But she's just a child!
Perhaps he should wait. The Mother was not back yet and it was important that she be a part of the ceremony. It disturbed him that she hadn't returned. The only explanation was that she'd had difficulty locating Jack. Kusum could wait for her...
No—he had already delayed well over an hour. The rakoshi were assembled and waiting. The ceremony must begin.
Just a child!
Stilling the voice that cried out inside him, Kusum straightened up and smiled once again at the little girl.
"Come with me," he said, lifting her in his arm and carrying her out into the corridor.
He would see that she died quickly and painlessly. He could do that much.
33
Jack let his raft butt softly against the hull of the ship as he ran through the various frequencies on his beeper. Finally he heard a click and a hum above. The gangway began to lower toward him. Jack maneuvered the raft under it, and as soon as it finished its descent, reached up and placed the crate of bombs on the bottom step. With a thin nylon cord between his teeth, he climbed up after it, then tied the raft to the gangway.
He stood and watched the gunwale directly above him, his flamethrower held at ready. If Kusum had seen the gangway go down, he'd be on his way over to investigate. But no one appeared.
Good. So far, surprise was on his side. He carried the crate to the top of the gangway and crouched there to survey the deck: deserted.
To his left the entire aft superstructure was dark except for the running lights. Kusum could be standing unseen in the shadows behind the blank windows of the bridge at this very moment. Jack would be exposing himself to discovery by crossing the deck, but it was a risk he had to take. The aft compartments were the most critical areas of the ship. The engines were there, as were the fuel tanks. He wanted to be sure those areas were set for destruction before he moved into the more dangerous cargo holds—where the rakoshi lived.
He hesitated. This was idiocy. This was comic book stuff. What if the rakoshi caught him before he set the bombs? That would let Kusum off free with his boat and his monsters. The sane thing to do was what Gia had said back on shore: Call in the Coast Guard. Or the Harbor Patrol.
But Jack simply could not bring himself to do that. This was between Kusum and him. He could not allow outsiders into the fray. Gia wouldn't understand it; neither would Abe. He could think of only one other person who would comprehend why it had to be this way. And that, for Jack, was the most frightening part of this whole thing.
Only Kusum Bahkti, the man he’d come to destroy, would understand.
Now or never, he told himself as he clipped four bombs to his belt. He stepped onto the deck and sprinted along the starboard gunwale until he reached the superstructure. He’d been along this route on his first trip aboard the ship. He knew the way and headed directly below.
The engine room was hot and noisy, the big twin diesels idling. Their basso hum vibrated the fillings in his teeth. Jack set the timers on the bombs for 3:45 a.m.—that would give him a little over an hour to do his job and get away. He was familiar with the timers and had confidence in them, yet as he armed each one, he found himself holding his breath and turning his face away. A ridiculous gesture—if the bomb went off in his hands, the heat and force of the blast would incinerate him before he knew it. Yet he continued to turn his head.
He placed the first two at the base of each engine, attached two more to the fuel tanks. When those four went, the entire stern of the freighter would be a memory.
He stopped by the hatch that had taken him into the corridor that led to the rakoshi. That was where Vicky had died.
A heaviness settled in his chest. He still couldn’t believe she was gone.
He pressed his ear against the metal and thought he heard the Kaka-ji chant. Visions of what he’d seen Monday night—those monsters holding up pieces of torn flesh—swept through his mind, leaving barely controllable fury in their wake. He barely restrained himself from starting up his flamethrower and running into the hold, dowsing anything that moved with napalm.
But no...he might not last a minute doing that. No room for emotion here. Had to lock away his feelings and be cool...cold. He had to follow his plan. Had to do this right. Had to make sure not a single rakosh—or its master—escaped alive.
He headed back up toward fresh air and returned to the gangplank. Sure now that Kusum was in the main hold, doing whatever he did with the rakoshi, Jack hefted the somewhat lighter bomb crate onto his shoulder and made no attempt to hide as he strode toward the bow. When he reached the hatch over the forward hold, he lifted the entry port and peered below.
The odor rose and rammed into his nostrils, but he controlled his gag reflex and looked below.
This hold was identical to the other in size and design except that the elevator platform waiting a half-dozen feet below him was in the forward rather than the aft corner. He could hear noises like a litany drifting from the aft hold.
In the dim light he saw that the floor of this hold was littered with debris, but saw no rakoshi down there, neither walking about nor lying on the floor.
He had the forward hold entirely to himself.
Jack lowered himself through the opening. A tight squeeze with the flamethrower on his back, and for one awful moment he thought he was trapped in the opening, unable to move up or down, helplessly wedged in place until Kusum found him or the bombs went off. But he pulled free, slipped through, and hauled his bomb crate after him.
Once again he checked the floor of the hold. Finding no sign of rakoshi lurking about, he started the elevator down.
A descent into hell. The noise from the other hold grew steadily louder. He could sense an excitement, a hunger in the guttural noises the rakoshi were making. Whatever ceremony was going on must be reaching its climax. After that they'd probably start returning to this hold. Jack wanted to have his bombs set and be on his way before then. But just in case they came in while he was still here…
He reached back and opened the valves on his tanks. He heard a brief, faint hiss as the carbon dioxide propelled the napalm into the line, then all was silent. He attached three bombs to his belt and waited.
When the platform stopped, Jack stepped off and looked around. The floor here was a mess. Like a garbage dump. He’d have no problem finding hiding places for the rest of his bombs among the debris. He wanted to create enough of an inferno in here to spread to the aft hold, trapping the rakoshi between the forward and stern explosions.
He stifled a cough. The odor here was worse than anything he’d encountered before, even in the other hold. He tried mouth breathing, but the stench laid on his tongue. What made it so bad here?
He looked down before taking his first step and saw that the floor was cluttered with the broken remains of countless rakoshi eggs. Among the shell fragments were bones and hair and shreds of clothing. He felt his foot against what he thought was an unhatched egg; he rolled it over with the tip of his sneaker and found himself staring into the empty eye sockets of a human skull.
Repulsed, he looked around…and found he was not alone.
Everywhere he looked he saw immature rakoshi in a variety of sizes…most of them curled on the floor, asleep. One near him was awake and active—leisurely teething on a human rib. He hadn't noticed them on the way down because they were so small..
...Kusum's grandchildren...
They seemed to be as unaware of him now as their parents in the other hold had been last night.
Stepping carefully, he made his way toward the opposite corner. There he set and armed a bomb and shoved it beneath a pile of bones and shell fragments. Moving as swiftly and as carefully as possible, he picked his way toward the middle of the stern wall. Halfway there he heard a squeal and felt a sudden, knifing, tearing pain in his left calf. He spun and looked down, reflexively reaching toward the pain. Something was biting him—it had attached itself to his leg like a leech. He pulled at it but succeeded only in making the pain worse. Gritting his teeth, he tore it loose amid a blaze of pain: a walnut-size piece of his leg had come away with it.