The fall to the submarine's bridge was a good ten feet, but Sean caught himself on the ladder on the way down, halting his momentum. He climbed the last four feet to the bottom and looked around. Wheels, gauges, pipes, and a slew of other controls Sean didn't recognize encircled the room. The bridge smelled like a museum, and the musty scent of time filled his nostrils. He drew the .22 from his belt and looked up the chute to the top of the hatch. They wouldn't be stupid enough to come for him. Each person that appeared at the top of the hatch would be easy pickings.
"You can't stay in there forever," McClain shouted once firing had ceased. "Eventually, you're going to have to come out."
Sean had considered the possibility that the enemies could have been carrying grenades or some other kinds of explosives. McClain's warning belied the fact that they had no such ordinance, and thus, would have to wait it out as well. Still, if things became a stalemate, it would only be a matter of time. McClain's men could stand watch in shifts until Sean fell asleep or decided to come out. Once that happened, he would be cut down like a rabid animal.
He cursed himself for not seeing the obvious. Or was it that obvious? The circumstances surrounding Dr. Ott's disappearance did seem strange. No one had seen her taken from the lab, something he attributed to her probably working late when no one else would be around. Now it all made sense. There were no witnesses because the abduction had never happened. Dr. Ott had organized the entire thing. She'd found a powerful man with the U.S. government who was bitter enough at his career and compensation that he'd happily join forces in order to make the fortune he felt he so desperately deserved.
It was too late to change any of that. Sean made a habit of not letting himself regret too much for too long. What was in the past was in the past. All he could do now was control the moment.
His eyes flashed around the control room. He didn't know much about submarines, much less World War II era U-boat technology. Down one end, toward the front of the sub, was the torpedo room. Two massive cylinders equipped with propellers on the end hung ready for loading. His gaze shifted to the rear of the ship where the engine room was located.
A wild idea began to piece itself together in his head. Sean told himself there was no way it could work, but that didn't matter. He had no other play. And at the very least, he would make sure McClain and the rest of his band didn't escape.
21
Sean hurried down the narrow corridor, past a line of hanging bunks and into the engine room. He spied several knobs, levers, gauges, and wheels, uncertain which one he was looking for. What little knowledge he had about this particular U-boat was that it ran on diesel fuel, which meant it worked on compression combustion. Essentially, even with seventy-year-old fuel, he might be able to get a little power out of it if there was still any left in the tanks.
A cap in the middle of one of the motor chambers came off with a little effort, and Sean stuck his nose over the hole to smell the inside. A stringent whiff of diesel fumes escaped. He screwed the cap back on and turned his head to the control area. He read some of the tags and plates that were attached to various mechanisms and found the one that signaled it was the ignition. He turned the switch, but nothing happened. The batteries were dead. Of course they would be. They'd not been used in seven decades.
Machines like this always had a backup, though. Again, his eyes scoured the area until he found German words for manual ignition on a black placard next to a wheel with a handle attached.
He stepped over to the mechanism and started turning it. For the first few turns, nothing happened. Pistons and cams turned inside the big engines, but there was no ignition. Around the fifteen-second mark, however, the motors caught, struggled, and began to rumble, albeit in an inconsistent manner.
Sean took a step back and surveyed the instruments again, finding the one that adjusted the throttle. He waited a few seconds to make sure the engine would keep running. Knowing he hadn't much time, he took the chance and eased the lever back toward the reverse position, just above idle.
The submarine lurched a few inches, straining against the moorings outside. He turned around and sprinted back down to the other end of the ship, past the bunks and control room, and into the torpedo room. He spun the wheel on the port-side torpedo tube and opened the hatch. Luckily, the Nazis had left one in the chamber, ready to fire. He hoped the explosives inside it were still live.
Sean hurriedly closed the hatch and ran back down the gangway to the control room. He stared up through the chute at the ceiling to gauge whether or not the sub was moving. The roof of the cavern remained still, though there was a great deal of yelling going on outside from the dock.
He darted back to the aft of the ship and ticked the lever a little farther to give the propellers more power. Suddenly, the boat jerked backward again as the mooring ropes snapped under the strain. He pushed the lever back to its previous setting and ran back down the length of the sub. At the bridge once again, Sean looked up, this time seeing that the cavern's ceiling was creeping by.
Reminding himself that there was no way this plan could work, Sean hurried into the torpedo room and found the fire button. It was the biggest button he'd ever seen, and marked clearly in red. He yanked down on the lever that flooded the tube then braced himself and waited. Give it a second, he thought. Wait for it. Wait for it.
After ten seconds that seemed more like a thousand, he mashed the button and sprinted as hard as he could back to the bridge. He heard the torpedo launch with a swoosh as he ran to the ladder. He grabbed a hold of it and crouched low, uncertain of what would happen next.
An extraordinary explosion outside interrupted the momentary pause. The submarine shuddered violently and tipped sideways from the concussion. The ship stayed upright, though, continuing backward. Sean knew that he couldn't guide it through the tunnel alone, and if he allowed it to keep going, it could potentially block his only way out. He rushed back into the engine room and set the lever back to a forward position. Gears clunked deep inside the motors, and the submarine's progress slowed and reversed to the other direction.
Sean's breathing was coming in heavy gasps now from all the running, but he hurried back to the ladder and climbed up. As he reached the top of the hatch, he could see pieces of the cavern ceiling breaking free and falling into the harbor in massive chunks, causing huge splashes that shot up twenty feet in the air.
He crested the lip of the chute and pushed himself onto the tower deck. Black smoke filled the enormous cavern. The catwalk that had been at the front of the sub was completely obliterated, as was one end of the dock. Die Glocke had been completely blown apart by the blast. Now, the U-boat was gliding toward the remaining part of the dock and the catwalk over it. The two men atop it were scrambling onto their feet. Sean could see McClain and Ott lying facedown on the dock's floor, barely moving.
No time to finish them off. He had to get out before the whole cavern collapsed. Just as the thought raced through is mind, another fragment of the ceiling broke free and fell to the gun deck, smashing the heavy armament's barrel and bending it in half.
Yeah, definitely time to leave.
Sean stepped over the side of the tower railing and pushed off the top rail with his left foot. He flew through the air in a dramatic swan dive and plunged into the water. He pulled himself through with a breaststroke, kicking his feet hard to drive faster toward his scuba gear. He floated to the surface and paddled hard with his arms, using a freestyle technique. It seemed like minutes, but he reached the cavern's far side in less than forty seconds.