Ice Fortress (A Jack Coulson Thriller)

by Robert B. Williams

  Henry decided to ask what he thought was an obvious question in the circumstances, “Sir, why isn’t the Navy or the Army in on this meeting?”

  Burgess and Turner paused for a moment before Turner gestured for the DIA Director to explain.

  “Because if this is what we think it is, then it’s not something the Navy or any other military branch can ever know about. It’s classified above Top Secret even the President only gets read in should it be deemed necessary to deploy nuclear weapons to stop it getting out of control.”

  Henry waited for Burgess to say more. Or laugh and say “Only joking”. But he just sat there with his palms face down on the table.

  “Sir?” Henry looked to his boss for some kind of clarification.

  “You heard right. This thing is even bigger than North Korea and their nuclear bullshit. If we get our military involved, it will escalate fast, spin out of control and the consequences could be apocalyptic. Under no circumstances are the military to be involved. That’s an order that has been documented and not rescinded since the file was opened.”

  “And when was that, sir?”

  “June 1945, son. Long before your time and some ways before mine.”

  “I won’t even ask the obvious questions about the subject matter of the file, I know it’s above my clearance, but can I ask what I’m doing here?”

  Again the two Directors shared a glance, confirming their tacit agreement.

  “Henry Preston, you’ve just been promoted and your security clearance has just gone off the scale.” And with that, his boss slid an old, faded intelligence file across the table and into Henry’s waiting hands. “You have to read the file here. You can’t take it with you. No notes, either. Anything you write down has to be shredded as you leave.

  What had he gotten himself involved with? He should have known that nothing good ever came from a phone call at 3am.

  With a mix of trepidation and curiosity, Henry Preston opened the file and began reading the yellowed, typewritten pages.

  Chapter 15

  December 30, 1944

  Bystrzyca Klodzka Airfield

  Poland

  The colossal aircraft dominated the runway, its 6 thunderous engines warming up, ready for its first long range flight. It was no ordinary Junkers JU-390, like the earlier variant General Hans Kammler had welcomed at Gandau Airfield over a month ago. This behemoth of an aircraft was one of only two prototypes built for extreme long range and high altitude missions. And unlike its almost defenseless predecessor, this one was crammed with five 20mm cannons. If attacked, it wouldn’t go down without a fight.

  A total wingspan close to 170 feet and its three enormous engines mounted on each of the port and starboard wings made it a breathtaking sight, complemented by the ferocious roar as all six 18 cylinder, supercharged engines revved up in unison.

  Although a covert evacuation of the device would have been preferred, the advancing allied forces had forced speed and distance to override stealth as the mission objectives. It was critical that the aircraft make the long flight to the Argentinian military base in Punta Indio if Germany was to have any chance of turning the tide of the war back in their favor. Kammler had been assured that refueling stops in Madrid and another at a secret location in the Western Sahara would ensure that the massive aircraft would have enough fuel to reach its destination.

  Once safely on Argentinian soil, the cargo could be transferred to the waiting Elektroboat. Only the submarine commander knew the details of the final destination. Not even Kammler himself had been briefed on the exact location of the Antarctic submarine base, despite the fact that much of the design and engineering of the base was his handiwork. Even the slave labor shipped to the inhospitable location had been supplied by Kammler. When the Kriegsmarine did something in secret, they made sure it remained secret. Even from the SS with whom there had always been an uneasy and complex relationship, at best.

  The cargo doors were finally sealed shut when Kammler ordered the half dozen men who had been responsible for the transport and loading of the device to the nearby hanger for a final debriefing. Carrying only a battered suitcase with him, the general followed the men and closed the door behind him.

  Over the roar of the Junkers engines, none of the crew heard the folding stock of the MP-40 machine pistol locking into place or the bolt handle being released, ready to fire. By the time they heard the deadly rattle of the machine pistol, their bodies were already being torn apart by the brutal rounds before they crumpled to the cold dusty floor like broken marionettes, twitching horribly.

  Hans Kammler threw the still smoking machine pistol back into the open suitcase and pulled a Vis 35 pistol from the leather holster slung from his belt and fired a final 9mm round into the head of each man. There could be no witnesses left alive to be interviewed by the invading Russian and American forces.

  Kammler holstered his handgun, the barrel still hot as he closed the flap. Straightening the lapels of his coat, he walked briskly out of the hanger door. His Wonder Weapon was waiting for him on the runway. The story of its disappearance had died with the men in the hanger.

  Chapter 16

  November 9, 2017, 01:30 UTC

  Ronne Ice Shelf (Antarctica)

  77° 51' 19.79" S 61° 17' 34.20" W

  Depth 660 feet

  Nellie’s self-diagnostic was complete. The torpedoes that had narrowly missed her sleek, elongated hull were designed with targeting parameters based around much larger vessels, usually battle cruisers or other submarines. The designers had never considered the possibility that their weapons might be locking on to the acoustic signature of a submersible the same size as the torpedo itself.

  As they came about in an effort to reacquire their target, all four torpedoes hit the ice shelf, exploding on impact.

  The intensity of the shockwave caused Nellie’s systems to power down instantly to avoid damage from power surges or short circuits. Juan’s programming called for her to remain in a state of stasis after a full system shutdown for up to 72 hours in case it took that long to be located by her host vessel. In the event that she wasn’t retrieved, her protocol was to attempt a reboot and continue her survey.

  Each system came back online, one at a time, and only after a successful diagnostic did she attempt to initiate the next system startup. If any systems failed the diagnostic, Nellie would return to her stasis and await recovery.

  With the final systems check complete, all systems were fully operational and in the green.

 

  As if she’d never had a high-tech Russian deep sea Futlyar torpedo fired at her, chasing her down at 50 knots, Nellie resumed her grid pattern, pinging the ice shelf above her. Just as she had been programmed to do.

  What Nellie had no way of knowing was there above her, encased in the ice shelf itself, was the huge, steel hull of a submarine. Like the torpedo designers, Nellie’s creators had never envisaged what the effects might be if their depth probing pings should hit a large steel mass above the ice. After all, under what circumstances would there ever be a ship or submarine above sea level in the Antarctic?

  Chapter 17

  November 9, 2017, 01:30 UTC

  Ronne Ice Shelf (Antarctica)

  -77° 51' 19.79" S 61° 17' 34.20" W

  U-2532

  Jack made the decision not to engage the snow camouflaged enemy in a stand up fight. Their equipment lay in cargo pods strapped to the one remaining pallet on the ice and the only ammunition available to them was what each man carried in his pack. In no time at all they would be dry firing and in all likelihood, they’d be lucky to hit anything, given the conditions and visibility.

  Fighting wasn’t an option. For now.

  Surrendering wasn’t in Jacks DNA.

  They had a new mission. Survival. If they remained where they were, the severe wind chill would render them hypothermic in less than an hour. Their thermal tactical suits were designed to keep them alive under combat c
onditions when they’d either be moving to stay warm or huddled in one of the high-tech tents DARPA had equipped them with. The conning tower protected them from the worst of the biting Antarctic wind, but it was still open to the elements and they had no way to stave off hypothermia while pinned down there.

  The snow suited force of their adversaries surrounded them and Jack sensed they were closing in, but interestingly, they were no longer firing weapons at the sub. Jack knew that an outfit professional enough to catch him off guard wouldn’t be the type to go on a mission with too little ammo. They had to have a reason for holding fire.

  “I think it’s over to you, now that they’re taking a break from trying to blow us to bits.” Jack placed a reassuring hand on Sam’s shoulder. As he did, he noticed a trail of blood oozing from his cuff.

  “You’ve been hit,” Sam observed.

  Jack bit back a sarcastic retort. They need to work together right now. Survival. If they couldn’t do that, then there was no mission. Survive, and then worry about securing the sub.

  “I’ve had worse. A lot worse. Right now, we need a plan. It won’t be the bullets that kill us, it’ll be the cold.”

  “So why is it … over to me, all of a sudden?” asked Sam, his teeth chattering comically.

  “Because,” Jack smiled, despite the grim situation, “we’re onboard a submarine and if I’m not mistaken, we’re on your turf, now.”

  “You want to crack the hatch and hunker down in the sub until help arrives?” Disbelief showed on Sam’s face.

  “Unless you have a better idea …”

  “This thing has been exposed to the elements for over 70 years. The hatch is probably rusted and frozen solid. We’d need cutting equipment to get it open.” Sam shook his head as he brushed snow from the dog wheel used to open the hatch.

  “This … ain’t right,” he stammered but only partially from the cold.

  “You’re talking about this thing looking like it rolled out of dry dock six months ago, not half a century ago?” Jack had noticed it, too.

  “Something like that,” Sam gasped as he heaved on the release wheel trying to unlock the hatch.

  An intense crack of thunder filled the air, loud enough to be felt as well as heard over the howling wind that buffeted the conning tower.

  “What did you just do?” Jack’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, his steely gaze fixed on Sam.

  “What did I do? I did what you told me to do. I tried to open the friggin’ hatch,” he shouted. It wasn’t as if the enemy didn’t know exactly where they were, anyway, so low voices seemed kind of pointless.

  Jack peered over the top of the tower, toward the surrounding force. As he expected, they were falling back and in quite a hurry about it, too, he noted.

  Another crack of thunder filled the air, this time louder and closer than the last.

  “Great, so a blizzard isn’t enough, we have to have a thunderstorm to top it off,” Sam moaned.

  “That’s not thunder, you idiot!”

  Jack knew the sound of breaking ice. He’d been caught in mountain avalanches at high altitude and he’d been on missions to the Arctic ice shelf. Nothing else sounded quite like a gigantic piece of ice cracking open for the first time in a million years.

  The section of deck below them moved. A perfectly natural movement for a submarine in its natural ocean environment, but far from normal when they were fully ice bound and above the water.

  An even louder crack echoed across the ice pack and both men scrambled over the icy steel to cling to the ladder as the deck below them fell away, their stomachs lurching as they plummeted with it, into a frozen abyss.

  Chapter 18

  November 9, 2017, 01:35 UTC

  Ronne Ice Shelf (Antarctica)

  77° 51' 19.79" S 61° 17' 34.20" W

  U-2532

  One second they were weightless and in freefall like skydivers, the next, they were slammed into the steel decking within the conning tower. With years of training and practice jumping from aircraft, Jack’s instincts took over and without conscious thought he tucked and rolled, absorbing the impact.

  Navy man Sam wasn’t so well prepared. The big man had his knees driven up into his face, smashing him in the nose as he collapsed onto the deck. A spray of blood spattered the white snow that covered the conning tower. Through the tears that stung his eyes, Sam looked over to see that Jack was getting to his feet, unhurt and not bleeding.

  A familiar feeling rushed through him as he wiped the blood from his face and stood up. A comfortable and familiar feeling. The deck was moving and this time, in a good way. The German U-Boat was back in the water, where it belonged. Soon it would be decks awash ….

  “Oh, shit,” cursed Sam.

  “Don’t you ever stop complaining?” Jack rolled his eyes. “We’re out of the line of fire, at least and that buys us time to work on the hatch. And a plan for getting out of this mess. I thought you’d be happy on the water?”

  “It’s not on the water that’s the issue. Pretty soon, we’re going to be in the water.”

  Jack shook his head, brow pinched. He didn’t see the problem.

  “We’re already low in the water and I can feel us getting lower. I don’t know how it’s possible, but this boat got iced in way up there,” Sam pointed up to the gaping chasm through which the sub had collapsed before hitting the water, “without blowing all of its tanks.”

  Jack shrugged but said nothing.

  “Do you army boys know nothing? It’s simple physics … positive buoyancy, submarine floats. Negative buoyancy, submarine sinks. These tanks were blown negative at some point underwater so the sub could hold its position. That’s neutral buoyancy. Now, the laws of physics are pulling her down to the depth she was at when the tanks were blown enough to level her off.” Panic was plastered all over Sam’s face.

  “So we’re sinking?” Jack didn’t sound in the least bit alarmed.

  “That’s another way of saying it, yeah.”

  “You could have just said so without all the navy jargon and science. We don’t exactly have time for a physics lesson right now.”

  “What do we do?” Sam’s eyes were wide with fear.

  “Simple. If we go in the water we die within three minutes. The freezing water will kill us before we have a chance to drown. We can’t climb up the ice walls to the surface because our equipment fell through the ice when the sub collapsed the shelf, so we don’t have climbing gear. Our only chance to stay dry … and alive … is to get below before we submerge.”

  Like a man possessed, Sam frantically kicked at the dog wheel, trying to loosen the grip of the ice on the mechanism.

  He stopped quite suddenly and directed a cold stare to Jack.

  “What?” Jack shrugged.

  “Any chance you’d like to lend a hand? Or a boot?”

  And with that, both men kicked at the hatch like men possessed.

  Despite its robust and functional outward appearance, the pressure hatch of a submarine is a complex piece of machinery. Sandwiched between the thick, curved steel plates of the door are housed an intricate collection of pinions, gears, cams, levers, valves and seals, designed to seal the hatch against over a thousand pounds of pressure on the hatch when submerged.

  When closed, evenly spaced steel latches or ‘dogs’ are thrown into recesses surrounding the hatch, locking it into position when the ‘dog wheel’ is turned. When the U-Boat submerged for the last time, the captain of the boat would have ensured one of the crew had been sent up the tower to ‘dog the hatch’, ensuring a watertight seal.

  Of course, none of that mattered to either man as they sought to break the seal of ice which kept the dogs from retracting. After a full minute of kicking and stomping Sam again tried to turn the dog wheel.

  It wouldn’t budge.

  Jack had an idea. “Let me have a go,” he said as he shouldered his way past the big man.

  Kneeling, brushed the snow from the hatch in widening circles until the en
tire surface was visible, not just the area under the wheel.

  Gripping the wheel with both hands, he prepared to heave on it but instead found that with very little effort, it started to turn. The more he turned the wheel, the easier and faster it spun.

  Jack looked up at Sam and wondered if his massive jaw could drop any lower. Despite the dire situation, Jack couldn’t help but take a moment to smile.

  “Maybe you’re not as strong as you like, big guy.”

  Words wouldn’t come to him. Sam was flabbergasted. He’d been outdone by an army brat on his boat.

  Jack pulled open the hatch without so much as a rusty squeal of protest from the hinges and gestured for Sam to head down first. He hoped Sam wouldn’t notice the arrows and German instructions molded into the surface of the hatch. Sam had been turning the wheel the wrong way, the American way. Jack was happy to play the strength card for the moment. Score another point for the army.

  Both men shouldered their packs, unholstered their sidearm and prepared to enter the dark void below the conning tower. Weapons were drawn, not for fear of encountering combatants below, but for the practicality of the tactical rail mounted flashlights slung below their barrel.

  With a firm nod of agreement, Sam proceeded through the hatch. Words weren’t necessary. Neither man knew what to say in a situation in which they didn’t think any living person had ever found themselves.

  With waves lapping at the sides of the tower, Jack knew their time was up and dogging the hatch once more was the only way to keep them alive. The hatch was barely secured when the roar of water spilling into the conning tower echoed through the hull of the boat.

  Jack Coulson wasn’t a religious man, who could be after seeing the evil people were capable of during his missions, but as he descended the ladder into the inky bowels of the Nazi sub he prayed he’d made the right decision. Sometimes there was no right or wrong decision and survival simply meant moving. Moving forward. Never stopping. This sure as hell was one of those times.