"Jacob said you fooled them with a release of an oil slick."
"Confused them at least. Our satisfaction may only be temporary. We no longer have enough fuel to get back and so I've had to radio for a milch cow— a supply submarine— to rendezvous on our homeward voyage. It was a risk to make the call. U-boat Command claims it's scientifically impossible to break our codes— and yet why are all my friends on the bottom? I prefer to stay off the radio."
"What are our chances then?"
"Perhaps you know better than I?" the captain said, searchingly.
The pilot laughed. "
My
chances are lousy. I make a hash of things in Antarctica even in peacetime."
"And now you're doing no better in war."
His irritated tone sobered the pilot. "Meaning?"
"I called you up here because it's time I learned what's going on between you and the Drexlers. I don't tolerate fighting on my boat. I don't like my thirteen new passengers. I don't like arrogant SS pricks pretending to command my submarine, I don't like women showing up where they don't belong, and I don't like my insubordinate American prisoner. I want to hear a reason why I shouldn't throw all three of you overboard before you cause more trouble."
"Well." Hart considered. "You can't toss me because I'm the only one who knows how to get into a mountain to fetch what Germany wants. You can't toss Greta because she's the only one who knows how to process the drug we're going to find. You
could
toss Jürgen. I can't see that he's any use at all."
Freiwald scowled. "Why did you go to the laboratory during the attack? You knew that wasn't your station."
"I didn't see how it mattered where I was. I have no combat duties on board."
"Dammit, answer my question! Why did you insist on seeing the woman after you were told not to?"
Hart hesitated only a second. "I'm in love with Greta, Captain. And she's in love with me. She's married to Jürgen Drexler in name only. We fell in love before the war on a prior expedition to the island we're going to. I was delayed returning to the ship, Drexler reported I was dead, and eventually he persuaded Greta to marry him. When I learned she was still alive I stole a plane, flew to Berlin, and convinced her to run away with me. As you can imagine, this has produced some tension among the three of us."
"God in heaven." Freiwald frowned. "Does the High Command know about this?"
"Of course not. If they knew the truth, Drexler would be in an asylum. But then so would half the High Command."
Freiwald threw him a sour glance but didn't dispute the point. "And you. Why do you go along with this mission? You feel no loyalty to your country, to its cause?"
"Quite the contrary," Hart said grimly. He paused, wondering how much he should say. Finally, he decided he had nothing to lose by being frank. "Captain, there's a famous proverb about a peasant who angers a great king, sufficient to have the king order his death. Just as he's about to lose his neck, the peasant yells out to the sovereign, 'Wait, if you give me an additional year to live, I'll teach your horse to talk.' The king thinks it over and, deciding he has nothing to lose, grants the temporary reprieve. Afterward, a friend of the peasant approaches him and asks why he's struck a bargain he obviously can't deliver on. The peasant replies: 'A lot can happen in a year. I could die. The king could die. Even better, the king's horse could teach
himself
to talk.' "
Freiwald smiled at the punch line. "You're amusing, Hart. Amusing and, I think, very much a wild card in this whole thing. You make me nervous."
"I guess I have to hone my relationship skills."
Freiwald shifted slightly to put his back to the wind. "This drug everyone keeps referring to— tell me about it."
"A drug to control a new plague. The worst disease you've ever seen. Jürgen Drexler wants to unleash it on the world. And he needs your help to do it."
"And you think this is wrong."
"I think it's evil."
"To obtain an antibiotic?"
"A cure is the only safe way to unleash the disease. Surely you've figured that out by now."
"Jürgen says there's more to his plan."
"Has he told you what it is?"
"No."
"Nor me. Captain, you mustn't help him with this."
Freiwald looked out at the icebergs drifting across the sea. "Have you ever been to Hamburg, Hart?"
"Yes. The earlier expedition left from Hamburg."
"Have you ever seen a firestorm? Its effect?"
He swallowed. "No."
"The British caused a firestorm in Hamburg. A city burning so hot that it sucks oxygen toward its center like a whirlpool. Winds so powerful they can sweep up little children. Did you know that in one night more people died in Hamburg than in your American battle of Gettysburg? Not soldiers! Women. Children. Old people."
"I saw the London Blitz, Captain. You're describing modern war."
"Exactly. And that's why Jürgen Drexler is no monster. He's simply a modern man. A modern warrior. Religion has been replaced with ideology. The centurions of morality are gone, the walls of order breached. We live in a barbaric age."
"Captain, if you follow Drexler to the bitter end I swear he'll kill you. His cause is disaster. Don't risk death for this man."
"I don't risk death for
this
man, whose mind and character I find dubious at best. I don't risk death even for our Führer. But I do risk death for the Fatherland. I do risk it to save Germany. And I don't fear death. Do you know why?"
"No. Why?"
"Because I've already died, and the man you see standing before you is a ghost. You see, my family was in Hamburg that night, and they were roasted in that firestorm, and all the good in me died with them." He nodded. "So you
will
help us, Hart, because in the modern world terror must be met with terror."
"Somewhere it has to end, Captain."
"And Jürgen Drexler promises he can end it. So. Now you'll go below so Jacob can lock you to your bunk again."
Atropos Island loomed on the horizon like a thunderous cloud, towering and shadowy. The white of its glaciers evaporated into mist that billowed to form fantastic canyons of creamy vapor, the confection topped by the darker syrup of a volcanic plume from the second peak. The increase in eruptive activity did not appear to be threatening enough to prevent their reentering the caldera anchorage, but the drift of ash added to the unease of the German soldiers and sailors on deck. As they approached the island the sea was a flat calm, the submarine threading slowly through dark water between rafts of pack ice. The temperature was below freezing and the conning tower was frosted. The sky overhead was a patchwork: an occasional squall would send a brief snow flurry across the boat, followed a few minutes later by pale polar sun. As they rounded the flank of the island some of the flakes were grayer and grittier. Volcanic ash, the sailors were told. They held up their mittens in wonder.
Even Hart was allowed to come up on deck. He watched the tail of volcanic smoke with disquiet, wondering what this change meant for descending underground. And yet when the
U-4501
nosed through the caldera entrance the harbor seemed not to have changed at all in six years. There was still the same pinto pattern of pumice and snow, still the absence of any bird or animal life, still the lonely beaches that steamed in the cold. Even the crates of supplies left by the
Schwabenland
remained undisturbed. He shivered, but not from the temperature. The familiarity of it after so many years seemed chilling. The bodies of the mountaineers, he assumed, still lay where they fell, stained a coffee color and mummified by the dry freeze of time.
Freiwald anchored not far from the underwater wreck of the
Bergen
, and the U-boat men on deck began assembly of a prefabricated motor launch. Antarctic clothing was dragged out of storage and ropes, buckets, lanterns, lamps, and packs were readied. Despite the smoking volcano, there was an air of excitement aboard now that they'd survived the attack and reached Antarctica. Here would be a tale to tell one's grandchildren about.
Hart was issued a parka, boots, a backpack, lights, food, and climbing gear that included an ice ax. He joined five other SS men on the foredeck. Last to emerge were Jürgen and Greta. It was the first time the pilot had seen her since the depth charge attack and she granted him a brief, reassuring smile but didn't attempt to speak. She was solemn as she looked at the island. Owen was relieved that her face was unmarked.
Drexler seemed subdued but determined. "Here's where you earn your keep, Hart," he growled, keeping between the pilot and Greta. "I could blast and dig my way into the mountain the old way but it would take time and we have no timbers to shore up the ceiling. The alternative you found will prove more expedient, I hope."
"It might be a tight squeeze for some of your gorillas, Jürgen. Those boys afraid of the dark?"
The storm troopers looked scornfully at the pilot.
"My men aren't afraid of anything but failure. Which is the only thing you should fear as well. We'll get what we came for one way or another. But if you and my wife assist as promised, things will be easier for everyone."
Hart looked evenly at the soldiers. "Looking forward to their company. Especially Hans there, the one with the big boot."
The yellow-haired giant grinned at him.
They clambered into the launch, motored ashore, and the party shouldered their packs. The pilot led off, switchbacking up the slope of the crater. Soon they were sweating in the cold, the submarine shrinking in the lagoon below. As they neared the rim Hart noticed the launch had returned to the submarine and another party was boarding. The pilot thought he recognized among them the cadaverous, hunched figure of Schmidt. Where was
he
going?
They moved on up to the crest and out of sight of the submarine, Drexler bringing up the rear with Greta. It was clear he wasn't anxious for the American to talk to her, but the German maintained his own stiff distance from her as well. Whatever their exchange after the depth charge attack, it hadn't been a friendly one. Owen decided to be patient. Despite the situation his spirits had revived somewhat with his escape from the confines of the
U-4501.
Even the dour SS men brightened. The air was sharp and cold and exquisitely clean. The unaccustomed walking brought an almost welcome tightness to their muscles. Hart paused frequently. "Drink lots of water," he kept admonishing. "It's arid here, despite the snow."
They circuited the crest in a window of brilliant sunshine, Hart looking down the dry valley where he knew the husks of the dead Germans still lay scattered. Was that where Schmidt was aiming? To get the bodies or the spores? The pilot decided against pointing out the deadly vale to his group of Germans. Like it or not, they all needed each other to descend safely into the mountain. Panic wouldn't help.
Beyond the valley he could see the other volcano, exhausting unevenly. Sometimes the plume would be dark with ash and other times it would lighten with steam. The snow around its top had been stained charcoal. He wondered what Elmer would make of this. "The island doesn't want you to be here," the old Eskimo would have said. "I don't want to be here either," Hart would have replied.
When they'd hiked the rim to the seaward side of the crater Hart abruptly turned off the crest. Below was a panoramic view. To his left was the sea, the island skirted by a fractured maze of pack ice. Directly ahead was the snowy plateau where he'd landed the
Boreas,
bordered by the adjacent jagged ridge of rock that linked the two volcanoes. Behind, to his right, was the valley. Without a word he led them skittering downward on the snow of the volcano's outer flank. They stopped on the shelf of bare basalt that extruded from the mountain a third of the way down its slope.
Hart looked back up. "It's tough going back over the rim of the volcano," he told the soldiers. "You're going to get a workout packing our cargo to the submarine."
"We're not afraid to work," Hans said.
Hart nodded. "Of course we
did
have a tube leading right through the mountain, right out to the caldera, but Colonel Drexler demolished that one. Back in 1939. You can ask him about it on the way back up."
"It was an accidental collapse, Hart. And keep your tiresome history to yourself."
"Yes, my commander." He gave a mock salute and pointed with the tip of his ax. "The exit I found is right there."
Still looking like a sleepy eye, a dark slit of a hole looked out at the ocean and its mosaic of ice. "We're crawling in there?" Rudolf, the man Hart knew as Bristle-Head, asked doubtfully.
"It's bigger inside."
They paused to get out the ropes and lights, including miner's helmets with headlamps. As the others finished preparing to enter the cave, Hart looked intently down the volcano's flank at the small, relatively ice-free bay far below. His eye swept its shoreline as if searching for something. Then, while Drexler was bent over his pack, he moved quickly to Greta.
"It's still there," he whispered.
She looked down the slope quickly, not seeing what he'd spotted, and then glanced at the sea. "The ocean's so vast," she worried.
"But possible."
She stole a touch of his gloved hand.
"Hart, are you ready?" Drexler snapped. He was following their gaze with suspicion, obviously irritated at the whispering but not wanting to make a scene. The SS men looked at the trio with interest.
"I'm ready."
"Then do your job and lead."
The initial crawl led to the sandy room near the entrance. Then the tube became tight again as it led down into the mountain. Hart explained that he'd leave a colored flag every ten meters or so to mark the convoluted route. The cave would temporarily widen when they reached the long vertical chimney— the elevator shaft— that he and Fritz had descended so long ago. Then narrow once again before the grotto. They'd fix climbing ropes along the route.