Atropos Island loomed on the horizon like a thunderous cloud, towering and shadowy. The white of its glaciers evaporated into mist that billowed to form fantastic canyons of creamy vapor, the confection topped by the darker syrup of a volcanic plume from the second peak. The increase in eruptive activity did not appear to be threatening enough to prevent their reentering the caldera anchorage, but the drift of ash added to the unease of the German soldiers and sailors on deck. As they approached the island the sea was a flat calm, the submarine threading slowly through dark water between rafts of pack ice. The temperature was below freezing and the conning tower was frosted. The sky overhead was a patchwork: an occasional squall would send a brief snow flurry across the boat, followed a few minutes later by pale polar sun. As they rounded the flank of the island some of the flakes were grayer and grittier. Volcanic ash, the sailors were told. They held up their mittens in wonder.
Even Hart was allowed to come up on deck. He watched the tail of volcanic smoke with disquiet, wondering what this change meant for descending underground. And yet when the U-4501 nosed through the caldera entrance the harbor seemed not to have changed at all in six years. There was still the same pinto pattern of pumice and snow, still the absence of any bird or animal life, still the lonely beaches that steamed in the cold. Even the crates of supplies left by the Schwabenland remained undisturbed. He shivered, but not from the temperature. The familiarity of it after so many years seemed chilling. The bodies of the mountaineers, he assumed, still lay where they fell, stained a coffee color and mummified by the dry freeze of time.
Freiwald anchored not far from the underwater wreck of the Bergen, and the U-boat men on deck began assembly of a prefabricated motor launch. Antarctic clothing was dragged out of storage and ropes, buckets, lanterns, lamps, and packs were readied. Despite the smoking volcano, there was an air of excitement aboard now that they'd survived the attack and reached Antarctica. Here would be a tale to tell one's grandchildren about.
Hart was issued a parka, boots, a backpack, lights, food, and climbing gear that included an ice ax. He joined five other SS men on the foredeck. Last to emerge were Jurgen and Greta. It was the first time the pilot had seen her since the depth charge attack and she granted him a brief, reassuring smile but didn't attempt to speak. She was solemn as she looked at the island. Owen was relieved that her face was unmarked.
Drexler seemed subdued but determined. "Here's where you earn your keep, Hart," he growled, keeping between the pilot and Greta. "I could blast and dig my way into the mountain the old way but it would take time and we have no timbers to shore up the ceiling. The alternative you found will prove more expedient, I hope."
"It might be a tight squeeze for some of your gorillas, Jurgen. Those boys afraid of the dark?"
The storm troopers looked scornfully at the pilot.
"My men aren't afraid of anything but failure. Which is the only thing you should fear as well. We'll get what we came for one way or another. But if you and my wife assist as promised, things will be easier for everyone."
Hart looked evenly at the soldiers. "Looking forward to their company. Especially Hans there, the one with the big boot."
The yellow-haired giant grinned at him.
They clambered into the launch, motored ashore, and the party shouldered their packs. The pilot led off, switchbacking up the slope of the crater. Soon they were sweating in the cold, the submarine shrinking in the lagoon below. As they neared the rim Hart noticed the launch had returned to the submarine and another party was boarding. The pilot thought he recognized among them the cadaverous, hunched figure of Schmidt. Where was he going?
They moved on up to the crest and out of sight of the submarine, Drexler bringing up the rear with Greta. It was clear he wasn't anxious for the American to talk to her, but the German maintained his own stiff distance from her as well. Whatever their exchange after the depth charge attack, it hadn't been a friendly one. Owen decided to be patient. Despite the situation his spirits had revived somewhat with his escape from the confines of the U-4501. Even the dour SS men brightened. The air was sharp and cold and exquisitely clean. The unaccustomed walking brought an almost welcome tightness to their muscles. Hart paused frequently. "Drink lots of water," he kept admonishing. "It's arid here, despite the snow."
They circuited the crest in a window of brilliant sunshine, Hart looking down the dry valley where he knew the husks of the dead Germans still lay scattered. Was that where Schmidt was aiming? To get the bodies or the spores? The pilot decided against pointing out the deadly vale to his group of Germans. Like it or not, they all needed each other to descend safely into the mountain. Panic wouldn't help.
Beyond the valley he could see the other volcano, exhausting unevenly. Sometimes the plume would be dark with ash and other times it would lighten with steam. The snow around its top had been stained charcoal. He wondered what Elmer would make of this. "The island doesn't want you to be here," the old Eskimo would have said. "I don't want to be here either," Hart would have replied.
When they'd hiked the rim to the seaward side of the crater Hart abruptly turned off the crest. Below was a panoramic view. To his left was the sea, the island skirted by a fractured maze of pack ice. Directly ahead was the snowy plateau where he'd landed the Boreas, bordered by the adjacent jagged ridge of rock that linked the two volcanoes. Behind, to his right, was the valley. Without a word he led them skittering downward on the snow of the volcano's outer flank. They stopped on the shelf of bare basalt that extruded from the mountain a third of the way down its slope.
Hart looked back up. "It's tough going back over the rim of the volcano," he told the soldiers. "You're going to get a workout packing our cargo to the submarine."
"We're not afraid to work," Hans said.
Hart nodded. "Of course we did have a tube leading right through the mountain, right out to the caldera, but Colonel Drexler demolished that one. Back in 1939. You can ask him about it on the way back up."
"It was an accidental collapse, Hart. And keep your tiresome history to yourself."
"Yes, my commander." He gave a mock salute and pointed with the tip of his ax. "The exit I found is right there."
Still looking like a sleepy eye, a dark slit of a hole looked out at the ocean and its mosaic of ice. "We're crawling in there?" Rudolf, the man Hart knew as Bristle-Head, asked doubtfully.
"It's bigger inside."
They paused to get out the ropes and lights, including miner's helmets with headlamps. As the others finished preparing to enter the cave, Hart looked intently down the volcano's flank at the small, relatively ice-free bay far below. His eye swept its shoreline as if searching for something. Then, while Drexler was bent over his pack, he moved quickly to Greta.
"It's still there," he whispered.
She looked down the slope quickly, not seeing what he'd spotted, and then glanced at the sea. "The ocean's so vast," she worried.
"But possible."
She stole a touch of his gloved hand.
"Hart, are you ready?" Drexler snapped. He was following their gaze with suspicion, obviously irritated at the whispering but not wanting to make a scene. The SS men looked at the trio with interest.
"I'm ready."
"Then do your job and lead."
The initial crawl led to the sandy room near the entrance. Then the tube became tight again as it led down into the mountain. Hart explained that he'd leave a colored flag every ten meters or so to mark the convoluted route. The cave would temporarily widen when they reached the long vertical chimney- the elevator shaft- that he and Fritz had descended so long ago. Then narrow once again before the grotto. They'd fix climbing ropes along the route.
The group worked slowly, bracing themselves against a sudden fall. Periodically a rock would break loose and roll down through the spelunkers, banging its way ahead of them into the pits below.
"Dammit! This is worse than that midget-designed submarine," Hans complained after sliding through a tight spot on his back, dragging his pack behind him.
"At least it's warmer in here than outside," Bristle-Head responded.
"It's warmer anywhere than outside."
Hart had to pause several times, occasionally backtracking. The lava tubes were a labyrinth; it'd been a miracle he'd found his way back out in the dark. Now he deliberately took a periodic wrong turn, trying to develop a mental picture of where all the alternate routes led. The rest of the party rested gratefully while he explored. "I nearly died in here once and I don't want to make a wrong turn again," he explained.
The chimney remained the most daunting. The lava tube descended to its roof with the dangerous pitch of a children's slide, then opened to a vertical well hundreds of feet deep. Owen cautiously let himself down on a rope to that junction and, letting his legs dangle in space, dropped a rock to emphasize the need for caution. It fell into the blackness without a sound for what seemed like an eternity of time, finally banging and bouncing somewhere far below. Its echoes drifted up to them.
"Jesus," one of the SS men said. "This dung hole is virtually bottomless. We're climbing down there?"
"Not only that," said Hart, "but you're going to have to climb back out. With a heavier pack than you have now."
"I hate this fucking war."
"Finally, we agree."
The pilot unreeled a rope into the darkness and started down, pausing periodically to drive climbing pitons to anchor the line. Gingerly, the others followed.
At the shelf where the tube from the old entrance joined the chimney, Hart paused until the group reassembled. Everyone was breathing hard. He glanced at Greta. She'd been compliant but silent, freezing the Nazis out, and the soldiers tended to keep a wary distance. Drexler stayed nearer, always between his wife and Hart, and yet avoided looking at her.
She was gazing down the chimney to where they'd descended before, lost in memory, when Hart jerked his head down the horizontal tube and said, "This way." Greta's mouth opened in surprise and then closed. They walked as if exiting the mountain from the tube that had collapsed.
"Jurgen!" Hart called. "Can you come up to the front? I want to show you something."
Drexler pushed ahead. The beam from his headlamp picked out a wall of cascading rock from the cave-in, and it was obvious that Hart had led them to another dead end. He was impatient with the frequent detours but had refrained from complaining: he still needed the American. "What is it?" he asked grumpily.
"The result of German purpose." Hart was searching with the beam from his own helmet. "There." He pointed.
Greta gasped. Bones. Lying broken in a heap of rubble was a body, decay far advanced in the relative warmth of the cave. The skull still had a few leathery scraps. A buckle, buttons, and a pocketknife were ensnarled on the web of tendrils clinging to the skeletal ribs. Rocks still obscured the mashed legs.
Drexler had gone rigid.
"Why it's Fritz, Jurgen!" Hart said. "Lying right where that cave-in you started crushed the life out of him."
There was a murmur of unease among the SS men. "This is bad luck," one muttered.
Drexler looked balefully at Hart. "What's this got to do with our mission?"
"Just underscores your deep concern for the men who serve under you."
"Spare me the finger pointing, Hart. Smart-mouthed communist or not, Eckermann was not someone I wished dead. He simply was in the wrong place at the right time."
"Well, we're going to bury him."
"We don't have time for this maudlin pity!"
Hart crossed his arms. "We're staying here until he's covered with rocks and a prayer said over his grave."
No one wanted to spend more time arguing in the depth of the cave. The little German was swiftly covered with stones and Hart led the others in the Lord's Prayer, a couple of the SS men stumbling over the words. Then he turned to the others. "This was one man. Before we go farther on this mission, I want you to imagine burying a million others: the victims of a new plague."
"We're all tired of your moral pretensions, Hart," Drexler added. "There's a war on. And we're down here to save lives, not kill them: to get a cure, not a disease. I suggest the first life you should worry about is your own. So. Lead on."
Owen looked at them sadly. "Very well." He pointed. "We go back to the shaft." The men moved off, anxious to get away from the body. Drexler led this time.
The pilot caught up to Greta, looking at her with concern. "Are you all right?"
She nodded. "Yes. We only quarreled."
"It worries me to leave you alone with him."
"I'm not afraid of Jurgen."
"I am."
The American Intelligence officer sat on the embassy terrace in Lisbon, the contents of a folder spilled across the table. It was evening, the night cool but not unpleasant. The naval attache had called them there.
"Maybe the kraut isn't a liar after all," he told them.
"Come on, Sam," the OSS man scoffed. "He doesn't have a shred of evidence for his wild story. And how do we know he didn't just murder Hart? The German is either a plant or a psychotic."
"I thought that too." The attache pointed to the papers. "Except that his story is beginning to check out."
"What do you mean?"
"Six days ago an escort carrier task force transiting to the Indian Ocean put up a routine air patrol and encountered a German submarine in the South Atlantic, far away from any convoy route or the normal battlefields. A big boat, the pilots thought, and their guess was that it was heading for Japan on some kind of swap mission. They depth-charged and got a slick. They couldn't confirm the kill, however."
"So?"
"Two days later we intercepted a coded radio message from a sub even farther south. It said the pig-boat was short on fuel and needed resupply to get back to Germany. Asked for a future rendezvous with a milch cow, but not immediately: it was going somewhere first. The timing is odd. Not enough time to get to Japan, certainly. South America, possibly. Or… Antarctica."
The OSS man frowned.
"Think about it, Phil," the naval attache reasoned. "This man Kohl shows up raving about a secret mission and then we independently find a submarine about where he predicted it would be. Besides, why would this Kohl come here when he's an escapee from France?"
"Because he wants us to divert resources way the hell down into Antarctica. It's a Nazi ploy."
"Maybe. But what if he's right? What if he's really changing sides? An opportunist like him, this late in the war…"
"Sam…"
"We've got a destroyer at Punta Arenas. We've got the biggest damn navy in the world, Hitler is on the ropes…"
"Tell that to the guys getting pasted in the Bulge!"
"… and we can afford to divert one ship. Dammit, Phil, what if he's right?"
"Or what if the krauts are building some kind of secret hideout down there?" the deputy ambassador interjected quietly. "To hole up after the war. I think Sam is right. I think we should ask the navy to check this out."
"I don't know if we can convince Washington."
"We can if we promise them a sub to bag," the attache said.
"And we can put that damned oily Nazi on board," the deputy ambassador suggested. "To either help us find this sub or be left down there for causing us the trouble."