66 Metres (33 page)

Jake reversed out, his eyes sharp as ever. He gave her the OK signal and she returned it. Clearly he wasn't going to explain what he'd been doing, and it would be pretty difficult underwater anyway. She looked over his equipment. Something was different. He smiled again, and she got it. When they'd descended he'd had a pony bottle with him, a three-litre tank with its own regulator – no pressure gauge – and now the pony-and-regulator were gone. He'd put them in the hut in case… She didn't like to think too much about in case of what, but it was a smart idea. Any problems with their air supply, or if they got separated for some reason, they could bolt to this hut and then head up to the surface.

She'd picked the right guy to dive with.

Jake fished in the pocket of his stab jacket and pulled out a reel with a karabiner on one end of the line, another on the handle, which he clamped onto one of his stab jacket's D-rings. He clamped the other to the right side of her stab, using the opportunity to check her air. He gave the Down signal, and they set off, tethered.

The sea floor was white in the torchlight, small ripples in the sand, a few hermit crabs here and there, an occasional flash of silver as a fish swam into the beams and then made a hasty exit. She landed a little heavy, her fins buckling, sending up two small spumes of sand. Facing Jake, she saw the large, three-blade propeller behind him, half-buried, the rounded stern like a metal fist rammed into the ground. She concentrated. Her mind was sluggish. She checked the depth.

Sixty-six metres
.

Jake reeled out several metres of line, then knelt on the sea floor. He placed both hands on the sand, one on top of the other, then raised the top one upwards, directly above the other hand. With the upper hand he made a fist and then splayed out three digits.
Okay, he wants me three metres above the bottom.
Then he moved his top hand in an arc from left to right, then reached a little further and swept it in an arc the other way.
All right, a search pattern like a windscreen wiper, getting longer on each sweep.
She gave him the OK signal. He let out more line and she swam around the stern to the bottom of the rocky reef, picturing in her mind what she'd glimpsed on Mike's sonar display, moments before she'd dropped the Rose into deep water. It should be away from the reef, maybe ten metres, maybe twenty. The Rose was small and heavy, so the current wouldn't have deflected it much. Still, it made sense to do a systematic search.

As directed by Jake, she ascended three metres, her torch spreading a cone of light roughly three metres in diameter on the sea floor. Just ascending those few metres, her head already felt a little clearer. She glanced at Jake, visible from his torch which he'd laid on the ground pointing directly forwards, the beam giving her a line of orientation, a halfway marker for each sweep. She kicked and began the search pattern, keeping a little tension in the line to ensure she stayed at the same distance.

The first sweep revealed nothing except a few rocks. Once or twice she drifted closer, just enough to confirm they were simply that, small rocks. As she reached the end of the first arc and turned around, she began to feel dizzy. Glancing at her computer, it said that she already needed a two-stage decompression stop of fifteen minutes. She checked her air. One hundred bar.
Half my air's gone!
They'd need that pony bottle for the return, even though Pete would hang a full tank ten metres below the boat, and another at five. Jake was still as a statue, but his head was turned to her. The line was slack; he'd reeled out some more. She'd probably feel the combined effects of narcosis and oxygen poisoning before Jake, since she was working, he was stationary. She needed to swim away from him, to extend the next sweep of the arc, and had to force herself to do so, fighting her natural instinct to bolt for the surface.

The second sweep took forever, and Jake tugged the line a few times as she drifted off course. It was getting difficult to stare at the mesmerising floor and swim in a long curve. Her computer beeped, telling her she should head up, but she didn't even look this time. Air consumption was the only thing that mattered now. She nearly bumped into the rock wall, and had to grab onto it, feeling a wave of panic. Her air was seventy-five bar.
Shit!
She glanced at Jake, but he was immobile as ever, staring in her direction. He reeled out more line. Doesn't he care? Why doesn't
he
do the fucking search? Of course! The bastard's trying to kill me. Then he'll take the Rose. Give it to MI6. Wait. Slow down. He's on your side. He promised. On Sean's soul. She tried to pull herself together. This was bad narcosis, the paranoid rather than the ecstatic version. She kicked away from Jake until the rope went taut, and began finning again.

It was like trying to stay awake when severely drunk, and she had to focus on either swimming or searching. Doing both was too hard. Do the search, one more sweep, then abort. Talk to yourself, name everything you see. Keep the surface of your brain awake. She'd heard it would help, it was called verbal protocolling, or some such stupid name. Just do it. Right: sand, sand, endless fucking sand, a few rocks, some more damned hermit crabs, a pulsing red light, more fucking rocks, more endless fucking sand.
Wait
. What? Stop, go back you moron, where was it? She sank towards the floor, feeling like she'd downed two more tequila slammers on the way. She hit the ground, lost control of the torch, which danced around, increasing her dizziness. What was that noise? Getting louder. Wah, wah, wah, like something turning slowly, approaching. Where was her torch? She fell over, her vision blotchy. She clawed her fingers into the sand. This is it. Fucking hell, this is really it. Can't think. Then breathe,
just breathe
!

Something collided with her. Light, bubbles, something crushing her, she kicked and thrashed but whatever had her was behind her. A zipping sound grew loud then diminished. Darkness, wild strobes of harsh light, and that wah, wah, inside her head, getting louder, no, getting softer, the bubbles, she was overtaking them, she could see something, someone. Jake. Right there. She clamped herself to him, took a few deep breaths, her head clearing.

As if suddenly waking from a dream, she pushed back from him. The Rose, she'd almost found it. Her computer was beeping again, now for going up too fast. They were at fifty and climbing. She half-broke out of Jake's grip and pointed downwards. He shook his head. She fought to get out of his grip and he released her. He held up the small diving bag. Through its thin white plastic she detected a dim red light, pulsing. He must have picked it up off the sea floor when he'd rescued her.

They had the Rose
.

In that moment she wanted to laugh, cry, kiss him, fuck his god-dammed brains out, but before she could react, he pointed up above. Glancing upwards she saw two small lights, very close together, descending. That wasn't the plan. Gary and Claus weren't meant to be down here yet, and the lights were twin-beam, high-powered halogen. A whining noise, like a dentist's drill, buzzed through the water. It wasn't them. The SEALs. And they had a sled. Jake's plans A through C had just fallen apart.

She glanced at her air gauge.
Thirty bar!
She should be at the surface, or at least at the deco stop. Jake gave her the ‘Up' signal, grabbed her inflate button and pumped air into her jacket. She ascended rapidly, while he dropped away from her and headed down, still carrying the Rose. The SEALs were descending fast, even as she tried to dump air. Too late to follow Jake. He'd turned off his torch, and she could no longer see him or his bubble-trail. Besides, if she followed him, so would the SEALs. Turning off her own torch, she finned hard sideways, away from where she thought the wreck was, then stopped, and held her breath.

She heard the whine of the underwater sled and saw its lights carve through the water, initially in her direction, then it veered back towards the Tsuba. As soon as it was gone she headed back towards the wreck, in order to find her way up to the deco tanks. If she surfaced now she'd have serious decompression sickness. With less than twenty bar left in her tank, she found the prow and headed up. Thank god the SEALs hadn't cut the line to the tanks hanging underneath Pete's boat. She swam straight to it. Both hands on the fresh regulator, she planted it in her mouth and drank in huge breaths of cool air.

Her computer said she needed twenty minutes of decompression at ten metres. Forget it. She'd do five then go up to the surface. That was when she noticed the keel of the other boat, the one belonging to the SEALs, and she wondered what exactly was happening topside. But her gaze soon turned downwards. She wondered how long Jake's pony cylinder would last, and just how good the SEALs were. But that wasn't the right question. The real question was, how good was Jake? And if they killed him and took the Rose, what was her plan?

She stared down into the blue.

Chapter Twenty

Jake watched the fourth tank zip past, sounding like a torpedo, a jet-stream of small bubbles in its wake. It meant things weren't good topside. The SEALs had arrived with a sled – he should have seen that coming – and must have left someone in charge on the surface. Ascending now would only serve to deliver the Rose to whoever was up there. He had to descend. Nadia's air had been so low her only option was to reach the hang-tank under Pete's boat at ten metres, so he'd sent her up.

The hut at fifty, where he'd left the pony – that was his destination. But he chased after the larger tank, looking for the bubble-stream – his own tank would be empty imminently, and the pony wouldn't last long at depth. By descending again he was going way off the deco-tables, but decompression sickness was preferable to what the SEALs would do to him. Besides, it bought Nadia time, and she was resourceful.

Legs locked together, he dolphin-kicked hard, holding his breath, the speed of his descent pressing his facemask back against his forehead and cheekbones. For a moment he lost the stream of bubbles from the tank and slowed, circling to find them, then continued downwards. Whoever had dropped the tanks had tried to make it land on the Tsuba, and as he passed the wreck's funnel he saw a familiar grey cylinder lodged against one of the shed-like structures on the ship's aft section. As soon as he reached it he shut off the valve. There was no way of knowing how much air was in it, but a diver never wastes air, and the valve had only been cracked open a quarter of a turn, so he reckoned it was at least half full. Anchoring himself by placing the ends of his fins on the sloping deck, he picked it up, still barely breathing – determined to leave no trail for the SEALs – and swam to the open hatch where he'd left the pony. He entered the wreck.

He'd been inside this part of the Tsuba twice before, but years ago, so he didn't remember it too well. Rather than switching on his torch, he reached into his stab jacket pocket and took out a thin plastic tube the size of a cigar, and bent it till the mid-section snapped open. The light-stick began to glow a dull fluorescent green, casting a ghoulish light on his surroundings: a corridor straight ahead and up, then a staircase leading deeper into the ship. He took a short breath and headed in.

At the foot of the rusted metal stairs was a square room, algae-encrusted pipes lining floor and ceiling. The room had a single opening at the lower end – too small to get through with all his gear on – and at the other end a sealed hatch. First things first – air – since his main tank would be empty soon. But it was hard to think. The inevitable narcosis made his brain feel like a sponge soaked in rum.
Concentrate!
Three tanks: one ten-litre half-full, one nearly empty, and the smaller three-litre pony cylinder. Two SEALs. What to do?

His brain wasn't co-operating. It was like staring at words, unable to decipher their meaning. On the surface he could work it out in an instant. A light flickered above, and he knew he'd run out of time. Clearly the SEALs had a detector and the locator code for the Rose, even though it only worked over a limited distance. He swam to the hatch, tried to heave it open. Rusted solid. Light beams danced around the bottom of the stairs. He swam back to the smaller hole at the lower end of the chamber, and dropped the pony bottle, with its regulator attached, straight through. He heard a clunk two seconds later.

As he turned around the first SEAL appeared. Nice rebreather kit, he had to admit; serious, professional. Jake pulled out his diver's knife – Sean's knife – and faced him. But the SEAL aimed a spear-gun at him, and gestured for him to drop the knife, just as the second SEAL arrived, squeezing in next to his comrade. Jake knew he might be dead either way, so he turned his back and went to the opening, and shoved the Rose, inside its bag, through the hole. He heard it hit bottom.

He expected to be speared at any moment, but the two SEALs stayed put, one of them nodding to the knife still clasped in Jake's hand. Their eyes looked clear, alert, whereas he knew his own would appear groggy, half-closed and bloodshot. He let the knife slide from his grasp. One of the SEALs handed his spear-gun to the other, then approached Jake, his own knife drawn, and pushed past him to the opening. He shone a torch into it, then grabbed Jake's stab jacket, and began unbuckling it. He then backed away, pointed to the hole, then to Jake.

It took Jake a few seconds to understand. Two spear-guns. Two options. Retrieve the Rose, or be killed here and now, after which one of them would go and fetch it. Reluctantly he slipped out of his stab jacket and let the whole ensemble, stab and tank, drop to the floor, but he kept the regulator in his mouth. He felt naked. He checked his air gauge – thirty bar. At this depth, it would last a few minutes, tops.

Unbuckling the tank from the stab's harness, he turned, relishing each breath, and faced the dark hole. It looked like a giant letter box. The only way in was to put the tank through first, then follow it. Without his stab jacket he'd sink easily, especially carrying the tank, and finning back up to the hole would be difficult. He pointed to the other tank lying on the floor, the half-full one. The SEALs both shook their heads.