Chapter 25 Losham
LOSHAM
The tremor hit suddenly.
One moment Losham was at his desk reviewing a supply manifest, and the next, the entire mansion shuddered as if the island had convulsed.
His coffee cup slid across the polished surface and shattered on the marble floor.
The overhead chandelier, a massive contemporary installation of cascading glass rods suspended from a heavy brushed steel frame, swayed violently enough that the rods clashed together like wind chimes in a hurricane and the frame slammed into the ceiling, gouging a hole in the plaster.
Losham was on his feet before the shaking stopped. He crossed to the door in three strides and yanked it open.
The corridor was in chaos. Two of the oil paintings that lined the hallway had fallen from their hooks and lay face down on the marble, their frames cracked.
A bronze pedestal near the window had toppled, sending the modern art statue that depicted nothing tumbling across the floor, where it had come to rest against the opposite wall.
Hakum emerged from his office four doors down, his eyes filled with panic. Rami appeared a moment later from the adjacent door.
"What the hell was that?" Losham demanded.
"I don't know." Rami scanned the corridor in both directions.
Dust was sifting down from the ceiling in fine curtains, and the air carried a smell that Losham recognized from the previous explosion. Pulverized concrete and the acrid chemical scent of structural failure.
"It came from below," Hakum said, as if it could have come from anywhere else.
The damage in the corridor was worse than the aftermath of the booby traps that had destroyed the glass enclosure.
That explosion had been contained to the basement level, its force minimized to a precise location by careful engineering.
Whatever had just happened had sent shockwaves through the entire building, rattling every floor, cracking plaster, and shaking loose anything that wasn't bolted to the walls.
"Where are the guards?" Losham asked.
Hakum looked both ways. The corridor was empty except for the three of them and the debris. The guards who were stationed at the office level staircase were nowhere in sight.
"They must have gone down to investigate," Rami said.
"Let's go." Losham led the way toward the staircase, his footsteps crunching on fallen plaster. Hakum and Rami followed.
They reached the staircase and stopped.
It was gone.
The upper landing was intact, a semicircle of marble extending over what was now a jagged void.
The staircase itself, a massive dual flight that had been the mansion's centerpiece, had partially collapsed.
The right flight was completely gone, reduced to a pile of broken marble and twisted iron railing two stories below.
The left flight was still partially attached to the wall, but the lower section had separated from its moorings and hung at a precarious angle, groaning faintly with every aftershock that shivered through the building.
Dust billowed up from the wreckage, thick enough to sting the eyes.
"Great Mortdh," Hakum breathed.
Rami leaned over the edge of the landing and assessed the drop. "Twelve meters. Maybe fourteen. I can make that."
"There is no need," Losham said. "The private staircase from my father's office leads directly to the basement level. We'll use that." He grimaced. "Provided that it didn't collapse as well."
Rami pulled back from the edge. "It might be blocked. Given what we see here, the damage down in the basement is much worse."
"Perhaps." Losham turned from the ruined staircase and started back down the corridor toward Navuh's office at the far end. His office now. "But standing here and speculating is pointless."
"Should we wait for a report from the security team?" Hakum suggested, falling into step beside him. "If there's been another gas explosion—"
Losham ignored him.
The previous explosions that had been triggered by the booby traps had been attributed to gas tanks exploding because of a careless construction crew, a convenient fiction that had satisfied the rank and file and most of his brothers.
Rami knew the truth because he'd been there when it happened, and Losham saw no need for Dave to thrall the knowledge away from him.
Rami was loyal to a fault, and Losham shared with him more than he shared with anyone else.
The booby traps had been Navuh's work, defense mechanisms designed to destroy the glass enclosure and its contents if anyone attempted to access it without his authorization.
Those traps had been triggered by Losham's own breach attempt, and the resulting explosion had destroyed the enclosure, killed the human crew that had been working on the glass, and partially collapsed the ceiling of the basement chamber, which had been underneath the backyard, so the damage to the mansion hadn't been all that terrible.
What could have exploded now that had caused a powerful tremor that felt like an earthquake?
All the booby traps had already supposedly detonated, according to the team that had swept the area afterward.
So, what had just happened?
Two possibilities presented themselves.
The first was structural failure. The previous explosion had compromised support columns and load-bearing walls, and the ongoing excavation had weakened the basement's integrity to the point where something had given way.
The engineers had warned him about this.
He had overruled them because the removal of the debris was necessary regardless of the clan's compulsion to retrieve the chests that were supposed to be there.
The basement couldn't get repaired without getting cleaned first.
But they had been extremely cautious.
Losham hadn't allowed any heavy equipment in there just for that reason.
The human debris removal team worked with hand tools as much as possible, and immortals were brought in when heavy sections had to be cleared.
None of those activities should have affected the structural integrity of the building.
The second possibility was sabotage.
Kolhood.
The name surfaced in Losham's mind with the bitter taste of certainty. His brother would do just about anything to undermine him. But then any of the brothers could be behind this, individually or working together.
But would they go so far, though? If they still believed the story that Navuh was alive and hiding in the harem, which Dave kept reinforcing, they wouldn't risk his wrath. The mansion was their father's seat of power, and if he ever came back, he would be livid to find his mansion destroyed.
Then again, Kolhood was not a subtle thinker. Blunt moves were his specialty.
When he reached the office, Losham headed toward the panel that concealed the entrance to the private staircase. He pressed the hidden release mechanism, and the panel slid aside, revealing a narrow spiral staircase that descended into darkness.
"Wait here," Rami said. "I'll check if the passage is clear."
"Don't go yet." Losham pulled out his phone. "I'm going to call the head of security first. I just wanted to see if the staircase was still there, and it is."
Losham headed to the massive desk that used to be his father's and was now his, pulled out the throne-like swivel chair, and sat.
Commander Yereth answered on the first ring. "Lord Losham."
"What happened down there?"
"A section of the basement collapsed. A support column that was already compromised in the initial explosion gave way under the weight of the debris. The column was bearing the load for a section of ceiling that spanned roughly fifteen meters. When it went, it brought down everything above it."
"Casualties?"
"Two human workers were crushed. We are trying to get to them, but I don't believe they survived. Fifteen others are injured. Most have minor wounds, but two are in bad condition. We're evacuating them to the clinic."
Losham closed his eyes briefly. Human workers were expendable in the Brotherhood's calculus, but their loss still meant delays, investigations, and the close attention of his brothers, none of which he could afford.
"What's the status of the site?" he asked.
"Buried. All the work that has been done to date is wasted. It's worse now than it was originally."
Losham barely stifled a groan. "So, we are back to the starting point?"
Yereth hesitated. "I don't know, my lord. Right now, it looks worse, but we won't know until the structural engineers take a look at this. I would insist that they check the other support columns in this section."
"Of course. Secure the area and get the buried men out. I don't want anyone to enter the site without my direct authorization, and that includes my brothers. I don't want them to get hurt."
"Yes, my lord."
Losham ended the call and leaned back in his chair. Could Navuh have planned this collapse as well?
Navuh's mind was a convoluted labyrinth. He might not be as brilliant as Losham, but he was unpredictable because his thinking didn't always follow logical routes.
The booby traps in the glass enclosure had been designed to stop unauthorized access to the bodies in stasis and whatever other treasures were hidden in there.
But what if there had been a secondary layer?
Not explosives because those would have been detected by the ordnance team, but structural vulnerabilities deliberately engineered into the support columns, weaknesses designed to trigger a delayed collapse if the excavation proceeded beyond a certain point.
Was it likely?
Losham didn't know. This seemed beyond even Navuh's twisted mind. The more reasonable explanation was that the explosions had weakened the structure, and it was unstable despite the engineer's claim that it was secure.
The third possibility was that one of his brothers had smuggled an explosive into the basement after it had been swept.
But there was no way to confirm that theory without a detailed forensic analysis of the failed column, and even then, the difference between deliberate sabotage and natural degradation might be indistinguishable.
Losham turned to look at Hakum and Rami. "You heard him. A support column failed and created a cascade collapse. Two probable casualties, fifteen injured, and the site buried once again. We are back to square one, or rather square minus one."
Hakum shook his head. "That's horrible. What are we going to do?"
"Right now, nothing." Losham waved a hand. "You can return to your office."
"What about the staircase? How are we going to get home?"
"I'm sure Yereth will arrange for a ladder."
"Yes, my lord." Hakum dipped his head. "That's the most reasonable solution."
The guy wasn't too smart, but that suited Losham just right. He didn't trust anyone other than Rami and preferred a dumb secretary to a nosy one.
After Hakum left, Rami closed the office door and locked it. "Natural failure or sabotage?"
"That's what I want to find out. Please commence an investigation.
I want to know whether that column failed on its own or whether someone encouraged it.
Pull the security footage for the basement level from the last forty-eight hours.
Interview the surviving workers. And find out if any of my brothers' people have been near the excavation site. "
"That encompasses almost the entire Brotherhood," Rami said.
"I know, and I suspect everyone, but mostly Kolhood. He has the resources and the expertise to arrange a structural failure that looks accidental."
"If I find evidence of sabotage, what then?"
Rami had a point. There wasn't much Losham could do about that. His best option was to pretend that the failure was accidental and move on.
"Bring it to me, and I'll decide what to do with it. Do not share your findings with anyone else. Not Hakum, and definitely not my brothers."
"Yes, my lord."
After Rami left, Losham looked at the coffee stain from the broken cup that was spreading across the marble floor, and the hairline crack that had appeared in the ceiling above the window.
The damage was cosmetic, but it was evidence of the force of the collapse below.
If the shockwave had been strong enough to crack plaster on the upper floor, the destruction in the basement must be catastrophic.
What a spectacular mess.
What was he going to tell the compeller and his handlers?
The compulsion sat in his chest like a fist, tightening every time his thoughts drifted toward the delay.
The clan's compeller had been explicit about excavating carefully and extracting the chests intact.
The compulsion left no room for pauses, no accommodation for setbacks.
It was a blunt instrument, designed to ensure compliance regardless of circumstances, and it chafed like a collar made of thorns.
Losham was familiar with chafing. He had worn his father's collar for two millennia, and he had learned that even the strongest compulsion had limits.
Not in its hold, Navuh's compulsion was absolute when applied directly, but in its specificity.
Compulsion could dictate what you did, but it couldn't dictate how or when.
The margins were narrow, but they existed, and Losham had spent a lifetime learning to operate within them.
The clan's compeller was strong and precise, but no one could cover every variable.
The compulsion was to excavate carefully and report.
It did not specify a timeline. It did not address contingencies like structural collapses or political crises among the brothers.
Those gaps were small, but he could operate within them.