by P. W. Child
“We killed that Egyptian while he prayed to the sea gods,” Manni reminded his captain. The other men stood shivering from the cold, occasionally coming off their feet from the fury of the waves. Ali had his arms wrapped tightly around the pipes protruding from the wall on the other side of the lavatories.
“Don’t say that, Manni.”
“It is true. I could not make out anything he said in that language, but I remember him saying the name of the boat while we drowned him, Ali. Ali, the boat…this…boat is named after the god of sea and rivers: Yam. That Egyptian died calling Yam, and that is what is happening here now," Manni implored. "Please, make amends or we will never make it to the German woman and her ship. We will die and walk the ocean floor for all eternity, Ali!”
Manni’s relentless begging, along with the worsening onslaught of the angry waters managed to instill an ungodly terror in the other men. They bemoaned their fate, compelled by the hand of alcohol and the evil they had been part of.
“You must take the helm, Manni,” Ali ordered. “I have to make a sacrifice for this God to release us. A storm that does not have clouds or lightning – that is the weaving of demons."
Under the blue sky, where only a few clouds were scattered on the vast expanse above the Southern African seas, the Aleayn Yam bobbed and plummeted from the ferocity of the unnatural waves. Manni and Benjamin manned the bridge. Manni took the steering wheel while Benjamin went to the radio. Faintly they could hear maydays that would ghost in and then dissipate as soon as they came. The two men exchanged looks of great concern.
Another channel revealed a conversation between the coastguard and a cargo hauler off the coast.
‘This is an anomaly. We have no idea where it came from. There is no record of earthquakes in the vicinity, not even as far down as the Dolphin Coast!’
“You hear that, Benjamin?” Manni whispered. “There is no reason for this cloudless storm. Where is the rain? Where are the thunder and the lightning?”
"I don't like it one bit," Benjamin murmured as his eyes sought the heavens for any sign of logic, just a small piece of atmospheric disturbance, but there was nothing to put him at ease. "Ali must hurry, or we're all dead."
‘The weather service has no idea what we are talking about,’ the coast guard frequency yielded. ‘Yet we have a freak tsunami on the coast of Africa! How absurd is that? We are not prone to cyclones or tsunamis. Do you have any explanation we can give the vessels out there? Because we are at a loss!’
Another voice answered from a more faint origin. ‘All I can think of is that a subterranean shift must have taken place. Not as large as a tectonic plate, but definitely some sort of quake. But how? There are no zones of tectonic friction, no fault line anywhere near the eastern coast to explain this phenomenon.’
While Manni and Benjamin awaited their heinous fate in the embrace of all superstitions ever cultivated on the mighty ocean, Ali was going resort to the vilest of rituals his home country ever taught him. With his culture firmly in the grasp of old traditions predating any form of civilization, he was no stranger to the dark practices of witch doctors. Not even the purity of the salt water could distance him from his family’s traditions in a situation as urgent as this one.
With laborious toil, he moved to the holding cell where he had left the last two original crewmen of the Aleayn Yam. It would be a disgraceful offering, but he had to use what he had – dead men instead of a living sacrifice. He had to make his offering with a despicable act of cannibalism. Ali struggled to open the door, not only because of the dreadful breakers crashing over the salvage tug but because something was blocking the door from the inside.
Finally, after the umpteenth shove with his shoulder, the door gave way, just enough for his skinny body to squeeze through. The bloated corpse of the dead Egyptian he had drowned tumbled at his feet from the violently rolling ship. Ali choked at the thick, sweet stench of death and water. He rolled the dead body over to cut out its heart. As the point of his crudely fashioned steel sank into the spongy flesh and the oily fluids of decomposition started seeping from the wound, Ali swung around to vomit.
"May the gods forgive me," he gasped. "I am a pirate, not a ghoul!”
Sick and repulsed by the cadaver, Ali stumbled to the door, hoping that the storm would soon subside and that his men would believe he had done the unthinkable. It would be his secret.
Chap ter 24 – Two Down
“Look what you’ve done, Purdue,” Nina screamed. She took the remote control from Sam and turned off the television. “You have caused a natural disaster in a part of the world where nothing like this ever happens. That should keep the coast guard away, I’m sure.”
“Oh, come now, Nina,” Purdue sighed, rubbing his tired eyes. “Did you not hear what the coast guard said on the news? They have no idea what caused it.”
“And since they are unfamiliar with tsunamis, they are desperately trying to explain it as freak waves,” Crystal added to Purdue’s argument. “What Purdue’s manipulator has done is unprecedented; therefore, the authorities here have no idea what could have caused the sudden spring tide.”
“Thank God we are not right at the beach. Those houses are flooded,” Cheryl said. “And all this damage without a cyclone… is… weird. Things like that don’t happen in South Africa… ever.”
“Agreed,” Dr. Malgas said from the couch where he had joined Mieke in a wine drinking marathon. “On the other hand, Mr. Purdue is right. They won’t know what to make of it. I’d say our secret is safe.”
“While half the region's coastal residences are under water,” Nina lamented. She could not help but feel sorry for the residents of Bluewater Bay, Algoa Bay and the coast further up north where they did not suffer the full brunt of the geomagnetically induced waves.
“The wreck is visible again,” Purdue noted nonchalantly.
“What the hell does that mean?” Nina frowned.
Crystal leaned in to see the vessel on the green and black LED screen. Sam turned to Nina to explain, "The wreck disappears every now and then."
“Excuse me?” Mieke gasped. "You say it disappears? A massive Nazi warship… just vanishes?”
Sam and Purdue nodded as if the phenomenon was nothing out of the ordinary. Nina winced.
“Christ, that is just creepy.”
“Maybe it is a problem with the sonar. Maybe the sound waves are prevented from reaching the wreck and fail to map it, creating the illusion that it is not there,” Sam reckoned, and Purdue considered it a good argument.
“That is very plausible.”
"So when are we actually going to salvage the ship?" Dr. Malgas asked a question all his affiliates had been harboring for the past few days.
“As soon as we have managed to pull it out of territorial waters, of course," Purdue said. He found it peculiar that an archeologist would be so ignorant of the proper procedure in acquiring any artifact.
“Not to mention that we cannot navigate the tug in these conditions, Dr. Malgas,” Crystal told Malgas. “These waves could well put us right down there with the Graf Spee." On mention of the ship's name, she drew the attention of Nina and Purdue for a split second before they silently went about their business again. "We'd all be nicely tugged in on the ocean floor, dead bodies occupying the salvage boat for all eternity.”
“Jesus,” Zain muttered.
Cheryl looked nervous. She needed to escape before they embarked on the salvage and before Zain and Sibu found out that the whole thing was a hoax.
“What is your problem?” Zain asked her under his breath.
Cheryl had to think quickly. “I am running out of medicine. You know what I’m saying?”
“So call your dealer and get enough for the trip,” he sneered. “I don’t want to be on the open sea with a paranoid bitch that might not be able to control herself and might blurt out my secret.”
Cheryl nodded obediently, “I will. Tonight, I’ll meet him a block from here. Otherwise, Billy will know I'm still a j
unkie." Her eyes had searched for her old mentor, once like a father to her before she had been replaced by Mieke, who knew her secret, yet never told Malgas about it.
When Cheryl had asked her substitute about it the night before, Mieke had revealed that she never told Malgas because she did not want to upset him even more what with all the stress he was already going through. But Cheryl could not help but suspect that Mieke was just keeping the revelation for the right moment.
In the evening, the waves had calmed enough for Purdue to program the next code for the satellite he had chosen. He stared at the screen, trying to spread the beam over a larger area to hopefully diminish the intensity of the waves it would cause. “Oh my God,” he muttered to himself. “It’s gone again. How the hell can it just vanish like that?”
Crystal’s phone rang.
"Oh, it's the salvage crew," she cooed. She jumped up and left the room. Sam stared at her as she vanished into the dark outside the sliding door. Nina watched him intently, amazed at his indifference toward her when Crystal was around. Sam looked spellbound by the lawyer, although he could not see her from where he sat.
“I have to know,” Nina suddenly said from behind him.
“What?”
“What is so bloody fascinating about her?” Nina snapped.
Sam smiled with that boyish charm that annoyed Nina so much, “Are you jealous, Dr. Gould?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she scoffed. “You are still almost hypnotized, even though you can’t even see her out there.”
Sam whispered, “But I can hear her.”
“Big deal,” she frowned.
“No,” he said, “you misunderstand. I am listening to her German conversation.”
“Sam,” Nina whispered back amusedly, “she is German.”
The journalist’s dark eyes played on hers for a moment, as if he was studying her. Calmly he sighed, “If her salvage contractors are Egyptian, why is she speaking German to them?”
Nina felt awfully stupid. “Let me just get my foot out of my mouth before I venture a guess…”
Sam decided not to milk the delicious moment of victory over the backfiring of Nina’s condescension and simply ran his palm down her arm, an affectionate gesture she secretly enjoyed.
“So, what is your theory on that phone call?” she asked Sam. “When I first arrived at Wrichtishousis she was on the phone for hours.”
“I have no idea. Maybe she is taking a personal call from a relative or something,” Sam speculated.
“Then why did she announce that it was the salvage crew?” Nina asked. Sam thought about it for a moment and looked at Nina. They were onto something, but what was it?
“Sam!” Dr. Malgas called. “Can I have a word with you, please?”
“Keep your ears open. You understand German. You can figure out what she says if you get close enough. Let me see what Billy has on his mind,” Sam excused himself.
“Aye,” she nodded. “Wonder what wisdom he has to share this time.”
“Be nice,” Sam smiled and winked at her. Nina was adamant. She had to know what Crystal would be so secretive about while Sam joined Billy Malgas on the front porch.
“Can we take a walk, Sam?” Malgas suggested.
"Aye, sure," Sam answered. "You seem incredibly tense for someone who is about to make a historical discovery, Billy.”
“That is what I wanted to talk about, actually,” Billy said anxiously, pulling Sam out on the street, where only the pale white orbs of the lamps could witness their conversation.
“Oh, okay,” Sam frowned. “If this has something to do with what was said during that argument…”
"Please, Sam. Allow me to explain. This is weighing heavily on my conscience, and I need your advice. I have been waiting for a moment to discuss this with you… why I initially called you,” Billy started. His voice croaked like a tired old man’s, giving Sam a foreboding feeling he could not shake.
But before the conversation could go any further, the two men were distracted by a ruckus in the neighborhood. Three voices echoed angrily in the usually quiet street.
“I know that voice,” Billy exclaimed. “That’s Cheryl, Sam. It sounds like she is in trouble!”
Cheryl was being jerked around by her arms. Two men were trying to push her into a vehicle, but she was putting up a massive fight. Her screams for help were muffled by a thick, powerful hand over her face by the large man restraining her as she kicked out wildly. As Sam and Billy rushed to her aid the other man punched her hard in the face, rendering her unconscious.
“Hey!” Sam shouted, tackling the brute who had punched her. While Sam was scuffling with him, Zain and Sibu came running, having heard the commotion from the house. They quickly subdued the attackers, but Billy insisted on knowing what was going on.
“Who are you?” Billy growled at the man Sibu was holding. “What do you want from Cheryl?”
“None of your bloody business!” the man replied, pinching his broken nose as Sibu pushed his head into the sand among the short grass with his knee. Purdue came running along with the neighbors.
“You had better tell me or I’ll let Sibu use you for target practice, you bastard!” Malgas sneered angrily.
“I’m her dealer, for fuck’s sake! I’m her dealer!” he told them. Suddenly Billy’s face sank. His rage turned to disappointment as he got up from his knees, dusting off his jeans.
“She is still doing drugs?” he asked Zain and Sibu. Zain nodded, “Yes, more than ever.” He deliberately told Malgas in front of Purdue and Sam, to eliminate her from the equation. They would never allow a strung up junkie on their excursion and would leave him with less to worry about. After all, he did not need her anymore.
Together with a kind neighbor who had offered his help, Billy Malgas escorted Cheryl to the hospital to tend to the cut above her eye. The hospital also had a rehabilitation program for drug addicts he intended to commit her to. Sam went back to the house with Purdue at his side.
“I can’t believe it,” Purdue sighed. “You alright?”
“Can we just get on the bloody ocean already?” Sam begged.
"Funny you should say that," Purdue smiled. "Crystal just informed me that the salvage tugboat has arrived a few nautical miles out that way." He smiled eagerly, pointing to the eastern horizon. "All I have to do is get on the tug and from there we can nudge the wreck a few more meters. It is virtually a stone's throw from the edge of the 12-mile-zone, obscure as it might be.”
“So we’ll be in a nutshell on those demon waves while you are fiddling with that gadget of yours again? Are you high? What if the tug capsizes?” Sam scowled. “You know, sometimes your genius is seriously questionable.”
“No, Sam. I may be reckless, but I’m not stupid,” Purdue retorted calmly, looking up at the beach house as they passed through the gate. Sam could not help but wonder what Malgas had wanted to tell him. Crystal, Nina, and Mieke were packing everything up for the harrowing trip ahead to reach the salvage tug that was waiting for them in international waters.
“Cheryl and Dr. Malgas will not be joining us on the trip,” Purdue informed them, followed by the two security advisors who nursed the skin over their knuckles with some ice from the freezer.
“My God, Sam!” Nina shouted inadvertently at the sight of Sam’s bloody mouth and nose. She instantly realized that she was not supposed to care, when Crystal was already checking his cuts.
“I have just the thing to fix you right up, Liebling. Come,” Crystal urged him. She took him by the hand and dragged him to the upstairs bathroom with her. When she closed the door to be alone with Sam, Nina felt a nauseating twist in her innards. Reflexively she turned her attention to Purdue and decided to keep to his company from now on.
Chapter 25 – Welcome Aboard
The next morning was overcast. Out on the sea, the bizarre occurrence had returned, but with Purdue’s new configuration the disturbances caused by magnetic waves were less conspicuous and certainly
far less destructive. He was concerned that his locator may have been unable to establish the precise location of the wreck. Purdue found it increasingly peculiar that his sonar would occasionally report no object at all at the very spot the wreck had been detected a moment before.
“I am dumbfounded by the wreck disappearing every now and then,” Purdue mumbled behind his hand. His chin was resting on his palm as he leaned on the table, studying the oddity and considering every scientific theory he could summon to try and solve the conundrum.
“Maybe your magnetic waves are interfering with your sonar,” Nina suggested as she sank on the sofa next to him. The rest of the group was preparing to leave, so she had come to help him. “We can figure all that out on the boat. We have to go.”
“I know. I know,” he sighed. Purdue loathed admitting defeat when he couldn’t solve a scientific puzzle. With his knowledge of sound waves and frequencies, radar, sonar and the like, he expected to have at least some inkling of what caused the ship to disappear. But he was at a loss. He accompanied Nina onto the yacht he had hired to take them out to sea, courtesy of a local who was kind enough to go out this early and dumb enough not to ask why.
The yacht crashed down over each crest of white foam thrashing to the next wave as they were heading towards the edge of territorial waters. Sam and Crystal were keeping the skipper company while the security advisors seemed to be engaged in an argument over football scores. Nina held fast onto the steel railing next to the bench she sat on, trying to keep steady in the fierce rolling of the vessel. Mieke did the same, regretting that she had agreed to come on the trip to represent Dr. Malgas.
"Ewww," she winced as she caught sight of Sibu vomiting over the side, pale as a sheet from seasickness.
“Oh dear,” Purdue howled. “I hope he is the only one affected to such an extent. How are you feeling, Nina?” He smiled, knowing that he was going to get one of her looks again.
“Oh, I am just dandy, thank you,” she snapped, clinging to the handle and Purdue’s arm at the same time. He remembered something she had said before they had left the land, something that made more sense than she would have guessed.
