J.F. Kirwan - 66 Metres - A chilling thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat!

At last she heard the fast wapa-wapa beat of the rotors, as the two-seater helicopter swooped along the Thames, well under civil radar because of its military cargo. She didn’t know much about the package – the Rose – something to do with nuclear subs, a way to break their communication codes. She didn’t need to know. This was her and Katya’s ticket to freedom. A job, nothing more. What she did understand, having overheard one of Janssen’s phone conversations, was that it was a huge deal. It would make Kadinsky a major player, move him up in the Russian Mafia world. She wasn’t sure that was such a good idea, but that would be his problem.

Big Ben did its chime thing leading up to the ten big gongs. She searched the sky, not for the helicopter, but for the drone Sammy was piloting. Grasshopper . State-of-the-art Chinese tech, able to hover perfectly still, as well as dart in fast, precise moves. She heard it before she saw it. It buzzed just above the small waves and hovered a few metres from her, its six propellers whirring like a chorus of dentist drills. It shot upwards out of sight. The helicopter’s rotors grew louder. In the distance she spotted its pulsing red beacon as it swerved past the London Eye.

Big Ben struck. She finned hard. It took three more strikes of the giant clock before she was out from under the bridge. The tide had begun running out, and she had to push against the current. She kept her fin strokes long and deep, working thighs not calves, and stared upwards. A few people on the bridge gazed outwards in her general direction. Breathing out, she arched her back and slipped beneath the surface.

The night sky rippled above her, serene. White, yellow and blue lines shimmered across the wavelets. Beautiful, almost hypnotic, and she suddenly recalled why she loved diving, how it rescued her from life’s viciousness. At moments like this she imagined she could stay underwater indefinitely. But she shook herself and finned harder. She needed to get at least fifty metres from the bridge. Sammy had buzzed her with the drone to check where she was under the arches, and would drop the helicopter as close as possible, but away from the bridge. She could then drift back to it with the outgoing tide.

Three more dulled strikes of the clock. The helicopter’s staccato pounding shook the water around her. Suddenly, a blur of lights, its white underside with the red beacon pulsing. It was directly above her, still high up. That wasn’t right.

Big Ben’s last strike gonged. She stopped finning. If the chopper fell now its blades would shred her. The current washed her back towards the bridge. Still it hovered. She surfaced, and stared upwards, no longer caring if she was spotted. It was a stand-off, the helicopter thirty metres up, the drone in its face, manoeuvring to stay directly in front as the helicopter pilot tried to go around it.

Why wasn’t the drone’s cyber-spike working? It should overload the helicopter software, shut down the engines. She resisted calling Sammy, he had his hands full. But the pilots would be calling this in, initially thinking it was a tourist’s drone, not an attack. Either way, police speedboats would be here pretty quick, with navy divers on board, just in case.

Something caught her eye. A large dark shape ploughing its way downriver, silent and sure, its white bow wave glimmering in the darkness. A massive, unstoppable barge. It shouldn’t be there. Janssen said he’d checked everything. She looked up at the helicopter, then to the oncoming barge. It would be close.

Bright flashes lit up the chopper’s cockpit, then it suddenly went dark, including the red beacon. The Grasshopper’s spike had fired, frying the chopper’s electronics. Shouts and gasps erupted above her on the bridge. People pointed, watching, clicking smartphone cameras. The helicopter tilted left, then right, then began spiralling downwards. Some people even laughed, thinking it was some kind of publicity stunt, as the helicopter alternately swayed and dropped.

Nadia stared hard at the barge, gauging its speed, and how long she had before it would run right over her head. A minute, give or take. Its wake would suck her along with it. She took a long breath and mentally flicked through the event chain: helicopter ditches; pilots evacuate; she retrieves the package; the barge misses the helicopter; she escapes before divers find her. One goal, four points of failure. And she’d forgotten one failure point, she was sure of it. Never mind. No time. She breathed out. Any sane person would abort. But Janssen would find her and kill her, and Katya would follow.

With one last look at the barge, she began a countdown, then submerged and finned harder than ever, the opposing current tugging at her mask. She needed to get below the draft of the barge and its propellers. A boom rang loud in her ears, as a pressure wave smacked the back of her head. The helicopter was in the water. She rotated onto her back. It was right above her. Sammy had told her the mechanics: it would flip upside down, the rotors still turning. He’d told her to wait ten seconds. She began counting then stopped. Dammit, she’d lost track of the barge.

Dumping air from her jacket, she sank while the white underside of the chopper rolled away from her as it capsized, red and blue lights flashing through the water as its remaining electronics popped and died. A chainsaw whine drilled into her ears as the blades macheted the river. A semi-circle of boiling water swept towards her. She kicked to get away, but the slowing rotors chased her, the blades visible as they took turns to scythe past her fins.

She thought she was out of harm’s reach, until a blade whacked into her right calf and dragged her along for a couple of metres before it slowed to a stop. She groaned, squeezed her eyes shut and almost bit off the rubber mouthpiece. She ran her hand along the length of her calf.

Not broken, so get on with it.

She grabbed the rotor, drifting downwards with it as the chopper sank. But another noise grabbed her attention. The chugging of the barge’s engine. Pulling herself along the blade towards the cockpit, she glanced up just as all lights above the surface blanked out, sealing her in darkness. The barge was right above her, though she and the helicopter were sinking. It had missed. But in about twenty seconds the barge’s prop would go over her head. Just after that, the wake would suck at her and the helicopter. She needed to get inside, grab the package, and get the hell out of there.

The pilots should have evacuated by now and be swimming towards shore. Pulling out a torch from her stab jacket, she lit up the inverted cockpit’s glass bubble. It was completely flooded. But one of the pilots was still there, crouching on the console, breathing from a small bail-out tank, clutching a bright orange box to his chest. He held a pistol in one hand, wrapped in a transparent plastic bag. Smart. Because of the bag she couldn’t tell what make it was, but it would be dry, and so would still fire underwater. He pinched his nose between finger and thumb to equalise pressure as the helicopter continued to sink, and stared towards her, blinking hard. The chomping of the barge’s propeller ramped up. Nadia had one advantage – she could see clearly because she had a mask. He would only see a blur. She switched off the torch, anchored arms and legs around the rotor, and waited.

She’d surfed once, a lifetime ago, and when the barge’s wake came, it was like a giant swell picking her up. An underwater wall of water seized the helicopter, and began rolling it. She held tight as she rose then plunged. It was a nightmarish fairground ride, water swirling around her, pulling at her mask and regulator. All the time she watched the pilot, hoping he’d bolt for the surface. He didn’t. He knew that divers would be coming to rescue him. And he was right; as the barge’s engine receded, a speedboat’s engine revved somewhere above them. She couldn’t wait any longer. She switched on the torch again, and pulled herself along the rotor as the helicopter continued to cartwheel in the black water. Then she remembered what she’d forgotten during her rapid risk assessment. The bridge, with its supporting arches. She glanced up, and had just enough time to fold her forearms in front of her face.