Hunt for the Holy Grail

by Preston W Child

The officer retreated, his back to the door.

  A gun materialized in Huebner's hand. He squeezed off two rounds, it hit the officer center mass. The officer slid down the door, coughing blood and spraying his white uniform. He left a streak of crimson on the door.

  Huebner picked up the form from beside the dying man as he watched the blood pool on the officer's chest. He called the exec, who cleaned up the blood.

  The exec flung the body over the side of the ship.

  —

  The wind howled outside, it rocked the U-boat from side to side. Miller tried to reach his ship. He got static.

  Nassif was having difficulties finding the ship on the sonar. But he saw another blip on the sonar, and it was closing in on them fast. He called the crew.

  "Are we expecting company?" Nassif asked Miller.

  “No, why?"

  They stared at the black screen. There was the blip that was the U-boat and another that was moving faster than they were.

  "And it's coming from behind." Miller frowned.

  "The major," Itay Friedman said.

  Miller instructed the bodyguard to find the Argentine major.

  Meanwhile, it had begun raining violently outside. Dark clouds hung so low they could row their boats into them. Nicolai and Borodin went up the hatch and saw the destroyer gaining on the U-boat.

  —

  It had gotten so dark, and the sea tumultuous, that shooting was almost impossible. The waves tossed the ship up and down. Admiral Huebner ordered that flares be fired.

  And then the long guns be fired at the U-boat.

  Hesitant at first, the exec would not give the order. He remembered the body of the second officer now being torn by the waves and fishes. He gave the order.

  —

  The U-boat was getting rocked on the waves. Each member of the team held on to something.

  Peter Williams's symptoms were fading. He had nearly reached self-composure, but the color was leaving the faces of the others as they held on to life.

  Nassif called out, "We are locked! We are locked!"

  "What!?" Ted shouted.

  "Missiles."

  Before the missiles, there were shots. A few hit the water beside the vessel. Two glanced off the prow.

  "We need to dive! We are diving, hold on to something!"

  The boat plunged almost vertically. Olivia screamed as she fell through the air and landed on Peter, where he crouched.

  Soon the U-boat leveled up.

  More shots pelted the water around the boat.

  —

  Itay Friedman didn't find the major in the storeroom where he had been quarantined. Friedman went down to the engine room. He aimed his gun as he went. Upon submerging, dark had descended on the boat again. It was especially most ominous in the engine room. There were two portholes on both sides, but they were nothing but dark eyes.

  Leveraging on the noise of the engines, Itay bent his knees, looked for an ambush, and hid behind the diesel tank. He waited.

  The major had heard him coming. He had taken a wrench that Nicolai had left behind during the repairs. He nodded his time. He was not within hearing distance of the click of Friedman's gun as the bodyguard took the safety off.

  Santiago stepped out of hiding. He bent forward too, two military men.

  Friedman's gun prodded his forehead in the dark. Santiago parried and lashed out.

  —

  The U-boat disappeared from the sonar of the destroyer. The admiral ordered depth charges to be dropped in the water.

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  "And make it four."

  "Sir?" The exec thought it extreme.

  "Drop them now!"

  Four charges were dropped. When they exploded, the U-boat rocked and blipped back onto the sonar.

  "Now, give me two missiles," the admiral said.

  —

  Miller hustled to Nassif.

  "We have torpedoes! Torpedoes! Don't we?"

  Awakened, Nassif checked the chart. There were four torpedoes on the log. But were they in the docks? There was only one way to find out.

  She locked on the approaching destroyer. He screamed, "Fire in the hole!"

  Miller said, "You didn't have to, it isn't a battle—"

  The ship rocked suddenly, throwing everyone off balance. It balked, the engines pulled, and the ship dropped speed.

  They heard a whoosh, like when a bottle loses its cork.

  "Fire away." Nassif staggered up to see the two torpedoes leaving the ship. Two hadn't made it.

  The team joined him at the sonar to see the progress of the projectiles. Two blips moved towards the advancing ship. Olivia's heart pounded in her chest. She gripped Peter's hand tightly.

  It was a silent collision on the U-boat’s sonar, but a crashing encounter on the sea. One of the torpedoes missed the ship by a mile off. The other found a home in the hull not far from the engine room but close to the tanks.

  The explosion rocked the ship. It shuddered.

  Admiral Huebner held on to the railing around his post. A cruel sneer on his face, he screamed in anger.

  "Control, report status!"

  The exec read off an instantly prepared report. "Extensive damage to the hull: two pumps are totally ruined, there's a deep gash in tank 5, and we may lose engine room in a short time."

  "Shit."

  He fumed. "And the missiles?"

  "Intact, sir."

  "Good, cos we are going in full throttle."

  "Sir, we are taking in water—"

  "This is war, do what you have to do!"

  "Yes, sir."

  —

  The storm blew away, but the members of the crew of the U-boat were underwater and unaware of their good fortune. Miller happened to try the long-distance phone again, and he got a clear transmission.

  "Lock on to us now," he said to whoever was on the other side. "And watch out for a renegade Argentine Admiral."

  "How are we doing, Nassif?"

  Nassif said things were not as bad for the U-boat as it was for the destroyer. On the sonar, the image of the battleship had dropped far behind. And a new image had appeared on the screen.

  "Mr. Miller?" Nassif stammered. "We have more company."

  Olivia moaned. Will their troubles ever end? She rummaged through the deck and found a plastic bag. It was not like any she had ever seen. Nazi plastic bag, she thought.

  Olivia put her notes and camera in the bag and tied it with twine from her hair. She wrapped the bag in a parka she found on the ship too.

  "Getting prepared for the end?" Ted Cooper asked her.

  "You should too."

  "No, ma'am, this is ending the same way for us all."

  Olivia glanced at the man, some of her loathing for Ted Cooper in it.

  "Yeah, we are in the middle of the Pacific. The closest land is where we just left. And there is nothing back there but death."

  Olivia ignored the man and went over to Peter.

  —

  Itay Friedman took five punches in the face, blinding him momentarily. His gun was knocked off just as he was bringing the butt down on the major’s head.

  He dropped to a crouch and drove his shoulder into Santiago, throwing them both off the ground and landing on the oil-stained metal floor. The major locked Friedman in a chokehold. They rolled on the slippery floor and stopped the hot, humming engines again.

  Friedman picked the major up by his feet and pushed him against the engines; a massive fan belt cut the major’s back, and he yelled in pain. His hands slackened around Friedman's neck, and the bodyguard threw a left hook into the major's throat.

  Santiago let go and fell forward. Friedman landed one more on the jaw that knocked the major out.

  He then restrained the man.

  As Itay Friedman left the engine room, he noticed that the vessel had decreased in speed. He went to the diesel tank and saw to his dismay that the fuel was just about exhausted.

  He came back to the restrained maj
or, who was now recovering. With the help of the ambient lighting, Friedman found his gun where it had fallen.

  "What now, hm?" Santiago asked the bodyguard.

  "We have run out of fuel."

  "And space. Admiral is a mad man, he's coming to get you people."

  "Yeah."

  Itay Friedman shot Santiago in the head.

  —

  The first U-boats that the Nazis made experienced fluctuating capacities as they surfaced and submerged. It was the case that when submerged, they expended more energy capacity. Consequently, they consumed more fuel. At the time, the threshold for the weight of each U-boat did not allow them to carry more than half a ton of liters of diesel at a time.

  The U-boat that the expedition traveled in carried far below its capacity, and had submerged more times than the available fuel could sustain.

  Nassif watched as the indicator went from green to red in a short time—the engine was now running on reserve. He reasoned that if the boat did not go back to the surface soon, they would lose power, go down, and perish.

  "We have to go up now," he declared to the crew.

  They murmured. The destroyer was closer now. Whereas on the sonar, the other ship, which Miller was now confident would rescue them, was still far off. Worse, it may likely not make it in time before the destroyer fires at the U-boat again.

  Nassif appealed, "If we don't, we will drown."

  "Do it," Miller said.

  With the last drops of fuel, Nassif coerced the vessel upward; the engine sputtered, then it picked up again, and up the boat surged. The team held their breath as the surface of the ocean came into view. Olivia thought it was so beautiful. She opened the plastic bag and brought out her camera.

  Through the lens, she saw schools of fish scatter about as the boat came through the choppy waves, and how they looked like the ones she has seen in works of art.

  Then the picture seemed to be moving out of focus. Confused, she dropped her camera. The boat was not going to make it. The U-boat was falling back into the water, its engine whining to a halt.

  Olivia sat down hard.

  Nassif to the team, "Looks like today, we won't make it."

  Itay Friedman stepped into the cabin, gun cocked.

  —

  Admiral Huebner spread a map of half of the earth on a drawing board. The half of the earth with the Antarctic on it, that is.

  The U-boat had not come up again. Indeed, this was an evasive tactic, and they were trying to make a run for it. If that was the case, they must be trying to reach the closest landmass.

  But the closest island was at least five thousand miles away to the South. He surmised that going that far was not practical for the U-boat. He considered that they might have depleted their fuel supply too, just as he was taking water and losing speed.

  He saw an atoll, back in the direction that the luxury ship had come from. Tomas Benjamin was supposed to have stopped that vessel. Tomas was a pussy.

  Perhaps the luxury ship was a distraction, and the U-boat was docking at the atoll even at that moment.

  A fit of cold anger gripped his stomach, and he cursed Tomas Benjamin.

  —

  To give the crew some air time before the end, Nassif killed the engine. He turned the swivel chair and faced the crew. They all stared at each other. Then Cooper managed a smile.

  "Well, folks, it has been a pleasure coming with you on this expedition," he eulogized. "I should say my German vocabulary has since expanded…"

  None of the crew members seemed to find his little speech amusing. Miller was trying to reach his ship again, but the lower the U-boat dropped, the worse the reception got. Olivia took her camera and brought it to her face slowly.

  "I'd like to take our pictures," she said in an even voice, surprising herself. "If they find our remains, we will not be some faceless John Does and a Jane Doe. They'll, of course, find our research. But with our pictures, they'll know who we truly are. Say cheers—"

  "Wait."

  It was Friedman. He had been standing at the door of the cabin, his guns dangling from his side. Miller asked him if he found the major.

  "I killed him."

  "What?!" Cooper jumped where he sat.

  "And I'll kill you all if you don't do as I say," Friedman said coolly. "I'm hijacking this ship."

  Miller's face distorted in pain and anger. He came towards his bodyguard. Itay Friedman pointed his gun at Miller's head.

  "I won't hesitate to shoot you. Sir."

  "Itay? What the hell got into you?"

  "Everyone, I need you all to form a line and walk down to the engine room, now, people. I killed the major, I will kill you all if you don't do as I say." He pushed Cooper, who dragged his feet.

  "Don't try to be brave, Cooper. I don't like you. So be careful," he said to the professor.

  —

  Friedman had already opened the compartment where the engineers of the U-boat had kept a life raft. It was wide enough for seven adults to squeeze into. And the engineers were ingenious enough to put a booster in it.

  Friedman ordered Miller to pull it down. Liam Murphy was big, and he could take Itay Friedman down if he tried. He looked at Borodin, but the Russian was frowning in deep thought.

  They filed into the raft. Friedman shut the hatch over his companions. Olivia was crying, "Friedman, no, please."

  Miller tried one last time. "Itay, what are you doing?"

  Friedman punched the red button on the wall beside the hatch. Then he pulled down a lever. There was a popping sound behind the metal wall of the boat. Friedman stepped back onto a platform where the sucking mechanism that will eject the life raft could not get to him.

  The raft moved about a meter in a treadmill. The hatch came down, and the last thing Friedman saw was the weeping journalist, waving at him, saying goodbye.

  She was a good woman, he thought with some sadness.

  Yes, she was.

  —

  Olivia took a picture of her escape from the deep twice. First, when they almost made it, and the second time when Itay Friedman gave his life so they could make it out alive. Though at the time billionaire Frank Miller could not understand why his bodyguard could sacrifice himself for the team.

  Olivia kept taking the shots until they hit the surface.

  —

  Itay Friedman coughed into his hand. He looked at the blood in his hand, then he opened his shirt. The handle of a small knife was stuck to his abdomen. Santiago had stabbed him with it during his struggle with the major. The long blade had punctured his left kidney; the major had expertly twisted the hilt so that the object had gone up to his left lung.

  He was dying. There was no use trying to save himself, for there was no way he would have survived.

  Friedman staggered back to the engine room, blood dripping down his left leg and leaving a long trail behind him.

  "You still got some juice in you, I know."

  And this way, he discussed with the engine, cajoled it until the last minute when the machine woke up. It belched steamy white smoke.

  "That's my lady," Friedman yelled.

  The propellers started turning urgently, as though they suddenly possessed their own spirit, and they understood the stakes.

  Friedman took the steps with the last of his strength, two at a time. He took the seat that Nassif had been sitting in some minutes before.

  He fired the engine for the last time, and the boat slanted, then it shot forward.

  "Here I come, you bastards!"

  —

  The life raft broke the surface of the water just as Admiral Huebner was about to give the order to change course for the atoll not far away.

  "Oh, there you are."

  The exec had joined him. His spirit fell when he saw the raft.

  "Give me the 350-millimeter caliber," the admiral shouted. "I want that raft out of the water in one shot."

  The exec, blank-faced, shrugged; he gave the word, but nothing happened.r />
  "Where is my gun? Why is that damn raft still on the water!?" Admiral Huebner shrieked.

  The exec said, "The crew won't do it, sir."

  "Then make them do it!"

  "I can't, Admiral."

  The crew had armed themselves, and they were waiting for the admiral when he came down to the officers. They begrudged the admiral for their slain comrade.

  Huebner, crazy with rage, picked up his gun and began to stumble off his station. The exec called, "Sir, we have company moving in fast."

  Huebner charged back to the sonar screen. It was the U-boat.

  "Who's driving it?" he gasped.

  "Must be the devil himself, sir." The exec was trembling. "Contact is off the port side, 30 meters and closing. Advise what to do, Admiral."

  The U-boat was coming with the highest speed they had seen it do. Desperate and scared, Huebner shouted off orders.

  "Evade, evade!” Huebner yelled, feebly.

  The destroyer was too late. The U-boat crashed into the ship through the hole where her torpedo had done damage. Metal crunched against metal, the prow went through that hole, hitting the fuel tanks. Combustion followed instantly. In his last moment alive, Itay Friedman had one of the rarest grins on his face.

  Admiral Huebner, his crew, and the ship disintegrated in the ensuing explosion.

  —

  Frank Miller's ship finally sailed alongside the raft.

  Ladders were lowered from the ship, and the crew went up one after the other. The captain of the ship was a white-haired man who spoke with an English accent. He wore a bowler hat and tailcoats. He addressed Olivia formally, calling her ma'am.

  As they watched the destroyer burn down, life rafts appeared in the water. Survivors swam away from the destruction.

  From behind them, they saw a helicopter hover past. It flew low over the wreckage as the ship began to sink. A rescue team dropped ropes in the water to take the sailors to safety.

  Olivia got her camera out and took pictures of the rescue. She sighed.

  "Thank you, Itay Friedman," she whispered.

  —

  The news reported the incident.

  But like any event that the military took an interest in, there usually were elements of a cover-up. Olivia expected it. She was lounging in her room after eating dinner with the rest of the team.