The Lance

by Alex Lukeman

  "Senator, Acting Director CIA is on line two."

  "Thank you, Addie."

  Greenwood chaired the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee. He picked up his phone and activated the scrambler.

  "Wendell, how are you?"

  "Fine, Gordon. A beautiful day out there, isn't it? Have you got a minute?"

  Senator Greenwood knew Wendell Lodge well. The two men often played together at the elite Bull Run Country Club, overlooking the Civil War battleground. From the club it was possible to see the spot where General Jackson had stood immovable as a stone wall, the air around him filled with minie balls and grape shot. At Bull Run the minie balls had been replaced by golf balls arcing toward the blue sky.

  CIA was political. Hearings were coming up to move someone into the Director's slot and Wendell Lodge wanted the job. No one would get to the Director's office at Langley if the senator decided to oppose him. It didn't hurt Lodge's chances that he and Greenwood were Yale classmates and members of Skull and Bones.

  All the same, a little shared information of the right sort went a long way. There were lots of ways to get information in Washington. It came down to who you knew. In the Capitol, power was the name of the game and information was the currency of power. You needed money, a lot of it, but information was the more valuable commodity.

  Lodge said, "There's something that needs your attention as Chairman of the committee."

  "Oh?"

  "Are you briefed on the Project?"

  Greenwood allowed a small laugh. There wasn't much he didn't know about the intelligence community. "You mean the President's attempt to circumvent your agency?"

  "That's the one." Lodge considered his next words. "I know the Director of the unit, Elizabeth Harker. One of her people was in Jerusalem. You probably saw him on TV, shooting the man who went after Rice."

  "Yes, I know about Harker."

  "I've just learned she's sent her team to Argentina on some covert mission. She's acting under Rice's authority. I thought in your capacity as Chairman you might be interested in knowing about it. I'm getting a bit tired of her antics. She's stepped into my bailiwick before, and when she does she makes a lot of trouble."

  "Where in Argentina, Wendell?"

  "Their flight plan ends at an Argentine air base near Mar del Plata, on the Atlantic coast. They took diving gear, weapons and underwater communications equipment. I don't think they're down there for a vacation."

  Greenwood sipped from a glass of water on his desk. "If Rice and Harker are in collusion about something and hiding it, a look by the Committee into what's going on might be in order."

  "My thought exactly, Gordon. Right now Rice is riding the popularity generated by that bomb in Jerusalem, but that won't last. If public hearings turned up Presidential involvement with questionable covert operations, it wouldn't hurt your potential candidacy any. It might even help us get you nominated and into the Oval Office. There's strong sentiment you would make a good candidate. You know you can count on me."

  "I appreciate your call, Wendell. Let's get together at the Club next weekend."

  "I look forward to it."

  Greenwood set the phone down and looked out his window. After a moment, he picked up the phone again and dialed.

  On the seventh floor at Langley, Wendell Lodge placed another call, this time to South America.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Carter looked out the window at the endless canopy of jungle greenery passing below. They were somewhere over South America.

  He didn't like this mission. He didn't like deep water. He always imagined something with teeth waiting for him under the surface. Lamont, on the other hand, had probably been born with flippers and a mask and if something with teeth tried to bother him, Nick was pretty sure he knew who'd win. He wasn't worried about Lamont. Selena was a different story.

  He didn't want to worry about Selena. He told himself it would be different if she'd come out of an intelligence or military background. It would be different if he'd never slept with her. It would be different if he'd never met her. It pissed him off, having to worry.

  He had to hand it to her. Not many people would jump at the chance to dive on a Nazi wreck two hundred feet down. He glanced over at her. She was reading an article on gender specific phrases in proto Indo-European languages. Nick had been reading a mystery about a wise-cracking detective couple in Boston that hung out with a psychopathic sidekick. Sometimes he saw a little too much of himself in the author's fictional hero, but it passed the time.

  He felt a headache starting. He went to the mini-bar for another whiskey. The view from the window hadn't changed. After awhile he fell asleep.

  Darkness. It was cold, very cold, a chill that ate into his bones. He was in a small room, pitch black except for a dull, reddish glow coming from somewhere. In the glow, something was lying on the ground. He wanted to see what it was, but he didn't want to see, either.

  He went over to it. It was a corpse dressed in a naval uniform, a seaman. He turned it over. The face was dried and sunken in on itself, eyes open and glazed. The pupils were a splotched milky white. The skin was brown and dry and shrunken like old leather. The lips were pulled back in a horrible smile. Stained teeth grinned at him in the eerie light.

  He stepped back, afraid. The light came from a box glowing dark red in the darkness. He knew he had to see what was inside. He forced himself to walk to it and place a hand on the lid.

  Then the lid was open and he was looking at his own severed head. He screamed.

  "Nick!" Selena was shaking him. "Nick. Wake up."

  He opened his eyes. The sound of the engines droned outside the window. The endless jungle canopy passed below. She sat down next to him. "You were having another nightmare."

  Nick rubbed his face. "God, I hate these."

  "I know Israel was rough." She rested her hand on his arm. "I've been thinking about you. About these nightmares and headaches you're having."

  He looked out the window. "I don't know what to do about these dreams. It's getting so I don't want to go to sleep."

  "You haven't been getting much sleep. Maybe that's part of the problem."

  "Catch 22, huh?"

  "Maybe you ought to think about seeing somebody."

  "Like a shrink?"

  "No, not a shrink. A counselor. Someone who could help you deal with the stress."

  "You think I'm stressed?"

  She laughed. "Are you kidding? Your week wasn't exactly relaxing."

  "Wasn't boring, though."

  "You know about PTSD. You know you've got it. If you talked with someone it could help."

  "You want me to see someone."

  "Yes."

  "I'll think about it."

  "There's something else. You're drinking a lot."

  He'd been about ready to get another drink when she said that.

  "You think I'm drinking too much?"

  He started to get angry. It came out in his voice.

  "Let me see if I've got this right. You think I need a shrink and that I'm drinking too much. Anything else you want to say?"

  "Not a shrink. And yes, you're drinking too damn much. And no, there's nothing else."

  She got up and went back to her seat.

  Nick got his drink and looked out the window.

  He looked at the whiskey in his hand and set it down. His head hurt.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Tourist brochures called Mar del Plata the "Pearl of the Atlantic". From the air it didn't look much like a pearl. The city was gray and bleak under overcast skies. The plane banked out over the water on final approach. Below them a scimitar of smooth sand sliced into the cold, white capped waters of the Atlantic. A long, unbroken crescent curve of beach ended in a rocky cape jutting out into the ocean. Miles of hotels, houses, beach cabanas and high rises lined the shore. In the summer tourist season thousands of people would come here and pack together like sardines on the beach. Now it was mostly deserted.
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br />   Selena's Spanish charmed the suspicious Argentine Major who met them at the air base outside of the city. His eyes kept going to her breasts. He gave her his phone number.

  The diving gear weighed several hundred pounds. It was packed into four bulky aluminum cases. A fifth case held weapons. Personal things were stuffed into four black bags. The team loaded everything into a dented white van and headed into town, trailing blue exhaust smoke behind.

  The house Harker had secured was eight blocks from the beach. They took the gear inside. Heavy, dark furniture covered in brown fabric and cracked leather weighed down the rooms. The house smelled stale, of shut in dust and old cooking. Dark brocade drapes covered the windows.

  It was like stepping back into the nineteenth century.

  The team gravitated to the kitchen and gathered around a large table. Lamont spread out a chart of the waters off the coast.

  He gestured at the chart. "This whole area is called the Argentine Sea," he said. He'd marked a small "X" where the British Admiralty report stated the sub had gone down.

  "The coastal shelf goes out a ways and then falls off big time, thousands of feet deep. Doesn't look like we're going to run into anything unusual, but we're dealing with the Falkland Current. It's strong. At that depth and fifteen miles offshore, it will be a factor."

  Lamont spread a large blueprint of a Nazi submarine over the chart. The U-Boat was huge, almost the length of a football field. The drawings showed one large deck gun forward and two twin 20MM antiaircraft guns mounted on the deck aft of the conning tower.

  "These plans are for a Type IX D. They were used as command vessels for the Wolf Packs in the early days of the war. After the Nazis took France, they built radio transmitters on the coast to take over command functions and most of the Type IX's were converted to carry cargo."

  He ran his hand over the plans. "The one we're looking for is a D2. It's the same as this, except the engines were better and the Germans took out the torpedo tubes to make space. There could be something in the aft or forward storage areas. Even if we find the sub, there may be no way to get inside. If we can, the best place to look for anything is the storage areas and the control room and captain's quarters."

  He tapped his finger on the drawing. The captain's quarters were a tiny space little bigger than a bunk, set off with a curtain for privacy. It was located next to the control room and aft of the conning tower on the port side.

  Ronnie frowned. "The Captain didn't rate a separate cabin?"

  "Nope. No privacy on a Nazi sub. It wasn't fun. The crew wore the same clothes the whole time they were out. Regulations allowed one change of underwear and one extra pair of socks. No one bathed for three months at a stretch. Their Navy issued cologne to cut the stink."

  "What are we looking for?" Selena brushed hair back from her forehead.

  Carter looked at the plans. "Anything that could tell us why the sub was in Antarctica. A log book or record of the voyage, or any cargo she carried. Someplace they'd keep important records, like a locker or a safe."

  He still thought this was a waste of time. Nothing on paper could have survived after all those years under water.

  "No way we'll get into a safe," Lamont said. "We don't even know if we can find the wreck, let alone get into it."

  "Maybe it's a little late to ask," Nick said, "but you sure you've got the gear you need for this?"

  "Yeah, we're set. Full face masks with transceivers good to five hundred meters and voice activated mikes. The electronics on the rebreathers adjust the mix according to pressure and demand. We won't have to sweat oxygen toxicity."

  Ronnie said, "Oxygen is toxic? I thought you needed it to breathe."

  "You do, but at 50 meters, the pressure drives oxygen in the blood stream to toxic levels. The deeper you go, the less oxygen you need. Too much and you get oxygen narcosis. First thing you know, you're in trouble. That's one reason the full masks are good. You can't spit out the mouthpiece and drown if you have a convulsion. The gear will feed us the right amount of breathing gas as we need it."

  "Sounds easy."

  "Nothing's easy two hundred feet down." Lamont scratched his nose.

  "How long do we stay on the bottom?" Selena asked.

  "Deep is always dangerous. I think we ought to limit it. Say ten or fifteen minutes max. That will speed up the decompression stops also."

  Nick looked at them. "Anything else?"

  No one spoke. He looked at his watch. "Let's hit the rack. Long day tomorrow."

  They went to their separate rooms.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  The harbor at Mar del Plata was big and crowded with bright yellow fishing boats. The waterfront was busy. Hundreds of screeching gulls circled and dived above the docks. The sea air smelled of fish and diesel and food cooking in stands and restaurants along the waterfront. The sun cast little warmth and the spring weather was clear and cold. Nick pulled up the collar of his jacket against the breeze sweeping in off the ocean.

  He didn't want a local captain along asking questions. He could handle a moderate sized boat and read the charts and had the certifications with him to prove it. Some fancy talking and extra hard cash got them an older wooden boat with a high, glass enclosed wheelhouse. The engine might have been new when Peron was in power. The boat was painted red and white. It was equipped with radio, a fish finder, gasoline generator, a small galley and a bilge pump that clanked with an ominous sound.

  The team headed east and south, past Cape Corrientes and out onto the Argentine Sea. Ronnie and Selena laid the gear out on deck. Lamont set up the underwater communications station in the wheelhouse, an Aquacom STX transceiver designed for military use. Once in the water, Selena and Lamont would have continuous contact with the surface.

  Two hours later, Nick throttled down at the coordinates posted in the Admiralty report. Whatever was left of U-886 waited somewhere below. Lamont fired up a deep scan sonar unit he'd brought from the States. Nick set up a grid pattern. They started a slow search of the area.

  Two and a half hours later they hadn't found anything.

  "I hate this part." Lamont watched the sonar screen.

  "Waiting?" Nick rubbed his ear. It was tingling.

  A cold chill swept over him. A flat humming started in his ears.

  "We're close," he said. He shook off the chill. He could almost hear his grandmother muttering.

  "What? Hey, wait a sec." Lamont peered at the screen. "There's something coming up."

  The depth indicator read two hundred and thirty feet to the ocean floor. A scattering of small black blips appeared on screen. Then a long, cigar shape. Nick throttled down.

  Lamont gave Nick a strange look. "That's got to be it! How did you know? That's a debris field. She opened up when she went down. Keep us over the wreck."

  He stopped as if he were about to say something, shook his head and went aft. He dropped a mooring line with markers and an ascension ladder over the side. The line was a crucial safety factor for Selena and Lamont underwater. If it wasn't on target they'd have to come back up and start over again.

  Lamont and Selena got their gear on. Nick listened to them talking.

  "Down there, you follow my lead. We clear?"

  "Got it."

  "If you have to bail out, don't mess around, you won't have a lot of time. Head for the surface, remember your stops, don't panic. I'll be right behind you."

  She nodded and donned her face mask. She made a minor adjustment and gave a thumbs up. Her voice came over the speaker.

  "It's good."

  Lamont buttoned up, adjusted his mask. "Comm okay?"

  Nick spoke into his headset. "Loud and clear."

  Lamont and Selena entered the water. They surfaced for a moment. Seconds later they were gone from sight beneath the waves.

  "How's the signal?" Nick said into the microphone.

  "Five by five." Lamont's voice came back.

  "Five by five," Selena said.

  He tu
gged on his ear. Now there was nothing to do but wait.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  The water was cold and clean. Selena matched Lamont's steady, rippling movement as they followed the mooring line down. There was plenty of light. It was a stroke of luck to get a bright, sunny day. Even at 70 meters, there would still be light to see by. Selena felt the tug of the Falkland current, but it was only an annoyance. Something to be aware of and compensate for.

  The sub was somewhere out of sight below. The blue of the water deepened as they passed 30 meters. She breathed easily with the full mask. She felt a little lightheaded. She checked the mix, but it was only the thrill of it, the love of the unexplored.

  And the danger.

  Selena loved diving. This was the dive of a lifetime.

  She didn't know the names of the fish swimming around her, but there were a lot of them. So far she hadn't seen any sharks. Sharks didn't bother her; she'd seen plenty in the past. There were supposed to be sea lions in the area. She felt for the razor sharp knife at her side. She wasn't sure she wanted to see a sea lion. They were aggressive and territorial, nothing to fool with. This was their world, not hers.

  "Selena." Lamont's voice sounded in her headset. "Coming up on fifty meters. Check your oxygen level."

  "Roger."

  Selena looked at the meter that measured oxygen partial pressure level. It was well away from the 1.4 bar that meant narcosis and possible death. Everything was working. Closed circuit rebreathers were the only way to go for deep dives. At least they were the way to go if everything kept working.

  The water was getting darker. Bits of floating sediment drifted all around. The sea floor came into view. Selena began to see objects scattered about. A layer of greenish-brown silt covered everything, softening the outlines of debris spewed from the submarine when she'd plunged to her death. She saw a cook stove lying on its back. A large and ugly fat lipped fish peered out at her from the open oven. Selena thought of pans of eggs and sausage and soups and cakes being cooked on that stove.