Hunt for the Holy Grail

by Preston W Child

  He twirled the liquid around the tube as fast as he could.

  "Why do you shake the tube so?" Borodin asked him.

  "I need to separate the two substances in the tube as best as I can," he said as he twirled.

  Meanwhile, Nicolai has gotten the electricity on in the U-boat. He and Itay Friedman almost plunged the facility into darkness when they took some parts and wires from the engine room.

  As Nassif set his vaccine down, and a different tube containing a supposed antidote, outside lights on the U-boat flickered on, illuminating the dark cavern.

  Just then, Major Santiago appeared at the entrance.

  —

  Garbed in makeshift protective clothing, gloves, and a facemask made out of personal clothing, doctor Anabia Nassif treated the major in the small holding bay of the U-boat.

  Nassif paused with the syringe, and his facemask muffled his voice.

  "I have to tell you Major, that if this works, you would be my first experiment at making an antidote."

  "Will it work?"

  "I added something that wasn't in the first antidote."

  The doctor smiled under his mask. What use was it if the major knew what he'd added to the drug? None of the expedition members had made such an inquiry.

  "Cadmium sulfate," Nassif said. "That's what I added to it. It inhibits chemical reactions in the right amount. It is not the best in the market, but it is what I could find here."

  He stared at the major’s quivering face. It was shiny with sweat. The soft flesh around his lower eyelids quaked.

  "Here we go, Major. It's going to hurt, very much."

  "Hit me."

  Nassif injected the major's arm.

  The veins in the major’s head were popping when Nassif shut the metal doors as he left.

  —

  Borodin and Nicolai could not read the German labels on the machines. Though the parts looked just like the ones on most submarines that Nicolai had worked on, he could not be sure with a U-boat.

  Peter Williams and Ted Cooper went down to assist in translation. Ten minutes after, the diesel engines cranked as Borodin hotwired it to life. The boat shuddered, rusting metal props around the body groaned under the weight.

  An excited Nicolai announced that their voyage was about to begin. Next, Nicolai opened the flooding hatch in the pen.

  A burst of cold air hit his face. Nicolai quickly jumped back on the boat as seawater busted into the open enclosure. Within minutes, the U-boat was buffered.

  The crew hurdled together into the pilot room. The ship was not moving because the two Russians who made it work couldn't navigate it. Perplexed, Borodin stared at the console, the sonar panel, and all the many levers and buttons.

  Doctor Anabia Nassif tapped Borodin's shoulder. "Hey, I have done deep-sea diving with underwater vessels many times. I know sonar."

  —

  The surge in the pen had automatically opened a gate under the facility. The U-boat submerged and went through the entrance into the ice-cold water. Olivia Newton gazed through one of the portholes, her camera ready to take photos.

  Misty waves surrounded the boat, and tiny water life floated by. Olivia saw two seals swim past the ship.

  She took pictures. Then she began making more notes.

  —

  Nassif stared at the dials, glancing in Peter's direction. Peter had taken a seat beside him while the others explored the boat.

  "What is it?" Peter asked him.

  "Oxygen depletion."

  Nassif took a piece off a German jotter left by the former occupants on the console. He copied numbers off the small green screen above the dial with the tag OXYGEN. Nassif made computations.

  "We have enough oxygen for just about 200 meters, Professor," said Nassif grimly.

  "Shit."

  "The crew will panic if they know this," Nassif said.

  Peter said he understood.

  —

  They hit a pocket of air-filled space under the sea. The U-boat rocked as they went by. The sound of it was like metals scraping together.

  "What the hell was that?" someone asked.

  Nassif stopped the boat on Miller's suggestion. They needed to find out what had hit the boat and if any damage had been done.

  Nicolai found a water suit. He went out a diving hatch, on the tail of the boat. Five minutes later, dripping with water, he hollered, "U-boats, plenty of them—"

  "Where?" Miller asked.

  They were all looking at another porthole in minutes.

  Below, on the seabed, U-boats were piled on each other, scores of them. Nicolai looked at Borodin; he said, "They never sailed, but they must have all their fuels still."

  They had barely twenty minutes more on the oxygen supply, but they needed all the diesel they can get. Nicolai and Borodin dived with a pipe to the nearest boat, they hooked it up with the pump in their ship and sucked two drums from the dead U-boats’ tanks.

  11

  This time Major Juan Santiago did not dream. He woke with a start, disoriented, but feeling a lot better. Then he heaved, retched, and vomited bile. He grimaced at the orchestra in his head. It was a blinding headache that pulsated in his left eye.

  He saw white and red dots floating across his vision.

  When he looked down at his hands, there were red blotches like hives on his skin. He sighed.

  "It didn't work, Doctor," a voice screamed in his head.

  He pulled the talkie out of his pocket. He got the admiral with one tap.

  "Santiago?"

  Yeah, be shocked, you cocksucker. Out loud, the major said, "We are coming."

  "What?" the admiral snarled. "Who's we?"

  "The Americans are coming in a U-boat."

  "No!"

  —

  Santiago was still sick. He sounded sick.

  The major sounded half himself, his voice was hollow and distant. Admiral Huebner called his exec.

  "We have an emergency. Get the crew ready for attack."

  "Who are we attacking, sir?"

  "The Nazis."

  —

  At fifty meters, they were still in the deep dark end of the ocean, under the secret facility.

  The first to notice the oxygen drop when they had gone a hundred and thirty meters was Olivia. She was at the porthole photographing a porpoise that had joined the U-boat travel for the past two minutes. The creature was magnificent. Its underbelly was white and the rest of it blue. The porpoises’ beady eyes watched Olivia, and it seemed to grin at her.

  Olivia started coughing. Behind her, Ted Cooper dozed on a crate of tools. So Olivia thought she was probably dehydrated. She went back to watching her new companion. Soon Olivia felt tightness in her throat.

  "Guys, I can't hold breath…"

  Then Cooper jumped up. "Oh my God, she's infected! We've got to quarantine her."

  Peter and Nassif looked at each other. Frank Miller poked his head through the cabin. He had changed his clothes into a red jumpsuit. He asked Nassif to attend to Olivia.

  "Don't touch her!" Ted Cooper yelled. "She's sick."

  "Shut up, Ted," Peter snapped.

  Nassif held Olivia and made her sit with her back against the wall. He asked her to breathe slowly and relax.

  "Take just enough gulp of air at a time," he soothed.

  Olivia nodded. Her head had begun to swim. She heard Miller's voice, saw his face appear before her. It was blurry.

  As if from a distance, she heard Nassif talking to Miller, Ted Cooper still yelling.

  "It's the oxygen level," Nassif said. "She's not sick."

  "What're you talking about?"

  "We have just enough oxygen for the next few minutes," Nassif explained. "If we don't get on the surface, we'll all die."

  Olivia continued to suck as much as she could. Her chest pumped.

  She heard Cooper say, "She's taking more than everyone else doing that."

  —

  Santiago found that he could open the metal
door from his side.

  He stepped into the cylinder-shaped corridor. It was deserted. He heard a commotion coming from the cockpit area. Then he started feeling dizzy too. He turned left and started down a short corridor with portholes on the side. He took a glance at the blue water. They were still under. Awesome.

  Santiago followed the sound of the hum down to the engine room. It was hot, the odor of diesel fuel filled his lungs, decreasing further the short supply of oxygen in his blood. He reached out and pulled a random wire loose.

  The major quickly stumbled out of there.

  —

  "Five minutes more," Nassif announced.

  "We have to go up now," Peter said. He coughed.

  The biologist, Anabia, was already sweating, and lolling at the console. The others have all taken their seats on the floor, waiting. Even Ted had lost his brash bravado. The oxygen counter was almost gone of green color; it was near red.

  "Just pull up, Nassif, please."

  Olivia started dragging herself across the floor. "John…" she called.

  Peter saw her through a mesh of haziness. Quickly, he dropped on the floor and held her hand; Olivia grabbed him with the last of her strength. She was sobbing with her eyes closed, gasping for air.

  "John, I failed you…" she cried. "I'm sorry, John."

  "No, you didn't fail me, Olivia. You have to be strong, Olivia. Hold on just a little longer. You are almost home."

  Olivia smiled then; she turned over on her back, hands still attached to Peter's. She saw clouds and stars on a bright day. The clouds floated past; they were beautiful. John rode on the clouds; his face was shining because it was the sun itself.

  She heard the cry of the porpoise outside the boat. She turned her head towards the shriek. Lights were pouring through the porthole.

  Olivia reached for the light hovering over her; it was a glorious white light, and she was not gasping for breath anymore. She could take as many gulps as she wanted in this new and beautiful place with all the views and porpoises that talked.

  "Wake up, Olivia." Someone slapped her face softly. "We are safe now, wake up."

  Peter's face was there, not John. She breathed and sat up. Daylight streamed through the porthole; it filled the cabin. She wasn't dead or dreaming.

  "Where are we?" she asked.

  "On Earth."

  She smiled at Peter Williams.

  —

  The first chills hit Peter not long after they surfaced. He pulled his jacket closer even though it was considerably warmer in the cabin of the old boat. Nassif asked if he was feeling alright.

  Peter said he was.

  —

  When the engines suddenly sputtered to death, Nassif concluded they had run out of fuel. Nicolai and Borodin raced down to the engine room. They checked the tanks and found they had only used up half of the supply.

  They began an investigation. Borodin found the wire that supplied one of the valves with water, like a car's carburetor. It had been pulled clean out of the pipe. He replaced it and then restarted the engine.

  It roared back to life, and the boat rocked again as it moved forward. The two Russians congratulated each other.

  Borodin looked down and saw what looked like vomit. And footprints.

  —

  "Someone pulled the valves in the engines," Borodin confided to Miller.

  "Watch the professor."

  "Which one?"

  "The stupid one."

  Borodin nodded.

  —

  The question of extraction was raised by Ted Cooper. He griped about having a plan B all the time and how not having one is going to screw the team eventually. Miller said it wasn't a problem.

  He brought out a satellite phone from his pocket. It was a small one, advanced and tactical.

  "What, you had that all this time!?" Ted said.

  "Come on, man. Miller, we could have called for help with that," Peter said.

  A frustrated argument followed the discovery of the phone. Miller raised his hand for quiet.

  "I'm sorry I kept this from you all," he said. "This was plan B. Besides, I couldn't let it be stolen or broken after what happened to the first one. I have a watercraft nearby that I will contact. We are covered."

  They shared a sigh of relief.

  —

  Major Santiago was on his talkie too.

  "Sir, they have a ship nearby waiting to extract them."

  "Location?"

  "Miller didn't say."

  "Good job."

  Santiago clicked off.

  He made his way towards the engine room.

  —

  The admiral called Tomas Benjamin on the coms. He told the man about the ship. It must be somewhere around the shores of Antarctica or on the high sea.

  In minutes one of the ships moved off.

  Admiral Huebner smiled contentedly.

  Meanwhile, the U-boat had broken water. He went down to the sonar room to find it. They found the beeping marker of the boat due east on the coast of the ice shelves. The admiral directed the exec forward.

  "Full speed!" he hissed.

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  —

  Peter Williams was shaking more visibly as they approached the open sea and a brewing storm to the west. Nassif did not ask this time. He now knew the signs of the disease. He touched the professor's hand furtively. It was clammy. But he knew the man was burning up inside.

  "You are sick," he whispered.

  Peter's face tightened. He looked out to sea.

  Nassif wasn't the only one watching. Ted Cooper got up slowly from his place on the box of tools. He frowned.

  "He's infected!"

  Olivia looked up from her notes, her face drained of color. She stood up. Miller and Itay Friedman turned to look at Peter too.

  "Look at him; he's got the chills as the soldiers had. His color is leaving him!" Ted shouted.

  "Shut up, Ted. We have all lost weight and color," Miller said without much strength.

  He asked Peter Williams, "How are you feeling, Professor?"

  Peter sighed. "I don't know. Just tired and hungry."

  "Oh no, you lying fuck, you feel way worse than that," Ted said.

  Friedman removed one of his guns, cocked it, and pointed it. Miller looked at him and shook his head. "We have to be sure, Itay."

  Miller glanced at Doctor Anabia Nassif.

  "We are not savages, you have to test him. Give him some drugs, whatever."

  Nassif pulled out his rack of tubes. He stared at the collection for a while, then pushed it back under the console. Something had happened to the virus since they left the underground facility.

  He said, "Guys, have you wondered why the major isn't dead yet? The first soldier to get infected went berserk and just died. The others got sick and progressed a lot more slower. Then the major just won't die."

  They stared at him. Borodin's eyes went wide. "And he's been busy pulling wires."

  "What I'm saying is, this virus infects everyone, but each one reacts to it differently; some die instantly, just as the Nazi scientists wanted it to. But it was their first, and they were bound to make mistakes in measurements, calibrations, they didn't even have centrifuges. Peter is not going to die. As of this moment, his immune system is fighting the virus. We are all fighting it, we are all infected. We will all show symptoms with time."

  There was shocked silence.

  Miller said finally, "Keep the professor under observation."

  Olivia was beside him. She squeezed Peter's hand.

  Everyone smiled at Peter. He returned it with a weak one.

  —

  Admiral Tomas Benjamin found Frank Miller's ship, a luxurious cruise watercraft. It was waiting by an uninhabited atoll ten miles out as if waiting for some signal.

  The admiral radioed back to Huebner. "Send the ship away," he ordered. "Shoot it if it resists."

  "Isn't that too extreme?"

  "No, this is national security,
Tomas. Whose side are you on?"

  "You need to calm down, Huebner."

  Huebner hung up.

  Prick.

  Huebner checked the horizon through his glasses again and saw the U-boat floating along carelessly. A wicked grin smothered his face.

  "Got you."

  He called his exec.

  "Target in sight. Advance on it!"

  The admiral saw the dense black cloud west. The wind was changing, and drops of water pelted the windshields. Waves crashed as the winds blew.

  "Two hundred meters, and gaining," the exec announced.

  "Fire at will, at fifty meters."

  12

  Second officer Julio Hernandez approached the exec in his office. He was with two other officers. He was a cautious young man with a birthmark on the side of his face.

  He asked permission to see the admiral. He held his logbook and a piece of the official document.

  "I have to make a report of these activities on international waters."

  The exec's eyes shifted from the officer to the other two who accompanied him. He asked the officer to come with him.

  "Alone," he added.

  When they entered the coms room where the admiral was waiting, the exec told the admiral what the two officers requested.

  "Let me have the form, I'll deal with it, Officer."

  "Sir, I have to do it myself," the slight man retorted.

  Admiral Huebner signaled the exec to leave.

  When the door was shut, Admiral Huebner stretched out his hand. "Let me have the form, Officer. I'm taking the burden from you."

  "No, sir." He spread his feet apart. "Whatever these people did to you, it does not matter. These are international waters. I have to report it."

  "No one will ever find out if you don't report it," Huebner argued. "It is for the sake of the international laws that you so adore that Tomas Benjamin and I are doing this."

  "I beg to disagree, sir."

  "Then, I'm sorry that I have to insist." Huebner stepped forward. "Hand it over, Officer. I will not ask again."