Serpent's Kiss

Except that Rajiv wasn’t a hero. He was a pirate and a thief, and he had set sail with his crew after learning the tsunami had struck. They’d expected to find several ships swamped at sea. So far they’d found none.

“Fyzee,” Rajiv yelled up to the old man standing in the wire crow’s nest twenty feet above the pitching deck.

“Yes, Captain.”

“Do you still see the ship?”

“I do. It’s only a short distance away.” Fyzee pointed. He was old and potbellied. His beard and hair had turned snow-white long ago.

Goraksh followed the direction the old man was pointing, then lifted the binoculars to his eyes again. This time he saw the ship. He knew then why he’d lost it—the ship was upside down.

Judging from the rough, unadorned exterior and the barnacle-covered hull, the craft was a cargo ship. It was one of the lunkers that local businesses used to cross the Indian Ocean on regular routes. They were operated for a song and only required a skeleton crew. Goraksh thought of the ship’s crew and wondered what had happened to them.

Sickness lurched through Goraksh’s stomach when he thought of how cruel the sea could be to those who were lost in it. He’d been with his father when they’d reclaimed bodies from the ocean. Sometimes, after the sharks had gotten at them, there were only parts of bodies. But they’d inspected them for anything worth stealing and quickly shoved the gruesome remains back into the sea.

“Well?” his father demanded.

“I see it,” Goraksh replied.

“Where is it?”

“South by southwest.”

Rajiv called orders back to the helmsmen. The crew came about sharply as the ship took on a new heading.

“Are there any survivors?” Rajiv asked.

“None that I can see.” Goraksh kept scanning the boat from prow to stern. He knew they weren’t looking for survivors. Anyone who had lived through the storm would only complicate things.

Rajiv gave orders to trim the sails. Goraksh put his binoculars back in their protective case. Tension knotted in his stomach when he thought of what might lie in the overturned ship’s hold.

G ORAKSH BRACED HIMSELF as the ship came alongside the cargo vessel expertly. Tires tied along the length of their port side muffled the impact.

“All right,” his father growled as he paced the ship’s deck, “get aboard and discover what the gods have favored us with on this trip.” He stopped in front of Goraksh. “Go with them, college boy. See how a man dirties his hands to put food on the table.”

Goraksh wanted to argue but he couldn’t meet his father’s gaze. His father had been angry with him ever since Professor Harbhajan stopped by the warehouse early in the week.

The warehouse had been full of stolen and illegally salvaged items. Fortunately the professor hadn’t recognized any of it. But Goraksh’s father hadn’t let him forget that the professor could just as easily have turned them in to the police.

Professor Harbhajan had graded the projects his class had turned in at the start of the semester. He’d stated that he’d been particularly impressed by Goraksh’s work. His father had been incensed when he’d heard about the visit and the topic.

Rajiv was one to hold grudges for years. Goraksh knew that no matter how long he lived he would never be forgiven the trespass he himself had not caused.

Without a word, Goraksh nodded. He kicked off his shoes and clambered over the ship’s side with the rest of the boarding crew.

U NDER THE HOT SUN , Goraksh held the battery-operated saw and worked quickly. He’d paired up with Karam, one of his father’s oldest crew. The man was emaciated by age and alcoholism. His gray beard showed stark against his dark skin. Old scars inscribed leathery worms against his features.

The saw jumped and jerked in Goraksh’s hands as he held it to the task. The blade chewed through the wooden hull and threw out a constant spray of splinters. He remained aware throughout of the ship’s erratic movement in the water.

Finally, when he had a square cut that measured a yard to a side, Goraksh pulled the saw back and stomped his foot on the square. The section dropped down into the hold. Goraksh heard it hit water only a short distance down.

“There’s water in the hold,” Karam called across to the other ship.

Rajiv leaned on the railing. “Find out what else is down there.”

Karam nodded.

“Goraksh,” Rajiv called. “You’ll go inside.”

For a moment Goraksh thought of disobeying his father’s order. His father knew he had a fear of enclosed, dark places.

“She’s the Bombay Goose, ” Rajiv said. “I checked her manifest.”

Goraksh knew his father paid someone off in the customs house for ships’ manifests.

“She’s carrying electronics,” his father continued. “Computers, DVD players. Those will sell nicely on the black market.”

They’re probably all destroyed, Goraksh thought. But he knew better than to point that out to his father. Rajiv Shivaji always believed good things would happen to him.

Rajiv looked over his shoulder and shouted for the scuba gear to be brought up from the hold.

Karam caught Goraksh’s eye and spoke in a low voice. “Go slowly, boy. Everything will be all right if you just go slowly.”

Goraksh nodded but he didn’t believe it. He didn’t think for a moment that the crew had gotten off the ship in time. He only hoped that they’d all been lost to the sea.

W ITH THE AQUALUNG STRAPPED to his back and an underwater floodlight in one hand, Goraksh dropped into the ship’s hold through the hole he’d cut. He was in total blackness except for what little light entered the hold through the cut-away hole.

He stayed submerged for a moment and blew into his face mask to equalize the pressure. Then he shone the floodlight around the hold. Boxes lay on what had been the hold’s ceiling or floated in the water. The air pocket between the hull and the waterline was less than three feet deep.

Goraksh didn’t know what was keeping the cargo ship afloat. Thinking like that made him nervous, though. If the ship suddenly went down, the sea bottom was nearly a half mile down. If he didn’t get out quickly enough, it would take him with it.

Don’t think about that, he instructed himself. Get the job done.

He surfaced and shone the floodlight up at Karam. “Send down the net.”

Karam nodded and dropped the cargo net down. Other members of the crew used battery-operated saws to widen the hole in the hull.

Goraksh grabbed a fistful of the rough hemp strands and pulled the net under with him. He selected a crate at random and wrapped the net over it. Then he yanked on the rope to signal Karam and the others to haul it out of the hold.

An arm settled around Goraksh’s neck and shoulder. Fear ripped through him as he flailed in the water with his free hand to turn around. He aimed the floodlight behind him and instinctively centered it on the figure.

The dead man’s mouth and eyes were open. Yellowed eyes and yellow, crooked teeth showed.

That was all Goraksh noticed before he screamed in terror and tried to swim backward. The respirator dropped from his lips and his face slammed into a suspended crate hard enough to almost knock him out. He swallowed seawater as he tried to breathe, then remembered he was underwater.

Fighting the panic that filled him, unable to get the dead man’s face out of his mind, Goraksh dropped the floodlight and used both hands to shove crates away from him so he could reach the surface. He pushed off on a floating crate and got enough lift to reach the edge of the hole that had been cut in the hold.

Sick, barely able to breathe because of his fear of dead things and the seawater he’d swallowed, Goraksh hauled himself out of the hold. He couldn’t stand and ended up on all fours as he retched out the seawater.