“That’s suicide!” Sebastian shouted over the noise of the compressor. “I’m sorry, but we aren’t equipped to support a dive that deep. You’d need safety divers, bailout bottles, and a bigger boat for all those cylinders!” He switched off the compressor and turned to face Tusker. “You’ve already put one diver in the chamber this week. More than that starts to look bad for business!”

Tusker stood with his hands in his pockets. He’d anticipated this reaction when he told Sebastian he wanted to dive the Vampire instead of the Taprobane. “Look, I appreciate your concern and the seriousness of doing a dive like this. I’ve done it before, in far more dangerous conditions.” Back in ’08, Tusker led an expedition to dive the wreck of the Carl D. Bradley, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of that freighter’s sinking. It had gone down in 330 feet of water in Lake Michigan, taking all but one of its 30 crew members with her. Not that it mattered. Sebastian didn’t ask.

Sebastian brushed past Tusker. “Well, you’re not going out on my boat and I’m not letting my daughter go with you.”

“OK, fine,” Tusker called back and followed Sebastian out of the workshop. “We’ll stick to the Taprobane. I assume Roland can take us again?”

Sebastian stared warily for a moment then nodded. “Yes. He’s already loading the boat. Samanthi will be here at 9:00.”

Tusker went back into the workshop and gathered up his dive gear, remembering to give his booties a good shake. He’d go down on the Vampire. After Sebastian left with the Russians in the morning, he’d load up the extra tanks. Roland surely wouldn’t care which wreck they dove. And Sam could be a safety diver. He wouldn’t expect her to take the same risk as him, but he could use her help during the long deco stops, ferrying extra bottles down to him.

Hanging next to his own kit was Ian’s, still damp from yesterday’s diving. Tusker thought of his friend, lying up in Trinco in the hyperbaric chamber.

Was he being reckless? Would it be smarter to go plead with the police or the navy to investigate? He could show them the ROV footage and tell them about the Taprobane.

No. That could take days, and imagine looking at the police captain’s face again; besides, the police and the navy had a turf war. The Vampire. He owed it to Upali, and now to Ian, to sort this out himself.

He heard the crunch of a vehicle on the gravel driveway behind the workshop. It was the old blue Land Rover. Sam stepped out. The driver’s door didn’t shut the first time and she gave it a hard slam.

“British engineering at its finest, eh?” Tusker laughed. Sam smiled back behind her aviators.