The Pure

didn’t hesitate for a moment. They spread out along the hull, each pair fitting a limpet-mine: two muffled clunks. Then they regrouped, mounted their wet sub once more, and set about making their escape. As they hummed through the water towards their rendezvous point, Adam was filled with a sense of jubilation. It had all been so easy, so straightforward. He breathed deeply, the sucking sound loud in his ears. Mission accomplished, he thought.
    The first sign of trouble was when the pitch of the wet sub’s engine dropped to a throaty groan, and it began to lose speed. Then it cut out altogether. Adam investigated: inexplicably the battery had failed. The sub would have to be abandoned. But it would take over an hour to swim out to the rendezvous point, and they had only thirty minutes of submergence time left. There was no way they could make it to safety before their oxygen ran out.
    They sent out a coded distress signal, tied the wet sub to a buoy – another team would retrieve it later – and swam at top speed away from the harbour. Their first priority was to get out of range of the Libyan grenades. The operation was collapsing around him, but Adam’s emotions were under control. His survival instinct had been activated and was being channelled in the most efficient direction. His heartbeat was slowing, not speeding up; his breathing was more regular, not erratic; his senses were heightened but had lost none of their accuracy. He was determined to survive, to win. This was what he had been trained for.
    And then the explosions started. Far away at first, they crept closer and closer, and the shock waves spread towards the frogmen, causing them to pitch and roll in the water. The Libyans had started bombing early. Then, suddenly, a grenade exploded nearby and Adam spun over and over, losing all sense of orientation, his regulator ripped from his mouth. Desperately he groped after it, blinded by the sediment that had been kicked up in great clouds around him. His mask was full of water; his eyes were stinging. The night vision, what had happened to the delicate night vision? Breathe out, he had to keep breathing out, or the pressure would destroy his lungs. He forced himself to be disciplined. Thirty seconds was all he had – thirty seconds between him and unconsciousness. He stopped flailing, lay still on his side, allowed himself to be buffeted by the ocean until it began to calm. Ten seconds. The regulator, he hoped, would soon be dangling below him so that he could retrieve it with a sweep of his arm. Unless it had been ripped clean off the tank. Don’t panic, he thought, keep calm. Panic would mean certain death. He waited, waited, breathing out, then arced his arm – and there was the regulator. He gathered it up, activated the ‘purge’ button to clean it, and pressed it into his mouth. The air was sweet. He couldn’t see a thing. He pulled his mask away from his face, blew into it through his nose, clearing it. The night vision flickered, then awoke. He looked around. Where was he? The explosions had stopped but the water was still cloudy. He waited for the sediment to settle, making his breaths as shallow as possible, knowing that his air was in limited supply. Eventually some shadowy silhouettes appeared through the watery gloom; his comrades. The relief was palpable. There was no time to waste. Together they swam out to sea.
    Their air ran out just as they were leaving the harbour, and they agreed – through sign language – to perform the ‘sunflower’ manoeuvre. At the press of a button their buoyancy control devices inflated and their wetsuits ballooned, providing buoyancy and thermal retention. They floated to the surface, removed their regulators, breathed deeply the cool night air. The SAAR could be anywhere by now; it was in stealth mode and they had missed the rendezvous. This was dangerous. They were visible above water, and could be spotted at any moment. But there was nothing for it. The most important thing was to keep as still as possible. They tied themselves to a length of rope and slept, changing lookouts every fifteen minutes, trying to conserve their energy for whatever lay ahead, hoping that they would be rescued before the limpet-mines went off and all hell, inevitably, broke loose.
    ‘It’s always like that on your first operation, my son. The first ones never go smoothly.’ Haim Feldman took a bottle from under his seat and twisted it open. ‘It’s when they go