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The memory of the skeletons haunted Dane all the way to the surface. At each decompression stop, he wondered if the men trapped on that ship had been alive, desperately holding one last breath, or already dead when they reached this depth. The closer to the surface he got, the more certain he was that those men had been alive when the doomed ship had passed through the water where he now floated; alive and terrified.
When they were just fifty feet below the glittering emerald surface, with the keel of the Jacinta a black gash directly overhead, a visiting tiger shark reminded Dane that perhaps not all of the men who had gone down on the ship had drowned; there were other ways to die. He and Bones ascended back-to-back, gripping unsheathed knives, for the remainder of the ascent. The shark swam lazy circles around them, its coal black eyes betraying nothing of its intent. Because Dane’s attention was focused on the shark, he didn’t notice the more immediate danger until it was too late. As he scrambled onto the low dive platform that hung from the boat’s left side, he found himself staring into the barrel of semi-automatic pistol.
There were two men on the platform, both wearing black tactical gear and matching balaclavas. Their captors didn’t say anything at first, but merely gestured with their pistols. Dane and Bones both held their hands up and climbed the rickety staircase up to the main deck where three more gunmen waited, along with Willis and Professor who were kneeling, hands behind heads in a classic hostage pose. Dane was relieved to see that his friends had suffered nothing more than wounded pride.
Bones shook his head ruefully. “Come on, Professor, I thought you were the responsible one. I specifically said no parties while we’re gone. You put him up to this, didn’t you Willis?”
“Very amusing,” remarked one of the gunmen.
The speaker was, Dane noted, one of the men that had accompanied them up from the dive platform. The man was tall and broad, and carried himself confidently. He didn’t have a discernible accent, which meant he was probably American, and given his professional comportment, Dane figured him for former military, probably Special Forces, now working as a mercenary. Crime was of course an equal opportunity career path, but Dane’s instincts told him that this wasn’t merely a hijacking.
“What do you men want?” he asked, trying to put a little quaver in his voice.
“You found the ship, right?”
Dane sensed it wasn’t really a question.
“Wow, straight to it,” Bones said with a disappointed sigh. “No foreplay.”
No kidding, thought Dane. The ship. These men definitely knew who the SEALs were and what they were looking for.
The gunman nearest to Bones lashed out with his foot, catching Bones behind his left knee. As Bones folded onto the deck, a pistol swiped across the back of his head. A trickle of red appeared from beneath Bones’ dark hair and spattered on the deck. Dane knew from experience that it took a lot more than that to put Bones down, but to his credit, the tall Indian suppressed his instinct to fight.
“How do you like that for foreplay?” snarled the gunman, jamming the muzzle of his pistol against Bones’ neck for added emphasis.
“The ship,” repeated the leader.
There was nothing to be gained by playing coy. “It’s the wrong one,” Dane confessed. “You guys should have given us a little more time to look. There’s a wreck down there, but it’s not the Awa Maru.”
The leader stared at him for a moment, his expression mostly hidden behind his mask, and then burst out laughing. “Maddock you poor dupe. Is that what they told you to look for?”
Dane was more surprised by the reaction, and the fact that the man knew his name, than by the simple fact of the assault team’s presence. Up until that moment, he had suspected that this was might be a group of treasure hunters trying to frighten off a rival. Or perhaps that there had been a leak in the SECNAV’s office, alerting some outside interest or perhaps even a foreign power, to their clandestine search.
Now he saw everything differently.
There was a leak, and it wasn’t merely a case of loose lips sinking ships. But that was only the tip of the iceberg. The SECNAV had lied to Maxie, sent them out armed with bad intel. The Awa Maru story was completely bogus; the ship below was the ship they had been meant to find, and the reason for the search had nothing to do with recovering war treasure or appeasing China.
“You seem to know more about this than we do,” Dane ventured. “I don’t suppose you’d care to enlighten us. Maybe start with just who the hell you actually are.”
“You can call me ‘Scalpel’.”
Bones made a choking sound that Dane recognized as an attempt—not a very good one—to stifle laughter.
“Something funny?” Scalpel snapped.
“No, I was just thinking I should set you up with my cousin, Surgical Mask.”
Scalpel ignored him. “Just answer my question. You found a ship, right? A Japanese ocean liner?”
Dane nodded slowly. “I think they were using it to transport POWs.”
“Any remains?”
Dane nodded again.
The eyes behind the balaclava studied him for a long moment. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You are going to go back down there and find something for me. We’ll stay up here with your friends, and as long as you’re cooperative, everyone will walk away when I have what I’m looking for.”
Dane’s first impulse was tell Scalpel exactly where he could stick his instructions, but decided that wouldn’t improve the situation; his second was to feign cooperation in order to buy time. Scalpel’s demand was patently absurd, and bespoke an unfamiliarity with the difficulties inherent in deep diving and marine salvage. That was something he could use to his advantage, but he would have to tread very carefully. “I don’t know what it is you expect me to find down there, but you do understand that at that depth, max time on the bottom is about twenty minutes. Last time, we didn’t do much more than look in the windows.”
“Are you saying you can’t do it?” There was a dangerous edge to Scalpel’s voice.
Dane held his hands up in a placating gesture. “Just tell me what you’re looking for.”
He sensed that the man was smiling behind his mask. “There was a very special passenger aboard that ship. I want you to find him.”
“There were hundreds of skeletons.”
“I think you’ll recognize Lord Hancock when you see him.”
“Is he related to Graham Hancock?” Bones interjected. “You know, the dude with all the theories about aliens and ancient civilizations?”
“Keep that up and I’m going to shoot you in the head just to shut you up,” Scalpel said. He turned back to Dane. “Lord Hancock has a metal plate in his skull.” The man tapped the side of his head, just above his right ear. “Right here.”
Dane accepted this with another nod then gestured toward Bones. “He can’t dive with that cut. There are sharks down there.”
Scalpel shook his head. “Just you. The rest of your crew will stay here to insure your cooperation.”
“I can’t dive alone. It’s not safe.”
“Oh, I’m not letting you out of my sight. I’ll be going down with you.”
Dane hung his head, as if in weary resignation, but managed to shoot a meaningful look in Bones’ direction. Bones met his gaze and winked.
The shark still circled lazily as Dane descended along the anchor line half an hour later. Scalpel, now wearing the wetsuit and equipment that had originally been purchased for Willis Sanders, was just a few feet behind him. Dane’s new diving partner carried a harpoon gun, but Dane didn’t have so much as a knife; his had been confiscated as soon as he and Bones had returned from the first dive, and Scalpel did not seem inclined to let him have it back. That was fine with Dane; let the other guy worry about the local wildlife. He was focused on the task at hand.
It took only a few minutes to reach the bottom. This time Dane didn’t pause to take in the scenery, but swam directly toward the dark opening on the main deck. He glanced back just once, verifying that Scalpel was right behind him, and then pulled himself through the doorway.
On the swim down, he had rehearsed this moment in his head a dozen times, recognizing that there would be only this one opportunity to act and no second chances. As soon as he was through, he switched off his light and pulled to one side, pressing his body tight against the bulkhead. For a moment, he was in total darkness, but then a rectangle of illumination appeared above him as Scalpel shone his light through the opening.
Dane didn’t hesitate. When Scalpel poked his head through, Dane struck like a viper, tearing at the other man’s mask and regulator. A cloud of bubbles enveloped them both, momentarily obscuring Dane’s field of view, but he fumbled blindly until his fingers closed around his foe’s equipment harness. He hauled the struggling man through the doorway.
Amid the oddly muted sounds of the struggle, Dane heard a loud snap and felt something brush his arm. It was the trident-tipped harpoon from a spear gun. He ignored the dull throb of pain that followed and continued grappling with Scalpel, tearing at loose equipment and doing everything he could to keep the man from finding his air supply. One hand found the familiar knurled grip of a dive knife, sheathed and strapped to Scalpel’s calf. He ripped it free and stabbed it into the yellow flotation bladder of his foe’s buoyancy compensator.
Through another rush of bubbles, Dane saw the dark silhouette of the other diver struggling ineffectually as he settled toward the tangle of skeletons below. Dane didn’t linger to assess the results of his attack but hauled himself through the opening and began kicking furiously away from the wreck.
In his haste to put some distance between himself and Scalpel, Dane blew through the first two of his decompression stops. He’d spent only a few minutes at depth, so the danger was probably minimal, but he added a few extra seconds to each of the remaining stops. The time passed by quickly. There was no sign of the other diver, and if by some miracle Scalpel had survived, the chance of him actually catching up to Dane was just about nil, unless of course the mercenary was willing to risk a debilitating bout of decompression sickness.
It was only when Dane was halfway to the surface and saw a dark shadow moving in the green expanse overhead that he remembered being hit by the harpoon. Sure enough, there was a hole in the neoprene of his wetsuit, and beneath it, a stripe of red. The cut wasn’t deep, but it was nevertheless an open wound, leaking blood into the water. He tugged his wetsuit sleeve up to cover the cut and swam up another ten feet to the next decompression stop.
The shadow turned his way; the tiger shark had smelled his blood.
The shark’s movements were hypnotic and as it circled closer, Dane had to force himself to look away long enough to check other avenues of approach; if there was one shark, there might be others.
As he moved up another ten feet, the tiger made its move.
It was big, easily fifteen feet, which probably explained why there weren’t any of its relatives in the neighborhood. Its jaws gaped wide, and Dane found himself staring into a maw that was almost big enough to swallow him whole. He twisted out of the way at the last instant, felt the beast’s rough skin scrape against him, the solid muscular body underneath striking him like a full body tackle. The blow shuddered through him, driving his breath out along with his regulator. His mask was knocked askew and cold water splashed into his eyes, blurring his vision, and despite all his training and experience, Dane felt a rush of primal panic.
He slashed the knife back and forth blindly, encountered nothing. He could imagine the shark just hanging back, waiting for him to wear out or drown.
Calm down, damn it. Focus. You need to see. You need to breathe.
He straightened his mask, blowing through his nostrils to clear the water, and even as he pressed it tight to his face to seal out the salt water, he began looking around, frantic to locate the monstrous predator.
The shark was gone.
He didn’t question this bit of good fortune, but instead found his regulator and jammed it between his teeth. After several calming breaths, during which time he kept a constant lookout for the tiger, he resumed his ascent.
He soon located the outline of the Jacinta, and subsequently found its anchor line which he followed back to the surface. After his final decompression stop, he shrugged out of his equipment harness and after taking one last deep breath, allowed the nearly spent tanks to sink into the depths. He swam up the remaining length of cable, breaking the surface an arm’s length from the Jacinta’s overhanging bow.
He trod water there for a few seconds, scanning the bow rail above to make sure that no one had noticed him. To the south, perhaps a mile away, he spied the outline of the motor yacht that had brought Scalpel and his team. Hopefully, the crew wouldn’t notice one lone figure trying to steal aboard; if they did, he was sunk.
He kicked off his flippers and then began ascending the taut anchor line. The neoprene of his suit and the rubber soles of his dive booties gave him a little bit of traction on the greased metal cable, but it was still probably the most difficult thing he had ever attempted. Every time he trapped the line between his feet and pushed up, he felt himself sliding back almost as much as he was advancing, and with each minute of struggling, his strength waned and the lactic acid in his muscles burned hotter.
Inch by incremental inch, he drew himself up out of the water and was able to reach the grommet in the bow where the anchor was stored when the boat was under way. He got one hand around a protruding bracket, and let go of the cable altogether, bracing the soles of his dive booties against the mostly dry hull. He lingered there for a few seconds, gathering his strength for the final pull to the deck, and then with an effort that seemed almost superhuman, he heaved himself the rest of the way up.
He crouched low behind the anchor winch, mindful of not attracting the notice of any watchful eyes on the yacht, or for that matter, alerting the four gunmen holding Bones, Professor and Willis hostage. Voices drifted across the deck, low and indistinct at first, and then a very familiar deep rumble.
“Seriously dude, how long do you expect me to hold it?” Bones complained. “My kidneys aren’t what they used to be.”
“Shut up,” growled another voice, louder this time.
Dane decided that if Bones started talking again, he would use the distraction to move up. Bones did not disappoint. “Come on, man. If you’re gonna kill me, just shoot me, but at least let me die with dignity. Don’t make me piss my pants first.”
“Shut...the hell...up!”
“Just gag him,” suggested another voice.
Dane low crawled until he could just see the four gunmen, along with their hostages who were now bound with zip-ties and lying face down. Two of the gunmen were standing over Bones, discussing how best to shut him up, while the other two attempted to display at least a semblance of discipline; one of them was watching the dive platform, no doubt awaiting Scalpel’s return.
Bones started another round of protests, this time loud enough to distract even the latter pair. Dane figured this would be the last straw for the guards; they would either make good on the threat to gag Bones, or simply pummel him into submission. For just a moment, everyone’s back was turned away from where Dane hid, and he knew there wasn’t going to be a better chance than this.
He sprang up and ran, sprinting the remaining distance without attracting any attention. When he reached the nearest enemy, he drove the butt end of his dive knife into the side of the man’s head. The blow was hard enough to fracture bone and the man’s head snapped to the side with a sickening crunch. Even as that first man slumped, Dane was vaulting over him, drawing a bead on the next closest man. Once more he eschewed using the blade for a quicker and more decisive hammer blow with the knife hilt. He managed to crack a second skull before the remaining two men realized something was wrong and spun to face him, raising their pistols.
Dane figured he might be able to take one more before the last one killed him, but all of a sudden the gunman furthest from him rose from the deck like a missile, launched skyward by the booster rocket lift of Bones’ double-footed kick. The man crashed into the deck rail, and then toppled over, disappearing into the sea.
The last gunman managed to get a shot off, but Dane was already inside his reach, knocking the gun hand up even as the trigger was pulled, so that the bullet flew harmlessly out toward the horizon. Dane smashed his forehead into the bridge of the man’s nose, and then delivered a close punch to the solar plexus that knocked him out cold.
Dane stayed alert as he knelt beside Bones, slashing his bonds with the knife, and then did the same for Willis and Professor.
“Better keep your head down,” Professor warned. “They’ve got a sniper on that boat. I wouldn’t be surprised if he saw what just happened.”
“Took your sweet time getting here,” Bones grumbled, massaging his wrists. “When I heard you crawling up the anchor line, I figured you’d be along any second. Didn’t think I’d have to string them along for ten minutes.”
“You heard me?” Dane asked, skeptically.
“Had my ear pressed to the deck. It’s an old Indian trick. Saw it in a movie, anyway. Every grunt you made vibrated through the hull. Sounded like a humpback whale mooning over his long-lost girlfriend. Or Professor when he found out that one chick was a dude.”
“Hey! That’s not true,” Professor protested.
Dane smirked. “Haul the anchor up,” he told Willis. “Stay low. Don’t show yourself to that sniper. We’re getting out of here.”
As Willis crept forward to operate the anchor winch, Dane led the others to the relative shelter of the superstructure, but on the bridge with its large windows, they were careful to stay down.
“What about the mission?” Bones asked. “Are we still looking for the treasure ship?”
Dane shook his head. “There is no treasure ship. This whole thing is a sham. We were lied to.”
Bones eyebrows drew together as he processed this development. “So, what’s our next move? Head back to Coronado, and ask Maxie for a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot report?”
Dane had pondered that question during the ascent. “I trust Maxie, but until I know what’s going on, we’re going to stay under the radar. The SECNAV sent us on this wild goose chase, so until I learn otherwise, I don’t trust him or anyone working for him, present company excepted.”
Bones shrugged as if that limitation posed no real hardship for him.
“I want to know what’s so important about this particular shipwreck,” Dane added.
“Our friend with the penchant for silly code names mentioned a passenger—Hancock, I think it was.”
“That’s right. He said Lord Hancock. That’s a place to start. Can’t be too many people fitting that description who died on Japanese prison transports during the war. If we can figure out why Hancock is so important, maybe we can figure out who’s behind this mess.”
On the deck below, Willis had activated the winch and was reeling in the forward anchor. With the boat free to move, Dane didn’t hesitate to fire up Jacinta’s big diesel engine. No sooner had they started moving when they saw the motor yacht turning toward them as if to pursue.
“That yacht will run us down long before we make port,” said Professor. “She’s got a good five knots on us.”
“I don’t think they’ll try anything. I’m betting that sniper is all alone over there. Or at the very least that they’ve only got a skeleton crew left aboard. Besides, I’ve got an idea. Professor, take the wheel. Keep her pointed toward Manila. Bones, grab a few life vests.”
“Life vests? What the...?” Bones saw the mischievous gleam in Dane’s eye and suddenly understood. “Not bad, Maddock. There may be hope for you yet.”
The skeleton crew aboard the motor yacht did not pursue the Jacinta, at least not very far. They had their hands full picking up the men who had been thrown overboard in the shrimp boat’s wake. By the time they rounded up the last man, still unconscious, but alive thanks to the sun-faded life emergency flotation vest that Maddock had bundled him into, the Jacinta was over the horizon and not even a blip on their radar.
The delay proved serendipitous however when the sharp-eyed sniper, acting as a lookout, spied a fifth man in the water behind them, thrashing frantically while a menacing gray dorsal fin slashed through the water in ever tightening circles.
The sniper drove the shark away while the yacht came around to pluck the beleaguered swimmer from the sea.
The man who called himself Scalpel had still been very much alive when Dane had left him. Unable to see, he had nevertheless managed to find his air regulator and had used it to stay alive. After long minutes of fumbling in the darkness, uncertain of even which direction was up, he found the opening that led out of the ship, and then began clawing his way back to the surface. Without a functional buoyancy compensation vest, his equipment weighed him down like a sea anchor, and he had to kick and paddle beyond the point of exhaustion to reach the surface.
His tale of survival was not quite the miracle it seemed, for shortly after being rescued, Scalpel felt a dull ache in his shoulder. He thought it was a cramp, but instead of passing, the pain continued to intensify and spread, concentrating mostly in his joints. He writhed in agony, unable to find the slightest bit of relief.
In his haste to escape the depths, Scalpel had neglected to purge the excess nitrogen from his body. Upon returning to normal atmospheric pressure, the tiny bubbles of gas in his muscle tissue had expanded, creating a condition known as decompression sickness, more commonly called ‘the Bends.’
The only treatment—the only way to alleviate the incredible pain—was to spend long hours in a pressurized chamber, and the closest one of those was in Manila, more than a day’s journey away.
The suffering was almost unendurable. Only one thought kept Scalpel from simply blowing his brains out, and that thought was merely a word...a name...the name of the man who had left him to die at the bottom of the sea. Sometimes, he would howl it through clenched teeth until the ache in his joints relented, if ever so imperceptibly.
“Maddock!”