Read Online Chase Baker and the God Boy: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book No. 3) by Vincent Zandri - Free Book Online Page A

says.
“By all means, sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.”

 
11
     

     
    We ride in an open-topped Jeep from the small airport into the
heart of Kathmandu. The city is as hot as it is congested and smog-filled. The
narrow streets can barely accommodate the mix of old and young, dark, leather-skinned
natives dressed in bright saris and robes. Cars made in China spit black
exhaust while drivers pound the horn and curse to their Hindu, Muslim, and/or
Christian Gods for the crowds to move out of their way or else be run down. On
both sides of the street, ancient Hindu temples are filled with worshippers
while small fires burn in clay bowls and monkeys use the tall minaret style
architecture as if they were trees in the forest.
    The temples are surrounded by three
and four-story ancient wood buildings that look as if you can blow them down
with the gentlest of exhales. Besides natives, the streets and sidewalks provide
access to all varieties of animals—including cows—who seem to enjoy the right
of way. We pass by a team of young adventurers carrying ropes and climbing
boots strung around their shoulders. They wait impatiently for their number to
come up in the Everest climbing lottery. That is, if their number comes up at
all. Just a couple of months ago a team of Sherpas were killed in an avalanche
that also took the lives of the Italian climbers who employed them. Since then,
the Sherpas have been on strike, leaving the climbers frustrated with not much
else to do but roam the ancient streets.
    But, at least Kathmandu is known as
much for its monkey-filled temples as it is its bars. One glance upwards and
you can’t help but notice the revelers who lean out the windows of the many drinking
establishments, Nepal Ice Beer bottles in hand. With marijuana and hash being
as free here as the wind, this is a place where hippies traveled to en masse in
the 1960s for spiritual enlightenment and a good buzz. Many of them OD’d, but
many survived, thrived, and never bothered to go back home.
    The Jeep finally makes it to the
gates of the Kathmandu Guest House, the oldest and most famous of the Kathmandu
inns. Or so the old driver informs us.
    “This is where George Harrison, the
Beatle, stayed,” he proudly states while retrieving Anjali’s bags and my
shoulder bag. “Here, he wrote many, many songs.”
    Inside the lobby of a nineteenth-century
wood and stone structure that looks like it was lifted from an old English
garden and resettled here, we are handed the keys to two rooms, both of which
adjoin.
    At the top of the stairs, we open
the door to my room and step inside. That’s when we see that an interior door
separates my room from Anjali’s. She shoots me a smile and a wink over her
shoulder like I had planned it this way all along.
    “Hey, you’re the one who made the
reservations,” I say. “So, don’t blame me.”
    “I’m going to freshen up,” she
says. “I’ll assume this door will be locked.”
    As she exits the room, I reach over
to the inside door, unlock it.
    “Oh, it’ll stay locked.”
    I make out her laughter as she
enters her room. Chase the devious.
    I go to work right away, pulling my
computer from my shoulder bag, booting it up. I look up the name Elizabeth
Flynn in a Google search, just as I’ve done a thousand times since we parted at
the Varanasi train station. Naturally, I come up with nothing. No Facebook or
Twitter accounts. No LinkedIn. Nothing. There’s maybe a dozen Elizabeth Flynn’s
out there and a dozen more with variations on the given name (Betsy, Liz,
etc.), but not my Elizabeth and certainly not one residing in Nepal. It’s as if
she disappeared off the face of the earth five years ago. Something not all
that difficult to do in a mostly forested and mountainous country where the
majority of residents outside of Kathmandu don’t even enjoy the benefits of
modern electricity much less internet access.
    Closing the lid