"Where's Hock Seng?" Anderson asks. "Yellow Card Boss. Where?"

The man shakes his head. More workers are hurrying out.

"Did the white shirts come here?" he asks.

The man says something too fast for Anderson to pick up. Carlyle translates. "He says the white shirts are coming for revenge. Coming to get back their face."

The man motions emphatically and Anderson steps out of the way.

Across the street, the Chaozhou factory is also evacuating its workers. None of the street's storefronts are open now. Food carts have all been dragged indoors or wheeled away in fright. Every door on the street is shut. A few Thais peer out from high windows but the street itself contains only disbursing workers and marching white shirts. The last of the SpringLife workers hurry past, none of them looking at Carlyle or Lake as they flee.

"Worse by the minute," Carlyle mutters. His face has gone pale under his tropical tan.

A new wave of white shirts rounds the corner, six wide, a snake extending down the length of the street.

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.

Carlyle shakes his head in admiration. "Not bad." They squeeze into the narrow way, scraping along for more than a hundred meters until they reach a door of rusted tin. As they push aside the crude gate, a grandmother looks up from a bundle of washing. They're in a courtyard of sorts. Laundry hangs everywhere, sun pouring a rainbow through damp fabrics. The old woman waves at them to proceed past her.

A moment later, they're out in a tiny soi, which in turn gives way to a series of maze-like alleys that twist through a makeshift slum for the coolie laborers who work the levee locks, transporting goods from the factories to the sea. More micro alleys, laborers crouched over noodles and fried fish. WeatherAll shacks. Sweat and the dimness of overhanging roofs. Burning chile smoke that makes them cough and cover their mouths as they forge through the swelter.

"Where the hell are we?" Carlyle murmurs. "I'm completely turned around."

"Does it matter?"

They thread past dogs lying dazed in the heat and cheshires perched atop refuse piles. Sweat runs down Anderson's face. The buzz of afternoon alcohol is long gone. More shadowy alleys, more tight walking spaces, twists and turns, squeezing around bicycles and scavenged piles of metal and coconut plastics.

A gap opens. They spill out into diamond sunlight. Anderson sucks at the relatively fresh air, grateful to be out of the claustrophobia of the alleys. It is not a large road, but still, there is traffic on it. Carlyle says, "I think I recognize this. There's a coffee guy somewhere around here that one of my clerks likes."

"No white shirts, at least."

"I need to find a way back to the Victory." Carlyle says. "I've got money in their safe."

"How much is your head worth?"

Carlyle grimaces. "Eh. Maybe you're right. I need to get in touch with Akkarat, at least. Find out what's going on. Decide on our next move."

"Hock Seng and Lao Gu both disappeared." Anderson says. "For now, let's make like the yellow cards and lie low. We can take a rickshaw to Sukhumvit khlong, and then take a boat to near my place. That will keep us far away from any of the factory and trade areas. And far away from all those damn white shirts."