Undersea Prison by Duncan Falconer

Stratton.
    ‘This is John Stratton,’ Sumners said.
    ‘How are you?’ Jervis asked dryly.
    ‘Fine, thanks,’ Stratton replied, wondering where he had seen the man before - his face was familiar. The two younger men were strangers to him. Both nodded a greeting that oozed deference. Stratton immediately labelled them as technicians of some sort. They did not look at all like operators. Apart from being young they both had a neophyte discomfort about them, as if they were overawed by the company and where they were.
    ‘Paul and Todd,’ Jervis said. ‘Has Sumners told you anything about the job yet?’
    ‘I just got here,’ Stratton replied. Jervis’s London accent reminded him where he’d seen the man before. Jervis had headed up a major Scandinavian operation against Russian mini-submarines years before when Stratton had been purely SBS. It had led to the shutting down of a serious hole in Europe’s back-door defences through which the Russians had been ferrying spies, Spetsnaz special-forces infiltrators and information. Jervis looked pretty much the same as he had then - a little older, perhaps. It was his foxlike features that made him so memorable, plus his brilliance. He’d been one step ahead of the Russkis all the way.
    ‘They’ll be working the early set-up phases with you,’ Jervis said.
    Stratton’s hope that he would eventually be working alone grew.
    ‘I ’ope a year on your backside hasn’t made you soft.’
    Stratton’s only reply was to stare at Jervis.
    ‘You see that, lads?’ Jervis said, a hint of a smile in his eyes. ‘That’s arrogance. I like a bit of that in my boys. Don’t you, Sumners?’ he added, well aware that it would wind him up no end.
    Sumners forced a smile of his own that quickly crumbled and fell apart.
    ‘This is an unusual operation,’ Jervis went on. ‘Complex and with little time to put it together. It’s an operator-driven task. Tell them what that means, Stratton.’
    ‘I’ll be figuring it out as I go along.’
    ‘Unfortunately that means the more important parts,’ Jervis said, his cheery tone gone. ‘That’s why you’re back, Stratton. They’d thrown your card out of the company Rolodex. I’m the only one who voted for you on this. Just so happens my vote counts more than anyone else’s. Don’t let me down . . .You can go ahead,’ Jervis said to Sumners as he handed him the file. ‘Come with me,’ he said to the other two men as he walked away.
    Stratton was a little overwhelmed by the compliment. Over the past year his confidence in himself had slipped, along with his hope of being selected for an op again. It was a much-needed slap on the back and greatly appreciated. ‘He’s the ops director now, is he?’ Stratton asked.
    ‘Yes,’ Sumners said, miffed that his earlier dressing-down of Stratton had been entirely neutralised. He pushed a button on the side of the glass-covered table, illuminating several flat-screen monitors beneath the glass. The two men’s faces reflected the various colours shining up at them. Each screen displayed a different image of the undersea prison. ‘You heard of Styx?’
    Stratton had heard the name but he couldn’t place it. ‘No.’
    ‘They probably didn’t do Greek mythology in that South London state school you went to,’ Sumners said.
    It was the clue Stratton needed. ‘A river?’ he asked, unperturbed by Sumners’s dig at his education.
    ‘So you do read,’ Sumners said. ‘Yes - a mythological river in Hades, between earth and the underworld. Dead souls were ferried across it. Well, it’s no longer mythology. Today’s Styx is the most secure prison on the planet.’
    ‘Gulf of Mexico?’ Stratton said, remembering reading something about it.
    ‘It’s the focus of this operation,’ Sumners said, touching the screens to change the schematics. ‘You’ll have to study every detail of the place.’ Sumners pushed the file over to Stratton. ‘There’s a list of data files. Read