40

The tank surprises them all. One moment they are riding a pair of cycle rickshaws down a nearly empty street, the next, a roaring fills the air and a tank bursts into the intersection ahead. It has a loudspeaker that squawks something, perhaps a warning, and then its turret spins in their direction.

"Hide!" Hock Seng shouts as they all try to scramble off their bikes. The tank's barrel roars. Hock Seng hits the ground. A building face collapses, showering them with debris. Clouds of gray dust billow over him. Hock Seng coughs and tries to get up and crawl away but a rifle chatters and he throws himself flat again. He can't see anything in the dust. Answering small arms fire crackles from a nearby building and then the tank is firing again. The smoke clears slightly.

From an alley, Laughing Chan waves for Hock Seng. His hair is powdered gray and his face is coated with dust. His mouth moves but no sound comes out. Hock Seng tugs at Pak Eng and they scramble for safety. The hatch of the tank pops open and an armored gunner appears, firing with a spring rifle. Pak Eng goes down, his chest blossoming red. Peter Kuok ducks into an alley and Hock Seng glimpses him running. Hock Seng dives flat again and worms himself into the rubble. The tank fires again, rocking back on its treads. More small arms fire chatters from somewhere down the street. The man in the turret flops forward, dead. His rifle slides down the tank's armor. The tank engages and spins on its treads, clanking. Garbage and leaflets swirl around it. It lurches toward Hock Seng and accelerates. Hock Seng lunges aside as the tank crashes past, showering him with more debris.

Laughing Chan stares after the retreating vehicle. He says something but Hock Seng's ears are still ringing. He waves for Hock Seng to join him again. Hock Seng staggers upright and stumbles into the soi's relative safety. Laughing Chan cups his hands around Hock Seng's ear. His shout is a whisper.

"It's fast! Faster than a megodont!"

Hock Seng nods. He's shaking. It appeared so suddenly. So much faster than anything he has ever seen. Old Expansion technology. And the men driving it seemed mad. Hock Seng looks around at the rubble. "I don't even know what they were doing here. There's nothing to secure," he says.

Laughing Chan suddenly begins to laugh. His distant words tunnel past the ringing in Hock Seng's ears. "Maybe they're lost!"

And then they are both laughing, and Hock Seng is almost hysterical with relief. They sit in the alley, resting and trying to catch their breath and giggling. Slowly, Hock Seng's hearing returns.

"It's worse than the Green Headbands." Laughing Chan says, looking out at the street wreckage. "At least with them, it was personal." He makes a face. "You could fight them. These ones are too fast. And too crazy. Fengle, all of them."

Hock Seng is inclined to agree. "Still, dead is dead. I would rather not face either."

"We'll have to be more careful," Laughing Chan says. He nods at Pak Eng's body. "What should we do about him?"

"Do you want to carry him back to the towers?" Hock Seng asks pointedly.

Chan shakes his head, grimacing. Another explosion rumbles. From the sound of it, it's no more than a few blocks away.

Hock Seng looks up. "The tank again?"

"Let's not wait to find out."

They set off down the street, keeping to doorways. A few others are out in the open, looking toward the rumbling explosions. Trying to see where the noises are coming from, to see what is happening. Hock Seng remembers standing on a similar street only a few years before, the scent of the sea and the promise of the monsoon bright in the air the day the Green Headbands started their cleansing. And on that day, too, people had looked up like pigeons, heads swiveling toward the sound of slaughter, suddenly aware that they were in danger.

Ahead, unmistakable, the chatter of spring guns. Hock Seng motions to Laughing Chan and they turn into a new alley. He's too old for this foolishness. He should be reclining on a couch, smoking a bowl of opium while a pretty fifth wife massages his ankles. Behind them, the rest of the people on the street are still standing out in the open, still staring toward the sounds of battle. The Thais don't know what to do. Not yet. They have no experience with true slaughter. Their reflexes are wrong. Hock Seng turns into an abandoned building.

"Where are you going?" Laughing Chan asks.

"I want to see. I need to know what's happening."

He climbs. One stairwell, two stairwells, three, four. He's panting. Five. Six. Then out into a hall. Broken doors, stifling close heat, the smell of excrement. Another explosion rumbles distant.

Through an open window, tracers of fire arc across the darkening sky and boom in the distance. Small arms snap and chatter in the streets like Spring Festival fireworks. Smoke pillars rise from a dozen points in the city. Nagas coiling, black against the setting sun. The anchor pads, the sea locks, the manufacturing district… the Environment Ministry…

Laughing Chan grabs Hock Seng's shoulder and points.

Hock Seng sucks in his breath. The Yaowarat slum blazes, WeatherAll shanties exploding in a spreading curtain of flame. "Wode tian." Laughing Chan murmurs. "We won't be going back there."

Hock Seng stares at the burning slum that had been his home, watching with horror as all his cash and gems turn to ash. Fate is fickle. He laughs wearily. "And you thought I wasn't lucky. We'd be roasted like pigs by now, if we had stayed."

Laughing Chan makes a mock wai at him. "I will follow the lord of the Three Prosperities into the nine hells." He pauses. "But what do we do now?"

Hock Seng points. "We follow Thanon Rama XII, and then-"

He doesn't see the missile strike. It's too fast for any human being's eyes. Perhaps a military windup would have time to prepare, but he and Laughing Chan are thrown off their feet by the shockwave. A building collapses across the street.

"Never mind!" Laughing Chan grabs Hock Seng and drags him back toward the safety of the stairwells. "We'll work it out. I don't want to lose my head for the sake of your view."

Newly cautious, they slip through the darkening streets, working their way toward the manufacturing district. The streets are becoming more deserted as the Thais finally learn there is no safety in the open.

"What's that?" Laughing Chan whispers.

Hock Seng squints into the gloom. A trio of men crouch around a hand-cranked radio. One of them has an antenna in his hands that he holds over his head, trying to get reception. Hock Seng slows to walk, then urges Laughing Chan across the street to them.

"What news?" Hock Seng puffs.

"Did you see that missile hit?" one of them asks. He looks up. "Yellow cards," he murmurs. His companions exchange glances as they catch sight of Laughing Chan's machete, then smile nervously and start to shy away.

Hock Seng sketches a clumsy wai. "We just want the news."

One of them spits betel nut, still watching suspiciously, but he says, "It's Akkarat, on the air." He gestures for them to listen. His friend lifts the antenna again, pulling in static.

"-stay indoors. Do not go outside. General Pracha and his white shirts have attempted to topple Her Royal Majesty the Queen herself. It is our duty to defend the realm-" The voice crackles out of reception and the man begins fiddling with the knobs on the wireless again.

One of them shakes his head. "It's all lies."

The one doing the tuning murmurs a disagreement, "But the Somdet Chaopraya-"

"Akkarat would kill Rama himself if he saw a benefit."

Their friend lowers the antenna. The radio hisses static and the transmission is lost entirely as he speaks. "I had a white shirt in my shop the other day, and he wanted to take my daughter home with him. A 'gift of good will,' he called it. They're all monitor lizards. A little corruption is one thing but these heeya will-"