Also, the path to his right presented something that looked like a standard door frame, while to the left he'd be forced to go through a round hatch to get into the engine room. He opted to go with the flow, as it were, and take the more accessible path, to his right.
As he entered the radio sound room, he was struck by how clean and organized everything was. By all indications, this submarine had been here for most of a century, and at best it had been visited within the last twenty years by Edward McCarthy and Richard Van Burren, along with some of their men. The two smugglers had obviously cleaned and updated things a bit, with more modern communications technology taking the place of the WWII radios the Nazis would have had.
Could he use that communication system to call for help?
He decided that, for the moment, it wasn’t worth the effort or risk. Whom could he call, after all? He doubted he could reach the research facility, a couple of days from their location. More likely he’d just end up talking to Gail McCarthy’s men, and he didn’t want to deal with that.
He reserved the radio as something to tinker with later.
He moved past the radio room into what would have been the officers' wardroom. It was a cozy little spot with some storage and a small wardrobe space, as well as two stacked bunks attached to the curving wall of the boat. The bunks were made, their blankets tucked in with military discipline and hospital corners. Kotler had to admit they looked rather inviting. Maybe later he'd give them a test as well.
He placed the packs on the floor here. This would be home base. He'd keep exploring and come back here to regroup.
With a place to lay his weary head, he now moved on through the next doorway, emerging into the tiny galley.
To his surprise, and a bit of relief, the galley was well-stocked with rations and bottled water. There was even beer and wine, as well as a couple of bottles of scotch, which Kotler greatly appreciated. He would bring his provisions in and place them with the rest after he finished exploring.
Past the galley was a much larger chamber of crew quarters. The bunks were made exactly as they had been in the officers’ wardroom. But unlike that space, this room was also being used as storage. There were wooden crates, some of which had Nazi swastikas emblazoned on their sides.
Kotler had a large knife clipped to his belt, and he spent some time prying open the crates to get a look inside.
He stood back in awe.
Within each crate were small collections of artwork—statues, paintings, even sketchbooks. Kotler wasn't exactly an art expert, though he did make it a practice to study the subject. He was more familiar with the artists who had succeeded in remaining at the top of popular culture. Which turned out to be enough.
He recognized some of the work in these crates immediately. There was at least one Van Gogh in the first box he inspected, and he found two Rembrandts among the others. There were quite a few from artists he didn't recognize, neither by their brushwork nor their signatures. But it was clear these were all valuable works. Treasures, hidden in the frozen wilderness.
He placed the wooden tops back on the crates, hammering the squared nails back in place with the butt of his knife.
Could this be what Gail McCarthy was after?
These would fetch multiple millions on the black market, Kotler knew. Great wealth, for sure. These were lost treasures, likely stolen from Jewish collections when the Nazis seized everything they could get their hands on.
Again, Kotler was no art expert, but by his modest calculations, there might be around half a billion dollars in artwork in these crates alone.
That sort of money could be a powerful motivator. But Gail's network was already playing in financial waters at that depth. It was one of the things that had made the network, and Gail herself, so elusive. So, it seemed unlikely that she would go to so much trouble, exposing herself and the network as she had, for a couple of crates of artwork. There had to be something else driving her.
What else was hidden in this sub?
Kotler moved on, continuing his journey to the forward section of the boat, and this time having to scrunch and climb through a round hatch to continue. He stepped through, ducking his head under the rim of the hatch, and as he put one foot on the floor on the other side, he passed his light over the space.
The room beyond was almost cavernous compared to the spaces he'd been through so far. On the far end of the room, opposite the hatch he'd entered, was a series of large, metal tubes, each with a small door bolted to them.
Torpedo tubes, Kotler thought.
There were no signs of torpedoes in the room itself, but there were other objects of interest in here.
Near the torpedo tubes was a military-green metal box, resembling a large toolbox, but latched shut with tension clips like an ammo can. There was a slot for a padlock, but whoever had put this here hadn’t bothered to secure it. Kotler popped the box open, and rolled back on his heels, startled.
Inside the box, wedged tightly into custom-fitted foam inserts, were two bricks of C-4. Between them was a remote detonator and a receiver. The ingredients for a remote activated explosive device.
The amount of C-4 wasn’t massive. It was enough to make a hole in the sub, if he had to. Of course, that would mean drowning in a half-frozen abyss … so no. He wasn’t ready for that kind of play. He hoped it would never come to it.
The presence of these explosives was interesting. They were clearly brought here by Van Burren and McCarthy. Maybe they were some kind of contingency plan?
Kotler carefully closed the box, though he knew it was inert in its current state. He was cautious out of respect for what this stuff could do, more than from an immediate threat.
He’d keep this in mind, but he refused to accept there would be a scenario where he might need it. He’d prefer to get out of this through some other, more clever means. Still … resources were resources.
He turned his attention to the rest of the room.
The walkway to the torpedo tubes was clear, but it passed through a corridor made by two rows of crates, all just small enough to have fit through the hatch and stacked nearly floor to ceiling. The stacks were lashed and tied, secured to the floor by modern-day ratcheting straps, hooked into metal rings in the floor.
Kotler moved forward slowly, inspecting the crates and their lashings. He was able to squeeze between towers, to take a look at them from the opposite side, as well as the rest of the room. On one side of the room, along the wall, there was a set of cots that were folded up and secured by nylon straps. The space would have doubled as crew quarters, during operation. Kotler could hardly imagine sleeping here, with several other men, cramped and surrounded by explosives.
For now, though, it was a cargo hold, and Kotler found himself itching to start opening these things up.
He paused, took a breath, and let it out slowly. He was feeling a rush and some anxiety. Adrenaline was driving him for the moment, but he knew he needed to be smart. He needed to think and start putting the pieces together, to figure out what resources were available, what options he had, and how he might survive this. After all, there was an armed force on the other side of these bulkheads, intent on getting inside.
Gail's people had blown their way through the hatch on the dock. So, they had the means to breach the sub if they wanted.
What was stopping them?
For a moment, Kotler had a wild notion that maybe Gail didn't want him to be hurt. She'd shown some affection for him, in the past. Perhaps she was holding back because she didn't want to risk anything happening to him?
He shook his head.
Ridiculous, he thought. Back on the island of Atlantis—or what, at any rate, they thought had some potential to be Atlantis—Gail's men had tried to kill him without hesitation. They had hunted him and Agent Denzel in the jungle, trapping them in some ruins. There had been many times when the only thing that saved Kotler was the fact that Gail needed him alive, to solve some puzzle for her or to allow her a
ccess to the FBI's resources.
So, if she were holding back for his sake, it would mean she needed him for something.
More likely, though, there was something on this sub that she didn’t want to risk destroying.
Kotler thought for a moment, and remembered the message they had deciphered from the map, the Antarctic forgery that had led Kotler and Denzel to this base:
Edison was right. Find Abigail at coordinates.
“Abigail” had turned out to be this repurposed U-boat, found at the exact coordinates that Kotler and Denzel had uncovered in Oklahoma City. That lent some credibility to the rest of the message, as incredible as it seemed.
“Edison was right,” Kotler said aloud, allowing some ideas to click.
It was a riddle of some kind. Had to be. Edison might have been right about a lot of things, but "a Nazi sub under the ice in Antarctica" absolutely could not have been one of them. World War II, the Nazis, Hitler, all of which hadn't happened until a good eight years after Edison died.
During the events leading up to the discovery of the Atlantis site, Kotler and Denzel had uncovered a cache of artifacts and antiquities that Thomas Edison and his people had liberated from the island. In a hidden room under the Edison estate, there had been a treasure trove of ancient art and technology. Gail had done everything she could to get her hands on that stash. Kotler and Denzel had stopped her, though she’d managed to use her grandfather’s and Van Burren’s smuggling operation to escape.
Kotler had followed the progress of the team that took over cataloging and researching the Edison cache. There were some incredible finds in there, including some lost Edison prototypes, and a great many notebooks and other documents. Selling those items on the collector’s market would have infused quite a bit of cash into Gail’s coffers, bolstering the strength of her already powerful smuggling network. But there was nothing there that Kotler thought she really needed. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but now he wondered: What was it that Gail was really after, in that chamber?
Soon after Gail had managed to escape, following the riddle and events surrounding Atlantis, she had appeared again as Kotler was abducted in the course of another investigation. This time, Kotler and Denzel found themselves uncovering another treasure trove, from yet another inventor. In an underground chamber in London, they had located a lost laboratory belonging to Sir Isaac Newton.
This chamber had contained even more fantastic technology, some of which had been under the study of Newton himself. Interestingly, however, there was evidence that someone else had discovered the chamber, decades earlier but well after its last use by Newton. Sometime in the seventies and eighties, an unknown figure had been at work, utilizing technology and scientific discoveries that had been otherwise lost to history, attempting to bring them into the modern era. This mysterious figure had used the lab as a testing ground for new or "rediscovered" technologies.
Gail had insinuated herself into that investigation as well. It was just following Kotler's abduction, as he and Denzel were investigating the Devil's Interval technology that had been tied to the murder of retired rock legend, Ashton Mink. Gail had cornered Kolter—having him abducted and then released—so she could deliver the very artifacts that had led them here, to the frozen continent of Antarctica.
There was no longer any doubt that Gail had been manipulating Kotler behind the scenes, for quite some time. She’d pressed him to use his expertise and skills to solve this, and to help her find this very U-boat.
So, the question now was, why?
What was hidden here that she would desperately need or want?
The artwork seemed an obvious draw. The wealth from everything stored here could keep her empowered and out of reach for the rest of her life if she chose, with or without the network. So that could be it, but he didn't believe so.
She was risking her freedom, endangering the very network that sustained her, for whatever was stored in this sub. And it wasn't the art.
Kotler sighed.
There would be no cozy rest tonight. He estimated there were around 30 crates in this space, lashed one atop the other and secured to the floor. That would take time to explore.
And then there was the rest of the boat, beyond the control room. Kotler hadn't even gone through those sections yet.
He would also have to loop back and find a way to better secure the hatch leading into the sub, to block entrance for Gail's team as much as he possibly could. He'd do that, and sweep the rest of the boat, then come back here and start opening crates, one by one.
It was going to be a very long night.
Chapter 13
Denzel was making steady enough progress. He would hit the radio's battery-level button every few seconds, casting a dim, green glow into the tunnel. This prevented him from banging his head on the low ceiling or ending up sprawled on the floor from loose stones or ridges in the floor. It didn't give him many other advantages, however.
He was moving at a good clip, hoping he could find a way out of these narrow confines before Gail's people got to the wall and climbed up after him. He could only move so fast without putting himself in more danger.
One positive to come out of this, at least, was the fact that with all his focus on the LED and avoiding cracking his skull, he'd barely noticed the rising sense of crushing existential panic that was threatening to send him to the ground in a wadded-up ball of weeping.
Barely.
He could feel his pulse in his throat, and he was covered in sweat that blended with his cold, wet clothes, keeping him from ever thoroughly drying. He was uncomfortable, for sure, but he wasn't losing it, and that was the best he could hope for.
Embrace the suck, he thought, over and over. He concentrated on his physical misery as a way to stave off his mental anguish. It was working a lot better than Kotler's breathing exercises. Though he did find himself wishing his partner was here. Being annoyed at Kotler was usually the best distraction.
He wondered briefly how Kotler was doing, whether he was even alive. Denzel shook this thought out of his head and focused on the path that stretched into the darkness ahead of him. He couldn't afford to worry about Kotler and Vicente right now. He had enough to worry about right here, in this darkened space.
This place was some kind of Nazi base. The sloping tunnel they'd discovered out in the Arctic ice had terminated in a corridor with five doors. Denzel, Kotler, and Vicente had managed to explore three of them before the bad guys showed up.
Those other two doors had to lead to the rest of this base, Denzel figured. There had to be more to this place. And this secret passage must connect to that somehow.
But why? What was this? Some kind of escape tunnel?
That seemed plausible. Maybe the Nazis had carved it out as a way for officers to escape from the sub, while troops held off any invaders.
Except, now that he thought about it, maybe it wasn't so much an escape from the sub but rather to the sub. Maybe this tunnel was meant to be a way for someone to get to the docks and board the U-boat, in case things went south in the base.
That made more sense. It also somehow comforted Denzel. He'd stumbled across this place by complete accident, and it had taken Gail's people by surprise. Which meant they hadn't yet found the other end of it. It also meant he still had a chance to get through this without being ambushed from both sides.
He had no way of knowing how long he'd been racing through the dark passage, but he found himself stopping short and staring in awe as the space suddenly opened up into a steel-lined chamber.
As he stepped into it, his footsteps echoed hollowly from the walls and the ceiling. He used the LED from the radio to sweep around and saw that storage cabinets were lining the walls to either side and a large, metal door was on the far end.
Snapping out of his initial slack-jawed shock at seeing this steel cavern open before him, he got busy rummaging through the cabinets, looking for anything he could use.
One cabinet wa
s filled with old World War II ammo cans, and Denzel nearly wept.
He pried the cans open and found box after box of rounds for a 9mm.
But no gun.
He checked the next cabinet, which had some folded clothing, and again Denzel felt his heart thump. He shed his water-soaked clothes and changed into what turned out to be a Nazi uniform. He was dry now, which he desperately needed, but wearing the uniform made his skin crawl from pure philosophical revulsion.
He ripped every emblem from it, yanking and tossing them in a pile of threads and debris on the floor. He left his shirt untucked under the coat and kept it unbuttoned at least three buttons below his collarbone, distancing himself from the crisp, military lines of the Nazis as much as possible.
He had no mirror, but he hoped he was pulling off a more casual look that the Fuehrer would have hated enough to have him shot over.
All due disrespect, Denzel thought, with a strange sort of giddy pride.
He searched the rest of the cabinets, and finally came up with a single Luger P.08—a semi-automatic pistol that, thank God, took the 9mm rounds. He checked this, then loaded it and chambered a round. He shoved his pockets full of ammunition, just in case.
The rest of what he found wasn't useful to him, at the moment. It seemed more like a staging area for someone who might have to escape during inopportune moments. A military leader escaping his quarters during sleeping hours maybe, with a stash of clothes and other essentials at hand, so that he could get to the sub with the trappings and insignia of his rank and authority intact.
Denzel snagged another of the spare shirts and used it to fashion a rucksack. He shoved any useful items he could find into this, buttoned it up to hold it closed, tied the neck and waist holes as best he could and then tied the sleeves together, so he could sling the whole thing over his shoulder.
For good measure, he shoved more rounds of ammo into it.
He’d done all of this by the light of the LED, occasionally hitting the button to bring it back on. It had been tedious and frustrating, but now that he was done, he felt much better.
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