Will they understand that we were not fast enough or smart enough to save them all? That we had to make choices?

The Grahamites who preach on the streets of Bangkok all talk of their Holy Bible and its stories of salvation. Their stories of Noah Bodhisattva, who saved all the animals and trees and flowers on his great bamboo raft and helped them cross the waters, all the broken pieces of the world piled atop his raft while he hunted for land. But there is no Noah Bodhisattva now. There is only Phra Seub who feels the pain of loss but can do little to stop it, and the little mud Buddhas of the Environment Ministry, who hold back rising waters by barest luck.

The bo tree blurs. Jaidee's cheeks are wet with tears. Still he stares up at it and the Buddha in his pose of meditation. Who would have thought the calorie companies would attack figs? Who would have thought the bo trees would die as well? The farang have no respect for anything but money. He wipes the water off his face. It is stupid to think that anything lasts forever. Perhaps even Buddhism is transient.

He stands and gathers his white novice robes around him. He wais to the flaking paint of the Buddha under his disappeared tree.

Outside, the moon shines bright. A few green methane lamps glow, barely lighting the paths through the reengineered teak trees to the monastery gates. It is foolish to grasp for things that cannot be regained. All things die. Chaya is already lost to him. Such is change.

No one guards the gates. It is assumed that he is obedient. That he will scrape and beg for any hope of Chaya's return. That he will allow himself to be broken. He's not even sure if anyone cares now about his final fate. He has served his purpose. Dealt a blow to General Pracha, lost face for the entire Environment Ministry. If he stays or leaves, what of it?

He walks out onto the night streets of the City of Divine Beings and heads south, toward the river, toward the Grand Palace and the glittering lights of the city, down through streets half-populated. Toward the levees that keep the city from drowning under the curse of the farang.

The City Pillar Shrine rises ahead of him, its roofs gleaming, Buddha images alight with offerings, sweet incense pouring from them. It was here that Rama XII declared that the city of Krung Thep would not be abandoned. Would not fall to the likes of the farang the way that Ayutthaya fell to the Burmese so many centuries before.

Over the chanting of nine hundred ninety-nine monks dressed in saffron robes, the King declared that the city would be saved, and from that moment he charged the Ministry of the Environment with its defense. Charged them with the building of the great levees and the tide pools that would buffer the city against the wash of monsoon flood and the surge of typhoon waves. Krung Thep would stand.

Jaidee walks on, listening to the steady chant of monks who pray every minute of the day, summoning the power of the spirit worlds to Bangkok's aid. There were times when he himself knelt on the cool marble of the shrine, prostrate before the city's central pillar, begging for the help of the King and the spirits and whatever life force the city was imbued with as he went forth to do his work. The city pillar was talismanic. It gave him faith.

Now he walks past in his white robes and doesn't look twice.

All things are transient.

He continues through the streets, makes his way into the crowded quarters along the back of Charoen Khlong. The waters lap quietly. No one poles its dark surface this late at night. But ahead, on one of the screened porches a candle flickers. He steals closer.

"Kanya!"

His old lieutenant turns, surprised. She composes her features, but not before Jaidee has a chance to read her shock at what stands before her: this forgotten man without a hair on his head, without even his eyebrows, grinning madly at her from the foot of her steps. He removes his sandals and climbs in white like a ghost up the stairs. Jaidee is aware of the appearance he presents, can't help but enjoy the humor as he opens the screens and slips within.

"I thought you had already gone to the forests," Kanya says.

Jaidee settles beside her, arranging his robes around him. He stares out at the stinking waters of the khlong. A mango tree's branches reflect against the moonlight liquid silver. "It takes a long time to find a monastery willing to soil itself with my sort. Even Phra Kritipong seems to have second thoughts when it comes to enemies of Trade."

Kanya makes a face. "Everyone talks about how they are in ascendancy. Akkarat speaks openly of allowing windup imports."

Jaidee startles. "I hadn't heard of such. A few farang, but…"

Kanya makes a face. "'All respect to the Queen, but windups do not riot.'" She forces her thumb into the hard peel of a mangosteen. Its purple skin, nearly black in the darkness, peels away. "Torapee measuring his father's footprints."

Jaidee shrugs. "All things change."

Kanya grimaces. "How can one fight their money? Money is their power. Who remembers their patrons? Who remembers their obligations when money comes surging in as strong and deep as the ocean against the seawalls?" She grimaces. "We are not fighting the rising waters. We are fighting money."

"Money is attractive."

Kanya makes a bitter face. "Not to you. You were a monk even before they sent you to a kuti."

"Perhaps that's why I make such a poor novice."

"Shouldn't you be in your kuti now?"

Jaidee grins. "It was cramping my style."

Kanya stills, looks hard at Jaidee. "You're not ordaining?"

"I'm a fighter, not a monk." He shrugs. "Sitting in a kuti and meditating will do no good. I let myself become confused about that. Losing Chaya confused me. "

"She will return. I'm sure of it."

Jaidee smiles sadly at his protégé, so full of hope and faith. It's surprising that a woman who smiles so little and sees so much melancholy in the world can believe that in this case-this one exceptional case-that the world will turn in a positive direction.

"No. She will not."

"She will!"

Jaidee shakes his head. "I always thought you were the skeptical one."

Kanya's face is anguished. "You've done everything to signal capitulation. You have no face left! They must let her go!"

"They will not. I think that she was dead within a day. I only clung to hope because I was mad for her."

"You don't know she'd dead. They could still be holding her."

"As you pointed out, I have no face left. If this were a lesson, she would have returned by now. It was a different sort of message than we thought." Jaidee contemplates the still waters of the khlong. "I need a favor from you."

"Anything."

"Loan me a spring gun."

Kanya's eyes widen. "Khun…"

"Don't worry. I'll bring it back. I don't need you to come with me. I just need a good weapon."

"I…"

Jaidee grins. "Don't worry. I'll be fine. And there's no reason to destroy two careers."

"You're going after Trade."

"Akkarat needs to understand that the Tiger still has teeth."

"You don't even know if it was Trade who took her."

"Who else, really?" Jaidee shrugs. "I have made many enemies, but in the end, there is really only one." He smiles. "There is Trade and there is me. I was foolish to let people convince me otherwise."

"I'll come with you."

"No. You will stay here. You will keep an eye on Niwat and Surat. That is all I ask of you, Lieutenant."

"Please don't do this. I will beg Pracha, I will go to-"

Jaidee cuts her off, before she speaks of ugliness. There was a time when he would have let her lose face before him, would have allowed her apologies to spill forth like a waterfall during the monsoon, but not anymore.