Читать книгу Serpent's Kiss - Alex Archer - Страница 9

“A ship! I see a ship!”

Wearily, Goraksh Shivaji lifted his head and stared out at the bleak expanse of the Indian Ocean from the deck of his father’s ship, the Black Swan. He’d barely managed a handful of catnaps during the night.

He should have been home in Kanyakumari studying algorithmic design paradigms. The professor this semester was harsh. College life wasn’t easy for him. It didn’t help that his father expected him to work a fifty-hour week in the warehouse.

Over the past two years of his career at university, Goraksh had thought about telling his father that he was quitting the warehouse. But he needed the pittance his father paid him to pay his tuition.

Jobs were hard to come by, especially ones that worked around a college schedule. Also, working in the warehouse guaranteed that he could live in his father’s house. If he was on his own, he knew he wouldn’t be able to make ends meet.

As it was, when Goraksh finally graduated, he was going to owe a small fortune to the university. He would have his degree in computer science. Then he would be able to get a good job in the United States, maybe designing video games, and finally leave his father’s warehouse behind for good.

But that was the dream. Tonight was all about working for his father. If you could call piracy work, Goraksh grumbled sourly.

“Goraksh, do you see the ship?” His father’s voice was stern. Rajiv Shivaji was a hard, lean man in his early fifties. He wore the turban and steel bracelet—the kara —of the Sikh, and his beard was full. He also carried a .357 Magnum revolver in a shoulder holster.

“Not yet, Father,” Goraksh replied. He held the high-powered binoculars to his eyes and swept the surface of the sea. The light hurt his eyes. He swayed to the rise and fall of the waves as the cargo ship strained under full sail.

Rajiv stood at the prow of the ship and held on to the railing. Goraksh had never seen a man more able who had taken to sea. It was easy to imagine him sailing with the likes of Sinbad the Sailor and other heroes.

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.

When his stomach finally settled, Goraksh felt drained and embarrassed. He forced himself to his feet and stood on shaky legs amid the mess he’d made.

“Are you through shaming me?” his father roared from the other ship.

Goraksh faced his father and intended to speak roughly, as a man would do. But his words were soft and without direction.

“The crew went down with the ship,” he said.

“Good. Then maybe they didn’t have time to call in this location,” his father said. “Maybe we’ll have more time to work.”

Even after all the years he’d lived with the man, Goraksh couldn’t believe how callous he was. Rajiv had brought Goraksh along on the pirating expeditions after storms for eight of his twenty years. During the past four, Goraksh had been expected to take part in stealing whatever cargo they could salvage.

Finding the illegal salvage was one thing, but getting away with it was quite another. The Indian navy and merchant marine, the British navy and the International Maritime Bureau, were all problems. Rajiv Shivaji considered those risks a part of doing business.

Goraksh recognized them as an end to the life he wanted. His father was a pirate. Rajiv Shivaji carried on an old family enterprise. Goraksh never romanticized the nature of what his father did.

But if Goraksh was ever caught doing his father’s business, he knew his dream future was forfeit. Still, he loved his father. After his mother had died, his father had raised him and had never taken another wife. It had only been the two of them.

If Goraksh was ever to be asked if he feared or loved his father more, though, Goraksh didn’t know what his answer would be.

K ARAM USED a crowbar to open the crate Goraksh had selected from those in the flooded hold. Water, foam peanuts and boxes of iPods spilled out across the ship’s hull.

“They’re ruined,” Rajiv snarled. “Go below and find something salvageable.”

Goraksh put the respirator back in his mouth and dived back into the hold. He recovered his floodlight and tried not to look at the dead man floating amid the boxes. Then he found two more.

He bagged more crates and sent them up. During the time he waited for the net to be sent back down, he scouted the hold. Two hatches, one at either end, normally allowed access to the upper decks. Both of them had jammed.

If there was anything in the crew’s quarters, they wouldn’t be able to get to it without cutting through the floor or forcing the hatches. Goraksh hoped his father wouldn’t demand that. Doing either of those things might upset the equilibrium of the ship.

Even now he truly believed the ship had sunk lower in the water. He reached the opening they’d created more easily.

Pounding echoed throughout the hold. Goraksh felt as though he were trapped in a gigantic drum. He netted a final crate, thinking his efforts were going to be as wasted as the other times. He surfaced.

Karam leaned down into the hold. He cupped one hand around his mouth to be heard over the sound of the sea against the hull. “Your father wants to leave.”

“All right,” Goraksh responded. He swam through the maze of boxes to the opening and wondered what had made his father change his mind. Not even the fact that they’d only pulled up ruined electronics in over a dozen attempts would have made Rajiv Shivaji give up on the hope of turning a profit.

Something had happened.

“I S ANYONE OUT THERE ? Can anyone help us?”

Goraksh stood beside his father in the ship’s wheelhouse and listened to the broadcast over the shortwave radio. His sodden clothing gave him a chill.

“Hello? Hello? God, please let someone be out there. We need help. Our boat is sinking. Please. Please! ”

The voice belonged to a woman. She sounded young and frightened.

Rajiv glanced at the radio operator. The man worked quickly with a slide rule, compass and map. He made a few tentative marks and watched his instruments again.

“Why don’t you answer her?” Goraksh asked. For a moment he couldn’t help imagining his girlfriend at the other end of the radio connection. Then again, Tejashree feared the open ocean and wouldn’t accompany him sailing.

“Because I don’t wish to answer her,” Rajiv said.

Goraksh fell silent and knew better than to ask again.

“Our boat is the Grimjoy, ” the woman said.

Although he tried, Goraksh couldn’t decide if her accent was American or Canadian. He knew there was a difference between the two, but he didn’t quite know how to tell. He would have known if she had a British inflection.

“ Grimjoy, ” one of his father’s men said as if he were familiar with the vessel.

“I know.” Rajiv nodded happily. “I know that boat.” He looked at the radio operator. “Can you locate it?”

The man made a few final notations on the map. “I have it now.” He handed up a slip of paper with the coordinates listed.

“How far away are we?” Rajiv demanded.

“Ten or fifteen miles. They’re north of our position.”

“Is the boat in the open sea?”

The radio operator shook his head.

Goraksh knew that within the country’s boundaries the authorities would arrest his father for what he was doing. Most of the men on the Black Swan had been in trouble with the law on some occasion.

“Does anyone else know they’re out there?” Rajiv asked.

“I’ve been monitoring this frequency. So far they’ve received no reply.”

“Good.” Rajiv gave the paper with the coordinates to the helmsman. “Set a course to take us there immediately.”

The man nodded and hurried away.

Rajiv strode out of the wheelhouse and onto the deck. He bellowed orders to abandon the sinking cargo ship and put on sails.

Goraksh watched his father, but he listened to the woman’s plaintive voice coming over the radio frequency.

“Please. Someone has to be out there. We’re adrift. I don’t know how to work the boat.”

In seconds the Black Swan got under way. She heeled hard to port, caught the wind and sliced through the rolling waves like a thoroughbred.

When he joined his father on the deck and saw the savage exuberance on his father’s face, the sick knot inside Goraksh’s stomach twisted more violently. He’d never seen his father kill anyone, but he was aware of the stories that were told in the rough bars and opium dens in the darkest corners of Kanyakumari that said Rajiv Shivaji was a murderer several times over.