Remi started laughing. Sam raised his head and looked at her.

“What?”

“You take me to the nicest places.”

“After this, a nice hot bubble bath-for two.”

“You’re singing my song.”

Though twice as wide as their shoulders and tall enough to allow them to walk stooped over, the tunnel’s floor was Swiss cheese-so riddled with potholes that they could glimpse the river’s roiling black surface rushing beneath their feet. Plumes of cold air and ice crystals shot up through the gaps, creating a fog that glittered and swirled in their headlamps. Like the pit behind them, the tunnel’s walls and ceiling were coated in a membrane of ice. As they walked, pencil-thin icicles broke from the ceiling and shattered on the floor like sporadic wind chimes. Though mostly clear of ice, the heavily rutted floor forced them to brace themselves as they walked, adding to the exertion.

“Not to be a wet blanket,” Remi said, “but we’re assuming this leads somewhere.”

“We are indeed,” Sam replied over his shoulder.

“And if we’re wrong?”

“Then we turn back, scale the opposite side of the pit, and leave the way we came in.”

The tunnel twisted and turned, rose and fell, but, according to Sam’s compass bearings, it maintained a rough easterly bearing. They took turns counting steps, but without a GPS unit to measure their overall progress, and only Sam’s sketched map to go by, they had no idea how much distance they were actually covering.

After what Sam guessed was a hundred yards, he called another halt and found a relatively solid section of tunnel and plopped to the ground. After sharing a few sips of water and a quarter of their remaining jerky and dried fruit, they sat in silence, listening to the rush of the water beneath their feet.

“What time is it?” Remi asked.

Sam checked his watch. “Nine o’clock.”

While they had told Selma where they were heading, they’d also asked her not to press the panic button until the following morning local time. Even then, how long would it take the authorities to arrange a rescue party and mount a search? Their only saving grace was that this tunnel had not branched; if they chose to turn back, they’d have no trouble finding the pit again. But at what point did they make that decision? Was an exit around the next bend, or miles away, or nonexistent?

Neither Sam nor Remi spoke of any of this. They didn’t need to. Their years together, and the adventures they’d shared, had put them on the same wavelength. Facial expressions were usually enough to convey what each was thinking.

“I’m still holding you to that hot bubble bath promise,” Remi said.

“Forgot to tell you: I’ve added a relaxing massage to the pot.”

“My hero. Shall we?”

Sam nodded. “Let’s give it another hour. If a red carpet exit doesn’t materialize, we’ll turn back, have a rest, then tackle the pit.”

“Deal.”

Accustomed to hardship, of both the mental and the physical variety, Sam and Remi fell into a rhythm: walk for twenty minutes, pause for two minutes to rest, take a compass bearing and update the map, then onward again. The remaining time of their journey passed quickly. Left foot, right foot, repeat. To conserve light, Remi had long ago turned off her headlamp, and Sam had set his to its lowest setting, so they found themselves moving in the faintest of twilights. The cold air gushing through the floor seemed colder, their footing harder to maintain, the tinkle of falling icicles jarring to their numbed brains.

Suddenly Sam stopped. Her reactions at half speed, Remi bumped into him. Sam whispered. “Do you feel that?”

“What?”

“Cold air.”

“Sam, it’s-”

“No, in our faces. Ahead. Will you dig the lighter out of my pack?”

Remi did so and handed it to him. Sam took a few steps forward, looking for a solid section of floor between plumes. He found a suitable spot, stopped, and clicked on the lighter. Remi squeezed herself in next to Sam and peered around his arm. Flickering yellow light danced off the icy walls. The flame wavered, then steadied and stood straight up.

“Wait.” Sam murmured, eyes on the flame.

Five seconds passed.

The flame wobbled, then shot sideways, back toward Sam’s face.

“There!”

“Are you sure?” Remi asked.

“The air feels warmer now too.”

“Wishful thinking?”

“Let’s find out.”

They walked for ten feet, stopped, checked the lighter’s flame. Again it angled backward, this time more strongly. They proceeded twenty more feet and repeated the process, with the same result.

From Remi: “I hear whistling. Wind.”

“Me too.”

Another fifty feet brought them to a fork in the tunnel. Lighter held before him, Sam proceeded down the left tunnel, without luck, then down the right. The flame quavered, then a sudden gust nearly blew it out.

Sam shed his pack. “Wait here. I’ll be back in a flash.”

He switched his headlamp to its brightest setting and disappeared into the tunnel. Remi could hear his feet scuffing along the floor, the sound growing fainter by the second.

Remi checked her watch, waited ten seconds, checked it again.

“Sam?” she called.

Silence.

“Sam, answer-”

Ahead in the darkness his headlamp reappeared.

“Sorry,” he said.

Remi let her head drop.

“No red carpet,” Sam continued. “But would daylight do?”

Remi raised her head, took in Sam’s wide smile. She narrowed her eyes at him and gave him a punch in the shoulder. “Not funny, Fargo.”

As Sam had promised, there was no red carpet, but after twenty feet of walking he brought her to something even better: a set of natural steps winding up a shaft at whose top, some fifty feet away, was a fuzzy patch of sunlight.

Two minutes later Sam pushed himself off the top step and found himself peering down a short sideways tunnel. Instead of rock, the sides and floor were earth. At the far end, through a tangle of grass, was sunlight. Sam crawled toward it, shoved his arms through the opening, then dragged himself out. Remi appeared a few moments later, and together they lay back in the grass, smiling and staring up at the sky.

“Almost noon,” Sam remarked.

They’d been underground all morning.

Suddenly, Sam sat up, his head turning this way and that. He leaned over to Remi and whispered. “Radio static. A portable radio.”

Sam rolled over, crawled to a berm a few feet away, and peeked his head over the side. He ducked down and crawled back. “Police.”

“A rescue party?” Remi asked. “Who would’ve called them?”

“Just a guess, but I’d say our erstwhile exploratory escorts, the King twins.”

“How-”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. Let’s play it safe.”

They stripped themselves of anything that would indicate where they’d been and what they’d been doing-helmets, headlamps, backpacks, climbing gear, Sam’s map, Remi’s digital camera, the box they’d retrieved from the tomb-and shoved it all back into the tunnel, then packed grass over the entrance.

With Sam in the lead, they headed east, following a ravine and ducking between trees, until they’d put a quarter mile between themselves and the tunnel. They stopped and listened for radio static. Sam tapped his ear and pointed north. A hundred yards away they could see several figures moving through the trees.

Sam whispered, “Put on your best forlorn face.”

“Not much of stretch at this point,” replied Remi.

Sam cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Hey! Over here!”

10

CHOBAR GORGE, NEPAL

The cell door creaked open. A guard peeked inside, scrutinized Sam for a moment as though he were about to make a dash for freedom, then stood aside. Clothed in a baggy light blue jumpsuit, auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail, Remi stepped into the room. Her face was pink, freshly washed.