“I’m all right, but if this mountain is much taller, we’re all going to die of hypoxia long before the Magdalena runs out of helium.” He didn’t sound frightened, he was simply stating the facts.
“Well, that’s one thing going for us, isn’t it?”
Neither of them had the strength or breath to laugh.
“What’s that, straight ahead?” Franck asked.
Peter strained his older eyes to try to just see clearly.
“My God, I think that’s the top of our mountain!”
“Thank God!”
Far up ahead he could see the lights of a town.
“Thank goodness, we made it.” Peter pointed at the lights. “Look at that!”
The lights confirmed that they were finally out of Germany.
“We’re out of Germany, but where?”
“I have no idea.”
Peter’s dizziness subsided as they made their descent, but his headache seemed to hang on.
The slope was riddled with rocky ledges, snow, and enormous pine trees. Peter was worried about where they might safely land the Magdalena when they ran out of helium, and drew blank on a solution.
“We’re out of helium,” Franck reminded him, as his worst fear was realized.
“Okay, we can do this. We’ll have to adjust for it by increasing our angle of attack and the RPMs of our fine Daimler-Benz.”
Peter did just that, but the Magdalena seemed to keep falling.
He watched, as the altimeter dropped at the rate of 200 feet per minute.
“Okay, Franck, we’re going to need to lose some of our weight, or we’re going hit the ground pretty hard.”
“Copy that. I’ve already dumped our water ballast and our air. What else do we have?”
“Franck, I want you to go back to the passenger’s gondola and see what else we can dump from there. You’d better let them know we’re going down, too. Throw out their precious cargo, if you have to.”
“Okay, I’ll try.”
“And Franck, don’t take too long. We’re going to need to find somewhere to put her down soon, and I’m going to need your help.”
*
Professor Fritz Ribbentrop watched as the engineer opened the door from the open air gangway. There was nothing casual about his movements.
“Quick, we’ve run out of helium and we’re losing altitude fast. I need everyone to help me throw out anything that isn’t bolted down.”
He noticed that the men seemed to comprehend what he was asking much faster than did either of the women or young children, who simply stared blankly back at him, as though he’d just issued a completely mad order for them to jump out of the airship.
“Should we dump the alcohol?” asked one of the older gentlemen, who was holding his wife’s hand, and whose face seemed to maintain a perpetual scowl.
“Yes, that would help very much.”
Himself, the two other men who appeared to be in their fifties, and the engineer, all quickly got to work throwing the expensive wines and other spirits off the ship. It almost made him laugh to think that he was destroying more valuable liquor than he would ever have had sufficient funds to consume under normal circumstances.
The side tables were the next to go overboard.
“You’re going to need to help me with this. It’s too heavy,” he said to the man next to him, as he tipped the refrigerator.
“Okay, but how are we going to get it through the door?”
He took large book that was on the shelf used it to strike the large glass window in front of him. As it shattered, and the glass pieces fell to the ground far below, he said, “We can push it straight out here.”
It took a little bit of rocking, but they soon had the thing tipped over the side.
The bookshelf went next.
Soon, the formerly luxurious gondola was reduced to eleven chairs, its occupants, and their personal effects.
The engineer, who had come from the pilot house looked at the large, ornate altimeter that was situated in the middle of the gondola, just as an old grandfather clock would be placed aboard a luxury steamship. The arm still rotated clockwise, indicating that they were losing altitude.
Their rate of descent had slowed, but not stopped.
“Okay, everyone’s baggage must go,” the man announced, as he tried to grab Fritz’s suitcase.
“I’m afraid this one isn’t going anywhere,” Fritz said. His stern voice giving no doubt about his seriousness.
“Don’t be daft, old man, we’re going to crash. Your luggage isn’t worth it,” the man said as he began to tug at the suitcase.
“I told you, this one isn’t going anywhere.” It was the comfort and authority with which Fritz spoke, as he pulled his Luger pistol out and aimed it at the other man, which made him appear so frightening.
“Are you nuts?” The engineer asked.
“Yes.” Fritz looked at the engineer through his horrified eyes, “You have no idea what terrible thing I’ve done.” He continued to point his pistol at the engineer, motioning to him to throw another passenger’s luggage out the window. “You’d better throw out their luggage, and do it quickly or else we might indeed crash.”
The man shook his head in dismay, but said nothing.
He then began to pull at a large wooden trunk, belonging to one of the other passengers.
“If he gets to keep his stuff, why can’t we?” The trunk owner asked, looking at his wife for reassurance.
“Because, he has the gun,” The engineer said, smiling impatiently. “Now let me throw this thing overboard.”
He tried to lift it by himself, but couldn’t.
Frustrated, he removed a small knife from his belt that he normally used to cut tangled mooring lines, and stuck it into the locking mechanism.
The trunk sprang open, revealing more than a hundred gold bars, each bearing the emblem of its wealthy owners: a G and O joined by an infinity symbol.
“No, you can’t throw this away! It’s everything we have – our entire life savings. How else will we start anew?” The woman, he noted, had broken her sensibilities at the possibility of seeing her fortune nearly lost to the ground below.
Her husband then placed his foot on the base of the trunk and said, “I’m afraid this isn’t going to be thrown out.”
“Oh yeah?” The engineer asked. He now had the look of a crazy man, staring blankly, like someone who’d been pushed past breaking point and snapped. He reached down and picked up one of the gold ingots. “Watch this!” he said, tossing the brick bar out the window.
For a couple of seconds, it seemed as though all activity inside the gondola ceased.
Fritz watched, his pistol still pointed at the others, the rich passengers, he decided, had finally lost their aristocratic cool composure, and the only man who was working to keep the ship airborne looked as though he’d finally given up caring about the fate of any one of them.
It was going to become violent in here.
At that moment, Peter’s voice could be heard over the intercom pipe, “Franck, get back up here, we’re going down and I need your help.”
*
Peter looked at Franck as he came through the door. His face was flushed and his nostrils flared dangerously. He must have had trouble removing the passenger’s luggage, he guessed.
He then took another look at his altimeter, which indicated that their rate of descent had decreased to 100 feet per minute.
“It’s no use. We’re going down. Can you see anything below?”
The landscape looked harsh and lethal to the airship. The rocky outcrops on the mountain would slice her wide open at the speed at which they were descending and they needed to maintain that speed to retain some lift. With the exception of the rocks, this entire side of the mountain was covered in densely packed pine forest.
“Over there, how about that open place?” Franck was the first to spot it.
“Where?”
Franck pointed to a spot. It was
a large field or clearing, covered in white snow.
“I see it. That’ll do nicely.”
Three minutes later, the Magdalena hit the snow-covered ground hard. Bouncing and shuddering, she slid for a long while along the icy ground, finally coming to rest. The altimeter indicated that they were at an altitude of 7000 feet. They were incredibly high up the mountain to have been lucky enough to find such a clearing.
“Christ almighty!” Peter panted, excited and out of breath. “That was close, but we made it!”
He then looked over at his co-pilot. A loud sound – a crack like that of distant thunder – could be heard… and felt. The airship lurched.
“What in the hell was that?”
Franck opened his mouth to respond, but Peter never heard his reply. They were both dead before they even knew what happened.
*
In the once luxurious passenger lounge, Professor Fritz Ribbentrop calmly looked out the window.
He, of all the passengers on board, realized exactly where they were.
It was a reasonable mistake for the pilot to land here. If he hadn’t grown up climbing these mountains as a boy, Fritz might have made the same mistake, in their shoes. He didn’t blame them for it.
With the composure of a man who had accepted his fate, Fritz then made sure that his single suitcase was still securely locked and carefully handcuffed to his wrist.
Maybe it is for the best that it never reached its destination?
A weight had been lifted from his chest, as though the stress of the past few weeks had finally been lifted from him.
It was the last thought he ever had as he clutched the single suitcase tightly to his chest.
Chapter One
Sydney Harbor, Present Day
Sam Reilly took the helm of his custom built fiberglass 68 foot ketch, Second Chance.
At six foot exactly, he was only slightly taller than the average man, but his arms and shoulders were wide from years of physical labor, and his legs were strong as tree stumps, giving him a solid, yet wiry appearance.
Physically, he was the product of hard labor, which the sea demanded of him.
He had pensive, dark blue eyes, and the sort of cheeky smile that says, I can have it all. If life had taught him anything, it was that he of all people, could. His gaze showed determination, and the calluses on his hands displayed the tenacity required to make things happen. He was amiable by nature, but he suffered from a general distrust of his fellow man. Sam felt at his most calm when he was on his own.
Today was one of those days.
The weather was warm and there was a moderate northerly wind of 15-20 knots. To every weekend sailor on the harbor, it looked like a great day for a sail. For a person like himself, who’d built his life on the sea, he intuitively sensed the disaster ahead.
He knew it with the certainty of a chess player, who had seen his own demise in forty or more moves ahead; there was going to be trouble at sea. Sam knew it by the calm air, the pale blue sky, the unusually large swell that didn’t quite match the local weather conditions, and, like anyone with enough experience in a given field, he just knew it instinctively. His subconscious mind had picked up all the telltale signs and had given him the outcome; there was going to be one hell of a storm.
Sam had just completed his first year at the international sea salvage company, Deep Sea Expeditions. He’d promised himself that he’d never enter the business after what had happened to his brother, Danny. But some things are just meant to be, and try as he might to avoid it, he eventually realized that he must return to the world that he grew up in – the one in which he truly belonged – the sea.
It was the first time he’d taken leave since he started working for Deep Sea Expeditions. Two weeks was all the time he had, unless something came up. Auspiciously, he’d noted that Cyclone Petersham, which was about to slam into the northern Queensland coast of Australia and the tropics, was moving south. If his predictions were correct, which they almost certainly would be, the storm would collide with the terrible low, now forming off the coast of South Australia.
The collision of these two systems would produce a narrow trough between a tropical high and a southern low, a condition known as a squeeze. The weather would become horribly dangerous, and the seas would become incredibly violent and unpredictable.
The same sort of weather that killed 9 people in the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Race, and crippled another 39 yachts.
These were precisely the conditions for which Second Chance had been built to withstand; not to fight. Sam had learned long ago that you never fought with the powers of the sea, unless you wished to be crushed by them. Instead, your aim should be to follow the sea's commands by making simple adjustments.
As he looked up at the clear blue skies, Sam knew how close these conditions were to those which he and his brother had faced during that terrible day more than ten years ago. He had been lucky. That’s all it was. It had never been a question of skill under the circumstances, just dumb luck. His brother, Danny, had sadly not been so lucky.
Sam had spent a long time frightened by the sea; he had even told his mother that he would not enter the family business, but as time passed, he knew that there was only one way to beat the nightmares from his past. He could never avoid it. He had to return to where he belonged. Where, deep down, he knew it was the only place he felt truly comfortable.
The ocean didn’t care who your father was, or how rich you were. Out on the ocean, you were only as safe as the sea allowed you to be. Out there, you were just another one of the sea's trillion lifeforms, no more or less important than any other.
As Manly harbor came into view, Sam made his final tack before leaving Sydney Harbor and then he turned due south, toward a cold hell.
Sam sailed alone.
There was no way he could explain to anyone why he chose to sail solo. His father, the only person to whom he didn’t have to explain it, understood exactly why he made this choice, as would only a fellow solo yachtsman. His mother never would understand, and he himself didn’t quite understand it either. It was something he was driven to do. He had to do it, just like the salmon returning to the same creek of its birth to spawn; he was searching for a resolution to a problem which he’d spent the better half of his life trying to fix.
It would take Second Chance two days to reach Bass Strait. Then, when the storm was at its worst, he would take her through the strait, south around Tasmania, before returning. All told, he would be gone for no more than a week.
Will I find the answer in this one or at the bottom of the sea? He didn’t take the question lightly.
He loved these trips as much as he feared them.
The challenge of solo sailing was rewarded by the sole ownership of the achievement. A yacht, with its sails trimmed to perfection, its course correctly synchronized with the swell and the current, was the easiest thing in the world to manage as a solo sailor. Second Chance was 68 feet in length and carried more than a thousand feet of sail. A head sail, stay sail, main sail, and mizzen, could be controlled by a six-year-old child, if managed correctly.
In truth, if he had done his job as skipper, he would have little else to do but enjoy the journey.
The sea, he knew, was as kind as it was unforgiving.
Over the course of the next twenty-four hours, little changed. The swell had risen to fifteen feet, but it was a following sea and comfortable enough to sail with. The wind then increased to 35 knots. It was enough to worry a weekend sailor, but only just enough to start to see the full potential for which Second Chance had been engineered.
Not enough to create any misgivings in his mind.
Sam wasn’t one of those sailors who felt that he needed to round the Cape of Good Hope in a dingy using traditional methods of navigation and hand steering the entire way, simply in order to prove his seamanship. For him, it was all about being there, in the middle of one of nature’s most violent spectacles, sharing in its power without being ov
ercome by it.
Sam had no misgivings about using all the wonders provided by modern science. Second Chance certainly wasn’t a production yacht. She was built for one purpose only, chasing storms.
She was the product of years of development by the finest shipwrights, naval architects, engineers, and actual sailors. Built with the kind of money that could hardly be spent in a single lifetime; the sort of family wealth into which Sam had been born.
Her hull was fiberglass with carbon fiber chine and a full keel, making her exceptionally light, strong, and stable. Equipped with state-of-the-art autopilot, GPS navigation, IAS, radar and satellite phone and internet, some might argue that Sam wasn’t a real sailor.
Fortunately, as his eyes carefully perused the advanced instruments at his navigation table, he really didn’t give a shit what people thought he was doing out here; as far as he was concerned, this journey was for him alone.
It was 8p.m., and although the sun had set more than an hour ago, the bright full moon gave a seductively clear view of the ocean around him.
This was his real home.
The swell, already reasonably large, was flowing in a consistent direction, and had none of the usual roughness to it. Tonight, he would sleep soundly.
He climbed down the stairs and into the main cabin. Still wide awake, he flicked open his laptop. It was connected to the main information and satellite system which had cost him a fortune to have installed onboard Second Chance.
On the top of his computer screen, there was a picture of a mailbox and to the right of it appeared the number 3.
He clicked on the icon.
At times, he was unsure whether or not he loved or hated having access to such communications while at sea. He found three letters in his inbox and about a dozen more in his spam filter. Two messages were from Deep Sea Expeditions. He hit skip – they were probably after him, and with this storm coming in, they were going to need everyone they could get, and they were probably trying to rescind his leave. He was on holiday, so it was not his problem. This storm was for him.
The last email was from Kevin Reed.
Sam had studied at MIT with Kevin, but had never had any particular relationship with him. Kevin had been studying Geometric Variances, while Sam had been studying Oceanography, before moving on to get his Master’s in Microbiology. He couldn’t for the life of him come up with a reason why the man would be emailing him now. He was pretty certain he hadn’t signed up for any alumni. Besides, he wasn’t old enough for a reunion anyway.
The Last Airship Page 3