Authors: Rafael
Wolford rushed over. “Jesus, Jesus. I never seen anything like
it.” Janesh stood. The dogs’ head-rubbing had smeared their victims’ blood
across his torso. The wild look and bloodied frame evoked a bygone, more primal
age.
“Come. This isn’t over yet.”
From
the bridge structure’s wide open entrance indistinct shouts and voices floated
up from belowdecks. Janesh could just make the cries of those pleading not to
shoot. Staccato machine pistols replied. He turned to Ben. “They’re massacring
the crew.” The next sound froze them in place and stopped their breaths. A
woman’s scream pierced the air then cut off.
Ben
rose, automatic cocked. A powerful arm reached out to hold him in place. He
turned to see an agonized Janesh. Anguish laced every word. “No, my friend. It
is time to retreat. We are outgunned and outmanned and will suffer the crew’s
fate if we descend. If she’s alive, it won’t matter. If she’s dead, we can’t
avenge her if we are too.”
Ben
tried to shake off the arm but a steel clamp held him fast. Janesh’s eyes shone
in sympathy. “You know I’m right. We have to move back. Now.” Wolford relented.
The four headed toward the prow and ducked behind a hold cover where the
darkened ship and dense cloud cover enveloped them.
Eleven
figures emerged, one with an unconscious, near-naked Miranda draped over a
shoulder. They gathered around their dead comrades babbling among themselves.
The pirates looked up to scan the deck, trying to pierce the shadows. Three
leveled their weapons and made to move off before another barked in Chinese.
Alert and cautious, the group moved to the port side where ropes dangled from
hooks to the ship waiting below. After lashing a line to Miranda’s ankles, they
lowered her head first with the undergarment sliding down over shoulders and
arms. To snickers and titters, the carrier gave her bare butt a parting squeeze
and rub.
Janesh
burned, frustrated by the ski masks. No matter. He knew who knew them. They’d
clashed many times and the first had broken his heart. Now he had returned with
more heartache in tow. Janesh shook his head. What twist of fate had brought
his nemesis to Miranda? He would meet Nicholas Koh, the Lord of Men vowed, and
never clash again.
At
any moment Wolford might lose it, Janesh thought. For three hours they had
hauled bodies on a flat pushcart to the ship’s one refrigerated hold. Death,
not satisfied with life, took dignity as well. Eyes, frozen in the last
realization, stared but saw nothing. Heads lolled, mouths gaped, limbs dangled.
Stilled nerve controls emptied bladders and intestines. The stench, putrid and
heavy, hung on one’s flesh.
“Don’t
breathe through your nose. It will ease the nausea. Want to take a break?”
Wolford raised his head, eyes tearing. He looked back down at what remained of
Fogarty and Barnes. The explosion that blew the hatch off
had left them unrecognizable.
“Damn it. I know their wives. I know their children. They’ll look
at me and I won’t be able to say a thing.” He grabbed Fogarty by the wrists.
“C’mon. I don’t want them out here rotting.” The corpse fell back leaving him
holding two arms. Wolford vomited. Janesh turned away to let him gather
himself.
Guided by the faint glow of Exit signs, one wheel squeaked as they
moved along the darkened passageway. No other sound echoed along the lifeless
ship. Their ghastly labor only added to the eeriness and Janesh took comfort
the dogs would warn him if the shadows hid anything dangerous or unimaginable.
Ben’s lowered voice revealed his own unease. “The USS King won’t be here for
another seven hours. Play some cards?”
Even if their communicators had not worked, an overdue ChangLi
would have alerted the forensic team waiting in Honolulu. With the naval
destroyer steaming toward them, a sudden storm presented their only real
danger. “Sorry. Solitaire’s my game.”
“Hmm. I might have known. Somehow it suits you.”
“I bear losing more gracefully when it’s to myself.”
They laid Fogarty and Barnes alongside the others, covered them
with bed sheets, then sealed the hold’s lower access hatch behind them. Neither
glanced at the haphazard pile of pirates thrown against the adjacent bulkhead.
They left the pushcart and retraced their steps along the murky passageway. Ben
exhaled with great relief.
“Mind if you take the first watch on the bridge? I need to lie
down for a couple hours. Maybe we’ll be lucky and the ship’s plumbing, like the
holds, has a dedicated power source. If not, the water should still be warm
enough to shower in. I’ll leave some for you.”
“Sure. There’s no reason for both of us to be on the bridge.”
“You don’t seem bothered about Miranda.” Janesh ignored the probe.
“I’ll be on the bridge if you need me.”
On silent pads, Duncan and Ronan trotted up to flank him up the
companionway. How could this man of the West even begin to comprehend? Years of
deep meditation prevented anguish and torment from reducing him to emotional
jelly. Head bowed, he paused on a step to fill his lungs then exhaled to slowly
fill them again. Just hearing her name threatened a cry of agony. She had
become a pawn in his war with Nicholas Koh. He would set a trap with her as
bait. The crime lord counted on emotion clouding his arch rival’s reasoning.
Janesh sank deep within; strained to seal the rupture his aching heart had
cleaved. Miranda’s life depended on it.
After a moment he raised his head, eyes clear and dry. A simmering
rage burned hot, suffused his body, but remained below the surface. It would
focus him. With a leap, he took the stairs two at a time. Sweat glistened on a
still bare torso. His heart and lungs barely moved. He stepped onto the bridge
where a warm, tropical breeze drifted in through the control room’s shattered
windows. The blast’s devastation extended to the equipment but the commanding,
panoramic view made it a good place to await the destroyer’s arrival
—and keep watch
.
He had two immediate problems to solve and began clearing debris
for easier movement. The second remained stubborn and intractable. Any action
against Nicholas Koh would fail unless he understood why bodies continued to
pile up around the scientific equipment. What did it do? They’d come close to
an answer but no one had imagined a mid-ocean armed assault?
With the CIA’s penchant for need-to-know secrecy, he remained
noncommittal about its involvement. If not the field operatives, senior
management might know more than they let on. If so, they’d have self-serving
priorities. And weaving an intermingled thread throughout, something continued
to deal its own brand of horrific death. Convinced it all somehow formed a
coherent whole, he remained no closer to understanding than when he first laid
eyes on Miranda.
He stopped pushing a broken console and let his head sink between
his arms. Her cries rang in his ears. Rapid breaths accompanied the certainty
of horrors she would be subjected to. His impotence enraged him. Duncan and
Ronan rubbed their heads against his legs. He bent on one knee to wrap an arm
around each and squeeze them close. Their love and loyalty cleansed his soul.
Growls erupted. They broke off and raced down the companionway.
Below, their bays echoed across the deck. Janesh rushed to the window and
leaned out. He froze. A gigantic bird, perched on a hold, spread its wings and
with a mighty flap took to the air. The dogs leaped and missed by inches. Two
more flaps brought it over the water where a shimmering hole opened mid-air.
When it flew in, bird and hole disappeared.
Janesh continued to stare. Clouds languished overhead. Gentle
waves lapped against the ship’s hull. Duncan and Ronan, noses to the deck,
prowled to recapture a scent. Ten seconds had shattered his reality. It
vanished before an onrushing locomotive. Gears locked in place. Understanding
dawned. He’d just seen the monster that mounted armless trophies.
What was it? Why had it come here? The scientific equipment! Like
him, the bird-like nightmare searched for it. Everywhere it went the creature
trailed. And everywhere the creature appeared so did dead bodies. Wolford!
Janesh raced for the companionway, leaping the short stairs
landing by landing. Belowdecks he pulled up, shouted Wolford’s name. Which
cabin had he taken? His premonition darkened as each call produced no response.
Maybe he slept? Desperate, Janesh tested each door. Some opened. Others he had
to kick in. A blood-splattered interior ended the search. His head sank.
Against a side wall, arms pasted to his back, Wolford hung by the face.
* * *
Janesh
sat in a bland, cheaply furnished conference room. The downtown Honolulu
building’s directory did not list it as belonging to the regional CIA. He wondered
what the local station chief might have done to not deserve the tax-payer
funded luxuries government honchos felt befitted their rank. Three from
Washington sat opposite him. Each had the same smug, self-satisfied expression
bureaucrats the world over displayed. The thought they all attended the same
finishing school crossed his mind.
For
three hours he’d sat impassive and still through a debrief that neared an end.
The questions had become repetitive. At the outset, he’d made it clear the
urgency needed to rescue Miranda. Their response amounted to indifference. “Of
course, Mr. McKenzie. Our reports will assist that process.”
The
middle one finished his note taking, closed the book, and formed a finger
steeple. The three froze their faces with plastic, insincere smiles. No
question they’d gone to the same finishing school. “Well sir, let me first
thank you for patiently enduring our questions. Your answers have been most
helpful and will aid us in forming our plans going forward. Unfortunately, we
cannot include an outside wild card without a security clearance in those
plans. You do understand don’t you, Mr. McKenzie?”
Janesh
gazed at each in turn. Their cold-blooded smiles matched their lizard eyes. He
waited for some mention of Miranda’s plight. None came. Very well. Two could
play the close-to-the vest game. He’d made no mention of what he’d seen. Janesh
rose and turned around for the door. With Duncan and Ronan on either side, he
exited.
He’d
left Cambridge with no idea what fate had in store. His biology background
secured a low-level position with India’s park service filing forms and reports
on its flora and fauna. To his own surprise, the wilderness and his meditative
states revealed a natural, instinctive ability to hunt. He’d honed the skill until
his ability to track man-eaters gained renown throughout India as the
Mahān Śikārī
. With the nation
undergoing a capitalist renaissance, hunting allowed him to become an economic
price point between supply and demand. Collecting a fee from those who wanted
something and those who provided it had made him independently wealthy but he
never lost sight of what made it possible. He hunted tigers.
The
ground-floor doors opened to a sunny, tropical paradise. Janesh breathed in the
pungent, flower-scented air. Once again an unknown future lay before him. This
time he would challenge a silent fate and marshal his skills for one purpose—to
hunt a brute and a man. He looked up at the sky. New-found direction brought a
certainty. If it saved Miranda’s life, he would give his own.
“So
that about wraps it up.” Chatur moved the hand cupping his chin to the near
empty bottle. Its last dregs half-filled their wine glasses. He and Janesh
occupied Table 3 in Chatur’s empty restaurant. He raised his glass. “And so my
good friend, once more unto the breach.” Janesh lifted his.
“Or close the
wall up with our English dead!”
“How
many times have I sat in this chair and listened enthralled by your adventures?
None ever included two demons.” His expression turned at once sad and grim. His
lips thinned. “One holds our dear Miranda. Are you sure your eyes did not play
tricks on the other?” Janesh shook his head.
“Impossible.
The dogs saw it too. And detected its scent before they had a visual”
“What
could it possibly be?” Janesh shrugged.
“Under
cover of doing contracted work for the CIA, the physicist Joshua Ang, diverted
millions to his own clandestine project. This creature must have been it. It
has to be bio-engineered. That means he must have had at least one other
collaborator. Ang provided the necessary physics coordinated with the other’s
biological expertise.”
“That’s
pretty flimsy.” Janesh nodded.
“There’s
another theory. Professor Akiyama believes it might be an extra-terrestrial.”
Chatur shook his head.
“That’s
even flimsier. And a distraction. The priority has to be freeing Miranda from
Koh. And if our good friend Koh doesn’t survive the event, all the better.”
“I
agree. I’m just afraid all the unknowns may thwart that very effort.”
“No
plan can account for everything, Janesh, but you have to have one.”
“You’re
right. But we need leverage to free Miranda. The science equipment is key. If
we can steal it from Koh we can trade back for her. I could be wrong but right
now I’ll bet it’s headed for Singapore where Koh can keep it under tight
control. I’ll need local help. Do you have a name?” Chatur did not hesitate.
“The
wondrous and beautiful Jasline Wong. She’s smart, discreet, and very expensive.
The farther a project moves into illegality, the more expensive. However, if
your timeline is correct, this equipment is still in the Pacific somewhere. You
don’t know when, where, or how it will arrive in Singapore. When it does, Koh
will move it into his headquarters. Even Jasline will not be able to help you
get it out. With all the bodies this equipment has commanded, security will be
airtight.”
Janesh
drained his glass. “All true, Chatur. But like a chess game, you only have to
think one move deeper than your opponent.”