Sam let the cacophony of powerful diesel engines, trying their best to achieve the impossible, continue for twenty minutes before he ordered it to stop.
He ran the palms of his hands through his thick hair.
Matthew, his skipper, looked back at him. “What do you think, Sam?”
“Beats me. As far as I can tell, we’re going against Newton’s first law of motion — an object at rest remains at rest until a net external force is applied to it. I guess we don’t have enough power to do that.”
Tom stepped onto the deck. “I’ve got an idea, but I’m not sure anyone’s going to like it.”
Sam said, “Shoot.”
“We’ve had nearly two days of running water pumped into the front of the Buckholtz’s bow, leaving a deep crease beneath her keel.”
Sam suppressed a grin as he thought he’d started to see where Tom was going. “Go on.”
“Do you know there’s a dam eighty feet up from there?”
Sam nodded. “I also heard it’s the only source of fresh water for the island.”
“Right,” Tom continued, undeterred. “I’ll leave it to Gene how he wants to rebuild the dam and refill it for the people living on Neuwerk Island, but…”
“You want to know what would happen if we blew the dam wall, release a quarter of a million gallons of water onto the tunnel running beneath the keel?”
“Yeah, that’s the gist of my idea.”
Sam said, “I think we’re going to get into serious trouble with the EPA.”
“That’s an American organization. The Germans use the German Environmental Agency, called the Umweltbundesamt. They’re the ones who are going to be pissed. Even so, do you think it would work?”
Sam nodded, surprised at Tom’s knowledge of German environmental administration. “Sometimes it might be better to ask for forgiveness than approval. Besides, even the Umweltbundesamt would have to agree that it would be better to damage a dam and remove the Buckholtz than have it remain permanently here, where it could become a long-term environmental disaster.”
Tom grinned. “So, we’re agreed?”
“Agreed. Take Genevieve with you. She’ll make sure you set it up right and don’t do anything to get yourself killed. Let me know when it's in place, and we’ll try again.”
Tom patted him on the shoulder with an open hand. “This will work.”
“I sure hope it does.”
Sam looked around at the now quiet seas. The water was high and completely still. He couldn’t have asked for better conditions. If the next attempt failed, the Buckholtz might be stuck for some time before they got another opportunity to shift her.
He spoke into his microphone, “All right, stand down, while we work the problem from the land.”
It took just under twenty-five minutes before Sam got the message from Tom that everything was in place. Sam told him to wait until the three boats were set at full power and the ropes were taut before he did anything.
And then he started the process again.
All three powerplants roared, and the Maria Helena’s stern shifted backward and forward, digging herself deeper into the water.
After three minutes, Sam said into the radio, “Okay Tom, let her rip.”
The explosion rocked the northern edge of Neuwerk Island like an earthquake, followed by a thunderous roar of water racing free.
And still, the two tugboats and the Maria Helena continued at full power.
Sam fixed his eyes at the Buckholtz, where water now rushed to meet her, gushing around her keel. The hawser rope strained under the extreme pressures.
The first wave of water reached the Maria Helena’s stern, and for an instant, Sam was worried it was going to swamp the smaller ship, but she rode the wave with the self-confident poise with which they’d come to expect of her.
The stern of the Buckholtz shifted in the unstable water, rising a few feet and then dipping again, but still, she remained fixed on the island.
Between the cacophony of engine noise, multiple propellers, and rushing waters, a new sound emerged. This one was far more resonant, more like thunder than anything possibly manmade. Sam squinted his eyes and listened. He mentally tried to block out the rest of the sounds and concentrate on the new sound.
That’s when he saw it.
The Buckholtz had started to shift.
It slid slowly at first, and then picked up momentum until it was racing off the island. Sam swallowed hard as the hawser rope went loose. The container ship was moving faster than the other three smaller ships.
Sam picked up his microphone. “Get out of its way!”
At the helm, Matthew steered the Maria Helena to the starboard, toward the island.
The Buckholtz slid by, creating a massive wake. The Maria Helena was thrown like a toy on its side. Sam gripped the guardrail, narrowly escaping being thrown into the water. The engine whine reached a scream as the propeller came free of the water for an instant.
A sharp clanking noise of metal on metal came free, and an instant later, the Maria Helena stabilized in the settling sea and the growing silence.
Matthew stepped out of the bridge.
Sam glanced at his face, and said, “What happened?”
Matthew’s jaw set firm, and his face set in lines of hard determination. “I think we just lost our propeller.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Maria Helena anchored off the shallow muddy beach off the north of Neuwerk Island. To the north, the Buckholtz was being assessed by a team of engineers before its tow down the Elbe into Hamburg where she would be put in dry dock.
Sam sat on the bridge, talking to Matthew, who had already arranged for the Maria Helena to be towed to a shipyard along the Elbe to repair its propeller.
Elise stepped into the room, her mouth set in a broad grin.
Sam glanced at her. “What is it?”
“I think I know what happened to the 747 Dreamlifter!”
“Really?” Sam smiled. “What?”
“It was the third man.”
“The off-duty pilot?”
“Yeah.”
“Sure. I’ll buy that,” Sam said. “It makes sense. There were three pilots on board the cargo aircraft. Two were found dead — murdered, with large bullet holes through their head, execution style. The third pilot was missing. He could have been kidnapped, or simply washed out of the aircraft, but it’s most likely he was the killer. Who was he, by the way?”
“That’s where it gets interesting. His name was David Townsend — obviously an alias — who was a locum pilot for the company. One of the original pilots had a minor car accident, which prevented him from flying on the day. The locum pilot was brought in last minute to fill in for him.”
Sam was incredulous. “The transport company trusted a total stranger to fly their hundred-million-dollar jet, not to mention whatever secret cargo they were carrying?”
“No. The locum had been employed by the cargo company for more than a decade and was often used to fill in gaps just like this one. There’s nothing untoward about David. He lives in London, with his wife and three children.”
“That doesn’t sound like a guy who brings down a jet plane and kills his copilots…”
“That’s right,” Elise confirmed. “Only he wasn’t David Townsend.”
Sam cocked an eyebrow. “He wasn’t?“
“No. David Townsend was found dead in the trunk of his car, which had been parked in the long-term stay at Berlin International Airport.”