Professor’s heart sank. They were outnumbered, outgunned…helpless. Worse, there was no way to warn Maddock and Bones about what would be waiting for them back on the surface.
CHAPTER 6
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.