Hunt for the Holy Grail

by Preston W Child

  And Nassif was carrying much more than he had taken the first time.

  “I took the liberty of the major's somnolence,” he explained. “There is so much in that lab, we should go back.”

  “Shush!” Olivia put her hand over the doctor's mouth.

  Ted Cooper was rousing. The professor’s eyelids fluttered as if in a dream. He mumbled. His hands grabbed the air as if there was something invisible there. Then they flopped back beside him.

  “Keep your voices down,” Miller said. “Come on, let’s begin.”

  Nassif sat down at a makeshift desk that comprised the lowest bed and Nicolai’s boxes as a chair. He started sifting through the papers they took from the lab. With the microscope set up on the floor, he commenced testing the fluids in the tubes.

  Meanwhile, a further idea had occurred to Professor Peter Williams.

  “The U-boat, we can get to the U-boat too,” he said, looking at Miller. “We may never get the chance again.”

  The billionaire agreed.

  “Nicolai?”

  “Yes I’m ready.”

  Itay Friedman said he’d go with the Russian.

  “No, Itay. You stay here.” Miller glanced at the sleeping Miller. “Protect the doctor.”

  The bodyguard nodded. When he pulled up his parka two guns stuck out from his belt. Liam Murphy’s mouth dropped open.

  “You’ve had those guns all this time? Come on, man, we almost got killed,” Liam said.

  Friedman said the guns had no silencers. “Only for desperate moments,” he added.

  Nicolai took a bar, two wrenches, and a couple of bolts and nuts. He and Borodin went out the door.

  Ted Cooper grumbled in his sleep again.

  —

  The sentry that tried to stop the laboratory theft was still lying on the floor when they went by. The side of his head where Borodin’s wrench had hit him was now a purplish bruise. He was sprawled on the floor, shaped like the cross on the swastika.

  When they went past the laboratory again the major was not in sight. The two Russians froze at the door.

  But when they listened they heard his chest rumble on the floor where he had collapsed, fast asleep.

  Good, Borodin thought.

  On the one hand, the disease had its advantages.

  They went down the spiral steps, gusts of cool air rose and blew their hair. The U-boat sat like an alien ship. Ancient and yet not nearly antiquated.

  Taking care not to make too much noise, they opened the hatch they found close to the bow and went down a dark tunnel. The engine room smelled like old oil left in somebody’s garage. Nicolai had never been in a U-boat before. The closest he’d been was in a Russian submarine during his physicals in the Navy Academy.

  Borodin asked him where they were going to begin.

  “I don’t know how to drive a U-boat,” Nicolai said.

  “Well, how about looking for the steering wheel or something?”

  “Submarines don’t have steering wheels.”

  Borodin shrugged. “Since this is not a submarine, maybe a U-boat has a steering wheel.”

  And it did have one.

  —

  The documents were shared in two places.

  Olivia took a bunch, Anabia Nassif and Liam Murphy piled the rest before them and searched. Peter Williams assisted with translation.

  Surprisingly, some of the documents were written in English. But the most significant ones were scribbled in German.

  Frank Miller watched Ted Cooper.

  In most of the notes they found the chemical combination for a particular virus. They surmised then that this virus was what was making the soldiers sick.

  “See here,” Peter said, translating from German, “partial combination with the immune system, virus caused death, superhuman strength and aggression, headaches, seizures.”

  “The vial,” Miller said, “the broken vial, that’s how the soldier got it—”

  “Yes, primary exposure often causes pronounced reactions in subjects,” Nassif agreed. “Subsequent infected persons are only carriers, they degenerate slowly. And that’s what we see in the major, and the others now infected.”

  “Are you saying we could all be infected as well?” asked Olivia.

  Nassif nodded.

  An ominous silence descended on them.

  —

  Major Juan Santiago was probably dead now, the admiral reasoned. And his men too. If that was so then it would be best to keep the scientists further on the facility. Better still, not to let them out again.

  What would happen if they were to be allowed to go back to the city?

  No, he had to make sure they never get out. This serves his revenge still.

  Huebner’s ship was boarded minutes later. Two ships floated beside his ship. The Lea ship was commanded by Admiral Tomas Benjamin, a veteran from the cold war years and a contemporary with Huebner in war college.

  It was past midnight already. A starry heaven looked beautiful. The admiral was, however, occupied with wriggling his way out of a much more complicated situation.

  He received Admiral Tomas Benjamin in the small board room attached to his quarters.

  “Hello, Tomas.”

  “Hello, Anton.”

  Pleasantries were quickly dispensed. They sat to cups of coffee. Tomas sipped and gave Huebner a look that said, what foolery are you up to now?

  Tomas sat on the committee that demoted Huebner when his son John Huebner was implicated in drug-related offenses in the US. And he also signed the petition against him. That petition took away Huebner’s chance at the office of Defense Minister.

  Huebner begrudged Tomas.

  “What’s this you are doing out here? I hear you have trouble with something on Antarctica?”

  “And who told you…of this trouble?” Huebner sipped his coffee.

  “I want to hear your side of this new story.”

  “I have business on the ice, but it is my business,” Huebner growled. The bridge of his hook nose wrinkled in irritation.

  “Yes, Huebner. But this is the armada’s ship. Not yours to take, nor use at will,” Tomas countered.

  The two men stared at each other over their cups of coffee. A match of authority, of emotions, and of grudges. What Tomas had against Huebner was simply a matter of who was the better commander. But Huebner would shoot Tomas right there in his boardroom and hide his body in the engine room.

  He contemplated the act. He smiled at the public reaction.

  A long time ago, Huebner decided he had nothing to live for, nothing to lose.

  If Tomas went on the ice continent to investigate what he was about to tell him, then good riddance.

  “An American expedition team found a secret Nazi lab in the Antarctic,” he said. “I have secured the lab. The Americans are there now, scientists. If you want to confirm, be my guest.”

  Tomas Benjamin started laughing. It began with a chuckle. Then his lips exposed uneven, yellow teeth. He was shaking with amusement. Tomas was a relatively small man. But a strong small man. His frame shook in the chair.

  “Huebner, please,” he begged. “Make some sense this time, it will do you real good.”

  Many in the Navy believed Huebner perjured in court in the case of his son. He had tried to explain away the boy's involvement in the weapons trafficking allegations. Huebner had told the Navy court that his son was studying in economics at Harvard.

  Huebner shrugged. He twisted his lips. “If you want, I can provide transportation for you. Go on and see for yourself. You’ll see a certain American billionaire leading the crew.”

  “A billionaire…” Tomas said, with an incredulous stare.

  “Oh yes.”

  Tomas waited for a name. Huebner baited him with suspense.

  Tomas Benjamin rose. His coffee was unfinished and he was a perceived winner in the game of authority.

  “The fleet is worried about you, Huebner,” he said. “You have to let go of the past. What�
�s done is done. Nothing you do now will bring John back.”

  Tomas walked out of the room.

  Huebner swept his cup of coffee off the table, sending it crashing against the wall, and wept.

  —

  Olivia and Peter further shared the search load.

  She took a portion of the documents out that were mostly done in English. Some of them were logs for purchase of compounds, experiments, logs for experiments, and letters requesting permission for human tests and for “healthy soldiers.”

  One letter contained a terse request for injured men from the front, especially men of Spanish descent. The letter was addressed to Reinhardt Himmler.

  Piqued, Olivia jumped the rest of the ramble to the bottom where the name of the writer was signed.

  Under the sprawl, the name said, Dr. Fritz Huebner.

  She turned the document over but it was blank on the other side. She searched through the pile and found another. This one was addressed to Goebbels. Same request, same signature.

  “Odd.”

  “What’s odd?” Peter Williams asked.

  Olivia showed him the name. “Looks familiar.”

  She took her notebook and wrote the name in it.

  9

  The scientists of Hitler’s secret labs didn’t have the time to create an antidote. It was wartime. Countries were in the business of slaughtering, not saving. The biggest killer won the war, the most benevolent.

  Dawn crept outside the facility. Body clocks sparked off wakefulness. The scientist Anabia Nassif worked all night, mixing compounds, examining them under the microscope, and then placing the tubes of fluids in racks. And that was where it all ended.

  There were no animal tests, no certainties of efficacies.

  The documents and notes contained no formulas for an antidote. Tired, the crew hoped that what he did would be enough. Soon the crew will have to face the soldiers. Nicolai and Borodin were still in the U-boat pen. Major Juan and his men should be rousing.

  Miller carried the rack of supposed antidotes and pushed it under the bed.

  Olivia perused the notes she had taken. She played back her Dictaphone. Together with Peter and Liam Murphy, she made additions and subtractions.

  “God, I feel like I’ve been in an accident.”

  Ted raised himself on weak elbows. Spittle had dried at the corners of his mouth. He looked like he’d been binge drinking. Olivia had covered the man up in the night with her own parka.

  “What's going on?” he asked.

  “You’ve been out all night, Ted,” Miller remarked.

  He rubbed the side of his head. He shut his eyes tight. “I have a headache.”

  Anabia Nassif cast guilty eyes at the others. Perhaps he had overshot the morphine dose.

  “Where are the others?”

  Miller said Nicolai and Borodin were fixing the soldiers’ snowmobiles. Ted Cooper threw his feet off the bed, suddenly alert. He eyed Miller. Then his eyes settled on the biologist. Nassif looked away.

  Cooper looked at the makeshift lab across the room, the papers, the microscope, and Nassif sitting on that chair like he would if he was performing experiments. And most suspiciously, someone had forgotten to replace the mesh in the ceiling.

  The ventilator cover was open.

  Ted Cooper was a smart man. He sighed, cleared his throat, and started putting on his boots. Olivia had also taken that earlier.

  “What time is it?” he asked.

  Miller checked his watch, “8:43…am.”

  Ted rubbed his hands on his knees. He smiled. Like everyone else in the facility, Ted was showing signs of degradation; dark shadows around his eyes, his pallid skin and hairline that seemed to have receded a kilometer up his forehead since.

  “Great day today, huh.”

  “Yeah, great day,” Olivia answered.

  As Ted left, he pulled the door closed behind him.

  —

  Dr. Nassif said, “We need to administer the antidote, to see if it might work.”

  “Administer? Are you crazy?” Liam Murphy opposed. “We can’t just go and inject someone with it. What if they die?”

  Helpless, Nassif pushed, “What are we supposed to do? Just keep it? For all we know it may work—”

  “And for all we know it may kill whoever you inject with it.”

  Liam Murphy glanced at Miller as if for support.

  “Why don’t we just keep it till the right time?” Olivia suggested. “Or we could ask for permission from the major for animal testing in the lab.”

  “I don’t think so,” Miller countered. “Those tubes under that bed are our leverage out of here.”

  The others agreed.

  —

  There was a mirthless smile on Ted Cooper’s face.

  He had been played, he knew. Something had been done to him. But whatever it was, he had slept through it. Now he had them.

  Cooper had been standing behind the door all the time that members of his crew discussed. He heard it all.

  He started towards the rocket room.

  The world was his for the taking.

  —

  Admiral Huebner called the major again.

  When Major Juan Santiago’s voice came on, the admiral knew instantly that he will not be setting his foot in that facility after all.

  “Juan, are you alright?”

  Santiago babbled incoherently. He sounded like he had swallowed his tongue. He repeated himself several times. Frustrated, Huebner slammed his talkie on the table.

  Exec Ramirez Vasquez winced internally. The silence was golden with the admiral at times like these so he kept his mouth shut and waited.

  Huebner started pacing. His motives had been in two parts: to get hold of the documents and weapons in the facility and sell it to the highest bidder. And second, to destroy the place once he has taken possession of sensitive material.

  But now, it was suicide to even go near the facility.

  “Vasquez, I have an assignment for you.”

  Vasquez rose to attention. “What is it, sir?”

  “You are going to Antarctica.”

  The exec nodded.

  —

  Ted Cooper grabbed the talkie from the rambling major. He was burning up with fever.

  “Admiral!!” Ted yelled.

  There was no response. He tried again. He dropped the talkie on the floor and looked around. Two of the soldiers were still able to stand on their feet. He went back to major Santiago. He slapped his face.

  The major snapped out of his hallucination. “Huh?”

  “Come on, Major, wake up!”

  Ted called two soldiers. “Hey, get the major some water.”

  Minutes after, a clear-eyed major Juan was reaching for the talkie. He looked around and saw that only two of his men stood, and even those two rubbed continuously at spots on their arms and legs. His own forearm bled a long time from so much scratching.

  Ted Cooper stood before him.

  “They have a cure.”

  The major put the talkie to his mouth. “Admiral? Admiral!”

  Ted touched his shoulder, then he pushed the talkie from his mouth slowly. “Major, they have a cure. I can get you the cure, an antidote.”

  “How?” He frowned. “It's not possible!”

  “They made one last night.”

  “How did they—”

  “Doesn’t matter. What matters now is getting you cured, and your men too.”

  The major pulled himself up, groaning in severe pain as he did. He limped over to the glass windows behind, where the first infected officer was. Dried blood and body tissue smeared the glass. The soldier lay on the ground, twisted, and breathing slowly.

  “We have to try it on him, first,” Ted Cooper said.

  “When can you get it?”

  “Tonight.”

  —

  The last person to fall asleep that night was Olivia. From where he lay in pretense, Ted Cooper peeked at Olivia.

 
She wrote into her little book long into the late hours. Then she talked slowly into her midget recorder. It was all Ted could do to keep himself from falling asleep as well. Some of whatever he was pumped with last time still ran free in his body.

  Drowsiness tugged at her eyes several times. In time, Olivia laid down but Ted wasn’t sure she had slept, for her back was turned.

  The crew had been formal with him every time he went out and came back. They stopped talking when he walked in, and resumed murmured conferences when he had gone far down the hall. They left the door wide open for this purpose, he guessed. And the two Russians, Nicolai and Borodin, hadn’t come back from where they went.

  Ted knew the two men were in the facility. Likely in the U-boat pen, copying designs probably. That wasn’t a serious offense yet.

  Ted Cooper waited longer. He counted from one to a hundred, three times.

  He listened for breathing. The men seem deep in sleep. But Olivia never snored and she almost never turned when she slept.

  When the professor was satisfied that Olivia was fast asleep, Ted sat up in his bed. He waited again. No movements.

  Then he slid down on to the floor and crept over to Miller’s bed. He slipped under it and picked up one test tube from the rack.

  He rose up and left the room quietly.

  —

  Major Santiago was waiting.

  He looked better, though his breathing was bad. That gurgling sound when the man drew breath was worrisome. There were two soldiers with him. There was one with a purple mark on his temple. He was delirious too.

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  Santiago glanced at the soldier and scoffed, “He said he was attacked.”

  “By whom?”

  “The scientists,” said the major. “Don’t worry about him. Even I found myself in the lab and I hardly remember going there by myself.”

  “Here.” Ted handed him the tube.

  Santiago asked how they were going to put the fluid in the soldier. Ted Cooper said, “You get syringes from the lab, I think I can inject him myself.”

  The major found a rack of syringes. They looked huge compared to the ones in the hospitals. The needles were longer and thicker. He plucked one from there and brought it to Cooper. Ted wrapped a handkerchief over his nose.