Chapter 36

Abegail's diminished convoy pulled across the small end of a huge oval parade ground, around which were clustered a breathtaking array of magnificent temples and ceremonial buildings, and turned sharply to the right, sweeping into large iron gates in a high compound wall that opened, almost by magic, upon the convoy's approach and clanked shut almost as quickly in their wake.

They were in a large, crushed-seashell covered courtyard before one of the tallest, most ornate pagoda pavilions Abegail had seen in her various trips through Southeast Asia. The steps leading up to it and the platform on which it's white-painted, gold-leaf topped columns stood was well-scrubbed white marble. And its roof was of golden fish-scale tiles with borders of emerald green and sapphire blue tiles.

And standing at the foot of the stairs up to this structure was a diminutive Thai man, short and thin as a rail, a monocle in one eye, but decked out in an exquisitely tailored dark suit, his ey