The Seventh Secret

Chapter 21 — The First Secret

In the morning, Nina called a secret meeting with Dave Purdue and Crystal Meyer regarding the wreck's salvage. Just after 3 am she had finished checking the shape, the deck arms and other features of the design of the alleged World War II Panzerschiff. Sam had fallen asleep on the sofa in the living room where she had worked because he had been worried about Dr. Malgas possible retaliation after Nina had made an utter fool of him. Even more so, if Sam’s completely random thought that Billy could possibly have been harboring a secret happened to be true, he had figured the man may have well been desperate enough to do something reckless and target the very person who had called his bluff — Nina.

She had had no idea why Sam camped out there, but she had assumed that he had fallen asleep watching endless episodes of X-Files on cable TV. After she had completed compiling her report, she had quietly withdrawn to her bedroom upstairs with her laptop under her arm. Only when she had woken up at 6 am she had decided to request the opinions of financiers of the operation.

In her bedroom, Purdue and Crystal joined her with morning coffee behind a locked door.

“After studying every nook and cranny of this ship, I have to concede that it is a pocket battleship from the thirties,” she declared.

“Excellent,” Purdue raved.

“But…”

“Oh my God,” he said. “I should have known.”

Nina pursed her lips, waiting for him to finish his lamenting. “But I have no conclusive proof that it is the Admiral Graf Spee. The reason for my doubt is that I have checked virtually every account on record about this damn ship. They all say the same thing,” she sighed. “And this is what has me repudiate the possibility that the vessel we’ve been looking at is the Graf Spee.”

“And what is that?” Purdue asked.

"I'll make it as short as I can, considering we don’t have much time,” Nina said. “The records say that the Admiral Graf Spee had been operating in the Southern Atlantic, not in the Indian Ocean, for one.”

“Alright, but you mentioned before that it had sailed along the eastern coast here toward the Cape of Good Hope,” Crystal interrupted respectfully, to make sure she remembered correctly.

“That is correct, Crystal,” Nina affirmed, “but it wasn’t scuttled here. You see, its last operation was the Battle of the River Plate, on December 13, 1939. In a nutshell, during this skirmish the Graf Spee encountered the HMS Exeter and two Leander-class cruisers — British ships.”

“Okay, got it so far,” Purdue nodded.

“But the Graf Spee did not flee. The British commander of the Exeter had the other ships spread out, obviously to increase the targets the German ship would have to deal with. The Graf Spee shot at the Exeter with her main battery, using her secondary armament for the others, and then the British ships fired back,” she recounted. “However… apparently the Exeter was hit by seven 11 inch shells and several near misses caused significant splinter damage. Sixty-one of her crew were killed and another twenty-three wounded. All three 8-inch turrets were put out of action, and her speed was reduced significantly, so it was forced to withdraw; therefore the other ships moved in to divert the brunt of the attack from the Exeter,” Nina explained briefly

“So the Graf Spee won then,” Crystal said.

“No, it retreated and fled, but after another exchange of fire later on with quite a solid success, the Graf Spee retreated into the River Plate estuary. There was a stalemate, because the British ships stayed their position to keep the Graf Spee from sneaking out to the open sea again, see?” she continued excitedly. “Bear with me, I have a point on this.”

Purdue’s coffee had gone cold and after a valiant attempt at the bitter beverage, he winced and just put it down. Crystal sighed with boredom. She found history interesting, but she could not care less about Nina's stories.

“In the course of the engagement, the Graf Spee had been hit approximately 70 times; 36 men had been killed and 60 wounded, including her captain. Eventually, all her ammo had run out, and the bow was in such a bad state that she would never have been able to sail back to Germany. On top of that, the Brits bluffed, conveying the impression, that more of their ships had arrived, just waiting for the Graf Spee to try her luck,” Nina smiled. “To avoid the ship being interned for the remainder of the war under the regulations of the Hague convention, the captain eventually ordered the ship to be scuttled right there… on December 17, 1939, in Uruguay. Not Bluewater Bay, not Simonstad — Uruguay — with an audience of 20,000 people watching the fireworks. Fourteen different accounts that I followed up with say the same.”

“Could it have been fourteen versions of the same account? I really want this to be the Graf Spee,” Crystal admitted. “I’ll play Devil’s Advocate until I’m blue in the face.”

“I doubt you will, honey,” Nina smiled. “Today — and you can check Google Maps if you don’t believe me — pieces of the Graf Spee are lying at a depth of a mere 11m, clearly visible," Nina bragged with her well-researched back-up.

Crystal zoned out in thought and finally replied, “In 11m of water off the coast — that would make the wreck a navigational hazard.” She looked at Nina and Purdue. “They would have had to tow it away or dismantle it completely.”

“They did. In 2004, they raised a 27 metric tons gunnery range-finding telemeter. And in 2006, they retrieved the 400kg crest of the eagle and swastika from its stern. Boom! Mystery solved. This, lady and gentleman, is not the Graf Spee," Nina concluded.

Outside the door Cheryl’s eyes grew wide, her shaking hands covering her mouth. The distressing news made her sick, sicker than her morning withdrawal and she bolted for the bathroom. She threw up huddled over the toilet bowl; certain, that Zain would kill her if he found out she had led them on a hoax treasure hunt.

In Cheryl’s absence, the conversation continued, and had she listened, it could have saved her from a lot of inner turmoil.

“The reason I asked the two of you to hear me out first was because the funding of this expedition and its continuation depends on the two of you,” Nina said. She lowered her voice for the question she had called them here for. “It is entirely up to the two of you whether I divulge this information officially to the group. Now, I was thinking, since we already have Crystal’s contractors on their way…”

Crystal smiled. “I like your way of thinking, Nina!”

“You are saying we should pretend that we don’t know this and still tow the ship?” Purdue guessed. “Well, are you confident that this is the same class of ship?”

“Positive,” Nina affirmed, nodding zealously. Purdue had to smile at the idea. He had already spent so much money to fund the operation, so why not continue anyway?

“So it is of historic value. Who knows, perhaps even more so than the Graf Spee, depending on what we find on it,” Crystal smiled. “Let’s do it, Dave. Let’s salvage this wreck and see how far we can take it north. You never know what kind of secrets it yields!”

“But we don’t tell anyone else. Agreed?” Crystal suggested.

“Agreed,” Purdue replied.

Nina smiled slyly, closing the lid of her laptop. “It will be our little secret.”