The safety line tugged at his weight belt, he heard a grunt, and turned in time to see a silver flash disappearing into the murk.
‘Okay?’ said Gallen.
‘Fucking fish,’ mumbled Winter.
The lights of the Ariadne ebbed in the blackness after another twenty seconds of finning. Letting Winter come alongside, Gallen checked his G-Shock and showed the other man: six minutes to Go.
The set-up wasn’t as easy as Gallen had assumed; for a start, no one had told him there was a set of downward-facing lights on the Ariadne and that they lit up the deep like a battery of aircraft landing lights.
Pointing down, Gallen waited for the nod from Winter; when it came they descended, remaining a hundred and fifty feet from the vessel, where the lights wouldn’t catch them. At any ocean depth greater than sixty-five feet, light couldn’t travel as it did above sea level. Gallen was comfortable that they’d be unseen by onboard cameras. His biggest concern was flashes of reflection from the scuba bubbles. Unlike the enclosed rebreather systems they were trained on in Force Recon — that recirculated carbon dioxide through chemical scrubbers — the commercial clearance divers used systems that threw off bubbles like a jet stream.
When he got the ‘three click’ signal from Hansen, it would indicate that comms had been established with the Ariadne and Hansen’s people had disrupted the downward-facing cameras.
Finning slowly in the dark to maintain depth, Gallen checked his watch: one minute forty-eight to Go. He raised two fingers directly in front of Winter’s face plate and the Canadian gave the thumbs-up.
The cold started to push itself on Gallen’s chest and neck and he breathed in regular patterns, making himself think through the steps and the contingencies.
As he thought about how easily the Ariadne’s walls could be breached with a 9mm slug, there was a quick series of small explosions and the entire ocean went black.
CHAPTER 61
‘Blue Dog,’ came Winter’s voice, breaking the silence. ‘The fuck just happened?’
The shocks from the explosions cracked through the water like whip shots.
‘Shit,’ said Winter, and Gallen detected panic. Turning, he pulled along the safety line and came up to Winter.
‘Cut the dry suit,’ said Winter, gasping. ‘Got the spear gun in the wrong place.’
‘Stay calm,’ said Gallen as he switched on his flashlight. Cupping the lens, he found a small tear on the upper leg of Winter’s dry suit.
‘It’s an inch long. You should be okay for two minutes. We’re going in.’
Three clicks sounded over the earpiece, and Gallen grabbed Winter. ‘That’s the signal. You’re up.’
‘Water’s coming in, Gerry,’ said Winter, his jaw already setting in reaction to the intense cold. ‘Shit!’
‘Let’s move, keep you warm.’
Kicking out, Gallen led across the inky blackness, briefly looking at the back-lit compass reading on his watch. He had no situational reference point — no up or down, or sense of speed. With his flashlight off again, they slid through the abyss, the silence and cold roaring in like a tropical cyclone. His senses screamed at him, reminding him of the darkness of an Afghan mountain pass at night, where in some of the canyons a man couldn’t see his own hand.
‘Shit, boss,’ came Winter’s whisper as they slid through the black. ‘It’s running down my leg. Man, it’s cold.’
As he turned to face Winter, Gallen hit steel, his helmet bouncing off it with a bell-like dong. They’d found the Ariadne.
They clung to the side of the huge vessel like a couple of spiders, and Gallen spelled it out. ‘We go in like we planned, okay, Kenny?’
‘Sure, boss,’ said the Canadian, close but invisible. ‘Let’s get it done.’
Feeling his way down one of the steel hulls, Gallen wondered what had happened for the power to go off in the Ariadne. Was it connected to the explosions? Seeing the model of the Ariadne in his mind, he felt along the underside of the curved hull and prepared to swim across to the divers lock where there’d usually be light pouring out. He heard a sound, a faint humming. Stopping, he felt Winter run into the back of him.
‘Hear that?’ he whispered into his mouthpiece.
‘Motor,’ said Winter, a distinct chatter in his voice. ‘There a sub in the water?’
They waited, and as they were about to move again, a strong light came on under the Ariadne, making Gallen raise his hand to his face plate. The humming increased and then the light moved downwards, the humming receding once more.
‘What was that?’ said Gallen.
Winter’s speech was now forced. ‘Submersible, but I couldn’t be sure. I think my retinas are burned out.’
Blinking out the intensity of the sudden light source, Gallen moved across the underbelly of the Ariadne by feel again, a big yellow and purple patch now sitting in the middle of his vision. From zero light to an underwater halogen in a split-second was too much for the human eye.
The underbelly of the craft stopped and Gallen felt around the edges of the large divers lock and docking bay for submersibles. They were at their destination but Gallen was confused.
‘This is it,’ he said, wanting to keep Winter talking. ‘Wasn’t there a structure under here?’
‘The power room,’ said Winter. ‘Must be on the other side— maybe the tin can swung around with the explosion.’
The original plan had been to send Winter into the light with the shark gun and for Gallen to follow with his SIG. But with Hansen cutting the diving lock cameras and the lights being down, Gallen decided to get Winter out of the water as fast as he could.
‘Straight up stealth,’ he said over the radio. ‘Let’s rise up real quiet and see who’s around.’
‘Suits me,’ said Winter.
Running his hands up the side of the divers lock, Gallen moved towards the surface, unable to see where that was. His helmet struck steel, the sound of it echoing in his brain as if someone had set off an alarm. Feeling above him, he grabbed hold of a steel ladder and pulled himself up the wall of the lock, creating cover for their emergence. Breaking the surface, he grabbed a docking buffer and paused, trying to keep movement and breathing to a minimum.
He pulled Winter up by the scuba straps; they remained still for thirty seconds until Gallen gave the all-clear and dragged himself onto the dock that ran around the lock’s pool. The room was dark but surprisingly warm and Gallen kicked off his fins then crawled behind large plastic gear boxes.
Spitting out his regulator mouthpiece and unscrewing the helmet, he placed it carefully on the grated steel dock and beckoned to Winter with a tap on the shoulder. Unscrewing the Canadian’s helmet, Gallen recalled his guided tour and remembered that the divers lock had lockers along one side and diving equipment hanging alongside. Shrugging out of the scuba rig, Gallen crept through the darkness using his hands, feeling over the dry suits and helmets and then running his hands along the smooth painted steel of the lockers. Opening the first, he felt heavy, padded coveralls on a coat hanger and pulled them out. There was a similar pair in the next locker; grabbing them, he headed back to Winter.
‘Shit, I’m sorry about that, boss,’ said Winter. He was shivering, and Gallen kneeled in front of him and got him out of the dry suit.