Pandora's curse

From the wavering glow radiating from the slave annex, Mercer could tell that the five hundred bunk beds were also being reduced to ash. He carefully turned the scope so the fuel drum bolted to it didn’t act too unnaturally as it pivoted through the water. He was searching for Gunther Rath and spotted him near the remains of the administration building, talking with Greta Schmidt and a fortyish man with brushed-back bronze hair whom Mercer didn’t recognize. He flicked a lever on the scope to double its magnification. The stranger had the sleek look of someone with power and he guessed that this was Rath’s boss, the head of Kohl AG.

Mercer committed his face to memory.

Although the interior of the sub was thirty-one degrees and their breath was like clouds around their mouths and noses, Erwin Puhl was sweating when Mercer looked up from the periscope. “Thanks, Erwin. Take back your window on the world.” The German jumped back to his normal position.

The stiffness had gone out of his leg, but Mercer still didn’t put his full weight on it when he descended back to the control room.

“What’s happening topside?” Ira asked. He was training Marty and Hilda how to operate the planesmen’s stations. Anika Klein was at the small chart table rereading the captain’s logbook. She had already translated the sections pertaining to how they would negotiate the twists and turns necessary to escape the cavern through the submarine channel. It promised to be an interesting trip.

“Rath has already dragged a few boxes to the surface, and everything else is about destroyed. I bet they’ll clear out within twenty-four hours.”

“How is Erwin doing?” Anika asked.

“Fine as long as he has his periscope.”

“Mercer!” Erwin called from above them. “They’re about to shoot at the barrels.”

“What?”

“There are three men with assault rifles at the edge of the dock. Rath’s talking with them. I think they’re going to sink the fuel drums in the lagoon.”

“Shit. Rath’s a thorough son of a bitch, isn’t he?” Mercer recognized the implication immediately. “Stand by to lower the scope.”

“Why?” Puhl’s voice cracked.

“Because of the barrel covering it. They’ll know something’s up if it doesn’t sink when they shoot it.” Ira had already moved to the snorkel controls “I… I can’t.” He was terrified. “They’re shooting now. Barrels are sinking.”

“He has to tell me when,” Ira said. “You go up there.”

“No. Erwin needs to do this or he won’t last five minutes once we’re cut off.”

“Oh, God, they’re aiming right at me,” Puhl screamed.

“Lower your goddamned voice,” Mercer hissed. They all heard a fusillade of rounds pound the barrel above them. “Now!”

“I can’t.”

“Now!” Mercer snapped. “Or so help me Christ, claustrophobia’s going to be the least of your problems.”

“They hit the snorkel.”

Mercer nodded at Ira to retract their only access to fresh air. “Lower the scope, Erwin.”

The terrified meteorologist didn’t reply but the hydraulics activated and the attack periscope sank into its well. Erwin came down a moment later and ran forward, staggering at the circular hatch leading out of the control room. He almost made it to the tiny lavatory before he threw up.

“I should check on him.” Anika got up from her seat.

“Leave him,” Ira said. “Mercer’s right. He needs to get through this on his own.”

Blind, cut off from oxygen, and stuck in what amounted to a narrow tube, even Mercer felt the walls start to close in. Filling the batteries with acid would do them no good now because they couldn’t run the charging generator without fresh air and a way to vent the exhaust. They were trapped on the bottom until Geo-Research left the cavern.

“Never thought I’d say this, but I hope Rath hurries the hell up.”

“Amen.”

There was no reason for the crew to sleep on a regular schedule except habit, but at midnight the U-boat was lit by a single red bulb in the control room. The only sound came from the patter of condensation dripping from nearly every surface. They had spent the day under Ira’s gifted tutelage learning everything they would need to guide the sub out of the cavern when the time came.

Anika lay awake in her bunk above Hilda Brandt’s. The tension of the past days, the horror of it all, was finally cracking her resolve. Erwin had his burning drive to prevent the meteorite fragments from falling into Kohl’s hands to give him strength. Marty sustained himself by knowing he’d become more of a man in the past week than he’d ever been. As a trained sailor, Ira Lasko seemed immune to the stress. She didn’t know how Hilda held herself together, her time in the Bundeswehr, Germany’s army, perhaps.

And Mercer? He accepted every situation so calmly that Anika couldn’t envision a crisis that would faze him. She was sure he was as scared as the rest of them but his impassive demeanor allowed him to work through it effortlessly. Anika recalled her first shifts on ER duty and the near-paralyzing fear she’d felt. It took months of experience to build the confidence necessary to overcome her anxiety. She wondered at Mercer’s experience — what he’d done in the past to let him handle bomb threats, plane crashes, infernos, and everything else thrown at them.

It was in the solitude of the nights that Anika realized she needed some of his strength. She paused to listen to the boat and heard nothing but drips and an occasional snore from Ira farther forward. She tossed aside the World War Two-era blankets and unzipped her sleeping bag. She slept clothed in everything but her boots, and she gave a little gasp when the cold of the deck plating leached through her socks. In the ruddy light from the control room she could see the curtain covering the entrance to Mercer’s cabin. She took a tentative step, wondering how far she would take this.

“Where are you going?” Hilda Brandt whispered.

Anika swallowed an unexpected jolt of guilt. “I have to pee.”

“The toilet is behind you past the wardroom,” Hilda reminded with a trace of humor in her voice. The chef knew where she was going.

Thankful for the dark because her face was flushed with embarrassment, Anika turned and padded to the bathroom.

“Better?” Hilda teased knowingly when Anika returned to her bunk.

“No.”

The first explosion came a little past seven the next morning. Mercer was alone at the chart table, cleaning Cosmoline from the pair of MP-40 Schmeisser machine pistols he’d found in his cabin along with a broom-handled Mauser — a pistol that had been an antique even when the sub was built. He’d already checked and matched the ammo. He looked upward as if he could see through the hull and the water. Not that he needed to see to know what was happening. “Garbage dump,” he said. At the second rumble he added, “Slave area.” The third would be the excavation that was already partially blocked, and then came the longest detonation, a rolling thunder that went on for five minutes, amplified by the acoustics of the cavern, the lagoon, and the U-boat. The main access tunnel had just come down, blasted into an impenetrable wall of rubble by explosive charges. Working around the clock the Germans had completed their task and sealed the cavern forever.

“What the hell was that?” Ira charged into the control room from the radio shack, where he’d been attempting to fix the wireless or the sonar gear. He’d had no luck with either.

“Gunther Rath burning his bridges, Chief,” Mercer replied passively. He’d started teasing Ira by using his former rank during their days of training. “We’ll give it an hour or two to let the dust settle and then surface the boat.”

“They’re gone?”

Mercer nodded. “Unless a few had a death wish.”

In a swirling vortex of air bubbles, the U-boat rose from the bottom two hours later, black water streaming off her outer hull. Erwin Puhl was in the conning tower and he threw open the hatch, not caring about the torrent of