‘Yes – yes sir – yes,’ came back the replies.
‘Good.’ Andy knew that they would be nervous. Standing in front of him were eighteen graduates and professors from the World Archaeological Council. Half were from an assortment of Chinese states, but there were also a few other nationalities. They wanted to explore London’s Underground, abandoned and submerged since the city was destroyed nearly four centuries previously.
‘So we all know the drill – right.’ He looked squarely at them. It wasn’t a question, but a statement. They nodded. ‘Good.’ He smiled to give them heart. ‘We’re finally going to do what you’ve all come here to do. You’re at last going to swim into the tunnels and passageways where millions of people once travelled during the Golden Age.’ He used the term historians liked to describe the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries, when the world enjoyed its pinnacle of civilisation and progress.
‘We’re going to try and break into a train, which we believe has remained intact all this time. Any questions?’ None came back. Andy exuded toughness; thirty-eight years old, he had served seven years as a mercenary and was now a part-time captain in the London Border Guards. He had interviewed each diver and checked out every log book. For the past two days he had gone
over the preparations, the plans, the precautions; each dive’s objectives, the hazards, the maps, the safety areas – the whole damn lot!
‘The most important thing is what?’
‘Keep to the orange tape,’ returned the reply, like a congregation to a priest.
‘Good.’ He felt like adding, if you lose the tape, we’re as likely to find your body in Oxford Circus or Covent Garden, but thought the better of it. ‘We stay with the orange tape until we get to the Bakerloo Line East platform. There it ends. There I will attach more tape.’ He held up a roll. ‘And then we’ll go into the tunnel – okay.’ The tape was studded with an arrow every five metres so that divers could feel which direction was out, should their flashlights ever fail them.
After kissing a small silver cross which hung about his neck and tucking it inside his suit, Andy pulled his hood on, making sure that none of his sandy coloured hair showed. The last thing he wanted was freezing water to seep in, numbing his brain. Then hoisting his tank onto his shoulders, jogging it so that it felt comfortable, he clipped the straps, picked up his mask, flashlight, fins, looked up at the others and said, ‘Let’s go.’
