by Jon F. Merz
When he did so, he found but two sailors there. One manned the wheel and the other was busy on the communications equipment, desperately radioing ahead for help. That was when Thatcher saw it: a small box about the size of a thick suitcase that was attached to the cipher machine nearby the radio operator. It looked like something that a typewriter might fit in. Thatcher had heard whispers of German encoding devices. Was this a brand new machine they were trying out on Raider X for the first time? If so, the Allies would obviously be desperate to get their hands on it as soon as possible.
The sailor manning the wheel was unarmed and so was the radio operator. That was fortunate. But what concerned Thatcher now was that the shell in the engine room had not yet detonated. Perhaps it never would. Maybe Thatcher’s idea of placing it near the shafts was a stupid one. Blame it on Hewitt, he decided for not training him up to speed on sabotage techniques.
But he still had a job to do. So even as he broke onto the bridge and both sailors suddenly looked up, Thatcher was breathless and gasping as he pointed back the way he’d come. “There’s some sort of creature on the ship. It’s killing everyone. You’ve got to hurry.”
The sailor on the wheel turned back and kept his eyes fixed on the far port of Tenerife which was drawing ever closer by the moment. The radio operator sent one further distress call and then removed his headphones and stood up.
“Where are the weapons?” asked Thatcher. “We need to arm ourselves.”
The radio operator looked at the wheelman who only nodded. The radioman motioned for Thatcher to follow him. He led the way to a small room at the back of the bridge that was locked. He fished a key out of his pocket and opened the door. Inside Thatcher saw a small assortment of pistols and machine guns along with a crate of grenades, the potato mashers he’d seen in newsreels before his arrest.
The radioman handed a pistol to Thatcher who promptly clunked him over the head. The radioman dropped to the floor of the bridge and Thatcher grabbed a handful of grenades and stuffed them into his belt. He stepped out and stepped behind the wheelman. Too late the sailor realized it just as Thatcher knocked him unconscious with the butt of the pistol. He dropped to the floor of the bridge as well.
Thatcher eyed the port. It was dark out so he only had the lights of the harbor to go by but he estimated they were only a few miles away. Tune was running short.
He ducked out of the bridge with the pistol at the ready. It had been years since he’d shot a gun, but it came back to him easily as he chambered a round and headed down below.
If he could manage to reach the engine room again, he would hurl the grenades inside and then run for the life boats. If he could get one down he could slip over the side and row to shore even as Raider X was going up in a ball of flames.
He hoped.
Chapter 35
With the gun in hand, and grenades stuffed into his belt, Thatcher made his way down the steps once more into the belly of the ship. The gunfire was more sporadic now than it had been and he wondered if there were any survivors or if Cyra had killed them all. Such a ruthless stance toward a ship and her crew was truly horrifying to Thatcher especially given there were three hundred and forty souls aboard this ship that would soon be dead.
He needed to end this now. As he made his way deeper into the bowels of the ship, he slowed. Yes time was rolling by he also didn’t want to run into Cyra. For all he knew she could smell him anyway. But if Thatcher could keep away from her he might just have a chance to fulfill his mission after all.
It was on the third level down that he thought he heard something close by. But for whatever reason he didn’t think it was Cyra. It sounded far too furtive to be her and Thatcher thought he knew her well enough that she would no longer be sneaking about but rather fully embracing her mutated state.
So who was it?
Thatcher proceeded with caution, pausing at key intervals to determine if he was getting closer to the person who was ahead of him. He heard a few more shots ring out but nothing sustained. Cyra was probably combing the ship looking for any survivors to kill.
Which meant that aside from Thatcher and the two men he had incapacitated back on the bridge, there might only be a few survivors left.
His mind drifted to Schwarzwalder. Where was the captain of Raider X and what was he doing about the creature on his ship? Was he already dead? Probably, thought Thatcher. Cyra was relentless and would stop at nothing to ensure that Raider X and its crew were destroyed. Those were her orders after all.
If he’d had time to debate with her, he might have asked deeper questions about her abilities and how she’d managed to get them. Cyra didn’t strike him as a Nazi and she certainly didn’t look like one but they had obviously gotten her to agree to be experimented on with devastating results. Had they offered her something she couldn’t find elsewhere?
The questions would have to wait, Thatcher knew. And if he was successful, he would never get answers to them.
He had no idea what the depth of the water was, but he figured it would be deep enough that if he could trap Cyra below decks when the explosion happened she would be unable to escape and find herself trapped by the immense water pressure. At least that was the plan. As Cyra had demonstrated, she didn’t play by anyone’s rules but her own. And those who commanded her.
Thatcher just needed to make his way to the engine room and finish what he had started. He felt sure that a couple of grenades exploding would surely detonate the artillery shell as well, which was far more powerful and capable of ripping a hole in the keel. He just had to reach it.
He crept along the corridor now, still hearing faint noises up ahead of him. Whoever it was, they seemed to be heading in the same direction as Thatcher.
Steinkopf was presumably dead; he had rushed into mayhem when Thatcher had tried to stop him. He didn’t know who else might be left.
He reached a junction and squatted before peering around the corner. There.
A lone figure armed with a pistol and a bag slung over one shoulder crept along the same corridor. Thatcher gave a very low whistle and the person stopped.
Turned.
Thatcher breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it was Schwarzwalder. The Captain looked relieved as well upon realizing it was Thatcher behind him. He waved him forward and Thatcher came abreast of him.
“Thought I was the only one left alive,” said Thatcher
Schwarzwalder grinned. “You and me both.” He eyed the grenades. “What are you planning to do with those??”
“Blow up the ship. Destroy the creature. Whatever it takes.”
“A couple of grenades aren’t going to do the job,” said Schwarzwalder. “You need something bigger than that.”
“I managed to get one of the artillery shells down into the engine room earlier before I had to flee from Cyra,” said Thatcher. “I thought if I threw the grenades inside they might trigger the shell as well and rip a hole in the keel.”
Schwarzwalder laughed. “There’s armor plating under the keel, it won’t work. Not without scuttling charges.” He gestured to the bag he was carrying. “Which I happen to have.”
“You’re going to scuttle your own ship?”
“It’s either that or risk that thing escaping. I’d rather the ship went down with her on it than her being able to escape. We can’t let that happen.”
“Agreed,” said Thatcher. “So where do we put the charges?”
“In the engine room but under the main engine assembly. If we blow that, the resulting explosion will shred the ship’s engine and blow a gaping hole in our underside, armored plating and all.”
“Excellent,” said Thatcher. “We just have to make sure we don’t run into Cyra.”
Schwarzwalder frowned. “I haven’t heard any gunfire in a few minutes. Do you think everyone else is dead?”
“Yes,” said Thatcher. “We’d be fools to think otherwise.”
Schwarzwalder sighed and Thatcher knew he was feeling the loss of all
of his men. He gave him a quick moment and then nudged him forward.
“We need to keep moving.”
“All right,” said the Captain. And they headed off toward the engine room.
“So what’s the truth about Adamson?” asked Thatcher. “Did you know he was spying for the British as well?”
Schwarzwalder grunted. “I knew. He’d asked me for some help and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I saw him again.”
“How did he communicate with you?”
“And old system we had worked out many years ago when we were first in the navy together.”
“You never mentioned you were in the navy together just that you were always on separate ships.”
“I didn’t know how much you might know already. Better to keep things private if at all possible.” Schwarzwalder sighed again. “In any event I wasn’t sure if I could help him. I mean my family is still in Germany. What if the Nazis found out?”
“They did find out,” said Thatcher. “Cyra is here to kill you for betraying your country.”
“But I did no such thing,” said Schwarzwalder. “I only agreed to meet with him. But by that point it was already too late. He was already dead.”
“Cyra killed him as well. Her orders come from someone in the Nazi chain of command,” said Thatcher. “And worse, she’s been sent to destroy your ship for whatever it is that you’re carrying aboard here.”
Thatcher expected Schwarzwalder to deny the fact that the ship had anything classified on it, but instead the Captain nodded slowly. “The new cipher wheels for the Enigma machine. If those fell into Allied hands then they would be able to break all of our latest codes. It could prove devastating for Berlin.”
Thatcher made a note to try to get back to the bridge before he jumped overboard. Getting his hands on one of those new cipher wheels would be a tremendous benefit and might even get Hewitt to let Thatcher go back to his old life.
“We need to sink the ship,” said Schwarzwalder. “It’s the only way to ensure the wheels are safe and that Cyra is dead.”
They moved further along the corridor and gradually drew down to the engine rom itself. The hallways were littered with the dead. The corridor had been painted in blood. Bodies torn asunder, corpses laying askew with limbs literally ripped off. Bones jutted out of pockets of skin where they shouldn’t have in the first place. And the stench of death made the place reek.
Thatcher stopped counting the dead after reaching fifty. There were scores more besides but it didn’t matter. As far as he knew, there were three people left alive on the ship: him, Schwarzwalder, and Cyra.
The only question that remained right now was whether he and Schwarzwalder would be able to scuttle Raider X and somehow make it off the ship alive before Cyra tore them apart as well.
A few gun shots echoed from somewhere else on board behind where they had come from. Schwarzwalder looked hopeful but then they heard a scream and both men knew that whoever it was was now dead also.
There was nothing left to do but finish the grim task before them.
Chapter 36
They rushed to the engine room since it appeared that Cyra was somewhere behind them finishing off the rest of the crew. “I don’t know why bullets wouldn’t even bring her down,” said Schwarzwalder as he motioned for Thatcher to follow him across the room toward the main engine assembly. “Once it seemed apparent we couldn’t kill her, I should have given the order to abandon the ship.”
“And what good would that have done? There’d be no one left to buy us some time and she would have succeeded in killing everyone. The Loki seems doomed regardless.”
“You believe in superstition?”
“Not really. I make my own luck.”
Schwarzwalder grunted. “I would expect a criminal to say something like that, even one as talented as you are.” He suddenly saw the artillery shell and smiled. “I see what you were trying to do here but it simply wouldn’t have worked. Still, see if you can unwed that from where it is right now and bring it over to where I’ll set the charges.” He bent to work pulling the explosives out while Thatcher attempted to get the shell out of where he’d put it.
“I had a dream the night before we put to sea,” continued Schwarzwalder. “In it, I lost my ship. Everyone on it was dead. They were walking around and I knew they were all dead. Just vacant mindless eyes staring back. And they gradually realized I was still alive so they started chasing me all over the ship until there was nowhere left for me to flee.”
“That’s not a good dream to have at any point, let alone the night before you leave port.” Thatcher managed to free the shell from where he’d placed it and he carried it over to where Schwarzwalder was setting packages of some grayish material and running wires back and forth to them. “How’d you feel after having a dream like that?”
“Like putting to sea was the last thing I wanted to do. But it was my duty so I kissed my wife and children good-bye and tried to put it all out of my head. That’s what a captain has to do.”
“You’re a good man,” said Thatcher. And he meant it. He didn’t view Schwarzwalder as the enemy. This wasn’t Thatcher’s war, frankly. And if they’d met at any other time, it was likely they might have even become friends. In effect, they had over the course of a few days together. “And it’s apparent your men respect you tremendously.”
“Well, they did, perhaps,” said Schwarzwalder. “Before I let that creature aboard and she started killing them.”
Thatcher nodded at the explosives. “Are those almost done? The sooner we get out of here, the better.”
Schwarzwalder nodded. “Almost done running the detonation cord into the timer. How much time do you think we need to reach the lifeboats?”
“I’m assuming the motor launch is too much trouble to lower?”
“We’d need at least two more men to get it down properly. The lifeboats are designed for quicker launch times in case of emergencies.”
“Ten minutes?” asked Thatcher. “That should give us enough time to try to sneak quietly back to where we need to be.”
Schwarzwlader grunted and set the timer. When he was done, he stepped back and looked at the scene. Then he moved forward, wedged the packages of explosives in tighter so they almost blended to some extent with the main engine. The artillery shell was noticeable but there wasn’t much they could do about that. “All right, it’s done.”
“Let’s move then,” said Thatcher. “The sooner we’re off the boat, the safer I will feel. You know, unless Cyra has the ability to fly as well.”
Schwarzwalder sighed. “I’ve heard whisperings and rumors that there were scientists being rounded up to work on special projects for the Führer. Some of them sounded nightmarish. But they went anyway. Hitler seems to have taken advantage of the natural curiosity that drives a man of science to forget their humanity.”
“There’s nothing scientific about being a monster who creates another monster,” said Thatcher. “They could all be working for a greater good and instead they’re helping drive Hitler’s twisted agenda of racial purity. It’s disgraceful any way you try to cut it.”
“Give me one of your grenades.” Schwarzwalder took one from Thatcher and then led them out of the engine room. “We can discuss such things at a later time. Right now, we need to get out of here.”
Thatcher brought his pistol up as they left the engine room and carefully made their way up the stairs. The only noises remaining aboard the ship were those made by the engine as it continued to grind away, spinning the propeller shafts and other ambient noises. Thatcher had no doubt Cyra was anxiously searching for them. She would know who she had killed and who she had not. Neither Thatcher nor Schwarzwalder had stood before her since Thatcher’s run-in at the engine room the first time. Cyra would relentlessly scour the entire ship until she found them. The goal was simply to reach the lifeboats and lower them without being attacked.
Thatcher thought about heading for the bridge but disreg
arded it. His safety was paramount in his mind. Grabbing the cipher wheels would have been nice but they weren’t even part of the overall mission in the first place. Hewitt would have been overjoyed if he’d managed to grab them, of course, but as long as Thatcher fulfilled the other parameters of his mission, he didn’t think Hewitt would have such a problem with it. Hell, Thatcher didn’t even have to tell him that they were on board. After all, he hadn’t even been briefed about them.
Schwarzwalder brought them out on to the lower deck and the fresh air hitting his face felt like a massive relief to Thatcher even though they still had half a boat length to go to reach the life boats. The Captain kept his pistol up and ready to shoot while Thatcher did the same. Together they moved ever closer to where the life boats were kept, hanging on a simply pulley system that would allow anyone to drop them to the sea below.
Neither man said anything as they crept forward, but Thatcher’s heart raced at the thought of being able to finally get off the ship. Schwarzwalder reached the lifeboats first and tucked his pistol, away in his holster before checking the rigging on the pulley. He nodded for Thatcher to do the same at his end.
Thatcher reluctantly put his gun away. Then he looked at Schwarzwalder and nodded. It was an easy enough system. A simple release valve would allow the pulleys to start working and the life boat to descend. Schwarzwalder nodded once more and Thatcher released it, grabbing the ropes as he did so to ease the boat as gently as they could to the ocean below.
The fifteen foot wooden life boat eased down toward the churning waves far below and Thatcher’s heart again kicked up with adrenaline and excitement. They were close.
That was when the rope in his hand suddenly broke away from him and the life boat fell down at an angle as the bow tipped toward the waves while the stern still under Schwarzwalder’s control was still on a higher level than that.