When a hinge joint breaks, it makes a sickening sound. That sound was simultaneous with Ox-man’s bawling scream of pain.
The shotgun was on the ground and I gave it a kick-accidentally lofted it in the woman’s direction. A mistake.
Ox-man wasn’t done. I was. I wanted to send him crashing into the incubator. All those eggs in a pit inhabited by nesting reptiles. The scent of the invader was already dripping down his face. A horrible end for a man who’d done something horrible to a friend.
But even with a broken arm, he was too big and strong to pursue a determined finesse.
I got behind him and levered his left wrist up between his shoulder blades. Pivoted him to face the incubator. Tried to drive him toward it but couldn’t get any momentum. He outweighed me by seventy, maybe a hundred, pounds. His heels dug just as hard in opposition.
As we wrestled, I glanced over my shoulder. The giant mamba was giving us her full attention. She was flushed with color, head flattened for attack, the zombie-stitched mouth wide as she shook her head. A striking display. It reminded me of the rattle on a rattlesnake’s tail.
She’d already covered half the distance between the dead chimp and us.
I gave Ox-man a last shove. When I felt his legs drive backward in response, I swung him in the opposite direction, and used his momentum to give him a final thrust. An old game: crack-the-whip. I watched him go running, stumbling toward what he thought was freedom.
I continued to watch as I retreated to the door.
Saw Ox-man slow, then stop, when he noticed the snake. They were separated by a few yards, the mamba at eye level. Two creatures with heads of similar size, each studying the other in this unexpected encounter.
Ox-man turned to look at Dasha without moving his body. His face was white, paled by a mix of the inevitable and terror. He tried to cry out but could only whisper, a pleading phrase in Russian. He backed a few steps, then he began to run. Legs churning, left arm pumping. Big man, adrenaline-charged.
The snake lunged after him. Ox-man looked over his shoulder and howled something. I’ve read that, according to black boxes recovered after plane crashes, the most common last words of doomed pilots are: “Momma! Momma!” His words had that childlike quality.
The snake was gaining.
I was only a few strides from the doorway. Glanced to see that the woman had picked up the gun. She held it awkwardly because of the handcuffs, but she was studying her grip, trying to get it into a workable firing position. As I started toward her, she swung the barrel in my direction.
“Drop it!”
I saw her startled reaction when she looked up. She hadn’t realized I was sprinting in her direction.
She thrust the weapon out. “Here, take this! Shoot!”
As I took it from her hands, I heard Ox-man scream, then scream again. Looked to see that he was down on one knee; the mamba’s head a blur as it struck him near the neck once… twice… a third time.
“Shoot him! Hurry!”
“Shoot who?” I thought she meant the snake. The snake was doing what it was born to do. Destroy a creature so highly evolved?
I leaned away as she reached to reclaim the shotgun. I finally understood when she said, “Shoot Aleski! He was my partner. A quick death among professionals-he deserves that much.”
I saw the snake bury its fangs in the man once again, lingering this time, head sawing for maximum dispersal. Like a fire ant hunkering to inject venom.
Aleski was on the ground, the mamba over him. The king cobra had also now appeared-broad head moving, adjusting its unfocused eyes by varying the distance, perhaps wind-scenting objects as pheromone-distinctive as her own eggs.
As I opened the door, I told Dasha, “Doing favors for your partner wasn’t part of our deal.”
What I was thinking, though, was Frieda.
34
Do you hear it? That sound. The screaming-he’s stopped. The silence, it took a while to register.”
The woman asked, “Mr. Sweet?”
“Who?”
“Dr. Stokes. Yes, he’s stopped screaming. He must be dead. Or Mr. Earl could’ve knocked him unconscious. That would be his way. That man is very smart, and very sneaky. Him, you cannot trust.”
We were standing on a cement bulkhead near the point of land where Ox-man had come ashore. I now understood why the boat couldn’t wait. Outside the cut separating the islands, trade winds stacked great volumes of water, compressing it through the narrows like water sprayed from a nozzle. A precept of physics, the “venturi effect”: When a liquid or gas is constrained by space, velocity increases.
“Now you can see for yourself why we have to go by boat. If you swim here, the sea will take you.”
I sat on the bulkhead’s edge, seeing tropical fish among corals, water clear, a fathom deep. Flashes of red, iridescent gold. “The sea’s taken me before. I’m used to it. Keeps me on my toes.”
Dasha was to my right, looking absurdly prayerful because of the handcuffs. She’d told me the key was in Stokes’s office, didn’t know where.
“But I want to go with you. I can call Broz on the intercom, tell him to come for me, then trick him. Or there’s a little open boat we could use at the other end of the island. Only a quarter mile away.”
I was familiarizing myself with the weapon I’d taken from Ox-man. It wasn’t an AK-47, although the appearance was similar. I had to read the stamping on the barrel to refresh my memory. It was a Russian-made combat shotgun. A Saiga-12, with folding stock, stubby full-choke barrel, and a box magazine that held…?
I popped the magazine to check. Counted seven sausage-sized rounds, plus one in the chamber. The ammunition was military issue. Red plastic cartridges produced by Sabot. Waterproof.
I have the same interest in guns that I have in carpentry tools: zero. I don’t use either for pleasure, but there are times when I have no choice. So I keep up on the technology. I knew that these cartridges contained dozens of razor-tipped needles, not pellets. There was a name for them I couldn’t remember. Better range and accuracy, more killing power.
I was very glad Ox-man hadn’t gotten a clean shot at me.
“Please. We take the boat.”
“Nope. What’s the point of arriving unannounced if the neighbors know you’re coming?” I tapped the magazine on my knee, then locked it into the weapon. The selection lever had three settings: safety, semiautomatic, and automatic three-round bursts. Lethal.
“Why are you being such an idiot about this? I want to help you!”
“Because I can’t figure out what you have to gain by helping me. You and your pals are going to jail, lady.”
“You still don’t trust me.”
“No. ”
Her eyes became pale glass. Furious. “But you can’t leave me here with all those damn snakes!”
Fitting the shotgun’s sling over head and shoulder, I said, “The snakes will just have to fend for themselves until I get back.”
I rolled into the water.
The current was racing from southeast to northwest, and I allowed it sweep me along, using my feet and hands like sails to steer.
The main island was to the west: a mansion-sized two-story surrounded by poinciana trees in red bloom, three cottages nearby that I guessed would be staff housing. They looked as if they were made of coral rock. There was also a wide clearing, grass neatly mown, and a helicopter landing pad. I could see that the orange wind sock was fully inflated on its pole-strong northeasterly trade wind. “Christmas wind,” it’s called by sailors in the Caribbean.
Fitting. I had to think for a moment before deciding that it was the nineteenth of December, a Sunday. Five days before the holiday.
My son would be on his way home. Members of the little floating village that is Dinkin’s Bay would be finishing their shopping, then rushing back to the docks in time for sunset. Dewey and Walda would be out among the corn stubble and snow, blasting fast red birds from the sky.