Out in the corridor again, he kept hold of the Luger and passed his Beretta to Costas. “Twelve rounds,” he whispered. “Be careful.”
Costas pointed ahead. “He’s mine.”
They advanced along the corridor, weapons at the ready. Sitting against the hatch through the next bulkhead was the Boss, his Kalashnikov over his knees, a dusty half-finished bottle of brandy with a Nazi label in one hand and a joint hanging from his lips. “Eh, Landor, my man, about time,” he said, waving the bottle without looking, taking a drag on the joint. “Where you been?”
“Not Landor,” Costas said coldly, the Beretta aimed at the man’s head. “English, remember?”
The Boss looked at him hazily, then waved the bottle again. “Ah, American, yes. Sit down, have a drink.”
Jack saw to his alarm that the Boss had several of the lead cubes in a pile on one side of him, and under a cloth he saw something else, the dull yellow of a gold bar. “Where’s Landor?” he demanded.
“Eh?” The man’s eyes rolled. “Who are you? Gone to get me some more gold bars. More of my cut. Then we’re going to get out of here, find a helicopter to pick us up and take us away. What was all the shooting outside? Some pretty big bangs.”
“Come on, Costas, let’s go,” Jack said. “He’s out of it, and this place stinks.”
“Hey, not so soon, English.” The Boss whipped out a Glock and aimed it at Costas. Jack pulled the trigger on the Luger, and at the same time Costas fired three rounds from his Beretta. The Boss slumped back, his eyes half open, blood running from his chest.
“That’s for Zaheed,” Costas said quietly. “And for my black eye.”
From above they heard a clattering, and then Ahmed’s voice shouting down. “Jack. Costas. I think I’ve found what we’re after.” They quickly retraced their steps back to the conning tower and climbed out, following Ahmed down onto the deck and across to the dock on the other side of the U-boat. “Up there,” he said, pointing at a rusted metal ladder leading to a balcony about ten feet high, robustly built and with a rock-cut entranceway at the top.
They heard a noise from the entrance passageway on the other side, and all three turned and trained their weapons. A Somali marine came cautiously down, his rifle at the ready, followed by two more. Ahmed whistled and showed himself, and then pointed to Jack and Costas. More marines entered and began to spread around the pen, checking and searching, kicking the bodies of pirates on the way. Jack turned to Ahmed. “Only one bad guy still missing. Where the hell is Landor?”
Ahmed pointed up to the balcony. “Let’s go and check it out.”
Jack climbed the metal ladder onto the balcony and peered round the corner into the passageway, Luger at the ready. Ahead of him, recessed into the rock, was a metal door, the bolt open, with a symbol the size of his palm stamped into the front. He stared at it, his mind racing. It showed a sword facing downward within a loop, and surrounding it an exergue with the words Deutsches Ahnenerbe. He turned back to Costas, who had followed him up, Ahmed close behind. “This looks like a strongroom.”
Costas edged closer, panning his headlamp beam over the door. He put his shoulder to it, but there was no movement; it presumably opened outward. “I don’t suppose you packed any C-5 into that belt of yours?”
“I didn’t, but Ahmed did.”
“Just a word of warning. This door would normally be padlocked and bolted from the outside. It presumably has some kind of latch on the inside as well. What I’m saying is that there could be someone in there.”
Ahmed passed Costas a plastic-covered package that looked like plasticine, and a pair of pencil-shaped detonators. Costas immediately set to work pressing a wedge of the explosive into the edge of the door, and slotted one of the detonators into it. “Okay. I’m setting a thirty-second timer. We need to get out of the way. Ready?”
They quickly backed out, taking shelter behind the rock face on either side of the entrance. Costas looked at his watch. “Fire in the hole.” They covered their ears and pressed themselves against the rock. Seconds later the charge went off with a violent crack, sending a spray of debris out over the balcony and clattering onto the U-boat below. They waited while the dust cleared, and then Costas ducked back around, followed by the other two. The metal was dented, but the door was still intact. Jack and Costas each held one of the padlock retainers and pulled hard, inching the door outward. Once it had moved far enough, Costas went behind it and heaved, coughing in the dust, until the door was completely open and they were staring into the chamber beyond.
At first Jack could see very little, the dust still filling the space and his headlamp beam only penetrating a few meters. Then, as the dust settled, he saw a breathtaking sight. What had seemed a narrow passageway was in fact a wide chamber stacked from floor to ceiling with gold bars, hundreds of them, a cache that must have represented more than one U-boat cargo. Beyond the gold lay the open door of a further chamber, stacked trays and racks with objects on them just visible on either side.
In that instant Landor emerged from the dust, lunging toward Jack, barreling into his midriff and pushing him out onto the balcony. Costas and Ahmed watched in shock, their weapons out but unable to shoot for fear of hitting Jack. Landor swung him round against the railing above the water, putting a knife to his throat. “This is our final showdown, Jack. You lost me that gold on Clan Macpherson, but you’re not going to lose me this.”
Jack looked up, feeling the vice-like grip, remembering that it was Landor who had always won the wrestling matches at school. There was no point in struggling, and with the edge of steel against his neck, even the slightest movement might prove fatal. He could see Ahmed trying to aim his Glock to get a head shot, but it was too close to try. “Tell your friends to drop their weapons,” Landor snarled.
Ahmed and Costas did so without being prompted, laying them on the balcony and backing off. Jack could feel the knife against his throat as he spoke. “Do you remember our dive in the quarry, Anatoly? Amazing we made it back up with the gear we had. Me jamming my valve against that beam, us buddy-breathing all the way up, you dropping our only flashlight. And then the next day we went back and did it all over again. Those were the days.”
“Don’t try to sweet-talk me, Jack. Diving doesn’t mean anything to me any more. What I remember is that you turned away from me to go and grub around in the dirt with Hiebermeyer.”
“Wrong. I turned away from you because of what you were becoming. What you’ve become now.”
“You’re not getting out of this one. Not this time.”
“Do it, then. Just do it.”
Jack tensed. In that instant of hesitation he knew that he had been right, that Landor could not do it. In one swift movement he brought his left elbow hard into the other man’s abdomen, making him drop the knife and double back against the railing, taking Jack with him. Ahmed and Costas quickly retrieved their weapons, trying to train them on Landor. Jack twisted round, holding Landor back by the chin, struggling to keep his balance. “It looks as if we’re going diving again together after all,” he said, jerking his head down to the water beside the U-boat. “It’s about ten meters deep, and I’ve got a minute or so of air left in this little tank on my back.”
Landor went wide-eyed, tottering on the edge, his arms wrapping around Jack’s regulator hoses as he tried to get at his throat. “You know my medical condition. You know even that would give me a bend.”