“You go after Aphrodite,” said Philip. “I’ll go after the text.”
They were silent a moment, only dimly aware of shouts and gunfire in the distance. Deker looked into the old monk’s eyes. He hardly knew this man and yet had so many questions he would have liked to ask him. Philip seemed to grasp a greater world than Deker knew. But the Baron was getting away, and both he and Philip understood that there was no time now.
“Good-bye,” Deker said as they separated.
“God help you!” cried Philip, and he disappeared down the dark corridor.
Deker turned around, pulled out his Schmeisser, and started toward the submarine bay. Sirens blared, and soldiers ran past him in the opposite direction. He encountered no resistance, as everybody was preoccupied with their own survival. But when he entered the submarine bay, he was greeted by machine-gun fire from the aft deck of the Nausicaa, and he dove for cover behind some crates.
When the gunfire ceased, Deker peered over the crates and gazed out over the cavernous submarine bay. Large chunks of rock were falling from the ceiling. With all the smoke and confusion, Deker couldn’t see the submarine and feared she was gone. Then a curtain of smoke parted, and he could see the unreal image of the Nausicaa slipping away. Behind her giant gun on the aft deck was Franz, who spotted him behind the crates. Franz swung the gun toward him and unleashed a burst of fire.
Deker ducked as the bullets drilled a neat row of holes into the rock over his head. The Nausicaa ’s antiaircraft guns were designed to lock at a parallel angle, no doubt to prevent the gunners from tearing up their own deck. But in these circumstances, they frustrated Franz’s attempt to point the barrels low enough to kill him.
Deker emerged from behind the crates and ran beneath the line of fire until he reached the end of the stone pier. Only ten feet of water separated him from the Nausicaa. But to him, it could have been ten miles. He froze in fear.
Franz reached for his Luger to pick him off. Deker saw him and quickly lifted the barrel of his Schmeisser, fell to one knee, and fired, knocking Franz off the aft deck of the escaping submarine. Deker took a deep breath and dove into the water, crawling wildly toward the Nausicaa before it could get away.
He climbed up onto the Nausicaa ’s aft deck and lay sprawled on his back, gasping for air. They were slowly making their way through floating debris out of the cave. Behind them lay fiery destruction, before them a gaping hole and the open sea.
125
The Nausicaa was emerging from the collapsing tunnel and into broad daylight when Myers noticed Franz wasn’t firing the guns anymore. He turned to discover that Franz was nowhere in sight, only the dark, drenched figure of Andros pointing a Schmeisser at him.
Andros said, “You have new orders, Kapitanleutnant. You are to proceed on your present course and present speed, but you won’t take her down until I say so.”
“But we are vulnerable to aircraft,” Myers protested.
Andros raised the Schmeisser to Myers’s head. “Right now you are vulnerable to many things. Where’s von Berg?”
“My quarters.”
“With Aphrodite?”
“Yes.”
“How many are in the conning tower below us?”
“A helmsman and torpedo officer.”
“And in the control room on the level below?”
“Four technicians,” Myers replied. “The diving officer, a helmsman, and two planesmen.”
“So six crew members stand between me and von Berg,” said Andros, calculating the captain’s quarters to be the first compartment forward from the control room. “And the Flammenschwert device. Where is it?”
Myers didn’t respond.
Andros slid back the bolt of his Schmeisser, letting the loud click speak for itself. “I didn’t hear you.”
“It’s in the forward torpedo room,” Myers replied. “You’ll never make it that far. There are thirty-five crew members below and only one fore-and-aft passageway.”
“Let me worry about that. Now call your communications officer in the radio room.”
Myers was about to speak into the intercom when Andros buried the barrel of the Schmeisser in the back of his neck.
“Not into the public-address system,” Andros warned. “This is a private conversation. I know one of these pipes here connects you directly to the radio room, so choose the right one.”
Myers nodded and spoke into his piping to the radio room. “Funkgefreiter Voigt.”
“At your orders, Kapitanleutnant.”
Myers looked up for further instructions.
“Tell Voigt to tune to the following frequency.” Andros gave him the frequency, and Myers repeated it to the dumbfounded telegraphist.
There was a lengthy pause on the other end. “But that’s an Allied frequency, sir!”
“That’s an order,” Myers barked.
Andros told Myers, “And when he’s through sending the following message, you’ll order everybody to abandon ship.”
126
The Cherub was a few miles off the coast of Corfu as Erin Whyte watched the hillside and cove beneath the Achillion explode with columns of fire. She realized nobody could possibly survive that kind of destruction.
“It doesn’t look good,” she said softly as she peered through the periscope inside the conning tower.
“Let me see,” demanded a liberated Prestwick, who was standing next to her. His wrists were still raw from being tied up, so he grasped the handles of the scope gingerly as he pressed his spectacles to the glass. “Good show!” he exclaimed. “Those bombers hit the bull’s-eye.”
“No thanks to you,” remarked Erin, incensed at Prestwick’s utter disregard for Andros. “It was Chris who led us here.”
Prestwick kept his eyes glued to the periscope. “Thank you, Andros, wherever you are,” he said with a shudder. “Your father would have been proud of you. My God, would you look at that.”
Erin stepped aside as Captain Safire took a look for himself and removed his cap. “Aye, there’s nobody coming out of that alive.”
The radio operator climbed up the ladder from the control room and handed Safire a signal. “We just picked up a call from Sinon, sir.”
“That’s Andros!” Erin cried. “He’s alive!”
Safire read the signal. “Sinon says Flammenschwert has his fire and has run off with Nausicaa.”
“My God!” said Prestwick. “That means von Berg has escaped on his submarine and has an atomic bomb on board.”
Safire nodded. “I’ll see if we can break her back by air.” He spoke into the piping to the control room, paused to listen, and turned to Prestwick with a grim expression. “Our flyboys are long gone, hightailing it back to North Africa. Looks like the Luftwaffe is giving them a good chase.”
“Then it’s up to us,” said Erin. “How soon until we catch von Berg, Captain?”
“If his U-boat stays surfaced, she can do nineteen knots on her diesels,” Safire explained. “Best we can do submerged is seven knots on our electric motor, eight if we push her.”
“Then surface, for God’s sake!” said Prestwick.
Safire put his eyes to the scope and shook his head. “Not in the daylight, sir, not with enemy warships on the surface and fighters in the skies.”
The prospect of von Berg getting away alarmed Erin. If the Baron managed to disappear beneath the Mediterranean, they’d never find him. “If von Berg did submerge,” she asked Safire, “how long could he stay underwater before surfacing?”
“Eight months,” Safire replied, still looking through the periscope. “And he’d have enough fuel for almost seventeen thousand miles.”
Prestwick gasped. “That means von Berg could conceivably cross the Atlantic for New York City, park his submarine somewhere in the Hudson, and blow the city off the face of the planet. Captain, we can’t take a chance and let him submerge.”
“Sir?” asked Safire.
“That submarine must not reach open waters,” said Prestwick. “We must sink her at whatever the cost.”