‘You guys take risks,’ Jack murmured. ‘So what is down there? Liquid, I mean.’
‘You want the full menu?’
‘A la carte,’ Jack said.
‘Well, it’s a mixture of runoff from the streets, the things that actually live down there, and leakage.’
‘Leakage,’ Costas muttered. ‘Great.’
‘Mud, diesel, urine. Rotting rat carcasses. And the stringy grey stuff, well, it shouldn’t be there, but the sewage outlets aren’t exactly all they’re piped up to be.’ Massimo gave them a slightly macabre grin, and coughed. ‘But it’s an old city. There’s always going to be a bit of give and take.’
‘Give and take?’ Costas said.
‘Well, one conduit provides clear, life-giving water, the other takes away putrid effluent. Or, to put it another way, the sewage pipes give to the drains, the drains take it away, the river flows to the sea. Here, it’s the natural order of things.’
‘Sheer poetry,’ Costas muttered. ‘No wonder the river Tiber looks green. It’s how I’m beginning to feel.’
‘We’ll be fine in the IMU e-suits.’ Jack said. ‘Completely sealed in, no skin exposed. Tried and tested in all the most extreme conditions, right, Costas? If this goes well, Massimo, we’ll donate you all of our equipment.’
‘That would be excellent, Jack. Perfetto.’ He swayed, and looked as if he were about to throw up. ‘You’d better get going. They’re forecasting heavy rain this afternoon, and the Cloaca can become a torrent. You don’t want to get flushed out into the river.’
‘I don’t like that word, flush,’ Costas muttered.
‘The good news is, once you turn the corner from the main drain into the Velabrum, the water becomes clear,’ Massimo said. ‘Under the Palatine it comes from natural springs, and because nobody lives there any more there’s hardly any pollution. Right under the hill it should be crystal clear.’
Jack took off his old khaki bag, and slung it over Massimo’s head. ‘Guard this bag with your life, Massimo, and I’ll see that our board of directors award Costas a special secondment here as your technical adviser.’
‘What?’ Costas looked aghast.
‘Another honorary tunnel rat.’ Massimo gave Costas a feverish grin, and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘It’s a deal. And now it’s my turn to donate some equipment.’ He went back into the chamber inside the stone pier and came out with two compact climbers’ harnesses, with metal carabiners, a hammer and pitons and a coil of rope. ‘It’s not exactly what you’d imagine needing under Rome, but trust me, this can be a lifesaver.’
Jack nodded. ‘Much appreciated.’ He laid the harness down beside the rest of his kit, and waved appreciatively to the two IMU technicians who had gone back to wait by the van. He looked back at the cover over the hole into the Cloaca Maxima, the place where they would soon be going, and took a few deep breaths. Their banter had kept his anxieties at bay, but now he had to face it: this dive was going to force him to confront his worst fear, the one thing that could truly unsettle him. Costas knew it too, and Jack sensed that he was being watched very closely. He pulled the e-suit towards him, and squatted down to take off his boots. He would remain focused. An extraordinary prize could await them. And underwater tunnels always had exits.
Costas peered at him. ‘Good to go?’
‘Good to go.’
12
T he manhole cover above Jack slid into place with a resounding clang, sealing him and Costas off from the rumble of traffic through Rome outside. They had given their final okay signal to Massimo and the two IMU crewmen moments before, and Jack felt reassured that the others would be above the manhole for the duration, awaiting their return. But now that they were entombed in the Cloaca Maxima he found himself weighing up the odds once more. There was no safety backup, no diver poised ready to assist in a rescue. It was another calculated risk, like their dive on St Paul’s shipwreck. But Jack knew from hard experience that safety backup was often more psychological than practical, that problems were most often solved on the spot or not at all, that his ability to pull off a dangerous dive often depended on himself and his buddy alone. And any more equipment and personnel would make their operation more visible, and take precious time they could ill afford. He peered at Costas squatting beside him, then angled his headlamp down the spiral staircase into the darkness. This was it. They were on their own again.
‘I’ll go first,’ Costas said over the intercom, peering at Jack through his helmet visor.
‘I thought this wasn’t exactly your cup of tea.’
‘Decision made. Always ready to try a new brew. You okay?’
‘Lead on.’
Costas heaved himself up and clunked down the stairs in front of Jack, the halogen beam from his headlamp wavering along the ancient masonry walls. They were wearing the same IMU e-suits they had used on the wreck, all-environment Kevlar-reinforced drysuits that had served them well from the Arctic to the Black Sea, with integrated buoyancy and air-conditioning systems. The yellow helmets with full face masks contained a call-up digital display showing life-support data, including the computerized gas mix fed from the compact closed-circuit rebreathers on their backs. Their only concession to the unusual circumstances were the climbers’ harnesses that Massimo had insisted they take along, fitted and tested before they had donned their rebreathers a few minutes before.
‘This reminds me of going into that sunken submarine in the Black Sea, hunting for Atlantis,’ Costas said as he stomped around the stairs. ‘I feel as if I could cut the air with a knife here too.’
Jack swallowed hard. Just before sealing his helmet he had caught a waft of fetid air from below, and he still had the cloying taste in his mouth. The last thing he needed now was to throw up inside his helmet. That was one human reality the IMU engineers had failed to consider. He swallowed again. ‘You know, you might want to get the design guys to fit these with a sick bag.’
‘I was just thinking the same thing.’
After about thirty steps, the spiral staircase ended at a small platform in front of an arched door, blackened and dripping with slime. Jack came up behind Costas and they both aimed their headlamps through. ‘There it is,’ Jack said, trying to sound cheery. ‘The Great Drain.’ Ahead of them a straight flight of steps led down into a wide tunnel, at least eight metres across and five metres high, built of stone and brick dripping with algae. Half filling the tunnel was a surging mass of dark liquid, rushing towards them from the darkness ahead and disappearing out of sight below. Jack turned up his external audio sensor, and his head was filled with the sound of the torrent, almost deafening. He turned it down again and pointed to the fluorescent orange line that began ahead of them where the stairs disappeared underwater. ‘That must be Massimo’s line,’ he said. ‘It’s pitoned in, and we can haul ourselves along it. There’s a ledge about a metre and a half below it that’s usually above water, but it looks as if we’ll be wading. The entrance to the Velabrum is only about twenty metres ahead of us.’
‘That’d be a hell of a waterpark ride if we fell in.’
‘It disgorges into the Tiber, but Massimo says there’s a big metal grid in the way. Might not be a happy ending.’
Costas walked gingerly on to the first step in the tunnel. Something large and dark scurried off at enormous speed along a narrow ridge in front of him. ‘Looks like Massimo left one of his friends down here,’ Costas said distastefully.
‘At least we shouldn’t be seeing any of those where we’re going,’ Jack said from behind. ‘According to Massimo, the conduit leading under the Palatine is pure, doesn’t have enough in it to sustain many higher life forms.’
‘That’s reassuring,’ Costas said. They carried on slowly down until they reached the fluorescent line. Costas played his headlamp over the rushing torrent just below them. ‘It looks like espresso,’ he murmured. ‘That foam on top.’