“Come,” said Andrei, leaping the distance to the U-boat’s deck. “I think you’ll find this interesting.”
Jax jumped after him, then turned to hold out his hand to October.
“That’s okay,” she said, her face held oddly tight. “I think I’ll wait here.”
“What’s the matter? Claustrophobic?”
She looked down, her attention all for the task of buttoning her jacket against the sharp wind. “Not exactly. Just…take my advice and watch where you step.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ll see.”
“What do we do now?” said Dixon, drawing the Kawasaki up beside the Range Rover.
They were parked in the shadows cast by a copse of beech at the crest of the hill. Looping the loose strap of his binoculars around the fist of one hand, Rodriguez watched the Russian and their target drop through the conning tower’s open hatch. Then he swung to focus on the girl.
She was small and slim and young, probably no more than twenty-four or-five. As he watched, she hunched her shoulders and shivered, as if she were cold-or afraid.
He had a VSSK Vychlop sniper rifle with an integrated bipod and silencer in a case on the floor of the backseat. The 12.7mm VSSK had been developed by the Russian Design Bureau at the special request of the FSB. Designed for counter-terror and high-profile anti-crime operations, it offered silent firing and superior penetration. Even at this range, he could blow her to pieces with a single shot and be long gone before anyone below figured out what had happened.
On the downside, the hit would not only leave their main target-Alexander-alive, it would also warn him.
“We watch,” said Rodriguez, shifting his gaze back to the U-boat.
“We should have blown the fucking sub when we had the chance,” said Salinger for something like the tenth time.
“It’ll blow,” said Rodriguez. “It’ll blow.”
Swinging through the open hatch, Jax felt the thick, dank air of the U-boat close around him. He set his jaw and slid down the aluminum ladder to land with a light thump beside what he realized too late was the grinning, mummified skull of a long-dead German submariner.
“Jesus Christ!” he yelped, hopping to one side and making a grab for the ladder to keep his balance. “What the hell is he doing still here?”
Andrei shrugged. “Moscow’s supposed to be sending over a team of anthropologists. They told us to leave the bodies alone.”
Jax studied the cadaver’s sunken body cavity, the tattered uniform, the dark, leathery flesh stretched across the cheekbones and clawlike fingers. “I could have landed on him.”
Andrei’s eyes creased with quiet amusement. “The Ensign did warn you to watch your step.”
Jax turned in a tight circle, his gaze taking in the control room’s jumble of ducts and valves, hand wheels and switches, gauges and wires. The militia had rigged up a string of electric lights that ran toward the bow, casting ghostly shadows around the tight compartment. He could hear a faint hammering coming from the bow, the vibrations reverberating down the length of the hull.
He brought his gaze back to the desiccated body sprawled at their feet. “You didn’t tell me the hull had held all these years.”
“Most of it,” said Andrei, leading the way forward. “The two aft compartments were torn apart by depth charges, which flooded the diesel and electric engines. That’s why she sank.”
Jax glanced back at the closed, watertight hatch that had sealed the control room off from the aft compartments, and felt the hairs rise along the back of his neck. “Sonofabitch,” he said softly. “They suffocated.”
Andrei nodded. “Poor bastards.”
Stepping over two more bodies, they ducked through the open round hatch in the front bulkhead and pushed toward the bow in silence. They passed the radio room and the listening room, the captain’s corner with its faded green curtain still in place, the men’s quarters with their bunks stacked four high on each side of the passageway.
Not all the bunks were empty.
“So exactly what did you bring me down here to see, Andrei? It must be good.”
Andrei ducked through another bulkhead, then stopped abruptly beside a small WC. “You Americans. Always so impatient. It’s here.”
Jax peered through the gaping door beside them. “We’re here to look at an old German toilet?”
“Not the toilet. That.”
Jax shifted his gaze to the shattered storage compartment that lay just beyond the WC and fell silent.
“How’s your German?” said Andrei.
Reaching out, Jax ran his fingers across the broken wood, where boldly stenciled letters warned ACHTUNG! GEFAHR! Danger. “A hell of a lot better than my Russian. It was like this when you found it?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think was in here?”
“That, we do not know. But it doesn’t look like it was designed to hold gold, now, does it?”
Jax hunkered down to study the floor plates, searching for some clue as to what the space might once have contained. “No,” he said. “No, it doesn’t.”
A loud metallic clang, followed by a burst of laughter and men’s voices speaking in Russian, sounded from nearby.
“What’s up there?” said Jax, pushing to his feet.
“The forward torpedo room. The militia has just started clearing it.”
Pausing at the next bulkhead, Jax peered into the rank gloom and counted four fat sausage-shaped cylinders. “Jesus. The torpedoes are still here, too?”
“Live torpedoes,” said Andrei, stepping over another mummified submariner, “and dead Germans.”
“That ought to tell us something profound,” said Jax. “I’m just not sure what.”
“Herzlich willkommen.” A militiaman lurched toward them, stumbled, and raised another round of laughter.
Jax said, “Why do I smell vodka? Somehow, I don’t think vodka and old torpedoes are a really good mix.”
Andrei gave another of his shrugs. “The militia doesn’t tend to attract the best men.”
They headed back toward the control room and climbed the ladder to the conning tower. Jax paused at the top to draw the sweet, misty air deep into his lungs.
“Find anything?” said October, scrambling up from where she’d been sitting at the edge of the dock.
“Just a broken wooden storage compartment stenciled with danger warnings.” Jax leaped the gaping three feet of choppy gray water that separated the U-boat’s deck from the wharf. “It was great in there. You should have come.”
“That’s okay,” she said, then dropped her voice to add, “Once was enough.”
Jax laughed softly, and turned as Andrei landed beside them. “So, do we get to see the salvage ship, too?”
“It contains nothing of interest.”
“I’d still like to take a look.”
Andrei glanced at his watch. “You can have five minutes.”
“I don’t get it,” said October as they turned to walk along the dilapidated docks that stretched toward the outer harbor. “Why would the Nazis store gold in a wooden compartment and label it ‘Danger’?”
“They wouldn’t,” said Andrei. “That’s the point. If that submarine had been carrying gold, it would have been under the floor plates with a reinforced steel hatch welded shut.” He tore the cellophane off a new pack of cigarettes and let the wind carry it away. “Exactly what gave your government the idea U-114 was carrying gold, anyway?”
Jax watched October catch the wrapper and shove it in her pocket. He said, “You know that kind of information is classified, Andrei.”
Andrei huffed a soft laugh. “In other words, they didn’t tell you where the information came from, did they?” He shook out a cigarette. “You know as well as I do that such a scenario makes no sense. That’s not how these things work. First, one plans an operation and secures funding. Then, one recruits the necessary personnel and material and sets the date for the attack. It doesn’t happen the other way around. What does your government think these so-called terrorists have been doing? Charging everything on their American Express cards? Now the bill is coming due, so they decide to go salvage a sunken U-boat and steal its gold?”
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