“Are you ready, Kahf?” Kurt said, looking over his shoulder.

The Egyptian already was pulling his SCUBA rig out of the racks. A former dive instructor at the resort in Sharm Al Sheik on the tip of the Sinai peninsula, he was experienced in both conventional and “technical” diving. The rig he was using for this was a simple SCUBA apparatus, one steel 80-cubic-foot tank, two-stage SCUBAPRO regulator, the only difference from beginner-quality equipment being that it was a NITROX setup, which used extra oxygen in the mix to extend down time.

Kahf just held up a thumb and forefinger in an “Okay” signal and kept getting it on. In a few seconds he was ready to dive.

He tucked his regulator in his mouth and slid over the side into the warm waters, grabbing a rope on his way. Using the rope, he trailed behind the boat, searching the waters and occasionally using his body to plane downwards. After a moment he surfaced again and held up another “Okay” signal, then let go.

“He’s spotted it,” Kurt said. “Hold this position.”

Kurt was surprised to see that he could pick up the diver on the sonar. The sonar system tagged him as a fish, admittedly, but he could still follow his progress on the three-D imager as the “fish” made his way down to the container.

The “fish” hovered around the container for a moment, then came back up.

“It’s all good,” Kahf said, pulling himself out of the water onto the dive platform at the rear of the boat. “I got the doors open. That was harder than we expected but they’re open.”

“Right,” Kurt said, waving at another boat and making motions for them to dive.

This time the diver was carrying more gear. Double air tanks, a third dangling in front of him, and float bags were the big part of it. As Sayid pulled away, the second boat came over the container and as soon as it was there the pre-rigged diver hit the water. It was a bit of a wait but Kurt was patient. After a moment, though, two lift bags popped to the surface. Kurt watched as the boat came alongside the bags and the driver and a third man pulled a blue barrel over the side, carefully. The barrel was rolled out of sight just as another bobbed to the surface.