Deep Sea One

Chapter 41

"Where were you, Herr Braun?" Elsa asked, and although she smiled, her blue eyes stung with ice. Patrick was puzzled, "With respect, how is that any of your business?"

Elsa lunged forward before he could defend. With her forearm against his throat she slammed him against the wall of his cottage and with her foot she kicked the door shut.

"It is every bit my business what you do," she whispered menacingly. Elsa released him.

"Sit."

He sat down, knowing that she was not a housekeeper after all. "Who are you?"

"I am the avenging angel, my dear, sent to make sure you don't fuck up for one thing," she rasped with deadly eyes, her arms folded over her voluptuous breasts. He was speechless, so she continued, "I was bred by Purdue's science freaks, funded by Eickhart before the whole Spear of Destiny search made them enemies."

"My God," he whispered.

"Yes, Herr Braun, I am a living, breathing Aryan, the Führer's wet dream."

Patrick felt his heart slam against his chest. It was unbelievable and disturbing. She sat down and lit a cigarette, "and I am here to kill Eickhart. What I need from you is to keep that to yourself. You will not tell a living soul. In exchange I will tell you where the Order of the Black Sun is meeting, so that your company can find that Portuguese swine sent by Eickhart to steal the Spear of Destiny and the Wolfenstein viruses. Do we have an accord, Herr Braun?"

He nodded, "How do you know where they are?"

"I listen. And Walter has a reckless trust."

Patrick took a cigarette from her and she lit it.

"In 1942 a German Navy U-boat captain with a sick penchant for torture, assisted in the hiding of the Spear in an undersea cavern previously used by Allied forces as a secret base. He was asked to design clues as to the relic's location, which would ultimately be kept safe by a monastery in Tibet, the map locked in a shrine," she inhaled the smoke and it disappeared into her nostrils in two perfect streams of hazy white. "He scribbled it in a book wrapped in human skin and hid it. But a seaman onboard knew and by gunpoint insisted the captain reveal the location, but he would not, which profited him a bullet in his skull. The seaman shot the operations crew just as the U-boat passed the old Allied station and disabled the rudder. The submarine settled on the ocean floor right where he had heard rumors of the Spear's location from a group of drunken German officers playing cards one night. With the hatches locked and the water pressure too much, the crew could not escape and suffocated, forever entombed in their steel coffin in the icy North Sea."

She dragged on the cigarette and sighed, "That seaman was Walter Eickhart. After he could not locate the relic, he bided his time and waited for decades, befriending members of the Black Sun, hoping to find out where it was. Thanks to Dave Purdue's boasting, he did. When Purdue asked him to facilitate his expedition's illegal presence in Tibet, Eickhart knew he had found his foothold."

"Elsa, I never saw you."

She smiled.

"I have to make a call. NOW," he said and stood up.

"By all means," Elsa smiled, as he rushed from the cottage. With the agent out of her way she was free to finish her task. Tossing her smoke aside, she strode confidently into the mansion and on the second floor she pulled her garrote wire from her apron and closed Eickhart's office door.

Patrick could still not get through to Sam's phone. He called Mrs. Lancashire's office and insisted on speaking to her immediately.

Liam and Darwin called the mainland for assistance. Their boss was nowhere to be found. The place was overrun by suspicious characters and from what happened to Tommy they knew a virus might be loose on the rig. The crew decided to depart the platform as soon as help arrived. Nina and Sam also packed up. He met her in her room, "Hurry, Nina. This is a bus we don't want to miss."

Johann Storhoi's enormous frame appeared in the doorway, "You are not allowed to leave until Mr. Purdue says so. Those are his orders."

"Fuck his orders!" Sam snapped and leered at him. The Aryan simply laughed and closed the door. They could hear him locking them in.

"God, no!" Nina screamed and slammed her fists against the door, but Sam pulled her into his arms, restraining her gently. He just held her as she cried, shaking from frustration and fear. They sank to the floor and he sat against the wall with Nina in his embrace. All he did was to keep comforting her with soft words of consolation and she could feel Sam kissing her head every now and then. If she was going to die, this was the way she was happy to go.

Outside on the open sea two boats approached to collect the crew. Their respective captains came against their better judgment as the horizon darkened rapidly with black clouds, the thunder growling at the growing swells below. The mariners were perplexed and unsettled by the sudden storm, which arose from nowhere. Climatically the birth of the tempest was impossible and even beholding its very real presence was a foreboding omen.

Liam looked everywhere for Nina and Sam, but he had no time to spare as the waves around the oil rig began to crest the edges of the platform. His Tiamat had risen again and he was not going to risk his life for Purdue's historian and her journalist. With a heavy heart and a feeling of cowardice Liam boarded the boat with Darwin, who assured him they were probably on the other boat already.

Inside the lab, the chest that held the Spear for decades, suddenly shattered into three pieces, the sacred wood catching fire and the shooting splinters turned to embers in flight. Tommy had begun to deteriorate rapidly, bleeding from every orifice and left paralyzed to movement, while his pain receptors still functioned perfectly. He screamed curses at the staff members, who flocked quickly toward the exit, having no idea that the elevator shaft had already been flooded.

The members of the order noticed a hellish rumble and their attention was diverted from the relic to seek the origin of the sound. Water began to trickle through the steadfast crevices, drenching the flags of the swastika and those tapestries beneath it. Under the water a crack of geological shifts pulsed through the deep sea as the furious ocean thrust its power onto the failing columns of Deep Sea One. Thunder seemed to surround them and at once the Hammer of Thor fell from the wall, evoking screams and shudders from the members. Purdue grabbed the Spear and looked toward the trapdoor, which led to a subterranean docking bay for his personal minisub, in case of emergency.

Along the stone walls, cracks formed vertically, creeping along the folds and decorations. A fracture appeared across the floor, splitting the black marble insignia in two. The attendants of the meeting rushed for the exit to the elevator, possessed by panic. Purdue opened the trapdoor and shut it behind him while the muffled cries of his guests still permeated through the hinges of the door.

Outside the pilots fired up their helicopters as the ocean started rising higher and higher, threatening to wipe them from the platform. The sea spray clattered against the bodies of the machines as they lifted, some crashing into one another from locking rotors. Thunder bellowed through the diabolical skies and shook the platform surface. Occasionally the lightning would spark against the electrical cables of the drills.

With such fury the wind pulled the roofs off some of the buildings, sending flying shards of steel and iron into the bodies of pilots who had not been able to lift off. Their helicopters slid from the tilting platform, the rain impairing their vision as the mouth of Poseidon opened up to receive them.

Nina screamed and clawed at Sam as they felt the compound tilt gradually under the onslaught of the unnaturally vicious tempest. Sam held her tightly. The room had no windows he could smash to help them escape and the steel door was bolted from the outside.

"Don't let go of me, Sam," she cried.

"I won't, love. I'm right here," he shouted as the rumbling elevated alarmingly around them. They looked up, expecting the roof to cave in on them and the massive waters to drive their bodies to pulp. Deafening and deep, the repetitive thump of it drew nearer to them. Suddenly a thunderous rapping slammed against the outside of their prison door and a faint voice was heard, "Anybody in here?"

Sam and Nina jumped up and hammered against the door, screaming for their lives. A dent appeared in the door and they stood back as a pickaxe tool cleaved through the hinges and finally ripped the door loose.

"Sam Cleave?" the rescuer shouted. Sam nodded and grabbed his laptop case and camera bag..

Two rescue divers were harnessed to a hovering Sikorsky CH-53E helicopter, heavy enough to withstand most of the thunderstorm's badgering and they lifted the two from the failing oil rig. As they were helped into the helicopter, Sam was elated to see his pal, Patrick. He had reported to MI6 and garnered aid for them. They looked down from the helicopter to see Deep Sea One disappear under the foamy rage of the North Sea.

When they arrived at Ashton House a few hours later, Nina and Sam learned that Calisto was not a police officer from Spain, but that she was an operative for PIDE, the Portuguese Secret Service long disbanded… or was it? She was sent to steal the strains from Purdue's mansion when he caught her burgling his home. After she worked her way in and discovered where the strains were kept, she intercepted them, as initially ordered, to prevent Eickhart's man from getting his hands on it.

"Bitch could have warned us," Nina jested, and Sam squeezed her hand with a reluctant smile.

Patrick, even though with a wide berth, had fulfilled his mission objective and Mrs. Lancashire was pleased with his performance. What happened to Purdue, nobody knew, but Sam was grateful that he made copies of everything and saved his laptop to prove it.

"Come on, Cleave, I believe you owe me breakfast," Nina said, as their car waited to take her home.

Patrick sniggered and made suggestive gestures at Sam, who simply gave him the finger and got in the car.

Under the calming surface of the North Sea, Deep Sea One joined the German submarine it had stood sentinel over for ages. Iron junk and debris floated downward through the dark blue of the deep to settle among the rest of the steel graveyard already waiting. In subdued silence it was laid to rest to join all the wraiths begotten by the greed of the Third Reich.