Sight Unseen (24 page)

“The raft?”

“Let me take it back. The Bund here will be very upset when they find out I’ve been captured by you. We have no one as high
up in the Secret Service as I.”

“We are short of water and food now,” the captain said. “It was a man and a dog you said we were to pick up. My men wouldn’t
have put up with the dog anyway. We would have killed it.” He snickered. “Probably eaten it.”

“The raft will give it all away,” Klein said.

“Of course. I will destroy it,” Lockwood answered.

With a burst of comradely feeling, Lockwood was assisted up the ladder and into the large raft and was set adrift with one
small paddle.

“I’ve got a bad right arm,” he complained. “Where’s shore?”

“A compass!” the captain shouted. “Get our Fischer my small compass, Hans!”

Lockwood sat in the raft, which looked as large as a Model T, and waited for the compass. The sea rocked him. Above him, some
dozen German sailors stood grinning in the quarter-light of first dawn. He felt a little sick to his stomach. When would the
bomb in the crate go off? How far did he have to be away from this boiler-like contraption to escape having his raft sunk?
Suppose Hans got a message from the Bund before he came back up the hatch?

He smiled at the sailors and waved at them, and they waved back.

Finally, Hans returned with the compass. Klein said, “We must hurry, Captain.”

Lockwood tried to push himself off from the sub’s metallic surface with the paddle, but it kept slipping off. In seconds the
deck of the sub was clear of Germans. The hatch clanged, and Lockwood heard hisses and bubbles and gurglings. The raft spun
so hard Lockwood had to hold on with his good and his injured arm to keep from being thrown out.

He would have to wait till dawn to read the compass. He leaned back in the raft against the soft rubber sides and took out
a familiar Camel. The smoke felt comforting as he drew it into his lungs. Even if the thing blew up under him, he was ready.

Lockwood felt a rumble, as if someone were bowling with giant boulders at the bottom of the sea. Then through the darkness
he heard a rush of water and saw a column of whiteness in the distance off to his right. He held on to the inflated side of
the raft with his good arm as a four-foot wave swept his small lily pad up and almost over and down.

The sea quieted again. All those men. That water rushing in. Their shock, their dismay, their having to suddenly accept that
life was all over. He took another drag on the Camel. What would it be like when his turn came?

Dawn crept up. Around him floated wood and bits of cloth. Something that looked like a hand passed by slowly.

He figured he would finish the cigarette and start paddling.

Out there, three thousand miles across this expanse of water, millions of Germans like those down there were goose-stepping
across the European continent. Others built ships, others airplanes, more built cannons, tanks, armored cars, machine pistols—getting
ready. Lockwood shivered. We have to get ready, too, Lockwood told himself. We went through all this back in 1917, and we’re
going to have to go through it all over again. He sighed with weariness. Yes, we’d better get ready fast.

He flipped the butt of the cigarette into the sea and reached for the paddle.

THE REDHEADED PhD

looks pretty smart when she takes off her glasses.
She looks even smarter when she takes off

everything else.

The truth is, she could win the Nobel Prize in bed.

Too bad she has to be punished.

Too bad she knows too much about

the doomsday to come.

THE HOOK

can’t wait to get involved in the case.

He’s Bill Lockwood, insurance investigator.

A product of Long Island’s gold coast

and World War I,

he smokes Camels and packs a revolver.

But what good is his Colt .38 when he’s up against
Adolf H. and his plan

to blow up the western world?