Free Hell Ship by David Wood

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 behin d 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!”
     
     
     

CHAPTER 7
     
    Manila, Philippines
     
    Bones rolled the longneck bottle between his palms. The cool glass and the beads of condensation felt good on his skin, but the bottle was getting a little light. He was trying to decide whether to ask the bartender for another. After surviving this latest scrape with the grim reaper, he was in the mood to celebrate, but unfortunately, the mission wasn’t over by a longshot, and he had a strict personal rule about staying sober…mostly…when on duty.
    During the long trip back to Manila, Maddock had outlined the next phase of the operation. He and Professor would travel to the United Kingdom where, presumably, they would be able to get a little more information about the mysterious Lord Hancock and hopefully figure out why a team of mercenaries—to say nothing of the Secretary of the