Islands of Light by Don Thompson

Islands of Light by Don Thompson

Author:Don Thompson [Thompson, Don]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781412226189
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
Published: 2008-02-07T00:00:00+00:00


Chapter Twenty

Kel’s Discovery

Kel awoke to the unmistakable feel of an

angry sea. The Aleutian Aggressor was pitching and rolling like an injured whale. Kel had almost convinced himself that he should stay in his bunk and ride it out when a metallic clanking sound intruded upon his semi-consciousness.

Jack and Toby must have decided to head out overnight without saying anything to me, as usual, thought Kel.

Kel crawled out of his berth, stumbled across the heavily rolling deck and made his way to the head. It was all he could do to stay in one place as he flushed the marine toilet and splashed some water on his face at the sink. He stepped back into the bunkroom and immediately noticed that something was wrong.

A heavy metal hatch at the forward end of the compartment was opening and closing with each roll of the boat.

Funny, thought Kel. I’ve never seen that open before. In fact, I’m not sure that I’ve even noticed it there before. Must have always been shut. I’d better secure it.

Walking, stumbling, and even crawling at times, Kel slowly moved with the motion of the boat over to the swinging hatch door.

“What’s this?” he wondered out loud.

The bolt that normally locked the hatch was missing, and a large steel container of heavy fishing gear lay on the floor. Kel mentally put the pieces together: the steel container had fallen from a nearby shelf from the heavy motion of the boat and had clipped the locked end of the bolt on the hatch. The heavy container had struck with such force that it had sheared off the bolt and left the hatch door free to move, which it had been doing, noisily, for quite some time.

Must be the entrance to one of the fish holds, thought Kel as he strained to push the fallen container back enough to provide some working space. I wonder if there’s a light in here? Yeah, there it is.

He flipped on a corroded old light switch and peered into the hold.

Kel’s breath caught in his chest. So this was what Jack was hiding. This was what the barroom argument was all about.

Kel breathed out and took in the sight before him. Down in the hold were hundreds of drab green military-style metal containers. Carefully, trying to work with the motion of the boat and not against it, Kel climbed down into the hold.

He bent over one of the containers. He noticed that it had a heavy duty pushbutton combination lock. Kel tried sliding the latch anyway, and to his surprise it moved freely. Must be a programmable lock that’s not set up yet, he guessed.

Kel slid the latch and opened the case. There, lying in a heavy brown plastic cradle was a belt-fed machine gun. Stenciled onto the weapon was the designation “M-60.”

Kel could smell the oil on the gun, and this, combined with the rolling of the boat and the growing realization that his discovery probably meant great personal danger, made him dizzy. He closed the lid of the gun case and let his head sink between his knees.



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