66 Metres

by J. F. Kirwan

  Bjorn shot down in front of him, finning hard. In Jake’s headlight Bjorn looked like a fireball. Clearly he wanted to be first. Jake had told him not to do this, warned him that it rammed nitrogen into the brain and could trigger narcosis, the drunkenness that sometimes occurred below thirty metres when diving on air, and was far more likely at their target of fifty. He turned to Jan Erik to stop him from following suit, shaking a flat hand horizontally. Jan Erik rolled his eyes inside his mask.

  Jake looked down again but could only see the glow of his light below in a stream of rising bubbles growing larger as they ascended. Bjorn had disappeared. Dammit! Fatality scenarios swirled into his mind. Blocking them off, he followed the stream of Bjorn’s bubbles, and checked his computer. He dolphin-kicked once to arrive faster, but not so fast as to unleash nitrogen narcosis on himself. Out of the grey the cliff-face appeared again, a seventy degree slope, and there was Bjorn, propped on it with his fins. Jake sighed through his mouthpiece, and relaxed.

  Jake realised he hadn’t been breathing much, and took three slow breaths. As he neared Bjorn he checked his own air gauge: two hundred bar. Plenty. He and Jan Erik touched the silt with their fins, a couple of metres from Bjorn. Jake checked both his computers. Fifty metres. Exactly. This was a bounce dive. Touch fifty, then ascend to decompress, to let the nitrogen flush back out of their bloodstreams, at nine metres, then six metres. He took a few more measured breaths. He didn’t bother to look around – mainly silt anyway – his job now was to get them back up to safer depth. He signalled to Jan Erik ‘OK’, then ‘Up’. Jan Erik pretended to wipe a tear from his mask with a gloved finger – he wanted to stay longer. Jake shook his head, and Jan Erik nodded, returning the ‘Up’ signal. Jake turned to Bjorn, who was still balanced on the tail edge of his fins, staring down into the abyss. Jake gave him the ‘OK’ signal, then Jan Erik’s torchlight lit up Bjorn’s eyes. They were bloodshot, glazed, half-closed, as if he was drunk. Narcosis. Shit. At the same time that Jake reached out for him, Bjorn gave the ‘Down’ signal, and did a pretty good impression of Jake’s reverse pirouette. He dove deeper into the fjord.

  Jake’s fingers just missed Bjorn’s trailing fin and he watched, unbelieving, as Bjorn spirited downwards. In the two seconds that followed, he calculated the odds of catching Bjorn before they went too deep, and whether he should focus on stopping a single fatality turning into a three-diver fatality, then traded that risk against trying to explain to Bjorn’s sister Vibeke and the authorities how he’d stood by and done nothing while watching Bjorn plunge to his death. He flicked his wrist to Jan Erik, gave the ‘Down’ signal and dolphin-kicked hard after Bjorn.

  Jake finned fast down the escarpment, exhaling steadily. Depth and time were the dual enemies. The faster he caught Bjorn, the better. One of his computers, the Aladin, beeped an alarm. Sixty metres. The rising partial pressure of oxygen would begin killing them soon. Breathing hard, with Jan Erik close behind, Jake raced for Bjorn’s red fins. The second computer, the Suunto, beeped. At last he grabbed one fin and then a leg, and yanked Bjorn around to face him. Both he and Bjorn were still sinking. They bumped into the sludge-covered escarpment like two drunken men falling down a hill in slow motion. Jake had to let go of his torch. It spun around wildly, strobing like a disco light as he gripped Bjorn’s harness with one hand and inflated his stab jacket full of air with the other. Bjorn’s eyes were nearly closed. Nitrogen narcosis had taken him elsewhere. Jake checked his second computer, the Suunto – the Aladin had stopped working – sixty-eight metres. His fins found purchase on the slope. He flexed his knees and with both hands shoved Bjorn’s body upwards.

  Jan Erik arrived.

  Jake could hear his own heart pounding. But there was another, stranger, pulsing white noise, growing louder. The beginnings of oxygen poisoning. He pointed to his inflate button, and he and Jan Erik both pumped air into their jackets. Jake had just given the ‘Up’ signal when Jan Erik’s eyes went wide, seeing something behind Jake. Jake turned just in time to see a snowstorm of descending silt they must have kicked up whilst chasing Bjorn. In the next second it enveloped them like thick soup. He couldn’t see his outstretched hand. He reached for Jan Erik but he was already gone, hopefully upwards. The white noise was now a din in Jake’s head. He knew what it meant. He was going to black out. Then he would sink. And then it would all be over.

  He finned hard, worked his thighs almost into cramp. He had to get up above fifty. Once he was moving upwards, the air in his jacket would carry on expanding and propel him to the surface. If he blacked out and didn’t wake up till he reached the surface, it would be a nasty decompression incident, but that was preferable to the alternative. It grew more difficult to concentrate. The porridge-like silt meant he could barely read the Suunto, even when he held it right in front of his mask.

  He suddenly didn’t know which way was up, or where his torch was. All around him a sea of clay and bubbling blackness. White noise roared in his ears like a jet engine. Then he remembered – follow the bubbles. Watching their direction in front of his face, he righted himself, and kicked hard. Jake felt himself lifting. He dared to hope, and read the Suunto, counting down the metres. Fifty-nine, fifty-eight… He was going to make it. His eyes watered inside his mask. The crushing noise pressed inside his skull. Concentrate! Fifty-three … fifty-two … fifty-one … fifty-two … fifty-three… No! That wasn’t possible! How the hell could he be going down? There were no currents in the fjord. Numbness crept over him. Unable to fin any more. His legs not responding. Fuck. Not like this! Seconds, seconds… Then he remembered. He reached down to his right side and cracked open his emergency cylinder. It blasted air into his jacket, squeezed it tight around his chest and shoulders like an airbag. The white noise wailed like a hurricane in his head.

  He blacked out.

  It was like tuning-in on an old style wireless, trying to find a station in a forest of static. Mexican deep divers called it the wah-wah. The sound your brain makes when it has too much oxygen under pressure. But if you rise, the partial pressure of oxygen drops. The wah-wah goes away, and in theory you wake up. That’s what Jake was thinking when he came to.

  He was peaceful. Then he recalled where he was. Still ascending. He dumped air out of his jacket fast, and checked his computers again. The Aladin said ‘Err’. The Suunto was flashing, but at least gave depth. Twenty-nine metres. Twisting around, he found the other two with him. They were conscious, hanging there in mid-water. Bjorn looked confused. Jan Erik’s grin was gone, but he did that Norwegian wink with both eyes blinking instead of just one. Jake swam up to each of them and read their air gauges, checked his compass, then led them towards the cliff. They trawled the edge one way then the other till they saw the green strobe under the boat. Jake checked his watch. Twenty minutes. They shone their lights under the boat so Andreas would know they were there.

  They hung around for a further twenty minutes at nine metres, Jake checking their air every now and again. Occasionally one of the others would try an ‘Up’ signal. Jake shook his head each time. They ascended to five metres and waited. Andreas gunned the engine once or twice. Jake knew he was worried. They were late, but at least Andreas could see them beneath the boat. But they were way off the decompression tables, so Jake kept them there, five metres under the boat, until their air supply was down to twenty bar. At last he gave the ‘Up’ signal.

  As Jake clambered last into the boat, Andreas was fussing. ‘Where the hell have you been for the past hour? I was having kittens!’

  Bjorn’s eyebrows were knitted together, a deep frown puckering his face. Jan Erik’s grin resurfaced as he showed Andreas his depth gauge. Andreas laughed. ‘Sure. You moved the needle with your dive knife.’ The ensuing silence caused him to check Bjorn’s depth gauge, then Jake’s expression. ‘Holy mother of God! You’re all crazy. You should be dead!’

  After that, nobody said much.

  As the boat sputtered its way home, Jake inevitably found himself thinking abou
t Sean, lost to the depths three years ago.

  Almost joined you.

  The boat neared the jetty, a single streetlight casting harsh light over them. Jake never imagined he’d be pleased to smell Sarpsborg’s soap factory.

  As they unloaded the boat, Bjorn spoke, latching onto Jake’s eyes. ‘You saved my life down there, didn’t you?’

  Jake matched his gaze, but said nothing. In his mind he’d almost killed them all. He’d taken them on this dive, breaking the rules of their club where the maximum depth limit was thirty-five metres, because Bjorn, Jan Erik and Andreas were heading to Lanzarote next week, and would go down to fifty. He’d wanted to prepare them. Now he felt like tossing his instructor card into the fjord.

  Near midnight, the four of them sat at the bar in one of Halden’s few pubs, Siste Reis – ‘Last Stop’ – next to the train station, which was in fact the last stop on the line from Oslo. Bjorn looked sullen. Jan Erik was getting plastered, especially as Andreas was buying, and couldn’t stop talking. Jake didn’t really hear any of it, except when Andreas mentioned that Jan Erik had found out earlier that day he was going to be a father. At that point Jake switched from beer to Talisker whiskey. Then he remembered something. He waited till Andreas went to get the next round. ‘Hey, when I was coming up, at one point I couldn’t fin any more, and started sinking. But it doesn’t make any sense, I was positively buoyant by then, I should have kept ascending.’

  Jan Erik cleared his throat, morphed it into a generous burp. ‘Ah, that was me.’

  Jake stared at him.

  ‘You see, I didn’t know which way was up, and I saw these blue fins – yours – so I grabbed them and held on tight.’

  Jake shook his head, and raised his glass. ‘Nice one.’

  Jan Erik grinned again, beer froth decorating his upper lip. ‘If it’s a boy, I’ll name him Jake, poor sod.’ Then he fell about laughing. It was infectious, and Jake finally joined in.

  He didn’t remember how he got home.

  The next evening, Bjorn rang Jake’s doorbell.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You leave tomorrow, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  Jake paused. He wasn’t sure it was a good idea.

  ‘My sis Vibeke is with me.’

  That was below the belt. Literally. Since arriving in provincial Halden six months earlier, he’d been mesmerised by Vibeke, but nothing had ever happened, too many local Vikings pursuing her. Bjorn had said she was interested, just choosing her time. Jake assumed Bjorn was winding him up.

  He buzzed them in.

  In fact there were a dozen people, mainly from the dive club. They had a short forspill, a light early-evening drinking session. The word translated uncomfortably as ‘foreplay’ in Norwegian, meaning the warm-up to more serious partying later. It was a nice gesture, but Jake and the other three looked like thieves trying to pretend they hadn’t just robbed a bank. Except Jan Erik; nothing fazed the guy. Jake envied him.

  About eleven, they started leaving, Bjorn’s sister Vibeke had already disappeared. Bjorn was last to leave. He shook Jake’s hand and held it firm.

  Jake smiled. ‘Dive safe in the Canaries. Look after the other two.’

  Bjorn’s face lifted, a broad smile breaking across it. ‘Enjoy yourself.’ He winked, turned and left.

  Jake was staring at the closed door, trying to work out the non-sequitur, when he heard soft footsteps behind him. He turned around, and his breath deserted him.

  Vibeke.

  As Jake stashed the last box from his rented flat into the Range Rover, he took a long look across the car park to the edge of the local fjord. A familiar orange Volvo estate crossed his gaze. It turned and parked right next to him, skidding to a halt. Fastasson. Jake took a deep breath.

  Fastasson, head of the Halden dive club, short and stocky with strands of lank black hair trying to disguise a rampant bald patch, shot out of his car.

  ‘God Morgen,’ Jake said, in his best Norwegian accent.

  ‘Don’t fuck with me, Jake, I know all about your little night dive.’

  Jake bowed his head. ‘Oh.’

  Fastasson jabbed a finger. ‘Big fucking “Oh”. You should be ashamed of yourself.’

  ‘I –’

  ‘You don’t speak!’ Fastasson paced up and down a couple of times, then jabbed his finger again. ‘You broke the club rules, and you broke my trust.’ His voice quavered. ‘You leave now, and you never come back, understood?’

  Jake spread his hands. ‘Mr Fastasson, look, I –’

  Fastasson shouted. ‘Is that understood?’

  Jake let his hands drop to his sides. ‘Yes.’

  Fastasson turned his back on Jake. ‘Go back to England.’ He waved a hand in the air. ‘I could write to BSAC, get your licence revoked, you know that, don’t you?’

  Jake nodded. ‘You could. Just… go easy on Bjorn and Jan Erik.’

  Fastasson whirled around. ‘They’re suspended for three months.’ His voice quietened down. ‘I can’t stop them going deep in the Canaries, of course.’

  Jake stood there, unsure what more to say.

  Fastasson broke the uneasy silence. ‘Bjorn – he went too fast again?’

  Jake nodded. He could have been angry with Bjorn, but it had been his decision to take him down when clearly – with hindsight – Bjorn hadn’t been ready.

  ‘Needs more training. Jan Erik was good, though.’

  Fastasson nodded. ‘I’ll try to talk some sense into both of them.’ He walked over to the edge of the fjord, then turned back.

  ‘Do you remember the lecture you gave us on dangerous diving?’

  Jake nodded.

  ‘You said there were three categories: adventurous diving, dangerous diving, and reckless diving. You said it was important to know the difference.’

  Jake stared at him.

  Fastasson walked right up to Jake. His voice was milder, but earnest. It cut deeper. ‘How many rescues have you done in the past year?’

  Jake didn’t need to count. ‘Five.’

  ‘Rather a lot, don’t you think?’

  Jake said nothing.

  Fastasson laid a heavy hand on Jake’s shoulder. ‘There’s something broken inside you. Go home. Fix it. Before something tragic happens.’

  Fastasson got back in his car, glanced one final time at Jake, then drove off.

  Jake stood there for a long time, leaning his back against the Range Rover. Then he opened the trunk and fished around inside a holdall. He found his instructor’s licence card in its grey wallet, and stared at it. He’d been so proud gaining it. Sean would have been proud too.

  Sean. There was the problem. The tragedy had already happened. And Jake was to blame.

  He strode across the car park and hopped onto the jetty, and squatted down by the water. He gazed into the water, then let the card slip from his fingers, and watched it sink until he couldn’t see it any more.

  Someone approached. High heels on the boardwalk. He recognised the gait – sure and confident, yet with a spring in her step. He resisted looking up. The sun was on his face, and then he was in shadow.

  ‘Lorne,’ he said. ‘Long time.’ And then, ‘How are you?’ Because she hated that question, and he no longer cared about the answer.

  ‘Hello Jake. Took a while to track you down.’

  A lie. As usual coming from her. MI6 kept track of former employees, as any intelligence agency must. He glanced upwards, did a quick scan. White leather shoes, tan tights, short, form-hugging cream dress, and long, straight, sand-coloured hair coming halfway down her back. The morning sun was behind her, so he couldn’t see her face clearly. Better that way. He knew it well enough. Attractive, but something hard just underneath. Driven. Knew what she wanted, always got it in the end. Burned people up and moved on.

  ‘The Rose has been stolen,’ she said.

  Not good. But the mere mentioning of it made everything flood back to him. How great
it had been at the start, good for ten years, and then so bad at the end. He stared at the loose pebbles on the dusty concrete leading up to the sun-bleached oak planks where she stood.

  ‘I’m not coming back, Lorne.’

  ‘You can use my first name, you know.’

  Sara. ‘Find someone else.’

  She walked a few steps in front of him. ‘I need all my assets in place. This is too big. You of all people –’

  He stood up, taller than her. The thought of shoving her into the fjord flashed through his mind. But despite everything, the chemistry was still there. He was glad of Vibeke last night.

  ‘I’m not coming back, Lorne. Tell them I’m damaged goods, no use any more.’

  She stared at him, then turned to the fjord, and spoke on the breeze, so that he had to focus to catch her words. ‘You were the best, Jake. You see patterns in the data.’ She laughed. ‘You remember Loki? How you found him?’

  Of course he remembered. That particular coup had gotten her a promotion inside MI6. That night he’d seduced her in her office. Who was he kidding? Other way round. She always knew what she wanted. But it had set him on the path to his personal Armageddon. Sean’s demise. It was why he’d quit MI6. She knew it. So why had she just played that particular card? Losing her touch? He didn’t know, didn’t care. He turned to leave. She had no hold over him any more. Others could – would – find the Rose. He walked away.