“The child will die, too.”

Jack saw Vicky’s already terrified face blanch as she listened to them. She had to hear—there was no way of shielding her from the truth.

“Better that way than by what you’ve got planned for her.”

Kusum shrugged. “My rakoshi and I will merely swim ashore. Perhaps the child’s mother waits there. They ought to find her tasty.”

Jack masked his horror at the thought of Gia facing a horde of rakoshi emerging from the bay.

“That won’t save your ship. And it will leave your rakoshi without a home and out of your control.”

“So,” Kusum said after a pause. “A stalemate.”

“Right. But if you let the kid go, I’ll show you where the bombs are. Then I’ll take her home while you take off for India.” He didn’t want to let Kusum go—he had a score to settle with the Indian—but it was a price he was willing to pay to get Vicky back.

Kusum shook his head. “She’s a Westphalen… the last surviving Westphalen… and I cannot—”

“You’re wrong!” Jack cried, grasping at a thread of hope. “She’s not the last. Her father is in England! He’s…”

Kusum shook his head again. “I took care of him last year during my stay at the Consulate in London.”

Jack saw Vicky stiffen as her eyes widened.

“My daddy!”

“Hush, child,” Kusum said in an incongruously gentle tone. “He was not worthy of a single tear.” Then he raised his voice. “So it’s still a stalemate, Repairman Jack. But perhaps there is a way we can settle this honorably.”

“Honorably?” Jack felt his rage swell. “How much honor can I expect from a fallen… “—What was the word Kolabati had used?— “… a fallen Brahmachari?

“She told you of that?” Kusum said, his face darkening. “Did she also tell you who it was who seduced me into breaking my vow of chastity? Did she say who it was I bedded during those years when I polluted my karma to an almost irredeemable level? No—of course she wouldn’t. It was Kolabati herself—my own sister!”

Jack was stunned. “You’re lying!”

“Would that I were,” he said with a faraway look in his eyes. “It seemed so right at the time. After nearly a century of living, my sister seemed to be the only person on earth worth knowing… certainly the only one left with whom I had anything in common.”

“You’re crazier than I thought you were!” Jack said.

Kusum smiled sadly. “Ah! Something else my dear sister neglected to mention. She probably told you our parents were killed in 1948 in a train wreck during the chaos following the end of British colonial rule. It’s a good story—we cooked it up together. But it’s a lie. I was born in 1846. Yes, I said 7546. Bati was born in 1850. Our parents, whose names adorn the stern of this ship, were killed by Sir Albert Westphalen and his men when they raided the temple of Kali in the hills of northwestern Bengal in 1857. I nearly killed Westphalen then myself, but he was bigger and stronger than the puny eleven-year-old boy I was, and nearly severed my left arm from my body. Only the necklace saved me.”