Thunderbolt by Wilbur Smith (reading strategies book .txt) 📕

bit. A newlywed’s finger is no exception. If you’ve not worn a ring before, and many people – particularly men – haven’t before they get married, you’re likely to think one that fits correctly is too tight, so you buy one that’s a bit loose.

Flap about in the cool sea and your brand-new, highly valuable wedding ring is liable to slip off and sink into the sand, lost forever. Unless you look for it with the right kit. Xander had heard of an American guy who found a bunch of wedding rings just off Waikiki beach in Hawaii. That’s also a popular honeymoon spot.

The prospect of spending a fortnight lying by the pool, trying not to think about what Dad had done to Mum and me in the DRC, wasn’t that tempting. I’d have gone diving anyway to escape my thoughts. Why not give Xander’s hare-brained suggestion a shot while I was at it?

If it worked and I turned up something valuable, I could give the proceeds to Mum. Post-Dad, I knew she needed money more than she was letting on. Conservation is expensive work. Perhaps I could actually help out?

Amelia had jumped at the idea. Knowing how much she likes swimming, and guilty at having dragged her through the Congo disaster, Mum invited her on this trip too.

I was fine with that. She’s my oldest friend: we’ve known each other since our mothers gave birth to us, fourteen years ago now, in the same maternity ward. The bond between us had grown stronger since our time in the Congo, when Dad turned out to be a fraudulent crook and took off. She’s never had a relationship with her own father, and I could feel her sympathy for my loss. I was also fine with my newer friend Xander inviting himself along. Some people you just click with instantly, and he and I had seen eye to eye since the day we met at boarding school a year or so ago. He’d bought his own ticket, plus some ultra-high-end detecting kit. So far the only treasure we’d found – the ring-pull, the zipper, the green coin and something that looked like a bit of boat – was worthless – but, pre-shark, I was still feeling hopeful.

Now, with the shark circling me, I’d settle for getting out of the sea alive.

2.

The shark was big. Even accounting for the magnifying effect of my mask, I reckoned it had to be a good three metres long. It swam around me lazily, its mouth hanging open just enough to show off a fearsome set of tapered teeth. Its back was a dirty brown colour with rust-coloured spots along its flanks and its underbelly was a pale grey. The bulk of the thing! I fought to steady myself. I was already pretty low on air, and I knew that panic-breathing would burn through what was left in my tank in no time.

All animals are good at picking up on panic. Sharks, I imagine, are better at it than most. The last thing I wanted to do was broadcast the total helplessness I felt. So I simply floated there in front of the horrible predator, doing my best to return its blank stare.

As I was mounting this impressive defence strategy, I registered a movement out of the corner of my eye. Something orange was approaching. Amelia wears an orange wetsuit. I knew the thing was her, but the thought didn’t make sense. Or rather the only way I could make it make sense was to conclude that she hadn’t seen the shark circling me. Xander, searching the seabed nearby, clearly hadn’t. But the thing was directly in Amelia’s line of sight. Why was she swimming straight towards it?

I broke from my staring competition with the shark, a warning yell rising. The human voice-box is way less effective underwater. My shouting sounded pretty pathetic and didn’t halt Amelia’s progress. In desperation I waved my hands about – I was still holding the metal-detecting wand, it turned out – but although this at least prompted her to look my way, when we locked eyes – mine wide, hers smiling – she swam straight past me, cutting across to head the shark off.

I couldn’t believe it. My heart was a fist in my throat. She didn’t flail or swipe at the shark as she approached, just swam cleanly in front of the monstrous fish as if she had right of way. The shark veered towards Xander to avoid her. He cottoned on and jerked upright, his panic apparent through his mask. For a desperate moment I thought the shark would turn and attack. But with another tail-flick it was suddenly thirty, fifty, a hundred metres away, a grey speck swallowed up by the endless blue.

Amelia is a county swimmer. Despite the scuba gear and metal detector, she did a sort of underwater flip and was immediately heading back our way with long slow fin-strokes. I wanted to shout at her. Why on earth had she taken such a risk? But I’d already demonstrated the pointlessness of yelling underwater, so I gave the signal to surface instead.

Since we weren’t that deep and hadn’t been down much more than twenty minutes we didn’t have to pause long on the way up in order to head off the bends. Even so, the delay cooled my temper. She’d taken a chance – an absurd gamble, in fact, swimming straight at it like that – but I couldn’t deny she’d done it to help me.

As soon as we were all safely bobbing on the surface, however, she laughed and said, ‘Your faces!’ and the anger boiled up within me again.

To buy time, I whistled at Pete in the dive boat. It was anchored in the near distance. We’d drifted along the shore and weren’t due up for another few minutes. Attentive as ever, he heard me, pinpointed us and returned my wave.

‘My face?’ I said. ‘You’re lucky you’ve still got one!’

‘The