Ark Angel

ruthlessly as anyone else who had ever crossed his path.
    Another sound. An engine overhead. Alex felt a flicker of hope but quickly clamped down on it. It wasn’t the sound of someone coming to rescue him. Kolo had returned to the surface. He had done his job and now he was leaving.
    Sure enough, the noise faded and died away.

    Alex was alone.
    There was one thing he had to know, although he dreaded looking. He reached down for his instrument console. How much air had he used? The needle told him the worst. He had 1,750 psi left. At 500 psi, the gauge turned red. At that point, a spring-operated shut-off valve inside the tank’s J-valve would close. He would have a few minutes left. And then he would die.
    When he was sure he was back in control, he swam forward again. Alex knew that at this depth, he would soon get through what air he had left. But moving too fast, using too much energy, would only quicken the process. How long did he have? Fifteen minutes at most. Already he knew that his situation was hopeless, and he forced himself to ignore the dark whispers in his mind. Nobody knew he was here. There was no way out. But he still had to try. Better people than Drevin had tried to kill him and failed. He was going to find a way out.
    The hatch was sealed shut. The windows were too small. The floor, the ceiling and the walls were solid.
    There was just the single door that might lead him to safety, and that was chained. Alex looked around, then picked up one of the Winchesters. There was no chance it would fire after all these years underwater, but it might still do. Carrying the old rifle, he swam over to the door and, holding onto the stock, slid the barrel through. He would use it as a crowbar. Maybe he could prise the door open; the chain was new but it was attached to a handle that was old and might be rotten. Using all his strength, Alex pulled. Briefly he thought he could feel the metal giving. He pulled harder and jerked back as something snapped. The rifle.
    He had broken the barrel in half.
    He swam over to the pile and picked up another. He could feel his gauges dragging behind him, but he didn’t look at them again. He was too afraid of what he would see. He could hear his every breath; it echoed in his ears. And every time he opened his mouth he could see his precious-air supply disappearing in a cloud of bubbles. He was hearing and seeing his own death. It was being carefully measured out all around him.
    The second rifle broke just as the first had done. For a moment, Alex went mad. He grasped the door with his hands and wrenched at it as if he could tear it off its hinges. Bubbles exploded around his head.
    Blackness swirled around his eyes. When he calmed down, little had changed. His fingers were white, and he had cut the palm of one hand.
    And his air supply had dropped to 900 psi. Only minutes left.
    He had to move fast. No, moving fast would only bring the end closer. But there had to be another way out. He examined the windows again. The largest of them was irregular in shape—some of the metal had worn away. Alex could just about fit his head and half his shoulder through the gap. But that was it. Even if he took off his tank, his waist and hips would never make it through. He jerked back, fearful that he was going to get stuck and cut through his own air pipe. He hadn’t achieved anything.
    And his supply was now down to 650 psi. The needle was only a millimetre above the red.
    Alex was cold. He had never been so cold in his life. The wetsuit should have been trapping some warmth for him but his hands and arms were turning blue. There was no sunlight in the hold. He was at the bottom of the sea. But it was more than that. Alex knew he was going to die. He would be found floating in this hellish place, surrounded by rusting machinery and memories of a war long over. This time there was no way out.
    500 psi.
    How had that happened? Had he somehow missed the last two minutes—two precious minutes when he had so few left? Alex forced himself to think. Was there anything else in the hold that he could use? Maybe the ship had been carrying artillery shells. He had seen an anti-aircraft gun on the deck. Could he perhaps blow his way out of here?
    He began to search desperately for ammunition. As he did so he felt something in his throat and knew that it was becoming more difficult to breathe. His air supply was finally running out. He wondered if he would faint before he drowned. It seemed