No Good Way to Die

By Alex Wade

No Good Way To Die is the dramatic story of Pryson Dare, a seasoned United Nations diplomat who seeks answers to his son’s mysterious death, the result of a supposed scuba diving accident in The Bahamas. With the aid of his son’s girlfriend, a private investigator, and a handful of kindly Bahamian locals, he uncovers the ugly truth. Despite thwarting the international arms dealer behind his son’s disappearance, Dare is ultimately unable to cope with his loss. Inspired by Dante’s The Inferno, No Good Way To Die is a tale of heartbreak and redemption in which the hero descends through his own circles of hell, then finds his only salvation at the bottom of the sea.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Feb 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483425061

Alex Wade

Alex Wade is a writer, freelance journalist, media lawyer and lecturer. As well as running the Surf Nation blog, Alex has edited and/or contributed columns and features for many national newspapers and magazines including The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent titles, the FT, The Telegraph, Huck, Wavelength, The Surfer's Path, Flush, Coast and Cornwall Today. In 2009, Alex was short-listed as Sports Feature Writer of the Year in the Sports Journalists' Association's awards and he has sat on various occasions as a judge for Coast's annual awards. He was the first UK writer to cover surfing in serious depth for a national newspaper. Alex has travelled the globe extensively in search of the biggest waves and best breaks. He has written about surf breaks from Hawaii and Costa Rica to France and Portugal. Despite a restless life he thinks he has found paradise in West Penwith, Cornwall, UK, where he surfs all year round.

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WADE

Copyright © 2015 Alex Wade.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-2505-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-2506-1 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 02/05/2015

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Passing Through

About Thr Author

PROLOGUE

When you live in a place long enough, it becomes a part of you and you a part of it. Andrea Vonn watched her fiancé Jules reemerge from the briny depths of the Caribbean and hoist himself onto the zodiac. He was deeply tanned, with a muscular swimmer’s physique sculpted by the sea and short curly hair bleached white by the sun. His blue eyes sparkled like sunlight on water.

Andrea and Jules had been living in The Outer Islands of The Bahamas for over a year, while he completed his doctorate in oceanography at the University of Miami. Andrea wondered, as did most of his professors, if he would ever obtain his degree. At times it seemed his research was an elaborate excuse for him to spend his life underwater in the tropics. It had been his boyhood dream. It had also been two years since they got engaged, and she wondered if they would ever set an actual wedding date.

They had met by accident. She was a twenty-seven-year-old exchange student from Germany, studying to become a neurosurgeon at the prestigious Miller School of Medicine at the university hospital. Jules was wheeled into the emergency room one day, where she was working as an intern. He had been stung by a Portuguese man-o-war while snorkeling. During treatment, the two exchanged glances, and she was immediately smitten.

When Jules received a grant from the university to explore the Great Blue Holes of the Bahamas later that year, Andrea followed him to Nassau and beyond. Her life now consisted of volunteering at a local Bahamian health clinic four days a week and helping Jules on the boat in her spare time. It wasn’t such a bad life; she still had her hand in medicine and could work on her suntan to boot. It was a world away from the cold dark climate of Germany.

On this particular afternoon, she found herself floating above The Devil’s Eye, an uncharted blue hole off the northern coast of Crooked Island, some two hundred seventy miles southeast of Nassau. It was the middle of nowhere.

Find anything? Andrea asked.

A whole lot of nothing, he answered. It looks like a dead end, unless I’m willing to go much deeper.

I thought we agreed you wouldn’t be doing that?

Just one more dive, he said. It’s the only way to find out if those underwater tunnels are connected to the open sea. If I can prove that, my research will finally be complete.

Andrea knew full well that there was no stopping him. She helped him don his scuba gear and then blew him a kiss for luck as he rolled backward off the back of the zodiac and descended gracefully into the depths of the cobalt abyss.

Andrea could see why Jules was so mesmerized by blue holes. The tantalizing allure of these liquid jewels was matched only by the danger therein. It was the ultimate challenge for a seasoned diver. She herself enjoyed snorkeling here but always stayed near the surface, sensing a dark magnetic force pulling from below.

Mainly she stayed on the zodiac, ready in case of an emergency, keeping an eye on Jules from above. Most of the time she could see him, but when he went deep she could tell where he was only by the trail of bubbles that ascended from below like silver jellyfish through the ultramarine water. In those instances, they employed a communication system that consisted