The Solomon Effect

21

Swinging through the open hatch, Jax felt the thick, dank air of the U-boat close around him. He set his jaw and slid down the aluminum ladder to land with a light thump beside what he realized too late was the grinning, mummified skull of a long-dead German submariner.

“Jesus Christ!” he yelped, hopping to one side and making a grab for the ladder to keep his balance. “What the hell is he doing still here?”

Andrei shrugged. “Moscow’s supposed to be sending over a team of anthropologists. They told us to leave the bodies alone.”

Jax studied the cadaver’s sunken body cavity, the tattered uniform, the dark, leathery flesh stretched across the cheekbones and clawlike fingers. “I could have landed on him.”

Andrei’s eyes creased with quiet amusement. “The Ensign did warn you to watch your step.”

Jax turned in a tight circle, his gaze taking in the control room’s jumble of ducts and valves, hand wheels and switches, gauges and wires. The militia had rigged up a string of electric lights that ran toward the bow, casting ghostly shadows around the tight compartment. He could hear a faint hammering coming from the bow, the vibrations reverberating down the length of the hull.

He brought his gaze back to the desiccated body sprawled at their feet. “You didn’t tell me the hull had held all these years.”

“Most of it,” said Andrei, leading the way forward. “The two aft compartments were torn apart by depth charges, which flooded the diesel and electric engines. That’s why she sank.”

Jax glanced back at the closed, watertight hatch that had sealed the control room off from the aft compartments, and felt the hairs rise along the back of his neck. “Sonofabitch,” he said softly. “They suffocated.”

Andrei nodded. “Poor bastards.”

Stepping over two more bodies, they ducked through the open round hatch in the front bulkhead and pushed toward the bow in silence. They passed the radio room and the listening room, the captain’s corner with its faded green curtain still in place, the men’s quarters with their bunks stacked four high on each side of the passageway.

Not all the bunks were empty.

“So exactly what did you bring me down here to see, Andrei? It must be good.”

Andrei ducked through another bulkhead, then stopped abruptly beside a small WC. “You Americans. Always so impatient. It’s here.”

Jax peered through the gaping door beside them. “We’re here to look at an old German toilet?”

“Not the toilet. That.”

Jax shifted his gaze to the shattered storage compartment that lay just beyond the WC and fell silent.

“How’s your German?” said Andrei.

Reaching out, Jax ran his fingers across the broken wood, where boldly stenciled letters warned ACHTUNG! GEFAHR! Danger. “A hell of a lot better than my Russian. It was like this when you found it?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think was in here?”

“That, we do not know. But it doesn’t look like it was designed to hold gold, now, does it?”

Jax hunkered down to study the floor plates, searching for some clue as to what the space might once have contained. “No,” he said. “No, it doesn’t.”

A loud metallic clang, followed by a burst of laughter and men’s voices speaking in Russian, sounded from nearby.

“What’s up there?” said Jax, pushing to his feet.

“The forward torpedo room. The militia has just started clearing it.”

Pausing at the next bulkhead, Jax peered into the rank gloom and counted four fat sausage-shaped cylinders. “Jesus. The torpedoes are still here, too?”

“Live torpedoes,” said Andrei, stepping over another mummified submariner, “and dead Germans.”

“That ought to tell us something profound,” said Jax. “I’m just not sure what.”

“Herzlich willkommen.” A militiaman lurched toward them, stumbled, and raised another round of laughter.

Jax said, “Why do I smell vodka? Somehow, I don’t think vodka and old torpedoes are a really good mix.”

Andrei gave another of his shrugs. “The militia doesn’t tend to attract the best men.”

They headed back toward the control room and climbed the ladder to the conning tower. Jax paused at the top to draw the sweet, misty air deep into his lungs.

“Find anything?” said October, scrambling up from where she’d been sitting at the edge of the dock.

“Just a broken wooden storage compartment stenciled with danger warnings.” Jax leaped the gaping three feet of choppy gray water that separated the U-boat’s deck from the wharf. “It was great in there. You should have come.”

“That’s okay,” she said, then dropped her voice to add, “Once was enough.”

Jax laughed softly, and turned as Andrei landed beside them. “So, do we get to see the salvage ship, too?”

“It contains nothing of interest.”

“I’d still like to take a look.”

Andrei glanced at his watch. “You can have five minutes.”

“I don’t get it,” said October as they turned to walk along the dilapidated docks that stretched toward the outer harbor. “Why would the Nazis store gold in a wooden compartment and label it ‘Danger’?”

“They wouldn’t,” said Andrei. “That’s the point. If that submarine had been carrying gold, it would have been under the floor plates with a reinforced steel hatch welded shut.” He tore the cellophane off a new pack of cigarettes and let the wind carry it away. “Exactly what gave your government the idea U-114 was carrying gold, anyway?”

Jax watched October catch the wrapper and shove it in her pocket. He said, “You know that kind of information is classified, Andrei.”

Andrei huffed a soft laugh. “In other words, they didn’t tell you where the information came from, did they?” He shook out a cigarette. “You know as well as I do that such a scenario makes no sense. That’s not how these things work. First, one plans an operation and secures funding. Then, one recruits the necessary personnel and material and sets the date for the attack. It doesn’t happen the other way around. What does your government think these so-called terrorists have been doing? Charging everything on their American Express cards? Now the bill is coming due, so they decide to go salvage a sunken U-boat and steal its gold?”

A fine mist hovered over the heaving gray surface of the water, like smoke drifting from an invisible grass fire. Jax said, “Maybe these guys are new at this.”

“Or maybe someone in your government is being less than honest with you.”

Jax was aware of October’s gaze upon him, but all he said was, “The one undeniable fact in all this is that someone salvaged that U-boat and took something off it. There wasn’t a manifest among the U-boat’s papers?”

“If there was, we haven’t found it.”

Jax squinted at the Yalena, riding the gentle swell of the incoming tide. “What does the shipyard manager have to say about all this?”

“As little as he thinks he can get away with.” Andrei let the unlit cigarette dangle from his lips as he searched for his lighter. “At first he claimed he was as surprised as anyone to find the Yalena floating in his cove with a German submarine in tow. It wasn’t until the militia confronted him with his telephone records that he admitted Baklanov had contacted him about using his wharves.”

“Who’s Baklanov?”

“Jasha Baklanov. Captain of the Yalena.” Andrei struck his lighter, his chin jerking toward the big catamaran. “According to the militia, he was not exactly what you’d call a good, upstanding comrade.”

“Smuggling?”

“Among other things.” Andrei tucked away his lighter and flipped open the thick file he carried beneath his arm. “He was found on deck, his body practically cut in half by machine-gun fire.”

Jax tried to peer over Andrei’s shoulder, but the Russian snapped the file shut again. “Uh-uh,” he grunted. “You’re forgetting how this works. I give you something, then you give me something. It’s your turn.”

“I already told you everything I know. All we have is the interception of a careless cell phone call linking some sunken U-boat to a terrorist hit.”

“On Halloween.”

“On Halloween.”

Andrei swung around to stare back at the sub. Following his gaze, Jax saw that one of the militiamen had appeared at the conning tower. As they watched, the man dropped down onto the wharf and climbed into the passenger seat of the loaded truck. They could hear the truck’s engine laboring as it shifted gears, the sound carrying clearly across the quarter mile or so of open water. The weathered wharves and jetties of the shipyard stretched out between them, silent and deserted beneath the cold gray sky.

“Is that supposed to be a joke?” said Andrei.

“If it is, no one in Washington is laughing. They may have got the U-boat’s cargo wrong, but at this point, I’m thinking maybe-” Jax broke off as a low rumble reverberated across the cove. He saw a geyser of fire shoot out the hatch in the submarine’s upper deck, just above the bow torpedo room.

“Holy shit,” he yelled. “Get down!”

From where he crouched within the shelter of the birch grove at the top of the rise, Rodriguez swore softly under his breath. He’d set up the Vychlop with a clear line of fire. But every time he got the CIA agent lined up in his sights, the girl would move in the way, or the Russian.

He finally had a clear shot and was just squeezing the trigger when all hell broke loose in the cove below. The asshole from Langley hit the deck, and the solid bronze pointed-nose high-penetration bullet that should have blown him to smithereens smacked into the water with a splash that was lost in a shattering roar. The old U-boat heaved out of the water and turned into a fireball. Smoke roiled over the harbor, obscuring visibility.

“Fuck!” said Rodriguez, pushing to his feet. “Now? The fucking sub blows now?”

Moving quickly, he disassembled the Vychlop’s silencer and shoved it in its case. “This place is going to be crawling with militia in minutes,” he said, throwing the rifle in the backseat. “Let’s get out of here.”