Anastasia nodded, and then, to Alex’s absolute astonishment, she laughed.
“Timor got sick every year, do you remember?” Anastasia asked, laughing from behind her hand. “Poor child. Never could stomach the roads or the suspension.”
“Thank you for reminding me,” Timor said glumly. “You are both just showing off for Alex and Emily.”
“I wasn’t doing anything!” Katya protested. “I was harmlessly reminiscing.”
“They are trying to con you,” Timor said, leaning over Emily to confide to Alex. “Normally, they fight the whole way here about what movie they plan on watching on the big television downstairs.”
“Now who’s showing off,” Katya muttered, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the window.
It wasn’t a long trip, perhaps four hours with traffic, which was generally heavy and varied from bicycles to massive Chinese cargo trucks, all crowded together on the same narrow roadway. Most of the vehicles they passed were vans and trucks, all sitting low on their suspensions, loaded with cargo or covered in passengers clinging to every available surface. Anastasia and Katya quarreled briefly, then both appeared to go to sleep, while Emily stared out the window at the lush countryside, Svetlana read, and Timor and Alex played Gin on the foldout table in between the seats. They crested a particularly large group of hills, and then started to descend back down into an urban area.
“I recognize this part of the road,” Svetlana said, in her clipped, Russian-accented English. “It is not much longer, now.”
“You know, you never say anything when I’m around,” Alex observed, discarding one bad card and getting another to replace it. “I started to worry that you hated me.”
“No,” Svetlana said, shaking her head. “But I am a servant, not a member of the family, not a favored guest like yourself. It is not my place to speak, so I don’t.”
“Wow, that’s a really fucked up attitude you have,” Alex said, tossing his cards down in disgust. “Does Anastasia own you or something?”
Svetlana gave him a wan smile and returned to her book. Timor put the cards aside and turned to chat with Emily, leaving Alex to stew impotently. Anastasia’s eyes snapped open a few minutes later without a trace of sleepiness in them.
“Mr. Bao,” she said softly, staring at indeterminate point above Alex’s head. “It’s good to hear from you again.”
Then Anastasia switched to what he assumed to be Vietnamese, which impressed the hell out of Alex, but didn’t seem to come as a surprise to anyone else.
Alex stared glumly out the window and wondered if the whole trip would be that way.
Gaul sighed and let Alistair knock twice before he finally called for him to come in.
“Sorry boss, I know you’re busy. But I just got my marching orders…”
“Yes,” Gaul snapped irritably. “Get to the point, Alistair. There is a problem of some kind? Something that you don’t understand?”
“No, I get the mission,” Alistair said, unflappable, as he took a seat in front of Gaul. “You’ve had me working on this for months, whatever it is, so it must be important. ’I'll do it, I’m not arguing. I’m simply wondering when I will get my old job back.”
“What does that mean?” Gaul asked. “I’m not in the mood for games, Alistair. Say what you have to say.”
“For quite a while, you’ve had me running errands while you do my job. In case you have forgotten, I am supposed to be your Chief Auditor. Instead, I barely even see my subordinates,” Alistair complained. “They take their marching orders from you. Hell, you and Alice Gallow seem tight these days. What gives? Did I blow it?”
“On the contrary,” Gaul said, pushing his glasses back into place. “I have no one else that I can trust with this matter, no one else who is capable. I am not demoting you, Alistair, I am relying on you.”
“If you say so. I’ve spent months running down rumors about your old classmates, and about our friends out in Egypt, the Anathema. They haven’t tried anything in fifty years, Gaul. They’ve been dormant since they were expelled from Central. No one I’ve talked to knows anything about this ‘Rosicrucian’ person at all, at least, not in the sense that you mean it. You have me talking to conspiracy theorists and French Royalist weirdoes. Is all of this supposed to make sense?”
Gaul looked up at him briefly, and then he solemnly shook his head.
“Not to you, it isn’t. Don’t misunderstand me, Alistair. I put my faith in you because you are capable, but your remit does not extend as far as doubting me,” Gaul said critically. “I have guided the Academy through a dozen crises before this, and I will lead us through this one as well. As Chief Auditor, you are my right hand. My right hand is not permitted to question my intentions or my judgment.”
There was no sound in the room except for Gaul’s pen scratching on the paper.
“You’re the boss,” Alistair said, sighing and standing up. “I wish you’d let me delegate this, though.”
“The most important part of managing people is knowing which jobs you absolutely must do yourself,” Gaul said coldly, motioning toward the door without looking up. “I eagerly await the day that you come to this realization yourself.”
Alistair shook his head doubtfully and left, closing the door behind him. After he left, Gaul put his pen down, rubbed his forehead, and then sighed, looking at the chair where his Chief Auditor had sat.
Mr. Bao was nothing like the wizened old Vietnamese man that Alex was expecting. He was short, stocky, and middle-aged, with neatly trimmed hair and designer glasses. He spoke unaccented English and was evasive about where he’d picked it up. Since he and Alex both ended up in the front cabin of the ferry, they talked about the Lakers, to whom Mr. Bao was devoted, despite the fact that Alex knew nothing about basketball. He was likable, and the trip to the island and was short and breathtakingly beautiful. The bay sparkled in the afternoon sun, azure blue with grey columns of stone jutting out from the water like the ruins of an ancient city, some crowned with livid green flora, others concealing impossibly perfect white-sand beaches. Mr. Bao pointed out each islet and told him what they were called, but Alex got confused, as they all seemed to have variations on the same name. The island that they were going to was at the end of the harbor, tucked inside the arm of a much larger barrier island. There was a fishing village across the water on the mainland, and a swanky resort on the adjoining island.
They disembarked on an amazingly level beach that was flooded with two inches of warm seawater so clear he could see the grains of sand beneath, extending to the rock walls that surrounded the cove. While a taciturn Samoan dealt with the luggage, they followed Anastasia along narrow path through dense undergrowth and unfamiliar trees. This was followed by lush, formal gardens, dotted with fountains and bisected by a miniature stream. Maintaining it must have required an army of gardeners, but Alex didn’t see anyone on the entire walk.
The house was nestled at the rear of a great clearing, surrounded by cultivated fruit trees and a dazzling array of exotic flowers. It was less grandiose than Alex had feared; two stories painted a uniform white and in a Western style. The house was clearly old, maybe even dating back to the French occupation, with significant modern renovations. They were greeted by a small army of servants, who were a mix of Chinese, Vietnamese and Russian, and then Alex was shown to his room by a tiny smiling man named Phon. He informed him in heavily accented English that dinner would be served in an hour and a half, and then disappeared before Alex had a chance to thank him.
Alex paced across the room, taking stock: one bed, giant and comfortable, too many pillows. One mirror, floor length. A massive armoire into which he had unpacked his meager things. An uncertain looking writing desk that he placed his laptop on with some trepidation. A vase, with perfectly arranged flowers. A window that looked out on the bamboo garden to the rear of the house, and what he assumed was jungle rising up behind it in a verdant green wall.