"Where'd you get the funny dress?"
"Jack!" She leaped into his arms, her joy bursting within her. "You're alive!"
"You're surprised?"
"I thought Kusum might have..."
"No. It was almost the other way around."
"I'm so glad you found me!" She clutched him, reassuring herself that he was really here. "Kusum is going to sail back to India tonight. Get me out of here!"
"My pleasure." He turned toward the shattered door and paused. "What happened to that?"
"Kusum kicked it out after I locked him in."
She saw Jack's eyebrows rise. "How many kicks?"
"One, I think." She wasn't sure.
Jack pursed his lips as if to whistle but made no sound. He began to speak but was interrupted by a loud clang from down the hall.
Kolabati went rigid. No! Not Kusum! Not now!
"The door!"
Jack was already out in the hall. She followed in time to see him slam his shoulder full force against the steel door.
Too late. It was locked.
Jack pounded once on the door with his fist, but said nothing.
Kolabati leaned against the door beside him. She wanted to scream with frustration. Almost free—and now locked up again!
"Kusum, let us out!" she cried in Bengali. "Can't you see this is useless?"
No reply. Only taunting silence on the other side. Yet she sensed her brother's presence.
"I thought you wanted to keep us apart!" she said in English, purposely goading him. "Instead you've locked us in here together with a bed and nothing but each other to fill the empty hours."
There followed a lengthy pause, and then an answer—also in English. The deadly precision in Kusum's voice chilled Kolabati.
"You will not be together long. There are crucial matters that require my presence at the Consulate now. The rakoshi will separate the two of you when I return."
He said no more. And although Kolabati had not heard his footsteps retreating across the deck, she was sure he’d left them. She glanced at Jack. Her terror for him was a physical pain. It would be so easy for Kusum to bring a few rakoshi onto the deck, open this door and send them in after Jack.
Jack shook his head. "You've got a real way with words.”
He seemed so calm. "Aren't you frightened?"
"Yeah. Very." He was feeling the walls, rubbing his fingers over the low ceiling.
"What are we going to do?
"Get out of here, I hope."
He strode back to the cabin and began to tear the bed apart. He threw the pillow, mattress and bedclothes on the floor, then pulled at the iron spring frame. It came free with a screech. He worked at the bolts that held the frame together; amid a constant stream of muttered curses he managed to loosen one of them. After that it took him only a moment to twist one of the L-shaped bars off the frame.
"What are you going to do with that?"
"Find a way out."
He jabbed the six-foot iron bar against the cabin ceiling. Paint chips flew in accompaniment to the unmistakable sound of metal against metal. The same with the ceiling and the walls in the hall.
The floor, however, was made of heavily varnished oak planks. He began to work the corner of the bar between two of them.
"We'll go through the floor," he said, grunting with the effort.
Kolabati recoiled at the thought.
"The rakoshi are down there!"
"If I don't meet them now, I'll have to meet them later. I'd rather meet them on my terms than Kusum's." He looked at her. "You going to stand there or are you going to help?"
Kolabati added her weight to the bar. A board splintered and popped up.
11
Jack tore at the floorboards with grim determination. His shirt and hair were soon soaked with perspiration. He removed the shirt and kept working. Breaking through the floor seemed a futile, almost suicidal gesture—like a man trying to escape from a burning plane by jumping into an active volcano. But he had to do something. Anything was better than sitting and waiting for Kusum to return.
The rotten odor of the rakoshi wafted up from below, engulfing him, making him gag. And the larger the hole in the flooring, the stronger the smell. Finally the opening was big enough to admit his shoulders. He stuck his head through for a look. Kolabati knelt beside him, peering over his shoulder.
Dark down there. By the light of a solitary ceiling emergency lamp off to his right he could see a number of large insulated pipes running along just under the steel beams that supported the flooring. Directly below hung a suspended walkway that led to an iron-runged ladder.
He was ready to cheer until he realized he was looking at the upper end of the ladder. It went down from there. Jack did not want to go down. Anywhere but down.
An idea struck him. He lifted his head and turned to Kolabati.
"Does that necklace really work?"
She started and her expression became guarded. "What do you mean, 'work'?"
"What you told me. Does it really make you invisible to the rakoshi?"
"Yes, of course. Why?"
Jack couldn't imagine how such a thing could be, but then he’d never imagined that such a thing as a rakosh could be. He held out his hand.
"Give it to me."
"No!" she said, her hand darting to her throat as she jumped to her feet and stepped back.
"Just for a few minutes. I'll sneak below, find my way up to the deck, unlock the door and let you out."
She shook her head violently. "No, Jack!"
Why was she being so stubborn?
"Come on. You don't know how to pick a lock. I'm the only one who can get us both out of here."
He rose and took a step toward her but she flattened herself against the wall and screamed.
"No! Don't touch it!"
Jack froze, confused by her response. Kolabati's eyes were wide with terror.
"What's wrong with you?"
"I can't take it off," she said in a calmer voice. "No one in the family is ever allowed to take it off."
"Oh, come—"
"I can't Jack!” The terror was crept back into her voice. “Please don't ask me!"
"Okay-okay!" Jack said quickly, raising his hands, palms out, and stepping back. Didn't want any more screaming. Might attract a rakosh.
He walked over to the hole in the floor and stood there thinking. Kolabati's reaction baffled him. And what she’d told him about no one in the family allowed to take the necklace off was untrue—he remembered seeing Kusum without it just last night. But it had been obvious then that Kusum had wanted to be seen by his rakoshi.
Then he remembered something else.
"The necklace will protect two of us, won't it?"
Kolabati's brow furrowed. "What do you—oh, I see. Yes, I think so. At least it did in your apartment."
"Then we'll both go down."
"Jack, it's too dangerous! You can't be sure it will protect you!"
He realized that and tried not to think about it. He had no other options.
"I'll carry you on my back—piggyback. We won't be quite as close as we were in the apartment, but it's my only chance." As she hesitated, Jack played what he hoped was his ace: "Either you come down with me or I go alone with no protection at all. I'm not waiting here for your brother."
Kolabati stepped forward. "You can't go down there alone.”
Without another word, she kicked off her sandals, hiked up her sari, and sat on the floor. She swung her legs into the hole and began to lower herself through.
"Hey!"
"I'll go first. I'm the one with the necklace, remember?"
Jack watched in amazement as her head disappeared below the level of the floor. Was this the same woman who had screamed in abject terror a moment ago? Going first through that hole took a load of courage—with or without a "magic" necklace. Didn't make sense.
But then, nothing seemed to make much sense anymore.
"All right," she said, popping her head back through. "It's clear.”