Ice Station Wolfenstein

Chapter 17

"You're kidding?" Jefferson Daniels' eyes were wide and incredulous. "An actual U-boat? No way. That's impossible."

A peal of laughter rang out, echoing around the metal-lined room. It came from Purdue, who was leaning against the wall in an attitude of careful casualness. "Forgive me, Mr. Daniels," he said as all eyes turned toward him. "But surely you see the absurdity? No? You — all of you — have just spent the night in an ice station that you thought to be mythical. We are here in a place that you didn't believe existed, and now you can't believe that it could possibly have a U-boat in the dock?" He chuckled again and sipped delicately at his coffee. Jefferson scowled and shoveled another forkful of scrambled egg into his mouth. "Oh, don't sulk," Purdue chided. "I'm only teasing. Besides, you'll want to look your best when we head down to look at this fabled U-boat — or weren't you planning to be photographed with it?"

Sure enough, after breakfast the group made its way down to the subterranean dock and Jefferson was first in line to have his picture taken with the metal leviathan. Sam unfolded his tripod and resigned himself to a morning spent playing photographer. One by one his companions posed beside the U-boat while Sam snapped away. Nina's pictures were endearingly enthusiastic. She could not tear her gaze away from the submarine long enough to glance at the camera, and her excitement was contagious.

At the opposite end of the spectrum was Admiral Whitsun, now recovering from the previous day's exertions and back on his feet. He simply laid a hand on the U-boat and stood in silent contemplation. Sam snapped away as unobtrusively as he could, eager not to disturb the admiral's reverie. At last, the old man straightened up and nodded, then stepped smartly away from the submarine. "Thank you, Mr. Cleave," he said softly.

"No problem," said Sam. "Do you mind if I ask, though… what were you thinking about? You don't have to tell me, it's just — it made for some really powerful images."

"No, no," Admiral Whitsun replied. His eyes were slightly distant and a small smile played around his lips. "It's all right. I'll tell you. I was thinking of my father. I was wondering whether this might be the very vehicle that brought him here. Assuming, of course, that this is where he ended up — and that he never left. I don't think I've felt so closely connected to him since I was a boy."

As Sam listened to the wistful old man, he felt a familiar prickle of guilt creeping down his spine. He still did not know whether Admiral Whitsun recognized him, or whether he would feel that Sam was responsible for the death of his son. Watching him seeking an answer to his father's fate, Sam could only assume that family was important to him, that he had probably taken the loss of his only child hard. Despite the fact that he had done nothing but bring an arms dealer to justice, Sam wanted to apologize. He longed to explain to the admiral that he had only wanted to make things better, that he himself had suffered a major loss, and that if he could go back and prevent himself from getting involved, he would. The two of them stood silently, each lost in their reverie.

"Nina!" Alexandr called out, making Sam jump. He looked around to see where their guide's voice was coming from, but he could not see him.

"Yes?" Nina yelled back. "What is it? Where are you?"

"Here!" Suddenly Alexandr's head appeared through a small hatch in the floor, barely visible in a dingy corner where the hole almost blended in to the rocks. "I found another room. Now I need you to translate something for me."

From the corner where he and Jefferson Daniels had been chatting in low voices, Professor Matlock immediately piped up. "Excuse me, Mr. Arichenkov — you may not be aware of this, but I am Dr. Gould's superior within the department. Should you require linguistic or historical expertise, your first port of call should really be me. I outrank her."

Alexandr looked Professor Matlock up and down. The expression on his face was impossible to read. For a split-second he looked as if he might explode at Matlock, then that look crystallized into something darker and harder, which was then replaced by a burst of laughter and a twinkling, mirthful look that was completely at odds with his expression of a moment before. "You can come too," he shrugged. "I like Nina. I trust her. She is the one I choose to help me, but I suppose two heads are better than one, are they not? This way."

He disappeared into the dark hole, followed first by Nina, then by Matlock. There was quiet for a few moments, just the sound of muffled voices coming from the new room, then the sound of Nina swearing and walking back toward the ladder.

"You ok?" Fatima asked, as Nina climbed back into the dock room.

"Yes, I'm fine," Nina rolled her eyes. "Just exasperated. We found a switch in there and Alexandr and Professor Matlock are both in favor of just flipping it to see what happens. I said I don't think we should, but they're determined. So I said we need to put it to a vote."

"It's clearly nothing harmful." Professor Matlock was next to appear. "Nina here is just being hysterical. Being surrounded by all of this is evidently a little too much for you, Dr. Gould — but then, I keep forgetting how few sites like this you've been on. It can be somewhat overwhelming until experience breeds level-headedness."

Nina gritted her teeth. "At risk of destroying my already tattered career prospects," she said with as much composure as she could muster, "Don't talk to me like that. It's not hysteria, it's common sense. We're in a building we don't know much about, we find a switch marked "power supply" even though we've already found and activated the power source, and you want to just flip this switch? Frankly, Professor Matlock, that's insane."

"Watch your tongue, Dr. Gould!" Matlock snapped. "I know a great deal more about this kind of setup than you, and our Antarctic expert agrees with me — don't you, Mr. Arichenkov?"

"Yes, Professor Matlock, I do," Alexander said, stepping off the ladder. "But not for the reasons you think. I believe that we should throw the switch precisely because we don't know what it does. It is the simplest way to find out. We know that it controls the power supply to something — let us find out what!"

"Yes, that's a great idea!" Nina threw up her hands in rage. "Let's all pile into the tiny, cramped underground room where we have no way of summoning help because we can't get a signal on the satellite phone, then we'll start pushing buttons! Am I really the only one who thinks that might go even slightly wrong?" She shook her head and grappled her temper back under control.

"Look, Alexandr, I take your point about it being the quickest way. But I'm really concerned that it might control the flood gate for one of these pens, or even some kind of emergency mechanism to flood the whole level. It's too much of a risk. Look, even if you're completely hell-bent on the idea, can't we put it to a vote? Please? At least give everyone a chance to have their say before they—"

She stopped dead as a dazzlingly bright light suddenly glared out from the hatch and the sound of clanking gears and grinding metal filled the room. Sam saw the horrified expression on her face and knew that she had immediately realized what was going on, but he had not. He stared wildly around at the rest of the group, hoping for a clue, but all he saw was face after face wearing a confused expression to match his own. The only person not looking confused was Purdue — because Purdue was not there. A moment later, neither was Nina. She lunged forward and raced down the ladder into the newly lit room. It only took seconds for the others to follow Nina's lead.

The clanking and grinding were coming from a circular metal door at the far end of the room, which was slowly opening. Purdue was standing beside the switch, a look of manic glee on his face. She's going to wipe that smile off his face, poor bastard, Sam thought as he saw Nina storming across the floor toward Purdue. The noise from the mechanism was deafeningly loud, making it impossible for him to hear what Nina was yelling at Purdue, but their host did not look in the least disturbed. In fact he appeared to be laughing at her, which was just infuriating her all the more.

"— get us all killed, you fucking lunatic!" Nina concluded as the mechanism completed its process and the room went silent once more. They all stared at the open door.

"Well?" Nina fumed. "Since you're the one who's so determined to find out what's in there, aren't you going to lead the way?"

"Why, certainly!" The delight in Purdue's voice was clear. Either he was certain that what lay beyond the door would impress Nina to the point where she would cease to be angry with him, or he was simply incredibly sanguine about her wrath — Sam could not quite decide which he thought was the case. One way or the other, Purdue was clearly excited and champing at the bit to explore. With Ziv Blomstein at his shoulder, he strode into the tunnel. Despite the misgivings she had expressed, Nina was not far behind, and Sam decided that he had little to lose by following along with his camera.

What they saw was another rock structure, this one clearly manmade, because it lacked the watered smoothness of the main chamber. It formed a short tunnel, at the end of which was another circular metal door. It put Sam in mind of the doors you would find on a safe or a vault, complete with a dial waiting for a combination. However, it seemed that the combination was not the only thing required to unlock it. The handle itself was locked into a recess in the door, only to be released by means of a key — but clearly not an ordinary key. The object required to fit the keyhole would, it seemed, be something circular, but with bulbous teeth at the top. The shape seemed familiar, yet Sam could not place it…

"It might take a short while," Purdue was saying, still bickering with Nina, "but I could crack this combination. I doubt it would be more than a day."

"You know, if it keeps you occupied while the rest of us explore this place, leaving you here to fiddle with the lock probably isn't a bad idea. Perhaps that's what this room is — a crèche for dangerous idiots!" Nina stomped off to the other end of the room — a gesture that would have been much more powerful in a larger space. Sam and Fatima both went after her, leaving the rest of the group to gather around Purdue as he began talking them through the possible workings of the lock.

"I'm fine," Nina sighed, shrugging off the comforting arm that Fatima tried to put around her. "Honestly. I'm ok. It's just so bloody frustrating! First Matlock and the fact that everything that man does has to be a pissing contest, then Alexandr suddenly taking his side, then Purdue… I'm not crazy, am I?" She glanced imploringly from Fatima to Sam and back again. "It's dangerous. It really is. We're underground, we know there's got to be a flood mechanism for the pens, and we're just pushing buttons and throwing switches — am I the only person here who doesn't want to end up drowning under here? God, I need a cigarette."

"Me too," Sam said. "Look, let's go and take a few pictures of this door and then head back upstairs. We can shift our stuff into some of the officers' quarters and then you'll have somewhere to smoke."

"He's right, Nina," said Fatima. "It'll be good to break out into individual rooms, so we'll all have a little more space. Come and take a look at the door first, though. Sam will need you to tell him which details to focus on."

Biting back her anger, Nina pushed her hands through her hair, took a couple of deep breaths and forced herself to look calm. Then she led Sam and Fatima over to the door, pushing past Purdue and the others with a swift, barely civil explanation that Sam should be allowed to photograph the door as they found it, before anyone started fooling about with it. Working to her instructions, Sam took shots of the door as a whole, of its hinges, its seals, the dial, and the strange lock. Then he, Fatima, and Nina left Purdue and the others to play safe-cracker while they went to claim rooms in the officers' quarters.

"That's better." Nina blew out a long stream of smoke and stretched out on the bottom bunk. She handed the cigarette packet to Sam, who was unpacking the contents of his rucksack into drawers. "So what made you choose this room? The ones at the other end of the corridor are nicer."

Sam shrugged. "The wee bit of me that's still six years old couldn't pass up the chance to get the top bunk. Besides, everyone will pick rooms at that end. I fancied a bit of distance."

"Makes sense. God, I love being able to smoke indoors." She eyed his attempts at unpacking with amusement. "Sam, is that what you call unpacking? If you're not going to organize your stuff, what's the point in taking it out of the rucksack?"

"There's a system!" Sam shoved a handful of socks into the bottom drawer. "Clothes in here, stuff that isn't clothes in the drawer above. Camera and general Nazi memorabilia stay on the top." He retrieved the little pouch that had belonged to Kruger from the depths of his pack. "Look, I could even make a little display with them." One by one, he took out the little brass pieces and arranged them on top of the pouch — first the tiny cog, then the thin disc, the cylinder, and the brass ring.

Nina picked the ring up for a closer look. "This is such a strange piece," she said. "It looks like a little one-finger knuckleduster, don't you think?" She slipped it onto the middle finger of her right hand and drew back her fist as if to punch Sam.

"You can take the girl out of the west coast of Scotland…" Sam teased. He caught Nina's hand as it arced in a lazy, slow-motion punch toward his jaw. Then his gaze fell on the ring, and realization hit him far harder than Nina ever would. "Is that…? Give it here!" He flapped urgently at Nina, who tugged the ring off her finger and gave it back to him.

"What?" she asked. "What is it?"

Sam grabbed his camera and began flicking back through the images on his view screen. When he came to the close-up of the strange keyhole, he held it out to Nina. "You don't think this would fit, do you?" He held up the ring next to the little screen, inviting her comparison.

"I'm not sure." Nina scrutinized both the image and the ring. "It does look like it's about the right shape and size, and it's not as if we have any idea what else it does. Want to give it a try?"

"What did I tell you?" Purdue was yelling at the top of his lungs when Sam and Nina re-entered the tunnel. "I told you it would be easy!" He was capering from foot to foot, fists above his head in celebration, wearing a face-splitting grin. The others were cheering and congratulating him. Evidently he had cracked the code — yet the door remained obstinately closed.

"Surely that's a partial victory?" Sam could not resist playing devil's advocate for a moment. "It's still shut."

Regaining his composure, Purdue gave Sam a look of polite annoyance. "I did not say that I would open it, Mr. Cleave — only that I would work out the combination. That much I have done."

"But how do you know, if the door's still shut?"

"By the feel and the noise, Mr. Cleave. One by one I could hear the tumblers fall into place, and now the dial has sprung forward ever so slightly. It is minute, but it is enough. Now all we need is to find something that can serve as a key and we can discover what—"

Without a word, Nina stepped forward and slotted her single-finger knuckleduster into the key slot. It clicked into place and the handle popped out, unlocked, and ready to be turned.

"Moment of truth, Dave," she murmured, looking Purdue straight in the eye and daring him to open the door. He shot his cuffs, stepped forward, and closed his fingers around the handle, drawing out the drama of the moment. The door creaked and complained as he tried to pull it open, protesting after years of not being touched. In the end, Ziv Blomstein had to step in and provide the muscle. At last, after a good three minutes of the two men working against the stiff hinges, it stood open before them, revealing a brightly-lit white corridor. No corrugated metal or smoothed stone here — this looked like a much better maintained and more permanent structure. With Blomstein at his shoulder, Purdue was the first to step through.

"Freeze!" A voice rang out from the corridor. "Down on the ground! All of you! On the ground right now!"

Sam saw a horde of black-uniformed soldiers sweeping toward the group from the other end of the corridor, wielding machine guns. Immediately obedient, he dropped to the floor and lay as still as he could while numerous pairs of heavy army boots tramped past his head.