by Matthew Rief
“Right here,” he said, pointing at the first words. “A Lone Wolf. And it’s even capitalized. It has to be a submarine.” The four of us stared at him, eagerly awaiting an explanation. Glancing up from the paper, he grinned when he saw our expressions. “While learning about World War II at the college, we read about German U-boats. A group of U-boats cruising in formation was referred to as a Wolf Pack.”
I gave a blank stare as I thought over his words. I’d read about the German submarines before, but it had been a long time ago. I knew that there were a few that had been found in recent times, but the idea of my dad finding one left me speechless. Looking over at Jack, I saw a proud grin materialize on his face.
Pete nodded. “The boy’s right.”
Jack patted the young man on the back. “You become more islander every day.”
Isaac’s lips contorted into a smile. He stood proudly beside us, and I was amazed that none of us had been able to figure it out.
“Wait a minute,” Ange said, staring at me. “So you’re saying that your dad found a German U-boat?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. I have no idea what else it could be referring to.”
“Amazing,” Jack said, shaking his head. “If it’s true, it could change history. We’re talking about a lost German submarine!”
“But how could a submarine stay hidden for so many years?” Ange asked.
“It happens. It’s a big ocean,” Pete said. “There was that U-boat up north off the coast of New Jersey that wasn’t discovered until 1984. U-869, I believe. There’s a lot of ways a wreck can stay hidden. Hell, after all these years, that thing’s gotta be covered in sediment and sea life. It would be difficult to identify.”
The table went quiet for a moment. Grabbing the paper, I said, “The real question is, if he did find a lost U-boat, what does that have to do with these drug smugglers? Why are they after it, and why would my dad go to such great lengths to keep it hidden from them? I mean, it has historical significance, but what use could these thugs possibly have for it?”
The five of us went silent. There were a lot of questions, a lot of pieces to the puzzle that didn’t seem to fit anywhere.
Pete leaned forward, his elbows propped against the oak tabletop. With a stern voice, he said, “A toxic payload.” As the words came out of his mouth, I could tell that we all had the same thought. The Nazis had planned to attack the continental United States with a biological weapon of some kind. “So what’s the endgame here, Logan?”
Without hesitating, I said, “We find this sub before these thugs do, secure its contents and rain justice upon their doorstep.” After a moment’s pause, I added, “These guys murdered my dad. One way or another, I’m taking them down. It’s gotta be that way.”
CHAPTER TEN
As we finished up our food, I asked Pete question after question about U-boats and the Nazis’ experiments with biological warfare.
After about the third one, Pete said, “I think you should talk to a friend of mine who knows a hell of a lot more about the Third Reich than I do. Professor Murchison teaches over at Florida Keys Community College, and the man’s a history buff. A real genius. The guy used to teach at Harvard before he got fed up with the cold and migrated south. He comes in here every now and then, but your best bet would be his office over at the campus.”
I thanked them for all their help, then pushed back my chair and stood up. “Pete, this young man deserves a raise,” I said, ruffling Isaac’s long curly hair.
The three others stood up as well, and I patted Pete on the back. “The food was delicious as usual. You know, if you’re not careful, this place might actually make a profit for once.”
He laughed. “Been in the green for two months now. I think it’s the Aztec treasure exhibit. Tourists flock from all over the country to see it.”
As we headed for the screen door, I glanced at Ange and said, “Well, I think it’s time we learned some more about this Lone Wolf.”
Jack drove us back to the marina and, having a scheduled dive charter for the midafternoon, headed down the dock as Ange and I hopped into my Tacoma.
Florida Keys Community College is located right across from the Lower Keys Medical Center on College Road. The campus has a location befitting a fancy resort, nestled between forests of mangroves right along the clear tropical water. With white concrete buildings, crisp green lawns, well-manicured landscaping, an Olympic-sized swimming pool and impressive dive training programs, I decided that if I’d ever had a dream college, it probably would have been this place.
I parked in a visitor spot right in front of a cluster of buildings and palm trees behind a sign that had the word Information stenciled across it in white lettering. Ange and I headed inside and asked one of the college receptionists where we could find Professor Murchison. She told us he was giving a presentation.
“Which classroom is he lecturing in?” I asked.
The pretty black woman in her mid-forties smiled behind a pair of brown-rimmed glasses. “You don’t know very much about Dr. Murchison, do you?” She went on to explain that his presentations attracted visitors from across the state, sometimes even from abroad. “He’s speaking over in Tennessee Williams Theater. It’s the only space we have that’s big enough, and sometimes even it gets filled up.” Glancing at an analog clock that said it was almost one in the afternoon, she added, “But he should be finishing up soon.”
After asking where we could find the theater, we headed back out the automatic door, walked about three hundred feet along a nice paved walkway, then entered through the large semicircular entrance of the Tennessee Williams Fine Arts Center. The woman hadn’t been kidding about the crowd. I estimated that the two-story theater had at least five hundred seats, and almost all of them were taken. But moving upstairs, we claimed a few empty padded seats in the back row of the mezzanine and watched the end of his presentation.
Dr. Murchison looked like he was in his fifties, with a tanned complexion, thinning dark hair and a long wiry frame. He wore brown slacks and a blue dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves. The first thing I noticed about him, however, was his excitement and enthusiasm for what he was talking about. He had a passion in the way that he spoke and carried himself on the stage that impressed me from the beginning. It was clear that he loved what he did and that he was very good at it. It also helped that he had a smooth and articulate English accent that you could listen to for hours.
His presentation was about the Vicksburg Naval Campaign during the Civil War. He spoke especially about the Battle of Island Number Ten, a little-known sea battle that had resulted in the first Confederate position lost along the Mississippi River.
When he finished, the entire crowd rose to their feet and gave a loud and resounding round of applause. He bowed cordially with a big smile on his face, then stepped off the stage and met with a small cluster of students looking to ask him questions and thank him for giving such an interesting talk.
Ange and I waited until the last of the group left, then headed downstairs, catching him just as he was packing a stack of books and notepads into an old leather shoulder bag.
“Dr. Murchison,” I said as we moved over to him along the side of the stage. He looked up as he slid his bag over his shoulder. “My name is Logan Dodge, and this is Angelina Fox.” He smiled earnestly as he shook both of our hands.
“I’ve heard of you, Mr. Dodge,” he said. “You helped find the Aztec treasure, right?”
I nodded. “But if it weren’t for Angelina, it would be in the hands of Mexican cartel members right now.”
He smiled and bowed to her, and I saw her blush a little bit, which was pretty rare for her. “Of course,” he said. “Well, it’s an honor to meet both of you. What can I do for you?”
I paused for a moment and took a quick look around the theater to make sure that we were alone, an action which sparked his curiosity.
When I saw that it was just the three of us, I said, “How much do you know about Ge
rman U-boats?”
His eyes lit up as I said the last few words. “Did Pete tell you to talk to me?” he said, smiling. When I nodded, he continued, “Best seafood in the Keys over there at his place. Maybe even in the world.” He glanced towards the door. “Would you two mind walking with me to my office?”
We followed him out of the theater, down a long linoleum hallway and through a side door leading out into the warm tropical air. I was amazed as he moved with the light and purposeful gait of a man much younger than his years.
Walking beside him made me feel like I was the most popular kid in school. Every single person we passed as we strolled along a white walking path leading to an adjoining building across an amphitheater smiled and said hello. Though most of the greetings were directed at Dr. Murchison. It was easy to tell that he was well liked and respected by everyone on campus, both students and faculty.
He led us into a two-story rectangular building with the words Lockwood School of Diving plastered in black paint across the white backdrop. Up on the second story, he unlocked a metal door with a small glass window and ushered us into his office in the upper corner of the building.
“Most of the offices are located back in the administration building,” he explained. “But I like the view here better, and this room wasn’t being used for anything at the time.”
He wasn’t kidding about the view. His office had a pair of large windows that took up most of the far wall and overlooked the endless blue horizon. I don’t know how else to explain it, but his office looked like it belonged to Indiana Jones, with shelves covered with artifacts, old texts, and leather-bound books, and an old wooden desk with worn coins and a model of a Civil War ironclad resting on its faded surface.
An adjoining room was filled with shelves, books, and artifacts as well, and it had a small desk with a large magnifying glass resting on top of it. All told, his office made it clear that this was a man who had seen, learned and experienced things very few people do.
“Please have a seat,” he said, motioning towards a pair of antique black leather chairs beside his desk.
Despite the amount of stuff everywhere, the office was still roomy. I estimated that both rooms combined to give over a thousand square feet of space. As I sat down, I noticed a model of a submarine in the corner, sitting on a shelf beside an old mirror.
Dr. Murchison followed my gaze, then smiled. “To answer your question, I know a great deal about German U-boats. Anything in particular you two would like to discuss about them?”
I glanced over at Ange, who gave me a slight nod, letting me know that she was getting the same trustworthy vibes from him. I reached into my pocket and pulled the folded paper out of the plastic container. Unfolding it, I handed it to the professor.
He looked intrigued as he grabbed it and narrowed his gaze as his eyes went back and forth on the page.
He examined the paper, reading it over a few times as he stroked his chin with his fingers. “Well, that’s very interesting.”
“Yes,” Ange said. “We think he might be referring to a lost U-boat.”
“He?” he asked, his eyes still glued to the page.
“My dad,” I said. “He wrote this just before he died.”
“I see. And this part down here? It looks like questions to get the coordinates.”
I smiled. “We figured that part out and we’re pretty sure we know where it is. We just want to know what we’re getting ourselves into. And… we were wanting to try and understand what he means by ‘a toxic payload.’”
He read the words over a few more times as if unable to believe what he was seeing, then set the paper on the table and whispered something under his breath that sounded like incredible.
Leaning back in his chair, he looked up at the two of us and said, “You know, during World War II, the German U-boat was one of the most dominant Navy vessels in the sea. Pound for pound, they were arguably the most effective warships in the history of mankind, and from 1939 to 1944 alone, U-boats sank over three thousand Allied ships.” He leaned forward, his chocolate-colored eyes lighting up. “They hunted in groups called Wolf Packs.” He grabbed a handful of pencils from a nearby Conch Festival cup and laid them out on his desk, simulating an Allied convoy. “They’d roam the seas, sometimes in packs as large as twenty, cruising six miles apart and scanning for targets. When a target was spotted, they’d swoop in, diving beneath the surface just long enough to sneak up, fire their torpedoes and make their stealthy escape. In their heyday, a Wolf Pack could take down an entire Allied convoy, complete with frigate escorts, without so much as taking a single hit. They were masters of their tactics and terrors of the Atlantic, striking fear in the hearts of every Allied sailor from the Gulf of Mexico to the western coast of Africa and all the way north to the Arctic. Oftentimes, U-boats cruised close enough to American soil to see the headlights of driving vehicles through their periscopes and tune in to local news stations.”
He paused for a moment to clear his throat, then continued, “But near the end of World War II, as advances in radar and antisubmarine aircraft were utilized by the Allies, the Wolf Packs were broken apart and hunted down one by one using depth charges. By 1944, the average lifespan for a Nazi submariner was three months, and seventy-five percent of all those who volunteered never made it home.
“But Karl Dönitz, the commander of the Kriegsmarine, had been working hard on a solution. The best German engineers, some of the greatest minds in the world, put their heads together, their pens to paper and their builders to work day and night. Relentlessly they worked until they had achieved the unimaginable. In less than a year, they designed and created a prototype of their new warship, U-boat model XXI. It was without question the most advanced submarine in the history of mankind. This boat took the bar of what was possible at the time, raised it about five feet above the competition and then raised it a couple more times. While the best subs at the time could stay down maybe twelve hours, the model XXI could stay submerged for up to fourteen days and travel twice as fast underwater as any sub of its time. These were feats unheard of in undersea warfare.
“Had the XXI been rolled out a few years earlier, the war might have had a very different ending. But unfortunately for the Third Reich, only two of them were ever finished, and neither were ever deployed, or so the history books say.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked, curious as I hung on to each and every word he said in his smooth English accent.
He smiled. “Well, there’s a story that one of these U-boats snuck out of Germany and was sent on a secret mission from a submarine base in what remained of German-occupied France. The story goes that, seeing that the twilight of the war was upon them, Dönitz sent a final attack run, one last attempt to strike their enemy in the heart. Supposedly, they loaded up an XXI with a biological weapon and ordered it to sail across the Atlantic and strike American soil.”
“Do you think there could any truth to it?” Ange asked, listening as intently as I was.
He nodded. “Yes, I do. Look, I’ve been to the Keroman submarine bunkers in Lorient. Even at the end of the war, when the entire city was leveled to ruins, the bunkers remained.” He grabbed a large book of maps and opened it up to a page near the middle. He pointed to map of Western France. “The Germans had a massive biological weapons facility here in Nantes, just eighty miles from Lorient. I’ve also read accounts from English pilots who spotted a German submarine as it submerged and escaped out of the Blavet River in July of 1944. I’ve also read entries in Dönitz private journal, as well as all of the Führer’s memoirs, mentioning a secret U-boat referred to only as the Ghost. Yes, it is entirely possible, and the fact of the matter is, the Germans had both the technology and the chemical weaponry to pull off such an attack.”
Looking back at the paper still resting on his desk in front of him, he took in a deep breath and said, “Tell me, was your dad an avid scuba diver?”
“He was a retired master diver in the Navy, and
he’d dove multiple U-boat wrecks before. The one off North Carolina and the one found off New Jersey, I believe.”
His eyes grew wide, and he smiled. “Well, then, this has sure sparked my interest. I’m somewhat conflicted, however. I’ve always believed the story to be true, but if this wreck does exist, extreme care must be taken during its salvaging. If one small mistake were to be made handling a biological weapon that’s been under the ocean for over sixty years, the effects could be catastrophic.”
“We’ll be careful,” Ange said.
There was a moment of silence as I thought over his words. Glancing back up at him, I said, “Thank you for meeting with us, Dr. Murchison.”
He waved me off. “Please, my friends call me Frank. And it’s no problem at all. This is my life’s work, after all.”
Ange and I stood, then shook his hand one more time. We turned and headed for the door, but as I reached for the brass knob, he said, “Would you be willing to do me one favor?”
I turned. “What’s that?”
“If by chance you do find her, and I have all the confidence in the world that you may—might I request the opportunity to help with the salvaging? I too have dived U-352 and U-869, and I have some experience in underwater salvage.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Yours will be one of the first numbers we’ll call.”
We headed down the stairs, out through the main doors and back to my Tacoma. After climbing inside, I started up the engine and turned the air conditioning up full blast to cool the interior, which felt like a sauna when we entered.
We sat in silence for a moment, thinking about everything Frank had said.
“It’s no wonder my dad died to keep its location a secret,” I said after Ange asked what was on my mind. “If the sub is there and it does have a powerful biological weapon aboard, it could mean the death of thousands of innocent lives if it falls into the wrong hands. Maybe millions.”