But he was beginning to sweat again.
Zander explained the escort would turn back as they approached the Island of Anholt. For the first time since leaving port, Klaus breathed a sigh of relief. The pick-up was slated to occur at a rendezvous point close to the Danish island of Læsø. Once the escort turned around, they could continue on to pick up their passengers and then swing out and into the North Sea.
Near midnight the patrol boats and planes turned back. After that, it took almost three hours through icy, choppy water to meet up with the Swedish trawler.
Under cover of darkness, his men helped get the battered group settled on board. With so many crammed into such close quarters, it was chaos and a reminder that Klaus had gotten himself into a tough position.
Refusing to leave his post, Klaus kept to the control station alongside Zander. The two men explored their options and bandied about a solution to the problem.
But two days out of port, Klaus was still stewing over the dilemma when he unsealed his orders. He called for Zander.
Klaus tossed the papers on his desk. “This is Hitler’s last ditch effort to save Germany from Russia. The two who carried the orders, the ones we brought on board at the last minute, are assassins.”
Zander’s face fell. “And who will they be assassinating?”
“President Roosevelt. We’re instructed to put the men ashore somewhere near the Florida Georgia border where they are to meet up with a German spy living nearby.”
“A supporter of the German cause in America?”
“According to these papers, one of the men grew up somewhere in the Florida south. With the help of this American ally they will make their way to Warm Springs, Georgia, where the president resides when not in Washington. They intend to make it look like the Russians are the culprits.”
Zander’s eyes grew wide with amusement. “A harebrained scheme.”
Klaus picked up the documents again and shook his head at what he read. “Hitler’s gone off the deep end. These men are supposed to leave behind clues that point to the Soviets. If the U.S. believes this nonsense—that the Russians took the life of FDR—the German High Command will attempt to broker a peace treaty with America, even offering to join forces with them against Russia, hoping an attack will be imminent.”
“Such a black-hearted act committed by Stalin would surely be viewed by the U.S. as utter betrayal.”
But to Klaus it was just another example of a deranged demigod living in his fantasy world. “They won’t be able to pull it off, Zander, not in a million years. But no matter, we have a bigger problem. These men pose a major stumbling block to what we want. There’s no convincing extremists like this to abandon their orders or the plot. They’ll refuse to join us in our quest for a new life. You know it’s true.”
“Then we must deal with the assassins ourselves,” Zander suggested.
“It will take some acting on our part. Good thing we’ve surrounded ourselves with a supportive crew, hand-picked. You have assured me all along that the men have long ago lost faith in the Führer and the Third Reich. Yes?”
Zander nodded. “Most have seen for themselves that all signs point to defeat.”
“Good. Now, my friend, we simply want nothing more than to reach South America alive.”
“Maybe buy a parcel of land so we become farmers. At the least, blend into the culture and live out our days forgetting the atrocities of war.”
Klaus carried that notion back with him into his small, cramped quarters where he took a seat at his desk. For an hour he poured out his frustrations, logging his rambling entries into his journal.
He glanced over at the top secret orders that lay open on his desk and swore under his breath. All his plans of meeting his brother in a new land, all his dreams of a life in the small Alpine-like village, were about to go up in smoke if he didn’t choose the wise path. But there was so much more to this mission before they could even think about looking upon Argentina.
He had to come up with an alternate idea and do it quickly. Since Hitler had ordered him to rendezvous with a Wolf Pack at the secret refueling station in the Spanish archipelago, he was running out of time to act. Once they reached the Canary Islands the U-492 would hook up with nine other U-boats carrying more fleeing rats to shelter. Several ships would, no doubt, be carrying gold bullion, diamonds, platinum, U.S. dollars, and British pounds to pay off General Perón and his comrades.
The rest was earmarked for starting a new Germany in the mountainous region between Argentina and Chile. His mind whirled with possibilities. Klaus pounded the desk with his fist. He had to make it work. Somehow he had to pull it off.
Hitler and his inner circle could shove it up their asses as far as he was concerned. He would steal from the rats as they had done to others. The money and jewels would set him and his crew up for life. But first he had to make sure his boat carried the lion’s share of the loot. If he offered to carry a few of the rats to safety, that would lend a ring of truth to his pitch. Later, he would toss the rats overboard. After all, people were lost at sea all the time, one big wave in the middle of the ocean and they could all disappear, never to be seen again.
But first he had to unload the passengers he’d picked up earlier from the fishing trawler. The women and kids were getting on his nerves.
He charted a course to follow along the coastline to Spain. He’d dump his paying passengers off in the Port of Vigo. They could wait out the war there on the German merchant vessels trapped by the war. He would, of course, tell them he would be back for them later, much later.
It might work. If he dropped off his paying passengers in Spain. He’d already decided to use the two assassins as an excuse to break from the convoy. Then once he got clear of the other ships, he’d throw the two new men overboard and make for the deserted beach, the one his brother, Walter, had located in Argentina. There, he would unload his fortune, scuttle the sub and head into the mountains to wait out the war.
Zander interrupted the reverie. “How do you intend to get the bulk of the gold on board the 492?”
“I’ll simply con the commandants by reminding them that we have superior, long-range capability.”
Confident in the plan, Klaus was able to hug thousands of miles of beautiful Moroccan coastline on his way to the Canary Islands.
By day, through his binoculars, he took in the spectacular views and rolling hills of Tangier. Like a tourist, he settled back to bump along and ride out the swells of the sea.
The next three days went by quickly until finally, on a dark and moonless night, U-492 pulled alongside a Spanish freighter.
Klaus stood on the conning tower scanning the horizon for trouble. He watched as his crew unloaded the cargo net. They stowed the watertight, unmarked heavy boxes below in the forward compartments.
He fantasized about the gold in each crate. The urge to pry open the lid and look, to hold the heavy weight of it in his hands was fierce. He shook his head to pull himself out of the daydream. There would be time enough later for enjoying the fruits of his labor.
The U-boat to his left was in the middle of taking on passengers. In the dark it was hard to make out their faces, but he knew some of them from news reports. Big fat rats running for their lives to a hiding place far away from war and death.
The joke would be on them once they reached their destinations and discovered they had no money. Without their fortunes to bribe officials, they might just end up as guests of a South American internment camp where they’d wait out the war or be sent back to Germany to face their war crimes.
Klaus glanced at his watch. At two in the morning the order came down to get underway. U-492 took its position in the middle of the pack under strict radio silence, just flags or signal lights from here on.
The pack was able to run on the surface for most of the voyage. To conserve fuel, they ran on one engine, even though they had a fully-loaded supply boat, otherwise known as a milchkuh at their disposal.
&nb
sp; It took eleven days to make the crossing. If the weather held they might make landfall in another three weeks.
Of course, if Hitler and his superiors had their way, U-492 would be leaving the pack at the equator and turning north and heading to the American coast to drop off the assassins.
Once the pack crossed the equator, Klaus decided a celebration was in order. He commanded his Obersteuermann or Chief Quartermaster to issue one bottle of beer to all the crewmen. In triumphant fashion the crew marked the last German ale they would taste for a very long time.
Just as Klaus lifted his beer, a signal came in from the Commander. He headed topside to see what the message was about. While climbing the ladder to the conning tower hatch, his mind raced with doubts, hoping that his orders had not been changed. As he climbed out of the hatch, the watch officer handed him a piece of paper. He quickly read it and let out of string of curses.
Klaus shouted, “Have all the officers meet me in the forward torpedo room in five minutes.”
The room was small and crowded and hot. The heat from the engines had them all sweating. With all eyes on him, Klaus considered his words carefully. “We have new orders that affect our plan. I’ve been put in command of two other U-boats as well as the milchkuh. The orders state that the supply boat will wait for us on the east side of Turks Island. The other two will proceed with us along the route toward the American coast, mining several ports along the way for a diversion while we drop off the two assassins. It seems someone at the top worried that we’d be stupid enough to be discovered by an American air patrol.”
The captain took in the disappointed faces around him before going on, “Here’s what I propose we do. After we drop off the assassins, we’ll head out into the Atlantic, a hundred kilometers or so away from shore, send out a fake distress signal, wait a few days to give the other two subs enough time to rendezvous with the supply ship, and let them continue on to Argentina, thinking we were lost at sea. Then we will head to our deserted beach and from there to Bariloche and start our new lives.”
Once Klaus saw relief move through his men, he added, “Pass the word to the crew. Make sure everyone knows except the newbies. They’ll find out their fate soon enough.”
Chapter Twenty-One - Justice
Leaving the supply sub some sixty kilometers off Turks Island where it would wait for their return, Klaus steered U-492 on a north westerly course toward the Atlantic coastline. He was careful to avoid the major shipping lanes to keep from getting spotted. When there were several close calls—a ship on the horizon or a plane in the distance—he ordered immediate dives to stay out of sight.
Klaus breathed a sigh of relief when they left one U-boat near Miami and then another one a hundred and fifteen kilometers north near the shores of West Palm Beach.
From there, U-492 remained underwater the rest of the way until approaching the coast of Georgia. Once they reached that point, the sub rested at the bottom of the ocean at a depth of thirty meters to wait for nightfall.
For thirty-six hours, the air was stale and smelled of sweat, oil—and fear. At the precise time, Klaus surfaced to periscope depth. He did a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree scan of the area, looking for any ship activity. It was only after his watch officer completed the same search that he directed the sub to proceed closer to shore.
Once they were in position, he ordered a slow surfacing. The moment the boat broke the surface, Klaus ordered the gun crew and watch crew out of the hatches.
The new moon offered scant light and there were no lights coming from shore. The only sound was the lapping of the waves on the bulkhead.
As the captain waited for the signal from the German sympathizer onshore, he ordered the crew to ready the large inflatable raft they’d use to ferry the two assassins and their equipment onto land. The crew quietly and quickly lowered the raft into the water.
After getting the landing craft loaded, everything was in place. But still there was no signal from land. The minutes slowly ticked by. Each one felt like an hour. At any moment they could be spotted by a patrol boat or an airplane.
Klaus felt vulnerable, uncomfortable. The sub was an easy target, like a sitting duck. He was just about to give the order to put the two assassins ashore anyway and leave them to their fate, when he spotted the signal, a rudimentary Morse code using what looked like a flashlight.
He had his signalman verify and then answer it. He ordered the raft to push off. It would take twenty minutes or more for his crew to drop off the men and return. He played with the idea of submerging until his men returned, but decided not to; he would wait out the tense situation, scanning the skies and the horizon for any sign of danger.
It seemed like hours before the crewmen were back on board and the raft had been deflated and stored away. Klaus ordered the crew below as the U-492 silently disappeared under the waves. When the hatch closed and they got underway, Klaus felt relief emanating off the entire crew.
But the reprieve would be short-lived. He wasted no time plotting a course straight down the coast of Florida. They’d traveled perhaps less than seventy kilometers southward when an explosion rocked the sub.
Glass gauges broke. Pipes began to spew water. U-492 went into a tail dive, heading toward the sandy bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The hull creaked as it descended fast.
Klaus heard the voice of his chief engineer as he ticked off the list of damages. “Engine room is taking on water. Sea water will reach the batteries soon. Prepare to hit bottom.”
At thirty-five meters below the surface, they did. Klaus shouted orders. “All crewmen, don your breathing apparatus! Now! Poisonous chlorine gas is imminent! Abandon ship! Abandon ship!”
He turned to Zander. “Flood all compartments on my command.”
There was no time for fear as the cold seawater flooded into U-492. But Klaus had to wait until the compartments were almost fully flooded because it was impossible to open the escape hatch with the sea pressure pushing against the metal. He had to be patient, equalizing the interior and exterior pressure of the boat, before he could open the hatch and escape from a watery grave.
It seemed like it took forever for the seawater to reach the level needed to pop the escape hatch. But it gave him enough time to gather his logbook, his journal, a few maps, and other important papers and shove them into a waterproof bag and then into his attaché case for carrying.
Once the pressure evened out, the hatch opened easily and each crewmember floated out and up almost without effort.
As the captain drifted up to the surface with them he could see his boat on the bottom. He took one last look before getting swept away in the current.
He didn’t know how many other men had made their escape to the rough sea surface to join him. But he thought he could see a few other men rising with him, slowly rising to the top. Not as many as he’d hoped, though. The chlorine gas must’ve claimed a portion of his crew and trapped them in compartments, places where they were unable to open the air-tight doors.
Once on the surface, Klaus gasped for fresh air. He did his best to count the heads of his surviving crewmen as they broke through the choppy waves. The largest raft had failed to deploy, but he saw several smaller ones and two more with men trying to climb into them or hang on the rim for their lives. He spotted a few life jackets, along with several rebreathers, or escape lungs, that the crew could use for floatation devices.
Who knew how long it would take before they were spotted or picked up? If the tides worked in a northerly fashion, they would drift back in the same direction in which they’d come, back toward Georgia. If they were lucky they would end up in a major shipping lane. Funny how he’d done everything up to this point to avoid the more common routes. And now, he needed a large vessel to come along and pick them up.
Klaus looked around at the debris beginning to rise to the surface and the small number of lifeboats. He counted eight. In all his time at sea, he’d seen his share of life rafts floating aimlessly with de
ad men after a battle. But warfare hadn’t been involved in this mess.
He knew the first order of business had to be getting the men working on tying the rafts together and taking stock of what supplies they had.
He spotted the launch holding his badly injured chief engineer and one other crewman. “What the hell happened, Hans?”
Despite his gaping chest wound, Hans raised his head. “Sabotage. Someone on board intentionally used a device to sink us. My guess is it had to be the assassins. But why, captain? Why? We’d almost made it.”
Klaus’s mind raced for answers. “Perhaps they found out about my plan. Maybe they wanted to kill all of us, witnesses to their mission.”
His friend Zander agreed. “The bastards tried to kill us so we wouldn’t talk of their deed to kill the American president. Why didn’t we see their treachery coming?”
Klaus shook his head. “I know one thing for certain. I’ll hunt the men down and kill them like the pigs they are. I won’t rest until I put a bullet between their eyes.”
“Even the farmer in me wants revenge,” Zander uttered.
Just as Klaus had predicted, the wind and tides carried them along in a northerly fashion at about two to three kilometers an hour. Slow going, they were drifting away from the resting place of U-492.
That night, he could see city lights to the south in the distance, bright against the total darkness. He figured it was probably a small coastal community.
Three crewmembers offered to try and swim toward the lights but Klaus persuaded them it wasn’t a good idea. Too far away. The second night, Klaus didn’t try to stop them. The trio left in the middle of the night and he never saw them again. The following day a few of the more severely injured men died. Hans was one of them.
They were running low on water and even lower on hope as time seemed to stand still. The sun beat down on them during daylight hours, roasting their skin to bright red. But at night the temperature dropped thirty degrees or more and no one seemed to be able to get warm enough. Chills and fever spread through the men causing delirium, especially among the injured.
The Indigo Brothers Trilogy Boxed Set Page 85