Petrov shrugged. "I'm willing to be a little less brilliant to enjoy my vodka."
"How did they get him?" Dimitri asked. "I wasn't aware of an attack on the island."
Mattie tensed.
Dimitri had suspected that Dave was responsible for Navuh's disappearance, as in killing the lord of this island and conspiring with Losham to cover it up. Was it smart to give voice to his suspicion and shed doubt on Dave's claim that the clan had Navuh?
"We don't know," Dave said. "It is a mystery that we are still trying to solve."
"What if he is still in the harem and playing games with you all?" Petrov suggested. "He could have called someone in the clan and told them about the booby traps for some reason. Or they might have a spy in the harem who has a way to communicate with the outside world. That's a much more logical explanation than the clan arriving with a spaceship and beaming him up."
That actually got a smile out of all eight parts of Dave. "We know for sure that he is not in the harem because Losham and I went there using Navuh's private tunnel. Navuh is gone, and so are all his harem ladies. Losham's theory was that his father killed all the concubines in a fit of rage, throwing them off the cliff that is part of the harem grounds, and then, filled with remorse, jumped after them. The problem is that none of the servants know what happened. They were probably thralled or compelled to forget."
If the clan were indeed do-gooders, like Dave had called them, then Mattie was glad the ladies had been liberated. But Losham's suspicion about their fate made more sense. She hadn't had much contact with Navuh, but from the little she'd seen, she'd gotten the impression that he was terrifyingly intense. He was exactly the type of guy who could do a thing like that.
"Hakum, Navuh's former secretary, came up with the alien abduction theory," Number One continued.
"How else would they have gotten Navuh and his concubines out?" Dimitri muttered under his breath. "Unless they have an aircraft that can evade the island's radar and a powerful compeller to make the harem servants forget what they saw."
"That's another theory," Number One said. "Losham says that it is possible the clan have developed a craft with a cloaking device. As I mentioned before, they have always been at the forefront of technological innovation. That's how they managed to survive throughout the millennia despite their small numbers and the Brotherhood's constant efforts to eradicate them."
It served Navuh right to get captured by his enemies. The monster who ruled this island and built an empire on trafficking and violence, who commanded an army of immortal warriors through the force of his compulsion, the one whose recorded voice still echoed through the loudspeakers five times a day, demanding devotion from his followers, was now a prisoner, just like her.
"And as for the compeller," Number One continued. "They have one that is powerful enough to control Losham over the phone. They have been directing him to excavate the collapsed chamber in the mansion's basement with care. They claim that Navuh hid five of their people in stasis down there, and they want them back. They must have been important people, or Navuh wouldn't have bothered to safeguard them in a specially built enclosure and booby-trap his own basement so no one could get to them. Losham was curious to find out what his father had been hiding in there, and he triggered the booby traps."
So, it hadn't been a gas explosion after all.
The immortals in stasis were valuable alright, but not to Navuh. They were valuable to his enemies, and he had guarded them like a treasure to negotiate for something he couldn't gain by brute strength alone.
Was it their technology? The very same that they had used to abduct Navuh and the harem ladies?
Having an undetectable plane would give the Brotherhood a great advantage in whatever wars they were waging.
Dimitri had sunk onto his stool. "So, the clan is controlling Losham."
"Yes," Number One said. "They call him, and he has to answer because he is compelled to do so."
"Losham doesn't know that you know this, right?" Petrov asked.
"Correct."
Mattie was surprised that Dave was sharing all this with them, but then he was probably going to compel the three of them to keep it a secret.
"Does anyone else on the island know?" Dimitri asked.
"No. Losham has not shared this suspicion with anyone because it is crucial for him to maintain the illusion that Navuh is in the harem. The moment his brothers realize that Navuh is gone, they will eliminate Losham. It is also possible that the clan is monitoring the island via satellite surveillance."
Mattie sat perfectly still, her injured hand forgotten on its pillow, her book abandoned, her mind racing with a growing sense that the picture was much larger than she had imagined.
She had spent seven months on this island believing that the world had forgotten her. That beyond the ocean, there was nothing and no one who could help. That escape, if it came, would be a desperate scramble into an indifferent world where she and Dimitri and Petrov would have to build everything from nothing.
But there were people out there who were well organized and powerful enough to capture Navuh on his own fortress of an island, and to have done that in a way that had left no trace.
No wonder Hakum believed Navuh had been abducted by aliens. The whole thing seemed like it was taken from a science fiction novel.
"This changes everything," she murmured. "We can actually pull it off."
"We might," Number One hedged. "I assume that the clan has the infrastructure to resettle large numbers of people, but I cannot assume that they will be willing to do so. I believe they will, but that's not a certainty. If we can establish contact, we could negotiate with them to provide what we cannot." He turned to Petrov. "We will be counting on you and Dimitri to continue producing our enhancement drugs."
