by Ken Pelham
Outside, a ferocious rain flew horizontally in the roar of wind. Across the island debris was flying. A roof peeled off a house two hundred yards away and somersaulted down the street.
The Gulf of Mexico raged. Towering waves crashed into the west of Brigands Key.
A plateau of water on the Gulf, topped by raging, whitecapped waves, rolled toward the island.
The storm surge would swamp the island.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Captain Remarque’s Journal
I pushed into the engine room. Oily black smoke billowed out. Brandt stumbled into me, coughing, his face streaked and filthy.
I caught him and steadied him. “Brandt, what has happened?”
“The engine has blown its seals. I put out the fire. But that’s not the worst of it.”
“What then? Speak, man!”
“Captain, we cannot continue. The depth charges ruptured the pressure hull. The boat is shifting in its own skin.”
I looked at him with surprise. “But our damage was minimal!”
“Initially, yes; but insidious and inevitable. Multiple leaks starboard and aft. Diesel is leaking, too.”
“The diesel will leave a trail on the surface a blind man could follow. The engine is shot, Brandt?”
“Soon.”
“What can you coax from it?”
“A hundred nautical miles. At best.”
“And then?”
“And then we sink.”
I knew what had to be done. “Follow me.” I headed back to the control room.
All eyes turned to me. Shreck gave me a narrow, sidelong look. I believe he suspected my next orders. “Men,” I said, “we have lost. Our mission is ended. The U-498 is crippled and cannot make the Fatherland.” I turned to Becker. “We retrieve the American. Then full ahead, due east.”
Shreck bounded to his feet, his face contorting. “Due east?” he shouted.
“We are sinking and my men need medical attention. We cannot survive another hundred kilometers, so we shall raise a white flag and run aground on the coast of Florida.”
“This is treason!”
“I’ll not sacrifice my crew to your fantasy that Germany might yet win this war.”
Wildness blazed in Shreck’s eyes. His hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. I readied myself to parry the blow and return it many times over, but the blow never came. Brandt and Becker took a step toward him. Shreck shook with rage.
“You have a choice, Shreck,” I said. “Control yourself and you may move about. Do not, and you shall be bound and gagged and shoved into a dark hole where you can bother no one.”
Shreck turned away in disgust. He found a hard corner and slumped down, clutching his prize. “I look eagerly forward to your court-martial, Remarque. And your hanging. I shall raise a toast to justice when that fine day comes.”
“Don’t be an idiot. The Reich will have ceased to exist before we return, even if we could return.”
“Coward,” Shreck muttered.
The blood of anger rushed into my face. I would have throttled him on the spot, had not my diminishing sense of loyalty to duty and Fatherland stayed my hands. I glanced at my silent, staring crew, and turned again to the spy. “The thought of surrender tears at me. I would sooner go down with this bucket of rust than surrender. It is instilled in me. Yet such a course is folly and these men will not die for my folly, even though they gladly would if I asked. They have wives and children to get home to, or to obtain for the first time. And that’s what they shall do. That is my order.”
Shreck glared.
“You accept my course of action?” I asked.
He nodded sullenly. “Thus has war ended for me.”
“You shall end the war alive, Spy. Rejoice.” I turned and climbed the tower.
On deck, I approached Hofmann. “Summon Herr Denton to the surface. Forget the barrels. There is no need to fill them. The ship is dying and we cannot get home. Our only course is surrender.”
Hofmann grimaced and cut the third barrel loose even as it broke the surface.
I heard someone climbing the tower behind me and turned to see Shreck emerge from the hatch, still clutching his bag. I tensed, readying myself for another of his outbursts.
“Permission to bridge, Captain?”
His sullen anger, his hate, seemed gone, his expression one of resignation. I was wary but considered the situation. I had not expressly forbidden him from coming topside. Within hours our war would be over; we would make the best of it, I reasoned.
“Permission granted,” I said. I returned my attention to Hofmann’s work.
What happened in the next moments happened as if in a dream; time slowed for it. Hofmann gave several quick tugs on Denton’s line, trying to signal the American. A sudden swift movement from Shreck caught my eye. I turned to see him now wearing a Dräger. He heaved his heavy bundle over the side. It struck with a great splash and disappeared under. The spy leapt in after it, clutching a rolled bundle under one arm. His free hand gripped a nightstick and his wicked ice pick.
The deck suddenly heaved beneath me. I staggered, fell to one knee, caught the railing. A deafening roar filled the world. Black smoke surged from the open hatch.
Hofmann, off-balance, pitched forward into the rail, his head striking it with a sharp crack, and somersaulted over the side and disappeared into the sea.
The pressure hull groaned. I felt metal bending, shifting underfoot. Amidships at the waterline, oil and smoke billowed from a great gash. Orange flickered underwater and another explosion shook the boat. The diesel tanks had exploded.
Shreck had bombed the U-498 from within.
The deck lurched and tilted at a crazy angle and hurled me over the side. I slammed into the hull, gashing my scalp, and caromed into the water.
The bow of the U-498 reared above the water and slapped back, throwing up a great wave that shoved me away. The bow settled under and the sub’s aft lifted above the water and angled downward.
The sea around me rushed in to fill the void created by the sinking sub, sucking me under. I kicked furiously and managed to escape the water’s grasp.
U-498 disappeared with a hiss. I ducked my head under and watched it drift west as it sank. It settled on the edge of an undersea escarpment, rolled slowly over, and disappeared over the edge.
Nary a soul escaped the boat.
I returned to the surface, searching for Hofmann. There was no sign of him. Fury burned in me. I spun about, searching under the water for Shreck.
I spotted him below, emerging from the mouth of the spring, his ice pick clutched in his hand. A cloud of red drifted past him from the spring. Another line of red streamed from his mouth. Denton was no doubt dead but had inflicted damage before dying.
Shreck glanced at the rush of bubbles and slime that marked the disappearance of the sub. He looked about and located his prize on the sea floor, eight meters from the spring vent. He swam to it, gripped it, and planted his feet against the bottom. He heaved into it and began dragging it toward the vent. It was clearly of great weight and he would exhaust his limited Dräger air quickly. He managed to reach the vent and disappear inside. A moment later he emerged, no longer burdened with his precious bundle.
He had hidden it in the spring and eliminated all witnesses.
Except one.
The second bundle he’d carried overboard floated on the surface, an inflatable life raft, thirty meters away. He made his way toward it, his back toward me.
I shook off my boots and shirt, as they threatened to drag me under, and swam after him. He reached the surface and stripped off his Dräger, gasping, and let it sink. He caught hold of the raft, still holding the ice pick. He must have realized the folly of bringing a sharp weapon aboard a flimsy inflatable at sea, and cast the ice pick aside. He scanned the surface, searching for survivors. I was a mere dozen meters from him. I anticipated his move and ducked underwater. As I closed in, he swung one leg onto the raft and began
hauling himself up.
With one last powerful kick, I shot toward him and grabbed his trailing leg. I burst to the surface, gulped air, and went back under, rolling his leg under me as I went.
His grip on the raft was wrenched free and he was dragged under, with me above him. He’d been surprised and had not drawn much air, so sudden was his immersion. Bubbles streamed from his mouth. He flailed wildly at me. I raised my face above water once more and drove down into him again. Life was a contest of breath-holding now and I had drawn the last breath between us.
Terror took him and he fought and clawed desperately. I drove him deeper, one fathom, two fathoms, not releasing my grip on his legs. He tore at my face. I shut my eyes to protect them.
My lungs burned for air. I wanted nothing more than to return to the surface, yet I held my grip, absorbing his blows.
His struggles at last weakened. He shivered, and his blows stopped. He became still. I opened my eyes and studied him. His eyes stared blankly; his mouth was agape. No breath issued from him. I shoved him away. His body hung in the water, a puppet. I hurried to the surface and gasped in the air.
Exhausted, I drifted in the raft for hours until a fishing boat picked me up a few kilometers from land. I was a sorry sight, without strength or will.
The Americans held me for two days in a prisoner of war camp in the town of Orlando then whisked me away to a destination I still do not know. I was interrogated for days and nights without end. The Americans wanted badly to know of my submarine.
I told them everything but the truth about our guest and the location of the U-498. Shreck, I reasoned, had stolen something of terrible significance, of top secrecy. The Americans had stopped at nothing to retrieve it. If I had knowledge of this secret, my knowledge might best die with me. If I had no knowledge of it, if I were merely an unlucky submariner, they might let me live.
So I lied. I had slipped into the Gulf of Mexico to disrupt shipping, one last hurrah for the Kriegsmarine. I had no knowledge of any spies. I had not come within sight of the coast. Yes, we were attacked by a Catalina and we sank, nearly two hundred kilometers to the west. I was the only survivor.
I doubt they believed me. I learned later that a great number of vessels and airplanes had scoured the coast for hundreds of kilometers in both directions and far out to sea. But the sea is a vast place, and they were searching for a needle in a haystack.
I spent the remainder of the war, and then some, sequestered. When finally they released me, I was escorted back to Germany.
Two bombs, super-weapons of terrible power, had forced the surrender of Japan, only months after Germany had collapsed.
I knew then the nature of Shreck’s prize.
I studied and pieced together the story. Shreck had stolen Uranium-235, the fuel for the weapons, from the vast secret city thrown together in the remote Tennessee countryside.
The theft has never been acknowledged. Even the destruction of the U-498 in the Gulf of Mexico was erased. Wiped clean. I was promised extreme recrimination if I ever claimed such an event. To this day, the only sub lost in the Gulf is the U-166. My boat apparently sank in the Atlantic, off North Carolina.
I lived with silence and fear for twelve years and I was forgotten. I wished to live out my years on solid, dry land, a gentleman vintner of the Rhineland. But restless memory squirmed in my brain.
As the world left war behind, alliances and hatreds shifted and world powers again struggled for dominance, armed with unspeakably powerful weapons. History seems fated to repeat itself yet again. I cannot stop the madness. But I knew where the heart of one such weapon lay.
A forgotten man, I emigrated to America without incident in 1957. I settled in the little town of Brigands Key. I fell in love with the island and its peculiar inhabitants, of which I am now the most peculiar.
I had one mission left. I could not begin to locate the sunken sub and the lethal thing that lay nearby, nor did I want to. No, my mission was to make sure that no one else found them. I would keep the murderous thing out of the hands of men for the remainder of my life.
And so ends my story. You know the secret of U-498.
Denton’s spring and the weapon will someday be discovered. There is no doubt of that. I am taking the risk that the industrious, intelligent person that decrypts this message will be wise enough to guide that rediscovery toward a sane conclusion. To that end, I wish you courage and peace.
Captain Friedrich Remarque
October 1962
Chapter Thirty-Five
The wind howled and thrummed against the walls as Grant finished. He stared at the last line and set the page aside and looked at his companions.
Hammond paced, deep in thought, his face clouded. “Damn me straight to hell,” he said. “How could I miss the signs? How could I be so stupid? The plague of Brigands Key is acute radiation poisoning.”
“The mystery of ageless John Doe,” Grant said. “Shreck’s treasure preserved Andy Denton. He was bathed in radiation since he was murdered in the spring.”
Hammond nodded. “Radiation killed all the bacteria in his body; bacteriological decomposition was put on hold while enzymic decomposition was unaffected. A man dead sixty years looks like he died this week. Like using radiation as a food preservative.”
“And we’ve got a killer running around trying to get his hands on the guts of an atomic bomb,” Sanborn said.
Charley held his head in his hands, staring at the floor. His foot tapped nervously.
Grant put his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Charley? You got something on your mind? This is no time for shyness.”
Charley looked up at him, his eyes glistening. “Roscoe … he found his treasure but he had no idea what he was after. He was obsessed with gold. Probably thought Remarque had a cache of gold bullion stolen from Fort Knox.” He shook his head.
“Radiation poisoning is not going to stop,” Hammond said. “The best thing that could have happened to us was this hurricane forcing everyone off the island.”
“I wish it was that simple, Doc,” Charley said. “If I ever got off this island and got to college, do you know what I was going to study? Physics.”
“I’m getting a sinking feeling, Charley,” Grant said, glancing at his watch. “Spill it. Time’s wasting.”
“Physics is my bag. I read everything I can about it. Max Shreck didn’t just steal nuclear fuel. He stole enriched Uranium-235 from Oak Ridge. It took years to produce enough for one bomb. Officially, the U.S. built three bombs from two different designs in World War II. Two of the bombs were called implosion-type. In an implosion device, a plutonium core reaches critical mass and a chain reaction kicks in when an outer shell of conventional explosives goes off and implodes violently on the core. Implosion bombs used plutonium produced in Washington state. The first of them was used in the Trinity test in New Mexico. The other was Fat Man and was dropped on Nagasaki.
“The third bomb was called a gun-type. U-235 produced at Oak Ridge was made into a weapon at Los Alamos. The gun-type trigger fires a mass of U-235 into another mass of U-235, slamming them to critical mass and setting off a chain reaction. That bomb was Little Boy and it obliterated Hiroshima. If Remarque’s story is true, guess what? A second mass of U-235 was produced in Oak Ridge and actually fabricated into a bomb core there. But there’s no public record of that. Because of the theft, its existence has been kept secret.
“Gun-type uranium bombs were a lot simpler design but they were pretty much abandoned soon after that. Here’s the problem. The weapon is a shit-storm of unreliability; too much can go wrong and start a chain reaction before you’re ready. But the simple design makes it a huge threat today. Any dirtbag country with enough U-235 can build a Hiroshima-type bomb, but the damned thing might go off if there’s a mistake in construction.
“What we’re facing is a ready-made core that could be fashioned into a workable bomb by anyone with a physics degree and a good machine shop. You got two masses of U-235,
each one subcritical. Force 'em together and critical mass is reached. Even by accident, even a partial detonation, even a fizzle, we could get a chain reaction that would blow Brigands Key right off the friggin' map.”
“Wait a minute,” Sanborn said. “How do you know there are two chunks of it?”
“U-235 in small amounts isn’t dangerous at all. But put together enough, roughly a hundred and fourteen pounds, it goes critical. The Little Boy core weighed a hundred and forty pounds. Remarque peeked at Shreck’s treasure bag and saw two boxes. Two masses, physically separated, but close enough together to spark some gamma rays. Shreck was sick as a dog, and Remarque’s crew got sick right away. And now Brigands Key is sick. Kept apart, you only get your alpha and beta radiation, not enough to make you sick. We’ve been getting dosed with gamma, which shoots right through your whole body. If the two masses had been kept apart there wouldn’t be a problem.”
“Christ,” Sanborn muttered. “I hope everyone got off the island.”
A bang shook the bank; something had slammed into the roof. “Celeste is here,” Hammond said. He went to the front door. It was unlocked, but he was unable to push it open; the wind had barred it shut. “Must be blowing a hundred miles an hour.”
“We haven’t seen the worst of it yet,” Grant said. “The eyewall’s packing a buck-fifty.”
“We can ride it out here,” Hammond said hopefully. “This bank is built solid. One of the strongest buildings on the island.”
Grant shook his head. “No good. This is a one-story building. The storm surge is going to sweep in here, twenty feet or more. We’ll drown here, and if we wait ten more minutes, we may be in the strongest winds and unable to leave at all. We have to get out now.”
“The high school gym?”
“You can go there. Not me. I just figured this thing out. Blount’s onto the score of a lifetime. To hell with gold; he can sell weapons-grade uranium for a billion dollars to any one of a dozen banana republics. He can’t slip out without risking losing it. His best chance is to let Celeste chase everyone off and kill anyone else stupid enough to stick around, and then slip out of here unnoticed after she leaves, in the dark, before search-and-rescue squads can enter. But we’ve got a playing card now; he doesn’t have the uranium and he thinks I might. He’s desperate.” Grant looked at his watch again. “I have fourteen minutes to meet his deadline. Now that I know what he’s after, I’m going to fake my way through it.”