The Lance (The PROJECT: Book Two) (15 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

T
ourist brochures called Mar del Plata the "Pearl of the Atlantic". From the air it didn't look much like a pearl. The city was gray and bleak under overcast skies. The plane banked out over the water on final approach. Below them a scimitar of smooth sand sliced into the cold, white capped waters of the Atlantic. A long, unbroken crescent curve of beach ended in a rocky cape jutting out into the ocean. Miles of hotels, houses, beach cabanas and high rises lined the shore. In the summer tourist season thousands of people would come here and pack together like sardines on the beach. Now it was mostly deserted.

Selena
's Spanish charmed the suspicious Argentine Major who met them at the air base outside of the city. His eyes kept going to her breasts. He gave her his phone number.

The diving gear weighed several hundred pounds. It was packed into four bulky aluminum cases. A fifth case held weapons. Personal things were stuffed into four black bags. The team loaded everything into
a dented white van and headed into town, trailing blue exhaust smoke behind.

The house
Harker had secured was eight blocks from the beach. They took the gear inside. Heavy, dark furniture covered in brown fabric and cracked leather weighed down the rooms. The house smelled stale, of shut in dust and old cooking. Dark brocade drapes covered the windows. 

It was like stepping back into the nineteenth century.

The team gravitated to the kitchen and gathered around a large table. Lamont spread out a chart of the waters off the coast.

He gestured at the chart. "
This whole area is called the Argentine Sea," he said. He'd marked a small "X" where the British Admiralty report stated the sub had gone down.

"
The coastal shelf goes out a ways and then falls off big time, thousands of feet deep. Doesn't look like we're going to run into anything unusual, but we're dealing with the Falkland Current. It's strong. At that depth and fifteen miles offshore, it will be a factor."

Lamont spread a large blueprint
of a Nazi submarine over the chart. The U-Boat was huge, almost the length of a football field. The drawings showed one large deck gun forward and two twin 20MM antiaircraft guns mounted on the deck aft of the conning tower.

"
These plans are for a Type IX D. They were used as command vessels for the Wolf Packs in the early days of the war. After the Nazis took France, they built radio transmitters on the coast to take over command functions and most of the Type IX's were converted to carry cargo."

He ran his hand over the plans. "
The one we're looking for is a D2. It's the same as this, except the engines were better and the Germans took out the torpedo tubes to make space. There could be something in the aft or forward storage areas. Even if we find the sub, there may be no way to get inside. If we can, the best place to look for anything is the storage areas and the control room and captain's quarters."

He tapped his finger on the drawing.
The captain's quarters were a tiny space little bigger than a bunk, set off with a curtain for privacy. It was located next to the control room and aft of the conning tower on the port side.

Ronnie frowned. "The Captain didn't rate a separate cabin?"

"Nope. No privacy on a Nazi sub. It wasn't fun. The crew wore the same clothes the whole time they were out. Regulations allowed one change of underwear and one extra pair of socks. No one bathed for three months at a stretch. Their Navy issued cologne to cut the stink."

"
What are we looking for?" Selena brushed hair back from her forehead.

Carter looked at the plans. "Anything that could tell us why the sub was in Antarctica. A log book or record of the voyage, or any cargo she carried. Someplace they'd keep important records, like a locker or a safe."

He still thought this was a waste of time. Nothing on paper could have survived after all those years under water.

"No way we'll get into a safe," Lamont said. "We don't even know if we can find the wreck, let alone get into it."

"Maybe it's a little late to ask," Nick said, "but you sure you've got the gear you need for this?"

"Yeah, we're set. F
ull face masks with transceivers good to five hundred meters and voice activated mikes. The electronics on the rebreathers adjust the mix according to pressure and demand. We won't have to sweat oxygen toxicity."

Ronnie said
, "Oxygen is toxic? I thought you needed it to breathe."

"
You do, but at 50 meters, the pressure drives oxygen in the blood stream to toxic levels. The deeper you go, the less oxygen you need. Too much and you get oxygen narcosis. First thing you know, you're in trouble. That's one reason the full masks are good. You can't spit out the mouthpiece and drown if you have a convulsion. The gear will feed us the right amount of breathing gas as we need it."

"
Sounds easy."

"Nothing's easy two hundred feet down."
Lamont scratched his nose.

"
How long do we stay on the bottom?" Selena asked.

"Deep is always dangerous. I think we ought to limit it. Say ten or fifteen minutes
max. That will speed up the decompression stops also."

Nick looked at them. "Anything else?"

No one spoke. He looked at his watch. "Let's hit the rack. Long day tomorrow." 

They went to their separate rooms.

CHAPTER
FORTY-THREE

The harbor at Mar del Plata was big and crowded with bright yellow fishing boats. The waterfront was busy. Hundreds of screeching gulls circled and dived
above the docks. The sea air smelled of fish and diesel and food cooking in stands and restaurants along the waterfront. The sun cast little warmth and the spring weather was clear and cold. Nick pulled up the collar of his jacket against the breeze sweeping in off the ocean.

He didn't want a local captain along asking questions. He could handle a moderate sized boat and read the charts and had the certifications with him to prove it.
Some fancy talking and extra hard cash got them an older wooden boat with a high, glass enclosed wheelhouse. The engine might have been new when Peron was in power. The boat was painted red and white. It was equipped with radio, a fish finder, gasoline generator, a small galley and a bilge pump that clanked with an ominous sound.

The team
headed east and south, past Cape Corrientes and out onto the Argentine Sea. Ronnie and Selena laid the gear out on deck. Lamont set up the underwater communications station in the wheelhouse, an Aquacom STX transceiver designed for military use. Once in the water, Selena and Lamont would have continuous contact with the surface.

Two
hours later, Nick throttled down at the coordinates posted in the Admiralty report. Whatever was left of U-886 waited somewhere below. Lamont fired up a deep scan sonar unit he'd brought from the States. Nick set up a grid pattern. They started a slow search of the area.

Two and a half hours
later they hadn't found anything. 

"
I hate this part." Lamont watched the sonar screen.

"
Waiting?" Nick rubbed his ear. It was tingling.

A cold chill swept over him. A flat humming started in his ears.

"We're close," he said. He shook off the chill. He could almost hear his grandmother muttering.

"What?  Hey, wait
a sec." Lamont peered at the screen. "There's something coming up."

The depth indicator read two hundred and thirty feet
to the ocean floor. A scattering of small black blips appeared on screen. Then a long, cigar shape. Nick throttled down.

Lamont gave Nick a strange look. "
That's got to be it! How did you know? That's a debris field. She opened up when she went down. Keep us over the wreck."

He stopped as if he were about to say something, shook his head and went aft. He dropped a mooring line with markers and an ascension ladder over the side. The line was a crucial safety factor for Selena and Lamont underwater. If it wasn't on target they'd have to come back up and start over again.

Lamont and Selena got their gear on. Nick listened to them talking.

"
Down there, you follow my lead. We clear?"

"
Got it."

"
If you have to bail out, don't mess around, you won't have a lot of time. Head for the surface, remember your stops, don't panic. I'll be right behind you."

She nodded and donned her face mask. She made a minor adjustment and gave a
thumbs up. Her voice came over the speaker.

"
It's good."

Lamont buttoned up, adjusted his mask.
"Comm okay?"

Nick
spoke into his headset. "Loud and clear."

Lamont and Selena
entered the water. They surfaced for a moment. Seconds later they were gone from sight beneath the waves.

"
How's the signal?" Nick said into the microphone.

"
Five by five." Lamont's voice came back.

"
Five by five," Selena said.

He tugged on his ear. Now there was
nothing to do but wait.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

The water was cold and clean.
Selena matched Lamont's steady, rippling movement as they followed the mooring line down. There was plenty of light. It was a stroke of luck to get a bright, sunny day. Even at 70 meters, there would still be light to see by. Selena felt the tug of the Falkland current, but it was only an annoyance. Something to be aware of and compensate for.

The sub was somewhere out of sight below
. The blue of the water deepened as they passed 30 meters. She breathed easily with the full mask. She felt a little lightheaded. She checked the mix, but it was only the thrill of it, the love of the unexplored.

And
the danger.

Selena loved diving. This was the dive of a lifetime.

She didn't know the names of the fish swimming around her, but there were a lot of them. So far she hadn't seen any sharks. Sharks didn't bother her; she'd seen plenty in the past. There were supposed to be sea lions in the area. She felt for the razor sharp knife at her side. She wasn't sure she wanted to see a sea lion. They were aggressive and territorial, nothing to fool with. This was their world, not hers.

"
Selena." Lamont's voice sounded in her headset. "Coming up on fifty meters. Check your oxygen level."

"
Roger."

Selena looked at the meter that measured oxygen partial pressure level. It was well
away from the 1.4 bar that meant narcosis and possible death. Everything was working. Closed circuit rebreathers were the only way to go for deep dives. At least they were the way to go if everything kept working.

The water was
getting darker. Bits of floating sediment drifted all around. The sea floor came into view. Selena began to see objects scattered about. A layer of greenish-brown silt covered everything, softening the outlines of debris spewed from the submarine when she'd plunged to her death. She saw a cook stove lying on its back. A large and ugly fat lipped fish peered out at her from the open oven. Selena thought of pans of eggs and sausage and soups and cakes being cooked on that stove.

They swam over a scattered string of phallic
shapes, artillery shells for the guns. There were box like outlines, unidentifiable mounds. Then a pair of boots, the toes splayed outward. She wondered what his thoughts had been, this German seaman, in those last seconds when the water rushed in.

T
he hulking ruin of the sunken submarine emerged from the blue-green gloom of the deep. Ghost-like and silent on the ocean floor, U-886 still looked like the menacing predator she had once been.

The sub had struck end on and settled upright. The stern
section was crushed and buckled. The bow pointed straight down a steep slope covered with thick mud and silt. The slope ended at an undersea cliff that dropped off into fathomless depths.

Sea growth encrusted the wreck. B
izarre clumps and shapes hung from the railings and guns. Pale yellow fronds and long green streamers trailed in the current. The sea floor around the submarine was stained reddish brown from rust, as if U-886 had bled to death in her final agony.

The visibility was good, but Selena reminded herself to be cautious. It wouldn
't take much to stir up a cloud of particles and turn everything murky.

T
he British depth charges had ripped a long, ragged gash on the starboard side, exposing the central corridor to the sea. A painted white shield with a black sword and swastika was still visible on the conning tower.

Nick
's voice sounded in Selena's earpiece.

"Lamont. What's your status?"

"
It's the right sub. We're looking at her. She's almost upright. She's ripped open and the stern is collapsed. We're not going to find anything aft. The center section looks accessible. I'm going to take a look now."

"
Roger that. Selena, you okay?"

"
I'm good. You should see this. There's a painted badge on the tower, sword and swastika on a white shield."

"
Most of the U-Boats had badges. They identified the boat and her crew."

Lamont and Selena reached the
breach in the hull and turned on their lights. The bright white beams lit up the dark interior of the wreck. Cables and wires hung down and swayed in the current, their crisp outlines blurred by sea growth. Fallen pipes lay rusting on the deck.

Selena's light cast strange shadows inside the sub. If this were a recreational dive, she'd never have thought of going in. The opening into the hull was jagged and sharp. It reminded Selena of the maw of a primeval beast, waiting for unsuspecting prey to swim through.

Waiting for her and Lamont.

The transceiver crackled. "
Nick, I'm ready to go in. Selena, you hang back behind me, give me some light."

"
Roger."

Lamont eased through the gap and hung suspended
. He shone his light down the passageway.

"
I can see the control room. The hatch is open, that's a break. They must not have had time to get it closed. Some pipes down, cables, not too bad."

He
moved into the blackness of the sub's interior. Selena followed him in and shone her light through the dark water after him. Through the open hatchway she could see the periscope column and a bank of gauges in the control room. Clusters of valve wheels, rusted pipes and sagging conduit lined the ceiling and walls. Debris lay everywhere, covered in yellowish silt. Lamont's passage sent small clouds of sediment drifting in her beam.

Her light caught something white. A
half buried skull looked up at her from the floor.

Lamont pause
d in the control room. "Bones on the deck," he said. "The depth gauge glass is cracked and the needle is stuck right on 76 meters. 228 feet. That's about right. There's a box by what's left of the radio. I'm going to open it."

Selena watched Lamont fumble with something out of view.

"It's junk. Looks like some kind of typewriter."

Lamont moved about in the wreckage of the control room. He tugged on a cabinet door above his head. The door came open in a cloud of rust particles. He reached in and withdrew a flat, black object. It turned to a soggy mass in his hands.

"Found what was probably the log book. It's no good, turned to slime." He dropped it on the floor. He turned away from the periscope column.

"Now I'm looking at
the captain's corner. There's still a piece of the curtain left."

Selena felt a vibration
. She glanced outside. Sediment swirled around the sub.

"
Lamont, the current is picking up."

"
Roger. Hold your station." She saw him grasp a bulkhead and disappear from view as he moved into the captain's alcove.

Lamont shone his light around the confined space.
A disjointed skeleton lay on the floor. Fragments of dark cloth clung to the bones. The empty sockets of a narrow skull gaped up at him, the lower jaw fallen away. The legs still wore high leather jack boots, turned a soggy, brownish green. Something poked through the white bones. Lamont reached down and pulled it out, brushed silt aside. It was a brown oilskin pouch. He placed it in the bag hooked on his belt.

T
he sub moved. The delicate balance keeping U-886 in place for so many years had been disturbed.

"
Lamont, the sub's moving. Get out!" Selena tried to keep the fear out of her voice.

"
Roger."

The
submarine groaned and tilted. Selena braced against the movement. Pipes broke away from the ceiling and Selena saw one strike Lamont on the head. A sudden, thick cloud of particles blocked her view.

"
Lamont. Lamont, talk to me."

There was no response.

"Selena, what's going on?"  Nick's voice came over her headset.

"
The sub moved. Lamont's hurt. He's not answering. I'm going in after him."

"
For Christ's sake, be careful. Talk to me, Selena. Let me know what you're doing." Fear flooded her body and her heart began thumping in her chest. She forced herself to slow her breathing. With more than two hundred feet of water above her, too much breath could be fatal.

"
I'm going in. I can't see much, too much stuff in the water. I can't see Lamont yet. There are pipes and cables down, but I can get past them." She pushed a tangle of wires aside, death traps moving about in the murk like slime covered spiders reaching for her.

"Talk to me."
Nick's voice was calm, soothing. "Take your time. Lamont's gear will keep him alive. Don't rush."

"
A couple of pipes came down in the corridor, but I think I can get through them. Wait one."

Selena pushed one of the pipes aside and s
wam past. She swam through the hatchway. In the swirling silt she saw Lamont pinned against the deck, a pipe across his chest. His eyes were closed behind the mask, his mouth open.

"
Lamont's unconscious. There's a pipe across him, not too big." She reached down with both hands and lifted the pipe away. She heard a strange groaning, an eerie, low, metallic moan. She felt the sub moving. She wanted to get out of there. She fought her panic, concentrated on Lamont.

Selena
started back through the passage, pulling Lamont behind her. The sub groaned again and began to vibrate. The water inside was filled with clouds of silt. She could see nothing at all in the murk. She worked by touch and instinct through the fallen pipes, dangling wires and cables, praying she wouldn't get snagged. She reached the opening in the hull and pulled Lamont out. The wreck was beginning to move away under her feet. Grasping him under one arm, she backpedaled toward the mooring line.

The sub
picked up speed as it slid down the steep slope. Roiling clouds of silt churned out from under the stern, as if the huge engines had come back to life. The black swastika and white shield gleamed like a demon's eye in the ocean light as the long, narrow shape moved away. Streams of seaweed trailed from the conning tower. They look like flags, she thought. Flags, on a ship of the dead.

The submarine
went over the edge of the cliff.

For a brief moment she held her course, as if a ghostly hand was at the helm. Then the bow nosed down and the wreck disappeared
into the black depths. A thick cloud of particles billowed up from the sea floor.

"
Nick, I've got him, I'm coming up. The sub's gone." She looked at Lamont's oxygen meter. Still safe.

"Roger.
Remember your stops."

Selena
began the ascent. She watched her depth meter. She felt the cold weight of what seemed like miles of water above her.

Lamont
's eyes fluttered, opened. He looked at Selena, her mask next to his as she swam upward. She saw him open his eyes.

"
I've got you. You're okay. Your meters are good."

"
What happened?" His voice was hoarse.

"
You got knocked out. We're going up. At one hundred fifty feet now. Decompression stop."

"
I can swim."

"
You sure?"

"
Yeah, hook on to me, but let me go."

Selena tethered him to her belt and let him go, ready to grab him if she had to.

"Shadow. Can you hear me?"

"
Yeah, Nick. It's all right. We'll be up soon. I found something."

When at last they reached the surface, Selena had never been so glad to see the blue sky above her.