Free The Last Gospel by David Gibbins

helmet and communication headset. He had been listening to Costas giving instructions to the departing divers, a complex checklist that seemed to run through the entire IMU equipment store.
    ‘Okay, Jack,’ Costas said. ‘Andy says we’re good to go. I just wanted to get the logistics people moving on Seaquest II in case it’s showtime.’
    His voice sounded oddly metallic through the intercom, a result of the modulator designed to counter the effects on the voice of helium in the gas mix. Jack tilted upright and finned back towards the shotline. The twin corrugated hoses of his regulator made him feel like a diver of Cousteau’s day, but the similarity ended there. As he approached Costas he cast a critical eye over the yellow console on his friend’s back, its contoured shell containing the closed-circuit rebreather with the cylinders of oxygen and trimix they needed for the dive. The corrugated hoses led to a helmet and full-face mask, allowing them to breathe and talk without the encumbrance of a mouthpiece.
    ‘Remember my briefing,’ Costas said. ‘Lights off, unless we find something.’
    Jack nodded. With their eyes accustomed to the gloom, he knew they would have a greater range of vision for spotting a wreck mound than with the limited cone of light from a headlamp. ‘Dive profile?’ he asked.
    ‘Maximum depth eighty metres, maximum bottom time twenty-five minutes. We can go deeper, but I don’t want to risk it until Seaquest II ’s on station and the recompression chamber’s fired up. And remember your bailout.’ He pointed to the octopus regulator that could be fed into the helmet if the rebreather malfunctioned, bypassing the counterlung and tapping gas directly from the manifold on the cylinders.
    ‘Roger that. You’re the divemaster.’
    ‘I wish you’d remember that the next time you see treasure glinting at the bottom of the abyss. Or inside an iceberg.’ Costas pressed a control on his dive computer and then peered at Jack through his visor. ‘Just one thing before we go.’
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘You said anything that touches on the life of Jesus is like gold dust. People must have been searching for the shipwreck of St Paul since diving began, even before Cousteau. It’s one of the biggest prizes in archaeology. Why us?’
    ‘That’s what you said about Atlantis. A few lucky breaks and a little lateral thinking. That’s all I’ve ever needed.’
    ‘And a little help from your friends.’
    ‘And a little help from my friends.’ Jack grasped the dump valve on his buoyancy jacket. ‘Good to go?’
    ‘Good to go.’
     
    Seconds later, Costas was hurtling down into the depths, approaching the dive in his customary way as if he were going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Jack followed more gracefully, his arms and legs outstretched like a skydiver, exhilarated by the weightlessness and the panorama that was opening out below them, listening to the sound of his own breathing. It was exactly as he remembered it, every gully and ridge of the cliff base etched on his mind from twenty years before, from hours spent measuring and recording, poring over the wreck plan and working out where to excavate next. Costas was right about the technology. Underwater archaeology had advanced leaps and bounds in the past two decades, as if physics had progressed from Marie Curie to particle accelerators in a mere generation. Back then, measurements had been taken painstakingly by hand; now it was laser rangefinders and digital photogrammetry, using remote-operated vehicles rather than divers. What had taken months could now be achieved in a matter of days. Even the discomforts of diving were greatly reduced, the E-suits insulating them from the temperature drop at the thermocline. Yet with new diving technology greater depths beckoned, depths that brought new boundaries, new thresholds of danger. The cost was still there, the risks even greater. Jack was drawn on, always pushing the limits of