CARPENRAY SCUBA DIVE CENTRE
Nassir al-Masri had been a trained diver from a very young age, and so diving in the River Mersey would not be a problem for a diver of his experience. He had to swim across the Mersey underwater, which meant that he would need a dry suit to combat the cold conditions, and he would need propulsion. He could not swim the required distance underwater with only one aqua-lung. Yasser was aware that the security services would be tracking every equipment sale that was made country wide because Yasmine had been killed retrieving the bugged wetsuit, and so they needed to acquire the equipment some other way.
Nassir worked for many years in the Egyptian holiday resort of Sharm el Sheik as a diving instructor. He loved his job at first but as political and religious tensions grew in the region so did Nassir`s resentment. The predominantly European tourists that he dived with paid more for a forty-minute dive than he earned in a month, and he relied on the generosity of his allocated group of divers to increase his wages by paying him a tip. Unfortunately, Nassir was not very good at disguising his true feelings toward his customers and he rarely got tipped at all.
On one particular day he had to instruct an English diver who was taking an advanced diving qualification. The course involved diving down to the legal recreational limit, which is forty meters deep. Nassir hadn’t taken the proper time to ensure that diver`s equipment fitted properly. He hadn’t completed a safety check dive with the Englishman either, which would have highlighted any potential problems. As they descended deeper, the Englishman`s ill fitting suit began to tighten as the water pressure increased, and the deeper they dived the worse the restricting effect became. Eventually starved of oxygen the diver had panicked at around ninety feet below the surface, and dumped his weight belt and headed for the surface like a rocket. By the time he broke the surface the expanding oxygen and nitrogen that was trapped in his blood stream had burst his lungs like an over inflated balloon. Nassir was arrested and charged with the equivalent of manslaughter and was thrown into an Egyptian jail in Cairo. Luckily, for him the prison guards were corrupt and he managed to escape in exchange for his life savings. With his occupation taken away from him, he became all the more resentful toward the West, and it wasn’t long after that he joined a group of Egyptian extremists whose goal was to cripple the government by driving tourists away in fear.
Nassir had driven sixty miles north from Liverpool on the M6 Motorway to the Lake District of Cumbria, and he arrived at the Carpenray dive-site just after 6am that morning. The former quarry was a popular destination for divers from all over the British Isles. Nassir had dived here often, trying to build his resistance to the cold water temperatures that he would have to encounter in Britain`s coastal waters. When Nassir had dived at home in Egypt, the waters of the Red Sea rarely dropped below twenty four degrees. The River Mersey was rarely above twelve degrees and the quarry was even colder still.
Nasser parked the car that belonged to Yasser`s dead landlord in the gravel car park which serviced the dive site. He exited the vehicle and walked up a steep slope that led to the reception area. He showed his diving credentials to the attendant and then paid the young girl for the hire of a dry suit and gear. Dry scuba suits are completely sealed from the surrounding water by a series of wide rubber cuffs that prevent the liquid from entering the sleeves, legs or neck. The mask and tank apparatus are generic to other types of scuba diving. The dry suit would extend his time under water dramatically without him suffering from aqua-hypothermia. Nasser walked further up the slope to the equipment shed where he handed the equipment steward his ticket.
The steward sized Nassir up correctly and dispensed him all the equipment that he required to complete three, forty five minute dives in the ice-cold waters of the murky quarry. The equipment shed was a redundant articulated lorry container that had been converted into the dive site equipment storage facility. Nassir collected his equipment and then noticed some unusual machines stored to one side of the container. Nasser recognised them immediately as DPV`s. He had only seen prototypes at home in Egypt, but he recognised them anyway. The Diver Propulsion Vehicle consisted of a battery-powered electric motor fitted into a circular plastic body that was fitted with two handles. The battery powered a propeller, which pulled a diver along underwater greatly increasing the distance that he could cover with the limited air supply that he had. Nasser paid the extra twenty pounds to hire the DPV for the day.
Once issued with all your equipment it is traditional to change into your scuba gear next to your motor vehicle in the car park, so that you can leave your belongings safely. The freezing Cumbrian wind almost made the icy waters of the quarry seem attractive as the divers kitted up and headed for the water. The car park started to empty of people as divers waddled to the quarry and non-participants headed for the warmth of the cafe inside the main building. No one noticed Nassir al-Masri loading his newly acquired scuba gear and DPV into the trunk of his car. No one would notice until the next day when all the hire equipment had been dried out and inventoried, that Nassir had stolen everything that he needed to cross the River Mersey underwater.