He snatched his phone from his nightstand and called Rami.
His assistant answered on the second ring, voice thick with sleep. "My lord?"
"Wake up the enclosure's crew and Hakum. We're going to the mansion."
"Now?" A rustling sound, sheets being pushed aside. "My lord, it's not yet five in the morning."
"I'm aware of what time it is. The plasma cutter arrived yesterday, and I want to see if it will finally do the job. I'm tired of waiting."
A pause. "Yes, my lord. I'll make the calls."
Losham tossed the phone onto the bed. Sleep had eluded him for most of the night, his thoughts circling endlessly around that damned enclosure and the treasures that were buried in the sand. Was it gold? Jewels? Ancient artifacts? His father had been many things—cruel, brilliant, paranoid—but never frivolous. Whatever he'd hidden in that glass box must be worth a king's ransom, and Losham wanted it.
With Navuh dead, everything he'd hoarded belonged to whoever was smart enough to claim it, and the window of opportunity would be closing soon. His brothers wouldn't be fooled forever, and when Navuh's compulsion over the army started to wane, they would know that he wasn't living in the harem.
The devotions were still repeated five times a day as usual, but they were recordings and didn't have the same power as Navuh's actual voice coming out of the loudspeakers throughout the island. Something was missing, that special quality of his compulsion that for some reason was lost when recorded.
Losham had stopped wondering about that a long time ago. It was just how it worked. That was probably one of the reasons Navuh had never left the island, that and his paranoia.
Well, he'd left it eventually, just not in the way he'd thought he would.
It was still unclear what had happened in the harem that fateful night, but a murder suicide was still Losham's best hypothesis. Navuh must have killed his concubines in a fit of rage andthen, realizing what he'd done, ended his own life. What other explanation could there be? They hadn't been abducted by aliens.
He dressed quickly and was buckling his belt when Rami knocked at the door.
"Enter."
His assistant stepped inside, carrying a ceramic cup that steamed in the cool morning air. "Your coffee, my lord."
Losham took it and drained it in two long swallows, barely registering the burn as it went down. He handed the empty cup back to Rami and strode toward the door.
"My lord." Rami fell into step beside him. "May I suggest we wait until later in the morning?"
"You may not."
"The plasma cutter is extremely loud. Industrial models exceed one hundred decibels, and some reach as high as one hundred twenty. At this hour, when everything is quiet, the noise will carry across half the island. We don't want to advertise what we're doing in that basement."
"I don't care. If any of them ask questions, I'll tell them that I'm just following Lord Navuh's orders." Losham pushed through the front door into the predawn darkness. "Let them try to verify it's not true."
Everything that had been Navuh's belonged to Losham now. The island. The army. The Brotherhood itself. Once his brothers realized what was going on, they would come at him with all they had, and he wouldn't have time to fiddle with the enclosure. Thatneeded to be done now while everyone still believed that Navuh was running things from the harem.
The walk to the mansion wasn't long, and in the predawn hours, it was actually pleasant outside.
"The noise will raise suspicion," Rami tried again. "Your brothers are already suspicious."
"I'll handle my brothers. They all know that our father is eccentric at times. If I tell them that he has a secret project in the basement, they are not going to doubt me."
Rami fell silent, but Losham could feel his assistant's disapproval radiating from him in waves. Rami was a good male, loyal, organized, efficient, and discreet, but he lacked courage and was cautious to a fault. He didn't understand what it meant to seize an opportunity, to act decisively when the moment demanded it.
Ten days of cautious, methodical attempts to breach the enclosure, and what had it gotten them? Nothing. Just a few scratches on the surface of the glass that had filled in overnight as if the material itself could heal.
No more caution. No more patience. Today, one way or another, he would see what his father was hiding under that sand.
The biggest joke would be if there was nothing in there and Navuh was playing games with him. What if he had just left the island using some form of transportation none of them knew about? He could have taken the ladies with him and flown to a resort, all the while monitoring the island remotely to see what his sons were doing and which of them remained loyal to him.
After Lokan's betrayal, Navuh had become even more paranoid than before, so it wasn't such a far-fetched idea. A trickle of fear slithered down Losham's back as he actually entertained that scenario for a moment, but then he quickly dismissed it.
Navuh had never done a thing like that before.
