“Not a chance. Tommy and I are about to hop out of this country. We’re chasing down a lead, and a very important Israeli’s life is at stake. If you do a quick sniff around, you’ll find out who was killed in the wreck.” He thought for a second then added, “You still haven’t answered my question.”
She paused for a moment and then responded. “His name is Sharouf Al Nasir. We believe he works for a man out of Dubai by the name of Mamoud Al Najaar. Thing is, the guy’s basically a ghost. Other than his name, we don’t know much. Heck, even the name might be an alias of some kind. We aren’t sure.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“Nothing…yet. I’ll let you know if I need you, but from the sounds of it, you’re already involved.”
“So it would seem. A few days ago, someone tried to kill me and Tommy. They burned our houses down, thinking we were still inside. I barely got Tommy out. Now we know who did it. My question is: Why are they coming after us?”
“Axis has been running a sting on Al Najaar for a while now. Another agent is working on it. So far, he’s found that Al Najaar seems to be importing a ton of weapons and ammunitions.”
“What for?” Sean asked.
“That’s just it. We don’t know. Al Najaar can’t be doing it for the money.”
“So he’s a sympathizer.”
“Or an egomaniac,” she offered.
“Could be both.”
Tommy motioned that they needed to get going by waving his hand around in a circle.
“Em, I gotta let you go. I have a plane to catch. Let me know if you hear anything about Al Nasir. If you keep an eye on the news down in Yogyakarta, you should hear something any minute now.”
“Will do. And be careful. If that guy isn’t dead, he’s not someone you want to run into a second time.”
Sean grinned. “Neither am I.”
He ended the call, grabbed his things, and followed Tommy into the terminal. Sean kept his phone in his hand as he moved through the swaths of travelers and sent a quick text message before putting it back in his pocket.
Getting through airport security had been a little more stressful than either Sean or Tommy had anticipated. Both men had grown accustomed to getting to where they needed to be without much fuss. There were, it appeared, still places that had plenty of red tape.
They were relieved to set foot inside the Gulfstream’s cabin and kick up their feet. The events of the day had exhausted their adrenal glands, and now their bodies needed rest. Sean leaned his seat back and propped his feet on the footrest as the engines whined and the plane began moving down the runway.
It was the middle of the day, but they’d been in so many different time zones over the course of the last few days that both Tommy and Sean had trouble establishing what time they were really on.
By the time the plane left Indonesian soil, the two were in a deep sleep. The flight attendant elected not to bother them, instead letting them catch up on some shuteye. Neither man moved much until the plane entered Bhutan airspace in the late afternoon.
Paro’s airport barely qualified as an international one. Only a few flights went in and out each day, and as the country was so small and remote, tucked away at the edge of the Himalayas, a massive hub wasn’t necessary. A lone runway ran along the plain, nestled between barren foothills.
Because the trip to the Taktsang Trail was less than thirty minutes away, Sean and Tommy decided to pay a driver to take them up to the trailhead. Based on some quick research, they figured getting to the monastery and back would take about two hours, then figured in another hour for finding whatever it was they were looking for.
The two Americans stood outside the airport amid a short line of taxis.
“You don’t happen to have a plan for finding this thing, do you?” Tommy asked.
Sean stretched his arms and yawned. He winked at his friend. “I figured we’d just ask the abbot where it is.”
Tommy stared at him in annoyed disbelief. “Seriously? That’s your plan?”
“From what I understand, a lot of these Buddhist monks are very honest and friendly. They’re usually more than happy to share information with people when asked.”
“True…except in this case they’ve been entrusted with hiding a priceless relic that’s over three thousand years old.”
“Well, there’s that. But if you forego the details, I’m pretty sure they’ll be happy to help us.”
Tommy rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Just in case, I’ll be trying to think of an actual plan.”
“Knock yourself out. Last I checked, I didn’t see any other clues in that Indonesian temple.”
“We left in a hurry. There may have been something else there.”
Sean was dubious. “I don’t think so. If there were more clues, we would have seen them in that drawer or at the base of the statue. There was nothing else. That means we can spend several hours traipsing around a temple high up in the mountains of Bhutan, or we can ask the monk in charge to show us where it is.”
“And you think that’s going to work?” It was Tommy’s turn to look doubtful.
“I’m just saying, we’re probably the first people in over two thousand years to ask for it.”
“Technically, this particular monastery is only around five hundred years old.”
“You know what I mean.” Sean shot his friend a narrow-eyed glare.
A red four-door car pulled up to the curb and stopped at their feet. The car looked only a year or two old and was made by one of the Chinese automotive companies.
The driver was a young man, short with a boyish face and a shaggy head of black hair. He got out and smiled broadly at the two Americans. “You are Mr. Wyatt and Mr. Shultz, yes?” His English was good, which was a mild concern when Tommy had made the arrangements.
“That’s us,” Tommy answered.
The driver motioned with his hand that he wanted to take the bags, which both men refused.
“We’re okay, thank you.”
“Is this all you have?” The driver appeared perplexed.
“We like to travel light,” Sean answered.
“Ah, clever. No pesky bag fees.” He clearly didn’t know they’d flown on a private jet. “My name is Pak. I will be your driver. I understand you want to see Tiger’s Nest.”
His English was solid, and better than good enough to understand simple directions.
“That is correct, Pak,” Tommy said.
“You want to go there today?”
The two visitors nodded.
“We must hurry then. Sun will go down in four hours. It take two hours for most people to go up and down. If you want to see the sights, you will not have much time.”
“Let’s do it,” Sean said.
Pak scurried around to the driver’s side door and hopped in while the Americans got in the back. As soon as the doors were closed, Pak jammed the gas pedal and zipped the car out onto the road.
Sean and Tommy were jostled but stabilized themselves with the handgrip above the windows.
“It only take twenty minutes to get to the Taktsang Trail from here. You two look like you are in good shape, so maybe it not take as long for you to reach the monastery.”
Sean thought about making a wisecrack about Tommy’s lack of fitness, but a knowing glare from the other side of the backseat kept him in check. “We’ll be fine,” he said instead.
Pak guided the car out onto the main road and then off again onto a winding side road that twisted its way up through the hills and into the dramatic mountains. The landscape reminded the visitors of Colorado. Flatlands erupted into jagged hills, covered in evergreen trees and outcroppings of massive rocks. At certain curves in the road, the views were absolutely stunning. A river flowed through the valley off in the distance near a small town.
“I never hear anyone talk about visiting this place. I’m not sure why. This countryside is gorgeous.” Sean said.