by P. W. Child
Chapt er 29 – Shades of Evil
Under the sun-streaked surface of the Indian Ocean, the wreck's eerily bent rods seemed to reach for the sky overhead, trapped in its watery grave of rust and corrosion. It was grotesque and massive, magnified by the water. Sam felt that familiar terror well up inside him again, but he stayed with Purdue, who saw it up close for the first time. In Sam's lens, the billionaire was like a game show host, smiling and pointing to all kinds of fascinating aspects of the wreck. He had put in a brand new memory card just before the dive, but while he followed Purdue wherever he went, Sam tried his utmost not to touch the ship.
Especially now, that he knew there was something strange going on with the vessel, he was even warier than before. He could not help but feel as if that same consciousness he had sensed during his first dive was threatening him once more, the invisible eyes of the ship watching him, knowing that he knew. Crystal had taken two of the divers further down with her to estimate the damage to the turrets and some of the plating along the conning tower and aft tower. Purdue motioned for Sam to join him and one of the welders to film how the hull was patched and how the water was pumped out of the flooded compartment behind the patch.
As much as Sam enjoyed watching the process, he could not help but feel the ever-present sinister vibration. He kept checking his diving watch to see how deep they were, and then he filmed it just for the record. Almost obsessively he kept track of the elapsed time, which was rapidly approaching the end of the seven-hour-cycle. Sam imagined that being present during the ship’s disappearance had to cause an immense shift in water displacement and drag him to the ocean floor. Such nightmarish thoughts plagued Sam every minute he spent near the old Nazi ship. He wondered how this vessel could exist when Nina had been so sure that all the German battleships were accounted for.
It was minutes away from the wreck’s expected disappearance when they entered one compartment of the lower decks that was still flooded. It was a large area that would have to be patched and pumped dry during the next dive. Sam following Purdue and the other diver who led the way. Floating freely between the threatening bars, rods, and wiring of the vibrating ship Sam kept filming. Some peculiar instruments caught his eye, and he stopped to investigate.
What he found explained the origin of his constantly fluctuating emotions and nausea when he came too close to the vessel. To some degree, it also gave reason to why Sam had a feeling that the ship was alive, with its infrasound vibrations continuously pulsing through him. Although Crystal had dismissed his findings as stress-related after the first dive, he now knew for sure why he was feeling a distinct energy radiate from the wreck. On the one hand, it comforted him that it was just the result of active equipment, but on the other hand, it unnerved him that anything would still be active on a ship that had been submerged for over seventy years.
He filmed the electromagnetic field generators fitted in the hollow walls of different compartments and niches designed to house them in the floors. Sam was amazed. Magnets, gravitational chargers, and other copper-based materials ran all through the section. It looked like a dormitory that had been converted into a control room, but how? It did not make sense. There was evidence of beds and lavatories, even medical supplies and tattered clothing, but it was not a living area by the farthest reaches.
Too many sophisticated machines took up residence in the same space where thick cables snaked into desks with meter readers and gauges. The closer Sam came to the cables the sicker he felt. There was a silent hum emanating from them, growing louder with every passing minute as if it charged something. Suddenly it dawned on Sam. The generators were the reason the ship teleported.
A door to his right kept falling open and closed in slow motion from the gaining wave activity of the water, and Sam swam over to see where it led. He kept an eye out behind him to make sure Purdue was still at the entrance before he entered the pitch black room behind the swaying door. In his stomach, the pulsing energy of the gravitational waves exacerbated his nausea, but he had to see what was hidden there behind the instrument panels. What he saw filled him with such horror that he could not get out of the cabin quickly enough.
Without a care for the nasty vibration that coursed through him at every touch of the pipes, Sam propelled himself forward to reach Purdue and the welder. They had no idea what he had seen, but he had it on film, and he had to surface. Purdue could see that Sam was spooked and signaled him to continue up to the surface.
On the other side of the big vessel, Crystal was holding down a sheet for bolting. While the other two men from Ali's crew fired up the welding equipment, she checked her watch. It would soon be time for the ship to disappear, but, as curious as she was about its destination, she did not want to stick around to see what was going to happen. Her blue eyes scrutinized the exit, a small chimney-like chute facing upward to the faint light of the surface. They had entered the ship through the chute, having forced open the heavy steel bulkhead that had sealed the compartment.
They had already pumped out most of the water from the compartment, which was the best access point for the hull patch. She gestured for one of the men to take over where she was holding the patch so that his colleague could weld. With hand signals, she told them that she needed to retrieve the toolbox so they could bolt the next sheet. They gave her a thumbs-up and proceeded to weld the cracks shut. Gradually, the chamber grew darker. Eventually, it was completely dark, save for the blow torch fire that illuminated the steel walls.
They checked their watches. It was almost time to surface, and they had to pack up. Crystal was gone, even though the toolbox she was supposed to collect was still sitting on the far end of the compartment. Concerned they looked around, but the master diver was gone. Alarmed, they used their blowtorches to look around, yet they could not find any trace of her. When the designated evacuation time approached, they were still busy packing up, but they knew they would get it done on time.
It was when they were ready to leave that genuine terror took a hold of them. The exit above them was blocked, sealed off by the closed bulkhead. That had been the reason for the increased darkness while they were working. In utter panic, the two divers rushed to the sealed bulkhead to pry it open, but it was too heavy and wedged from the other side. She had locked them in. Desperately seeking a way out, the two men searched the compartment, but there was no other way out. The only other way would have been the cracks that they had so carefully welded shut.
Suddenly the hum of the wreck grew to a thunderous roar, a low-frequency drone that grew louder with every second that passed until the two men could feel their organs bruise under the steadily increasing pulse of the radio waves. An unholy magnetic force gripped them along with everything else that was within the unified fields of gravity and electromagnetic stasis. Unbearable to their bodies, the fields converged and disintegrated the two men, fusing them to the bulkhead and the hull, just like the crew members of the USS Eldridge so many decades ago.
Not far from the Aleayn Yam, the ocean surface suddenly dropped into the void left by the sudden disappearance of the wreck. Ali stared at the phenomenon, in awe, speechless from fear of the oddity he had never seen before.
“Two men perished. Two of my men!” he bemoaned the deaths of the divers, thinking they had drowned for their tardiness.
Even though they were mourning the lost divers, Manni, and the others stood beside him, marveling at the unusual spectacle. After the water had evened out and the salvage tug stopped rolling, they went back to their respective stations.
“Dave, I’ll meet you at dinner. I am exhausted,” Crystal excused herself and made her way to her cabin.
“Alright, darling,” he shouted gleefully. “Sam! Sam, I am sorry to be such a pain, but could we analyze the footage, please?”
Sam was shaken, but he hid it well behind a complaint of fatigue. After all, it had been hours of repairs, going up and down to get new material and filming various stages of their progress. He ran h
is fingers through his hair. “Purdue, I am beyond knackered. Exhausted!”
“I know. So am I, but I would love to see what you captured, even if it is just from the time index you and I were inside with Isho,” Purdue coaxed. Sam exhaled heavily and pulled Purdue aside.
“I saw something down there. Something dreadful. Dave, I don’t want to go down there again. And if I could give you a word of warning…” Sam spoke softly, looking around to make sure nobody else heard him. “We should leave this damned ship right here and fuck off back to Scotland. If Crystal wants it so desperately, let her have it.”
Purdue frowned. He could not believe what Sam was trying to convince him of. Nina came out of the lavatory, and her face lit up when she saw the two men.
“Hello handsomes!” she said way too loudly. It was unlike her to be so girly and flamboyant, but they soon learned why she was behaving like that. "Tell me all about the dive!" With that, she pulled them into Sam's cabin and shut the door. Her face sank immediately as soon as they were alone.
“They were watching us. We have to talk. There is something weird going on here, guys,” she said.
“See?” Sam told Purdue.
“The crew members on this boat are not Egyptian,” she told them. “I wasn’t able to place the language, but Mieke and I think that those men are not the salvage crew Crystal hired.”
Purdue and Sam stared at her, unsettled by her revelation.
“Is this why you want me to abandon this endeavor, Sam?” Purdue asked.
"Uh, no, actually," Sam replied. Now he was thoroughly worried. There was more to the trouble already piling up. "My reasons are entirely different, but equally pressing."
“What are your reasons?” Nina asked.
“Down there I saw something that shocked me to the core, not just for what I saw, but for what it meant,” he started. “I think the wreck is a failed experiment in unified field theory, one the Nazis attempted after the Philadelphia Experiment.”
Nina gasped. She briefly recounted what Mieke had brought to her attention. Purdue snapped his fingers. "Of course! How did I not see that? The ship must have been used as a test, Nina. This is why you could account for all the other battleships, but not this one!"
Sam looked Purdue in the eye. "My fear is that if we tow this ship, and it teleports, it could take us with it. Can you imagine the implications, Purdue?”
“I can,” Purdue replied, “but if we could tow it before it disappeared…”
“Christ, Purdue!” Nina seethed. “Did none of what we just said get through to you? I just told you that the crew is not who they say they are. That alone is cause for alarm. Sam worries that the Nazi vessel might kill us all if we tow it, and you still think this is a lucrative venture? This is about our lives, Purdue!”
He had no retort. Once again, he was willing to wager their lives for one of his attempts to satisfy his craving for adventure. Sam’s big dark eyes implored him. “Purdue, down there I saw the mangled bodies of people embedded in the walls of the ship.”
Nina put her hand in front of her mouth not to yelp, but her eyes were wide in horror. Sam continued. “Do you know what that must be like, David? That ship is fucking evil; yet another Nazi atrocity! Its very existence is a secret - an evil secret.”
Chapte r 30 – Insidious
Mieke and Zain looked over the ocean as the sun was about to set.
“I don’t think I can eat tonight,” Zain admitted. “Those people drowning really got to me.”
She looked taken aback by his sentiment. Mieke placed her hand on his and moved closer to his large frame. He looked down at her, noticing how beautiful she was. Like Crystal, she had enthralling blue eyes that pierced through anyone looking directly at them.
“You? A hardened security advisor should not be put off by something as mundane?” she said.
“Mundane?” he snapped. “I had lunch with those two men, Mieke! I got to know them. Granted yes, they were scum without morals and terrible manners, but they were brothers…in a sense.” He paused for a moment, recalling what he just said to make sure it was accurate for the likes of her. “I don’t expect a girl like you to understand.”
"A girl like me?" she asked offendedly.
“Yes, an academic with a safe little life. Probably a rich mommy and daddy who paid for your education. You know nothing about the brotherhood of crude men,” he explained almost proudly.
“Really?” she asked. “I have to concede, I do have a rich daddy who paid for my studies, yes. But if you think I know nothing about the brotherhood of crude men, my dear, you are sorely mistaken.” Mieke scoffed, branding a wry little smile that held no amity or joy. It was a smirk of vengeance and hatred. “I was raised in Europe and came to South Africa only three years ago. And you know what my first taste of your miserable country was?”
“No, what?” he asked.
“My roommate and I were held for seventeen hours in our fucking flat! We were raped and beaten by three animals just like these brothers of yours. Nobody came to help when they heard us screaming when they heard the breaking glass or the thumps of our bodies hitting the walls and floor!" she sneered at him.
Zain did not know what to say. For the first time in his adult life, a tale of violence upset him. Usually, he was the attacker in stories like hers, the kidnapper and perpetrator of physical abuse against women – women like the one he had been chasing before finding out about Dr. Malgas and his historical find. He dared not to let Mieke know what fabric he was cut from.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “For what it is worth, anyway.”
“Don’t ever make assumptions about women like me, Zain,” she said, sounding dejected.
They stood quietly overlooking the waves of the Indian Ocean, the constant rush of the frothy water from under the huge tugboat. He held her hand, hoping that Sibu would not come out and see his tender side. “I will make sure these animals don’t come near you, Mieke. I promise.”
She smiled a welcome response. "Ooh, so you are my personal bodyguard now?"
“Yes,” he smiled. It was strange to see Zain smile, but Mieke was elated that he was in such a good mood. “Say, don’t you have to check in with Dr. Malgas?” he asked. “I have noticed that there is no reception on this boat, not even satellite.”
“That’s weird,” Mieke frowned. “I hadn’t noticed yet. You see, I don't have to contact him until I start cataloging the finds. Besides, he has enough on his plate with this Cheryl girl he is so close to.”
“Oh yes,” Zain recalled the junky he and Sibu were going to deal a fate to… one similar to Mieke’s story, which he could never reveal. “Wonder if she will recover.”
“Don’t really care,” Mieke remarked indifferently. She looked at her watch.
“Will you excuse me?” she asked. “I have to go over some footage with Crystal before the next dive tomorrow.”
Zain was surprised, but he reckoned she was put off by talking about Cheryl. “Alright. I’ll see you later.”
Mieke disappeared into the mess hall, passing through the empty galley and made her way up the steps to the quarters of the expedition members. Nina and Purdue’s cabins were empty, but Sam’s door was closed.
“Need some company?” Sibu asked, peeking from his cabin.
“No,” she barked rudely. But then she realized that over her eagerness to get to Crystal’s cabin she had abandoned her manners. “I’m sorry, Sibu,” she smiled. “I’m just in a hurry, okay? I’ll hang out with you later, maybe?”
“Sure, no problem,” he said, but his eyes were dark with rage and lust. She noticed that he had been drinking the same stuff Ali was so fond of. As far as she knew, the moonshine was anything but Egyptian too, but she kept that to herself for now. It was something she needed to share with Crystal, though, to make sure there were no unforeseen complications on such an important excursion. She knocked at Crystal’s door.
“Come in!”
Mieke closed the door behind her. Cr
ystal was sitting on the bed with a small laptop on her briefcase, heavily invested on what she saw on the screen. Mieke joined Crystal on the bed and kissed her on her neck.
“Was ist?” she asked Crystal, lazily playing with her dark hair. Crystal looked at her young lover, but her face remained stern. She sighed, “I have found the last of the coordinates, but it would be difficult to get Purdue to fund another expedition. I don’t know what to do.”
“I can just pull the same con on a professor there. Where is it?” she asked.
Crystal looked displeased. “Japan. Can you believe it?”
“Actually, it’s not so surprising, considering they belonged to the Axis powers during World War II,” Mieke reminded Crystal. “So now we have all the locations?”
"Yes," Crystal smiled happily. "All seven sites are logged, but…” she pointed her finger at Mieke, “…we should bring her in this time – once and for all.”
“There is too little time. Seven hours to get her to the nearest port to dismantle her – forgive me for playing the Debbie Downer here – impossible,” Mieke remarked, shaking her head. “Let alone to Germany! How are we ever going to get her there?”
“We don’t. I have calculated it. According to the GPS’s you planted on the two divers the ship is now on the ocean floor of the Sea of Japan, just 400km off the coast of South Korea. In two hours it will teleport and appear off the coast of Puerto Rico, then another hour later it will be in the Russian Kara Sea,” Crystal explained.
“That would have been perfect! From the Kara Sea it would be a short tow to Germany, but no, we had to catch her way off in the godforsaken south!” Mieke complained.
“Look, Malgas was the only gullible academic we could find to fall for this con, Mieke. There was nothing else we could do. There was no other way to get Cleave involved, and without Cleave, there is no Purdue. Do you understand?” Crystal reminded her.
