Mercer’s attention was fixed on a large gray shape in the water at the far side of the pier. “I’ll be goddamned. Wishing it makes it true.”
Ira Lasko had to jog to catch up. Mercer called to the others with lights and they converged at the water’s edge, close to one side of the chamber. “I can’t believe it.”
Low in the water sat a German U-boat that looked like she’d just slipped down the ways. The paint on her upper works seemed freshly applied and there were only a few streaks of surface rust along the side of her outer hull. Her conning tower stood about twelve feet above her flat deck, ringed halfway up by a tubular steel railing. Her designation, U-1062, was stenciled on her tower, and she looked as sleek and deadly now as she had generations ago.
“No deck gun,” Ira said after a moment’s examination.
“What?”
“This is a type VII, the most widely constructed version. Over seven hundred, if I remember correctly. She should have an 88mm cannon just forward of the conning tower.” He rubbed the sprouting beard on his chin. “I think this is one of the special torpedo resupply subs the Germans built. She wouldn’t need armament if they were using her to transport cargo in and out of this cave. Notice the rubber membrane on the conning tower. That’s Tarnmatte, an antiradar coating. She was built for stealth.”
“I’m glad I never took up your trivia challenge about submarines,” Mercer said, impressed by the breadth of Lasko’s knowledge.
“When you spend your life in one of these monsters, it’s good to know their history.” The gangway spanning the narrow gulf between sub and shore was a short distance away. Ira shot Mercer a look.
“Let’s explore the rest of this place before we board her.”
“You have a plan?”
Mercer grinned. “Always.”
“A good one?”
“Rarely.”
For the next hour, they split into teams and scoured the chamber. There were four separate caverns carved off the main cave as well as a long tunnel bored parallel to the air vent. This shaft did not rise up into the glacier but ran level for eighty yards until ending abruptly in a pile of loose boulders and chunks of ice, obviously the result of a cave-in. One of the side chambers had been a machine shop for repairing mining equipment, such as generators, pneumatic drills, lights, and small utility loaders. Ira Lasko remained in the workshop while the others continued their exploration.
Another cavern, about half the size of the central one, had been a dormitory and was filled with rows of bunk beds stacked four high. Mercer confirmed the slave laborers had used it when he found a Star of David painstakingly carved into the underside of one of the beds. There were enough bunks for five hundred people, double or even triple that if the workers were forced to sleep in shifts. Most were neatly made, the single blanket stretched taut. A few were rumpled and he could see the outline of the last person to sleep there. That was all that remained of the man or woman. An impression.
It was all that remained of any of them.
Fists clenched, he backed out of the dormitory, refusing to turn away until he returned to the main cavern.
Buildings for administration, planning, and housing of the Nazi overseers had been erected in the central chamber. Walking through them was like stepping into a museum. Uniforms hung neatly in closets, dishes were stacked in cupboards, and a deck of cards had been left on a table as if the players had just stepped away for a moment.
“Where are the bodies?” Marty Bishop asked when they left the Germans’ dorm.
“I’m not sure.” Mercer had been scanning everything with the Geiger counter and had yet to find any trace of the Pandora radiation.
“Hey, Mercer.” Erwin Puhl was at the water’s edge, standing between a storage dump of forty-four-gallon fuel drums and crates of other cargo.
As he approached, Mercer could see that Erwin had stripped a tarpaulin from a pile of boxes. When his light fell on the topmost, a golden reflection flashed back at him. Pandora boxes. He estimated there were at least thirty of them, and all were larger than the one they had found at the surface. These measured about five feet square and were three feet tall. He waved the counter over the neat stack, detecting nothing. The Germans had obviously learned how to properly seal the meteorite fragments.
There was a palpable amount of heat washing off the gilded crates. Meltwater dripped from the ceiling high above them, running off the pier and into the sea.
“Look at this.” Erwin indicated the top box, and Mercer climbed the pile.
This one did not have a lid and he could see that the interior was baffled with diminishing sized boxes like a Russian nesting doll, though all were made of sheets of pure gold.
“Any idea why they made them like this?” Erwin asked.
“Heat dissipation,” Mercer replied, jumping back to the ground. He felt along the edge of another box, where its internal structure would be attached to the outer shell, and found it was warmer there than on the flat sides. “They couldn’t make the boxes solid for cost and weight reasons, so they used as little gold as possible, designing them this way so the whole thing didn’t become too hot to handle.”
“Clever bastards,” Marty remarked sardonically.
A shrill scream pierced the air. Mercer led the two men as they raced across the chamber to where Hilda stood with Anika Klein. The chef’s face was pale and tears were running down her rounded cheeks. Anika stroked Hilda’s hair, trying to calm her.
“What happened?”
“In there.” Anika gestured to a small aperture in the towering rock wall that Mercer hadn’t noticed before.
Tensed as he ducked into the hole, Mercer held the Geiger counter at the ready. He moved through the cramped space, twisting his body as he scraped along the rough stone, the beam of his light showing nothing. The passage ended at a ledge overlooking another cave, the bottom of which was littered with tens of thousands of cans and a heavy scattering of bleached white bones.
Closing his eyes and taking a deep, calming breath, Mercer braced himself for a more careful examination. He studied the bones for a moment and fell back against the wall, a wave of relief momentarily robbing him of energy. He backed out of the passage to rejoin the others.
“It’s a garbage dump. Hilda saw bones in there and thought they were human. They’re not. They’re seal bones.”
“Seal?”
“To supplement the food the Germans brought here, the two survivors hunted seals that ventured into the cavern through the submarine tunnel.”
“That’s how they survived for ten years down here,” Ira said, wiping grease from his hands. “The provisions couldn’t have lasted from the war until 1953.”
“I bet they could,” Mercer countered. “With a thousand people working in here, they needed tons of stores. If the accident that killed everyone occurred right after a supply run there would have been more than enough canned goods to support two men for ten years. Especially if they killed an occasional seal.”
“That explains why the man at Camp Decade had such rotten teeth,” Anika said as Hilda composed herself once again. “Even with fresh meat, ten years without fruits and vegetables would cause scurvy.”
“But where is everybody?” Marty asked for the second time.
“Since I haven’t found any radiation,” Mercer answered, “I think the corpses have been moved to another chamber and sealed inside to protect the two men who survived the accident.”
“You think it was a radiation leak that killed them?”
“What else could it have been?” Mercer said. “They all died at the same time. Otherwise, they would have escaped on the sub. The man we found at Camp Decade and the one at the entrance must have been on the surface when the cave was dosed with radiation. They could have waited up there for the radiation to dissipate to a safe level before returning underground. Then they could have moved the bodies to a side chamber and buried them.”