Michael Wenberg - The Last Eagle

“What a pleasant surprise,” Ritter said, leaping to his feet, slipping his knife into his pocket, and then brushing off his grease stained khaki pants. “Finally getting the tour, I see.”

Kate nodded and Reggie nodded.

“What do you think of her?”

“Very,uh, mechanical,” Reggie mumbled.

“Amazing,” Kate said. “It reminds me of Jules Verne and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. It was one of my favorite books when I was a girl. All my friends thought I was strange for loving it so. I just wish you had a few windows so we could see outside.”

“Yes, I read it, too,” Ritter said with a nod. “Fired the imagination. How about you, Commander? I bet not. Too serious. No time for fantastic stories….”

“As a matter of fact,” Stefan said evenly, “I’ve read it many times. An old friend recommended it. He never steered me wrong.” Stefan could almost hear the old Swedish fisherman, Westling, discoursing loudly on Verne’s inadequacies as a writer, let alone visionary of the fantastic. “Too much on the machine,” he had said. “It would be a better story if he focused more on this, the frailties of the human heart.” And then he pointed to his chest. Of course, Stefan had been mesmerized by descriptions of the Nautilus. It had sparked his interest in the navy as the only chance he might ever get to ride aboard a real-life Nautilus.

“Ah, something we all share,” Ritter exclaimed too loudly, like a young man trying too hard to impress a girl. Kate didn’t seem to notice it. “Now, is there anything I can do for you both?”

“You’ve done enough,” Stefan said, still smarting from the captain’s decision to head for Tallinn, and the part Ritter played in it. “I appreciate your help”

“Yes, Tallinn before morning, I suppose. Nice to get a bath, eh, and a fresh change of clothes.” He kneed Bergen in the side and tousled his hair. “I don’t mind building submarines, but serving on one is not my cup of tea. I do hope, Miss McLendon, you’ll let me buy you dinner when we get to port,” he said. “I would love to hear all about the news business.”

“I’m sure you would,” Kate said. “And I have made it a habit never to turn down a freebie.” She glanced at Reggie. “We’d be happy to join you.”

Ritter smiled broadly at the deft way she had maneuvered the conversation. Now it was his turn. “And what about you, commander?” he said, turning to Stefan. “Would you care to join us?”

Stefan opened his mouth ready to decline. What came out surprised even him. “Of course,” he said. “I will look forward to it.”

“Good,” Ritter said, clapping his hands together. “Comrades in arms sharing a meal. That is what makes life worth living. When do we get underway?”

Stefan glanced at his wristwatch. The overhead lights suddenly switched to red. “Now,” he said.

Jerzy Rudzki resisted the urge to pick at one of the pimples on his face. It was a losing battle, as his inflamed skin demonstrated. He’d been lurking on the other side of the diesel engines, pretending to tinker with the valves when, in fact, he had been keeping an eye on those so-called Dutch engineers. Of course, no one had told him to watch them. In fact, since they had been on board, Chief K had ceded control of virtually every mechanical system in the aft section of the boat to them. And Jerzy didn’t understand it. He may have grown up on a farm, but that didn’t mean he was slow. In fact, watching the shrewd way his grandmother dealt with the shopkeepers and merchants during their occasional visits to town had been a perfect training. They were always quick to cheat the unsuspecting. His grandmother said you could catch them by listening to the sound of words, not the words themselves. “It is the music of the soul,” she said. “It will tell you what is in their hearts.” She was right.

And that’s what bothered him about the three Dutchmen, their leader, Hans, in particular. The music of his soul didn’t match his words. There was something not right about him. Nothing wrong with his mechanical skills, or the skills of the other two, either. They all seemed top-notch. It was something else, and Jerzy hadn’t been able to put a finger on it. Unfortunately, weeks of shadowing them as they attempted to fix the assorted problems that kept cropping up on board the Eagle had given him nothing more than confirmation of his vague sense of unease. If he had approached anyone with his suspicions, it would have only added confirmation to their opinion that he was just a country bumpkin.

He had even begged Chief K to let him take care of the fixes. He could see what needed to be done, the various steps unfolding in his mind like the pictures in a book. “I know what to do,” he said one evening, catching Chief K alone in the petty officers quarters. “Let these foreigners go home, and rely on me.”

But Chief K had just laughed. “You are just a boy from the farm,” he said. “How can you know what to do? If I leave it to you, you might kill us all.” And so, Jerzy had waited for his chance.

He worked quickly, searching through the bags of each of the Dutch engineers, keeping a nervous eye for anyone who might blunder by. Fortunately the boat was quiet, most of the crew resting. To be caught stealing or rifling through someone else’s belongings was a particularly serious offense on a submarine where privacy was highly valued because it was such a rare commodity.

The third and final bag was owned by the man named Hans. The one with the scar. Jerzy hissed silently, nervous to finish the job, frustrated because the prior two bags had revealed nothing out of the ordinary. His hand touched something metallic. He pulled it out, held it up to the dim light. A wristwatch. Swiss-made. The farm boy in him was fascinated by its elegant design, obvious expense. Rolex. He mouthed the word silently. He turned it over, staring blankly at the inscription on the back of the dial. His hand began to shake as he recognized words. Not Polish. Not Dutch. German. There could be no mistake.

“Ah, what have we here?”

Jerzy gasped with surprise, his hand releasing the watch. Ritter’s hand snaked out, catching it easily.

“Fencing,” Ritter said gently in Polish. “It heightens the senses and the reaction time.”

Jerzy nodded. “I was just….”

“That’s all right,” Ritter whispered. “I understand. The fault is not yours. It is mine. Something wasn’t quite right. And it tormented you. I could see that. If I had not been careless, that’s where it would have ended. And you found my watch. It is a very nice watch, is it not?”

Jerzy blinked, nodded again. “You’re…. you’re….”

“Yes, yes, you have it all figured out, you smart boy.” Ritter smiled sadly. He glanced in either direction down the passageway. No one in sight except for Kolb and Bergen, who had automatically positioned themselves to block the view like a pair of well-trained mobsters. “And for that, I’m sorry.” Ritter reached up, patted the boy on the cheek, and then whipped the ridge of his hand across the front of his neck, crushing his windpipe, and more importantly, preventing any screams. “There, there,” he crooned like a mother to her child, pressing the boy’s writhing body up against the bulkhead while his feet began a frantic staccato dance on the deck, soon slowed and then stopped altogether.

Stefan, Kate and Reggie had gone forward just moments before. Ritter knew that at any second the command would come to get underway and the Eagle would spring to life. They didn’t have much time. Ritter slung one of the dead boy’s arms over his shoulder and dragged him toward the back of the boat, Kolb keeping pace, blocking the view. Once in the motor room, Bergen lifted up the hatch covering the aft battery compartment. There was just enough room. Ritter rolled Jerzy through the opening, slammed the hatch back in place, and then held his breath, wondering if the boy would get final revenge by causing a short, or something worse. But the lights didn’t flicker. Ritter exhaled loudly, wiped his brow.