Poseidon's Arrow

84

THE SEAS OFF TIERRA DEL FUEGO WERE LIVING UP to their latitudinal nickname of the Furious Fifties. A strong westerly blew thick, heaving waves that broke with a boisterous flourish. Rifling currents added to the fury, shoving about the occasional stray iceberg that had drifted in from Antarctica. Over the centuries, these combined forces had carried many a ship to her grave in the frigid waters surrounding Cape Horn. All that was missing was a good williwaw—the sudden violent gusts that pounded the cape without warning.

A small trawler plowed gamely through the maelstrom, giving its occupants a roller-coaster ride. Inside the wheelhouse, Summer grabbed hold of the chart table as the boat slid down a fifteen-foot wave. “You couldn’t have found a bigger boat?” she asked with lament.

Dirk smiled and shook his head. The nautical offerings were slim on short notice in the nearby Argentinean town of Ushuaia. He felt lucky to have chartered the trawler. From Ushuaia, their trek down the Beagle Channel had been relatively calm, but on reaching the open ocean the ride had changed dramatically.

“That’s Isla Nueva straight ahead,” said the captain, a stocky man with white hair.

Summer peered out the wheelhouse window at a hilly green island a mile ahead. “Kind of scenic, in a remote sort of way. How big is it?”

“About eight miles across,” Dirk said. “We should be able to scan the full perimeter in four or five hours.”

“She sure ended up a long way from home.”

“She” was the Barbarigo. Their impromptu search was guided by the package Perlmutter had sent to them in Panama. Inside they had found a logbook from the sailor Leigh Hunt, recording his round-the-world voyage. Intrigued by what Summer had discovered on Madagascar, Perlmutter had tracked down Hunt’s family. One of Hunt’s children had located the logbook after an extended search in the attic of the family’s home. The log provided a detailed accounting of the sailor’s position when he sighted the South Atlantic Wraith.

Summer picked up the log and reexamined Hunt’s entries, as they rolled through the waves. “He says he was sailing north of Nueva and Lennox islands when he saw the Wraith drifting toward Nueva. That means it was likely drifting toward the island’s west coast.”

The trawler was approaching Nueva’s eastern shore, which was faced with high dark cliffs. Waves pounded against the rocky shoreline, spraying billows of white foam.

“Hope the coast is milder on the other side,” Dirk said. “If she hit the rocks around here, we won’t find her on this trip.”

Dirk had the captain bring the trawler as close to shore as possible, and they began a counterclockwise survey of the island. Their search was purely for any visible signs of the submarine, had she run aground. If that failed, a sonar survey of the surrounding waters would follow with the arrival of a NUMA research vessel.

They had scanned dozens of satellite images sent by Yaeger, identifying a handful of coastal anomalies that could be the remains of the Barbarigo. The only way to find out was to inspect the sites, regardless of the angry seas.

They reached the north side of the island, passing towering rocks that could have crushed an approaching vessel. Two sites marked on the satellite photos proved to be rock formations that bore only faint resemblance to a submarine.

As they worked their way west, the coastal terrain flattened, revealing a mixed shoreline of coarse beaches and jagged boulders.

“Coming up on our third site,” Dirk said, comparing a satellite photo with the trawler’s navigation screen.

Summer held a pair of binoculars to her eyes, struggling to hold focus as the deck rolled. “Tell me when we’re directly offshore.”

Dirk plotted the boat’s progress. “Sometime now.”

Summer studied the shoreline, scanning a small gravel beach between two rocky outcroppings. She caught sight of a smooth shape, then was knocked against the bulkhead by a large wave. “Take us in closer.”

She searched for the object again—and spotted a smooth, rounded band tucked against the rocks.

“Something’s there, though it doesn’t look very big.” She passed the binoculars to her brother. “Take a look.”

“Yes, it’s some kind of man-made object.” He lowered the binoculars and looked at his sister. “Let’s go see what’s there.”

The captain had to sail another mile down the coast before he found a small cove that afforded protection from the waves. A small rubber boat was launched, and Dirk and Summer paddled the short distance to land. As they pulled the boat onto the beach, a squall blew in, dousing them with rain.

“Last time we were on an island,” Dirk said, “I would have killed for this kind of storm.”

They trudged up the coast in the downpour, fighting the stiff offshore breeze that pelted their faces with stinging drops. Despite the dismal conditions, Summer noted the rugged beauty of this island at the tip of South America. But the coastal terrain became monotonous in the pouring rain, and after a half hour of hiking, they became unsure about where they had spotted the anomaly.

Standing at the water’s edge studying the surrounding rocks, Summer finally spotted the object farther up the beach. It was a rusty curved plate of steel about six feet long, wedged firmly in the rocks.

“I’ll go out on a limb,” Dirk said. “It could be part of a submarine conning tower.”

Summer nodded and looked out to sea. “She probably struck those rocks and sank offshore. Or drifted out to sea again.”

“No,” Dirk said, his voice registering surprise. “I think that we’ve been looking in the wrong direction.” He tapped Summer’s arm and pointed inland. She saw only a narrow gravel beach. Beyond was a shrub-covered hollow at the base of a rocky knoll. The beach was barren, so she gazed at the hollow—and her jaw dropped.

Poking through the shrubs, another fifty feet inland, was the rest of the conning tower.

They scrambled across the beach and into the thicket, where the entire hull of a submarine was concealed in the brush. The vessel was three-quarters buried, but Dirk could tell they had approached it from the stern. Where there once was a drive propeller he saw only a mangled shaft. They hiked along the hull until they reached the exposed conning tower, which rose like an abandoned castle. Summer pulled a black-and-white photo from her pocket and compared it to the rusting steel hulk. It was a perfect match.

She smiled at her brother. “It’s the Barbarigo.”

They climbed up the battered remnants of the conning tower, where they could make out the imposing hulk of the entire boat through the underbrush.

“How could it have landed way up here?” Summer asked.

“Probably a rogue wave. The area around Cape Horn is notorious for them. It must have been a real monster to throw her this far inland.”

Summer gazed at the bow. “Do you think her cargo is still aboard?”

It was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question—and the reason they had rushed down to Tierra del Fuego. For Perlmutter had uncovered much more than just the sailor’s logbook. He had pieced together the mystery of the Barbarigo’s last voyage.

It all started with the German scientist Oswald Steiner, who had boarded the sub in Malaysia. Steiner, Perlmutter found, was a highly regarded physicist known for his research in advanced electromagnetics. Pressed into military research by the Nazis, he dabbled in their atomic program before focusing on a secret project of his own: a magnetic rail gun.

Steiner advanced the theory that a projectile launched at extreme velocities could travel up to fifty miles, allowing the Germans to bombard the southeast coast of England from Normandy. For the system to work, he needed the most powerful magnets in the world, and those came from one source. Rare earths.

In 1942 there was little demand for any of the rare earth elements, which were difficult to extract and refine. Germany and her conquests had few of the minerals, but Steiner found a lone source that could meet his needs. A small garnet mine in Malaysia, under Japanese control, extracted samarskite as a by-product. The samarskite contained high concentrations of the rare earth samarium, a key element in producing high-performance magnets.

Traveling to Malaysia, Steiner was stunned to discover a large stockpile of the mineral, amassed over years from mining operations. The local workers referred to it as Red Death due to its deep russet color, but it was Steiner who determined it was lightly radioactive, which in time had produced illness in some of the miners.

Thrilled with his discovery, Steiner requested transport of the samarskite back to Germany. An Italian submarine called the Tazzoli was assigned the task but was sunk in transit. When the Barbarigo arrived in Singapore, scheduled to pick up a supply of rubber and zinc, Steiner had her orders changed and stuffed her with samarskite. Accompanying the shipment home, he died with the Italian crew after they had to abandon the damaged sub.

Dirk looked down the Barbarigo’s forward deck at an exposed patch of steel near the bow. He descended the conning tower and hiked across the forward deck, which was covered with mud and rocks from the hill above. Summer followed him to an indented section near the bow. Kicking away the built-up soil, he exposed the rusted deck. He eventually uncovered a looped bar welded on horizontally. It was a handgrip for the forward hatch cover. Summer joined in scraping away the overburden until they cleared the cover, complete with its locking wheel latch.

“Think it’ll budge?” Summer asked.

Dirk gave the wheel latch a few firm kicks to break the seal. “Give me a hand and we’ll find out.”

They both gripped the wheel and threw their weight against it. After several tries, the latch broke its decades-long grip and spun freely. Dirk gave his sister a hopeful wink and heaved open the hatch.

A dank and musty odor rose from the opening. There was little to see as the dark interior was filled almost to the ceiling with sediment. Sand, mud, or mineral, they couldn’t tell. Dirk reached inside and groped around until he grabbed a clump of the material. He held it up for Summer to see.

It was a rock, dark yet shiny and lustrous. In the gray light of the rain squall, Summer could make out a reddish tint. “Is it Red Death?”

Dirk looked at the rock and grinned. “No. I think it would be Crimson Gold.”