Ice Reich (42 page)

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 Jürgen'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 Jürgen 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 Jürgen 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. Jürgen'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 Jürgen 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 Jürgen 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."

Greta climbed down to the main deck and listened. The submarine hummed with the ceaseless, oil-scented drone of a warship, but was otherwise still. The desultory sailor on watch in the control room barely nodded as she slipped down the midships ladder to her laboratory, her pulse hammering. She opened the hatch cautiously. Empty. She closed it after her.

Despite her abortive efforts at straightening the lab, clutter remained. Schmidt's tank of drug was in plain view on a crate used as a makeshift table, the drug storage tubes he'd emptied into it scattered around. Remaining canisters of the organic sludge sat on the deck along one bulkhead. The workbench with its bacterial cultures of disease was on the other. Beakers and flasks and pots remained crusted with paste. The surviving rabbits skittered in their cages at her entrance, no doubt afraid of another needle. She'd thought she was done with this claustrophobic warren and yet here she was again.

She moved decisively. A sampling of the drug sludge went into a bottle slipped into her pocket. Then she lifted the heavy canister it came from and began pouring the remainder into their drain pipe. The unprocessed organism would go into the U-boat's waste system and overboard. It glugged with glacial slowness but at last emptied. She let the canister drop to the deck and picked up another. She was sweating in her heavy outdoor gear.

There was a click and a bump as the hatch opened again. She started, but kept pouring. Probably Jacob, the animal tender, and she could outbluff any sailor. It would be enough to point to the disease. Get out, go away! It's dangerous down here!

Boots thumped onto the deck. She prepared to turn suddenly in irritation.

"What do you think you're doing?"

She jumped. It was Schmidt! She looked at him in guilty surprise as he watched her pour. He seemed confused and haggard.

"Max! I thought you were asleep."

"Having coffee." His expression began to narrow. "Sleep has tended to elude me of late, and a chance mention by the watch of your being down here got me curious." His look became grim. "I shudder to think what might have happened had I not decided to investigate. Put that damn container down. Now."

Reluctantly, she did so. "I only— "

"Only what? Only wanted to destroy everything we worked for. Back away from that drain pipe, Frau Biologist. Thank God more is coming from the cave." He paused, considering her clothes, her midnight appearance. "Or is it? Are you finally ahead of us, Greta? Do you finally know something I don't?"

"That would be difficult, Max, given that you know
everything.
" Her expression was one of intense hatred. Also, of triumph.

"Bitch!" His hand cracked across her face and she went flying against the remaining algal containers, knocking several over. The cap snapped off one and its contents began sloshing across the metal deck grating, draining into the bilge. She shook her head dumbly. The blow was so hard she was dazed, her vision blurred.

"Violence seems to be your forte, Max," she said, glancing sideways at the still-full algal containers. Suddenly, she turned and grabbed for the bottles, getting a cap off one before Schmidt was on top of her.

"Get your hands off that!" He seized her by the hair and hauled her backward, trying to strike her with the other fist. His clumsy blows were blocked by the arm she lifted to ward off his attack. He was taller but old and not particularly strong. She twisted and kicked, making him wince. Then they grappled, Greta punching and biting and scratching for her life. He managed to get behind her with an arm around her windpipe and began choking. They stumbled, locked in a pained dance, her voice cut off and Schmidt wheezing as he desperately tried to master a woman thirty years younger than himself. She realized she was beginning to black out and groped wildly with a free hand, looking for a weapon. Her fingers skittered on a glass cylinder, rejected it, then seized it again. Yes! One of his damned hypodermics!