Water gurgled through the crack as Nick scrambled back to the ladder. Water oozed through the floor plates as he began to climb. Foaming water followed him like a predator at his heels, while faulty electrical circuits buzzed like flies in his ears. Wet, sweaty, oily hands slipped from the bloody rungs, but the tilt of the ship kept him from falling so he could grasp again. Back on
the Willow Deck, he slammed and secured the crew only door.
Swinging the ax sideways, Nick cleaved the stateroom door. Splintering a hand hole, he reached in to turn the knob, but a wardrobe within had wrenched free from its bolts, falling the width of the cabin to barricade him out.
Again he wielded the ax.
Hinges hacked and lock smashed, finally the door gave out.
Nick clambered over the wardrobe to reach Gill between the beds. The tilt of the cabin had moved the sea closer to the porthole than when he'd last looked out. Outside, people were drowning. Face forward so he could mask her mouth with his other sock, Nick hauled Gill over his shoulder like the Mad Dog had Hunt.
Trudging uphill against a thirty-five-degree list, Nick hefted Gill over the wardrobe to regain the hall, panting from overexertion but afraid to pause. One foot on deck, the other on the wall, he lumbered toward the amidships stairs, the only human sound aboard the thudding of his boots. Three times the incline thwarted his attempts to reach the exit, then fingers gripping the banister to stay on his feet, Nick heaved Gill step by laborious step up to the Chrysanthemum Deck. Forced to stop between levels to catch his breath, he pressed on up to the Marco Polo Ballroom.
Like two kids on a playground slide, dragging Gill he slid down the dance floor to the starboard doors and across the deck outside to the rail.
Nick glanced down.
The lifeboats had oared away to keep from being swamped, abandoning hundreds to the hungry sea. Off the bow was The Queen of the North, awaiting the return of boats launched to save the drowning. Relieved from her route between Port Hardy and Prince Rupert, the ferry was sailing south to a refit at Deas Dock when the SOS was heard. To avoid being sucked down with the sinking ship, her lifeboats were racing time, fishing Redcoats from the sea like a salmon run . . . one, two, three, four, away all boats.
Too late for Nick to catch the last boat.
The deck beneath his feet lurched another degree.
The black water below beckoned him.
Dragging Gill by one arm, he struggled toward the stern.
There he kicked off his boots and ripped her skirt seam.
Climbing over the rail, he pulled Gill with him.
Burdened, he took the plunge.
CROCODILE
Africa
Even at two and a half tons, the African hippo can outrun a man, and doesn't much care what stands in its way. In water, crocodiles know to stay clear, what Zinc was desperately trying to do by rowing in reverse. The stern of the dugout brushed the offshore reeds, fifteen feet from the sandy bank at his back. The Black closing from the right fed his Walther another clip, then, pole planted to steady his aim, straight-armed the muzzle to sight on Zinc. The White hugged the island as he poled in on the left, a hundred feet, ninety feet, narrowing the gap. The hippo lifted its huge angry bulk from the pool, froglike eyes furious at Zinc. It shook its head in rage and slashed the air between them with its ivory teeth. The river parted in rolling waves as the dreadnought plowed at Zinc, blunt head blitzing like a rhino charge. The surging tide swept the mokoro sideways, and water slopped in to drench the rolling hull. Shot after shot plumped into its lard as the snorting hippo rammed the stern, hurling Zinc into the reeds twelve feet from shore. Its tiny brain wrestling with how to escape, the water here too shallow to submerge, the wallowing beast abandoned the river to pound up the bank and crash into the bush, tall trees whipping apart moments after it vanished, followed by a shudder as if from a quake. The hippo began to squeal and squeal and squeal like a stuck pig. "I got him!" the Black shouted to the White.
Zinc's mokoro rocked upside down in the reeds, air trapped in the hollow keeping it afloat.
Or so the Black thought.
Legs apart for balance and one hand gripping the pole, he drifted cautiously into the reeds to find the Horseman's body, Walther sweeping back and forth across the shallows, eyes probing the murk the hippo disturbed for any sign of the kill.
Downstream between here and the approaching White, what looked like a log slipped from the shore into the Okavango.
His back against the white sands of the Kalahari, reeds caressing his cheeks like the arms of an octopus, Zinc held his breath and stared up into the overturned canoe, submerged gunnels rocked by his hands. The left fist also grasped Pop's knife.
The rivers of the tropics are rife with parasites, like the loa loa worm that burrows in between the toes and wriggles up to thrive and grow in the fluid of your eyeballs. Zinc was so frightened he wanted to piss his pants, but was more frightened of what might happen if he did . . . Like the candiru —the toothpick fish—which, spiny gills outstretched like barbed needles, scoots up the urethra of any fool who urinates in the wrong tropical stream. . . .
Gun aimed down to blast whatever moved, the Black poled closer to the overturned boat. . . .
The rivers of Africa are rife with parasites, like bilhar-zia spread by waterborne flukes that relinquish their snail hosts to worm into us, traveling along the bloodstream to veins in the bladder or intestine walls, where they mate, lay eggs, and multiply, ruptured blood in the urine, ruptured blood in the stool . . . Like guinea worm invaders that also sneak in, growing in cysts and bursting out like that Alien thing, horrible worms with heads like cobras. . . .
Lukundoo, he thought.
Zinc's heart pounded like voodoo drums.
Zinc's lungs crumpled from lack of air.
The Kalahari sand settled to clear the murk, about to expose him to eyes above.
Three feet, two feet, one foot from the overturned
I
canoe, the Black extended the pole to joust the mo-koro aside.
The tip tapped the bottom.
Anybody home?
Now! thought the Mountie, shoving the hull forward like a battering ram, clipping the snout of the Black's mokoro to roll it like a log, dumping the African into the river as Zinc kicked out his foot, shoe connecting with the gunman's head, the Mountie thrashing around to lash out his arm, right hand gripping something, the other man's jaw, muscles contracting to reel him in and hammerlock his head, left hand arcing across his neck, knife tip jutting toward his spine. "Whatever the job, this will see it done/' Pop said, then the razor-sharp edge ripped left to slit the mercenary's throat ear to ear.
Blood reddened the river as Zinc broke through the surface for air.
Twenty feet away, the White took aim.
Then like a Polaris missile launched from the sea, a crocodile exploded from the shallow reeds, jaws open wide so Zinc gazed down its gullet.
CASTAWAY
Georgia Strait
He fell for what seemed an interminable distance, then Nick hit the ocean feet first and seemed to sink forever, the shock of the dive knocking the breath out of him. The water was cold, so cold it was painful, its bite, as he plunged deep, quick and sharp as a shark's. Lungs compressed by the frigid slap, he fiercely fought the impulse to inhale salt water. One arm locked around Gill covering her mouth and nose, he thrashed with the other and kicked upward against the undertow, racing to surface before his muscles cramped. Bump, his head hit rubber, pushing him down. Nick swam sideways, surfaced, and coughed bitter brine from his throat. Gasping,
he hooked his arm into the rubber raft. Gill pulled free, sputtered, and gulped for air. Nick struggled onto the raft and hauled her in.
Cast adrift by someone rescued by a boat, the raft had bobbed along the hull toward the ship's stern. Nick had spotted it from the starboard rail, towing Gill by the arm to track it back, before jumping into the ocean to intercept it here. With Gill centered to balance the raft
until she gathered herself, Nick grabbed the only oar and paddled paddled paddled.
A sinking ship forms a whirlpool that sucks like a drain, pulling surface objects into the watery grave. The list of the Good Luck City said she was going down. Unless they got away fast, the suction would take them, too.
Globs of coagulated oil fouled the waves astern. The props churning the sea white in their wake had stopped. Through rents in the dome of cloud and smoke hiding the peekaboo moon, starlight sheened the rising, falling, rising, falling sea. Paddling south behind the stern to clear the lee of the ship, Nick turned east so the wind was at his back, hoping to surf the whitecaps away from the wreck.
Up, down, up, down, Gill paddle-wheeling her hand as Nick oared at the helm, the inflated raft rowed into the night.
Behind, the ship turned on her center of gravity, suddenly plunging forward as a groan rang out over the sea. Waves moved in quickly to engulf the bow, rolling swells pounding the bridge and splaying back along both sides of the deck. Bow down, the stern rose out of the water, exposing the jammed rudder and twin screws. The din from within was a muffled roar mixed with rumbling booms, like standing under a railway bridge as a train passes. Fatally seasick, the ship threw up innards that somersaulted into the bow, wrenching the engine room apart as heavy turbines, dynamos, generators, and pumps tore loose from their mounts. Deep in the hull of the vessel, something blew. Millions of sparks belched from the funnel rocketed into the sky. Fanning as it soered, the red spurt showered a fountain of fire. Lesser bombs followed, dull and heavy below the waterline. Forward movement ceased while the keel pivoted, the floundering
stern continuing to rise. Soon the ship stood perpendicular and motionless, then she began a slow corkscrew into the sea. In a searing flash, all the lights aboard snapped on. Lights lit the portholes. Lights lined the decks. Lights blazed in the submerged bow of the ship, suffusing the sea with soft green radiance. The lights doused in unison, out forever, the hull now silhouetted like a huge black finger flipped at fate. Swallowed by Neptune, down went the ship, the lifeboats on the port side finally breaking free, spinning wildly within the whirlpool eddied by the sinking, sucked down into the maelstrom never to surface again, the pull of the vortex widening, widening, like a black hole.
'•Heave!" Nick shouted. 'The suction's yanking us back!"
Both hands in the water, Gill churned sprays from the sea.
Back they surged, farther still, drawn toward the drain, fighting a reverse current too strong for human will, then whooosh! the raft shot forward like a flying carpet, riding the mammoth white wake born from the closing womb, a tidal wave, a wall of water, a burp from the deep, propelling them atop its crest as Nick and Gill leaned this way and that to keep the raft trim, their peril changing to shoot the tube and ride the pipeline, dudes, once the torrent began to curl for its downward crash.
The raft flipped, throwing them clear, in the barrel of the wave. The swell curled like a sausage roll and took them under. Nick thrashed, air bubbling from his lips, as the sea embraced him. Lungs aching, salt water seeped into his mouth. He surfaced, choking, and looked for Gill.
No raft.
No Gill.
A triangle burst from the foam.
Shark! he thought. Great White! They prowl here! The shock of meeting a shark alone in the dark shook him. Too early. Too cold. Ship's debris . . .
Another wave swamped him. The tow tugged him down. Brine burned his eyes. Salt stung his lungs. The ocean threw its weight at him in wave after wave, each roller breaking above with a ghostly glow on its crest, before toppling in a downrush to push him under, hold-
ing him there till the next drowning swell moved into place. It was a battle to tread himself clear for every breath. Gill . . . Gill . . . but just as Canute couldn't command the tide, so it was only a matter of time till Nick stayed down.
Tears blended with the brine that splashed across his face. Blows from the deep rolled over him in a series of slow punches. The cold clear light of the moon shone between two clouds, rainbowing the slick of oil sliming the sea. Exhaustion from venturing below deck, carrying Gill, swimming, and paddling undermined him. Another heavy wave washed over Nick. No choice but to let the tide take him where it wanted, he uprose, sank, uprose, sank, nauseatingly. Cold cramped his muscles so they refused to move. A weariness stronger than dread overwhelmed him. Down he went like a knight clubbed on the field of battle, slipping under the waves to let the sea clean his bones. . . .
His feet struck bottom.
Barnacles ripped his soles.
A wave knocked him forward.
Shells cut his palms.
Arms too tired to hold him up, he collapsed on his chin.
Robinson Crusoe, he bled onshore.
Where he was, Nick had no idea.
Time and space had lost all meaning.
Rocked by the sea, arm outstretched, he panted between waves.
Seconds? Minutes? Hours passed?
A shadow moved across him.
GUI!
A human form.
As he pulled his outstretched arm in to roll onto his side, the twenty-two-inch socket bayonet of the British Colonial Army rammed through his palm.
A voice behind his ear joined Nick's cry.
"Hello, brother."
i
NAKED PREY
Africa
The Nile crocodile deserves its killer reputation. Staring down triangular jaws edged with tear-along-the-dotted-line teeth, Zinc time-traveled back 200 million years to the age of dinosaurs. Twenty-one feet long and 2,200 pounds, the dark, cold-blooded monster with darker crossbands on the tail snapped its conical canines into quivering human flesh, sharp-cutting edges impaling the arm while short blunt molars crushed the bones. Shocked gasps escaped from Zinc as the armor-plated reptile did its notorious "death roll," spinning round and round in the water flashing its lighter-colored belly until the Black's arm tore from the corpse still locked in Zinc's grip. Long, slender snout without a forehead, round eyeball with a vertical pupil slit, mouth leaking water as it rose from the stream, largest tooth the fifth one in the upper jaw, the notch beside it for a canine in the lower jaw, five webbed toes on each front foot: dread burned every detail into Zinc's mind as the croc raised its snout high to juggle the Black's arm into position, then tossed back its head so the chunk still gripping the Walther literally fell down its gullet. Inside the mouth was orange.
With teeth no good for chewing and jaws that don't move sideways, crocs gulp their prey whole and rely on a dual stomach with strong acids to dissolve even the bones. Zinc released the corpse as the reptile snapped again, curved fangs clamping the Black's torso to jerk the body from the river and heave it in the air. A meal too big to be consumed intact, the croc began to thrash the Black into swallow-size chunks by violently shaking its bloodstained snout. The neck slit to the spine gave first, hurling the African's head like a bowling ball, followed by the remaining arm, both flailing legs, then
strewn khaki clothes. Some crocs go two years between meals, so this voracious horror gulped the Black with mouth-smacking relish.
Standing in his mokoro twenty feet away, the White held his fire convinced the croc would finish Zinc off, then as the Mountie broke from the kill to splash from the shallows, realized a shot was needed after all. By the time he squeezed the trigger, waves rippling from the feeding frenzy rocked the boat.
Bam! Bam! Slugs smacked or ricocheted off the bony button osteoderms of the reptile's armor.
Bam! Bam! The Walther wavered this way and that to hurl lead at the sky.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Click! Wild shots hit the shore and threw up puffs of sand.
Like the Queen's Own Rifles beaching at Normandy, Zinc stormed from the green reeds awash with warm blood and dashed across the fiery sand that burned the soles of his shoes, spurts of water then sand then clay then dust spewing about him, the air so charged with heat it felt electrified, once shot in the head, then knifed in the back, so truly am
azed none of the shots fired today had hit him, wondering if his luck was fate, or God, or the odds, and then he was into the dense bush cemented together with shadows, heading for the hippo squealing like a stuck pig.
In 1964, Cornel Wilde filmed The Naked Prey. The year is 1840 and a white safari attracts disaster when British Colonials humiliate a local native chief. Naked and unarmed, Wilde is given a spear's throw head start and ends up fleeing through Africa with a band of angry lion hunters dogging his heels, determined to kill him with their assegais. On a date with Jackie, the love of his teens, Zinc caught the movie at the Bison Drive-In, but hand sneaking under her bra as Jackie tongued his throat, he had missed the climax of that black on white chase. Now, scrambling through the jungle of Crocodile Island, Zinc atoned for his oversight by living Wilde's terror.
One stark difference.
This was White on white.
Close behind to Zinc's right, the White leapt from the
mokoro into the shallows, loading a fresh magazine as he waded ashore, firing six shots at random into the bush.
Camel thorns, spike thorns, knob thorns, umbrella thorns snagged Zinc's clothes and scratched his skin. A brood of hooting baboons rattled the palms above as the fugitive kicked and crushed an ape skull on the ground. Egrets took flight from the highest branches. Rain tree and leadwood and jackalberry and ebony encaged him in a shrubby tangle of green on green. Like Tarzan vines in Darkest Africa, the serpentine coils of a strangler fig webbed saprophytically around a host tree. How long ago it was set was anybody's guess, but the squealing hippo was caught in a deadly Bushman's trap, having snapped a trip wire stretched across the ground, releasing a spear weighted with rocks suspended above, plunging a gravity harpoon into its own back. No time to pause and finish it off, Zinc zigzagged around as plump! plump! two more shots perforated the lard.
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