by P. W. Child
“I get it, Crystal,” Mieke nodded, “but how far can we get in seven hours?”
“Not far, for now, but we just need to get to Yemen to dismantle her. Now we have to make do with towing her as high up north as we can before she disappears again. The next time she’ll reappear at the new coordinates we had reached before she teleported away. A few days and a lot of patience,” Crystal smiled, stroking Mieke’ cheek.
“And once she is dismantled?” the young blonde asked.
“We’ll have the technology they failed to harness in World War II, my darling,” Crystal smiled. “The Order will bow to our will because we will have the power of Vril to drive the unified fields and we will be the only ones who know how to contain and control it.”
“And all that’s on the ship?” Mieke asked.
“Correct.”
“Then why did they fail? If the ship has everything the Eldridge failed at, why is she teleporting every few hours? Why did she sink?” Mieke asked.
“Does that matter?” Crystal asked. She was getting annoyed with her girlfriend’s incessant questioning.
"Of course, it matters. Listen, Crystal, I love you. I want you to rule the underworld and be at your right hand to do your bidding, my love. But I am not some dumb little girl who follows orders blindly. I might look like a bimbo, but I have a brain, and I want to know what I am involved in," Mieke insisted. She did not expect Crystal’s response at all. The dark haired beauty grabbed her by the hair and slapped her across the face. With cool and calm command she licked Mieke’s face and whispered, “You are involved with me. And that is all you need to concern your pretty little head with. Are we clear?”
Mieke nodded, her face burning and her nose bleeding. It was not the first time she had provoked Crystal’s abusive side, but her love and her loyalty kept her in the pit.
"Let's get some supper, love," Crystal suggested as if nothing had happened. She released the young academic and put away her laptop. "Clean yourself up and meet me in the mess hall."
“Yes, Crystal.”
Chap ter 31 – The Secret is Out
Three Days Later – Between the Comoros and Tanzania
At just after 2 pm the group waited outside, ready to lift the ship.
Purdue had his tablet on hand to see when the ship would appear on the sonar readings so that they could dive immediately. During the previous dive, they had completed significant repairs and all that was left now was to lift the heavy cruiser and tow her towards Yemen. Ali kept to himself, only meeting with his men when the expedition members were asleep. The plan was to wait until they approached Somalia before taking the group of unsuspecting passengers captive and loot the ship they were towing. It was worth the wait and the annoying charade.
“Where is Sam?” Crystal asked. “He has to get this on film. It is the next big step of the salvage.”
“He’ll be here,” Purdue smiled. “Relax; it’s a good twenty minutes before she’ll appear again.”
Nina and Sam were in Nina’s cabin. He had been very secretive since the last dive when he had dared to go back to where he had lost his nerve.
“I must admit, I never thought you would go down there again,” Nina said as he hooked up his equipment to her laptop.
"I had to. My original footage was destroyed because of the magnetic waves. God, I hate digital," he moaned. "But yesterday I went with old school battery and film, and I found some details that should interest you.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, completely captivated.
“You know how you accounted for the battle cruisers of the German Kriegsmarine, right? You said all the ships manufactured by the Germans had either been scuttled or dismantled,” Sam clarified.
“Aye, so tell me what you have, for fuck’s sake. You are driving me crazy,” she said. Her tone was a mix of exhilaration and annoyance.
Sam spoke in a low voice, “What I’m about to tell you is the biggest secret in maritime history.”
Nina was about to burst. Her dark eyes shimmered with intrigue, and she almost forgot to breathe. Sam showed her the footage he had recaptured on film negatives. Skeletal remains of humans were embedded in the metal walls of the interior of the ship. He showed her the panels and instruments, the generators and the living quarters.
“You see that? Those men were not crew members, Nina; not like the USS Eldridge. Those were Jewish Germans who thought they were cruising to freedom,” he revealed.
“Sam, there was a German ship during the war that took Jewish refugees to Cuba, but when they got there, the passengers were not allowed to disembark, and Cuba revoked all but a handful of visas. The captain then steered the ship towards the Florida coast, but the US authorities also refused to let it dock, despite direct appeals to President Franklin Roosevelt. Soon the captain had no choice but to turn around and head back to Europe…” Nina relayed the story of the MS St Louis, a German ocean liner that was supposed to bring 908 Jews to freedom in 1939. Sam interrupted her.
“I know about the St. Louis. I saw the movie,” he said casually. “But this is not that. It is far, far worse. Listen to this.” He opened an old log book, with yellowed pages where paragraphs in cursive were written in pencil. Nina’s eyes widened when she saw the antique book as Sam scanned the accounts in it to explain to her.
“Is it the captain’s log?” she asked.
“Aye,” he replied. “I think so. Most of the cover is gone, though. The ship was a Nazi death ship, a floating torture chamber. The captain of the ship was Admiral Dieter Bargeist, formerly an Obersturmbannführer stationed in Kassel. He and a few Waffen-SS officers and volunteers offered to complete the experiment that Einstein had theorized and the Americans failed at."
“Based on the Philadelphia Experiment?” she asked.
"Aye, but the Nazi's actually managed to teleport the ship. The problem was that the propulsion to electromagnetic gravity ratio was unstable, so the secret ship was never put on record and aptly named the DKM Geheimnis.”
“The Deutsche Kriegsmarine…Geheimnis,” Nina translated. “It means secret. That is very aptly named,” she agreed. “So what happened?”
"Under the pretense of liberation, the torture ship was employed to carry a settlement of Jews to greener pastures, or so they were told. While on the Geheimnis, they were subjected to the sickest, most depraved experiments…all in the name of science, eugenics, and ethnic cleansing," Sam said. "Apart from that, at regular intervals they would calibrate the instruments to produce the Vril-powered unified fields, or whatever they thought it was, but because of variances in the calibration, the ship would teleport to the wrong destinations."
"Like Southern Africa," Nina added. "But why? How did it lock onto its particular destinations?"
“One for each of the seven seas,” Sam smiled enigmatically. “How cool is that?”
“How do you know that?” she asked in amusement.
“It says so in the journal,” he admitted. “According to Bargeist, the old tales of the seven seas hold more truth than just some sailor’s yarn. The DKM Geheimnis was set to teleport around the globe in seven steps, repeating its course of teleportation until it was destroyed or moved.” Sam showed her the points on the map the captain had marked. "According to this, it settled in the Baffin Bay in the Arctic Ocean, Virginia Beach in the North Atlantic... just like the Eldridge was supposed to, coincidentally.”
"Sam, this is unbelievable! Did you get this on camera?" Nina asked. "Because with this dodgy crew, I don't trust anything precious like this lying around.”
"Aye, it is all on film and back-ups. As you may have noticed, we cannot transmit anything, which just adds to my distrust of this little journey," he said. "Check this; it teleported to Uruguay in the South Atlantic Ocean, where the real Graf Spee had been scuttled. Then it teleported to the Gulf of Alaska..."
“Northern Pacific Ocean,” she smiled. “Wow!”
He continued, “Then the Southern Pacific Ocean, where it appeared o
ff Easter Island, the Antarctic Ocean... wait for it... right where we landed on our way to Ice Station Wolfenstein - and finally off Port Elizabeth, in the Indian Ocean.”
Nina was dumbstruck. The Nazis used to choose so many myth-enshrouded places and somehow the laws of physics, no matter how warped, had taken the ship to those precise locations. She sat up. "You are so right, Sam. It truly is the biggest secret in maritime history. But how did it sink?"
“It doesn’t say. It was already doomed when they realized that the ship would never make landfall again, especially after the unfortunate souls had all fused into the walls,” he shrugged.
“Jesus,” Nina shook her head. “What a horrible state of being that must be, especially if it doesn’t kill you. It’s disturbing to even imagine.”
"Now Crystal wants to tow the fucking thing, connected it to our tugboat. Do you agree that it is a very disturbing thought?" Sam asked.
“You need to ask?” she shrieked. “What are we going to do?”
“I say we check our watches carefully,” Sam suggested, “and when they are sleeping we sever the ropes connecting us to this black bitch and let her wretched carcass down to Davey Jones’ Locker, where she belongs.”
“No, you won’t,” Mieke protested sharply, prying open the door using a master key. Ali and Manni stood by her side with two other crew members in tow. Nina jumped up and shouted with her usual ferocity, “Where is Purdue?”
“Under the water, darling,” Ali smiled with his hideously stained teeth gleaming.
“Crystal and Dave are diving with the salvage workers to bring the Geheimnis up to be towed,” Mieke informed them. She looked at Ali and his associates. “Lock them up until Mrs. Meyer is back.”
“Mieke? What the fuck?” Sam scowled, thoroughly shocked by Malgas humble assistant’s behavior.
“No wonder you knew about the Eldridge,” Nina remarked as the men restrained her. “How do you get to order the captain and his crew?” Sam asked.
“Not me,” Mieke bragged. “My lover, Crystal. She is far more powerful than any of you know; not to mention incredibly wealthy.”
“Good,” Ali grinned. He punched her in the face with one swift blow. “Then you will fetch a good ransom.”
Nina gasped. She looked hopelessly at Sam, but he motioned for her to remain calm and obey the men’s orders. The blonde girl fell to the ground with a broken nose and three of her teeth scattered across the floor.
“What about Purdue?” Sam screamed as they took him away. Ali stayed behind with Nina and Mieke. “What about Zain and Sibu?” His questions faded into the din of the sea as they carried Sam outside.
“Ali?” Nina addressed the captain. “Where are you taking Sam?”
Ali's face hardened. "Sacrifice."
Ch apter 32 – Pressed for Time
Sam was exhausted from the blazing sun on his skin. They had tied him to one of the radio towers on top of the superstructure of the giant tugboat. When he managed to open his eyes, he could see as far as the horizon, but other than the ocean there was nothing. They truly were in the middle of nowhere, and Sam wished he could teleport to Nina, wherever she was being held. Purdue and Crystal were due to come up any moment and then the ship would emerge from her grave to take them all to theirs.
His hands and feet were tied to the steel pole, which was burning his skin as the late summer sun heated it up. Sam had no idea what the pirates were talking about, but they kept looking back at him as if they were waiting for something.
Although he was tied to the highest pole of the tug, the boat was so large that Purdue and Crystal would almost certainly not notice him up there. Having no idea that they were all about to be tortured and killed, they would walk right into the trap. Then again, Sam did not mind Crystal suffering at the hand of their captors. If she had been behind the whole thing from the beginning, such deception warranted the death penalty. For the first time, Sam realized just how fortunate Billy Malgas and Cheryl Tobias were, for not having come on the salvage trip with them.
The sky above Sam was merciless. Not one cloud to shield him from the relentless sting of the sun. As time wore on, Sam became more light-headed and his legs buckled under him. His nose started to bleed from his body’s rising temperature and dehydration. Finally, Sam could not take it anymore. His body grew limp, and his eyes fell shut as he descended into oblivion.
***
When they found him passed out, the pirates doused him with cold water. Given his increased core temperature, the cold water felt like ice, shocking Sam into a painful conscious state. He screamed inadvertently, evoking a roar of laughter from the men around him. It felt strange to be tortured by the very men he had had dinner with, men he had gone on dives with and chatted with over morning coffee. Gone was the camaraderie as if they had never seen him before now. Their eyes were steely and cruel as they leered at him, occasionally making some snide remark in their tongue that had the whole bunch cackling with laughter.
Sam wondered where Purdue and Nina were. Admittedly he was not worried about any of the others, and he did not feel an inch of guilt. He kept his eyes narrow to hide the path of his stare as he surveyed his surroundings, scrutinizing the layout of the deck so he could navigate where he needed to, should he get a chance to free himself. It made him very nervous to imagine what they could be waiting for.
Then he saw it.
Sam’s blood ran cold. Attached to the tug was the enormous black Nazi ship without any name written its hull to remain an anonymous killer. But she was not without identification marks, especially to the trained eye of a world-wise investigative journalist. His heart pounded as he beheld the sigil on both sides of her hull, the familiar stamp of evil – the Black Sun. The prominent circle with its uniform rays radiating in lightning streaks stood out from the chipped paint and patches of rust as if it was fighting to re-emerge into the world.
“Ali!” Sam shouted suddenly. The men around him murmured, utterly annoyed at his shrieks. But Sam kept screaming Ali’s name as loud as he could hoping that the captain would want to find out why he was shrieking like a madman.
“Ali! You have to listen! You and your men are in grave danger! Ali, we’re all going to die! You have to listen to what I have to say!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, mustering the last bit of strength he had left that had not yet been depleted by the terrible heat of the afternoon. The pirates started to beat Sam, taking sticks to his knees and fists to his face. His lips were blistered and his tongue swollen, but then he thought of the perfect thing to lure the superstitious captain from his hideout. “Ali! I know a secret about the water walkers, and I must tell you before I die!"
The pirates’ yelling stopped almost instantly. Only the sound of the waves filled the air as they waited in tense anticipation of their skipper. No doubt he had been within earshot the whole time because it took all but ten seconds for Ali to appear on the lower deck. His red eyes pierced through Sam out of the deep sockets in his gaunt face. Ali’s dark brown skin glistened in the sun, revealing his myriad of scars as he moved.
“What is this… secret?”
***
Nina vomited into the dark as soon as she awoke. That same pungent stench she and Sam had smelled in the hidden passage was around her. Her left eye was swollen shut from the hail of fists Manni had dealt her when she had resisted capture. The other eye was alright, but she was too disorientated to pry her lids open. The bile burned in her throat, but she could not help throwing up with the stench of death and decay filling her lungs. Nina wanted to cry, but she couldn’t.
Finally, she opened her good eye to see where she was. She yelped in terror, unintentionally voicing her fright at the man staring at her from where he was hanging above her. Unlike the cadaver in the corner, the hanging man was not discolored yet. Mieke was lying in a pool of blood next to stacks of rope and tarp. She did not move. Nina could not see her breathing, and upon closer scrutiny Nina found that Mieke was naked from the waist down. Her bra w
as pulled taut and tied around her neck, partially covered by her bloodstained tresses.
The creak of the ropes behind her drew Nina's attention back to the hanging man. Suddenly he blinked. Nina screamed but immediately fell silent for fear of attracting unwanted attention. The man opened his mouth, but he could not speak.
“Are you still alive?” she whispered in amazement.
He nodded slowly, looking awful, a man on the brink of death. Nina’s hands were tied behind her back, but her legs were free. With great difficulty she stumbled to her feet, barely feeling her legs because she must have sat in the same position for so long. The only thing she could find to cut her restraints was the lid of an old can of beans lying in a heap of trash.
“Good God, I can’t believe this filth," she mumbled, aiming for the disgusting can and its slimy contents oozing over the hairs of mold. Nina gagged, but she managed to keep it in as she sank to her haunches in the dirty toilet paper, messy bandages, and broken bottles to free her hands. Carefully she sawed at the tight rope around her wrists with the jagged lid of the ghastly can. She nicked her skin a few times, but she didn’t care.
She had to find Purdue and Sam, but she did not know how to escape the room she was in. The tiny window was no bigger than her head and was way too high up for her to reach.
“Light?” she mumbled. “Light? Oh my God, what time is it?” She tiptoed toward Mieke’s corpse and checked her watch. “We have less than an hour left! Oh my God! We’re going to teleport with the ship!” She could not reach the hanging man above her, but he did not want to be released.
“Scream,” he uttered without a voice.
“What?” she yelped.
"Scream," he repeated. "Stand right next to the door. When they come in, I will distract them, and you run out." Nina shook her head. It was a long shot. If she could not get out, she was as good as dead.
