‘I thought two people couldn’t occupy the same . . . same something?’

‘That was a movie.’

‘So . . . okay . . .’ Ben nods, looks ahead, then looks back at Malcolm. ‘And that’s a bad thing?’

‘Two of the same person?’ Malcolm asks, staring flat at Ben.

‘Oh, oh yeah, of course, totally a bad thing,’ Ben says quickly. ‘So let them get the doctor through then get them . . . right?’ Ben says.

‘Right,’ Malcolm says with an expression that doesn’t convey the same level of confidence.

‘Got it.’ Ben sticks his head back through and stares round at the nightmare view for any sign of them. ‘What’s the distance from this window to the other one?’ he asks, pulling back into the room.

‘The first window should be two hundred metres in front of you,’ Malcolm says.

Ben leans through and stares with the rain pelting his face and the wind whipping the tears from his eyes. The sky strobes with bolts of lightning and thunder rolls heavy and deep. Motion everywhere. A seething mass of mountains rolling with deep valleys and sky-high tops. There. There it is. A square of blue light two hundred metres ahead, which doesn’t sound far but in this mess it looks miles.

His heart slams into overdrive at the sight of the RIB powering up the wall of a wave ahead of the first portal and the second he sees it so the noise of the engine reaches his ears. Harry and Safa are alive in that boat and just the sight of them sends a thrill through his body. The crazy bastards attempting something as dangerous as this with just two of them. Jesus, that’s bravery right there. Proper heroes doing proper heroic acts.

‘Got it . . . I can see them,’ Ben says into the howling wind, then realises and ducks back into the room. ‘I can see them,’ he tells the others. ‘They’re in the boat going up a wave.’

‘They haven’t got me yet,’ Doctor Watson shouts from the corridor. ‘You have to wait for them to get me through the other window . . .’

‘Yep.’ Ben paces back from the light and gets ready to run.

‘How long do you want?’ Konrad asks, standing ready at the big reel of rope.

‘What for?’ Ben asks.

‘Before we pull you back?’

‘Fuck knows.’ Ben shrugs. ‘How long did they have?’

‘Five minutes,’ he says.

‘Right, so they’ve had maybe one minute of that . . . and you’re pulling them back when they’ve got the doc . . . so, fucking hell, I don’t know!’

‘Ten minutes?’ Malcolm asks.

‘How long does the air in these bottles last?’

‘I don’t know,’ Konrad says.

‘Fuck me, this is a shower of shit. Fine, right, give me ten minutes then.’

‘Ten minutes is a long time out there,’ the doctor says.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake . . . right . . . eight minutes then,’ Ben says to Konrad. ‘Eight minutes, then get pulling.’

‘Got it.’