Anderson's skin prickles at the sight of the closed shop fronts. It's as if everyone is preparing for a typhoon. "Let's make like the natives and get inside." He grabs one of the heavy iron gates and hauls against it. "Help me."
It takes them both to drag the gates closed and set the crossbars. Anderson slaps locks into place and leans against hot iron, panting. Carlyle studies the bars. "Does this mean we're safe? Or trapped?"
"We're not in Khlong Prem Prison yet. So let's assume we're winning."
But inwardly, Anderson wonders. There are too many variables in play, and it makes him nervous. He remembers a time in Missouri when the Grahamites rioted. There had been tension, some small speeches, and then it had simply erupted in field burning. No one had seen the violence coming. Not a single intelligence officer had anticipated the cauldron boiling beneath the surface.
Anderson had ended up perched atop a grain silo, choking on the smoke of HiGro fields going up in sheets of flame, firing steadily at rioters on the ground with a spring rifle he'd salvaged from a slow-moving security guard, and all the while he had wondered how everyone had missed the signs. They lost the facility because of that blindness. And now it is the same. A sudden eruption, and the surprise of realizing that the world he understands is not the one he actually inhabits.
Is this Pracha, making a play for absolute power? Or Akkarat, causing more trouble? Or is it simply a new plague? It could be anything. As Anderson watches white shirts stream past, he can almost smell the smoke of burning silos and HiGro.
He waves Carlyle into the factory. "Let's find Hock Seng. If anyone knows anything, it will be him."
Upstairs, the administrative offices are empty. Hock Seng's incense burns steadily, sending up gray silk streamers. Papers lie abandoned on his desk, rustling under the gentle breeze of the crank fans.
Carlyle laughs, low and cynical. "Lost an assistant?"
"Looks that way."
The petty cash safe is unlocked. Anderson peers at the shelves. At least 30,000 baht gone missing. "Goddamn. The bastard robbed me."
Carlyle pushes open a shutter, revealing roof tiles stretching down the length of the factory. "Take a look at this."
Anderson frowns. "He was always messing with the latches on that one. I thought he wanted to keep people out."
"I think he's ducked out of it, instead." Carlyle laughs. "You should have fired him when you had a chance."
The tramp of more boots on cobbles echoes up to them, the only sound now in the street.
"Well, give him points for foresight."
"You know what the Thais say: 'When a yellow card runs, watch out for the megodont behind him.'"
Anderson surveys the offices one last time, then leans out the window. "Come on. Let's see where my assistant went."
"You serious?"
"If he didn't want to meet the white shirts, then we don't either. And he obviously had a plan." Anderson hoists himself up and climbs out into the sun. His hands burn on the tiles. He straightens, shaking them. It's like standing on a skillet. He studies the roof, breathing shallowly in the blast furnace heat. Down the length of the roof, the Chaozhou factory beckons. Anderson goes a few paces then turns and calls back. "Yeah. I think he went this way."
Carlyle climbs out onto the roof. Sweat gleams on his face and soaks his shirt. They make their way over reddish tiles as the air boils around them. At the far end of the roof, their route terminates at an alley, shielded from Thanon Phosri by a winding of the lane. Across the gap, a ladder dangles to the ground.
"I'll be damned."
They both stare down into the alley three stories below. "Your old Chinaman jumped that?" Carlyle asks.
"Looks like it. And then went down the ladder." Anderson peers over the edge. "Long way down." He can't help smiling darkly at Hock Seng's resourcefulness. "Sly bastard."
"It's a long jump."
"Not too bad. And if Hock Seng-"
Anderson doesn't get a chance to finish his sentence. Carlyle flies past him, hurtling across the gap. The man lands hard and hits the roof rolling. A second later he's up, grinning and waving for Anderson to follow.
Anderson scowls and makes his own run at the gap. The landing rattles his teeth. By the time he straightens, Carlyle is already disappearing over the edge, climbing down the ladder. Anderson follows, favoring a bruised knee. Carlyle is surveying the alley when Anderson drops down beside him.
"That way goes back to Thanon Phosri and our friends," Carlyle says. "We don't want that."
"Hock Seng is paranoid," Anderson says. "He'll have a path worked out. And it won't be on main streets." He heads in the opposite direction. Almost immediately, a slot between two factory walls appears.
