Ark Angel

over his chest, his hands clasping opposite arms. This was how he always dived. It helped retain body warmth and stopped him being tempted to touch anything. They rose up over the bridge and followed a ladder—each rung encrusted with new life—back to the upper deck. Kolo pointed at an opening beside one of the freight cars Alex had noticed. A hatchway, with a ladder leading down. It was the entrance to the second hold.
    It seemed that Kolo wanted him to go in ahead of him. Alex took out his torch, then kicked down and cautiously swam through the opening, head and shoulders first. Wreck diving is entirely safe provided you know what you’re doing, and Alex knew that the only real danger was getting his air pipes caught or slashing them on a sharp edge. The solution was to do everything very slowly, checking for any obstructions. But the hatch was easily wide enough for him. He followed the ladder down, turned on the torch and looked around him.
    He was in a large, cavernous space which ran the full width of the ship and about twenty-five metres of its length. A ghostly green light streamed in through a series of small portholes and Alex flicked off the torch, realizing he wouldn’t need it. The light illuminated an array of objects instantly recognizable even after sixty years beneath the sea. There was a Jeep, parked against a wall, a stockpile of Winchester rifles, a row of boots, a pair of motorcycles. It occurred to Alex that if he had come upon these on land, they would have been rusting and ugly, nothing more than junk. But their long stay underwater had given them a strange beauty. It was as if nature was trying to claim them and magically transform them into something they had never been.
    Sound is also different underwater.
    Alex heard the clang of metal hitting metal but for a moment he was unsure where it had come from, or indeed what it was. He glanced left and right but nothing was moving. Then he looked back the way he’d come. There was no sign of Kolo. Why hadn’t the other man swum into the hold? Then Alex realized. The hatch that he had come through had been closed. It had swung shut—that was the sound he had heard.
    He twisted round and swam back up the ladder. He wasn’t wearing gloves and he was afraid of cutting himself, but when he reached the hatch he put his hand against it and pushed. It didn’t budge.
    It was so securely fastened it could have been cemented into place.
    What the hell was going on? Alex felt the first stirrings of unease which could all too easily become panic.
    But he knew the most important rule of scuba-diving was to remain calm, and he forced himself to breathe slowly, to take everything one step at a time. The support holding back the hatch must have broken. But it didn’t matter. Kolo knew he was here. There was a dive ship directly overhead. He’d just have to find another way out.

    Alex backed away from the hatch and swam the length of the hold. He came to a steel wall on the other side of the truck, and although it was pitted with holes, some big enough to get an arm through, there was no way the rest of his body would be able to follow. But there was a door—and it was ajar. Once it would have allowed the crew access from one hold to another. Now it was the exit that Alex needed. He swam over to it and pushed. The door opened about five centimetres but no more. It had been chained shut on the other side. Alex saw something glint. The chain was brand new. That was when he really began to worry.
    A new chain on an old door. It could only be there for one reason. Somehow Drevin had found out who he was. Alex had thought he was so clever, eavesdropping with his iPod and snooping round the island. But he had let them put him on a boat and take him out to sea. He had done exactly what they wanted, swimming down into this death trap. And now they had locked the door. They were going to leave him here to drown.
    Fury, black and irresistible, surged through him. His heart was thundering; he couldn’t breathe. For a brief moment he was tempted to take the regulator out of his mouth and scream. He was helpless. At the mercy of a single pipe and a diminishing supply of air.
    The next ninety seconds were possibly the most difficult of Alex’s life. He had to fight for control, twenty-two metres below sea level, aware that he was quite probably in his tomb. Somehow he had to channel his anger away from himself, back towards Drevin, who had dealt with him as