Jim checked his damaged wrist in the light. It was already starting to scab over. He turned to Mohi. “I need clothes.”
“ The one without all the blood looks your size.”
They stripped him, leaving the body clad only in underwear.
“ The wool itches,” Jim said.
“ New Zealand wool doesn’t itch.” Mohi looked at the black sweater. “Comes from Germany, not New Zealand. That explains it.”
Jim finished dressing by putting on the dead man’s work boots, thankful that they fit. It was time something went right. Then he picked up the gun, a thirty-eight police special.
“ This thing is older than God.” Jim jammed it between his belly and the pants, under the sweater.
“ Guns are hard to come by in New Zealand,” Mohi said.
“ Apparently.” Then, “What took you so long?”
“ I got home okay,” Mohi said, “but I passed out in the driveway. Linda dragged me into the house and called an ambulance. I’d lost a lot of blood and when I came to I was delirious. They took me to the hospital, gave me blood and antibiotics. I’ve been drugged up for the last twenty-four hours.” He grimaced. “They got the bullet out, but they kept me on pain killers. It took me a whole day to remember what that guy at the motel said about this place, then I called Linda and snuck out of the hospital. Sorry, I did my best.”
“ You did good enough, we still have time. How’s the shoulder now?”
“ Not bad. I’ll be all right.” But the sweat running down his forehead told Jim that he was in serious pain.
“ Linda’s outside, in the car,” Mohi said. “Follow me.”
“ How did you get in?”
“ Door wasn’t locked.” Mohi led him through the house to the dark night outside. Linda Tuhiwai was waiting in the parked car out front. She got out when she saw them coming.
“ I was getting worried,” she whispered.
“ It’s okay, you don’t have to whisper anymore,” Mohi said.
“ How did you know to translate the boat’s name?” Jim asked Linda as he climbed into the backseat.
“ Mohi told me the man at the motel said they were German.” Linda got back in and started the car. “German bad guys, boat with a German name, it wasn’t hard to put together. After I figured out the Reptil Rache was the boat we were looking for, I went down to the port and did a little asking around while Mohi was in the hospital.”
“ But the boat we’re looking for is fitted out with cheap pine. We saw that boat. It’s first rate,” Jim said.
“ On the outside,” Linda said. “The inside is pretty, but not practical.”
“ How do you know?”
“ I talked to the man who installed the new air-conditioning unit below,” Linda said. “He’s married to a friend of mine. He told me the boat had been completely refitted last year. That’s why she looks so good. A German named Manfred Penn bought it two months ago and gutted the inside. He didn’t like the boat toilets and showers. He wanted the kind he was used to, never mind that they’ll flood as soon as he hits rough seas. The plumber tried to tell him, but he didn’t listen. He also wanted larger staterooms and he didn’t like the look of teak. He wanted light, knotty pine. He thinks it’s prettier. The carpenter tried to tell him you need hard wood on a boat, but he still didn’t listen. After a while people stopped trying to tell him.”
“ That sounds like the boat,” Jim said.
“ There’s more,” Linda said. “The boat sails with the dawn. Nobody seems to know for where.”
“ You learned a lot,” Jim said.
“ She’s a smart woman,” Mohi said.
“ What’s this Manfred Penn look like?”
“ Bald and ugly as my husband’s mother.”
“ Linda!” Mohi chastised.
“ Uglier,” Linda said.
“ We’re here.” Linda parked the car at the end of a pair of long twin piers. The pier on the left had a small oil tanker tied to its left side. There was nothing tied to its right. The pier on the right had a cargo ship moored to its right. Pallets of bagged cement, six feet high, were stacked on the twenty-foot wide pier, four abreast and over thirty deep.
Two forklifts were busy scooping up the pallets and delivering them to a crane that bent down from the cargo ship. On the left side of the right pier was the old Dutch schooner, Reptil Rache. She was a hundred and twenty-five feet long, but sandwiched between the cargo ship and oil tanker, she looked small.
They got out of the car.
“ Keys?” Mohi asked and Linda tossed them to him. He went to the trunk and opened it. “Take one of these.” Mohi handed Jim a fishing rod. “Maori men fish here every night, even some pakehas, white men. We can get close without them suspecting anything.”
Jim followed Donna’s parents out onto the left pier, where they sat a few feet away from three old Maori men who were fishing in the moonlight. They dropped their lines into the water and stared at the boat. The three fishermen didn’t comment on the fact that Jim and Mohi weren’t using bait.
The sails were tied on. There was a rough looking man sitting on the deck, watching the forklifts and the crane do their work. The Reptil Rache was ready to sail and they had posted a guard to keep off unwelcome visitors. It would be impossible to sneak aboard.
“ How come the diving ladder’s still down?” Jim wondered aloud, referring to a stainless steel ladder hanging over the side of the boat and extending into the water.
“ It was delivered today,” a Maori man from the group to their right said. “I guess they wanted to see if it worked.”
“ If we can distract the guard, I could swim over and climb on board.”
“ The water is dirty, polluted and awful cold,” the Maori said. The two others in his party nodded their assent as the three moved over to join them.
“ I think my daughter’s on board.” Mohi explained the situation to them.
The Maoris wanted to storm the boat, but Jim told them if they did, the men onboard might kill the girl. He didn’t tell them they might get hurt themselves. These kind of men wouldn’t think of their own safety.
“ I need a way to keep this old thirty-eight dry,” Jim said.
One of the fishermen went to his lunchbox, took out two sandwiches and removed them from a Ziploc plastic bag. Jim zipped the gun into the bag and nodded his appreciation when the fisherman offered him the sandwiches and a thermos of coffee. He didn’t have to ask. These men were Maori, they knew when a man was hungry.
With his hunger and thirst partially satisfied, Jim was ready to go into the cold water.
“ There’s a ladder at the end of the pier,” Mohi said.
“ Okay.” Jim tucked the gun back into his pants, then took off the sweater and the work boots. “I’m ready.” He turned to Mohi, “If I’m not off by midnight, assume I’m dead and burn the boat.”
Linda gasped.
The old men’s eyes popped open.
“ If Donna’s alive, we’ll be off. If we’re not, it’ll mean I found her dead and it won’t matter what happens to me.”
“ I won’t burn it if she’s not off,” Mohi said.
“ We’ll need a fire in front of both entry ways and under the windows on that doghouse,” Jim said, ignoring Mohi. “If I do find her alive, we can leap through the flames into the sea. If that thing is on board, the fire will hold it back.”
“ I won’t burn it if she’s not off,” Mohi repeated.
“ Start the fire.” Jim looked him in the eyes. “If we get away, I don’t want that thing coming after her ever again. If she’s there and alive that fire might be the only chance we have of getting off.”
“ He’s right, Mohi,” Linda said. “We have to do what he says.”
“ I have gasoline in my trunk,” one of the old men said.
“ Can I count on you?” Jim asked, standing on the ladder.
“ You can,” Mohi and Linda said as one.
“ You can,” the three fishermen echoed.
“ You might need this.” The fisherman who had given him the sandwiches held out a scaling knife. “It’s very sharp, skin a man easy, if you want.”
Jim put it between his teeth, climbed down the ladder and slipped into the cold, dirty water.
Donna struggled against the ropes, but only managed to chafe her wrists further. The brass seaman’s clock on the wall read thirty minutes to midnight. Not much time left. She remembered when she was a little girl and used to count down the days till Christmas. Time seemed to take forever. The night before she would lay awake and watch the second hand on her lighted bedroom clock creep ever so slowly around the glass enclosed circle. The second hand facing her now seemed to be racing.
She gasped as someone opened the cabin door.
“ Ah, did I startle you?” She heard the German accent before she saw the face. Long thin nose, beady gray eyes, hollow cheeks, and hairless. No eyebrows, barely any eyelashes, no hair, not balding, but shaved. If there ever was a living Death’s Head, this was it. If ever a head belonged on the shoulders of a Gestapo uniform, this was it. If ever evil flashed from behind a grin, she was seeing it now. “Someone will come and untie you in just a minute,” he said.
Donna caught the gleam in his eye and was afraid.
“ By the time you finish your shower, we will have some clothes ready for you and after a quick examination to make certain you are all right, a policewoman will drive you home.”
“ Shower?” Donna said through parched lips.
“ Yes, you’ve soiled yourself and besides, your hair is a mess.” The man attempted a laugh, as if he had made a joke. Donna didn’t find it the least bit humorous. Then it hit her, what the man had said.
“ Policewoman?” Donna couldn’t believe it. She also couldn’t believe she’d soiled herself without noticing. It must have happened while she’d been out. Just a short while ago she’d have been embarrassed about it. Now she didn’t think she could ever be embarrassed again.
“ I’m here, Doctor.” A pleasant female voice drifted into the cabin from behind the man.
“ Ah, yes.” The doctor turned to face a woman in uniform. “Officer, untie this woman and help her to a shower, but first get me a glass of water.” The policewoman left and returned almost immediately with a glass. She handed it to the doctor.
Donna looked up into the woman’s eyes as she bent over her with a sharp knife and sliced through the ropes that had been binding her to the bed. She allowed herself to be filled with hope. Once the ropes were off, the policewoman massaged her wrists and helped her sit up.
“ Feel a little better now?” she asked and Donna nodded.
“ Give her some of this, but not too much right away.” The doctor handed the policewoman the glass. Then he left and Donna sipped at the water and reveled at the clean, clear taste. It felt glorious as it slid down her throat.
“ There is a very anxious man waiting to see you,” the policewoman said, “and I know you don’t want to see him looking like this.”
“ Jim Monday?” Donna said.
“ Yes.” The policewoman smiled. “He’s in the salon. It’s because of him that we found you.” The woman helped Donna stand and wrapped her in a bathrobe. “The shower is at the end of the corridor.” She showed Donna the way. “You’ll find soap, shampoo and conditioner inside.”
“ Thank you so much,” Donna said and with the woman’s help, she hobbled down the hall to the shower. She was too tired and too overjoyed at being rescued to feel humiliated, besides she didn’t think she would ever feel humiliated again.
Once in the shower she allowed herself to finally feel relief. She had been saved. Jim had done it. She would be with him in a few minutes and the horrible nightmare would finally be over. Shivering, she turned on the water, stepped under the warm spray and sighed as the water washed the filth from her body.
She reached for the shampoo and lathered her hair, luxuriating in the soapy suds. She poured more shampoo into her hand and lathered her arms, breasts, stomach and legs. It felt wonderful just to be clean.
Then all of a sudden she felt guilty. Her brother was dead, so many others, but thank God it was over now. Jim had done it. He had arrived with the police in time.
“ Are you almost finished?” It was the policewoman.
“ Almost.” She hated to leave the shower, but Jim was waiting for her. She quickly poured some conditioner in her hand and ran it through her hair. She wanted to look her best for him. She rubbed it in, massaging her scalp and running her fingers through her long hair. She continued massaging as she rinsed it out.
“ Hurry up honey,” the policewoman said, “everybody is waiting.”
She turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. There was a warm towel hanging on the rack. She wrapped it around herself and sighed as it soaked up the water. It was so soft. She was so lucky. Dry, she put on the robe and opened the door.
“ This way.” The policewoman had been waiting. She led Donna down the hallway. “Everybody is waiting in the salon.”
“ Go on, honey,” the policewoman said when they’d reached the end of the corridor. “Just a little more and it will all be over.” She opened the door for Donna.
“ Thank you so much.” Donna stepped into the salon.
Something wasn’t right.
“ Come in, we’ve been waiting,” the hairless doctor said. His voice and accent frightened her. She froze. The two men with the doctor were no policemen. They were dressed in the same black sweaters and seaman’s caps she had seen through the window of the Park Side Motel.
The only furniture in the salon was a double bed in the direct center of the room. Its clean white sheets glowed, reflecting the rays of an overhead light. There were two video cameras mounted on tripods, one on each side of the bed. This wasn’t right. Something was wrong-very, very wrong.
“ Get on the bed, bitch,” The policewoman smacked her on the back. Donna stumbled and the woman pushed her again, guiding her, so that she fell onto the bed.
The water chilled him to the bone. The salt in it sent pain stabbing from his damaged wrist up his arm. He fought the urge to scream out. He pushed off toward the boat, conscious of the unnatural weight of the revolver tucked into his belly and the awkward weight of the cast on his right forearm. He decided on the breast stroke, took a deep gulp of air, careful not to lose the knife, shivering as he made his way toward the Reptil Rache.
He estimated he had to cover about twenty-five yards at a stroke a yard, five strokes per breath, five breaths and he would be there.
Three strokes, four strokes, five, first breath. He broke the surface, sucking air around the knife. Water seeped under the cast and the jeans he had taken from the dead seaman were heavy and uncomfortable to swim in. Eight strokes, nine, it felt like his lungs were going to burst, one more stroke before the precious air, ten. He took another breath.
Eleven strokes, twelve, he needed air now. He was freezing. His fingers were numb. He felt the cold steel in his mouth and tasted the polluted water as it seeped between his lips to wrap itself around the tip of his tongue as it stuck out and rested below the sharp blade. Thirteen strokes, fourteen, he was light headed, he couldn’t make the last stroke, not without blacking out. Yes, yes he could, only one more, the thought raced through him. A short, quick stroke, but a stroke, fifteen.
Suck air.
Sixteen strokes, seventeen, well over halfway. He felt something big glide by. Shark was his first thought. It came within inches. Maybe a dolphin, but he discarded that thought, too close to shore. Polluted harbor, there would be no dolphins here. Eighteen strokes, nineteen, it came by again. This time it bumped him as it swam by. He forced his eyes open and got a quick look at it as it broke the surface. It was no shark. Twenty. He took the scaling knife out of his mouth, gulped air and waited for the Gecko’s return.
He held the knife in his right hand, concealed by the cast, as he hung limp in the water, playing the decoy, hoping the reptile would think him dead. He sensed rather than felt its approach, closer, coming closer, but it whizzed on by, forcing him to continue his charade. He wanted to open his eyes, but he knew it would be pointless in the murky water. He would have only one chance at the beast and he would have to rely on instinct.
He tucked the knife to his chest and waited, every nerve tingling with anticipation and cold. He was fully relaxed, allowing himself to become one with the water. He had no need for another breath. He sensed the thing coming for him and he resisted the temptation to lash out prematurely.
He knew he couldn’t kill it, but he’d learned that he could slow it down. Something inside him wailed. “Do it now.” A new voice, not Donna’s. An urgent voice, a commanding voice, his own voice. He obeyed and shoved his right arm forward, like it was spring loaded, slamming the sharp steel into the thing’s flesh. He kept a firm grip on the knife, drawing it along the underbelly of the beast. Then he twisted it, slicing back along the direction of his original incision as the thing bucked into his side, bellowing out foul air as it swam away.
Jim kicked toward the surface. The rise up seemed an eternity. Pumping adrenaline had used up his oxygen supply. He didn’t know how deep he was and he didn’t think he would make it, but he held on, breaking the surface cleanly, taking great gulps of air. He was within an arm’s reach of the dive ladder. He didn’t know what awaited him above, but he knew if he didn’t get out of the water quickly, the gecko would be back.
He slid the scaling knife back between his teeth and grabbed out for the ladder. He was exhausted, but he calmed his rate of breathing and silently pulled his way on up.
Donna was stunned, but she wasn’t submissive. She screamed as she fell forward onto the mattress, started her roll even before she landed on the soft surface, pushed off with her left hand and clawed the fake policewoman’s face with her right. The imposter screamed, stumbling backward, her face covered in blood.
Donna struggled to get up, but four strong arms pulled her down and flipped her onto her back.
“ No,” she shouted, as they tied her arms and legs to the four corners of the bed. She was trussed up, spread eagled, and there was nothing she could do about it, but scream her rage at her betrayal. After a few seconds she stopped screaming.
She glared swords at the two big men. She was in trouble. “If you’re coming, Jim Monday, come now. Please come now,” she thought desperately, but he didn’t answer. The connection had been broken.
“ Okay, start the equipment and get out of here.” The doctor with the Death’s Head said and Donna watched without struggling as the big men fiddled with the cameras, then the men and the fake policewomen left the salon, going up through the galley and onto the deck.
“ It’s just you and me now.” The doctor’s laughter was a guttural rasping, like a mean dog’s growl. “I’ve waited a long time for this. Generations.” He looked at her with glassed over eyes. “We should get to know each other better.” He grabbed her robe by the left lapel, balled it into his fist and ripped it off, leaving her naked before him-defenseless.
Her bound hands started to shake as he kicked off his shoes.
“ First I’m going to use you,” he said through a Nazi killer’s smile. “I’m going to have to do it fast, because it’s almost midnight.” He reached down and pulled his socks off. Then opened his coat, took it off and she saw the shoulder holster.
“ Big eyes, I see the gun frightens you.” He pulled off the holster, took the gun out of it. “It’s a Beretta Cougar. The most beautiful thing I have ever owned.” He held the gun up, stroked the barrel. “You want a closer look?”
She shook her head.
“ Yes you do.” He pointed the barrel between her eyes, touched it to her forehead. “Nine millimeter, fifteen rounds in the magazine, double action, a point and shoot weapon. But not with the safety on.” He laughed, then with the gun still on her forehead, still between her eyes, he clicked it off.
“ Now it’s ready to go.” He wrapped a powerful right hand around her jaw, squeezed, forcing her mouth open, forcing the barrel in.
“ Suck on that.” He laughed again, a devil’s laugh. “I could blow your head right off.” He pulled out the gun and Donna gasped for air as he ran the barrel down to her breasts, first covering one nipple, then the other, then he took it down further, to her sex.
“ I’d shove it in, but I’ve got something else I want to shove in first.” He pulled the gun away, eyes glazed. “Almost no recoil with this wonderful weapon. It’s because of the rotating barrel.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, sickened by the sight of him.
“ Ah, you’re not interested.”
She tried to will him away.
“ Open your eyes.”
She refused.
“ I’ll shoot off your kneecaps. It’ll be very painful for you.”
She opened her eyes.
“ That’s better. Now we can talk.” He tossed the gun on the bed and pulled off his shirt, revealing a dirty tee shirt. His body odor was overpowering.
“ It’s true I don’t bathe much anymore. I suppose it’s been the anticipation. I’ve been wanting you for a long time.” He pulled off the tee shirt and leered at her. “Do you like the accent, the Nazis had so much to offer, it’s a shame they lost.”
“ You’re not German?” She was confused.
“ Of course not, the accent’s affected.”
“ I don’t understand.”
“ Come on, you know me.”
“ Ngaarara,” she whispered.
“ Yes.”
She squirmed against her bonds, wishing him dead and gone.
“ I didn’t think you had it in you,” he said, changing the subject as he unzipped his pants. “You cast your spirit halfway around the world, even I can’t do that.” He paused, staring at her. “You cost me a good deal of money and several years of pleasure. I only wish there was some additional torture I could induce to make you pay for your sins, but time is short.”
He flipped his erection out of his pants and she flinched as its single eye stared at her.
“ It is large, isn’t it?” He massaged himself. “I like it when it works out that way. Sometimes I get a body with a small one, they work fine, but they don’t frighten the young girls nearly as much as something like this.” He pulled on himself.
Her eyes were frozen wide and she struggled against the ropes.
“ I will be able to masturbate to your deflowering for years upon years, enjoying you forever.” He stopped massaging himself and dropped his pants. He laughed, a devil’s rasp, as he stood before her, naked.
“ After I fuck you, I’m going to call in my German bully boys. They’re going to stuff you in the oven.”
She pulled harder against the ropes.
“ We have a very modern industrial galley on board, including an oversize stove, perfect for you. You’ll be cooked alive and I’ll have every delicious scream on video.”
Jim pulled himself up on the first rung of the dive ladder and caught his breath. He transferred the knife from his mouth back to his right hand and quieted his heart by taking long deep breaths. He was in a hurry, but he didn’t want to blunder foolishly over the side and get himself killed before he had a chance to free Donna. He climbed two rungs of the ladder and poked his head over the rail.
The man on watch had his back to him. He appeared to be watching the four old Maori men beyond. They were involved in a heated argument of some kind. Jim climbed up over the rail, glad that Mohi was doing his job. If he had any doubt about how to handle the man on watch, the black sweater and seaman’s cap he was wearing made up his mind. The last two men he’d met who were dressed like that had tried to kill him. Jim eased up behind the watchman and silently slit his throat.
He saw the Maori men start toward the boat, but he didn’t have time to wait for them. He slipped down the open hatch and found himself looking down a long companionway, with cabin doors on each side. He eased down the corridor. Donna could be in any one of these rooms, he thought, but he knew differently when he heard a familiar voice traveling from beyond the partially open door at the head of the hallway, and all of a sudden he knew what the connection between himself and Donna Tuhiwai had been.
“ I have so much to get even for, fucking you and burning you doesn’t seem like enough. If only I had more time.” The voice and the accent almost threw him into shock. Maybe the man called himself Manfred Penn now, but that wasn’t the name that Jim knew him by.
He moved quickly down the corridor, taking the plastic enclosed gun out from the front of his wet pants as he walked. He stopped just before the door, took the gun out from the plastic bag, took a deep breath and kicked the door open.
“ You?” a bald, clean shaven Bernd Kohler said.
“ Me!” Jim pulled the trigger, but a scream filled the night air, throwing a chill through his spine and throwing his aim high and wide. The hairs on the nape of his neck stood on end as Bernd Kohler answered the scream of the gecko with one of his own. Before Jim could fire again, Kohler dashed up into the galley, tore through the hatchway and was gone.
In seconds he would be up the ladder to the pier and away and there was nothing Jim could do about it, because he couldn’t leave Donna tied and naked. He moved quickly to the bed.
“ What’s that? He nodded toward an automatic pistol as he sliced through the ropes.
“ A madman’s gun.” She grabbed it the instant he’d freed a hand. “Mine now.”
“ We have to hurry,” he said.
“ Don’t have to tell me twice,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“ Not yet.” He took her hand and led her out of the salon, up into the galley. They backed against the wall opposite the hatchway, as far from the hatch and the adjoining windows as they could get.
Donna gasped as the giant reptile shot out of the water, a second scream escaping from its shark-like mouth.
Jim braced himself against the bulkhead as it flopped back into the dark water. A third scream tore through the night as it shot back out of the ocean, again soaring over the rails, but this time it landed on the deck. It was through the hatchway in seconds.
Kohler cowered and hid at the bow, behind the anchor motor, naked and cold. He heard the Maori men up front when he came out the galley hatchway on the starboard side. He kept low, peered around the galley and saw them. They came down the port side toward the rear and he scuttled forward up the starboard side to the crew quarters. He stayed low and the Maori men went by on the other side of the boat without seeing him.
He wondered what had happened to the crew. They were supposed to be on watch, not drinking down below. He eased himself around the anchor motor and climbed down into the crew’s forward cabin. He didn’t need the lights to know they were all dead. Even the woman. Those men might have been old, but they were Maori. Kohler respected them. They knew how to handle an enemy.
He pulled a body off a lower berth, tore the mattress off the bed. He smiled to himself-Monday and the girl were going to die. He pulled up the plywood cover, reached inside the hidy hole under the berth and pulled out an M-16 assault rifle.
He was a slave to his anger. He didn’t bother putting on any clothes. He climbed out of the crew quarters, keeping low as he moved around the anchor motor. Then he slipped through the forward hatch, down into the corridor below. His pet would get them from the stern, he’d come at them from the bow.
He didn’t give a thought to the Maoris on board. After eliminating the girl and Monday, he’d dive naked into the sea. As long as the gecko lived, he’d be safe. This body would die, but he’d get another. It was time anyway, he was tired of being a German.
“ Down!” Jim shoved Donna to the right and dove left as the beast came for them. She heard him fire off a round, saw the gecko jerk when it was hit as she slammed into the side of the bed that, until just moments ago she’d been tied to.
A bolt of pain blasted into her back when she struck and the fancy Beretta Cougar pistol that the doctor loved so much went flying from her hand. She gasped for breath, wrestling for air as she clawed for the gun.
Air, she needed air. Her stomach spasmed, muscles clenching out of control. She couldn’t see. Where was the gun? She scraped the varnished floor with her nails in a vain attempt to find it, sweeping her hand back and forth as she battled for breath.
The gecko screamed, a sound somewhere between a baby’s bawl and a wolf’s howl. A banshee cry. The sound was huge, deafening, a wailing screech that set her nerves afire and ice pricks stinging up her spine.
“ It’s under the bed!” Jim shouted.
“ What?”
“ The bed.”
The gecko roared, a lion’s sound now, an angry hunter’s roar that forced her eyes open and drew her in. The beast was mammoth, every bit the size of an African lion. Its eyes were radioactive yellow, its saber-toothed fangs gleamed as if they were brand new and its green, lizard like skin shined as bright as a palm frond in a brilliant equatorial rain, but it was dripping deep red blood over the brightly varnished deck and from Donna’s position, flat on the floor, she saw that the reptile had a deep slit along its underbelly, like the fish her father filleted.
It looked like it was in pain.
It had been in this life for only a short time and already it felt pain. More than it had ever known in its long history. It was bleeding, losing its insides all over this smooth and flat place and its right shoulder felt like it was on fire.
It glared at the prey with the loud pain stick in its hand and roared, but the prey didn’t show its back, didn’t flee. Again, as in the life it so recently left behind in that place across the ocean, it was faced with prey that was not prey. It was confused. How was it supposed to know the difference.
It turned toward the woman sprawled out only a short leap away. That was prey. It was getting weak. It had to feed. Instinctively it knew the woman had not been selected for nourishment. Ngaarara had other plans for her, but it needed to feed now.
“ It’s all right, my pet, you can have her.” It heard Ngaarara’s voice in its head, the way it always did.
“ No you can’t!” another thought voice. This had never happened before. Who, what, how could this be? It was even more confused now. “Go away!” the stranger’s thought voice again.
“ Take the woman!” Ngaarara screamed the thought.
“ No!” the stranger thought.
It turned toward the woman and it knew who the stranger was.
Something odd was going on and Jim wasn’t exactly sure what. Donna and the gecko were staring at each other as if they were communicating. For an instant it looked like the beast was going to spring at her, but now it was holding its ground.
He got up, got into the shooter’s position, legs wide, two hands on the weapon. The gun might be old, but he’d hit what he was aiming at while he and his target were on the move, he couldn’t miss now. He sighted on one of the beast’s large yellow eyes, the one on the left.
Every fiber in his being said, shoot. But Donna seemed to be staring the thing down. He didn’t know what to do.
“ Very interesting,” the doctor thought and Donna heard him the way she’d been hearing Jim. “You are strong.”
“ You should take your pet and go,” Donna thought as she smelled smoke.
“ But you know I won’t,” he thought.
“ Yes, I suppose I do.” And all of a sudden Donna was able to see through his eyes. She saw the rifle in his hand, saw the door she’d seen earlier, the door that led into the salon. He was just on the other side of it.
“ I’ve waited a long time for my revenge, I’ll not be cheated when I’m so close.”
“ Smell the fire.” Donna thought.
“ What?”
“ You’re afraid now. I feel it.”
“ Bitch.” Any second he was going to burst into the room, rifle blazing.
“ Shoot!” Donna shouted as she rolled under the bed.
Jim fired and took out the eye.
The beast screamed, the sound of pure torture, as it swung its single good eye toward him.
Jim fired again and took it out too.
The gecko wailed, a ghastly sound that chilled Jim’s spine. Then it charged, mouth agape, but Jim stepped aside and emptied the gun into its great head. It was blind, but still dangerous as it thrashed around the salon.
Kohler felt his pet’s pain, sensed its blindness, and for the first time in his long life, was afraid. There was fire ahead, he’d sensed it through the woman. His pet was blind and had been trapped. He couldn’t pass through the fire.
Neither could he.
Better to fight another day. He turned to flee the way he’d come, but all of a sudden there was smoke there. Someone had set fire to the front of the boat.
There was only one way out for him now and that was through the salon and out the rear hatchway or through the windows in the galley. Either way he had to go through that door and he had to do it now.
He kicked it open.
Donna grabbed the weapon as the doctor burst through the door, rolled back out from under the bed and started pulling the trigger.
The first shot hit the man who called himself Ngaarara square in the chest and sent him flying back into the corridor and somehow, despite the fact that she kept shooting, he managed to kick the door closed after himself. But she couldn’t stop, she kept firing, blasting round after round into the doorway until the gun was empty and then the salon was quiet, save for the heavy breathing of the gecko monster, now on its side in the galley, gurgling blood with every breath.
She grabbed onto the side of the bed, used it to steady herself, then got up off the floor, and all of a sudden she was conscious of the fact that she was nude.
“ The boat’s on fire,” Monday said. “We gotta go.”
They stared at each other for an instant, then she ran into his arms and he kissed her.
He pulled away.
“ Really,” he said, “we gotta go.”
The back hatchway, a doorway to the aft cockpit, was open, she saw the flames.
“ It’s through the fire,” he said, “but we’ll land in the water if we keep going.”
“ I’m gone.” She dashed through the doorway, felt the fire as she dove over the side and into the cold sea below.
The Maori men moved away from the galley after they set the fire. They were reluctant to leave the boat. They heard the screams and shooting from below, but these men were not old women, either the pakeha would save the girl, or he would not. They had done everything asked of them. It was in the pakeha’s hands now. Mohi was in agony, wondering if he’d done the right thing. The father in him wanted to rush through the flames and find his daughter, but Monday had convinced him not to do that. Monday was a pakeha, but he was Maori-brave and Mohi respected that.
He clenched his fists and tightened his jaw. Then he smiled as he saw Donna burst out the starboard companionway, dashing through the flames, and he grinned wider as Monday followed in her wake, leaping over the side into the cold sea below.
“ Quickly.” He jumped onto the pier, the three old men followed. “There’s a ladder over here,” he yelled to Monday, and the men silently congratulated themselves for a job well done as they helped the pakeha and Mohi’s daughter out of the sea. Two of the old men removed their coats and offered them to the shivering couple.
And then they all shivered as one long, agonizing scream roared out from the boat, waking up the night. Then all was silent-the only sound the licking flames and the quiet sea, lapping against the pier.
“ Cheeky little bugger,” One of the Maori men said.
“ What?” One of his mates asked.
“ Little green gecko just ran over my foot. See, there it goes.”