Blake Sanders 03: Night Drop by Michael W. Sherer

Author:Michael W. Sherer [Sherer, Michael W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thriller
Publisher: Cutter Press
Published: 2014-08-11T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Macready masked his concern with work. Yousef had returned to the lodge following a brief absence after breakfast, barking orders, marshaling his troops. Ever since, the atmosphere in camp had changed. The pressure and pace had increased tenfold. Within fifteen minutes, all traces of the morning meal had been erased, the dishes washed and stowed, and everyone but Rashid had trooped down the steps to the dock and boarded the dive boat. At first, Macready had wondered about the division of labor, but he realized someone needed to remain on guard in camp. The choice of Rashid likely meant the IEDs he was devising weren’t finished yet.

Ahmed and Hosni cast off the lines at the bow and stern. Yousef and Ali were in the wheelhouse, Yousef with a chart in his hands and Ali at the controls. While the crew readied the boat, Macready worked on the diving equipment. One thing was certain: Macready couldn’t find fault with this group’s equipment. All of it was relatively new and in excellent condition, much of it top of the line. He bled two nearly empty air tanks down to 10 psi and shook them to be sure they were free of water and debris. Then he hung them in the cold water off the dive platform and refilled them with the on-board air compressor. Uneasy, he took extra precautions while prepping for the day’s dives.

But Yousef’s tenseness and the agitation among the rest of the crew set off other alarms he’d learned to trust during his combat tours. Surreptitiously, he pulled a snorkel from a stowage locker, tossed it down on the duckboard dive platform and climbed down after it. As he bent and checked the pressure on the air tank in the water, he ran his hand along the edge of the duckboard, fingers feeling under the lip. Steel rods reinforced the wooden cross beams tying the duckboard’s slats together. With casualness that camouflaged his elevated pulse, Macready checked to see if any of the crew was watching. They were busy with their own tasks. He lay on his stomach, leaned over the edge of the platform and quickly secured the snorkel beneath the dive platform with an extra snorkel strap. Rising to his knees, he checked the pressure on the air tank again, closed the valve and pulled the tank out of the water.

He watched Wafi start up the skiff and maneuver it around the end of the dock while Nima finished opening a gate in the floating pen. The skiff was a rigid hull inflatable boat—RHIB—similar to those he’d worked with in the Navy. Wafi positioned it with Nima’s help so that the stern plugged the opening in the dolphin pen. Nima blew a whistle hanging on a lanyard around her neck. When she had the dolphins’ attention, she performed a series of hand gestures that Macready had taught her.

Watching her, Macready wondered what they’d needed him for. Insurance, maybe? A backstop to make sure the dolphins performed as hoped? Nima and Wafi had done an incredible job of reconditioning the two dolphins.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.