Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 133, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 811 & 812, March/April 2009

But Mohit’s mood could not be broken. He took his place cheerfully, glancing around while the others trudged into position.

Far down the ship’s length he saw a trio of cutters examining the base of the stern. Squinting in the rain, Mohit thought he recognized Hasan, which made sense. Before dismantling could begin, the enormous fuel tanks had to be vented. They’d been almost empty when the ship grounded, naturally, and reclamation crews had pumped out the remainder for recycling, but sludge remained. If the fumes weren’t released, someone’s torch would ignite an explosion.

Of course, the vents had to be opened somehow, and even chisels could strike a spark. The experienced cutters knew how to do so safely, their years of knowledge allowing them to avoid nooks and joints where the gas accumulated. Hasan was the best, the most skilled, so Mohit was not surprised to see him leading the task. He felt a surge of pride — he would be working with Hasan, working with the finest cutter in all Chittagong.

“Aste,” said Farid, calling from down the line, and Mohit bent to grasp the cable, ready to heave it up with the others. He shifted his feet in the mud, seeking stable purchase.

CRUNNK!

The blast sounded like the ship collapsing on itself, a hammer blow and a scream of metal. Voices cried out. Mohit spun around to see the dark hull buckle slightly, an enormous rent in the side. Torn steel gaped outward, a dark tangle littering the strand before it.

The cutters were gone, shredded in an instant. Mohit stared for a moment, before the shock hit him and he dropped to his knees and vomited into the mud.

Work halted. Men converged, uselessly, and stopped at the edge of the destruction, where gore spattered the twisted metal. Mohit, weak on his feet and wiping his mouth, stepped up. He saw a shoe atop a jagged piece of steel wreckage — he looked more closely and realized the foot was still inside, bone and skin sticking out. Then the rain sluiced it away.

Mohit had seen death before. Not so often as he’d imagined, but fatalities were inevitable in the breaking yards. Men fell from heights, were crushed beneath their loads, died instantly when towline cables snapped and whipped viciously across the beach, severing anything in their paths. The essential fragility of the human body was no surprise to him.

But this was Hasan — senior among the elite cutters, who had agreed to take Mohit on, and who, most importantly, had received his 25,000 takas.

And now... nausea rolled over Mohit again.

The deal was undocumented, of course. Bhatiary had no banks with stone pillars and armed guards, nor bureaucratic functionaries to seal and file the terms, in careful typewritten copies. Farid had arranged the negotiations, Mohit standing straight as he and Hasan talked. Hasan spoke quietly, soberly, then he smiled at Mohit and they bowed and called for a blessing from God, and no more was necessary. Farid had transferred the money later, discreetly.

Now Mohit had, quite possibly, nothing at all — no cutter’s job, no position, no money. All gone, incinerated in the flash of one errant spark.

“Go,” said Farid. “We will not work this morning. Recover yourself.”

“But I—”

“We will stay and help.” Farid nodded toward the road, where trucks had slowed and a desultory police flasher could be seen in the distance. “The master will be here soon, he’ll handle it.”

“Yes. All right.”

Farid’s shoulders slumped. “He’ll need to find a new cutting team,” he said softly. “I’m sorry, bhai.”

Mohit said no more. He trudged up the beach, drenched in sheeting rain. Voices called to him, the curious and the idle wanting details to repeat, but he ignored them all.

Though it was still early, a few tea sellers were setting up at the roadway’s edge, blackened pots under flimsy plastic awnings. For five years Mohit had passed them by, unwilling to spend a single taka that could be put toward his future instead. Now he slowed. What did it matter, now? What did anything matter? Abruptly he sat down, jerking his head at the vendor, and when the tea came he drank the cup off, hot and so sweet it stung his throat.

“Dhonnobad, saheb,” said the tea seller. He was younger than Mohit, but one arm hung useless and twisted at his side, half his hand missing. He’d probably been a breaker, before. “The ship — the tanks exploded?”

“Yes.”

“You were there?”

Mohit looked at him. “It is bad.”

“I am sorry.” The man accepted his cup back, and rinsed it in a pan of rain-water. “What will you do now?”

Ah, thought Mohit.

A truck roared past, horn blaring, water spraying off its massive load of black metal. The splash spattered the tea stall, causing the vendor to mutter and glare.

“Go back,” Mohit said finally, answering the question for himself. “What else?”

But when he rose he turned away from the sea and the beach and the ships, and continued on into the shantytown. He had one more stop. One last possibility, before he abandoned the shining life he’d almost, almost achieved.