by Chris Pauls
The blaze raging behind him and the surrounding fog were conducive to producing a Brockengespenst. The specter ahead was actually his shadow landing on billowy air moisture, an optical illusion seen throughout the ages by climbers on the Brocken. He waved a hand and the Brockengespenst waved back. Weiss grinned momentarily, let out a deep breath, and resumed his descent.
The sound of a low moan compelled him to stop once more.
Weiss wheeled around. A flaming body lumbered erratically just up the incline. Released by the explosion, the Subject was now a blazing abomination. The smell of burning human hair and reindeer hide—the shaman’s cloak—filled the air.
He stabbed his walking stick into the snow and pulled the gun from his vest. Sighting carefully, he fired at the Subject’s chest.
Flames burst in all directions as the bullet plowed into the Subject’s body and escaped through the other side. The Subject seemed unfazed, except that now it spied Weiss and emitted a rising moan as it staggered toward him. Weiss fired recklessly at the advancing creature. Again and again bullets struck the body until the hammer found no more cartridges, clicking uselessly. Weiss tossed the gun aside and grabbed the only other weapon available: his walking stick. He could probably outrun the damaged wreck of a being, but it could not be left alive—if such a thing could be called living. Somehow, it had to be destroyed.
Weiss waited for the Subject to advance closer. He could feel the heat from its still-burning flesh as he leveled the stick and rammed it hard into the midsection. The Subject stumbled, then lost its balance and careened awkwardly down the mountain, bouncing off trees along the way until landing with a muffled thud just out of Weiss’s sight.
No sound filled the night save the crackle of the burning cabin. Weiss crept down the mountain, finding the Subject’s body at the foot of a snowy outcropping. He relaxed. The Subject had spun headfirst into a jagged granite boulder and cracked its skull in half.
The body still burned, but Weiss took no chances. He pawed the forest floor for dry pine boughs and piled them on top of the Subject, creating a funeral pyre. He kept tossing branches onto the rising conflagration until an undulating wail of sirens from the village of Schierke below told him his time was up.
4
BOAT DOCK. SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND.
TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 1912. 4 P.M.
Each time before he set out to sea, Captain Edward Joseph Smith liked to walk his entire ship, stem to stern. It kept the men on their toes, if nothing else. And on this voyage, as much as and more than any other in his distinguished career, Captain Smith wanted his men on their toes. When Titanic launched in less than twenty-four hours, the whole world would be watching.
Activity on Titanic hummed at a fever pitch. He watched burly men, wet with sweat despite the cool April breeze coming off the water, labor to fill six holds with exotic cargo. Other workers craned aboard provisions—food and drink to satisfy more than two thousand paying passengers on a five-day voyage.
“To the left, you daft!” cried a red-faced able seaman at the crane operator, who was attempting to lower a cargo net containing a heavy wooden crate through the hatch coaming. The crane man scowled and spat.
“Doin’ my best, aren’t I?”
“We need a damn sight better than that,” returned the seaman at the hatch. Then, with a start, he threw back his shoulders and broke into a full salute. The crane operator locked his controls and saluted as well. Neither man inhaled as the snow-bearded Captain Smith, marching across the deck, stopped to glance quickly from net to crane. The captain scowled, and the seamen flinched. Had he heard them cursing and squabbling? Had they damaged the new hatch with their clumsy work? Finally, Smith nodded at the men and moved on.
“Thank you, Sir!” the seamen called after the captain in unison. Smith had read the situation immediately. The scowl was to end their fight and return focus to the job. After all, putting a little fear in the men kept them sharp.
Smith had put Titanic through her paces just days before, and the sea trials in Belfast had gone off satisfactorily. “She turns well enough, though damn slowly,” Smith had remarked to Titanic’s designer, Mr. Thomas Andrews, who was aboard for the trials.
“I’m sure you’ve found that true of all large ships,” said Andrews, not at all defensively. “And Titanic is larger than any.” He was practically giddy. “From 12 knots to all-ahead-full speed in only ten minutes time,” he enthused. “And when you called for a stop, she was still in the water less than a thousand yards after your order.”
“Yes,” allowed Smith. “She will serve.”
Now, the Captain was eager to leave preparations behind and launch for America. There had been a lot of interest in the world’s largest liner, and Smith had begrudgingly done his part to accommodate the press. “A sailor’s best days at sea,” he told one reporter, “are his first and his last.” His last was close at hand. “All I want to do is put an oar on my shoulder and walk inland until someone asks what on earth that thing is. And that’s where I’ll spend the rest of my life.”
For the better part of two decades, the sea had been his escape from everything he wished to leave behind on land. But as the years passed, the need for diversion had waned, and now he had a wife and daughter, Helen, waiting for him at the end of every voyage. How long until the girl was off having her own adventures? Titanic’s maiden trip across the Atlantic would be Smith’s last at the helm of any ship. He was more than ready to hang up his captain’s cap.
He had only one chore left to accomplish before sailing, and he trusted no man but himself to do it.
Captain Smith arrived at his suite, using a slim key to open the freshly painted white door. The three rooms were more luxurious than he needed, certainly more than he wanted. The parlor alone was the size of three steerage cabins. A polished chrome railing, its purpose more decorative than functional, circumnavigated the room. Four well-stuffed chairs surrounded a sophisticated mahogany table, upon which sat a long wooden crate that he’d delivered himself earlier that day.
Smith carefully lifted an oil painting from its nail. The still life depicted a bowl of figs. He’d have a steward find a more suitable spot for the work. It didn’t belong in his cabin.
He reached inside a canvas sea bag and pulled out two wooden hooks, a small mallet, and a leather pouch containing a handful of mismatched screws and nails. He mounted the hooks in the holes where the painting had hung, cracking a little plaster along the way.
Using a pen knife, Captain Smith pried a brittle plank from atop the thin crate with a splintery pop. He removed a long, narrow package wrapped in midnight-blue silks, carefully unwinding the cloths to reveal a worn but rugged leather scabbard, with a loop for attaching to a belt. He kept the blade’s slightly curved forty-four inches trapped safely inside the ceremonial sheath, with only a hammered brass pommel exposed to the air. In his hands, the treasure was curiously lightweight and substantial at the same time.
He carefully hung the sheathed sword on the hooks, then stepped back and admired his work. Now stay up there on the wall where you belong, Smith thought.
Captain Smith was ready to launch Titanic.
5
TRAIN. SOMEWHERE BETWEEN LONDON AND SOUTHAMPTON.
TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 1912. 8:45 P.M.
The rural British countryside flew past largely unseen, shrouded in darkness as the London and Southwest Railway train rumbled toward Southampton. A passenger car’s paneled interior and its occupants were swallowed in shadow, intermittently illumined by shafts of moonlight darting through the windows. A lonely whistle blew, warning livestock of the approaching engine.
The Agent hadn’t expected to be on a train in England. Instead of traveling to Russia, here he was trying to find that damn scientist, who’d blown up his laboratory and escaped with what Moltke had called “the Toxic.” A thorough investigation of the Brocken Mountain facility had turned up an imposter vial, but no Theodor Weiss, alive or dead. Moltke was furious; so was the Kai
ser. His order was to recover the Toxic and eliminate Weiss at all costs.
Yesterday evening, Weiss’s Mercedes Simplex automobile had been discovered at Bremerhaven, and a man fitting his description had secured passage by steamer to Southampton. Weiss had fled to England, but would he remain there? Moltke was of the opinion the scientist would continue to America via Titanic. Its massive size made it the perfect ship in which to disappear.
Others felt differently, so Moltke had dispatched personnel to intercept Weiss at several potential destinations, but the Agent was determined to reach him first. He had requested the Titanic assignment, noting that if Germany couldn’t apprehend Weiss before the ship sailed, they would need to make sure an operative was aboard. For the Agent, securing a false identity was paramount, and German intelligence had chosen the perfect candidate.
Reaching inside his rough, tweed jacket, the Agent withdrew a worn black-and-white photograph and referenced the picture one last time, using what light flittered in the car. The man in the picture had receding black hair combed straight back, tight to the scalp. Suspicious eyes were set close together, his dark, slanted eyebrows furrowed behind bowless, wire-rimmed spectacles. There was something of a mustache below his nose, though graying whiskers seemed to fade into his pallid face. He wore the uniform of a monarchist Russian: a coal-black top coat with a dark tie knotted high on his neck.
The Agent flipped the photo. The man’s name was written on the back: Vitaly Jadovsky. Jadovsky would be traveling on Titanic alone, in first-class passage. He was ostensibly a newspaperman but in reality nothing more than a propagandist. According to the brief the Agent had memorized earlier during passage to England, Jadovsky’s mission aboard Titanic was to reassure foreign investors that Russia was still a profitable place to do business, despite recent squabbles with labor.
His particulars were burned into the Agent’s brain: Both father and mother died in a fire. Married to Ludmila, fourteen years. Three children. A fondness for Russian literature, Shutov vodka, and good tobacco. Jadovsky had acquired wealth by virtue of cheating two partners (including his own brother) of their rightful shares in a business venture. With his fortune and future secured, he’d concentrated for quite some time on writing inflammatory articles for the far right.
The Agent knew what kind of Russian Jadovsky was without ever meeting him.
The Agent stood and stretched, replacing the photograph in his pocket. It was time. He walked slowly down the aisle of the passenger car as if working out the kink in a trick knee that had stiffened on the journey. He passed Jadovsky, sitting alone and staring blankly out the window, and stopped two rows of seats behind him. The Agent then withdrew a pack of Sobranie cigarettes from his jacket and lit one. The smoke’s red tip cast a bright glow as he inhaled, slowly and deeply.
The Russian noted the aroma at once, turning and smiling at the Agent. He gave Jadovsky a polite nod.
“Sobranie. Are you Russian?” asked Jadovsky in his native language.
“I am,” replied the Agent without an accent. He produced the cigarette box again and offered one to Jadovsky. “Won’t you join a countryman on the platform while I stretch my legs? I’ve been traveling on business for three days—the night air and company will do me good.”
Jadovsky accepted the offer. He pulled on his long black coat and followed the Agent to the back of the car and through a sliding door.
The platform was considerably louder than inside the train car; the thunder of wheel meeting rail rattled up the men’s legs and into their chests. The wooden floor shifted beneath them. High above, the nearly full moon glimmered between the tops of the cars, free of the city lights that dimmed its natural majesty.
The Agent handed Jadovsky the cigarette and lit it for him. The Russian closed his eyes and breathed in the fragrant smoke, holding it in his lungs for a full five seconds before exhaling. Bliss.
The Agent grinned and pulled on his own Sobranie, slowly releasing a trail of smoke into the cool night air. “What business are you in?” he asked.
“I’m a writer,” replied Jadovsky.
“Interesting. What kind of things do you write?” asked the Agent.
“Editorials mostly.”
“For whom?”
“Russkoye Znamya.”
“The Black Hundreds paper.”
“That’s right. Where are you from, friend?” Jadovsky asked, sticking out his hand.
The Agent grasped it tight. His eyes darkened. “Kishinev. I lived through the pogrom against the Jews. The pogrom your poisonous words incited.”
Jadovsky blanched, his face stark with fear. He couldn’t pull away from the Agent’s cold, vice-like grip.
“Women raped; babies with their heads kicked in. My father, a toolmaker, killed with his own pliers. His blood pooled at my feet. The killers ceased to be human, and in exacting revenge, so shall I. Know this: once the last Jews depart Kishinev, I will destroy it.”
With his free hand, the Agent reached into his jacket and pulled out a pair of needle-nose pliers, handcrafted by his dead father. The opened, pointed tips plunged into Jadovsky’s neck, grabbed his Adam’s apple, and jerked. Blood pumped from the fresh opening in time with the beating of the Russian’s heart. Jadovsky slumped against the railing and opened his mouth to gasp, perhaps even to scream for help, but no sound came out.
The Agent had ripped his quarry’s larynx free. A faint mist drifted up from where the hot wound met the crisp night air. He brought the tool down a second time, and a third, violent overhand blows to the dying man’s chest, splintering his rib cage and puncturing both lungs. Reaching into Jadovsky’s top coat, the Agent found a leather wallet containing a first-class Titanic ticket, a passport, and a small fortune in Russian currency.
Pocketing the credentials and ticket, he threw the money over the side of the train. Then he tucked the empty wallet back inside Jadovsky’s coat, which he used to clean the pliers’ silver prongs until they gleamed in the moonlight. The Agent carefully replaced the tool in his tweed jacket and lit another Sobranie. As he exhaled, he put a boot to the Russian’s chest and kicked him hard over the railing into the darkness.
6
NEAR THE WATERFRONT. SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 1912. 9:40 A.M.
Weiss stumbled. His new cane and the broken cobbled streets of Southampton were not getting along. He was taking a circuitous route to the docks and watching for signs of being followed, but he’d seen nothing so far. He silently chastised himself for not adopting a better disguise than a set of ill-fitting traveling clothes and a three-day-old beard.
He rounded a corner and caught his first glimpse of the stacks. Four immense funnels loomed above the tops of the shipping offices and shops, casting shadows that stretched a good city block, like elongated fingers beckoning Southampton to explore the colossus lurking in her waters. Weiss picked up his pace. If these were the smokestacks, how big must the ship be?
Two blocks later, Weiss arrived before Dock Gate 4, Berth 34. He was thunderstruck by the sight of the mighty Titanic in its totality. It was as long as fifty automobiles and eight or nine stories high, which only took into account what bobbed above the waterline. Weiss had read a newspaper story that described the vessel’s “nightmarish scale.” Seeing it in person, he agreed: Titanic was truly a monster!
Weiss suddenly felt very small. He craned his neck up, stepping backward to fit Titanic into his field of vision. Is this how the ant feels, he wondered, when faced with the enormity of a human? He drew four breaths in the time it took his eyes to travel the length of the ship from pointed bow to massive stern. And what did God make of this creation of man?
Weiss pulled himself back into the present moment. He was no tourist. Anxiously, Weiss reached into the valise to again confirm the presence of his White Star boarding pass, the most important purchase he’d made during his short stay in Southampton. If he’d acquired a ticket by regular means, it would have been easy to trace his flight
from Germany. He knew the ruse of his escape would not survive close scrutiny; the Kaiser’s men were most likely calling at every port and transportation agent in Germany. But even if they discovered his first voyage to Southampton, there would be no paper trail of his second. The previous night, he had traversed the city asking about a Titanic berth for sale, till luck finally shined on him in a bawdy neighborhood pub. He’d procured a “Third Class (Steerage) Passenger’s Contract Ticket” from a drunken fellow, who slurred, “I’m not going anywhere now! I’ve fallen in love, I have!” Weiss happily relieved Gregory P. Nosworthy of the burden of his ticket for seven pounds and a few pints of ale. He suspected a sober Nosworthy might be regretting his decision this very morning.
Weiss’s second acquisition was his new wooden walking stick. Purchased in a filthy Southampton pawn shop not long after his transaction with Mr. Nosworthy, the cane was not what Weiss originally had in mind. He’d entered looking for a replacement pistol, one easily concealed inside a jacket. The shop’s proprietor, Mr. Charles Lockerbie, was a gnarled old fellow in half-moon glasses working his way through a sorry apple.
“I need a gun,” said Weiss upon entering.
“Hello to you,” said Lockerbie and spit. “I’m fine and thank ye for asking.”
“Forgive me,” said Weiss awkwardly. “If it’s not too much trouble, I’m looking for some personal protection in the form of a pistol. If you please.”
“Nay, ye aren’t,” replied Lockerbie, bits of apple fighting to escape the corners of his mouth. “Shoot yourself in the foot, ye will, then yer wife will come back complainin’ ta me.”
Before Weiss could protest, Lockerbie crooked a finger at Weiss to follow him. He limped past carved tobacco pipes, silver pocket watches, and gaudy broaches. The old man wiped a hand wet with juice drippings on his vest, then produced a knotted walking stick from a brass stand. He tossed the staff to Weiss, who was surprised by its heft.