"You mentioned a Blood Flag," said Little. "I'm not familiar with that relic, either."
"In 1923," Hozafel clarified, "Hitler attempted a coup against the existing German government in Munich. It was a disaster. The army fired into the crowd and several people were killed. Hitler escaped but was later tried and sentenced to jail, where he spent nine months writing Mein Kampf. The coup forever became known as the Munich Putsch. One of the early swastika Nazi flags was carried by one of the wouldbe revolutionaries, who was shot and was splattered with his blood. Naturally, it became the bloodstained symbol of a Nazi martyr. This Blood Flag was then used in ceremonies to consecrate future Nazi flags at party rallies by holding it against them as a blessing."
"And so the Nazi treasures were smuggled out of Germany, never to be seen again," said Little meditatively. "According to old CIA archive records, no trace of the lance and other Nazi hoards, including stolen art treasures and the loot from banks and national treasuries, was ever discovered."
"Your submarine," Sandecker said evenly, "was the U-699."
"Yes, I was her captain," Hozafel admitted. "Shortly after a number of influential Nazi military officers, high party officials, and Hitler's ashes were safely loaded on board, I sailed from Bergen in the wake of the U-2015. Until now, the disappearance of Hitler has been a mystery. I am telling you the story only at the urging of Mr. Little, and because of the possibility, as I understand it, that the world will be in upheaval after a coming comet strike. If true, this makes my sworn silence irrelevant."
"We're not ready to cry doom yet," said Sandecker. "What we want to know is if the Wolf family is truly spending untold sums of money building huge arks in a fanatical belief that a cataclysm will destroy the Earth and every living creature on it- or if they have some other motive."
"An interesting family, the Wolfs," Hozafel said pensively. "Colonel Urich Wolf was one of the most trusted men on Hitler's staff. He saw that Hitler's irrational orders and simplest wishes were carried out. The colonel was also the leader of a group of devoted Nazis who formed an elite group of SS officers dedicated to defending the faith. They called themselves the Guardians. Most of them died fighting in the final days of the war- all, that is, except Colonel Wolf and three others. He and his entire family- a wife, four sons and three daughters, two brothers, and three sisters and their families- sailed aboard the U2015. I was told by an old naval comrade who's still living that Wolf was the last of the few Guardians and created some kind of contemporary order called the New Destiny."
"It's true. They operate as a giant conglomerate known as Destiny Enterprises," Sandecker informed Hozafel.
The old German sea dog smiled. "So they gave up their uniforms and propaganda for business suits and profit-and-loss statements."
"No longer calling themselves Nazis, they've modernized their manifesto," said Little.
"They've also created a race of superior humans," said Sandecker. "Through genetic engineering, the new generation of Wolfs not only resemble each other in appearance but their physical anatomy and characteristics are identical. They have the minds of geniuses and an extraordinary immune system that enables them to live extremely long lives."
Hozafel stiffened visibly, and his eyes took on a look of deep dread. "Genetic engineering, you say? One of the canisters that was transported aboard my U-boat was kept frozen at all times." He drew a deep breath. "It contained the sperm and tissue samples taken from Hitler the week before he killed himself."
Sandecker and Little exchanged tense looks. "Do you think it's possible Hitler's sperm was used to procreate the later generation of Wolfs?" asked Little.
"I don't know," said Hozafel nervously. "But I fear it is a distinct prospect that Colonel Wolf, working with that monster at Auschwitz known as the Angel of Death, Dr. Joseph Mengele, may have experimented with Hitler's preserved sperm to impregnate the Wolf women."
"There's an abhorrent thought if I ever heard one," muttered Little. Suddenly a muted tone interrupted the conversation. Sandecker punched the speaker button on a phone in front of him on the coffee table.
"Is anyone home?" came Pitt's familiar voice.
"Yes," Sandecker answered tersely.
"This is the Leaning Pizza Tower. You called in an order?"
"I did."
"Did you want salami or ham on your pizza?"
"We would prefer salami."
"It's going in the oven. We will call when our delivery boy is on his way. Thank you for calling the Leaning Pizza Tower."
Then the line cut off and a dial tone came through the speaker.
Sandecker passed a hand across his face. When he looked up, his eyes were strained and grim. "They're inside the shipyard."
"God help them now," Little murmured softly.
"I don't understand," said Hozafel. "Was that some sort of code?" "Satellite phone calls are not immune to interception by the right equipment," explained little.
"Does this somehow have to do with the Wolfs?"
"I do believe, Admiral," Sandecker dropped his voice and answered slowly, "that it's time you heard our side of the story."
30
Pitt and Giordino had no sooner stepped through the door of the tool shed than a voice in Spanish hailed them from around the corner of the building.
Giordino calmly replied and made empty motions with his hands.
Evidently satisfied with the answer, the guard went back to walking his beat around the tool sheds. Pitt and Giordino waited a moment, then moved out onto the road that led toward the heart of the shipyard.
"What did the guard say, and what did you answer?" asked Pitt.
"He wanted a cigarette, and I told him we didn't smoke."
"And he didn't challenge you."
"He did not."
"Your Spanish must be better than I thought. Where did you learn it?"
"Haggling with the vendors on the beach at my hotel in Mazatlan," Giordino answered modestly. "And when I was in high school, I was taught a few phrases by my mother's cleaning girl."
"I'll bet that wasn't all she taught you," Pitt said ironically.
"That's another story," said Giordino, without missing a beat.
"From now on, we'd better lay off English when we're within earshot of the shipyard workers."
"Out of curiosity, what kind of side arm are you packing?"
"My old tried-and-true Colt .45. Why do you ask?"
"You've carried that old relic ever since I've known you. Why don't you trade it in for a more modern piece?"
"It's like an old friend," Pitt said quietly. "It's saved my tail more times than I can count." He nodded at the bulge in Giordino's coveralls. "How about you?"
"One of the Para-Ordnance 10+1s we took off those clowns at the Pandora Mine."
"At least you have good taste."
"And it was free, too," Giordino said, smiling. Then he nodded toward the main buildings of the shipyard. "Which one are we heading for?"
Pitt consulted his compact directional computer, whose monitor was programmed with the layout of the shipyard. He looked up the road running adjacent to the docks on one side and bordered on the other by giant metal warehouses. He pointed at a twenty-story building rising above the warehouses a good mile up the road. "The tall building on the right."
"I've never seen a shipbuilding facility this big," said Giordino, staring over the giant complex. "It beats anything in Japan or Hong Kong."
They stopped suddenly and stared at the nearest supership, like yokels from the boondocks, heads tilted back looking up at their first view of tall city buildings. An executive jet aircraft whined in on its approach before flaring out and touching down on the long landing deck atop the behemoth. The sounds of the engines echoed across the water, up the slopes of the mountains, and back again. The sight was staggering. Even the most sophisticated Hollywood special effects could not come close to replicating the real thing.
"None of the shipyards around the world have the capacity to buil
d ships this grand," said Pitt, standing and gazing overwhelmed at the gargantuan ship moored along the dock, its hull seeming to stretch nearly to infinity. No single building on earth, including the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York placed end to end, could have matched the inconceivable size of the Wolfs' ark.
Except for the great bow, the vessel did not resemble a ship. Rather, it looked like a modern skyscraper laid on its side. The entire superstructure was sided in armored and tinted glass with the strength of low-alloy steel. Gardens with trees could be seen on the other side of the glass, flourishing amid rock gardens set in large parklike atmospheres. There were no promenade or outer decks or balconies. All the decks were completely enclosed. A conventional pointed bow swept up the superstructure on a gradual angle to the landing deck in what Pitt recognized as an apparent strategy to reduce the crushing impact of a giant tidal wave.
He observed the stern of the ship with more than a passing interest. Beginning at the waterline, twenty parallel pierlike projections that Pitt reckoned to be two hundred feet in length extended astern, beneath a high roof supported with fifty-foot-high Grecian-sculpted pillars. The piers doubled as shrouds for the ship's propellers and as piers to moor fleets of powerboats, hydrofoils, and hovercraft. Wide staircases and glass elevators rose from the forward end of the piers into the main superstructure. Improbable as it seemed, the gigantic vessel had its own marina, where boats could be moored and lifted from the water between the piers when the ship was under way.
Pitt studied the thousands of workers who crowded the docks and open decks. The operation to fit out and supply the ship seemed to be in a frenzied rush. Towering cranes rolled on rails up and down the dock, lifting wooden crates into huge open cargo hatches set into the hull. The spectacle was too unreal to grasp. It seemed unbelievable that these floating cities were never meant to sail through the fjord and reach the sea. Their primary purpose was to survive great tidal waves before being carried by the backwash into deep water.
There was no slinking in the shadows, because the bright lights eliminated them. Pitt and Giordino walked leisurely along the wide road quay, waving to an occasional passing guard, who didn't give them a second look. Pitt quickly observed that most of the workers moved around the immense facility and the ships in electric golf-type carts. He began looking around for one, and soon spied several parked in front of a large warehouse.
Pitt set off toward the carts, followed by Giordino, who could not tear his eyes from the ships. "This place is too vast to cover on foot," said Pitt. "Me, I'd rather ride."
The battery-operated carts looked to be available to any worker who wanted to requisition one. Several were parked around a large charging unit, cords running to sockets beneath the front seats. Pitt pulled the plug on the first one in line. Throwing the electrical spools and paint cans in the rear cargo bed of the cart, they climbed onto the front seat. Pitt turned the ignition key and set off as though it were a procedure he had executed at the yard for years.
They drove past a long string of warehouses until they came to the tall building that held the shipyard offices. The entrance of the second dock extended from the road along the shore. The second floating leviathan that was moored alongside had a more austere appearance than the one that was expected to carry its residents into a new world. This vessel was designed to carry agricultural cargo. Various species of trees and shrubbery were hauled aboard in big trailers that were pulled up wide cargo ramps into the hull. Hundreds of long cylindrical containers, labeled "Plant Seed," were stacked on the dock waiting to be loaded aboard. A long convoy of farm equipment, trucks and tractors of different sizes, harvest combines, plows, and every other piece of machinery imaginable was driven inside the cavernous hull.
"These people mean to launch a new world order on a grand scale," Pitt said, still trying to absorb the immensity of it all.
"What do you want to bet one of the other ships is carrying two of every kind of animal?"
"I won't bet," Pitt replied curtly. "I just hope they had the foresight to leave the flies, mosquitoes, and venomous reptiles behind."
Giordino spread his lips to make some suitable comeback, thought better of it, and stepped out of the cart, as Pitt parked it beside the steps leading into the modern, glass-walled office building. Retrieving the electrical cable and paint cans, they walked inside and approached a long counter manned by two security guards. Giordino flashed his most sociable smile and spoke softly in Spanish to one of the guards.
The guard simply nodded and threw a thumb in the direction of the elevators. "What line did you feed him this time?" queried Pitt, as they stepped inside, but not before he peered with one eye around the elevator door and spied one guard pick up a phone and speak excitedly. Then he stepped back and the doors closed.
"I said we were ordered by one of the Wolfs to make electrical repairs behind a wall in the penthouse suite on the tenth floor, then mend and repaint the wall when we were finished. He didn't give me the least argument."
Pitt scanned the elevator for TV cameras but found none. It's almost as if they have no fear of covert actions, he thought. Or else they know we're here and have laid a trap. He might have been whistling in the dark, but he didn't trust the Wolfs as far as he could throw that floating monstrosity outside. He also sensed that the guards in the lobby had been expecting them.
"Time for an ingenious scheme," he said.
Giordino looked at him. "Plan C?"
"We'll stop on the fifth floor to throw off the guards who are probably monitoring our movements. But we remain inside and send the elevator up to the penthouse, while we climb through the roof and ride up the rest of the way."
"Not half bad," said Giordino, pressing the button to stop the elevator on the fifth floor.
"Okay," said Pitt. "Hold me on your shoulders while I climb through the ceiling." But Pitt made no move. Though he did not detect the presence of TV cameras, Pitt was dead sure the elevator contained listening devices. He stood quietly still and grinned darkly at Giordino.
Giordino immediately understood and pulled out his P-10 automatic. "Damn, you're heavy," he grunted.
"Give me your hand and I'll pull you up," Pitt said quietly, as he gripped the old .45 Colt in his right hand. Remaining inside the elevator, they stood on opposite sides of the doors and pressed themselves into the corners.
The doors opened, and three guards, wearing identical coveralls, black with matching stocking caps on their heads, rushed inside, handguns drawn, eves staring up at the open maintenance door in the ceiling. Pitt stuck out his leg and tripped the third man, who fell against the first two, sending them all sprawling in a tangled heap on the floor. Then he punched the door-close button, waited until they descended several feet, and pressed the red emergency stop button, freezing the elevator between floors.
Giordino had expertly clubbed two of the guards on the head with the butt of his automatic before they could recover, then held the muzzle against the forehead of the third and snarled in Spanish, "Drop your gun or go brain-dead."
The guard was as tough and coldly efficient as the mercenaries they had encountered in the Pandora Mine. Pitt tensed, sensing the guard might attempt a lightning move to get in the first shot. But the man detected the cold look of composure in Pitt's eyes and recognized a deadly threat. Knowing the slightest flick of his eyes would bring a bullet smashing into his head, he wisely dropped his gun onto the elevator floor, the same model Para-Ordnance that Giordino was pressing between his eyes.
"You clowns are going nowhere!" the guard spat in English.
"Well, well," said Pitt. "What have we here? Another mercenary hit man like we met in Colorado. Karl Wolf must pay you guys handsome wages to murder and die for him."
"Give up, pal. You're the one who's going to die."
"You people have a nasty habit of repeating the same old song." Pitt pointed his old Colt an inch from the guard's left eye until it was lined up to fire across his face. "Dr. O'Connell an
d her daughter. Where are they held?" Pitt wasn't trying to imitate the rattle of a diamondback, but he gave a pretty good impression of it. "Talk or I pull the trigger. You'll probably live, but you won't have any eyeballs to see with. Now, then, where are they?"
Pitt was tough, but he wasn't sadistic. The look on his twisted face and the malice in his eyes was enough to fool the guard into thinking a madman was about to blow his eyes out. "They're confined on one of the great ships."
"Which ship?" demanded Pitt. "There are four of them."
"I don't know, I swear I don't know."
"He's lying," said Giordino, his tone cold enough to freeze oil.
"The truth," Pitt said menacingly, "or I'll blast both your eyeballs into the far wall." He pulled back the hammer of the Colt and pressed the muzzle against the edge of the guard's right eye in line with the left.
The guard's face did not transform from defiance to pure fright, but still, staring from eyes filled with loathing, he gasped, "The Ulrich Wolf' They're being held on the Ulrich Wolf."
"Which ship is that?"
"The ship-city that will carry the people of the Fourth Empire to sea after the cataclysm."
"It would take two years to search a ship that size," Pitt pressured. "Give a more exact location or go blind. Quickly!"
"Level Six, K Section. I don't know which residence."
"He's still lying," said Giordino coarsely. "Pull the trigger, but wait till I look away. I can't stand to see blood spray all over the furniture."
"Then kill me and get it over with," the guard growled.
"Where do the Wolfs find murdering scum like you?"
"Why would you care?"
"You're American. He didn't hire you off the street, so you must have come out of the military, an elite force, unless I miss my guess. Your loyalty to the Wolf family goes far beyond rationality. Why?"
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