In either case, explaining the device's demise would not be a problem. It wouldn't be the first phone that Navuh had destroyed in a fit of rage.
The maintenance crew that had repaired the door had been thralled to remember that they had been called to fix damage the lord had caused in one of his angry outbursts, so the story would match.
Dave's eight pairs of eyes returned to Losham. "It is done. What's next?"
"Next is the harem," Losham said.
That was the trickier part. The harem was Navuh's private domain, and it could be accessed through a secret tunnel that connected to his bedroom. Dave had cracked all the security codes on Navuh's desktop, and once Losham got in, it was easy to find what he needed.
Navuh was methodical and kept things in clearly labeled folders. The private security file contained all the instructions for accessing the secret tunnel, including the codes and sequences that needed to be performed on the other side to prevent the alarm from going off. There was even information about a secret cove with a four-person submarine that Navuh kept for the ultimate emergency.
That was all highly classified, and yet it hadn’t required much effort to get in, but a couple of files needed additional passcodes to open, and Dave hadn’t been able to crack them. What could possibly be in them that was more important to hide than a secret escape submarine?
There were still dozens of files Losham hadn't even opened yet, but there was no rush. He could get to them after he secured his position and prevented anyone from finding out that Navuh was gone. By then, Dave might crack the code on the two that were inaccessible.
Right now, they needed to get to the harem and find out what had happened to his father and his ladies.
Losham assumed that his father kept a vehicle in the tunnel in order to travel between the harem and his office. He surely hadn’t been walking back and forth every day. But if Losham’s hypothesis about what had transpired in the harem was true, then that vehicle was still parked at the other end of the tunnel.
His assumption was confirmed when he and Dave entered the tunnel and the vehicle was not there.
Navuh had gone to the harem the night before, but he hadn’t returned.
Since Navuh had been paranoid about his private spaces, allowing no one into the harem except the ladies and the human staff who served them, there could be no other explanation for the missing vehicle.
With Dave's bodies positioned around him, they began walking through the tunnel. The passage was long and sloped downward, illuminated by light fixtures embedded in the walls that were motion-activated and sprang to life as they passed them.
Losham was tempted to explore the cove with the submarine, but it could wait for another day.
Unless Navuh had used it to escape the island?
That thought sent a jolt of fear through him. There had been no reason for Navuh to do that, not unless he had lost his mind, killed the ladies, but instead of jumping to his death after them, decided to leave the island.
They reached the fork in the tunnel after walking for nearly two hours, and Losham decided to go down the narrow offshoot and investigate. "I just want to check that the lord didn't leave the island in the submarine he kept for emergencies," Losham explained even though Dave hadn’t asked where they were going and why.
Come to think of it, Losham now understood why the island had nothing as advanced as submarine detection technology. Navuhhadn't wanted it so he could escape if needed, and no one would be able to follow him.
Finding the sub where it was supposed to be was a relief, and Losham looked inside just to be sure that no one was hiding there. It didn't take him long to realize that the lock was biometric, and if he wanted to use the submarine, he would need to find his father's fingerprints to enter it.
Hopefully, the door to the harem didn't have a biometric lock, or he would have to go back and scour Navuh's private quarters for prints he could lift right now.
He hoped the mansion's cleaning staff wasn't overly thorough and there were still usable prints to be found.
"No bodies here," he said only half-jokingly, but Dave didn't even smile.
Tough crowd. If the eight could be called a crowd.
They returned to the main tunnel and continued on their way. The jeep was parked where the tunnel terminated at a roundabout that was designed so the vehicle wouldn't need to drive in reverse on the way back. The tunnel was too narrow for it to turn around anywhere else.
The single door took out the guesswork of finding the way in.
Losham had memorized the code and the sequence, thankful that his father hadn't installed a thumbprint reader on this door.
Dave stood behind him as he entered the code. As Losham opened the door to Navuh's harem apartment, he was gripped by an irrational fear that his father would emerge from the other room and confront him about invading his private space.
Never mind that the harem staff had gone through the entire pyramid structure from top to bottom looking for their lord and ladies, and found nothing, not even a clue as to where they could have gone.
There was no chance he would find Navuh here.
