Chapter 38 Losham
LOSHAM
The glass enclosure haunted Losham.
He couldn't sleep, his mind churning through the same obsessive calculations it had been running for ten days. The enclosure, the sand, and whatever treasure his father had buried in there that was valuable enough to warrant a fortress of impenetrable glass.
Ten days of drilling, cutting, grinding, hammering. Ten days of noise and dust and absolutely nothing to show for it. The glass laughed at every tool they threw at it, mocking him.
But that ended today.
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 and then, 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.
That needed 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.
The mansion loomed against the lightening sky as they approached, its windows dark, its new contemporary facade silent and watchful. Losham had never liked this new version of the building. The original one that had been done in the Mediterranean style had been much more welcoming.
He stifled a chuckle at the absurdity of that thought.
Nothing about his father had ever been welcoming or warm. Navuh had been cold and intimidating on a good day and terrifying on a bad one.
Hakum waited at the front entrance, his tall, slim silhouette stark against the faint glow of interior lights. He straightened as Losham approached.
"My lord. The team is waiting for you in the basement."
"Excellent." Losham brushed past him into the foyer. "The sooner they get to work, the sooner we can get it done. I'm tired of waiting."
He'd inherited his father's assistant along with everything else, and even though the guy wasn't the brightest bulb, he was useful.
The air grew cooler as they went down the stairs, carrying the smell of dust and machine oil and something sharp and metallic that hadn't been there before.
The new plasma cutter.
The basement stretched far beyond the mansion's footprint, extending under the entire backyard in a labyrinth of corridors and storage rooms. Dave had gone through most of them, cataloging the treasures, and the last one to be explored was the enclosure.
That glass box stood impenetrable like a monument to Navuh's paranoia.
It rose from the concrete floor, twenty feet tall and almost twice as wide, its walls made of glass so thick and clear it seemed almost invisible until the light caught it at certain angles. Inside, fine white sand hid whatever lay beneath its surface.
The crew had positioned the plasma cutter on a wheeled platform, its bulk bristling with hoses and cables that snaked back to a massive power unit. Four workers in protective gear were making final adjustments while a fifth checked readouts on a portable monitor.
The team leader approached, holding out two sets of ear protection—heavy-duty muffs to block the noise.
"My lord." He offered the muffs to Losham and then to Rami. "You'll want to put these on before we start. I'd also recommend standing back near the stairs. The plasma arc throws off intense light and heat."
Losham took the muffs but didn't put them on yet. "Can you estimate how long until you breach?"
"Hard to say, my lord. The previous cutting attempts suggested the glass is unlike anything we've encountered. But the plasma cutter operates at much higher temperatures than our other tools. If anything can cut through, this can."
"Then let's find out."
Losham retreated to the base of the stairs with Rami at his side. As they fitted the muffs over their ears, the world went muffled and distant, the sounds of the crew's preparations reduced to dull thumps and vibrations.
The team leader raised his hand, made a circling gesture, and the workers scrambled to their positions. One of them pulled down a welding mask. Another gripped the controls of the plasma cutter, adjusting the angle of the torch head until it pointed directly at the glass surface.
Losham held his breath.
The plasma arc ignited.
Even through the ear protection, the sound was tremendous—a high-pitched shriek underlaid by a deep, thrumming roar that seemed to vibrate through the concrete floor and up into his bones.
The arc itself was blinding, a concentrated point of light so intense that Losham had to look away despite standing thirty feet back.
But he had to see. Had to know.
He squinted through the glare, watching the point where the plasma arc met the glass surface. Sparks fountained outward, showering the floor with glowing particles that faded to ash before landing. The air filled with an acrid smell.
And the glass...
The glass was glowing.
Excitement thrummed through Losham's chest. The other tools had barely scratched the surface, but this was actually affecting the material, creating a point of intense heat that spread outward in a web of glowing lines.
It was actually working.