Jaidee makes a face. "I'm sure you'll find some excuse. Perhaps the freight megodonts stampeded." He claps the Customs men on their backs. "Don't look so glum! Use your imagination! You should think of this as building merit."

Kanya finishes packing up the money. She secures the woven satchel and slings it over her shoulder.

"We're done," she says.

Down field, a new dirigible is slowly descending, its massive kink-spring fans using up the last of their joules to maneuver the beast over its anchors. Cables snake down from its belly, dragged by lead weights. Anchor pad workers wait with upraised hands to secure the floating monster to their megodont teams, as though praying to some massive god. Jaidee watches with interest. "In any case, the Benevolent Association of Retired Royal Environment Ministry Officers appreciates this. You've built merit with them, regardless." He hefts his machete and turns to his men.

"Khun officers!" He shouts over the drone of the dirigible fans and the scream of freight megodonts. "I have a challenge for you!" He points to the descending dirigible with his machete. "I have two hundred thousand baht for the first man who searches a crate from that new vessel over there! Come on! That one! Now!"

The Customs men stare, dumbstruck. They start to speak, but their voices are drowned out by the roar of dirigible fans. They mouth protestations: "Mai tum! Mai tum! Mai tawng tum! No no nonono!" as they wave their arms and object, but Jaidee is already dashing across the airfield, brandishing his machete and howling after this new prey.

Behind him, his white shirts follow in a wave. They dodge crates and laborers, leap over anchor cables, duck under megodont bellies. His men. His loyal children. His sons. The foolish followers of ideals and the Queen, joining his call, the ones who cannot be bribed, the ones who hold all of the honor of the Environment Ministry in their hearts.

"That one! That one!"

They speed like pale tigers across the landing field, leaving the carcasses of Japanese freight containers littered behind them like so much debris after a typhoon. The Customs men's voices fade. Jaidee is already far distant from them, feeling the joy of his legs pumping under him, the pleasure of clean and honorable pursuit, running faster ever faster, his men following, covering the distance with the adrenaline sprint of pure warrior purpose, raising their machetes and axes to the giant machine as it comes down from the sky, looming over them like the demon king Tosacan ten thousand feet tall, settling over them. The megodont of all megodonts, and on its side, in farang lettering, the words: CARLYLE & SONS.

Jaidee is unaware that a shriek of joy has escaped his lips. Carlyle & Sons. The irritating farang who speaks so casually about changing pollution credit systems, of removing quarantine inspections, of streamlining everything that has kept the Kingdom alive as other countries have collapsed, the foreigner who curries so much favor with Trade Minister Akkarat and the Somdet Chaopraya, the Crown Protector. This is a true prize. Jaidee is all pursuit. He stretches for the landing cables as his men surge past, younger and faster and fanatically dedicated, all of them reaching out to secure their quarry.

But this dirigible is smarter than the last.

At the sight of the white shirts swarming under its landing position, the pilot reorients his turbofans. The wash gushes over Jaidee. The fans scream and rev as the pilot wastes gigajoules in an attempt to push away from the ground. The dirigible's landing cables whip inward, winding on spindle cranks like an octopus yanking in its limbs. The turbofans shove Jaidee to the ground as they spin to full power.

The dirigible rises.

Jaidee pushes himself up, squinting into the hot winds as the dirigible shrinks into night blackness. He wonders if the disappearing monster was warned by the control towers or the Customs Service or if the pilot was simply clever enough to realize that a white shirt inspection was of no benefit to his masters.

Jaidee grimaces. Richard Carlyle. Too clever by half, that one. Always in meetings with Akkarat, always at public benefits for cibiscosis victims, tossing money about, always talking about the positives of free trade. He is just one of dozens of farang who have returned to the shores like jellyfish after a bitter water epidemic, but Carlyle is the loudest. The one whose smiling face annoys Jaidee most.

Jaidee pushes himself fully upright and brushes off the white hemp weave of his uniform. It doesn't matter; the dirigible will return. Like the ocean rushing onto the beach, it is impossible to keep the farang away. Land and sea must intersect. These men with profits in their beating hearts have no choice, they must rush in no matter the consequence, and he must always meet them.

Kamma.

Jaidee slowly returns to the cracked contents of the inspected shipping crates, wiping his face of sweat, breathing from the exertion of his run. He waves at his men to continue their labor. "There! Break those open over there! I don't want a single crate uninspected."

The Customs men are waiting for him. He pokes through a new crate's wreckage with the point of his machete as the two men approach. They're like dogs. Impossible to be rid of unless you feed them. One of them tries to prevent Jaidee from swinging his machete into another crate.

"We paid! We will be filing protests. There will be investigations. This is international soil!"

Jaidee makes a face. "Why are you still here?"

"We paid you a fair price for protection!"

"More than fair." Jaidee shoulders past the men. "But I am not here to debate these things. It is your damma to protest. It is mine to protect our borders, and if that means I must invade your 'international soil' to save our country, so be it." He swings his machete and another crate crackles open. WeatherAll wood bursts wide.

"You've overstepped yourself!"

"Probably. But you will have to send someone from the Ministry of Trade to tell me himself. Someone more much powerful than you." He spins his machete thoughtfully. "Unless you wish to debate me now, with my men?"

The two flinch. Jaidee thinks he catches a flicker of a smile on Kanya's lips. He glances over, surprised, but already his lieutenant is again the face of blank professionalism. It is pleasant to see her smile. Jaidee briefly wonders if there is something more he can do to encourage a second flash of teeth from his dour subordinate.

Sadly, the Customs men seem to be reconsidering their position; they are backing away from his machete.

"Do not think that you can insult us in this way, without consequence."

"Of course not." Jaidee chops at the shipping crate again, shattering it fully. "But I appreciate your monetary donation, even so." He looks up at them. "When you complain, make sure you tell them it was me, Jaidee Rojjanasukchai who did this work." He grins again. "And make sure you tell them that you actually tried to bribe the Tiger of Bangkok."

Around him, his men all laugh at the joke. The Customs men step back, surprised at this new revelation, the dawning comprehension of their opponent.

Jaidee surveys the destruction around him. Splinters of the balsa crate material lie everywhere. The crates are engineered for strength and weightlessness and their lattice works well enough to hold goods-as long as no one applies a machete.

The work goes quickly. Materials are pulled from crates and laid out in careful rows. The Customs men hover, taking the names of his white shirts until his men finally raise their machetes and give chase. The officers retreat, then stop and observe from a safer distance. The scene reminds Jaidee of animals fighting over a carcass. His men feeding on the offal of foreign lands while the scavengers probe and test, the ravens and cheshires and dogs all waiting their own chance to converge on the carrion. The thought depresses him a little.