Yes. Compressed air can have an acceleration effect on an-otherwise un-tethered body, I suppose, but to send a full grown man “spinning wildly out of control?”  OK, we’ll go with that…  Count him as dead.  No way he makes it out of the freighter and to the surface without blacking out…

So is that two down and one to go?  And we still don’t know who they are and what they are up to!  No chance to assess guilt or innocence, even in the Trailian sense of the words… Wrong place, wrong time, I guess…

Or does an arrow fly in the water??  Or is it a harpoon? Or an ‘arpoon?

The sound made by said ‘arpoon as it hits the breathing tank of supposed villain?  TOONK… we certainly can’t have it impaling the poor fellow…  no blood here kids!  Just massively inconveniencing and frustrating the bad guys- that’s what Mark has always been good at…  at least they know how to breathe…

There has been nary a bubble emanating from our hero’s regulator for quite a few days now…  that’s quite a trick, Mark…

And as the door handle goes from 6 o’clock to 9 o’clock and the door begins to open, we are all holding our breath… As Mark balances the spear on his thumb (advanced technique??) and takes careful aim, this intruder must know he’s in the bulls-eye…

Yes!  They must be here to retrieve the nuclear material… there could be no other possible explanation…  therefore they all must… die…

Meanwhile, what’s happening with Ken on board el barco de cigarrillos?  Has he been taken out?  Has he taken a powder?  Is Mark all alone??

Taking an informal poll of the dozen or so people reading this:  does your inner monologue ever include the word “clearly?”

Well, depending on how fast this poor schlub can mke it out of the boat and to the surface, he may be as good as dead anyway…  and rest assured Mark’s advantage of surprise is no longer his when this guy zooms past his fellow henchmen on his way to the surface…

So with a SNIP and a THUD, Mark has one less foe to worry about, and perhaps one more weapon in his arsenal… that snappy air powered harpoon launcher, locked and loaded.  The only bad thing about this scene is that there’s no chance for monologues or stilted dialogue…

Is it just me? Or do we see our hero’s bare arm in the second panel?  Hiding behind the aft bulkhead door, he is ready to ambush the other diver… which again he assumes to be his enemy…  heck could be another recreational diver, right?  I mean, what evidence does Mark have that this guy or his diving buddies are up to anything?  Sure, a harpoon grazed him, but that’s easily explainable…  In a world where hand signals are your only form of communication, misunderstandings must abound!

Sure is an awful lot of ambient light inside the ship, too…

…and none come out…  they don’t know who they are dealing with do they??  And I am not sure what, if any, element of surprise is on Mark’s side, since they just saw him go in the boat…  didn’t they?  This is really disturbing. People have died in the Trailverse, usually at the hands of some animal- be it an Angry Elk or a Pissed-off Rhino, but Mark has only ever punched people which has generally not led to death…

But even if Mark takes care of the two,  that leaves the one standing (floating?) guard outside the freighter…

I had to study this for a minute and look back…  Mark is not using the Commando Cody full body suit that Leslie Joyce provided- his legs are bare!  And have been for the last few “days” he has been under water… so Armed with the harpoon that narrowly missed him, his big plan is to commit murder- on people he doesn’t even know…  wow.  Vigilantism at its best, without regard for due-process or anything resembling an extended thought-process…

What a cold-hearted SOB you’ve become, Mark… poke, poke, stab, stab, and then what?  The Evil Yacht lies above, menacing your (fast) rental boat and its second mate… and I am guessing they might be somewhat put out once they realize that you have done away with their compliment of henchmen…

Unless that was a random spear shot that got launched your way in the previous installment…  And second, don’t breathe!  Your bubble “Trail” will be a dead give-away!

Mark I think it’s OK for you to talk to Ken… The bad guys down there wouldn’t be able to hear you on your own intercom…  and are they wearing radioactive-proof suits?  At least that would give an indication of their knowledge and intentions…

Leave it to Mark Trail to stumble onto an international terrorist ring bent on making dirty bombs with the Cobalt-60!  A well funded international terrorist ring judging by the yacht they are tooling around in…

So with the ever-popular “What Th-?!” coming from the Trail-brain, we are left to wonder until Monday who this is and what they are doing…  They are certainly not friendlies and are somehow hooked up with that thug in the dive-shop who clearly dimed on them… Who can you trust in this world?  Apparently no one…

And Action!  Cue Yacht!  Cue Tablet Alarm!  Cue Big Eyes!  Well, I was almost going to sleep there for a minute… Mark is at the Freighter and it’s glowing!  But what is eliciting the “OH NO” from Ken?  I think we all expected the freighter to be full of Cobalt-60…  is the Yacht going to ram the rental?  Is Woods and Wildlife magazine going to have to pony up for another sunken craft?

I love how Ken is pointing at the big boat… and talking out load… as if he has to show himself what he’s talking about…  I wonder if he ever refers to himself in the third person…  “Mississippi Ken’s a little scared now…”

C’mon now…  Let’s get to the freighter already!  Who cares about the Spam-colored eel?

………

All “dialed in,” as it were with his special suit full of “gauges…”  Ever type or write a word that never looks right?  “Gauge” is one of those words.  Who on earth or Heaven thought it would be smart to throw a ‘u’ in the middle?

  without the ‘u’ there is a meaning, but who has ever used that??

Mark has gone silent on Ken… tired of his “chatter…” making eyes at “That Old Sea Plane” like it brings back a great memory.

And how exactly did you install the software, Ken?  You must have done it before you headed out to sea and used the wifi at home… or it came loaded on a thumb drive and Mark has a Microsoft Surface (with a USB port) and not an iPad (which does not…) But still, the ability to pick up a signal through fathoms of seawater is impressive…  oh, OK, let’s go with it.

I thought Mark’s special suit, the one the Leslie Joyce sent him, has all manner of dials and gauges…  but this is probably better…  keeps Mississippi Ken in the loop as to what is going on “down there…”  Oh, Mark, you are in danger, or soon will be…  you know that don’t you??

Highly irregular…  Mark, you are still a photojournalist, aren’t you??

As Mark steels himself against danger, he is emboldened by the layer of protection afforded him by one Leslie Joyce, who apparently is still mad but not so mad that she wouldn’t scare up a very expensive dive suit…

Oh, Ken…  Always the wag…  Commando Cody?  I suppose- As he was , in 1955, the Sky Marshal of the Universe, complete with Rocket Suit…  Well done!  Learn something new every day…

Of course I’m thinking Mark looks more like Ralphie’s little brother Randy from A Christmas Story, where “getting dressed to go to school is like preparing for an extended deep sea dive…”  Mark looks like a tick ready to pop!

Sorry, that’s a tired phrase, by now a classic meme, but there ought to be royalties attached to whenever it’s used…  I’ve got a bad feeling about this…

I wonder if that idea from Tom Smykowski in the movie Office Space ever took off… The Jump to Conclusions Mat…

I think this is where that big boat that is prowling the gulf comes in…  in broad daylight, there should be no issues with it getting the drop on our hero…

Before he calls in the Feds, he wants to BE SURE that what he saw is truly radioactive… But, assuming that it is, what fun will it be to just turn the entire story over to the authorities?  Where did Mark Trail, Vigilante go?

I am looking for a reprise of the James Bond Epic Thunderball… and the underwater fight scenes…  Now when you think about it, what’s possibly sillier than that??  A bunch of humans in an environment that favors none of them, no high ground to take, just a series of cut air hoses and masks being ripped off faces sending people to the surface…  of course the bad guys are all dressed in in black and the good guys in orange…

What in God’s name is that???

It would seem that the radioactivity has already taken its toll on the wildlife.  I have no idea what that creature is…  Hang tight kids, Mark is going back down…

Keeping a sharp and wary eye out for one-of-a-kind treasures, he pounces on the animal skull…  “What are you going to do with that?” asks Kelly…  Then just to piss her off, he mounts the skull on the hood of his car, the car she doesn’t quite understand in the first place…  So much about your man that you need to know, Kelly…

But Mark, the notion of hunting is relative… whether hunting to bring down an animal or hunting for a bargain, it’s the same thrill…  I think it is, but then we’d have to ask the dentist from Eden Prairie, MN…