Gómez nodded. A lot of this stuff would be on record in the Personnel Department. The small print could wait. While the body was still warm you stuck to the obvious.
‘Had he been depressed recently? Anything you might have noticed?’
‘Nothing. Sol was a child at heart. Kids don’t get depressed. Not Sol’s kind of kids.’
‘You’re sure about that? He wasn’t hiding anything?’
‘Never.’ She shook her head, a first hint of resentment. ‘I’d have known. I’d have sensed it. I knew that man inside out. I knew every particle of him, every nook, every cranny. He could hide nothing. Because there was nothing to hide.’
‘He ever upset anyone?’
‘No one. Everyone loved him. Just ask. Ask anyone.’
‘No …’ Gómez frowned, looking for the coffee, ‘… lady friends?’
‘I just told you.’
‘Tell me again.’
‘He was happy. We were happy. Why would he need anyone else?’
The coffee was in a cupboard over the sink. Gómez dropped a spoonful into a cup and added hot water.
‘You take sugar?’
Marta wasn’t listening. She wanted to know who’d do such a thing, who’d steal the man she’d loved.
‘You’re telling me someone killed him?’
‘I’m telling you he’d never do such a thing himself.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘Because we lived in a world without secrets.’ She was staring out of the window, her eyes still bright with tears. ‘Even here.’
*
It was dark by the time the storm hit. It came blasting out of the north-west, huge cresting waves, curtains of flying spume. The tiny huddle of men in the conning tower of the U-boat were wearing harnesses attached to the superstructure but even so they battled to keep their feet. All three of them were wearing layer after layer of wet-weather gear, hunched figures bent against the fury of the heaving sea. Stefan Portisch was one of them. He bent to the speaking tube as the bow reared up yet again and a wall of water came thundering out of the darkness.
Instinctively the men ducked. The Chief Engineer was still down aft in the engine room, supervising work on the failed coupling. In a couple of minutes, he said it might be worth slipping the prop shaft back into gear. Not before time, Stefan thought.
He grunted an acknowledgement and gestured for the other two men to go below. The wind was howling now but in tiny moments when the storm paused for breath he told himself he could hear the roar of surf away to port. In that direction lay the rocky foreshore of Galicia.
Stefan had never been to northern Spain but a year or so back he’d had a brief encounter with a French woman in Lorient. She knew the area well. She’d talked of the impact the cliffs had made on her – their sheer size, their sheer scale – and she’d described the emptiness of the beaches. This was a landscape, she’d said, that didn’t need people. It felt prehistoric, unforgiving, majestic, pitiless. Over a carafe or two of thin red wine, Stefan had been impressed. Now he wasn’t so sure. If the prop shaft held out they might be able to submerge and claw their way seawards. Otherwise, the game was probably up.
Down below, the storm had turned everything upside down. In the glimmer of the emergency lighting, sodden clothing and personal belongings had spilled from bunks. The deck plates were a mess of cables, ducts and broken glass. Tins of food were rolling around as the boat pitched. Crewmen, tight-lipped in the roar of the storm, were ankle-deep in water. For two weeks, as ever, these men had lived with nothing but the stench of diesel oil, rotting food, sweat and excrement, a fug that was the price of staying alive. Now, Stefan thought he could detect a new odour: fear.
The Chief Engineer struggled forward from the diesel compartment. He hadn’t slept for days and it showed. A single upturned thumb spared Stefan the effort of asking the obvious question. The prop shaft was ready. Let’s give it a shot.
‘And the Schnorkel?’
The Chief shrugged, then crossed two pairs of fingers. The broken teeth of nearby Spain might yet tear them to pieces. Que sera sera.
Stefan ordered the hatch on the conning tower to be closed. The engineer wedged himself at the controls and fired up the prop shaft. Stefan heard a low whine as the recharged electric motor engaged then felt the boat shake itself like a dog. Anything to get away from the feral monster that called itself a storm. Anything for the comforts of deeper water.
‘Flood buoyancy tanks two and three. Prepare to dive.’
The Chief reached for the big valves and the boat nosed down. Stefan stole a glance at the strangers in the for’ard compartment. Like the rest of the crew, they’d scented danger and they were back in their life jackets. As Stefan watched, Huber muttered something to the SS colleague at his side and then stepped across to the locked latrine. He fumbled for the key and opened the door. The jigsaw of carefully stowed suitcases had shifted during the voyage and three of them tumbled out. Huber bent quickly to the smallest and snapped the catches.
By now the boat was at thirty metres with the seabed rapidly approaching. The fury of the storm had given way to an eerie silence, punctuated by the rumble of the prop shaft and the steady drip-drip of dozens of leaks. Then, abruptly, came a harsh, metallic jolt, followed by the stripping of a million gears.
The Chief was staring at the control panel.
‘It’s gone,’ he said bitterly. ‘It’s finished.’
Stefan turned back to him. Huber was rummaging for something in the suitcase.
‘What about the other prop shaft?’
The Chief looked round. There was something crazy in his eyes.
‘Why not?’ He extended a weary arm. ‘Heil Hitler.’
He tripped a couple of switches then reached for a lever recessed into the control desk. The other prop shaft, already damaged, began to turn. Then he stiffened, his attention caught by another gauge. A key component on the batteries was already overheating. Carrying on would risk a fire or even an explosion. Only diesel power could carry the boat to safety.
Stefan nodded. In six years at sea, he told himself, he’d encountered far worse crises than this. Staring death in the face had become an occupational hazard. Rule one? Never lose your nerve.
He ordered the boat to surface again. The Chief blew the buoyancy tanks, watching the tiny gestures Stefan was making in the half-darkness to slow the climb before breaking surface. Stefan’s hands lifted and fell, lifted and fell, orchestrating the ascent. He’d become the conductor of this mad symphony that threatened, at any moment, to become a full-blown requiem. Compressed air was still emptying the tanks. At a depth of four metres, Stefan levelled out. Fresh air sucked in through the Schnorkel had given him one last option.
‘Go to diesels,’ he said.
The Chief was ahead of him. The big diesels coughed into action and the damaged prop shaft began to turn again. Crew close to the command consoles were staring at the gauges. The one on the right recorded forward speed. The compass lay beneath it. Five knots on a bearing of 345. Enough to take them back to the open sea. Just.
For minutes on end the crew stood motionless. You could hear the storm again and the boat was heaving beneath their feet. Then the steady clatter of the diesels suddenly died and – throughout the boat – men were gasping for air, their chests tight, their eyes bulging. Stefan could feel it himself, a terrifying pressure in the throat and lungs, and he knew at once what had happened. The bloody float in the Schnorkel had got stuck again, cutting off the air supply. The diesels had sucked what remained of the good air from the hull and now there was nothing left but a vacuum. In minutes, everyone aboard would suffocate.
The Chief was already expelling the last of the water from the buoyancy tanks. As the boat surfaced, men were thrown everywhere by the violence of the storm. Stefan fought his way across the control space, struggled up the ladder into the conning tower and released the hatch. A torrent of water flooded into the hull.
Men crowded forwa
rd, desperate for the sweetness of fresh air blasting in through the open hatch. Among them was SS Brigadeführer Huber. He was clutching a small leather wallet. He was trying to scale the ladder , determined to be the first to get out. Stefan met him at the foot of the ladder and shoved him roughly back. The moment he lost control of this situation, the moment the crew panicked, would be the moment they’d all die.
Huber drew a handgun, a standard-issue Luger. Stefan stared at it. The dull gleam of the barrel was inches from his forehead. The boat was wallowing savagely, out of control, broadside on to the storm. Stefan tried to steady himself, still blocking the way to the steel ladder that led up to the conning tower. Huber’s finger had tightened on the trigger. Why not now, Stefan thought. Why not here? Why not spare yourself the miseries of the minutes and maybe hours to come?
Then the hull shuddered beneath a huge wave, more water pouring in through the open hatch, and for the first time he heard the hollow metallic clang as the helpless submarine hit something solid. Rocks, Stefan thought. Then came another clang, a second death knell, as the granite reefs tore into the fragile hull.
Huber knew exactly what was happening. There was fear in his eyes. He pushed hard against Stefan, reaching for the ladder, but Stefan caught him off balance and managed to knock the gun aside. At the same time, the Chief stepped out of the shadows. He had a heavy spanner and he brought it crashing down on the side of Huber’s skull. The man crumpled with a soft gasp – partly surprise, partly pain – and joined the rest of the debris swilling across the deck plates.
The watching crewmen raised a cheer as Stefan bent to retrieve the pistol and the leather wallet. In the roar of the storm, fresh blood was already pinking the water at his feet. One of the other SS men stepped forward. He had a gun in his hand.
Stefan studied him for a moment.
‘You want to kill me? Like your Brigadeführer wanted to kill me?’
The SS man was staring at the inert body at Stefan’s feet. The submarine steadied itself. Then, from nowhere, came a collective roar from the rest of the crew. They wanted these men gone. They wanted them out of the submarine. Or they wanted them dead before the storm claimed them.
A young radio operator from Kiel got to the gunman first. He had him by the throat, pinned against the bulkhead. The pistol had disappeared. More crew lunged forward, fighting the submarine’s next wild lurch, then threw themselves at the other SS men. Stefan took a tiny step back. These men were brothers, Kameraden. They were also out of control but it was hard not to be proud of them, impossible not to sympathise with years of bottled up-anger: how they’d been lied to, manipulated, offered up as a sacrifice as the prospects of victory disappeared.
Two weeks earlier they’d put to sea in the dying embers of a war they sensed they couldn’t possibly win. Cherbourg had gone. St Malo had gone. And now Brest, home to countless of their Kameraden, was in the hands of the Americans. And so what was left? Would Lorient be next, with its huge U-boat pens? And then St Nazaire? Of course they would. And so all that remained was this pitiful bid to spirit a handful of dead-eyed Untermensch to a bright new future their crippled homeland could only dream about. That made no sense. That made the crew of U-2553 accomplices in the shoddiest of exits.
Worse, in the face of an ugly death, it was an insult. After two weeks of quiet speculation about the contents of the torpedo compartment, about the grotesque fantasy of a Thousand Year Reich, the time had come for a reckoning.
This was civil war, and Stefan knew it. The SS men had gone down under the sheer weight of numbers. Stefan pointed Huber’s pistol into nowhere and pulled the trigger. The fighting stopped.
For a moment there was nothing but the roar of the storm. Gouts of water were still cascading in through the open hatch. The SS gunman was the first to struggle to his feet. The other three, ignoring the body of their Brigadeführer, formed a protective barrier against the press of the crew. The smallest of them, an infant from Bavaria, was the only one with whom Stefan had formed any kind of relationship. He was bleeding from a gash on his lip. He looked pale and frightened.
‘What now, Herr Kapitän?’
Stefan nodded at the ladder. ‘You go first,’ he said. ‘All of you. When you get to the top, you jump.’
‘What about the Brigadeführer?’
Stefan shot a glance at the body at his feet. His eyes were open and he appeared to be breathing. Then Stefan’s gaze returned to the SS men.
‘If he’s not dead, he soon will be. There’s no way we can get him out. You either take the ladder or my men will kill you.’ Stefan braced against a savage roll to starboard. ‘Your choice.’
*
Hector Gómez reported to a full colonel in the Los Alamos security organisation, a career soldier called Arthur Whyte. Gómez had been uneasy about the relationship for the year and a half he’d been down in New Mexico. Los Alamos was run by the Army. Whyte was a manager, not an investigator, and it showed. His loyalty was to the Project. The program had to stay on schedule, had to deliver the Gadget to the tightest of deadlines. The fact that no one except a tiny handful in Washington knew what the deadline was simply added to the pressure. You did your job. You asked no questions. As far as the rest of the world was concerned you’d become part of an army of busy ghosts: scientists, engineers and support staff who’d quietly shipped in from labs and institutions across Europe and the States. Up here on the mesa even the site itself didn’t have a proper name. PO Box 1663, Santa Fe.
Whyte had an office in the same dull green Army-issue building as Gómez: top floor, better view, blessed with a water cooler that never broke down. He was a lean man, watchful. He had buffed nails and a complexion he was careful to hide from the sun. Before coming to the Hill, he’d run security at a big Army base in the Midwest. For a career soldier the Los Alamos posting was the chance of a lifetime, and Whyte knew it. There were twenty-eight men in Army Intel under his command plus seven civilians. Word on the Hill had Whyte eyeballing a promotion to a one-star brigadier.
‘So where are we going with this thing?’ he asked. ‘The guy shoots himself. He’s pissed with himself. It happens. It ain’t gonna make anyone’s day, least of all his, but we move on. Am I missing something here?’
Gómez didn’t bother to go through it all again. Whyte was an intelligent guy. He’d understood the significance of the typed note, of the gun that had come from nowhere, of the lack – in Marta Fiedler’s view – of any reason for her husband to put a bullet through his head. But that wasn’t the point. It was Whyte’s job to protect the racing heartbeat of the Los Alamos machine. He was the most loyal of soldiers. Absolutely nothing, in his view, should interrupt the heads-down dash to turn the Gadget into the biggest bang the world had ever seen. Least of all the suicide of just one of the thousand-plus scientists on site.
‘And if it’s not suicide?’
‘You can’t prove that.’
‘Not now, I can’t. You know I can’t. But that’s not how investigation works.’
Gómez went no further but he knew he didn’t have to. This wasn’t a conversation about a crime scene but a brisk reminder that life on the Hill was governed by a different set of priorities. Nonetheless, Whyte had a nose for trouble. Gómez knew his trade. And Gómez, irked, could be trouble of the worst sort.
‘How much time would you need?’
‘To do a proper job? A coupla weeks. Minimum. With more on the back end if the story develops.’
Impassive as ever, Whyte consulted his calendar. Today was Tuesday.
‘You’ve got until the end of the week.’ He looked up. ‘Keep me briefed, yeah?’
Back in his own office, Gómez settled briefly behind his desk. He’d already established that the apartment above the Fiedlers’ place had been empty for nearly a week, awaiting the arrival of new tenants. Neighbouring apartments housed single men sharing accommodation, all of whom had been in the Technical Area at the time of the incident. In terms of witnesses, Sol Fiedler had theref
ore died alone. Unless, of course, someone else had pulled the trigger.
The Browning automatic, bagged and tagged, lay on Gómez’s desk. He was thinking about the shot itself, the sound of the explosion. In most places that would have attracted attention, maybe brought people running, but once again the Hill was different. Explosions were part of the soundtrack of life up here on the mesa. There was a special facility – the S-1 site – tucked up one of the more remote canyons where the metallurgists and the engineers conducted their experiments. Some days scarcely an hour went by without the boom of high explosive or the sharper crack of a bullet rolling over the landscape. People got used to it, even the birds, so the sound of the Browning automatic – a single shot – would have stirred no interest.
Upstairs, under pressure, Whyte had agreed to second another pair of hands to the investigation and Gómez had asked for a younger guy he’d come to trust. His name was Carl Merricks and, like Gómez, he came from Chicago. Picking up his detective skills in the lap of the US Department of Defense, he lacked FBI experience but he was quick to learn and Gómez had never been shy about establishing exactly what he needed to extract from a crime scene. Merricks would be handling the forensics: fingerprints from the entire apartment plus full tests on the handgun. The latter would include a match on the recovered bullet. The scene suggested that the slug must have come from the Browning but Gómez had learned never to trust such an obvious linkage. Something told him Fiedler’s death was a set-up. Maybe the bullet came from another weapon.
Motive? Here, Gómez was in the dark. Ahead lay countless interviews with Fiedler’s friends and colleagues. Marta had her husband down as Mr Nice, Mr Popular, Mr Happy, but Marta’s stake in a relationship she’d turned into an entire life made her an unreliable witness. Maybe Fiedler had upset someone. Maybe, without even realising it, he’d pushed too hard on someone’s door with consequences he’d never be able to imagine.
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