Free Gold Sharks by Albert Able

helium. Three minute dives only.” He stopped pacing. “Wait, perhaps a better idea would be to send Jake - he’s got the strongest stomach - and the other two Chinese divers; we’ll let them recover their own mate or what’s left of him.” He looked through the screen to the men busying themselves on deck. “It should teach them a lesson in following the rules!” He walked away shaking his head. “What a bloody waste,” he mumbled in despair.
    The three divers entered the cramped pressurised capsule, where normal atmospheric pressure would be maintained, and were lowered to the seabed.
    The divers would be able to leave the pressure vessel and, by breathing a sophisticated mixture of gases be able to spend just a few minutes at a time on the outside, without any risk. In this way the whole crew would be able to surface quickly and without decompression.
    The remote video camera scanned the murky water for the wellhead and the lost diver. Within seconds, the slimy metal side of the vast manifold came into view. They manoeuvred slowly along the metal wall; suddenly they came across a great army of crabs piled up in a pyramid. As the sphere got closer the crabs began waving their arms and claws in protest. The object of their attention suddenly became sickeningly clear. According to the survivors the diver had been tangled in some kind of obstruction. The lure of dead flesh had soon attracted hoards of predators to a welcome feast.
    The sharks had on this occasion paid little attention to the bait. It lacked the excitement of life’s final struggle and the absence of blood. The crabs, however, immediately sensed the potential banquet. It had been a struggle for them at first, trying to get to the body as it swayed gently from the safety line but, when the current changed, the body nudged into the buckled angle iron brackets, allowing them to quickly scramble aboard to gorge on their prize.
    In the circumstances, the divers chose not to exit the protection of their pressure sphere. Instead, using the robotic arm, they tapped the seething mass of shells, attempting to frighten them away. Some took the metallic hint but a significant majority chose to ignore the intrusion, probably believing it was a challenge for their lunch. Jake banged even harder, dislodging more of the prehistoric-looking carnivores. Eventually, he was able to grab the diver’s weight belt. He tugged on the arm and called to the winch man to raise them a metre. The crabs fell away in a tangled heap, revealing the air tanks, the weight belt and tattered remains of the neoprene suit. There were no hands nor head; all that remained of the body was inside the suit. To add to the macabre scene, the suit moved and bulged periodically as smaller crabs inside it continued unhindered to strip the remains of the skeleton.
    There was a tense silence in the confined sphere. The two Chinese divers looked away from the screen and covered their faces, forcing back the bile. The true horror of the pathetic remains seeped slowly into each of the observers’ minds. Even Jake, the toughest and most experienced of all of Big J’s divers, swallowed several times.
    â€œCome on then,” he growled eventually, “lets get the fuck out of here!”
    w
    The flight from Tokyo was only half full; the airlines of the world were still struggling to shake off the effects of the September eleventh terrorist attacks in New York.
    It was evening as Alex Scott checked into his hotel overlooking the teeming Hong Kong waterfront. As soon as he was in his room and using his new, all singing and dancing mobile telephone, he called the contact given to him by Tokyo Police Chief Haki.
    The phone bleeped. Almost immediately a voice answered in Chinese.
    â€œHello, Haki’s friend, I believe you’re expecting my call?” Alex responded.
    There was a slight pause. “Mr Scott?” another pause “Mr Alexander