Samnang had dropped a small anchor. The boat bobbed about in the clear water as Maier wrestled into his BCD, pulled his fins over his feet, donned his mask, checked the regulator and dropped backwards into the Gulf of Thailand.
The sea floor loomed barely ten metres below them. The water was warm and crystal clear. Maier could see about twenty metres. The water crackled in his ears as he descended and equalised. The dolphins had disappeared. Rolf hovered below Maier and waved to him to follow.
Maier had learned to dive in Cuba in the Eighties with a bunch of crazy KGB guys and after his last big case in Thailand he’d travelled on a liveaboard to the Burma Banks to dive with hammerhead sharks. But he’d never been on duty, on the job, so to speak, underwater.
Dark rocky pinnacles rose lik
