F. Paul Wilson - The Tomb

He found a heavy stern line and tested its tautness. He saw the name across the stern but couldn't read the lettering. The setting sun was warm against his skin. Everything seemed so normal and mundane out here. But in that ship…

He stilled the dread within and forced himself up the rope monkey-style as he had last night. As he pulled himself over the gunwale and onto the deck at the rear of the superstructure, he realized that the darkness of last night had hidden a multitude of sins. The boat was filthy. Rust grew where paint had thinned or peeled away; everything was either nicked or dented or both. And overlaying all was a thick coat of grease, grime, soot, and salt.

The rakoshi are below, Jack told himself as he entered the superstructure and began his search of the cabins. They're sealed in the cargo areas. I won't run into one up here. I won't.

He kept repeating it over and over, like a litany. It allowed him to concentrate on his search instead of constantly looking over his shoulder.

He started at the bridge and worked his way downward. He found no sign of Kolabati in any of the officers' cabins. He was going through the crew's quarters on the main deck level when he heard a sound. He stopped. A voice—a woman's voice—calling a name from somewhere inside the wall. Hope began to grow in him as he followed that wall around to the main deck where he found a padlocked iron door.

The voice was coming from behind the door. Jack allowed himself a self-congratulatory grin. The voice was Kolabati's. He had found her.

He examined the door. The shackle of a laminated steel padlock had been passed through the swivel eye of a heavy slotted hasp welded firmly to the steel of the door. Simple but very effective.

Jack dug out his pick kit and went to work on the lock.

10

Kolabati had started calling Kusum's name when she heard the footsteps on the deck above her cabin; she stopped when she heard him rattle the lock on the outer door. She wasn't hungry or thirsty, she just wanted to see another human face—even Kusum's. The isolation of the pilot's cabin was getting to her.

She had spent all day wracking her brain for a way to appeal to her brother. But pleas would be of no avail. How could you plead with a man who thought he was salvaging your karma? How could you convince that man to alter a course of action he was pursuing for what he was certain was your own good?

She had even gone so far as to look for something she might conceivably use for a weapon, but she had discarded the notion. Even with one arm, Kusum was too quick, too strong, too agile for her. He had proved that beyond a doubt this morning. And in his unbalanced state of mind, a physical assault might drive him over the edge.

And still she worried for Jack. Kusum had said he was unharmed, but how could she be sure after all the lies he had already told her?

She heard the outer door open—Kusum seemed to have been fumbling with it—and footsteps approaching her cabin. A man stepped through the splinters of the door. He stood there smiling, staring at her sari.

"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?"

There was 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 had 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-formed iron sides 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. It was the same with the ceiling and the walls in the hall.

The floor, however, was made of heavily varnished two-inch oak boards. 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 on 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 floor boards with grim determination. It wasn't long before his shirt and his hair were 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 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.

It was 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 to each side of the hole, running along just under the steel beams that supported the flooring. Directly below was 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.