The Seventh Secret

Chapter 31 — The Secret is Out

At just after 2 pm the group waited outside, ready to lift the ship.

Purdue had his tablet on hand to see when the ship would appear on the sonar readings so that they could dive immediately. During the previous dive, they had completed significant repairs and all that was left now was to lift the heavy cruiser and tow her towards Yemen. Ali kept to himself, only meeting with his men when the expedition members were asleep. The plan was to wait until they approached Somalia before taking the group of unsuspecting passengers captive and loot the ship they were towing. It was worth the wait and the annoying charade.

“Where is Sam?” Crystal asked. “He has to get this on film. It is the next big step of the salvage.”

“He’ll be here,” Purdue smiled. “Relax; it’s a good twenty minutes before she’ll appear again.”

Nina and Sam were in Nina’s cabin. He had been very secretive since the last dive when he had dared to go back to where he had lost his nerve.

“I must admit, I never thought you would go down there again,” Nina said as he hooked up his equipment to her laptop.

"I had to. My original footage was destroyed because of the magnetic waves. God, I hate digital," he moaned. "But yesterday I went with old school battery and film, and I found some details that should interest you.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, completely captivated.

“You know how you accounted for the battle cruisers of the German Kriegsmarine, right? You said all the ships manufactured by the Germans had either been scuttled or dismantled,” Sam clarified.

“Aye, so tell me what you have, for fuck’s sake. You are driving me crazy,” she said. Her tone was a mix of exhilaration and annoyance.

Sam spoke in a low voice, “What I’m about to tell you is the biggest secret in maritime history.”

Nina was about to burst. Her dark eyes shimmered with intrigue, and she almost forgot to breathe. Sam showed her the footage he had recaptured on film negatives. Skeletal remains of humans were embedded in the metal walls of the interior of the ship. He showed her the panels and instruments, the generators and the living quarters.

“You see that? Those men were not crew members, Nina; not like the USS Eldridge. Those were Jewish Germans who thought they were cruising to freedom,” he revealed.

“Sam, there was a German ship during the war that took Jewish refugees to Cuba, but when they got there, the passengers were not allowed to disembark, and Cuba revoked all but a handful of visas. The captain then steered the ship towards the Florida coast, but the US authorities also refused to let it dock, despite direct appeals to President Franklin Roosevelt. Soon the captain had no choice but to turn around and head back to Europe…” Nina relayed the story of the MS St Louis, a German ocean liner that was supposed to bring 908 Jews to freedom in 1939. Sam interrupted her.

“I know about the St. Louis. I saw the movie,” he said casually. “But this is not that. It is far, far worse. Listen to this.” He opened an old log book, with yellowed pages where paragraphs in cursive were written in pencil. Nina’s eyes widened when she saw the antique book as Sam scanned the accounts in it to explain to her.

“Is it the captain’s log?” she asked.

“Aye,” he replied. “I think so. Most of the cover is gone, though. The ship was a Nazi death ship, a floating torture chamber. The captain of the ship was Admiral Dieter Bargeist, formerly an Obersturmbannführer stationed in Kassel. He and a few Waffen-SS officers and volunteers offered to complete the experiment that Einstein had theorized and the Americans failed at."

“Based on the Philadelphia Experiment?” she asked.

"Aye, but the Nazi's actually managed to teleport the ship. The problem was that the propulsion to electromagnetic gravity ratio was unstable, so the secret ship was never put on record and aptly named the DKM Geheimnis.”

“The Deutsche Kriegsmarine… Geheimnis,” Nina translated. “It means secret. That is very aptly named,” she agreed. “So what happened?”

"Under the pretense of liberation, the torture ship was employed to carry a settlement of Jews to greener pastures, or so they were told. While on the Geheimnis, they were subjected to the sickest, most depraved experiments… all in the name of science, eugenics, and ethnic cleansing," Sam said. "Apart from that, at regular intervals they would calibrate the instruments to produce the Vril-powered unified fields, or whatever they thought it was, but because of variances in the calibration, the ship would teleport to the wrong destinations."

"Like Southern Africa," Nina added. "But why? How did it lock onto its particular destinations?"

“One for each of the seven seas,” Sam smiled enigmatically. “How cool is that?”

“How do you know that?” she asked in amusement.

“It says so in the journal,” he admitted. “According to Bargeist, the old tales of the seven seas hold more truth than just some sailor’s yarn. The DKM Geheimnis was set to teleport around the globe in seven steps, repeating its course of teleportation until it was destroyed or moved.” Sam showed her the points on the map the captain had marked. "According to this, it settled in the Baffin Bay in the Arctic Ocean, Virginia Beach in the North Atlantic… just like the Eldridge was supposed to, coincidentally.”

"Sam, this is unbelievable! Did you get this on camera?" Nina asked. "Because with this dodgy crew, I don't trust anything precious like this lying around.”

"Aye, it is all on film and back-ups. As you may have noticed, we cannot transmit anything, which just adds to my distrust of this little journey," he said. "Check this; it teleported to Uruguay in the South Atlantic Ocean, where the real Graf Spee had been scuttled. Then it teleported to the Gulf of Alaska… "

“Northern Pacific Ocean,” she smiled. “Wow!”

He continued, “Then the Southern Pacific Ocean, where it appeared off Easter Island, the Antarctic Ocean… wait for it… right where we landed on our way to Ice Station Wolfenstein — and finally off Port Elizabeth, in the Indian Ocean.”

Nina was dumbstruck. The Nazis used to choose so many myth-enshrouded places and somehow the laws of physics, no matter how warped, had taken the ship to those precise locations. She sat up. "You are so right, Sam. It truly is the biggest secret in maritime history. But how did it sink?"

“It doesn’t say. It was already doomed when they realized that the ship would never make landfall again, especially after the unfortunate souls had all fused into the walls,” he shrugged.

“Jesus,” Nina shook her head. “What a horrible state of being that must be, especially if it doesn’t kill you. It’s disturbing to even imagine.”

"Now Crystal wants to tow the fucking thing, connected it to our tugboat. Do you agree that it is a very disturbing thought?" Sam asked.

“You need to ask?” she shrieked. “What are we going to do?”

“I say we check our watches carefully,” Sam suggested, “and when they are sleeping we sever the ropes connecting us to this black bitch and let her wretched carcass down to Davey Jones’ Locker, where she belongs.”

“No, you won’t,” Mieke protested sharply, prying open the door using a master key. Ali and Manni stood by her side with two other crew members in tow. Nina jumped up and shouted with her usual ferocity, “Where is Purdue?”

“Under the water, darling,” Ali smiled with his hideously stained teeth gleaming.

“Crystal and Dave are diving with the salvage workers to bring the Geheimnis up to be towed,” Mieke informed them. She looked at Ali and his associates. “Lock them up until Mrs. Meyer is back.”

“Mieke? What the fuck?” Sam scowled, thoroughly shocked by Malgas humble assistant’s behavior.

“No wonder you knew about the Eldridge,” Nina remarked as the men restrained her. “How do you get to order the captain and his crew?” Sam asked.

“Not me,” Mieke bragged. “My lover, Crystal. She is far more powerful than any of you know; not to mention incredibly wealthy.”

“Good,” Ali grinned. He punched her in the face with one swift blow. “Then you will fetch a good ransom.”

Nina gasped. She looked hopelessly at Sam, but he motioned for her to remain calm and obey the men’s orders. The blonde girl fell to the ground with a broken nose and three of her teeth scattered across the floor.

“What about Purdue?” Sam screamed as they took him away. Ali stayed behind with Nina and Mieke. “What about Zain and Sibu?” His questions faded into the din of the sea as they carried Sam outside.

“Ali?” Nina addressed the captain. “Where are you taking Sam?”

Ali's face hardened. "Sacrifice."