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HE PAUSED IN the darkness, took from a back pocket a flask and uncapped it, tilted it to his lips, and let the good strong Blackjack rum flon Then he wiped his mouth on his sleeve, returned the flask to the pocket, and continued walking the road

The darkness was absolute, the hts burning in the village Everyone asleep No, no - there was a light burning up at the Indigo Inn A single square of light in an upstairsHe didn&039;t know the white e before It was the white reild just beyond the road; cicadas were singing like sawblades in the trees, and every now and then a bird skreeled It was just enough noise to unnerve him Out at sea there was only the blackness; he could hear the surf on the coral and he knew the beach was near, but he couldn&039;t see it

He&039;d gone back to the naval shelter three more tiht be waiting for hiold bars found in Cayreed Of course, he didn&039;t know if the stories were true or not - he&039;d heard the in a bar - but if it was true! It was It had to be true He quickened his pace The boatyard was around the next curve in the road, and he had hard work to do

So about that vessel had eaten into Turk; there was a strangeness to it, he had a weird feeling about it He&039;d spent all day thinking about it, wondering what treasures it could be hiding Maybe that da, too Why else would he have wanted to put it away inside that shelter? Why not just let it rot in the harbor? No, soe The policeman was hidin&039; somethin&039; And nobody had ever hid any secrets froates to the boatyard entrance were straight ahead It would be easy to either slip under the to know? He had almost reached thele shadows and stepped out into the road

Turk stopped, frozen, his e, a hulking form ide bare shoulders, its chest covered by the thinnest cotton shirt He took a step back before he realized it was real - it was a man He was bald-headed, his flesh a tawny color instead of pure ebony; he had a white beard and mustache, cropped close to his shadow-covered face, and Turk caught the sudden glea fro a crate of some kind, and Turk could see the ure stood perfectly still, watching

"Hey, you scared the fuck out ofto control his voice Christ! He didn&039;t want any trouble, especially not with a bastard as big as this "Who are you?"

Theto see the face, but the figure had vanished, sed up by the foliage A knot had caught in Turk&039;s throat; he thought he&039;d seen one side of the face, and it had been a hideoustiht fro there If thesilently Turk shivered, fighting off a cold wave of na the roadlookin&039; for a little child to suck the blood out of?

He kept the light on, ates, he saw there was enough roo the yard, h discarded piles of machinery, empty oil barrels, around beached boat hulks, he saw the naval shelter He paused for a ainst a ht He&039;d heard a noise, like the sound of soht watchain, and then Turk realized it was just the breeze, slapping the weathered boatyard sign against its support posts He could hear the sound of the clangers in the far distance, and the bass ruain, still uneasy froure on the road, and approached the shelter Cochran hadn&039;t put a chain or padlock on the door, thank God; it was closed, a few crates blocking it A handpainted sign read: Keep out Cochran

Turk pulled the crates away, scowling when he found they&039;d been filled with heavy odds-and-ends - bolts and broken tools He opened the door, shined the light around inside, then entered It smelled like a burial vault and the stench was al, but he sed and tried to keep his ht reflected off the water and rippled across the walls, undulating beneath the thing&039;s hull Strange shadowsfor the safety of darkness He worked the light over the conning tower, up to the tops of the shafts, and then back along the superstructure You ain&039;t soclattered sharply behind hiht into a corner, his heart haht, squeezing aplank between the concrete ay and the U-boat&039;s deck, and Turk crossed it, careful of his footing He had already cli the day; water and sand more than an inch deep still swirled over it There was another hatch on the aft deck, covered with the tendrils of cables, and he couldn&039;t work theun&039;s snout, there was a third hatch, the sea It was covered over by a broken planked lid

Turk bent down, his eyes following the circle of the light, and lifted the hatch cover to exaain How thick would this bitch be? he wondered He banged a hand against the iron and kneas going to be a hell of a job He sat back on his haunches and swung the light toward the spear-point of the bow far ahead Hell of a big h was stronger than ever, though he was oddly unnerved by the sheer size of the boat There was probably no gold inside, but what about souvenirs? he wondered The dealers in Kingston and Port-au-Prince couldunder the sun He ood price for some of the equipment inside, maybe find hies And what about bodies? Maybe they in here, ot a job to do

Sohis light around, swearing softly The rattle of a can The flashlight bea down from the tower bulwark, and he could smell the sea in them Another rat, Turk told hi bloated wharf rats that ate the dockside roaches He&039;d best get on with it

Hidden back in the carpentry shop, covered by an oily tarpaulin, was a cylinder truck - an apparatus like a pushcart - with a cylinder of acetylene gas and a larger cylinder filled with oxygen From the two cylinders there were hoses that connected to the welding-torch unit, providing a fla process Turk had wheeled the unit over to the shelter just before quitting ti a chance, if Cochran had decided to take a check of the supply shed, but the worker in charge of the equipht Which had worked out fine for hiplank onto the deck, carefully because it was fairly heavy and the planks groaned beneath its weight He got the truck positioned as he wanted it before putting on the welder&039;son the valves to release the gas and oxygen flow, he used his striker to spark the torch tip and it sprang into life, a soft orange glow in the darkness He adjusted the an to work, his handin a smooth seas he heard the great boatfrom sleep

In the small bedroom of a brown-painted stucco house across the island, Steven Kip jerked suddenly and his eyes opened

He lay very still, listening to the repetitious voice of the surf, wondered what it was that had awakened hi peacefully, one slender arainst his side He turned his head and kissed her very softly on the cheek, and she rustled the sheet and sh the years had entle with her There were laugh lines around her eyes and ain He was a light sleeper, so anything could have awakened hi, the clatter of a coconut palhtbird He waited for a fewAll familiar sounds he had heard a thousand times before He lay his head back on the pillow beside hers, and closed his eyes

Then he heard it again

Afrom somewhere distant

He sat up, drew the covers aside, and rose from the bed Myra stirred and lifted her head "It&039;s nothing, baby," he whispered "Go back to sleep I&039;?" she asked, rubbing her eyes "What time is it?"

"After three Lie back now, and sleep I won&039;t be long" Already he was getting into his trousers, then buttoning his shirt Myra pulled the sheet up around her, and Kip crossed the rooh athat faced the harbor It was pitch black out there except for the stars, tiny clusters of light in the sky like the wheelhouse lanterns of a thousand spectral ships against a black ocean

Then, again, echoing through the jungle, the sharp rattle of the druhtened at the back of his neck Da the house as quietly as possible

He drove the jeep to Front Street, turned along the dark shanty village on the harbor rile, the wind sharp in his face He watched the s for lights and searched the streets forWho else was listening to those dru to read the e that ept across the island with the early breezes? Kip knehat it had to be: Boniface conducting a ritual over the boat Dahts I&039;m the law here, the only law, above and beyond Boniface&039;s voodoo gods

Along Front Street where the jungle bent do in strange shadowy shapes, he saw several hts touched thenize any of theone in a few seconds When Kip came to the church, he found it darkened and deserted He stopped the jeep and sat there for a fewWhen the next brief flurry of druht their direction He took a flashlight froe box on the rear floorboard, clicked it on, and cli past the chicken coop and Kip walked along it as silently as he could, the thorns catching at his shirt The jungle was densely black on all sides and quiet but for the persistent, steady drone of insects In a fewout of what sounded like several women at once, the forceful voice of a man, all punctuated by sudden bursts of the rapid dru the path even when he was forced to crawl beneath a thick cluster of wiry brush The voices becaht a gliht ahead The drums pounded a steady rhyth, louder and louder, each beat accompanied by a screa out in either pain or ecstasy The noise grew until the dru was inside Kip&039;s head, a wild and unconfined frenzy of sound And through the dru from a whisper to a shout: "Serpent, serpent-o, Damballah-wedo papa, you are a serpent Serpent, serpent-o, I WILL CALL THE SERPENT! Serpent, serpent-o, Dale was suddenly cut away to ht and stayed hidden in darkness Blazing torches formed a wide circle around a small three-sided, straw-roofed hut Directly in front of the hut, surrounded by black and red painted stones, was a fire that licked up toward the jungle ceiling high overhead A strange geoure had been traced in flour in front of the fire, and placed at points on the figure were various objects: bottles, a white-painted steel pot, a dead white rooster, and so wrapped in newspapers The drummers sat behind the fire, and thirty-five or forty peopleon their bellies in the soft dirt, soround, staring with open, glazed eyes into the depths of the fla was furious now, and Kip saw beads of sweat fly off the half-nude forms that circled the fire One of the dancers lifted a bottle of rum and let the liquor pour down into his mouth, then he doused the rest of it over his face and head before spinning away again Empty bottles lay scattered about Sweat streaht the powerful s, sweet incense in the air One of the dancers whirled in and threw a handful of powder into the flames; there was a burst of white and the fire leaped up wildly for a few seconds, illuht A man in a black suit leaped in the air and crouched down at the base of the fla a rattle over his head It was Boniface, the fires glinting off his glasses Sweat dripped off his chin as he shook the rattle and cried out, "Damballah-wedo papa, here, Damballah-wedo papa, here"

A woman in a white headdress fell down beside hi in circles and her eyes glistening with either ru as if she were trying to crawl into the flames It was the Kephas wo in a dark corner of her househe had failed to understand

Boniface shook the rattle, now in ti, and reached into the white pot with his free hand to withdraw a thick snake that instantly coiled about his forearht of the snake there was a chorus of screa out, "Damballah-wedo papa, you are a Serpent Serpent, serpent-o, I WILL CALL THE SERPENT!"

Kip&039;s heart was ha, his head about to crack from the noise The dru out on their ar in all directions Kip could barely hear hi hiht, to a place of fearfulfro snake around the wo coat, and she cried aloud and stroked its body The reverend put aside his gourd rattle, lifted the object wrapped in papers over his head and began to spin in front of the fire, shouting out in French The old woman let the snake slide fro it with a tetettetette noise Boniface lifted a bottle of clear liquid, poured it into his mouth and held it there while he unwrapped the object In the light of the fire Kip saas a crude wax ie of the submarine; Boniface tossed the paper into the flae with the liquid froed him on he held his hands out to the fire, his eyes wild and his teeth bared in a grian to e until wax dripped down his hands and ar was left but a misshapen blob, he cast it into the fire and stepped back The others screamed louder and danced like possessed souls Boniface spat into the fire

The old woman stared into the face of the snake, then lifted her chin and let it explore her lips with its questing tongue She htmarish lovers When she opened her mouth to let the reptile probe within, Kip could take no ht

One of the druaped and faltered in his rhythm The others noticed at once; heads turned, and someone shrieked as if in pain A few of the dancers leaped up frole The Kephas wo frorass, and then she too ran away, her skirts billowing behind her The rest of the behind the the with the beat of the druainst the fire, staring across the clearing at the constable "You fool," he said, trying to catch his breath "It wasn&039;t yet coe of the fire He examined the assortment of bottles One of them looked as if it were half-filled with blood

"IT WASN&039;T YET COMPLETE!" Boniface shouted, his hands curled into fists at his sides

There was another pot filled ater; Kip picked it up and poured it over the blaze The timbers hissed and smoke twisted toward the sky "I&039;ve let you carry out your cereer to interfere But, by God" - he turned to face the otherout of that boat and the oldbeads of sweat away froin to understand! You fool!"

"I asked for your help" He kicked at the embers and dropped the pot to one side "Is this how you&039;re helping er white-hot in his eyes He held Kip&039;s gaze a few seconds longer, then looked back into the remains of the fire His shoulders were stooped, as if he had been drained of all strength "You can&039;t see, can you?" he asked, in a tired whisper

"What was the Kephas wo here?"