The U-4501 was quiet again, most of its crew asleep. It was dark outside and the submarine rocked slightly in a rising wind, waves splashing against the side of the boat. Greta sat on her bunk, impatient and angry. Owen should be back by now with the men from the cave. Had Jurgen betrayed them? She felt with her heels under her bed. Instead of one crammed pack there were now two, filled with food she'd quietly stolen from the Antarctic stores, as well as some rope and twine.
She'd made a decision. If God granted her wish and she saw Owen again, she was going to go with him. She'd begun seeing her situation with unusual clarity since that morning's conversation with Schmidt. She now knew- if, indeed, she'd ever doubted it- that she lived in a dark world of betrayal. If she remained in the sub, sailed home with Jurgen, the darkness would only deepen. Jurgen would continue his power over her, keep her around as a witness to his bizarre schemes. So hopeless. So crazy. The unspeakable misery they'd cause.
Contemplating her future, the only light she saw was Owen. She was enough of a realist to realize the light would be brief, that two people couldn't survive the small-boat ocean crossing he hoped to attempt. But at the moment of her death, there would be a certain satisfaction. She would know that, even if she hadn't lived her life well, she'd ended it well, with the man she loved.
To hide her preparation she'd been snarling at anyone who so much as bumped her cubicle curtain, claiming a right of privacy as a female. It had the desired effect, the sailors giving her a wide berth. Now she could only wait. Where was he? Restless, she got up to confront her husband.
Schmidt met her in the corridor before she could reach a ladder, carrying a sturdy metal tank the size of a large sausage.
"Another safe for your microbes, Max?" she asked caustically.
"For your antibiotic, actually. The drug powder should fit in this gas cylinder, the toughest container I could find. In case we're attacked again on the way home."
"Ah. Well, in that case the lab cultures you made from the spores need to be boxed or destroyed too. We can't risk them breaking."
"Yes, but I'm experimenting with growth variables. One colony is really exploding! I should be able to use these findings to accelerate production when we reach Germany. I want to give them as much time as I can. Don't worry. I'll see to the cultures before departure."
She looked at him doubtfully. "You've already hidden your spores from me. Don't take foolish risks with the ones you've hatched and grown."
"No risk, Frau Drexler. We doctors respect disease."
She bit her lip at that and gestured down the corridor. "Is Jurgen in his quarters?"
"No, on deck, preparing to go ashore. The last soldiers haven't returned from the cave. He's leading a search party."
She started, looking dismayed. "Did something go wrong?"
"Who knows?" Schmidt smiled at her weakness for the pilot. "That's what he's checking."
Greta put on her parka and climbed to the deck. It was very dark and the strength of the wind caught her by surprise. She had so little sense of the elements inside the submarine. The sky was like a tattered sail, streamers of cloud blowing past the stars. A storm was building and the realization dismayed her. Would nothing favor them?
The motor launch was alongside, bumping against the hull as Jurgen's search party of storm troopers boarded by the illumination of flashlights. She walked along the wet deck, whipped by spray.
"Going for more microbe spores?"
He jumped at her bitter voice. "What are you doing up here?"
"What are you doing? Hunting for fresh diseases like the good doctor?"
He squinted at her sourly, irritated at her complaint of betrayal. "Safeguarding our mission."
"You lied to me again."
He shrugged. "Does it matter anymore?"
The indifference hurt. "No. Not anymore." She looked at the boatload of men. "So. Where are you going?"
He considered his reply. "If you must know, I'm looking for your damned pilot."
"Why isn't he back yet?"
Drexler looked out at the walls of the crater. "That's what we're going to find out. Hans and Rudolf and Oscar haven't returned either. It's a dreadful night and I don't want them getting lost in a storm."
"You won't leave without him this time?"
He looked at her resentfully. "Not if he's alive."
"What does that mean?"
"Nothing! For God's sake, can you stop mooning for one moment over Owen Hart? Go below and get some sleep. You need it."
She stood, frustrated. Part of her wanted him to assure her, to promise Owen's safety. But what were Jurgen's promises worth anymore? Nothing. This time she'd have to trust in God.
Saying a prayer to herself, she turned and went below.
Hart watched the lights of the launch pull away from the submarine with quiet satisfaction. Finally! He felt savagely energized despite his cold and hunger. He was alive and his tormentors, some of them at least, vanquished. He felt a powerful freedom he hadn't enjoyed since his capture in Berlin.
After the explosion he'd slid down to the snug little cove visible from the lava outcrop and checked again on his discovery from six years before, satisfying himself that his desperate plan was not entirely impossible. Then he'd wearily climbed back to the volcano rim and sat, catching his breath and looking down at the submarine in the caldera like a raptor eyeing prey. When dusk fell he'd descended into the crater and sheltered at the mouth of the lava tube he and Fritz had found so long before. Enough of an overhang remained after the cave-in to shield him from the wind. For hours the U-boat remained stubbornly impregnable, anchored in its cold lagoon with the motor launch tied alongside. Yet he knew that the disappearance of the SS men would sooner or later raise questions. Now the Nazis were coming to answer them, giving him a chance to get to Greta.
The last stars were gone and a few snowflakes were beginning to fall. Perfect: the storm would obscure his tracks. Confident that the dark hid him from view, he left the cave and loped down the slope to the crater beach, then hiked along the shoreline toward the point the running lights appeared aimed at. The grumble of the launch engine faded and the lights went out, suggesting the boat had reached shore. After a few minutes new lights switched on and he watched them swing as the storm troopers began moving up the crater slope. Lanterns for the search.
Then there was a bang and a red star went wavering up into the night. Flare! Hart fell flat. The illumination was poor in the growing snow and he knew the light was more to attract the lost SS men than to actually spot them. Still, it revealed to him that one man had stayed with the boat. A sentry. When the wavering red glow flickered out, the pilot sat up, removed a boot, and methodically filled one sock with beach gravel. The thought of what he was about to do didn't give him pause at all. Then he put his boot back on and walked ahead.
He dropped as a second flare arched skyward. Ten-minute intervals, he guessed. When the night darkened again he hurried forward, then sank to a crouch and crept the last several yards.
The sentry was hunched over with his back to the wind, a glow showing that he was drawing on a cigarette. Hart's feet crunched on gravel. The sentry turned, fumbling with a submachine gun caught under his parka. "Who's there?"
"Oscar," Hart replied.
"Thank God! We feared you'd- "
The pilot swung and the sock exploded on the storm trooper's temple, gravel spraying. The man sprawled and Hart was on top of him in an instant. He'd salvaged a sharp steel climbing piton from the cave, hard enough to be hammered into cracks of rock. Now he felt under the dazed man's parka hood with it, thrust, and cut. The squirt of blood splattered Owen despite his instinctive lurch back. Grimly, he let the sentry's head flop down.
There was another bang, and a lurid glow of red. Hart stood quickly to become the sentry to anyone watching from the submarine or above. The snow was thickening. As the flare died he watched the chain of bobbing lights climb up and over the crater rim. No alarm had been raised.
Owen could still hear the sentry's dying gurgle. He felt nothing except relief. That was four of the bastards! He yanked the submachine gun out from under the dead man, wiped it on the soldier's parka, and threw it into the boat. Pockets yielded a flashlight, dagger, an extra clip, and some papers. Hart took an envelope, emptied it, crouched, and slipped a pebble inside. Then he dragged the dead Nazi into the cold water, looping a mooring line around his torso. The pilot shoved the boat off the beach, jumped aboard, and pressed the button to start the engine, remembering the procedure the Germans had used. Backing out, he turned and headed toward the U-boat. At the halfway point he slowed and cut the mooring line. The towed body sank from sight.
When he banged inexpertly against the submarine a sailor on watch caught the boat. "Where are the others?" the seaman asked.
"Still searching." Hart prayed the man wouldn't recognize his voice. "The colonel sent a message for the woman." He handed over the envelope. "She's assembling additional supplies. She's to come up and confer with me." Hart dared not venture into the submarine with his recognizable face and his parka spattered with blood. The man hesitated. "I'll stand watch. Hurry, dammit! It's fucking cold!" The sailor disappeared down the hatch.
Hart hauled the submachine gun onto his lap and studied it. He'd never fired one before. He found the apparent safety but dared not squeeze the trigger to confirm his discovery, simply setting it aside where it would be ready. Then he bent to the emergency sailing rigging stored in the bottom of the launch and began taking it apart, fumbling in the snow and cold. The sail and its lines he set aside.
He looked restlessly about, hoping to see Greta, dreading their imminent goodbye. The necessity for her to ride home with the Germans, her only realistic chance, twisted his stomach. He wanted her. Needed her. Yet it was madness to go with him…
The hatch banged open and a pack emerged, falling over on the deck. Then a second. The sailor came out and then bent to offer his hand to Greta. And there she was, a slim silhouette, dragging the packs down the ash-and snow-crusted deck and heaving them into the motor launch. Hart started the engine, not knowing what to expect.
She jumped aboard. "Thank God you're here."
"Should I report anything to the captain?" the sailor asked from the deck.
"Only that you should have been quicker," Hart growled. "Get back on watch." He hoped he'd mustered the right tone of SS arrogance. The sailor hesitated a moment, resentful, then spat into the water and backed to the conning tower.
"Did something happen in the cave?" Greta whispered. "When that sailor told me the motor launch had returned I feared it was Jurgen to tell me of your death. And then when I opened that envelope I almost screamed for joy!"
Hart smiled. The pebble had scored again. "The soldiers tried to leave me in the lake and wired the cave with explosives. I got out just before the detonation. They didn't."
"So Jurgen lied about letting you go." She stiffened with resolve. "Owen, I've decided to come with you. We can just take this boat and flee. Jurgen's on shore. We'll maroon him there."
Touched, the pilot shook his head. "Greta, you can't. I'm going to try to cross the stormiest ocean in the world. It's impossible."
"Even more impossible to try alone."
"No. It's foolish for us both to die. Besides, they'd raise the alarm too soon if we took this launch. I'm going over the volcano, as we planned, and you stay on the submarine."
She shook her head. "Owen, I can't watch you leave me again. I won't. Whatever our fate is, please, let's face it together."
"No." He didn't want to kill her and had to dissuade her. "If you flee, they'll come after us."
"It's a big ocean, Owen, and, if Jurgen thinks I'm sulking and huddled in my cabin, there's a possibility I won't be missed for hours."
He looked at Greta's face. The certainty of staying together- even if it risked death- trumped the possibility of permanent separation. She wasn't going to take no for an answer.
"All right," he said finally, swallowing. His eyes were moist. "It's crazy, but all right. If we die, I'll still have you."
She nodded.
"We still have to leave this boat on the beach so they won't hunt for it with the submarine," he pointed out. "We still have to hike to the cove."
"I understand. So hurry, let's… wait." She sat straighter. "Wait, wait. You told me the cave was blown up. What happened to the last batch of lake organism?"
"Sealed with the Nazis, I suppose."
"My God." She seized his parka. "We can stop them!"
"What?"
"Don't you see? The only lake organism left is on the submarine and Schmidt hasn't locked that away yet; he's still expecting more from underground when Jurgen returns. If we destroy it they can't reproduce any in Germany! They'll have the disease but no cure, and unless they're totally insane they won't dare unleash it! We can beat them, Owen! If we hurry!"
"Go back inside? They'll recognize me, Greta. They'll ask too many questions."
"I know. I'll do it. It's late, people are asleep. I'll hurry."
"What if someone notices what you're doing?"
"I'll do it quickly, quietly."
"No, it's too risky…"
"Trust me, Owen." And then before he could grab her she was springing back on deck and trotting to the hatch. She yanked it open and disappeared inside.
The sailor came clambering down from the conning tower. The pilot's hand drifted to the submachine gun and he waited, tensely.
"I thought she was going with you?" The question was troubled, suspicious, the sailor's features invisible in the dark.
Hart shrugged. "She is. But she forgot something." He spat. "You know. Women."