Submerged

by Thomas F Monteleone

  Despite my wish to depart this place, I agreed to the retrieval mission for several reasons: one, it had been the order of Admiral Doenitz; and two, I wanted physical proof of what I had witnessed here—other than the photographs from our Leica. Manny and Jaeger led the way through the debris, and looked as if struck by an aerial bomb. We were looking for a surviving sample of Heisenberg’s inter-matter, and our careful inspection, while time consuming, proved eventually successful.

  Decker found a small bullion-sized object. I found another just like it. Jaeger was ecstatic. The bricks were heavy. Much too heavy for their size and volume. Ultra-high density is how Jaeger described it. The scientist was convinced these objects were keys to the overall survival of the Third Reich.

  A question for the historians, I believe.

  After securing the two samples in a rucksack, we retraced our route through the ruins, through the pattern of streets back to the city’s edge, to the shoreline and the great quay. As we entered the dinghy, I wondered if our actions were being recorded by unseen eyes and ears.

  An unsettling concept, to be sure.

  As we headed back to the 5001, Jaeger pointed through the mist at a distant point along the shoreline. He said there was something there we should see before departure.

  We followed his directions, and homed in on a dark object taking shape in the fog. A vaguely familiar shape. Looking at it from an angle that compressed its length I suddenly realized I was staring at the aft-end of a ship—a sailing ship.

  Nineteenth century. No stacks, no steam.

  The sailing vessel looked much like the whalers of the 1880s. Masts were broken. The hull cracked like the shell of a giant egg. Shreds of rigging still entangled the wreckage.

  I asked Jaeger how a surface ship could have entered this underwater/underground cavern, and Jaeger grinned, promising to tell me his theory. But he again pointed at the wreck.

  I continued to stare at the ship’s center beam, fractured over a rocky shoal like the vertebrae of a long-dead leviathan. The wood of the hull, blackened by rot and time, appeared thin and almost papery in spots.

  We were close to the hulk, now. The once-gilded lettering across the stern was worn to its thinnest layers, but the name remained just barely visible like a message written on a frosted pane of glass: the Nebuchadenezzar.

  There was no way to determine its nationality with a name like that.

  Jaeger pointed to what had been a cargo hold, burst open to a scattering of barrels and crates—all split and rotted into splintered ghosts of their original shapes. Large taluses of salt spilled from several of the barrels, which looked as if they had exploded as if from a great concussive impact.

  Jaeger commented on the way the ship lay molded to the shape of the shoal, the way the salt looked exploded from the barrels.

  I understood immediately. The Nebuchadenezzar had not run aground. It had fallen. From the roof of the cavern. Actually through the top of the cavern. Jaeger suggested the boat had been locked in the ice above. After many years, perhaps a geologic fault such as an earthquake or a shifting crevasse could have caused temporary rift in the cavern’s ceiling. Periods of warming and cooling could have gradually sucked the boat down until its final descent.

  When we pushed off again, closing the distance to the 5001, I was grateful to leave this bizarre place.

  Trusting the repairs of Kress and his men, we quickly submerged into the lagoon then followed Ostermann’s carefully charted course. Our position was accurate. (Longitude 39.49 W Latitude 69.60 N) Although the response of the diving planes was stiff, we passed through the breach without incident and once more were in open sea.

  * * *

  4 May 1945

  Fassbaden, Hausser, and I have agreed upon a possible, alternate plan—if all goes badly.

  But the best laid plans, it is said, often go awry. And as such I am afraid to even write of it. As in doing so, I curse it.

  I have, like the Ancient Mariner, cast my fate to the wind.

  We are underway at half-speed.

  Despite the still possible dangers of American patrols, the crew felt safer in the familiar depths of the ocean. As the hours passed, placing time and distance between us and Station One Eleven, it began to feel less real to me. As though we had glimpsed for an instant a mythic place made real only by powers beyond our own.

  I believe I was not alone in these feelings. I noticed none of the crew dared mention our detour under the Greenland Shelf. As if their silence might make it somehow less real. Although I had not proscribed against it, none of my exploration team volunteered details of what they had seen—especially the unforgettable statue or the mangled corpses.

  Ostermann charted our course due south. Despite our delays, he calculated we could still make the rendezvous point with Sturm within the desired time window.

  In the meantime:

  Batteries fully charged.

  Starboard dive plane showing signs of stress. Kress apologetic as he confesses possible failure at any time.

  If we need to compensate for a hydroplane failure, Kress warns me the electric engines may not be up to the task without sustaining damage themselves. We could descend with no hope of ever coming up.

  We advance to Full Speed.

  * * *

  5 May 1945

  Night surfacing successful. Batteries again recharged.

  The morale of the crew is admirable. I remain on the surface because if the war is truly over, we are relatively safe. However, I may be foolish to believe all American forces have been informed of the cessation of hostilities.

  Regardless, I cannot allow them to discover our deadly cargo.

  Dive plane getting extremely sticky.

  Near midnight. Ostermann informs me we have reached the revised rendezvous point. 300 kilometers south/southeast of New York, we await the cruiser.

  * * *

  6 May 1945

  We have remained on the surface the entire night, and into the morning hours. In all those hours, we see no sign of enemy planes or shipping.

  Best to not rely on the dive plane unless absolutely necessary.

  * * *

  We receive a message from Sturm, and almost simultaneously see her clean lines break the horizon.

  I have irrevocable choices ahead.

  * * *

  Within two hours, Sturm was along our starboard side and I rode a bo’sun’s chair to its bridge for a meeting with its young Captain Kaltenbach, who has also received the final command from Admiral Doenitz. He asked me what he was to do with the details of our secret mission, and I declined to advise him. That was the purview of Doenitz alone.

  Staff meeting—Fassbaden, Massenburg, Kress, Ostermann present. They wish to return to Hamburg as soon as possible. Kress fears the fragile hydroplane will not survive the trip across the Atlantic. The U-5001 is in a precarious state. If we slip beneath the surface in rough seas, we may never surface again.

  Slowly, my crew assembled themselves, and trans-shipped to Sturm. I felt a great relief—my premonition of losing the crew would not come true. When there were only four men remaining aboard—Manny, Massenburg, and Hauser, the young cook, I told them what I had been thinking. I confessed to a terrible realization that my life no longer had a purpose. The Germany I had served, albeit reluctantly, had ceased to exist.

  And I am struck by a deeper truth—I have no desire to ever return there, to ever see it again.

  To the three men still with me, I brought up the possibility of the earlier alternate plan we’d discussed. I told them this was the time to decide whether or not to act upon it.

  Before they could reply, I told them I would not be going back on Sturm.

  Manny and Hausser understood, but Massenburg had two questions. One, was I planning to go down with my ship? And two, if not, then what?

&nbs
p; After explaining my intentions, Chief Massenburg thanked me profusely, but declined to join us. He believed he was too old and too much a German to attempt a fresh start in a country so different. I told he him he had been my best non-com, and I would miss him. He saluted me, swore himself to secrecy, and departed for the cruiser.

  Leaving the three of us. None with any family remaining in Germany. None with any good real reason to return to a place where a terrible Russo-European punishment would be the rule of the day.

  These issues decided, I informed Captain Kaltenbach I would attempt to nurse U-5001 back to Trondheim. The cruiser sailed east, leaving me, Manny, and Hausser in its wake.

  Since the war was at an end, I decided to keep my boat on the surface as we departed the rendezvous point and headed for the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.

  I have further decided to not surrender my boat to the Americans. Better they never know how close we came to destroying their greatest city.

  * * *

  7 May 1945

  My last entry.

  After running more than 14 hours, as dawn fills the sky, Manny estimates we have pushed our way north into the Bay as far as we dare. The water here is deep enough to claim our boat.

  We will now prepare to scuttle, and take our chances.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Dex

  Baltimore

  “That’s it,” said Tommy, his voice just above a whisper. “Oh, man…”

  “They scuttled and deserted.” Dex admired this guy, Bruckner. He had brass ones.

  “So what’s this all mean?” Tommy sipped on a Natty Boh.

  “More than I want to think about. At least for tonight.” Dex wasn’t sure he should alarm Tommy with his suspicions at this point. His imagination still sparked with images of the underground Nazi base, the shipwreck that had fallen through the pack-ice—the light tower.

  And the coolest part was Bruckner, himself. He’d recorded his story in a simple, dispassionate but very readable style. A reporter on the scene, no more or less. It could have been the basic translation, but Dex doubted it. He wasn’t even sure Bruckner cared if anyone ever read his log.

  Either the log had been left intentionally in the captain’s quarters, or last-minute events kept Bruckner from retrieving it. Whatever the case, his story stood on its own. Although that wouldn’t stop Dex from checking ship registries for the names Nebuchadenezzar and Sturm. Probably a waste of time—those boats were real, he was certain. But seeing them in print somewhere would apply the epoxy of total truth to the whole story.

  But there was one problem—a huge problem—he would need to verify before alerting anyone to a possible danger. He wasn’t even sure he should tell the rest of the guys yet. Tommy had read the same thing as Dex and hadn’t noticed it. So, it might be nothing.

  Or, it might be everything.

  “Hey, Dex… Earth to Dex.” Tommy tapped him on the shoulder. “Whatsamatter with you?”

  “Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about something.”

  “What?”

  “When we go back down to the wreck tomorrow, it might be the last time we can do it.” Dex moused in a few commands, closing the translation website as he spoke. Then he saved the text of the log to a flash drive and encrypted it with a password. Then he clipped it to his keyring. He thought about putting it in the strong box, but the lock was broken, and anyone finding the originals wouldn’t need his translation for long. But he knew he didn’t want anything on his laptop drive, so the last thing he did was run his security program that flushed out and cyber-shredded anything he’d been doing connected with the 5001. Call him paranoid, but now that the good old “authorities” knew the sub was down there, he was going to keep things as tight as possible.

  “Last time,” said Tommy. “Yeah, you said that before. Hey, you want a brewski?”

  “No thanks, I’m going to hit the road. Like I was saying, tomorrow might be the last dive on that boat. I want to get out early, and I want to be the first team down. You okay with that?”

  Tommy looked a little surprised. “You want me?”

  Dex wanted him for two reasons: one, because of his training, he was a good guy to have around in a dangerous situation; and two, none of the other guys wanted much to do with him.

  Of course, he wasn’t going to tell him that second reason…

  “Yeah, things might get a little dicey down there, and you’re the guy I need in a pinch.”

  Tommy smiled, chucked him on the shoulder. “Cool.”

  Dex started to pack up his computer and the rest of the stuff. He was about to slip the brick of inter-matter, the translated text, and the log into his backpack, then stopped himself.

  “Tommy, you think Augie would mind if we stashed this stuff with him for a little while?”

  Looking over at the old guy dozing on the couch, Tommy smiled. “You kidding? Aug’s the best. He’d be glad to keep an eye on it.”

  “Good,” said Dex, as he replaced the log and printed-out pages in Bruckner’s strongbox. Stuffing the box into the backpack, he paused as he picked up the strange brick. Now that he had an idea what it might be, decided it would probably be a better idea to never let the object out of reach. He handed the laptop and the backpack to Tommy. “You clear it with him, okay?”

  “No prob. But how come?”

  Dex shrugged. “I don’t know. I just have a feeling it’ll be safer here. At least for now. Call it a hunch, you know?”

  “Sure, I got ya,” said Tommy.

  Looking at his watch, Dex headed for the door. “Tell Augie thanks when you wake him up. I’ll see you at the dock. Regular time.”

  “You got it. I’ll be there.” Tommy noticed he still carried the metallic slab. “Hey, I thought you said you were leaving everything here.”

  “Everything but this.” Dex shook hands with him, thanked him, and slipped out the door into the festive lights of Little Italy.

  As he walked to his car, he wondered if he was being a jerk with all the precautions, and he waved that off. He’d stayed alive doing dangerous things throughout a long Navy hitch because he listened to his instincts on more than one occasion.

  And his internal Early Warning System was beeping right now. No way was he going to ignore it.

  Part Two

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Sinclair

  Somewhere off the Atlantic Coast

  Burrowed deep beneath a small island, in a bunker forgotten and ignored by most of humanity, in a room bristling with electronic gear, sat a broad-shouldered man in his late forties. The politically correct sheep would call him “African American” or whatever was deemed acceptably au courant, but he had long ago learned to laugh at such silly distinctions as skin color. In fact, he despised the significance of melanin demanded by mountebank social activists. His name, when he had been part of the world erroneously called “real,” had been Captain Junius Sinclair, USN.

  Now, he was known only as Sinclair, and he liked that just fine. He had just received an encrypted message from a division of a very powerful entity known only as the Guild.

  It was brief, but intriguing: U-5001 found. See Datafile 2947-C. Action memo to follow.

  While he waited for whatever might be coming through the pipeline, he used the time to access the datafiles on the U-5001. He began to read what turned out to be a fascinating story. Of course, he—like most people—had one of his own…

  * * *

  Captain Junius Sinclair’s recruitment into the Guild had been a familiar replay of the tens of thousands of soldiers, sailors, spies, and techies who’d come before him. As it had been doing for an unknown number of centuries, the Guild sought out the disaffected, the outraged, the maligned, the unjustly accused, and even the crazy ideologues. The Guild had well-honed techniques for finding these kinds of people—those who had been misled o
r cheated or overlooked by their governments or their employers, those whose anger and need for revenge could never be quelled. The process, containing the elegance of both complexity and the obvious, had been successful for a long, long time for a variety of reasons.

  But the main one was surely the inevitable ability of abusive power to piss off someone else.

  Junius smiled as he mused over that simple truth.

  The Guild had approached him while he was still in Special Ops for the Navy’s Deep Sea Rescue/Recovery Division. What made his job “special” had been the assignments nobody ever read about in the paper. If it had anything to do with the ocean, being under it, and bad guys, Junius had been involved.

  He’d been a captain on the top secret Sea Viper, a DSR Vehicle that made the descent to oceans’ deepest ridge vents feel like a dip in the backyard pool. When the Kursk choked on one of its own torpedoes and sank in the Barents Sea, Junius had been lurking in the cold depths, close enough to watch the Russians botch their attempts to get twenty-three sailors to the surface. The U.S. had offered to do the job, but a spillover of Soviet self-delusion, pride, and fear by the Russian Admiralty nixed the deal.

  He’d also been involved in too many other missions the details of which the public never knew—and never would. Junius had been very good at what he did, he liked his job, and back then, he liked his employer.

  But all that changed one evening several years ago.

  The details were too numerous and tedious to recount, but the distillate of Sinclair’s life-altering moment came when CIA intercepts revealed a terror attack planned against the Norfolk Navy Yard. Sinclair had been in charge of the underwater defense net. But when suicide scuba divers slipped through undetected to plant charges against the hull of the Atlantic Fleet’s flagship carrier, and even though the C-4 failed to detonate, the Navy needed a fall-guy in a hurry.

  Before he could open the hatch on his SeaViper, Sinclair found himself holding a very short straw and feeling a lot like the Indianapolis Captain, Charles McVay III. Military court martial, demotion, big hit on his pension, and all the bad media they could muster. To suggest one man was responsible for the attack on a supercarrier in its own harbor was absurd, but the public and the Pentagon didn’t want to hear anything other than simple scapegoated excuses.