Vital Spark

Sullatober Dalton

Description

Sailing, smuggling, murder, rough stuff, romance, international intrigue and the CIA - Vital Spark has it all and Mac is in the middle. In Cape Town, the smugglers customers want The Package, but what, and where, is it? Mac is in the middle and he hasn't got it. Trouble is, the smuggler's cutomers don't believe him. His friends are being murdered and Mac has to find out who is who before they are all dead but who can he trust?

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 13 mars 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781785381478
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page
VITAL SPARK
No Witnesses To What?
Sullatober Dalton



Publisher Information
Published in 2015 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
The right of Sullatober Dalton to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998
Copyright © 2015 Sullatober Dalton
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.



Chapter 1
Something was wrong, in the depth of his sleep, Mac could feel it. The big yacht’s motion had changed. Instead of the swoop down the slope and the snub as the sea anchor pulled her up short in the steep waves, she was shaking. Mac struggled to make sense of it as he lay in the bunk.
Three days at the wheel of the Vital Spark had left him exhausted. In the race across the South Atlantic when he’d had a full crew, he’d have welcomed the winds they had endured for the last few days but now he was taking the boat home to Cape Town with a bunch of dockside pickups. Eventually, the storm system had passed. It was only earlier in the evening as the sky glowed red, and the wind dropped to no more than a soft breath, that they’d been able to lay out a sea anchor to keep Vital Spark’s head to the waves and go below.
Mac’s only concession to comfort had been taking off his heavy weather top and overall, life jacket and boots, but, ever conscious of the need for getting on deck to deal with an emergency; he’d pushed his feet into his sailing shoes.
‘Wake up, Dad, wake up,’ he heard. He turned on his side to look at Tammy, standing beside his bunk. She looked young and fresh, despite being just out of her bunk.
‘There’s a funny scraping noise along the side of the boat, I’m going to have a look,’ she told Mac.
‘Stay there. You’re too sexy in that sleeping shirt; I don’t want you going up there with Gerry on deck.’
Tammy laughed.
‘He’s too leery Tammy. Stay here. I’ll take a look.’
He rubbed his face awake, snuffling into his hands.
‘Thanks Daddy,’ Tammy said, smiling. ‘Love you.’
Mac smiled back and ruffled her hair as he pushed his legs over the edge of his bunk.
Wish I’d never taken Gerry on, he thought; surely he can keep a lookout with the boat lying stripped of sails and only the send of the waves to worry about. He’s like a mutineer from the old days, insolent and unreliable, even during the storm. It had been Tammy and the other three who’d stood to in flaying gusts of wind and gouts of spray, fisting sails and helping work the boat until they were as tired as him.
‘Life jacket, Dad. Sea’s still running,’ Tammy told him as she snuggled into her bunk.
Mac put the life jacket on automatically. He added his oilskin jacket out of habit. It felt too warm in the muggy cabin but he couldn’t be bothered taking it off again.
He struggled past the navigation station, automatically noting the last position he’d written on his notice board and the course to Recife, the nearest port on the Brazilian coast.
He climbed through the hatch into the cockpit and on deck and took deep breaths of the sudden freshness of the open air, filling his lungs as he looked round for Gerry. A half-moon rimmed the narrow clouds brilliant white against the dark navy of space. In their turn, the cloud’s reflection flashed bright on the back of successive waves, waves that only broke occasionally now, but were still deep and heavily defined so that the boat was dipping her nose and cocking her snoot as they passed. As he looked forward, a wave hit Vital Spark’s bow flinging out a sheet of spray, startlingly bright against the black sea. The wave passed and Vital Spark started her swoop down.
Mac, still groggy, grabbed a stay to steady himself and moved forward. Another wave hit the bows as the sea anchor jerked the nose into the wave’s crest. The flung spray spattered on Mac’s jacket. Mac grabbed the starboard mast stay for support and looked round.
There was nothing unusual, except Gerry wasn’t there.
Gone to sleep and fallen overboard, stupid bastard, thought Mac.
Thinking Gerry might have gone to sit in the bows, Mac shuffled down till he stood holding the bow rail. He was nearly unbalanced by the sudden jerk of the sea anchor. Could Gerry really have fallen over? Na, he might have been lazy, but he was an experienced sailor. So where was he?
Mac made his way down the port side and stood in the cockpit. He was beginning to sweat and about to take off his oilskin top when he looked over at the swimming platform at the stern. The life raft was missing!
What now? Mac thought. Has Gerry gone for a turn round the boat with it? Was that the scraping noise Tammy heard? If he wanted to go looking, why not take the dinghy instead of inflating the life raft? Unbelievable!
Instinctively, to make sure the rope that tied the dinghy down on the coach roof was held fast in its cleat, Mac stepped on to the side deck and tugged at the rope. The cleat held it firm, as it should. Mac stood with the loose end of the lashing in his hand, forcing his mind into gear.
His world changed with a loud crack, a dull boom, a shock through his feet and his world tilted over. He made a grab for the stay but the deck just slid under the water’s surface. His hold on the dinghy’s lashing pulled the lashing clear of the cleat but as the deck tilted and sank into the sea his grip on the lashing pulled him under.
He let the lashing go and pulled at the cord on his inflatable life jacket. The cable of the guardrail caught at the back of his knees, pulling him deeper. He straightened his knees and felt the cable drag down his legs. It caught on his sailing shoes but they slid off and he stopped sinking.
His lungs started to burn for air. Still under water, how far he had no idea, he was opening his mouth to gulp in something when he felt the life jacket start to lift him.
He could feel his mind blacking out but kept a frantic grip until he broke the surface, gasping, tasting salt, dragging air into his lungs.
WHAT THE HELL?
‘TAMMY,’ he shouted.
He was lifted on a wave and looked confusedly about.
NOTHING!!!
WHAT THE HELL????
‘TAMMY,’ he called out. She had to be SOMEWHERE.
‘TAMMY, WHERE ARE YOU?’
There was no answer, only the waves.
A WHOOSH startled him, but it brought the dinghy up about ten feet away, forced up by its sealed buoyancy.
Life jacket and heavy weather jacket making swimming clumsy, he floundered his way to it.
The dinghy floated upside down and he grabbed the submerged gunwale that thickened the top edge of the dinghy’s plywood side.
The timber felt good in his hand, something solid in a world gone loopy. He was glad he’d forced Tammy to practice righting the little boat, hand into the centre board slot in the middle of the upturned hull, one foot on the starboard gunwale and push down, drop off before the hull spins right over and finishes upside down again, grab the port gunwale to stop the spin, then get in. Just do it in sequence he’d told her. He smiled at the recollection.
He looked round.
Where was he? In the sea! Hanging on to the gunwale of the dinghy! He knew how to deal with that!
The dinghy was beam on to the seas and it rose above Mac’s head as the wave lifted it, almost turning it over on top of him. Mac waited until it dropped down the back of the wave into the relative flat of the trough and grabbed for the centreboard slot. His fingers locked inside the slot and he humped his back and bent his knee to get one foot on the gunwale and pushed down. It started to turn right way up. Before it flipped too far and turned turtle again, Mac dropped off. He let it settle but the next wave lifted it above him and it rolled on top of Mac, pushing him under.
He tried to gasp at the air, but his mouth gulped water.
Mac surfaced retching and coughing, trying to clear his eyes, his throat, his mouth, to gasp in air.
The struggle cleared his mind of anything other than survival.
‘Calm down, calm down, CALM DOWN,’ he told himself. ‘This could take a few attempts. You can’t afford to get tired. Get it upright in the trough.’
He worked his way round to the side sheltered from the advancing wave’s rise. The rise would help turn the dinghy right way up. He hung on, allowing two wave crests to pass. As the third crest passed under them, Mac grabbed for the centreboard slot and bore down again on the gunwale. The dinghy turned and he let go and dropped into the water, relieving it of his turning effort. It hung undecided, right way up in the trough. The next wave was higher than the others, curling over, ready to break. It lifted the dinghy above his head, gave it a nudge, and Mac watched discouraged as it flipped over his head, pushing him down again. He was ready this time and held his breath until he was clear.
‘Take it easy, TAKE IT EASY,’ he shouted to himself.
He worked his way to the same side of the dinghy as the oncoming waves and jammed his hand into the centreboard slot again and waited. The waves pushed the dinghy away from him but he held on, waiting, saving what was left of his energy, calming himself. He let waves pass until the big seventh one had gone by before stepping on the gunwale and pushing the edge of the