Akkarat smiles. "I wouldn't miss this. You've been an expensive thorn."

"Do you intend to push us yourself, then?" Jaidee taunts. "Will you stain your own kamma with my death, heeya?" He nods at the men around them. "Or will you try to put the stain on your men? See them come back as cockroaches in their next life to be squashed ten thousand times before a decent rebirth? Blood on their hands for killing in cold blood. For the sake of profit?"

The men shift nervously and glance at one another. Akkarat scowls. "You're the one who will come back as a cockroach."

Jaidee grins. "Come then. Prove your manhood. Push the defenseless man to his death."

Akkarat hesitates.

"Are you a paper tiger?" Jaidee goads. "Come on then. Hurry up! I'm getting dizzy, waiting so close to the edge."

Akkarat studies him. "You've gone too far, white shirt. This time, you've gone too far." He strides forward.

Jaidee whirls. His knee rises, slams into the Trade Minister's ribs. The men are all shouting. Jaidee leaps again, moving as smoothly as he ever did in the stadiums. It's almost as though he never left Lumphini. Never left the crowds and the roar of gamblers. His knee crushes the Trade Minister's leg.

Fire crackles in Jaidee's joints, unused to these contortions, but even with his hands tied behind his back, his knees still fly with the efficiency of a champion's. He kicks again. The Trade Minister grunts and stumbles to the building's edge.

Jaidee raises his foot to drive Akkarat over the precipice but pain blossoms in his back. He stumbles. Blood mists in the air. Spring gun disks rip through him. Jaidee loses his rhythm. The building's edge surges toward him. He glimpses Black Panthers grabbing their patron, yanking him away.

Jaidee kicks again, trying for a lucky strike, but he hears the whine of more blades in the air, the whir of pistol springs unwinding as they spit disks into his flesh. The blooms of pain are hot and deep. He slams against the edge of the building. Falls to his knees. He tries to rise again, but now the spring gun whine is steady-many men firing; the high-pitched squeal of releasing energy fills his ears. He can't get his legs under him. Akkarat is wiping blood off his face. Somchai is struggling with another pair of Panthers.

Jaidee doesn't even feel the shove that sends him over the edge.

The fall is shorter than he expected.

18

The rumor travels like fire in the dead timber of Isaan. The Tiger is dead. Trade is in ascendancy for certain. Hock Seng's neck prickles as tension blossoms in the city. The man who sells a newspaper to him does not smile. A pair of white shirts on patrol scowls at every pedestrian. The people who sell vegetables seem suddenly furtive, as if they are dealing contraband.

The Tiger is dead, shamed somehow, though no one seems to know the specifics. Was he truly unmanned? Was his head truly mounted in front of the Environment Ministry as a warning to the white shirts?

It makes Hock Seng want to gather his money and flee, but the blueprints in the safe keep him bound to his desk. He hasn't felt undercurrents like this since the Incident.

He stands and goes to the office shutters. Peers out to the street. Goes back to his treadle computer. A minute later, he moves to the factory's observation window to study the Thais working on the lines. It's as if the air is charged with lightning. A storm is coming, full of water spouts and tidal waves.

Hazards outside the factory, and hazards within. Halfway into the shift, Mai came again, shoulders slumped. Another sick worker, sent off to a third hospital, Sukhumvit this time. And down below, at the heart of the manufacturing system, something foul reaches for them all.

Hock Seng's skin crawls at the thought of disease brewing in those vats. Three is too many for coincidence. If there are three, then there will be more, unless he reports the problem. But if he reports anything, the white shirts will burn the factory to the ground and Mr. Lake's kink-spring plans will go back across the seas, and everything will be lost.

A knock comes on the door.

"Lai."

Mai slips into the room, looking frightened and miserable. Her black hair is disarrayed. Her dark eyes scan the room, looking for signs of the farang.

"He's gone to his lunch." Hock Seng supplies. "Did you deliver Viyada?"

Mai nods. "No one saw me drop her."

"Good. That's something."

Mai gives him a miserable wai of acknowledgment.

"Yes? What is it?"

She hesitates. "There are white shirts about. Many of them. I saw them at the intersections, all the way to the hospital."

"Did they stop you? Question you?"

"No. But there are a lot of them. More than usual. And they seem angry."

"It is the Tiger, and Trade. That is all. It can't be us. They don't know about us."

She nods doubtfully, but does not leave. "It is difficult for me to work here," she says. "It's too dangerous now. The sickness." She stumbles on her words, finally says, "I'm very sorry. If I'm dead…" she trails off. "I'm very sorry."

Hock Seng nods sympathetically. "Yes. Of course. You do no good for yourself if you are sick." Privately, though, he wonders what safety she can really find. Nightmares of the yellow card slum towers still wake him at night, shaking and grateful for what he has. The towers have their own diseases, poverty is its own killer. He grimaces, wondering how he himself would balance the terrors of some unknown sickness against the certainty of work.

No, this work is not a certainty. This is the same thinking that caused him to leave Malaya too late. His unwillingness to accept that a clipper ship was sinking and to abandon it when his head was still above the waves. Mai is wise where he is dull. He nods sharply. "Yes. Of course. You should go. You have youth. You are Thai. Something will come to you." He forces a smile. "Something good."

She hesitates.

"Yes?" he asks.

"I hoped I could have my last pay."

"Of course." Hock Seng goes to the petty cash safe, swings it open, reaches in and pulls out a handful of red paper. In a fit of reckless generosity that he doesn't quite understand himself, he hands the entire wad over to her. "Here. Take this."

She gasps at the amount. "Khun. Thank you." She wais. "Thank you."

"It's nothing. Save it. Be careful with it-"

A shout rises from the factory floor, then more shouts. Hock Seng feels a surge of panic. The manufacturing line stalls. The stop bell rings belatedly.

Hock Seng rushes to the door, looks down at lines. Ploi is waving her hand toward the gates. Others are abandoning their posts, running to the doors. Hock Seng cranes his neck, seeking the cause.

"What is it?" Mai asks.

"I can't tell." He turns and runs to the shutters, yanks them open. White shirts fill the avenue, marching in ordered ranks. He sucks in his breath. "White shirts."

"Are they coming here?"

Hock Seng doesn't answer. He looks over his shoulder at the safe. With a little time… No. He's being a fool. He waited too long in Malaya; he won't make the same mistake twice. He goes to the petty cash safe and begins pulling out all the remaining cash. Stuffing it into a sack.

"Are they coming because of the sick?" Mai asks.

Hock Seng shakes his head. "It doesn't matter. Come here." He goes to another window and opens the shutters, revealing the blaze of the factory rooftop.

Mai peers out over hot tiles. "What's this?"

"An escape route. Yellow cards always prepare for the worst." He smiles as he hoists her up. "We are paranoid, you know."