RED SUN ROGUE

by Taylor Zajonc

  “I see tire tracks, but they are days old at least.” Dalmar knelt down to examine the loose sands beneath his feet. Several massive, tractor-tire-sized lines ran parallel along the length of the beach and across the volcanic flow, disappearing at the upper edge of the buried town. He’d almost missed them. They were drifted over, made indistinct by winds and rain, almost completely blended with the natural topography of the island.

  “Agreed,” said Jonah, slinging his rifle behind his back. “And, if someone was waiting for us, I’d have to assume they would have started shooting by now.”

  The Scorpion had made it past the breakers, moving evasively as the last of her conning tower disappeared beneath the waves once more. Alexis pointed toward the long steel lines she’d spotted earlier. “The concrete dock is a lot newer than the town. So are the railroad tracks.”

  “Maybe dating from the second World War?” suggested Hassan. “I understand this region saw heavy combat.”

  “It’s possible,” said Jonah. “Let’s follow the newer trail. Spread out—and keep your head on a swivel. It doesn’t look like anybody’s still here, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

  The tire tracks turned abruptly at the end of the town, just a few hundred meters above the beach, and disappeared into the jungle.

  “Somebody recently clear-cut a path,” said Jonah, pointing to the felled trees and sawed-off stumps. A massive green jungle canopy rose above them, plunging the off-road trail into darkness. Alexis let the smell of recently sawn wood drift into her nose as she walked the path. Soon the leafy tunnel opened again to a badly deteriorated concrete airstrip surrounded by low buildings and bunkers, the structures all but reclaimed by the surrounding forest.

  “Look!” Alexis pointed. A section of the crumbling airstrip had been carefully graded, smoothed, and topped with a fresh layer of asphalt that still smelled of oil. Three empty steel shipping containers lay between the narrow strip and a blackened, ashy burn pile.

  “I see no movement,” said Dalmar. He stared down the powerful optic of his sniper rifle as he slowly panned the barrel from one hollowed-out auxiliary building to the next. “I believe we are alone.”

  “You couldn’t land on this,” said Jonah, tapping his foot on the new airstrip. It was too narrow, too short, totally devoid of painted lines or indicator lights.

  “No,” said Hassan. “But one could take off, provided you knew the exact runway length required. A single mistake and the aircraft would be lost—not many pilots would be willing to take such a risk.”

  “Maybe there wasn’t a pilot—they could have used an unmanned drone,” Alexis suggested.

  Dalmar just grunted his acknowledgement.

  “Looks like they’ve picked up stakes and moved on.”

  “And they didn’t leave much behind,” added Jonah. He scratched at his beard for a moment before wiping a palm across his forehead, the heat of the day beginning to build as the sun rose higher in the early morning sky. “Radio Vitaly. Tell him to moor the Scorpion at the concrete dock. I want everybody ashore. We’ll go over this island with a fine-tooth comb. I just hope whoever launched the attacks was sloppy enough to leave some evidence we can use.”

  “What do you want us to do in the meantime?” asked Hassan.

  “Split up; wander around. Maybe we’ll get lucky and stumble across something.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Alexis didn’t want to sift through the ash of the burn pile. She left that dirty job to the others. Instead, she slowly walked the far perimeter of the airstrip and surrounding buildings. The recent occupants of the island had cut back the jungle in order to access and widen out the landing strip, but the surrounding area remained thick and overgrown.

  She trod carefully, lifting each foot in an exaggerated fashion as she stepped over the leafy underbrush, the thick vines and roots bending beneath her heavy boots, all the while imagining what lay below. What had the jungle devoured since people last lived here? And what kind of vermin or snakes or other creepy crawly things had made themselves at home since humans had abandoned the island? The thick vegetation shrouded the imprint of each footfall, erasing the trail behind her. Footprints, roads, buildings, an entire town—the island had swallowed them all. People, she concluded, did not belong here.

  She pushed that thought from her mind and concentrated on the airstrip. In the distance, she could see a set of enclosed concrete hangers at the abandoned end of the airstrip, far from the newly poured asphalt.

  Her foot hit something heavy and unyielding. She kicked away at the vegetation and brushed the dirt back with her hand, uncovering another section of railroad track. A little stomping soon revealed its parallel twin. She held up a thumb, imagining their lengths in either direction. No doubt the lines followed a slight natural decline through the jungle before ending at the harbor. The other end disappeared toward the largest of the hangers.

  Alexis walked toward the structure, careful to stay between the intermittent sections of rusting, corroded tracks. She could see the hanger more clearly now, half encased in thick vines, some of which were so large they’d sprouted entire trees. The root systems were relentless, finding every crack and seam as they spread over the decades, breaking apart the concrete and collapsing half of the roof.

  She stopped again, noticing a tall piling almost invisible within the surrounding jungle. It was the bottommost section of a flagpole, the pole itself rusted and snapped, rising no more than three feet above its concrete foundation, the flag long since gone. Alexis abandoned the tracks momentarily, pushing into the eerie, all-consuming thick of the jungle. Her ears pulsed with the calls of the birds and insects surrounding her. She was glad Dalmar hadn’t burned down the jungle; it was dense with life and moisture.

  A small, carved monument sat just a dozen feet from the broken flagpole. It was large and flat, like a tombstone, almost taller than her shoulder, its base buried deep in the earth. She removed a small knife from her pocket, cutting away the green vines and damp leaves to reveal the inscribed face below. A few more slices with the knife and the last of the overgrowth fell away, revealing the two long columns of careful Germanic script.

  Alexis frowned at the long list of names. Germans in the Philippines? It didn’t make any sense. She half-remembered a history lesson about the colonial era and German colonies in the Far East, but the heading “U-3531” didn’t seem like an overly colonial designation. Maybe a mining company, or some other kind of industrial . . . thing? But what about the titles? They seemed almost military. Not that she recognized any beyond “Doctor,” or the ones sort of like lieutenant. Didn’t Marissa speak a bit of German? Maybe she could shed some light on the monument.

  She glanced around at the thick trees surrounding her, and was suddenly aware of the sunken, rich earth beneath her feet. With an abrupt prickling sensation, Alexis realized she could be standing atop a mass grave, and with a shudder, she scrambled back to the overgrown railroad tracks.

  By the time she reached the rusting, corroded doors to the massive hanger at the end of the airstrip, Jonah was a tiny figure in the distance. Three more Scorpion crew emerged from the newly-carved jungle pathway—Vitaly, Sun-Hi, and Marissa—and they, too, began combing through the first of the empty auxiliary buildings.

  The steel hanger door was paper-thin and brittle, easily snapping away as she kicked at it, creating a gap just large enough to duck through and into the darkness. She held her breath as she stepped into the cool, humid interior, swatting away at the cobwebs that covered her face and hands. A few rays of light shone from the collapsed end, shimmering in the darkness as they played across dangling vines and broken concrete. Before her loomed a massive shape, its silhouette angular and menacing.

  Alexis clicked her flashlight. It flickered for a moment and died. She slapped it a few times, shaking it until the battery re-established an electrical connection to the high-output bulb. Raising the light again, she shone it towards the shape in the darkness, illuminating
a long, curved submarine bow before her. She let her light play along the length of the rusting sub, across six forward torpedo tubes, fuel tanks, and flood vents, across the conning tower and antennas. Despite the rust and corrosion, she could still make out the insignia ‘U-3531’ painted across the tower. Her profile was unmistakable, a product of a single era.

  Alexis picked up the radio on her belt and held it to her mouth. “Uh, guys?” she said, transmitting across the length of the abandoned airstrip. “You should come take a look at what I found.”

  Jonah reached out to touch the hull of the U-3531, a look of wonder in his eyes as a smile spread across his face. He ran his hand down the length of the bow, fingertips playing across the rough, rusted surface. “Incredible,” he whispered, his gaze locked on the submarine.

  Hassan had never seen Jonah quite so taken with anything, much less a seventy-year-old hulk laid up on concrete blocks. Getting it inside the hanger would have been a massive, logistical operation with powerful winches slowly hauling the German sub out of the ocean and onto a wheeled cradle.

  The U-3531 still stood tall, despite the partially collapsed ceiling of the concrete hanger. The top lip of the conning tower loomed some forty feet above the landing party, the wheeled trucks beneath her keel long since frozen with rust.

  “You know anything about her?” asked Hassan, nodding toward the submarine. “She can’t possibly be from the second World War—could she?”

  “She could, and she is,” answered Jonah. “Alexis is right; she’s definitely World War II vintage. She’s a Type 21, the submarine that could have won the war for the Germans. She had triple the batteries, a streamlined, quiet hull, and more torpedoes than any of her contemporaries. But only a handful ever made it into the service, and by then, it was too late to turn the tide. The war at sea was over the minute the Allies cracked German and Japanese codes. They mercilessly tracked down and sank every sub they could find using next-gen radar, sonar buoys, and airdropped torpedoes. Not even the Type 21’s had a chance at that point.”

  “She looks so much like the Scorpion,” Alexis observed.

  “She is the Scorpion. They’re more or less sisters. You need any spare parts? You could probably grab them right off the U-3531 if you really needed to.”

  “I wouldn’t put a single bolt from that rust bucket anywhere near my ship.”

  Jonah chuckled. “She isn’t a rust bucket. She is— was—a wolf.”

  Hassan reached out and laid his palm against the vessel as if feeling for a heartbeat. “I don’t understand—the Scorpion cannot possibly date to the World War II.”

  “Maybe more like mother and daughter,” Jonah said, correcting himself. “The Type 21 was one of the most influential designs of the twentieth century. She inspired a slew of improvements to British and American submarines; France even re-commissioned and operated a captured one for two decades. But nobody went further with the captured technology than the Soviets. The Type 21 design became the foundation of their entire fleet. They started with ‘Project 633,’ a one-for-one knockoff. It became obsolete at the advent of the nuclear navy, so they farmed out decommissioned subs and designs to every client state on their Rolodex. China built almost one hundred; others went to Bulgaria, Syria, Egypt, and Algeria, just to name a few. North Korea still operates at least seventy, the backbone of their fleet.”

  “So basically the AK-47 of submarines,” said Alexis.

  “And that’s how you knew we could out-climb the DPRK submarine and hit the surface before them,” Hassan said.

  “Pretty much,” said Jonah, winking at his engineer. “We were in a drag race between identically spec’d-out cars—it all came down to who had less curb weight, and the better mechanic.”

  Alexis grinned ear to ear at the compliment.

  “Her long-lost sister,” Hassan said, now also marveling at the U-3531. “I imagine this is a significant find—and quite the prize to a maritime museum.”

  “I’d just like to point out she’s in the wrong ocean,” Alexis said.

  “Not necessarily.” Jonah sat down on the concrete foundation and crossed his legs, leaning against the U-3531’s hull. “The logistical links between Germany and Japan were almost instantly severed when the war began. A few blockade-runners ran the gauntlet at first, but it was impractical over the long run. The two countries were initially content to keep to their own hemispheres. But by the end of the war, the separation had become an incredible problem.”

  “I remember this from my studies,” said Hassan. “Germany had technology, but not nearly enough raw materials.”

  “That’s right,” said Jonah. “And Japan was resource-rich, but much of their weaponry was a decade behind Germany’s, and no match for the Allies. So they devised a tech-for-resources trade. Materials like quinine, opium, rubber, and tungsten went west to Europe. So did stolen gold. In return, Japan received the cream of German technology—guns, optics, engines, you name it.”

  “And the only way they could transport these cargos was underwater,” Alexis realized. “But weren’t all the German submarines accounted for by at the end of the war?”

  “Not entirely,” said Jonah. “The Germans and Allies kept meticulous wartime records. However, putting it all together after the fact was a bit of a crapshoot. They tried to compare Allied attack reports to when the Germans lost track of their submarines, and ended up with a reasonably accurate facsimile of what had happened to each. Still, there were errors. One Type 9 was supposedly lost off of Africa before she was discovered in 1991 by divers in New Jersey. And then there were a few that slipped through the Allied net and ended up in places like Argentina.”

  “You have a soft spot for these men, don’t you?” Alexis said. “I feel like I’ve just seen you meet your favorite movie star.”

  “I have to admit I do.” Jonah shrugged. “The Kriesgmarine—the German Navy—was the least-political arm of the Nazi military machine. And yet they suffered the worst casualty rate out of any service in the entire war. For the most part, they were brave men in a bad situation, not diehard Nazis.”

  “Then when you’re done with your love fest here, you should take a look at the other thing I found. A marker engraved with what I’m guessing is the crew’s names.” Alexis cocked her head toward the sub. “Something tells me her crew didn’t make it to the Philippines alive.”

  “Something tells me you’re right,” Jonah said.

  Hassan considered the information for a few moments, staring up once more at the painted insignia on the conning tower. “Our German half-sister indeed,” he marveled. “Do we know which Soviet client state once operated the Scorpion? Or perhaps Russia herself?”

  “No,” said Alexis, shaking her head. “I’ve been over every inch her, and I haven’t found a single clue yet. My guess is Bettencourt thoroughly covered his tracks after the acquisition. After all, somebody fucked up big time letting it fall into his hands.”

  “I was a salvage diver,” chuckled Jonah. “My entire career was dependent on people fucking up.”

  It took Jonah almost an hour to climb up the exterior of the concrete hanger, selecting each handhold on the crumbling structure with care. He grasped vines, and jammed the toes of his booted feet into spreading cracks and eroded divots until he found himself standing at the edge of the collapsed section, staring down into the darkness from above. Entire trees had sprouted from the roof, claiming it once more for the jungle, their roots dripping into the darkness within. Jonah picked the oldest, largest tree and began to slowly descend its thick limbs, lost to the darkness until his outstretched toes brushed against the upper edge of the U-3531’s tall conning tower.

  He dropped down onto the tower, landing with a thump. Steadying himself, Jonah carefully tapped his foot around the rusted platform. It seemed solid enough, the underlying integrity of the metal unaffected by the corrosion. He took a powerful flashlight from his pocket, shining it down the exterior hull towards the bow. The light revealed the submarine’
s many scars, the rippling of steel from depth charges, the pucker-like craters from airdropped retro bombs. The aging U-boat had been through hell. Jonah couldn’t believe she’d made it halfway around the world in one piece.

  Jonah tried turning the wheel to the conning tower hatch. It was permanently frozen shut; the wheel didn’t so much as rattle when he kicked at it. The exterior conning tower ladder was in similarly bad shape, the rungs threatening to give way at the slightest touch. Jonah hedged his bets, trying to place his feet as close to the hull welds as possible, keeping his weight where the metal was still the strongest. He wished he’d taken the time to grab rope and a proper climbing harness from the Scorpion, but it was too late now—he’d already begun his descent.

  Crack—the rung clutched in his hand gave way. Jonah twisted as he fell, arms windmilling as he tried to regain his balance mid-air. He landed hard on the rotten wooden deck, the wind knocked out of him as he slid towards the edge, barely able to catch himself before tumbling over. Breathing hard, he tried to collect himself—the ten-foot drop had hurt, but nothing seemed broken.

  Jonah snorted and giggled, his lonely laughs echoing throughout the empty concrete bunker. Fading waves of adrenaline surged though his veins as he clenched his left fist to keep it from trembling. His stupid, unnecessary risk had just put him a heartbeat from falling three stories onto hard concrete. Jonah stifled another snicker at the absurdity of it all. All of the close calls on the Scorpion, all of the insane risks he’d taken with his life, every time he’d nearly fucking died . . . and now, here he was, dicking around on a museum piece and nearly killing himself the process. And for what? The aft deck hatch was just as useless as the one in the conning tower. Rusted shut, just as he’d expected.

  Jonah sighed, dropping to his ass as he slid his elbows over his bent knees. His mind went back to the old-timer wisdom he’d heard on his first expedition, advice that had kept him alive for years.