“I need to tell you something,” Tusker said as he pulled away from Sam. “It’s important.” She searched his face. Just then, a familiar voice interrupted. Rausing. He was at the chamber hatch, his face filling the window. His large pale eyes bored into Tusker.

“Mr. Tusk,” he said, ignoring Sam. Speaking through an intercom made his voice sound even more disembodied. “You’ve done me a great service, retrieving my cargo and disposing of my overpriced hired help. Thank you.” A thin smile.

“You should know that the Sri Lankan Navy is on its way out here right now,” Tusker bluffed. “If you drop the bomb back in the sea and no harm comes to us, no one needs to know any of this happened.” He was trying to seem reasonable but also firm.

Rausing looked down and chuckled. “Mr, Tusk, do you honestly think I could have gotten this far without thinking of every contingency? The navy, the police, they won’t cause any problems for me. Your friend, Mr. Karuna, and his friends were but a mere inconvenience. Just as you have been.”

Tusker stepped close to the thick glass and gritted his teeth. “You son of a bitch,” he said, spitting the words out at Rausing.

Rausing ignored him. “We’ve not had a single accident onboard the Depth Charge,” he continued, then twitched his head, recalling McElroy’s misfortune. He cleared his throat. “So I’ve never been able to satisfy my curiosity about the effects of rapid decompression.”

Here we go, thought Tusker. He reached over and gripped Sam’s hand and stepped back into the chamber a few paces. “If you are going to kill us, get it over with, you sick bastard.” Sam inhaled sharply and gripped Tusker’s hand tightly.

Rausing smiled. “You seem worried, Mr. Tusk, but I thought we’d experiment with someone a little more… expendable, as a test, just to make sure we do it right.” He nodded to someone down the corridor, out of sight of Tusker.

With that, there was a hiss from the adjoining chamber, one that would normally be used to insert new divers or medical staff in case treatment was needed. This chamber was separated from the main one, where Tusker and Sam were, by a thick pressure hatch. Through a porthole, Tusker saw a familiar face. Roland. He had a bandage over one eye and looked rough. He had been pushed in against his will by a muscular man with a shaved head and mustache.

“As you might guess, my little project here in Sri Lanka is like the chamber you find yourselves in. Even a tiny leak would be disastrous to it.” He nodded in the direction of Roland in the adjoining chamber. “I’ve decided Mr. Van der Schyff may one day be a leak.”