Brigands Key

by Ken Pelham

  The door thundered and shuddered. Blount had thrown himself against it. “I’m coming for you, bitch!” he screamed. He slammed against the door again and again. She backed away, unable to see but mesmerized by Blount’s fury. She shook herself, collected her thoughts. She’d done it! Hope surged through her. She allowed herself a moment’s joyous relief, and faced the reality again. She was still trapped in a black tower with a murderous lunatic.

  Blount’s assault on the door suddenly ceased and all was quiet. He was going to find another way in.

  Kyoko groped frantically about for the flashlight, banging her shin painfully against something hard and unyielding. She reached down and felt a horizontal steel plate and found another recessed above it, and another above that. A staircase. The spiraling interior stairwell of the great lighthouse.

  She found the flashlight and twisted the lens casing. The light blinked on. She shined it all about and up the stairwell.

  Nowhere to go but up. She would be trapping herself, but there were no options. She began to climb.

  A soft low sound, a moan, came from above. She shined the light in the direction of the sound, searching the rusting steel wedges of the steps. The way looked clear … except for a black shapeless mass on the stairs fifty feet above her. She heard a faint rustle, like the shadow of a breath of air. She froze, watching, listening. Silence all about her. She could hear her pulse in her temples.

  She fixed the light on the mass… and the mass moved.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Captain Remarque’s Journal

  “I confess I had no confidence Roth could pull off the heist,” the spy continued. “Security at the installation was paramount, and whatever undertaking this place had set itself to was guarded with extreme prejudice.

  “Yet two hours after I’d sent him in, he returned, lumbering under the weight of the prize, his eyes filled with terror and guilt.

  “He had blood on his clothes yet he was unhurt. He set the bag gently at my feet. I opened it and peered in. ‘The Manhattan,’ he said.

  “‘Dr. Roth, you have a natural aptitude for espionage,’ I said.

  “‘Damn you to hell. Give me back my family.’

  “‘In time. At the moment, they are my insurance. Tomorrow at five p.m. they will be released. We will examine the prize. If you’ve tried to be cute, they die.’

  “‘It’s the real thing,’ he snapped. ‘You can count on one hand the number of persons in the world that have access to it, including me.’

  “‘Go home,’ I said. ‘Get some rest. You’ve done well.’

  “‘Damn you.’

  “I made short work of him, slipping my needle deftly between his ribs and into his heart, killing him before he knew what was happening. Sad and unfortunate, but I could not run the risk of him revealing our collaboration. Don’t look so disgusted, Captain Remarque. He was a casualty of war and his family was spared in return.

  “The Appalachian foothills afford the darkest countryside one could hope for. The remoteness of the region suits well the aims of a secret city, but also makes for perfect cover for getaways. I hurried by foot out of the valley, heading north, then east and finally south. I ignored my hidden car and searched instead for an abandoned barn described by Wolfe. As promised, I found, hidden among baled hay and covered with canvas, a dusty Ford pickup, its ignition keys taped to the underside of the chassis. I hid my prize in hay bales stacked in the pickup’s bed, discarded my suit and tie, and donned the dirty overalls and work shirt tucked under the seat. I switched on the engine and pulled out of the barn and headed south on a dirt road.

  “Before daybreak, I entered Georgia and passed west of Atlanta on a paved highway.

  “As the sky turned gray with first light, I detoured onto another dirt road through woodland. Not a moment too soon. With binoculars, I glimpsed the paved road upon which I had been traveling. The police were hastily assembling a roadblock and cars were queuing up to it.

  “The word had been put out to stop and interrogate everyone. Without doubt, military blocks would soon be added to the ring.

  “Following instructions, I hid the truck among cut brush and constructed a separate hiding place of brush several hundred paces away and buried myself in it. I lay motionless for the remainder of the day, pistol in one hand and prize in the other. When night fell, I retrieved my truck and resumed my journey, zigzagging south. In Albany, I bought more petrol and overheard talk of a frenzied search for an armed and dangerous prison escapee. Fitting my description, or at least my former description. The escapee was believed to be in the south of Georgia, heading for Savannah. An accomplice had been gunned down in that city.

  “My estimation of Wolfe rose once more. He had diverted the chase and sacrificed himself to the cause.

  “I hurried west and reached the narrow, swift Chattahoochee River. There I found a small motor launch, laden with fishing tackle and extra cans of petrol, just as Wolfe had promised. I abandoned the truck and set off downriver for the Gulf of Mexico.

  “The swift stream helped my speed and gasoline and in five hours I entered Florida.

  “The Chattahoochee joined other small rivers and emptied into the Apalachicola, a much easier stretch to negotiate. The river was remote and wild and cut through sand banks and limestone bluffs alike, overhung with rampant growth and towering trees. The escape by river seemed a stroke of genius. I was a country fisherman on an outing. But illness had beset me. I vomited frequently and became dehydrated.

  “As I neared the coast, the danger grew. Military aircraft prowled the coastline. Perhaps the Americans believed I was bolting for Savannah but they were taking no chances. I lay up the last day, the day of our appointed rendezvous. With nightfall I plied the last stretch, passing the mouth of the river, the village of Apalachicola to my right. The narrow course opened into a broad bay, traversed by a long, low highway bridge. I had to pass directly beneath the bridge. As I did so, slowing to avoid collisions with the bridge pilings, I heard shouts from above. The beams of flashlights swept across the water as I emerged from the opposite side of the bridge. One beam found me. More shouts, a warning to stop. I throttled the motor full out and shot ahead. A gunshot echoed and the water on my starboard splashed white. I took an evasive course, swerving left and right. Two more shots, one striking the gunwale and spraying splinters of wood.

  “The gunfire ceased as I drew out of range but the lights followed me as I turned east across the bay. Once I was out of sight I veered southwest for the narrow pass separating St. George Island and St. Vincent Island. I raced ahead, aware that I was beyond the window of our rendezvous. I cleared the pass and entered the turbulent Gulf. My tiny skiff threatened to capsize in the waves.

  “And so I found the U-498.” Shreck was silent for a moment. “Now you know why we must make all possible speed. I have brought something aboard of unrivaled importance to the Americans and to the Reich. Make no mistake; they will hold nothing back in the effort to recover it and will be ruthless in the trying.”

  The spy’s words bore into me. I no longer believed I would live to see home.

  * * *

  Kyoko steadied herself, watching the dark shape on the staircase above slowly shift.

  Blount had given up trying to batter down the door behind her. All that could be heard behind her was the worsening storm.

  Who—or what—lay before her? An unknown, shapeless black mass, writhing, blocking her path. She could turn back and take her chances with Blount. That appealed on a gut level, taking her from the dark unknown to a known terror.

  She steadied herself. All Charley’s nonsense about vampires had seeped into her psyche, amplifying anything that went bump in the night.

  The thing moaned, a deep pained noise, all too human. She took a step closer.

  “Help... me...” the man said. His words were garbled and wet, croaked more than spoken, as if forced through a wreckage of a throat. “Please...”

  Kyoko took a breath and
approached cautiously, her fear overcome by sudden wrenching pity.

  A stench of rotting, living flesh enveloped the man. She’d known that smell once before, on a woman dying from a gangrene-riddled leg in Darfur.

  She placed a hand on him and turned him gently toward her. He flinched and a moan of pain escaped. She could not turn him all the way; something restricted him.

  “Cut me... loose,” the man rasped.

  She reached for his arms and felt the ropes binding his wrists to the railing. His hands were soft and sticky, and she realized with a shudder that his flesh was open and oozing. His feet were similarly bound, the flesh there also split open.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered. “I’ll get you out of this.” She began to saw his bonds with her shard of glass. “Was it Blount?” she asked. In a moment his hands and feet were free.

  The man coughed. “Yeah,” he rasped.

  “What’s your name?”

  Kyoko glimpsed the man’s face and recoiled reflexively. His entire face was swollen, balloon-like. Red, hanging flesh draped his cheeks. His lower lip was grotesquely swollen, five times normal, like an egg. His upper lip was a rope of pulpy flesh hanging from the left side of his mouth. His right eye was swollen nearly shut, a faint glimmer of the eye seeming to peek out from the slit. The other eye was sunken, seemingly not there at all, a streak of wet matter staining his cheek beneath it. Thin tufts of hair clung to his scalp.

  Kyoko knew in an instant what it all meant, what the mysterious plague of Brigands Key was. The nagging, wildly improbable idea that she’d been considering was confirmed.

  “My... name?” the man croaked.

  His sticky, oozing hand closed on her wrist and tightened in a grip like steel and his other hand grabbed a fistful of her blouse. She struggled but he pulled her closer to his destroyed face. His cracked voice drifted on foul breath to her. “Nobles. I’m... Roscoe Nobles...”

  * * *

  Captain Remarque’s Journal

  Shreck leaned forward, a peculiar light in his eyes. “Well, Captain? You now know the nature of my mission. Of our mission. Take us to the surface and resume full speed.”

  I did not know what to make of it. His tale was fantastic, yet I had no reason to doubt a word of it. We had been summoned as a matter of the utmost urgency; men in high places obviously felt that Shreck’s mission was critical.

  “That would not be prudent,” I said at last. “We are within striking distance of patrol planes.”

  “We are at war! There is always risk involved.”

  “The Gulf of Mexico hasn’t been safe for the Unterseebooten since ’42. America’s military has grown exponentially since. They have aircraft with nothing to do but search for subs.”

  “Captain, I know more about submarine tactics than you assume. American anti-sub patrols follow the coast from Texas to Florida, seldom venturing more than a hundred kilometers from land. We’re well outside their usual range. There are not more than five hours of daylight left. At the surface we will be thirty kilometers farther along by nightfall. I insist we surface.”

  I turned numbers over in my mind. We were ninety kilometers from land. Shreck was a fool if he thought American planes wouldn’t patrol beyond a hundred, and by his own admission they were hell-bent on finding us.

  I could feel by the rocking of the vessel that the weather had worsened. The morning sky had hinted that bad weather lay in store. And we sorely needed rainwater for drinking. “Very well,” I said. I reluctantly ordered the crew to take us to the surface. The diesels would continue to recharge the batteries, and we would sail under diesel power through the night. Shreck didn’t need to know I intended to submerge again, deeper and under battery power, at dawn.

  And so I made the greatest mistake of my life.

  As we neared the surface, I raised periscope and surveyed the sea a full three hundred and sixty degrees. There was no sign of ships. A squall had blown in, filling the view with gray in all directions. I glanced at Becker inquiringly. “Anything on the hydrophones?”

  Becker tapped Grothe on the shoulder. Grothe huddled over his equipment, headphones cupped tightly against his ears. He twirled the dial delicately, listening in first one direction and then another. He shook his head. “No ships near, Captain.”

  I took a deep breath. “Breach the surface, Becker.”

  U-498 rose to the surface. The motion of the boat changed as it began to roll with the waves. “Becker, accompany me to the tower.”

  We climbed the ladder to the conning tower hatch, Becker first, myself following. He twisted the latch open and shoved the heavy door upward. Seawater splashed in, wetting us both, and we climbed through.

  The squall showed no sign of being short-lived. Good. Visibility was limited by the rain and low-ceiled clouds, and with it, the risk of our being spotted. I clapped my hands happily and let out a shout. “Becker, we have drinking water! Fetch barrels for collection.” Rain pattered down on us. I breathed deeply of the damp cooling air.

  But the bad thing about a squall is that it deafens one’s hearing. On a clear, calm day, you can hear an airplane for many kilometers. With rain beating down, you hear little other than the rain.

  We didn’t hear the airplane until it was diving on us, its guns rattling and spitting.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Kyoko tore free of Roscoe’s grasp and backed away.

  The man looked at her, opened his mouth, sank back against the stairs as if air had been let out of him. “Won’t... ,” he gasped. “I won’t... hurt you...”

  Kyoko, breathing hard, watched him fearfully. “You’re the missing fisherman,” she said. “Have you been imprisoned here all this time?”

  Nobles shook his head weakly. “People... could find me here. No... bound... gagged in closet... Blount’s house.”

  “Why did he bring you here?”

  “Hurricane,” he wheezed. “Will... swamp the island. This is only safe... place. Blount needs me alive.”

  “Why?”

  “Wants... the treasure.” He shuddered and coughed violently, a wet, rheumy cough.

  “The treasure did this to you, didn’t it?”

  Nobles nodded. “Ain’t... no treasure... in this world.”

  * * *

  Captain Remarque’s Journal

  The airplane swept down, its guns blazing. Bullets slammed into the hull and struck the water, sending spires of water high. A bullet whistled close to my neck, plucking at my collar.

  Our attacker was an American PBY Catalina, the most hated of aircraft, designed to kill subs.

  I shoved Becker back into the hatch. “Alarm! Down below! Commence dive!”

  The plane roared low overhead. I fired twice with my Luger, a futile gesture. I could see the airplane’s waist gunner swiveling in his glass blister, peppering us as he flew past. The plane climbed and banked, preparing for another run at us.

  I plunged into the hatch after Becker and jammed the lock shut. “Bow, down thirty, stern up five. Get us down quickly!”

  The submarine was a beehive, instantly on order and on task. Air hissed as it was expelled from the ballast tanks even before I landed from the bottom rung of the ladder. U-498 was slipping under the waves.

  “We surprised them as much as they surprised us,” I said. “If they’d had time to prepare, they would have bombed us into oblivion and we would not be discussing it. If luck is with us, the cannons have done minimal damage.”

  I could feel the shift in the boat as we went under. I did a mental calculation, guessing at the recovery time of the Catalina before it could come about and resume the attack. I did not like the results of my calculation, though we would be beyond the grasp of machine gun and bomb.

  “Brace yourselves for depth charges,” I shouted.

  The crew fell silent, listening.

  Sure enough, two distant, faint sounds reached the sub.

  “Grothe?” I asked.

  “Two charges, one off starboard beam,
one starboard aft.”

  “Hard to port,” I said.

  The boat veered, heeling over as it went.

  We continued to dive. An explosion shook the boat, followed by another seconds later. The hull groaned in protest.

  A jet of water splashed across my face. The lights flickered but held.

  “Maintain dive,” I ordered. “Descend to fifty fathoms. The Cat is hunting a moving mouse. We want to be invisible and dead to them.” I took off my jacket and cap and handed them to Becker. “Take this, collect whatever expendables you can find and shove them into the aft torpedo tubes. Only items that float. Load another tube with a barrel of diesel. Eject all as quickly as possible. We’ll give them a debris field and an oil slick and tonight they will toast their heroism and make unskilled love to the ugly local girls in celebration.”

  At fifty fathoms I turned to Becker. “We’re now too deep for them to find us with a magnetometer. Due east, Becker, seven knots. We must get quietly away; the Catalina has undoubtedly summoned a destroyer to finish us off.” I glanced at my watch. “The Cat itself may land on the water to listen for us. No shipboard talking unless absolutely necessary for two hours.”

  The boat made a long slow turn toward the east. We put distance behind us at an agonizingly slow pace.

  Something felt wrong in the movement of the ship. I sent Becker aft. He returned with Brandt, the engineer, in tow.

  “Becker, your report?”

  “The boat is manageable... for now,” he replied. “Brandt?”

  “The starboard screw is damaged and inoperable,” Brandt said. “We have sustained multiple hull leaks. We’re welding the splits and we’ve driven leakage plugs into the damaged pipes and neutralized a battery-acid leak with lime.”

  “Continue sealing the leaks as quietly as possible. What speed can you give me?”

  “Three knots, sir.”

  “And at the surface?”

  “Nine knots. With a following sea.”