Twenty minutes earlier, over two pouches of freeze-dried dinner—one mac and cheese and one beef stew—I recounted to Roth the circumstances that led to my intercepting his group, and he’d insisted I sit down for an interview.

“So you believe another group is here looking for Paititi?” he asked.

I was preparing to answer, when I felt a soft bump on the side of my head. I glanced up at the man holding the boom microphone.

“My bad,” Darnell mouthed.

I rubbed my head and said, “Are you trying to give me CTE?” Since Darnell was wearing a Bengals hat, I knew he’d get my reference to the disease at the center of the NFL’s concussion debate.

He chuckled.

“Dammit, Darnell!” Roth shouted. “Be careful with that thing.”

“It didn’t hurt,” I said. “I was just messing with him.”

Roth took a calming breath, then got back to my interview. “Another group looking for Paititi took her? That’s what you think?”

“Yes. Which raises another question: How did this group know about this location?”

“Right.”

I don’t think it registered with him that I was asking him a question. I decided on a more forthright approach. I asked, “Who else did you show the lidar scans to? Who else outside this expedition team knew the coordinates of the ruins?”

He put his hand to his chest. “What? You think I leaked the coordinates?”

“Did you?”

He nodded to the two cameramen. “Why don’t you guys go grab some food.”

Once the cameramen were gone, Roth said, “Why would you think I leaked valuable information? Someone could have swooped in and found the city before I did. I wouldn’t even have a film. No one gives a shit about someone finding something second. That would have been eight hundred thousand dollars of my money down the drain.”

He had a good point.

I said, “Okay, let’s go back to the beginning. With the photo some guy sends you.”

“I don’t know if I’m comfortable telling this all to you.”

I took a moment to decide how I wanted to play this: Old Thomas or New Thomas?

“A woman’s life is on the line here, and I need your help,” said New Thomas.

Roth bit the inside of his cheek. “I should run this by my lawyer really quick.” He checked his watch. “What time do you think it is in Bangkok?”

I tried to keep my cool. “If something got leaked to the wrong people, I won’t hold you personally responsible. Surely, you wouldn’t have known they were going to kidnap someone.”

“I didn’t leak anything, so yeah, of course not.”

“Good. Now from the beginning, a guy sends you a photo . . .”

He pushed up from the chair. “Give me one minute. I’ll call my guy in Bang—”