Ice Fortress (A Jack Coulson Thriller)

by Robert B. Williams

  The sonar map had been forgotten for the moment and all eyes were locked on the photonics display monitor. It would be the first time any of them, perhaps any one at all, had ever seen the inside of an Antarctic ice mountain.

  Within a beat the image appeared on the screen, slightly grainy and with the unusual bloom of a night vision image, but there was no mistaking what they were seeing as they image traversed the full 360 degrees of the chamber above them.

  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” Jameson whispered as he leaned in closer to be sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him.

  Chapter 22

  November 9, 2017, 03:00 UTC

  Westlake

  Fort Worth, Texas

  32° 45' 26.49"N 97° 19' 59.45" W

  J. Clifford Barnes watched the entire debacle unfold from the safety and warmth of his study. Who needed to launch their own satellites when you had hackers who could re-task and intercept images from any US Defense SATCOM satellite in orbit? Barnes liked to think of it has his own private cable network, but one that offered far better entertainment than anything HBO had to offer.

  Static hissed through the video conference speaker on his desk. The team leader’s audio link via satellite phone was patchy and fragmented due to atmospheric interference but Barnes got the gist of what had happened. The live satellite feed and the team leaders disjointed transmission told him all he needed to know.

  His crack team of mercenaries had lost the U-Boat. They’d snatched defeat right out from the jaws of victory. Karl Muller was supposed to be the best, that’s why he’d been handpicked to lead the elite team on the ice. Barnes wondered if he’d chosen the right man for the job. Perhaps choosing one of their own had been a mistake, after all. Would the outcome have been any different if the mission had been led by someone without so much at stake? Would a team leader in it just for the money have made better tactical decisions?

  “What do you mean it fell through the ice? How is that even possible?” Rage laced his words.

  “It just cracked …. then … collapsed … we lost … men …”

  “I don’t give a damn about the men. I want that submarine!”

  Static hissed and crackled with a few words making it through to Barnes’ anxious ears. “… Ice Station … two-eleven … in case … drifts …”

  Barnes pieced together what he thought Muller was trying to say. Of course! The man wasn’t a fool after all.

  “I don’t care what it takes. Get down there and find me that U-Boat. And when you’re done, make sure you take care of your men. Leave nobody alive down there. I’ll transmit the coordinates you will need in a few minutes.”

  J. Clifford Barnes ended the call and reflected on what was at stake.

  For decades The Brotherhood had been waiting for Kammler’s device to reappear. The time had been put to good use. Vast fortunes had been amassed from the gold that had been shipped from the death camps and underground vaults before Berlin collapsed.

  Infiltration of governments and strategic corporations around the world by Brotherhood members had been carefully orchestrated from the beginning and with each passing decade they rose to higher echelons of power and influence. Today, there was hardly a significant government agency or major finance or defense corporation that didn’t have Brotherhood members entrenched in decisive and high level assignments.

  All of that was the backup plan. Possibly the biggest, most expensive and most assuredly the boldest backup plan in history. A plan that assured The Brotherhood some level of control in the world and unlimited wealth for the indefinite future.

  But that was never the primary plan. With Kammler’s device back in Brotherhood hands, the real operation could begin, making Plan B look paltry and amateur.

  With Kammler’s Bell, they wouldn’t be working within the confines of the world as it was shaped after the war, but they would re-create the world as it should have been in the wake of a resounding Nazi victory.

  Barnes clenched his fist, his knuckles whitening as his nails dug into his flesh. He wanted it all. He wanted to be the next Fuhrer, the leader of the Thousand Year Reich and he’d watched his chance slip into a gigantic watery grave.

  Failure was not an option. He would secure the Bell no matter what the cost, even if it meant risking exposure of The Brotherhood in the process. If he succeeded, that wouldn’t matter anyway. Nothing would matter.

  Blood oozed from J. Clifford Barnes fists, rivulets of crimson trailed across his polished desk. He stared at his own blood.

  At any cost.

  Chapter 23

  November 9, 2017, 03:30 UTC

  Ronne Ice Shelf (Antarctica)

  77° 51' 19.79" S 61° 17' 34.20" W

  U-2532

  Depth 100 feet

  The many hours Sam Krupsky had spent freezing his ass off in the ‘get wet’ training simulator at Ballast Point when he first enlisted came back to him in a heartbeat. A navy man’s worst nightmare was to be trapped in a flooded compartment with burst high pressure pipes jetting cold seawater into the hull at a prodigious rate. But this was no simulation. The gushing water was colder than anything Sam had ever experienced and this time he was all alone. Jack was still out cold.

  Find the patch repair kit. Locate the split in the pipe. Bypass the cutout-valve. Slide the steel patch sleeves into place and bolt them down with clamps. Easy enough in a simulator with two sets of hands to do the job and everything labelled in English, Sam thought as the icy water sprayed him in the face.

  He spotted a large metal box mounted on a bulkhead with the word Reparieren stenciled in red on the lid. That had to be worth a try. Popping it open, he saw that it was a vintage wartime version of the kit he’d trained with as a young sailor in San Diego. It wasn’t the U.S. Navy issued Band-It kit that he was used to, but there seemed to be enough sleeves, clamps, bolts and nuts to make do. Clipped into the lid of the rudimentary tool box was a solid looking wrench. Perfect.

  There was no time to waste looking for the cutout-valve. The entire bulkhead was a confusing maze of pipes and conduits. His first priority was to patch the rupture, and then he’d have time to deal with bypassing the flow to take pressure off the patch.

  His hands shook in equal parts from the adrenaline that coursed through him and the bitter cold of the near freezing water that spurted from the pipe. If he didn’t fix it fast, the numbing cold of the water would freeze his hands and they’d be useless for the dexterous job at hand. Grabbing the box, he tore it from its mountings and removed the wrench, which he slotted into his jacket pocket for fast access. Overturning the box, he emptied the assorted hardware onto a narrow shelf behind the jetting water, sorting the items into some kind of order that allowed him to identify them by feel. Sleeves. Clamps. Bolts. Nuts. His damage control training in the simulator served him well. He remained level headed and methodical. This was no time to panic.

  There were two ruptures that he could identity through the cascade that almost blinded him. Time was running out. The water level in the compartment was already above his ankles. As the boat got lower in the water from the flooding, the pressure would increase exponentially and the pipes would split even further. If that happened, the water would be at head height within a few minutes and they’d be sinking to a watery grave.

  Head height …

  “Oh shit …” Sam had forgotten that Jack was lying on the deck. He quickly checked and his face was above water. For the moment.

  Every second he delayed, the greater the flow rate of the incoming water. Jack would have to wait or they’d both die a cruel and terrifying death. The decision made, Sam began to position the sleeves over the first rupture. It took all of his considerable strength to keep in in place. The force was almost impossible and he needed his other hand to locate and fit the clamp, which he was holding ready. He had no idea how he was going to hold the whole mechanism in place, insert the bolts and attach the nuts to secure it. It was hopeless.

  Suddenly the pressure eased eno
ugh for Sam to shimmy the clamp into place and hold both the sleeve and clamp in place. Now he only had to deal with the nut and bolt one handed. Still a challenge, but maybe possible.

  The pressure dropped further.

  Sam took a moment to check on Jack’s status. He was gone.

  Looking around, he saw Jack standing in front of a series of regulating valves and stop-cocks. Jack was behaving like a frenzied mad man turning every valve and shutting off every stop-cock he could reach in a crazed attempt to stem the flow of water.

  It seemed to be working.

  Jack turned in Sam’s direction. There was no point trying to shout above the roar of the incoming water. Sam pointed to the patch kit he’d partially put in place, hoping that Jack would understand. He did.

  Wading through the frigid bilge water, Jack positioned himself to help bolt the patch in place. After tightening the nut by hand, Sam took over with the wrench and a few minutes later, one patch was secured.

  Sam pointed to the next breach and the two men, like a well-oiled machine repeated the process until the spray of water was reduced to a mere trickle.

  “Good work, Jack. How did you know which valves to shut off?”

  “I didn’t,” replied Jack. “I figured I couldn’t make things any worse, so I just went at all of them —”

  “Like a dog with two dicks, from what I could see,” Sam finished.

  “Guess I got lucky,” added Jack.

  “I thought you were out cold.” Sam had an apologetic look in his eyes. He’d made a call to fix the leak instead of getting Jack out of harm’s way. He hoped Jack understood.

  “The water brought me around. Don’t worry I would have done the same if I were you.”

  Sam nodded his thanks for the understanding.

  “What do we do now, kapitänleutnant?” Jack smiled, but his voice was tempered with tension.

  “It’s funny you should ask. While I was busy trying to save the boat and our lives, I had a few ideas, just in case we managed to scrape through. But first, I have a question for you …”

  Jack raised a brow, prompting Sam to continue.

  “Does this kind of shitstorm happen for you on a daily basis?”

  Jack shrugged and sighed. “Pretty much.”

  Chapter 24

  November 9, 2017, 04:00 UTC

  Ronne Ice Shelf (Antarctica)

  77° 51' 19.79" S -61° 17' 34.20" W

  USS Barracuda

  Depth 50 feet

  “Nice of you to join us, XO,” Captain Jameson greeted Durand as he entered the Control Room. “Nice nap?”

  “Sorry sir, I’m feeling okay now and ready for duty.” Peter Durand avoided eye contact with the captain and the civilian scientists. He did look deathly pale, Jameson noted.

  “Glad to hear it. Take us up.”

  “Sir?” Durand hadn’t yet seen the photonics display. Now he noticed that Leah, Dave and Juan still had their eyes glued to the monitor and came in for a look.

  “Holy …” He looked at the captain and swallowed hard. “Is this for real?”

  “We’ll know for sure XO, if you ever get around to blowing the tanks and get us to the surface.”

  “Aye sir,” Durand snapped with a sense of renewed urgency and proceeded to order the pilots to blow the tanks take them to the surface.

  “XO, we’re going to need some floodlights so see what you can round up from engineering.”

  “Aye sir,” Durand responded as he dashed through the hatch at the rear of the Control Room on his way to Engineering.

  Jameson stared hard at the civilians. “You three are staying here until I take a good look around.”

  All three shook their heads. There was no way they were staying below decks at a time like this. As scientists, they all had a profound sense of the historical moment at hand. Juan already had his camera strapped over his neck, looking more like a tourist than a computer expert.

  “This is my boat and you’re my responsibility.” His tone was firm and not negotiable.

  But Leah, Dave and Juan weren’t in the navy and they weren’t accustomed to the chain of command. They all stood and made their way toward the deck hatch behind the Control Room and the former Attack Center.

  Frank Jameson didn’t feel like the captain of a multi-billion dollar killing machine right now. Like the civilians, he felt like he was part of something else that he couldn’t quite describe as he led the way to the hatch without a word of reprimand for the mutinous geeks.

  Durand had unfurled a collection of electrical cables which snaked over the curved hull of the sub to provide power to the floodlights he’d had engineering throw together in double quick time. After plugging in the last of the connectors, he used his two-way radio to give the engineer below decks the order to power up.

  Instantly the cavern in which they’d surfaced was lit up in all directions.

  Nobody spoke. Jameson, Durand and the scientists were wide eyed and dumfounded. The only things to escape their mouths were the clouds of mist as they breathed through their open mouths.

  The cavernous space defied description and would have been a feat of engineering had it been built in an industrialized country within the past decade. But the gigantic bronze eagle with the Nazi emblem clutched in its claws clearly dated the structure to a time long since passed. And they were in one of the most inhospitable regions on the entire planet. It was no wonder they were agog at the sight before them. It almost seemed beyond impossible.

  They had surfaced in what, at one time, had plainly been a U-Boat pen with individual concrete wet docks to hold multiple boats at one time. The domed concrete structure that enclosed it was easily as long as two football fields and almost as wide as it was long. There was no way to judge the height of the curved roof as the lights, powerful as they were, didn’t penetrate all the way to the top.

  “These walls must be three feet thick or more of solid, reinforced concrete. How did they build this? I doubt we’d be able to do this today, even with an unlimited budget.” Dave was the first to break the silence. “There’d have to be more than half a million cubic yards of concrete here.”

  “How is one question that comes to mind. For me, a better question is why they built it,” Jameson pondered. “Seems like it would have taken years and this is hardly the most strategic place they could have built a submarine base,” he added.

  “Maybe strategy wasn’t the objective,” Juan offered. “Given how long this place has remained undiscovered maybe secrecy was what it was all about.”

  “But why all the way down here?” asked Jameson, not expecting a reply.

  “Can we get off the boat and take a look around?” Leah asked with uncharacteristic enthusiasm.

  Juan and Dave looked surprised. After all, a Second World War Nazi U-Boat base was surely more of a ‘guy thing’.

  “Well we’ve got nothing much else to do while we wait for PACOM to mobilize some help, so maybe it wouldn’t hurt for you to explore a just a little?”

  Juan was already strobing the bleak concrete interior with his camera flash like a snap happy tourist. Dave also looked like he was ready to jump ashore.

  “Captain,” Durand broke their festive spirit with his authoritative tone, “is that such a good idea?”

  “I’m going exploring, Durand,” Leah interjected forcefully, although she had wished they were better dressed for a polar excursion.

  “After you secure us to the dock Mr. Durand, you have the boat. I’ll be ashore with these three.” He gestured to the smiling trio as they hopped from one foot to the other and rubbed their hands to keep warm.

  “Aye sir,” Durand responded but he looked far from happy about it. At least he’d be warm in the boat while the other guys went off with Dora the Explorer.

  The XO keyed his mic to order engineering to send up a couple of men to help him secure the boat when he felt the deck move below his feet as if they were in open water. The water in the center of the U-Boat pen roiled and ch
urned before forming into a powerful wave that surged across the water and slammed broadside into the Barracuda, knocking it into a nearby concrete berth. The sound of thousands of tons of steel colliding with the reinforced concrete berth produced a torturous groan that echoed throughout the enormous chamber. The reverberation was so loud and so prolonged that it drowned out the sound of the submarine erupting to the surface, like a leviathan from the depths, following an emergency blow of its tanks.

  Nor did anyone hear the cry for help as one of their own fell overboard into the bitterly cold, inky black water.

  Chapter 25

  November 9, 2017, 04:00 UTC

  U-Boot-Bunker (Submarine Pen)

  Kriegsmarine Base 211

  Ronne Ice Shelf (Antarctica)

  77° 51' 19.79" S -61° 17' 34.20" W

  U-2532

  Sam had explained to Jack that he didn’t know how to blow the ballast tanks any other way than with a full emergency blow. One of the salty old German sailors he’d worked with on the U-505 restoration project at the Science and Industry Museum had proudly demonstrated the procedure on the inoperable submarine many times. He’d served aboard a U-Boat during the final months of the war, having been conscripted as a fifteen year old boy. Germany had been desperate for men having lost many millions of them at the brutal Russian Front. Nobody had cared about his age, he said, U-Boat crews had a short life expectancy, anyway. The one thing he’d learned during his short service before Germany surrendered was the emergency blow and he’d been telling anyone who would listen all about it ever since.

  Jack had no choice but to trust Sam, after all, he was the one who had got the screws turning so they could navigate to safety using the extraordinarily detailed charts that were still on the chart table as if the navigator had stepped away only moments ago. The state of the U-Boat greatly unnerved Jack and something about the whole situation made his battle hardened survival instincts bristle. There was a darkness with them in the boat that even the emergency lights Sam had lit up couldn’t chase away. The sooner they got out of the stale air of the claustrophobic boat, the happier Jack would be. He wasn’t afraid of a fire fight, he’d survived plenty of those in his time, but he’d always known exactly who he was up against. This mission was different and he felt like he was clawing at the darkness unable to see what he was really up against.