The Solomon Effect

44

“You didn’t eat much,” said Jax after the big Texan had shaken hands again and left.

Tobie stared down at their plates. “Neither did you.”

“No.”

They sat in silence for a long moment. Jax said, “It never made any sense, the idea of terrorists raising that U-boat for gold. Not with this attack supposedly planned for Halloween. The timing was just too tight.”

“It’s still tight, isn’t it? Even if what they were after was an old German A-bomb.”

Jax glanced out the window, to the darkened parking lot lit only by the faint flicker of gas lamps. “If there really was an old German A-bomb on that sub, anyone going after it would deliberately have planned the operation to be tight. Whoever these guys are, they’ll want to move as fast as they can. The longer they have that bomb in their possession, the more likely it is to be detected.”

She studied his half-averted profile, with its high cheekbones and lean jaw line. “You believe Wolfgang, then? That the Germans not only developed a small nuclear bomb, but decided in the last days of the war to send a prototype to Japan?”

“Somebody obviously believed it enough to go through the trouble of raising that U-boat.”

“But would the thing still be viable? After sixty years?”

“Viable enough to cause considerable damage, whatever kind of device we’re talking about.”

She pushed away her plate. “What I don’t understand is how anyone even found out about that bomb in the first place. They would need to have known about it before, right? Before Karl Wertheim advertised his grandfather’s papers on eBay.”

“You heard what Wolfgang said. New information has been turning up all over the place in the last twenty years. Not just in the Russian archives, but in the personal papers of men whose families were living in East Germany when the Iron Curtain came down. Someone could have found out about it that way.” He was silent a moment. “I also have an ugly suspicion the honchos in Washington know more about that submarine’s cargo than we’ve been told.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because according to Matt, the Navy has been keeping an eye on U-114 ever since they located it. That hit a sour note with me. I just can’t see them doing that if all they thought she was carrying was gold.”

She was aware of him watching the scene outside the window, although he’d been careful not to look directly that way again. She glanced toward the parking lot, and saw nothing except silent rows of cars.

“What do you keep looking at?”

“Don’t stare.”

She obediently looked away. “Why? What is it?”

“There’s a black Mercedes GL-Class parked beside the Jetta. See it?”

She threw a quick sideways glance at the shadowy rows of vehicles. “The SUV?”

“That’s it.”

“So?”

“So, they pulled in about ten minutes ago. Only, no one got out of the car.”

“Could be a coincidence. They could be waiting for someone.”

“It’s possible.”

Tobie reached for her beer stein and took a long, bitter swallow. “What do we do?”

Jax signaled their waitress for the bill. “I’ve got an idea.”

After they paid their tab, Jax walked up to the middle-aged man at the inn’s front desk and said in flawless German, “I’m afraid we have a problem. My friend here”-Jax nodded toward Tobie-“is being stalked by her ex-husband, and he’s out in the parking lot right now, waiting for us.”

The desk clerk, a small man with fair, receding straight hair and a long, thin nose, threw a nervous glance toward the front of the inn. A worried spasm crossed his nipped features. “Where?”

“The black GL-Class. Next to our red Jetta.”

He cleared his throat. “You would like me to phone the police?”

“I don’t think we need to do that.” Jax laid the Jetta’s key on the desk, along with a hundred marks. “The last thing we want to do is disrupt your patrons with an unpleasant incident. Perhaps you could simply bring our car up to the front and leave it running for us?”

The man’s thin nose quivered. Germans hated scenes almost as much as the British. His hand closed around the key-and the hundred-mark note. “Yes. It would be better. I’ll get it right away.”

“And leave both doors open, would you?” Jax called after him.

They stood just inside the door and watched the man walk briskly across the shadowy lot toward their car. “As soon as he pulls up in front,” Jax told Tobie, “we run out and jump in the car. I’ll drive.”

“But it’s rented in my n-” she began, then broke off. She’d never seen anyone who could handle a car the way Jax could. “All right. But please, please don’t wreck it.”

“I’ll try.” They watched the Jetta’s reverse lights come on, just as the big SUV beside it roared to life. “Here he comes.” Jax slapped open the gasthaus door. “Now.”

They sprinted down the short walk to the curb. Tobie dove in the Jetta’s passenger door, pulling it shut behind her just as Jax hit the gas. They were halfway out the parking lot before Jax’s door slammed shut.

He spun the wheel, the Jetta’s backend fishtailing as they screeched out onto the narrow country road. “What’s he doing?”

Tobie swung around to stare out the back window. Careening out of the parking lot on two wheels, the big Mercedes barreled after them. A second GL-Class roared after it.

“Shit. There’s two of them!”