Danielle has never used a welding torch before, and has only seen it done once before, long ago, in Oakland. Fortunately it isn't complicated. The torch is already connected to a propane tank. She slips the welding goggles on, squeezes the trigger, thumbs the ignition switch, and a long needle of white flame hisses from the torch's nozzle. A rubber band around the trigger ensures it will stay on as long as needed.

No one is waiting for them at the aft door. Not a surprise; the platform is awkwardly narrow. Probably there is someone on top of the ladder in case they try to escape that way. That won't be a problem. No one in their right minds will climb down that ladder, starting about thirty seconds from now. Danielle opens the door, pushes up the welding goggles, and looks out. The oil slick that surrounds the ship extends out for a good hundred feet in every direction, flat as a pancake; the ocean's swells travel only about five feet into its thickness before dissipating. The oil shimmers with fantastic, kaleidoscopic rainbow swirls, unexpectedly beautiful. She feels a faint twinge of guilt at having polluted the sea.

Behind her she hears Laurent's voice: "What in the name of God are you two doing?" She smiles. She has never heard him sound frightened before. She supposes that what she is about to do is crazy, but better that than let him win.

Danielle opens the door, checks the rubber band on the welding torch, lobs it underhand off the ship, and shuts the door immediately.

She expects a massive Hollywood explosion. Instead, through the door's porthole, she sees a mound of flame erupt and spread, until the flames have climbed high and far enough to swallow all her field of vision out to the horizon. It looks as if she has set the entire Pacific Ocean on fire.

"Sweet mother of God," someone says reverentially, in a South African accent.

Keiran enters the hallway. Like her, he wears canvas coveralls and gloves, rubber boots, and a welding mask. "I think you got their attention," he says quietly.

"Did you do it?"

"Yes. Ten thousand SOSes. Bit redundant if you ask me. They'll see this fire from orbit."

Behind them they here Laurent's voice say, sharply, "Immediate evacuation. Get to the chopper. Now."

The whole ship shudders violently, then, sending both Danielle and Keiran hard into the corridor wall, they barely get their hands up to slow the impact. The fire must have entered the still-half-full fuel tanks; in that enclosed space, the conflagration would have been much like an explosion. The ship rights itself – but not completely; it has developed a pronounced list.

"I think it's better we go sooner not later," Danielle says.

"Yeah."

They look at each other. Danielle reaches her gloved left hand out to Keiran's and squeezes it, tightly. Then she takes a deep breath, flings open the door, and steps out into what looks like the fires of Hell.

The actual flames from the burning oil don't quite reach the platform at the base of the ladder, but both the air and the metal – including platform and ladder – are already too hot to breathe, or touch barehanded. She scrambles up the ladder as fast as she can, trying to ignore the brown burn-scars appearing on her gloves, the agonizing protests of her broken finger, or the searing pain where her skin is exposed at wrists and neck. She wants to breathe starting halfway up, her upward exertion seems to have consumed all her oxygen in just a few seconds, but she holds her breath with desperate discipline. The air is both too hot to breathe and too thick with black, acrid smoke. The deafening sound of the flames, all around her, sounds like the roar of an enraged god. She throws herself over the edge, onto the aft deck, and into the door furthest to the right.

The interior air of the scuba room is cool and breathable. Keiran follows her in and she slams the door shut. It feels like closing a furnace. They peel off their coveralls and pull on wet suits. She has to help Keiran, who doesn't realize that the zipper goes on the back. He is no use at all assembling buoyancy vests, scuba tanks, and the 'octopus' breathing apparatus that connects them. She tries to work as fast as she can, but it isn't easy, working with a broken finger and hands shaking with adrenalin, on a ship prone to sudden lurching shifts. Outside, the flames have died down a little, but the ship is sinking closer to them. By now Laurent should be gone in the helicopter. They can't hear anything over the roar of the flames.

At least the scuba tanks are filled to 5000 psi, far more than she had hoped for; 3000 is more usual, these tanks must be specially made. Enough to stay underwater for more than two hours if they don't go too deep. She pulls on neoprene gloves, hood, and boots, and inserts the hem of the hood under her wet suit's neck. Keiran follows her example. He is trembling, and she realizes it is with fear. Danielle once spent a whole summer diving every day, but this is his first time.

"It'll be okay," she says. "You just have to trust me. There's no time for a lesson. Whatever happens, just stay limp and keep breathing. Don't ever hold your breath. If your ears start to hurt, pinch your nose and breathe through it, like you're on an airplane. Hold your mask and regulator on with your hand when you jump."

"Regulator?" he asks.

"The mouthpiece. The thing you breathe from. Once I put your fins on, if you see me start swimming, you kick too, but otherwise just go limp and do nothing, not even if you're sinking. You have to trust me completely. Understand?"

Keiran nods and forces a smile. Danielle makees herself smile back. She knows that understanding and following instructions are two very different things, especially when you've never before been exposed to the dizzying cold and weightlessness of an undersea environment. And she knows that the instructions she just gave Keiran could easily kill him.

They help each other put their weight belts and vests on. Danielle has to guess at the weight required for both of them. Too much will drown them, and too little will condemn them to involuntary cremation. Fortunately the margin of error is large.

The view through the door's porthole, which earlier was like a vision of hell, is now utterly black with smoke. She can feel the warmth of the floor through her neoprene boots. Metal is a near-perfect heat conductor, and the hull and all the floors and walls must be hot enough to blister exposed skin. The air will soon be too warm to breathe. They pull on masks, the last piece of gear.

"I always wanted to be an astronaut," Keiran says.

Danielle smiles grimly. In full wet suit, with a scuba tanks on his back, he does look straight out of 2001. "All right," she says. "We'll put the fins on underwater. I mean, I will. You won't do anything but breathe. And let go of the fins when I take them from you, and help kick when I start swimming."

She reaches for the flippers that will strap over their feet – and the interior door to the scuba room opens and Laurent walks in, followed by two khaki-clad guards, Vijay, and Sophia. Half of Laurent's left cheek is blistered by a puffy red burn, the others too are burned and singed, and Sophia leans heavily on one of the guards, coughing uncontrollably.

The two sides of the unexpected standoff goggle at one in mutual amazement for a moment. Then the ship makes another of its unexpected lurches. This one is a shipquake, it goes on for several seconds, knocking all of them onto hands and knees, and sending scuba gear tumbling around the room. A tank hits Danielle's shoulder, hard enough to bruise, and narrowly misses crushing her hand. She looks up. Laurent is on his feet, rushing across the room towards her. Without really thinking about it she grabs the tank that just struck her, aims its nozzle towards him, and twists its valve fully open.

Even with her ears shielded by neoprene the resulting scream almost deafens her. The air inside the tank is stored at 400 times sea-level air pressure, and is correspondingly eager to escape. The tank bucks in her hand, but she has a good grip on it, and holds it steady as a jet of air erupts from it like a firehose, knocking Laurent almost off his feet as the ship lurches again. He staggers away from her, somehow keeping his balance on the tilting floor, and backs out of the room. She hurls the tank towards the open doorway, and as it spins there like a top, still venting its earsplitting shriek, she grabs Keiran's arm. "We have to go!"

He nods.

"Hold this and don't let go!" She gives him another air tank. They may need it. Laurent is still here. The flames and superheated air must have been too much for the helicopter to take off. And Laurent may yet survive the sinking. She grabs a speargun from the wall rack, runs her arm through the rubber loops of four fins, puts her mouthpiece in, and opens the door.

The metal door handle is so hot that, even though she opens it as fast as possible, some of her neoprene glove melts. But at least the door hasn't welded shut. Danielle steps out into the black superheated fumes of burnt oil, breathing through her regulator, moving as fast as she can with a 40-pound scuba tank on her back and 20 more pounds in metal plates on her belt and in her pockets.

She can feel the exposed skin around her mask and mouthpiece start to blister, as if white-hot metal is being pressed to her face. She looks back once en route to the edge. Keiran is only a few feet behind her but she can barely see him in the dark clouds of smoke. At the edge of the boat she sees the fire still raging below her, as the smoke rises and allows more oxygen to reach the burning oil.

They are only ten feet above it now, the ship has sunk more than halfway into the ocean. Without hesitation, hesitation would be lethal, Danielle uses her momentum to step up onto the middle bar of the railing around the ship, using it as a ladder, and onto the top bar, and leaps out as far as she can into the immolating sea of flame. In mid-jump she presses her hand tightly against her mask and mouthpiece. Then she is falling, falling fast, and plunging through the burning oil slick and into the dark cold Pacific.