Mark of the Devil (31 page)

“Why in heaven’s name, man? Why?” the captain probed. “You’ve got the gold. So far as the documents are concerned, you couldn’t find them.”

“But there’s nothing to say
he
can’t,” Bruder argued grudgingly. “Starla thinks he can, given the opportunity, and that’s what we’ve given him. The only question is when and how he’ll try.”

“How does he know the papers even exist?”

“He knows. Of that we’re sure. As for getting to the sub, Berkeley’s former Navy Special Warfare. He’ll know other ways besides swimming a half mile. Other ways he could…”

Bruder spun on his heel and rushed to the closed-circuit television monitors, their screens empty, reflecting only the pale green of the radarscope. “The remotely operated submersible, Captain. Lower the submersible.”

“What the hell for, Bruder? It’s almost midnight, and most of the crew’s asleep.”

“I don’t give a damn about the crew,” Bruder shouted, the veins standing out on the sides of his throat. “Lower the goddamn submersible and turn on these goddamn monitors.”

“You know damn well, Bruder, the stationary lights and cameras—they’re not down there. After the gold came up, we brought all the equipment back aboard and stowed it away.”

Bruder slammed his fists down against the heavy Plexiglass top of the plotting table positioned in the middle of the compartment. “The submersible’s got a spotlight and a camera on it, damn it! Put it in the water. Do I have to call Starla or Mr. Shoemaker? Berkeley’s down there. I feel it in my gut.”

“All right,” the captain said. His hands, palms forward, pushed the air in front of him as though trying to distance himself from Bruder’s anger. “Thomas, get the deck officer and have him lower the submersible, immediately.”

“And divers,” Bruder cut in. “I want four divers, armed and standing by.”

The hatch to the torpedo-loading area was as Matt and Park had left it. He could tell, however, that the salt water and its corrosive properties were beginning to take their toll. Increased effort was required to turn the wheel from the closed position. With Davis helping, the wheel finally responded, breaking the seal beneath. As before, Matt pulled back and up on the hand wheel until the hatch was halfway open, the hinges grinding against a rapid buildup of rust and sea growth. After a final push and help from Davis, the hatch gradually moved into its fully open position, offering more than sufficient room for entry with the twin air tanks weighing on their backs.

Taking a small xenon halogen lamp from a pocket in his BC, Matt wound its Velcro strap around his head. With the light mounted just above the window of his facemask, providing hands-free operation and always pointing in the direction he was looking, he angled his way down through the hatch.

Torpedoes, the six resting in the two top tiers of racks, were already losing their gray metallic color, taking on the soft orange of sea algae, but the piles of splintered wood lying on the floor of the compartment remained unchanged. Looking up, Matt saw Davis hovering next to the torpedoes, the man’s headlamp and handheld light playing the length of the cylindrical objects.

“Familiar?” Matt asked.

“For long operations, carried twenty-three of these beauties. Six bow tubes, no stern. Could fire the first salvo in five to six minutes. With its electrically powered trolleys and rails, the second salvo in twenty minutes. Absolutely amazing for that era.”

“I’m impressed,” Matt said without enthusiasm, “but torpedoes aren’t what we’re here for.” Matt pointed his light toward an open, normally watertight door leading aft. “You’re the one who knows the way. You first.”

Keeping at least 6 feet of distance between Davis’s fins and his own facemask, Matt finned his way through the opening until, suddenly, he heard a quick intake of breath and Davis erupt with “Oh, shit!” Matt maneuvered himself up and over Davis to a horizontal position just below the overhead. At the same time, he swung his own pistol grip light around the compartment. “The crew,” he said very softly, almost a whisper.

Still wearing uniforms, the skeletal remains of men lay in bunks, others stretched out along the deck where they had taken their last breath. Many still held picture frames to their chests as though whispering a last good-bye to loved ones.

“Keep moving, Roland,” Matt ordered.

“Sorry,” Davis said, his light sweeping the compartments. “Not something you see every day.”

“I know, but we’ve only got so much time and so much air. Let’s go. If the documents are here, they’re more than likely in a safe. CO’s quarters, radio room, wherever.”

Their movement carried them through and past more compartments, more remains. Davis volunteered, “Officer quarters. Junior officers. No safes here.”

Finning their way through the narrow passageway, their lights darting to and fro, Davis announced,
“Horchraum.
Hydrophone room. One safe.”

Matt quickly pushed his way through a set of double swinging doors and entered the compartment, asking, “Where?”

Davis, at his side, pointed to a bulkhead-mounted safe. Its door was open, hanging by a single hinge. Matt swam closer, his headlamp illuminating the safe’s interior. “Empty.” Waterlogged books and papers lay scattered on the desk below the safe. Fingering the material, he said, “From what I can tell, technical manuals. Where’s the next safe?”

“Funkraum.
Radio room. Across the passageway.”

Not waiting for Davis, Matt pushed back through the double doors, across the passageway, and through another set of narrow double doors. Again, a safe was mounted on the bulkhead just above a Morse key position and a machine that looked much like a typewriter with a set of attached rotors. “I’ll be damned!”

“Be damned, what?” Davis asked, easing into the space.

“If that contraption’s what I think it is, it’s the Enigma, the German encryption machine. A little like something we used back in the fifties and sixties.” Dismissing the machine with a swat of his hand, Matt moved closer to the safe, his headlamp revealing the safe’s emptiness. “Busted open like the other one. Where next?”

“Only two more that I’m aware of. CO’s quarters and Chief Engineer’s. They’re the only ones with separate quarters from the rest of the crew.”

“Then it’s time you meet the commanding officer.” Matt led the way out of the radio room, aft along the passageway, and to the right for less than 6 feet before pointing to the SS officer’s remains still lying against the base of a desk, the back of his skull blown away. “Meet SS-Colonel Jürgen Krueger, or I’m pretty sure that was his name. If so, formerly of the Auschwitz Birkenau labor and extermination camps, emphasis on extermination.”

“Jesus!”

“Not quite. And to my right,
Korvettenkapitän
Helmut Strobel, commanding officer of the U-Twenty-five thirty-seven. Of that I’m fairly certain.” Matt surveyed the cramped compartment. “Where’s the safe?”

Davis moved to the small desk. “Here, but it’s hidden.” Above the desk’s surface were several narrow shelves, their contents obviously scattered about the compartment.

“Apparently somebody had already been looking before I was here the first time,” Matt said. “Papers and logs scattered around, but it didn’t dawn on me. More concerned with the two skeletons.”

To one side of the shelves were three relatively wide yet shallow drawers, pulled open and empty, but still in their slots. Davis yanked each of the drawers from the desk, letting them fall to the deck, the beam of his headlamp focused on the remaining vacancy. “There, and it hasn’t been opened like the others.”

“My turn,” Matt said, peering inside the opening at the tumbler on the safe’s door. Automatically, he pulled the 12-inch crowbar from the sheath on his thigh and edged himself into position, bracing against the bulkhead for support. With just enough room to spare, he jammed the curved, double-pronged end of the crowbar between the door and side of the safe and jerked backwards. Again, counting each jerk of the crowbar in his head….
5, 6, goddamn it, 7…
With a metallic popping sound, the safe door sprang open, the momentum of the effort sending Matt through the water and into the opposite bulkhead. The clanging sound of his air tanks hitting the bulkhead rang in his ears.

“You did it,” Davis yelped, but his enthusiasm dimmed as he pulled folders and papers from the opening, most already ruined from water that had seeped into the safe. “Mush, that’s all they are. Mush. If it was as important as you think, they’d be in something waterproof.”

“Agreed.” Matt exhaled his frustration in a long swoosh of air, sending bubbles streaming from the exhaust port on the right side of his mask. “Okay, one to go. With a high-ranking SS officer on board, maybe he kicked the chief engineer out of his quarters.” Matt looked at his watch. “And time’s a’tickin’. Let’s move.”

Following Davis, Matt worked his way out into the passageway, taking a hard right into what would have been the chief engineer’s quarters, separated from the passageway by a heavy curtain. “The desk,” Davis said, pointing to the same type of shelf and drawer arrangement as in the CO’s quarters. Again, papers littered the top of the desk and on the deck, the drawers pulled open and empty. And again, Davis jerked each of the drawers from their slots and shone his light into the darkness. “It’s here, and still secure.”

Matt quickly moved into position with the crowbar and tugged at the safe door. This one was harder, requiring twice the exertion of the first until Matt realized he was sucking air like there was no tomorrow—and he desperately wanted a tomorrow. “Here.” He handed the crowbar to Davis. “You try.”

Three heavy tugs with the crowbar and the safe door popped open, Davis falling backwards onto the empty bunk.

Matt quickly moved forward and thrust his hand into the safe. “Whatta you know? Got something besides mush!” He pulled, but his hand slipped off. “Slippery little bastard!” Digging his fingernails into the leathery material, he pulled again. “There you are, but what the hell are you?”

Matt played the light from his headlamp on the object, turning it over and over in his hands. A brown leather pouch, rectangular, maybe four-by-nine inches, yet its thickness indicated an outer flap had been tightly wrapped around and folded over many times to keep out moisture. The slickness he felt was due to a coating of some kind of waxy substance. A further effort to waterproof the material, he decided.

Davis angled in closer and took the pouch. He turned it over several times before saying, “There. You can barely make it out. Something printed in German.” He held the pouch close to Matt’s facemask.

Matt took the pouch and studied the words.
“‘Grösstgeheim. Auf
uh…
Verordnung Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer-SS.’”

“What’s it mean?”

“Most Secret. By order of Field Marshal of the SS, Heinrich Himmler. Heavy stuff, man!”

“Looks like more writing on the other side,” Davis said. “Hard to tell with that waxy stuff or whatever it is all over it. What do you think?”

Matt turned the pouch over, his eyes straining to read the print.
“‘Zweite Con…Concordat zwischen de uh…der Heiligen See und…und das Deutsches Reich, Zweiundzwanzigsten Mai Neunzehnhundertz weiundvierzig.
’ Aw, man! This has gotta be it.”

“What’s it say?”

“Unless I’m mistaken, it’s the Second Concordat with the Holy See—the Pope—and the German Reich, dated twenty-two May nineteen forty-two. If this is for real, you know what it means?”

“Not really, but I’m already on my second tank of air. If you think that’s what we came for, let’s—”

A shadow, followed by the swift movement of water, whipped by the compartment, grabbing both men’s attention. “What the hell was that?” Matt said, his light now piercing the darkness of the passageway.

Moving to the rapidly swaying curtain, Matt stuck his head into the passageway and looked in the direction the shadow had moved. Just as quickly, he jerked his head back, shouting, “It’s a fucking shark!” as a six-foot-long streak of silver darted past on its return to the front of the submarine. “A gray reef shark.” Looking at Davis, he asked, “You didn’t close the hatch when you came in, did you?”

Davis shook his head. “Guess I forgot. Too busy looking at the torpedoes.”

“Too late now,” Matt said, stuffing the pouch beneath the BC’s quick-release cummerbund and his wetsuit. “Hopefully he’ll find the hatch before we do. Let’s go.”

With no sign of the shark, they finned their way back through the forward crew’s quarters and to the doorway leading to the torpedo room. As Matt pulled himself through the opening, he came to an abrupt stop. Three powerful light beams suddenly hit him in the face. “I’m not believing this!”

“What’s the matter?” Davis asked from behind.

“Company.” With a familiar face framed in the glow of his headlamp, he added, “The sonofabitch Bruder I told you about?”

“Not friendly, huh?”

“I’d rather kiss a shark any day.”

Inside the torpedo room, two divers hovered just behind and over Bruder’s shoulders, both carrying mini-spearguns for close-in work. With the guns’ 18-inch, steel-barbed shafts aimed in Matt’s direction, Bruder used his gun to motion Matt forward. As though Bruder knew Davis was still in the crew’s compartment, he moved his arm higher, still motioning.

Taking hold of the side of one of the empty torpedo racks, Matt shifted his body to an upright position. Before him were Bruder and the other two men. Two additional lights beamed down through the open torpedo-loading hatch. Speaking with as little lip movement as possible, he told Davis, “Three, plus one or two more topside. Not good odds.” He closed his eyes for a moment, tasting the sourness that rose in his throat as he thought,
Versus two guys with dive knives, one of them seventy-seven years old. Bloody great!

As Davis eased through the hatch, Bruder motioned Matt forward with his left hand, his right hand gripping the handle and trigger of the speargun, the tip of its shaft aimed at Matt’s gut. With no more than four feet between them, Bruder reversed his hand, palms out, ordering
stop.
He pointed to the pouch secured between Matt’s BC cummerbund and wetsuit, then to himself before extending his hand.

Shaking his head in disgust, Matt removed the pouch and handed it to Bruder, who held it up to the light beam from one of the other divers. He turned it over several times, brought it closer, studied it for a moment, then nodded before tucking it inside his BC. Matt swore the gleam in Bruder’s eyes and the short spurts of bubbles exiting the exhaust port on the underside of his regulator mouthpiece meant the sonofabitch was laughing. It also confirmed the pouch contained the documents AFI wanted so badly, the secret that had been hidden in the U-2537 for the last fifty-six years.

Motioning for Matt to move back beside Davis, Bruder brought the speargun up to chest level and fired. Pushing Davis aside, Matt dropped to his left. He rammed hard against the lower torpedo rack as the shaft clanged against the steel door frame behind him. He watched as two other shafts sped through the water. One hit the bulkhead with a sharp
ching.
The other tore cleanly through the side of Davis’ left thigh, taking wetsuit neoprene and flesh with it. Blood created a blossom of red in the water as Davis grabbed his thigh with both hands and tried to cover the wound.

Instantly, shock cords attached to the blunt ends of the metal shafts sprang back to the individual shooters. At the same time, like the gray streak of a torpedo, the shark shot through the doorway leading from the crew’s quarters and slammed against Bruder, then swung wildly up between the other two divers. Bruder flopped around the deck like a wounded fish, trying to retrieve his speargun and shaft. Ignoring Bruder, one of the divers behind him finned rapidly toward the open hatch in the overhead. The second diver tried to follow, but the shark, crazed with fear, rammed him aside, quickly doubled back on itself and, before hitting one of the torpedoes, grabbed the man by the arm.

Matt’s movement seemed to be in slow motion, his fins caught beneath the outer lip of the lower torpedo rack. “Goddamn it!” he shouted, trying to break loose. Once he did, his first thought was Davis. “Roland?”

“I’ll make it,” Davis said, his teeth gritting against the pain. But where was Bruder? As Matt looked up, what he saw was like a nightmare unfolding before his eyes. First, the shark, thrashing wildly, had the arm of the diver in its mouth, the man’s facemask and mouthpiece already ripped from his face. Second, Bruder was halfway to the overhead hatch, his fins paddling furiously, the barbed tip of his speargun’s shaft alternating between Matt and the shark. With the diver’s arm clamped tight in its mouth, blood trailing from between its teeth, the shark went for Bruder’s light. The nose of the shark hit Bruder in the butt, lifting him on a violent ride through the hatch and out into the open sea.

The shark wasn’t finished. With its teeth snagged on flesh, bone, and wetsuit sleeve, and unable to break loose of the diver’s arm, the shark rammed the diver’s shoulder into the hatch frame on its way out. Still locked to the diver, the shark gave several bone-crushing shakes of its tail, ripped off the man’s arm at the elbow, and darted for safety. The diver’s body, trailing blood, floated free and out through the hatch.

Finally, with fins free, Matt pumped his way through a swirl of pinkish-colored water toward the hatch—but too late. The hatch slammed shut, the hand wheel turned, and from outside the sound of metal running against metal filled his ears. He grabbed the hand wheel and turned counterclockwise until it jammed tight against what he was sure was a chain binding the wheel on the opposite side of the hatch. He tried again, once, twice, three times. “Damn it!” Like the conning tower hatch, it was chained and locked.

Expelling the air that remained in his BC, Matt descended feet first to the deck and finned his way toward Davis. “Saved by the shark, but unfortunately, the party seems to have moved on without us.”

Removing one hand from his thigh, Davis lifted his air gauge and checked his air. “At twenty-five hundred pounds. Second tank. You?”

Matt glanced quickly at his gauge. “Yeah. A little less, but it doesn’t look like it’s gonna matter a helluva lot. And downtime wise, we’re already just under the forty-minute limit.”

“Back there.” Davis pointed over his shoulder. “The crew’s quarters. Get me a belt or a pants leg from one of the crewmen so I can tie off this wound and maybe stop the bleeding.”

“Why? Going someplace?”

“Just do it, Matt. As your favorite detective could have said, the game might still be afoot.”

“Whatta you mean?”

“If there’s still some compressed air in this thing, get me the belt and pants leg and I’ll show you.”

Matt worked as fast as he could. Pushing his way back to the crew’s compartment, he pulled the trousers off a crew member’s skeleton, cut off one leg with his dive knife, then freed the belt. Once back in the torpedo room, using both belt and trouser leg, he tied off the wound in Davis’s thigh as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Even so, five minutes of precious downtime had elapsed, not to mention the even more precious air.
But if you can get us out of here,
Matt thought,
you’re worth it.
Finished with the wound, he asked, “Now what do we do?”

“First pull me up, and second tell me if I’m right,” Davis said.

“About what?”

“We’ve got a starboard list.” “Right.”

“And the bow of the boat is angled toward the surface.”

“Some ten to fifteen degrees. So?”

“Torpedo tubes. With more of the bow on the port side likely to be uncovered, that might be our best chance. Let’s go.”

Recognizing that Davis was weak from loss of blood, Matt took him by the arm and maneuvered him forward, past the empty torpedo racks to the two sets of torpedo tubes—tubes 2, 4, and 6 on the port side, stacked one above the other in ascending numerical order; tubes 1, 3, and 5 stacked on the starboard side.

Davis pulled loose from Matt’s grip and felt his way down to the lower portside tube. He chuckled as he went. “Girl’s names painted on each tube door. Like on the U-Twenty-five thirteen. Some of our boys did the same.” Checking the gauges on the front of the door, he said, “Tube two named
Helena,
empty. Probably one of the two fish you said hit the tanker.” He raised himself to a hand wheel numbered two extending from a large metal box on the bulkhead and tried to turn it.

“When there’s no ship’s power, muscle power,” Davis grunted, but nothing happened. “Outer door is either closed or still buried.”

“Hear that?” Matt asked.

“What? At my age, I’m lucky to hear myself fart.”

“That sound. Ship’s propellers.
Sea Rover,
she’s getting underway.”

“All the better. Now there’ll be nobody up there gunning for us if we do get out.” Davis popped some air into his BC, adding enough buoyancy to literally float upwards to the two higher tubes without physical effort. “Tubes four and six,
Katharina
and
Ilsa,
loaded.”

“If they’ve got torpedoes in them, what good would it do even if we can open the outer doors?” Matt asked.

“Gauges indicate there’s still several thousand pounds of air in the compressed air cylinders. Don’t know if that’s enough, but it’s worth a try if we can get an outer door open. Do you have anything better to do?”

Noticing Davis’ movements were getting considerably slower, Matt admitted, “Unfortunately, no. What can I do to help?”

“On the bulkhead, the hand wheel marked four, see if you can turn it.”

Matt worked his way around Davis, grabbed the wheel, and tried to turn, succeeding only in lifting his feet and fins from the deck. “No joy.”

“Try six,” Davis said. “With the way she’s lying on the bottom, let’s hope they cleared far enough down the side of the bow for number six door to be above the bottom. If that doesn’t work, we’ve bought the farm. How much air do you have?”

“Don’t know and not looking,” Matt answered as he grabbed hold of hand wheel number six. Bracing himself as best he could to get leverage, he turned. “Damn it!”

“I’ll help,” Davis said, easing into the cramped space next to Matt. With Davis pulling from one side and Matt pushing from the other, the wheel moved.

“We’re getting it, Roland.”

“More.”

Again, inch by inch, until finally, it would turn no more. Both men fell away, exhausted, allowing their bodies to float, arms and legs spread as though lying on a cloud of air.

Davis looked at his air gauge. “Five hundred pounds. That’s all I’ve got, Matt.”

Matt flipped his body in Davis’s direction. “Quit looking, damn it. What do I do next?”

Davis rolled to his side and pointed. “For manual operation, that lever on the side of the tube. Opens the compressed air cylinder. With enough air, it’ll propel the torpedo out, but it won’t go far. The torpedo’s batteries will have lost power long ago.”

“And if the outer door’s not open far enough?”

“If the torpedo’s armed, boom!”

“At least it’ll be quick.” Matt grabbed the lever next to the side of the tube named
Ilsa,
spat out, “Go, baby,” and pulled down on the lever. It stopped halfway. Matt waited. Nothing! “Damn!”

Pushing the lever back up to its original position, he yanked down again, this time with every bit of strength in his body, and counted. Compressed air—he could hear it, or was it his imagination? “C’mon, baby! One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississi—”

A loud
kerschu-u-unk.
Both men were thrown backwards onto empty torpedo racks by the shock of the torpedo firing out of the tube. They lay there a moment, dazed, until they heard a dull
clunkedy-clunk-clunk!

“What the hell’s that?” Matt asked.

“Like I said, no battery power to run the torpedo’s engine. Probably didn’t go fifty yards, but it’s out and that’s what counts.”

“Too bad it couldn’t’ve hit the
Sea Rover.”
Pushing himself off the deck, Matt finned his way to the door of torpedo tube number six. He patted the name on the door, saying, “Thanks,
Ilsa.
I’ll remember you always,” and turned the hand wheel. As the door creaked open, he motioned to Davis. “Age before beauty.”

“I don’t want to slow you up,” Davis argued.

“Get up here, damn it. Take your tanks and BC off and push them in front of you. You slow me up, I’ll give you a good shove in the ass.”

“To the DPVs?”

“Forget ‘em. Not enough air. Head for the barge behind the conning tower and work your way up to one of the marker buoys.”

“What about Steve? Can we call him on these things?” Davis tapped the small radio transceiver at the side of his facemask.

“Not from in here,” Matt answered, “and not if he’s at the rendezvous point. That’s a half mile out, and these babies are only good to a distance of fifteen hundred feet.”

“Shit!”

“Agreed, but if I know Steve, with the
Sea Rover
gone, he’s probably on top of us right now, ready to beat feet to the nearest recompression chamber. Now go!”