Operation Wolfe Cub: A Chilling Historical Thriller (THE TIME TO TELL Book 1) (17 page)

While US-2 savored every moment of his baby copilot’s surprised look, he felt for his pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket, lit one up, and then relaxed to the sound of utter silence the underwater offered.

He rambled on to the baby in the wisp of his smoky breath, “Wow, that storm was getting pretty rough. I could swear the devil is riding our asses…oh well, we’re safe in here. You’re in the driver’s seat, now, Junior Lieutenant. Fun
huh
? We’re going down. What did you say? Where are we going? Oh, we’re reestablishing our base course—west…should make some time tonight.”

He paused for another drag on his smoke. “Yep…before we know it, we’ll be at our new home…America…can you say that? Uh-mer-ic-a. Lots a beautiful women, I hear,
huh
? So you’re too young? Yes, you’re too young…so tell me; you can save this bad world,
huh
? You’ve got a job to do then. What do they say in America? Get a job?”

He stopped for just a moment, thinking seriously. “
Sheesh
, I’m talking to a baby now…so how’s someone like you supposed to save the world? That’s what I want to know. Okay, don’t answer me then…fine…save it yourself then, see what I care.”

His junior lieutenant was a good listener until something else more entertaining came along the front of the observation glass. When US-2 turned on the underwater lights, a sudden splash of the ocean’s underworld flooded up over the bow and beyond. He wiggled all around from his fingers to his toes, jibber-jabbering with smiles of joy. If he could have talked, he would have said nothing short of “Oh boy!”

Chapter 6

At the dawn of the next morning, the precarious factions within the weather must have given up. On the other hand, a single storm’s forlorn warnings could have been nothing more than a passing normality.

Either way, the troubling turbulence had almost blown over completely, lending calmer outlooks than even a fisherman would have liked. It’s no secret that fishermen are intrigued by changes in weather. For the anglers of the sea, the sky is a place to look up to, and today it had nothing to hide. The vast openness still handed down clues and residues of dreariness left over from the night before. A sense of calm reigned across the great Atlantic, but the gloominess still hung around—either to sleep or see what might happen next.

Even though the day appeared to be unclear, it did host at least one new boat floating around, likely with the prospect of a decent day’s catch. The lone floater seen out there seemed to be trying to take advantage of the calm day break. Measured by common American terms for distance, the vessel’s proximity was hundreds of miles westerly from where the US
Wehrwolf
was last seen submerging just yesterday.

Besides this, the vessel’s condition showed she had been out there risking her hull at sea quite a few times before. She appeared to be over the hill, to put it nicely. The rundown thing chugged her way westbound, like she might be headed back to a shore that was nowhere in sight, not even through the assistance of a universal set of binoculars. As slowly as she
was going, her arrival for land could have been tomorrow, the next day, or whenever. Surely, it was someday.

To describe the risky-looking boat more vividly, one doesn’t have to exaggerate. The true question is where to start—with appearance or function? Her blue and white paint was fading and flaking off in big chunks from her bow to her stern. Paint gave color to her looks, but sound gave character to her soul. Her motor puffed black smoke, like she was burning rubber inside a furnace instead of the expected diesel fuel. She was running on most of her cylinders, which was a good thing since not all of them were failing just yet. The adage “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” may have been the owner’s motto. She kept running and floating on top of the water, and that’s all that mattered, apparently.

Wild thinkers had to be aboard this moving mess, since she was way out there in the wide-open sea. Their floating ideas put into effect could have been compared to a bet at a winning crapshoot ten times in a row. Credit should always be given if one can find it when sparring with such odds. One would have to look hard in this case. Besides her being deferred from the duties of attention, she must have been someone’s pride of the sea at some point. This was a safe bet, in a humorous way. A smidgen of proof backed this up in her name. It was proudly embossed across the stern. She was identified as “
Blessit
,” which was nailed up in old, wooden letters—but barely.

Safe to say, the sea-goers aboard the
Blessit
were prone to minding their own business. On the flip side, they didn’t have much business to mind. They might have been better off minding their own business where ever they went.

Closer inside the cabin of this poor excuse for a boat, the sound of a scratchy radio tune drifted in and out of an old, partially held-together radio next to two rather grungy-looking fishermen. They matched the boat quite nicely. Their less-than-inspiring attire blended in with the surrounding
dirt, filth, and grime, looking more or less like a new form of camouflage. Of course, their silent, lost attitudes had nothing to do with this. Having fun must have been an idea they left on shore a day or so ago.

Between the two fishermen aboard, the older, heavyset man with the worn-out captain’s hat held together with fishhooks, stood out. He sported an unfashionable, matted beard, among other things. He looked to be the lonely one, pressured into navigating at the helm. The banjo steering wheel he held onto for support originally belonged inside a car. Apparently, the classier, wooden helm had been replaced at some point. Perhaps it was stolen or sold as the only meaningful part left on the boat altogether.

The other fisherman, a younger man, didn’t have quite the same burly look, but he desperately needed a shave. He seemed to be looking around for something to do as he sat with his shoulders hunched. Plenty of fishing line and tackle were there in front of him, but he looked right past them. Fishing wasn’t what he wanted to do because fishing poles were nearby with dried bait still on the hooks. Though thin and balding, he was a dead ringer in looks for the heavy-set man at the banjo helm. So much so, that the odds were high they were kin.

Something new came about in the idolizations of boredom between them. It was the radio that faded out of signal. The thin man slowly came around to discovering that playing with the knob on the radio helped to pass the time. His boredom seemed relieved, until his brother looked over at him with a glare for messing with it.

The heavy-set man took a soggy cigar out of his mouth, as if wanting to say something about the tune of the radio, but he didn’t. It had to wait, apparently. He wasn’t looking for any trouble. Finally, through the twilights of his pause and his partner’s static tuning, he mustered up to say, “
Hmmm
…
radio…keep it right there, Jed. Ya ain’t gett’n any better, can’t ya tell? No foolin’ no more now.”

Jed left the knob alone just about the time he found a new station. The radio disc jockey came in somewhat clearly, speaking with a happy cheerful tone:

“This is JDVL, J-Devil…jaded by the devil. It’s the top of the hour on a gloomy morning for the coastal town of Devil’s Gulch, Maine. Enjoy the weather while you can. It looks like another storm is coming in from the Atlantic in a day or so. It’ll be hitting the regions all along Devil’s coast, the towns of Black Water and Moose Lake farther inland. Stay tuned for more on the weather after this song from Rudy Vallee, “As Time Goes By.”

Jed stopped picking his nose briefly. “I
knew
I shouldn’ta listened to ya, Buzz. This is the furthist we ever gone. Now we gotta storm for me to worry ‘bout, sheeeit.”

Buzz put his cigar back in his mouth then swirled it around. “We’ll make it…we’ll make it head of th’ storm. Hold y’r dick and stop shittin’.”

Jed popped up from the bench he sat on and got his pants caught on a rusty fishing hook, so he tried to unhook himself. “Sheeeit…what if I don’t believe ya this time? What ya goin’ to do ‘bout that,
huh
?”

Buzz pulled his cigar out of his mouth again then waited. “
Blessit
’s ain’t never let us down—so shut up, I said.”

Jed got the hook out of his pants, but snagged it in his dirty finger next. He watched to see if it was going to bleed. Of course, it did, so he casually sat back down and sucked on it. “Ya, but—we gots
two
days. With no more diesel it’s gonna be th’ clos’st one yet…how come you do this all th’ time?”

Buzz farted without even breaking a smile. “
Ahhh
, quit y’r complainin’. Now little bro—you said you wanted to catch th’ big fish…now, damn it, that’s what we’re doin’.”

Jed started fanning the stench away from his face. Thinking about what his brother said, he looked at his pole, then his bloody finger and shook his head. Something else came to mind when he caught a whiskey bottle rolling around by his feet. “There you are, mister. You musta been hidin’ out under the deck somewhere.”

He uncorked it, took a swig, and then shivered. “
Whew
, now that’s good,
aaaahhh
. Breakfast whiskey from the mister…want some?”

“Yeah…why not. Little hair-a-th’dog’ll suit me good after drinkin’ so late last night.”

Buzz snapped the bottle from his brother’s hand as if he was expecting his brother to change his mind. He then tipped the bottle straight up and watched the bubbles inside. Three big bubbles turned into three big swallows before Jed finally caught on. “Hey, asshole,
hey-heyyy
. Don’t kill ’er. It’s all we gots till we go home.”

“Okay, I hear ya…
aaaah
that’s good.”

Jed went on, “Dirty som-bitch, you do that all th’ time too…why you say ‘hair the dog,’ anyway?”

Buzz looked at his brother with a weird eye that came out of nowhere: “What? Why you say ‘mister’ all the time then? Shit, don’t you remember? Ar’ dad used to say it when you were smaller than me…ya…ar’ Grandpa said it too. They’s from Georgia, don’t you know? They said it all th’ time.”

Jed scratched his head. He either got tired or gave up sucking on his bloody finger, so he picked up a dirty rag off the deck and wrapped his hand up with it. “Oh, tha’s right. Think I’d remember…I know why now…never saw ’em. I thought you said theys from Florida last time?”

“Ya well one-a-them states. They all sound the same.”

Jed scratched his crotch. “Didn’t you say his liver got blown up’r somethin’ like that?”

Buzz tipped his bottle then crossed his weird eye. “Shit fire,
whoooweee
…that’ll wake y’up, spark-a-fart, wow!
Hair-a-th’dawg Rodriquez,
ha haaa
…hey, what you do to y’r finger? You pickin’ that nose too hard?
Hu-hu
…
hu-hu
.”

Jed ignored him at first, but that didn’t last long. The only picking on his mind after that was picking a fight with his brother over the whiskey bottle. Before rising to the occasion of an all-out skirmish, they both paused, like statues glaring at each other with fists cranked back. Realizing how ridiculous they must look, they bellowed with laughter. “You can shock a warlock I bet,
ha haaaa
.”

“You think so,
hu hu
.”

Fighting about sharing the bottle quickly ended when Buzz cordially gave up the bottle to his brother. Jed snapped it back then walked around the deck, sipping his short temper away. While he simmered down completely, something out at sea caught his eye. “Hey, look-it there!”

Buzz let off the throttle, then squinted with his weird eye. Off at a distance was a fuel pod belonging to the crew of the US
Wehrwolf
floating in the water, with its white flag waving rather noticeably in the wind. Buzz chewed on his cigar before he quickly steered toward the bobbing black tank. “
Ha
! I’m a kid in a candy store…what’s it gonna be?”

Jed ran up to the edge of the boat. “Hey, look above it… some flag o’ some kind on it.”

“Yup, I sees it…just beggin’ f’r me to say
hello
, don’t y’ say?”

Jed suddenly became concerned. “What th’ hell is it, y’ think? Some underwater volcano rock below?”

“Don’t know…we’re gonna find out in a Missussupi,
uh
, Mississippi second, I can tell ya’ that without scratching my ass.”

Jed started jumping side to side. “Don’t scratch y’r ass just yet. Wait a sec…no, no—no…sheeit, no. Looks like one-a-them Nazi mines I been hearin’ ‘bout.”

Buzz let off his acceleration. “Nazi mines? How d’ you know what a Nazi mine looks like, lizard brain?”

“No look-it, I-I mean look at it…it’s a cotton pickin’ mine.”

Buzz took another swig of whiskey to think about it. “Calm down.
Hmmm
, if they wanted us to hit it, they wouldn’t be puttin’ no flag on it.”

“No, I’m tellin’ ya, Buzz…saw picture-a-one, a bomb I mean. They’re round and black with bolts holdin’ it together—just like that one. They been droppin’ ‘em all over the ocean, no shit!” He went on, “People’s legs been blown off…I can feel it already…we best stay away from—”

“
Ah
, chill y’r tongue…I ain’t gonna touch it just yet.”

Jed ran to the opposite side of the boat, holding his ears. “Watch out! Y’r goin’ to hit th’ damn thing as fast as we’re goin’.”

Buzz shook his head as he coasted to a near stop then relit his cigar. “Hold y’r dick. I’m stopped. Just a little tad clos’r ought to be good ‘nough.” Buzz shut his engine down and waddled over to the side of the boat. With his hands on the rail, he leaned over for a closer look.

Jed leaned over too, showing his teeth with the most dumbfounded look. “What you see?”

“It ain’t no bomb, asshole, look f’r yourself. It’s a damn see-it-all flag on top like I told you. They wantin’ you to see it.
Hmmm
, there ain’t no ground underneath it…no rock below…
hmmm
…looks deep down there…not a landmark, idiot…hellfire, y’r wrong again. How many times you goin’ be wrong today?”

Jed seemed confused. “I know…if it was a beacon o’ some kind, you’d think they’d put a light on it f’r sure.”