Greta inhaled the night air of the harbor. Northwestern Spain was cool in November but still warmer than Germany, its sky ablaze with stars. Smells both sweet and odorous wafted from the port of Vigo, the scent of sea and forest and fishing quay a heady reminder of better times. For two weeks she and Owen had been locked in a sterile world without windows: a succession of cells, paneled trucks, and then an airplane, its viewing ports taped over with blackout paper. They'd been kept more than twenty-four hours at opposite ends of a frigid metal hangar in Switzerland, sleepless and cramped on its hard concrete floor. Now, still stiff from the long journey, she had a moment's respite on the edge of the Atlantic in a nation that still granted refuge to Nazi ships.
A few lights twinkled on the water and music drifted from the whitewashed buildings stacked around Vigo's natural amphitheater. This is what life is like without war, she remembered. It was only a glimpse. Stone steps slick with seaweed led to a landing being approached by a motor launch. Across the bay was the low dark shadow of a U-boat. An impatient Schmidt was already down the steps, his gaunt silhouette identified by the glow of his cigarette. He'd not so much as glanced at the beauty of the harbor.
Despite being within fifty feet of her husband and her father and the man she loved, Greta felt helplessly alone. Jurgen had been warily polite, Otto had been kept separate, and any contact with Owen was prevented by the squad of granite-faced SS troopers that had flown with them out of Germany. The isolation hurt. She didn't think she'd survive to stand on a temperate shore again, and before being sealed into the submarine she wanted to share this final moment with the man she loved. For just that reason Drexler wouldn't allow it. While he needed both Owen and Greta to accomplish his plan, he didn't need them together. Not yet.
The pair's last conversation in Berlin had been hasty and anguished. Drexler had reluctantly agreed to allow his wife to go into Owen's cell alone to persuade the pilot to come on the new expedition. But the SS colonel was hammering on the door and hollering "Time!" long before they'd said all they needed to say. Greta had presented the cruel choice- Antarctica or a painful death- quickly, never doubting that Hart would agree to come. "It's all right," he'd assured her. "I know I'm not done with that place yet. Or this war. And I have an idea." But she wept when he agreed, hating herself for asking him to come and yet enormously relieved that he'd do so.
Now Owen remained caged inside a Spanish truck, waiting for transfer to the submarine. Her father stood morosely next to a decrepit warehouse, watched over by a yellow-haired giant named Hans. And Jurgen was brisk and confident, reanimated by what he clearly saw as a second chance to make his mark in the Reich and work together with Greta.
He still wore his formal black uniform to emphasize his authority. Now he watched the motor launch from the U-boat putter to the stone steps of the quay. The submarine commander who climbed out of the boat declined to return Drexler's Hitler salute, instead coming wearily up the quay steps in worn sweater and stained officer's cap and offering a brief nod at the top. He looked tired, his eyes red from long hours. "Colonel Drexler? Captain Joachim Freiwald, commander of the U-4501."
"Greetings, Captain. You're the skipper of a very new submarine, I understand."
"So new I would swear the paint is still drying. I'm sorry for not being on shore to meet you but the timing of your arrival was unclear. And our orders were quite sudden. We ran the Atlantic gauntlet from the shipyards at Kiel and have been scrambling to provision since our arrival in Spain. All for an ultimate destination we've yet to be informed of." He looked at Jurgen quizzically.
"I'll inform you of our mission once we're at sea, Captain. The haste is necessary, I'm afraid. The war is at a critical stage and we're under a tight deadline."
Freiwald looked uncomfortable. "My orders from U-boat Command are less than clear. Only to take on an unusually large number of added personnel for an unusually long voyage. I've radioed for clarification of my instructions."
"There's no need. I take my orders from Berlin." He pointed to his SS contingent. "These men take their orders from me. And so do you, as these papers will make clear." An orderly handed over a folder. "We can't afford to waste time with jurisdictional confusion so I had these orders drawn up making clear my authority. And I'm in a hurry. I want us underway before dawn, Captain."
Freiwald looked surprised. "I understood our departure date as tomorrow night, Colonel. Some of my men are in town on leave."
"Your directive has just changed. Your men's shore leave must be canceled. Our success depends upon speed."
"Colonel, we've been working ceaselessly to commission and then provision here in Spain. My men haven't had any rest since- "
"Tonight, Captain. Time is of the essence. They can go ashore after we win the war."
Freiwald pursed his lips and opened the folder. There was enough illumination from a warehouse floodlight to make out the signatures and stamps. He closed it, his face a mask. "Yes, Colonel. Departure at 0300 hours."
"You can reassemble your crew?"
He shrugged. "I know where to find them. The amusements of Vigo are limited."
"Good. Next, the biologist accompanying us is a woman. My wife, as a matter of fact, though that is irrelevant to your treatment of her. Her expertise is critical to this mission and as a woman she'll need a private cabin. You'll arrange this, please."
The skipper blinked. "Submarines are cramped, Colonel, even our new Type XXI. I have a cabin, and there's the first officer's compartment. It has only a single bunk- "
"That will be satisfactory. I won't be sharing her quarters. My apologies to the first officer but I'm sure he'll understand. Now, I also want a compartment reserved for my nine Schutzstaffel soldiers and myself: perhaps the forward torpedo room. You'll reassign your crew accordingly."
"But- "
"And the laboratory space, it's been cleared?"
"That necessity has made storage tight and those cages- "
"The heavy weather gear has arrived?"
"Yes- "
"And we also have a prisoner. An American Intelligence officer, with critical information for our success. Where can we confine him?"
Freiwald looked even more confused. "Nowhere, Colonel. A submarine has no brig."
"Then just lock him somewhere. To a pipe or bunk."
The captain frowned. "Is he a threat?"
"Potentially."
"Colonel, that won't work. Not on a long sea voyage. He'll be in the way if chained to one place and it won't be good for morale. Submarines are more… casual than what you're accustomed to in Berlin."
"What do you suggest, Captain?"
"Where can he go? What can he do? Believe me, he'll never be alone in the confines of a submarine, especially with so many extra soldiers on board. We simply watch him."
There was a dissatisfied grunt. "Very well. Just keep him away from the woman. My wife, I mean. He's not to talk with her."
Freiwald looked more baffled than ever.
"That will be all for now. You can begin transporting my men and their gear to your ship."
"It's called a boat, Colonel."
But Drexler was already walking away.
Otto Kohl watched the submarine commander's discomfiture from a distance, secretly amused at the obvious friction. The U-boat chief had just been given a short course in the way Drexler briskly arranged the world to fit his own designs. Kohl had expected to be allowed to stay in Switzerland but Jurgen had ordered him to continue on to Spain. For a while Kohl had feared being impressed into the submarine as well, but there was no sign of that. Instead he had to stand like a penitent schoolboy in the shadow of a gigantic SS goon, watching his only child standing alone nearby, depressed and probably afraid. Her isolation shamed him.
Drexler, in contrast, looked positively jaunty, as if embarking on a pleasure cruise. It occurred to Kohl that his son-in-law had quite possibly snapped. The Nazi strode up.
"This is where we say goodbye, Otto." He kept his hands clasped behind his back. "You're a lucky man to wait out the war here."
"Simply a sensible one." Deciding to try one last time, Kohl gestured toward the hills of Spain. "It could end for all of us, Jurgen. You're beyond the reach of the dying Reich. Make a separate peace and just go. You've done enough."
"You still don't understand people like myself, do you, Otto?" Jurgen's voice had the disdain of pity. "That some things are more important than one's own brief spark of existence. That there are such things as country and duty and honor. That sometimes the individual sacrifices for the many."
"In the right cause."
"Your Fatherland's cause is the right cause. Always. You no more choose your Fatherland than you choose your family. And you no more abandon your Fatherland than you abandon your family."
Kohl was quiet. He was abandoning both.
"Destiny has put me at this harbor," Drexler went on. "Destiny has given me the chance to reverse the tide of war. God led me to that island as surely as if he'd erected signposts, and you and Owen Hart fell out of the sky like trumpeting angels. I thought it a nightmare, at first. Then I realized it was the solution to all my problems."
God, what a grandiose, self-important fool. "No one knows what God intends," Kohl warned quietly. "If you must take this risk, then do so, Jurgen, but please… I beg of you. Leave my daughter behind. You don't need her."
"Ah, but I do. Do you think Hart would help me without Greta as leverage? Besides, your daughter is a remarkably intuitive scientist. Time is of the essence with the Allies knocking on the West Wall. I'm counting on her ingenuity to give us a head start on our plans. And besides, I need her for one more reason."
"What's that?"
"You."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you really think I trust either one of you? That I'm relaxed about turning Otto Kohl loose to run around Spain while I carry out a secret mission to Antarctica? No, she's my guarantee, dear father-in-law. You won't do anything foolish because if you did, it would endanger her: if we fail, she'll be the first to suffer the consequences."
"You can't make Greta hostage to my behavior! That's not our agreement!"
"Exactly. I agreed only to let you go, but we said nothing beyond that. Now I've filled in the blanks."
"Filled it with blackmail!"
"I learned from the master."
Kohl fumed. "It's not as if I was going to talk anyway. I'm no traitor."
"Then you should welcome this arrangement. We're allies."
Kohl wished he'd never met Jurgen Drexler. "When do you return?"
"In less than two months, I hope. By that time you should know Vigo like a native."
"I'm not about to sit waiting in this runt of a port. Barcelona, perhaps. Or over to Lisbon, in Portugal. I have the money to go where I wish now." He gestured toward the two leather satchels on the dirt near the truck, watched by an SS guard. They were stuffed with currency, gold, and bank certificates that Kohl had assembled in Switzerland after they flew there from Berlin to refuel. "If I have to waste my time for two months, it shall be in some comfort," said Otto. He moved to pick up the satchels.
Drexler put a hand on his arm. "No, Otto. There's one other amendment to our agreement."
"What's that?"
"You'll get your money, as I promised. But not until our safe return. Just one more reason for you to wish us a bon voyage. It goes on the submarine with me."
"What!"
"You'll be issued enough pesetas to keep you at Vigo's finest for two months. And to light a lamp for our homecoming. But you go nowhere else if you care about the fate of your daughter. Early in the new year we'll have a family reunion. Then you'll be a rich man and I a powerful one. Not before."
"That's outrageous! That money is mine!"
"Think of me as your banker."
"Jurgen, you son of a bitch…"
"There, there, Otto," Drexler said, smiling. "We mustn't have acrimony among family members." He nodded toward Greta. "Now, say goodbye to your daughter. Tell her how important her cooperation is. Kiss her cheek, for me." He was in a good mood.
Kohl struggled to master his composure. He watched Jurgen nod to a guard, who hoisted the satchels and carried them down the quay steps for transport to the submarine. Then, resigned to the loss, Kohl went to speak briefly to Greta. She touched his hand before an SS guard escorted her to the launch as well. Next came Hart, his hands cuffed. The boat pulled away with this first load.
Drexler came back beside Kohl. "Was it a warm send-off?"
"She told me she didn't expect to come back."
"Ah. Well. She always underestimates me."
"And you me," Kohl said. "I'm not your puppet, Jurgen. I refuse to be any man's puppet anymore."
"Of course not, Otto. You're lord of Vigo. The newest Spanish don. And with patience, you'll have your new life."
They watched the motor launch aim for the waiting submarine. They could see Greta looking back at them, her expression invisible. Then she melted into the dark and Drexler put his arm around Kohl's shoulder and guided him to a waiting car. The German sulkily got in and Drexler bent to the open window.
"Your daughter and your money are safe with me. I think the stars promise luck for us, don't you agree?"
Kohl looked straight ahead. "Goodbye, Jurgen." When he said nothing more, Drexler shrugged and the car pulled away.
Otto half expected a detour and a quick bullet on the drive into town but it didn't come. A mistake, he thought. If you knocked down a person, you finished him. He suspected Jurgen didn't quite have the stomach required for his schemes.
Kohl was escorted to a hotel room with a view of the dark harbor. "Your accommodations have been paid for," he was informed. From the balcony of his room he could see the light of the motor launch as it ferried back and forth. The submarine was too low and dark to be visible.
Kohl sighed, sat on his sagging bed, and contemplated the ruins of his life. Then he took out the object Greta had pressed into his hand. "Keep this safe for me," she'd whispered.
It was a scrap of soiled white ribbon. He unwound it to find a pebble inside, dull and brown. He supposed it had something to do with Owen. With it was a scrap of paper, carefully inked.
"The issue is greater than us, Papa. You must stop this boat."
Kohl lay down on his bed. For the first time in many years, tears fogged his eyes. He was frightened at such sentiment.
For reassurance he felt the lining of his jacket where he'd sewn some currency inside. Then he considered what to do.