in to look. The possible sites were all within the area they were going to be searching for the plane. Alex took over from Collins.
“You can see there are a pair of distinctive karst formations that might fit the description, and a third that’s two conspicuously large boulder outcroppings — big enough that we believe they would have been plainly visible even six centuries ago. All three have valleys that match the legend, with streams, or in that case, a small river, running through them,” Alex said, tapping the photos.
“Why hasn’t anyone gone after the temple if you’ve known this for nearly fifty years?” Allie asked.
Collins smiled sadly. “The CIA isn’t in the treasure-hunting business, young lady. We leave that to private interests like yourself. We’ve got our hands full defending the free world and faking moon landings.”
The discussion went another hour, and when they were finished, Collins and Alex rose. Alex passed out airline tickets and told them to be at the airport by ten p.m. — the flight departed at one in the morning.
Drake eyed the ticket doubtfully. “Why don’t we take Spencer’s plane? He’s got a G5.”