Operation Manhunt (Jonathan Anders Book 2) by Christopher Nicole

Author:Christopher Nicole [Nicole, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2019-04-10T22:00:00+00:00

“Jonathan?” Geraldine whispered. “Are you awake, Jonathan?”

“Yes.” They lay on their stomachs, in a row, Jonathan at the end, then Geraldine, then Brian O’Connor, then Benny the steward, then Aristotle the dog, then Phyllis Malthus, and then Strohm at the other end. They clung, with cramped fingers and toes, pressed their bodies against the damp wood, leaned one way when the raft drifted up the side of a crest, leaned the other way when their wooden home descended once more into the trough. The movement was constant, and hypnotic; it spread a blanket of misery across the cold and the cramp and the hunger and the thirst, and the lurking fear. But it did not permit sleep, except for an occasional doze which ended in a jerk.

“Aristotle’s asleep,” Geraldine whispered. “Jonathan? How long have we been floating like this?”

The dial of his watch was luminous. “A long time,” he said. “But it’ll be dawn quite soon.”

“Boy, I’ve never been quite so anxious to see a sunrise.”

Jonathan gazed at the water, regularly visible as it danced in front of him, the crests dissolving into phosphorescence to send brilliant bubbles racing into the air. He wondered if every bubble contained plankton. Something to look up when he got home. If he got home. But it occurred to him that this was the first time a wave had broken for some time. “Captain,” he called. “Don’t you think the sea has gone down a bit?”

“It’s eased right off, Mr. Anders,” Strohm said. “And the wind has died, too. But I’m not sure that’s a good thing. The swell is big enough to mean trouble, and if we get rain some time in the next couple of hours, we’ll know that storm is pretty close.”

“Oh, boy, I’m stiff,” Geraldine said gloomily. “And cold. Do you really think it’s going to rain, Captain Strohm?”

“It’s an even bet, Miss O’Connor.”

“But we have been drifting all night, haven’t we?” Brian O’Connor asked. “In which direction, do you think, Captain?”

“The current sets northwest,” Strohm said.

“Which is toward the islands, isn’t it?” Geraldine asked.

“Oh, yes. We should see them, lined up in front of us, when the sun rises. Trouble is, there’s no guaranteeing anybody on them will see us. We’re very low in the water. We could drift right by, or get smashed up on some reef. It isn’t as if anyone will be out looking for us.”

“Don’t you think somebody must have seen the flames from the schooner, or picked my message up?” Jonathan asked. “We weren’t all that far off.”

“Far enough to be just a glow in the sky, Mr. Anders. And with the weather getting worse, who’s going to risk putting out to investigate?”

“What about that plane we heard?” Geraldine suggested hopefully. “Perhaps they saw us.”

“Not with all that low cloud about, Miss O’Connor,” Strohm pointed out. “I don’t want to be pessimistic, but there’s a time in life when you just have to look facts in the face.”

“I’m starving,” Phyllis Malthus complained. “I’d like to look a good steak in the face.

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.