“Scholz, make sure we have a couple of Zodiacs around the perimeter of the ship keeping an eye out for fishermen,” he said to the angular man with the shaved head and mustache. Scholz nodded and also left the pilothouse, this time through the rear door to the ship’s interior, leaving only the captain, a bearded, portly man with a bad complexion, and Rausing.

“The scope shows no other boats in the vicinity, and the fishing fleet won’t be back this way until dawn,” the captain said with the heavy tongue of an Eastern European accent. He stepped forward towards the ship’s controls before catching Rausing’s piercing eyes and stopping short. Rausing smiled and patted Captain Balázs Kovács on the shoulder like a principal reassuring a wary schoolboy.

“I’ll leave you to it then, Captain,” Rausing said. “This is your ship.” Kovács knew better. He may have been responsible for driving the ship and overseeing the crew’s daily duties, but Rausing was really in control. The Depth Charge was his boat, part of the Rausing Oceanic fleet, acquired five years earlier and retrofitted to be a dive support vessel, with a hoist, pressure chamber, hyperbaric lifeboat, and moon pool. Rausing had even changed the ship’s name, ordering the paint spelling out Baltic Star scrubbed from its hull, in defiance of superstition. In a matter of only a few months, all remnants of its former life as a gritty North Sea salvage boat were gone, replaced by the starched uniforms and gilt logo china plates of the DSV Depth Charge. Captain Kovács didn’t complain. Life was better than ever, with a fat salary, a sparkling refurbished ship, and the tropical climate of his new temporary home, Sri Lanka.

“I’ll be in my quarters until dive time. Fetch me if anything changes out there,” Rausing said, gesturing towards the black sea outside, though the windows only reflected their own green lit faces. He strode to the door and was gone. Kovács exhaled, then stepped out of the port-side door onto the stairs for a cigarette. Rausing disapproved of smoking but hadn’t forbidden it other than among the team of divers, but Kovács still felt sneaky every time he lit up.

On the dive deck two levels below and aft of the pilothouse, two clean-shaven, fit-looking men were contorting into heavy dive suits made of black crushed neoprene. Few words were exchanged between them and a third man, Murray, the bell man, besides affirmatives after each zipper was snugged. The divers, Rory Aitkens and Gus McElroy—both Scots—sat side by side on a bench, sweating profusely in the tropical night air. Under their neoprene they wore woolen union suits to ward off a hypothermic chill at the sea bottom.