Sins of the Fatherland (Scott Jarvis Investigations Book 6)

by Scott Cook

  “Sparky,” Williams said gently but firmly.

  Sparks pulled in a deep breath, “Aye, aye, skipper… I’m about eight men short down there as it is… but it’s okay, since we got all the fish we got loaded. Wilkes is… is dead… so I think Tommy Perkins would be a good man to head the room. He’s first class petty and almost as strong as he is smart. That Lambert kid is doing great, too.”

  Williams smiled, “Okay, Cob. Run forward and give Tommy the news. Tell him to keep Lambert under his wing. Then go back to aft torpedo and see how things are. Check in with Murph. I may want to use those two fish we got loaded.”

  Sparky nodded and wiped his eyes, “You got it, sir.”

  “Where’s our Krout buddy, Dutch?” Williams asked after Sparks had disappeared through the forward hatchway.

  “About five hundred yards off, headed west,” Dutch said as he consulted the dead reckoning tracer and his paper plot, “Opening up and bearing about two-niner-zero relative.”

  “Any idea on his depth?” Williams asked, knowing what he’d get.

  Dutch sighed, “We got a pretty good read on him on the surface. Looked like he was diving at about thirty degree down bubble. His electrics were revved up to full, it sounded like, so based on that, and assuming he didn’t change anything, I’d guess six to seven hundred feet.”

  “Yeah,” Williams grumped, “My kingdom for a depth charge or ten.”

  Cob returned shortly after and reported that he’d delivered the message.

  “He’s definitely pulling away, sir,” Dutch reported.

  “Shouldn’t we ride his ass, Skipper?” Cob asked.

  Williams nodded, “Not much else we can do. If we stay up here, he can get away because he goes quick and we lose him in our engine noise… but if we go deep and get close, maybe we can dog him. Get ahold of the forward room, Cob. We’re gonna run silent, but I need those sound heads spinning.”

  Cob grinned, “Aye, aye.”

  “Helm,” Williams said, “Full stop. Diving officer, make your depth six hundred feet. Repeat, six zero zero feet. Blow negative to the mark and maintain zero bubble. I want to sink slow and quiet.”

  Instead of sending the order through Peters, the control room phone talker, Williams decided to do it himself. This was one of those times when the crew needed to hear from their captain. He picked up the phone and hit the switch that would allow him to speak to the entire ship. One day, this would be called the 1MC on newer boats, but for now, it was just the intraship general alert or XJA circuit.

  “Now hear this,” Williams said, steeling himself, “This is the X… this is the captain. By now you all know what happened. The Nazi boat opened fire on our topside crew and got the captain and our boarding party. We now know that whatever they’re doing here, it’s not friendly. We’re going past test depth and we’re gonna try and hound them. The ship is going ultra-silent. That means no unnecessary conversation. That means take your shoes off and don’t move around unless you have to. And that means that if one of you sons of bitches has to rip one off, then shove a thumb up your ass! This is what we’ve trained for, boys. Stay focused and we’ll see it through. That is all.”

  The fart reference got a big laugh throughout the ship, which was what Williams was hoping for. The men needed a morale booster right about now. Hell, he needed one himself.

  “Sir, blowing negative,” Lieutenant J.G. Andy Post, the youngest officer and the greenest of the diving officers, reported, “Now passing one hundred feet.”

  “Very well, dive,” Williams said, “How we doing on the sound, Dutch?”

  “She’s getting fainter,” Dutch replied, “Hell, Skipper, the only reason we can still hear that Nazi bugger is because of these extra sensitive new heads… but I’m still getting screw noise, although it’s real faint… uh-oh… it’s gone!”

  Williams cursed. The air was already growing warm in the control room. With the ship rigged for silent, the cooling fans and air conditioning were shut down. The men in the forward torpedo room were now having to spin the hydrophone heads attached to the keel by hand. With silent running, the hydraulic power that was usually used was deactivated. It’d be getting really hot forward.

  “Rig for red. Dutch, where did they go?” Williams asked.

  “I think they’ve found a halocline,” Dutch replied, “About a mile off to the west.”

  “Okay,” William said, “then that means they can’t hear us either. Helm, make turns for two knots, twenty degrees down on the bow and stern planes. Start leveling off at five hundred. Don’t want to dip too low too fast.”

  “Sir…” Cob said in William’s ear, “Our test depth is four-fifty.”

  “That’s a bunch of horse shit, Sparky,” Williams said loud enough for everyone to hear, “That’s only the official word. I’ve personally been in a dive on this very ship to almost seven-fifty. We’re okay.”

  Sparks nodded and smiled, “The men will be glad to know that, sir.”

  “Then tell them,” Williams said, “Run forward and see how they’re doing up there. Then make your way back to the after room and check that, too. Make it snappy, Cob.”

  Sparks scooted forward in his socks and damn near leapt through the hatchway in the water tight bulkhead.

  “Now passing four hundred feet,” Post hissed.

  “Sound signal degradation,” Dutch announced. He was perched on the ladder to the conning tower, half in the control room and half up above, “I think we’ve found the salty layer, Skipper… yes! Faint screw noises, bearing three-two-zero, maybe… three thousand yards!”

  “Got you, you Jerry fucker…” Williams hissed, “He’s going northwest now, is he?”

  “Turning,” Dutch reported, “I think he’s trying to either head north or maybe east.”

  “Leveling on all planes,” Jacobs reported. He was doing both jobs until the Cob came back to man the diving planes and tank controls.

  “Depth now five zero zero feet,” Post said, “Still sinking, Captain.”

  The hull began to pop and groan around them. This was why Williams had sent his new Chief of the Boat to speak with all the men personally. The sounds of a steel hull being squeezed by two hundred and twelve pounds per square inch was nothing to sneeze at. And it’d only get more disturbing as the pressure rose to almost three hundred PSI once the ship reached seven hundred feet.

  “Helm, make your course zero one five degrees,” Williams ordered, “Five degree down bubble, diving officer. Take us to seven hundred.”

  Post turned to Williams and the new captain could see the young man’s face was damp with sweat. He knew it wasn’t only from the slowly rising temperature.

  “You heard me, Mister,” Williams said, “Seven-zero-zero feet. Decrease your negative buoyancy. Take us down nice and easy. Dutch, what’s our target doing?”

  “Still turning,” Dutch reported after consulting with his sonarman, “Now heading zero two-five. Bearing three five zero. I’d say he’s making six knots.”

  “Then let’s cut him off,” Williams said, “helm, increase to six knots.”

  “Maneuvering answering six knots,” Jacobs reported after turning his engine enunciator.

  “Where is the American?” Bausch asked.

  “We’ve lost him due to halocline interference,” Yohan stated flatly.

  Bausch shrugged, “We’re too deep for him anyway. However, let’s be certain. Make your depth two hundred and twenty-five meters, diving officer. Pilot, increase speed to six knots. Start making our slow turn to the east.”

  Bausch wished he had more officers to choose from. Yohan Verschmidt should be his executive officer, but Bausch didn’t trust him. He’d been too close to the Captain. And he needed someone he could trust.

  “Phone talker,” Bausch said to the enlisted man on the internal communication gear, “Have Chief Kumanz report to the zentral.”

  He could trust the burly Chief. He knew that Kumanz hated the Americans as much as anyone.

&nb
sp; Bausch would have to play it safe, however, “Yohan, you are now the new Einsvo. In that capacity, what do you think our adversary will do next?”

  Yohan stared for a long moment at Reinhardt. The captain was now dead, his life’s blood staining the deck all around him, “I… I don’t know, sir.”

  “You two men!” Bausch snapped at the machine gunners who still remained in the control room, “Get that out of here. Take the Captain to the freezer and secure him. Think, Yohan. Get your mind on the task.”

  Verschmidt steeled himself, “he’ll follow our sound signature and track us. If he can… although we should be hidden by the halocline.”

  “He’ll wait for us to surface, then?” Bausch asked.

  “I think so,” Yohan said unhappily.

  “Then we evade him,” Bausch said. He was only confirming his own feelings, “We slowly circle around and head toward land. What is the current depth here?”

  “Fifteen hundred meters,” Yohan replied, “But it comes up sharply not far to the east to only sixty meters. This will force us shallow and we’ll lose the salt layer long before then.”

  “That’s fine, Einsvo,” Bausch replied with a wicked grin on his face, “It gives us a chance to spring a surprise on our American friends. Pilot, when our course is zero eight zero, maintain at current speed.”

  The American would find them again, that was certain. However, if he played this game correctly, then Bausch could get far enough ahead to lay a trap for the enemy ship. Once dispatched, there would be nothing standing in his way.

  It would be he, Gunter Bausch, who would swing the hammer that would deal a devastating blow to America. Then the world would see that the Third Reich was perhaps not quite finished yet. They’d see that the Furher and his vision could last even beyond his death.

  And the capitalists would kneel before Germany once again.

  Chapter 12

  I had a very powerful sense of deja vu.

  I awoke lying on my back with the warm roundness of a firm ass pressed against my hip. My two bedroom windows were un-curtained and early morning light played across a spray of golden hair on the pillow next to me.

  A sudden rush of memories and feelings poured over me. Some of them were vivid scenes of ardor, stop motion flashes of things that Audrey and I had done the night before… and there was a memory of waking up for the first time in a woman’s bedroom…

  Golden sunlight sparkling in Nickki Sloane’s golden hair…

  The sight of Lisa Gonzalez slipping out of her sweats and sliding into her bed next to me with coffee and donuts…

  Then more full-motion scenes of the previous night’s activities. At first, Audrey had been gentle and slow, but she’d quickly become more and more frenzied. There were moans, screams and even laughter. One second, she was giggling about how she could touch her toes behind my head and the next she was crying out in orgasmic ecstasy… one moment she was whispering sweet nothings in my ear and the next demanding that I pull her hair and slap her hard on her ass…

  Then the guilt came again. I groaned and tried to shut my eyes and force the feeling away. I didn’t want the guilt and I didn’t deserve it. Lisa had abandoned me, not the other way around.

  I tried to intellectually grasp the things she’d written in her letter, but emotionally it was harder. I tried to be neither angry nor guilty but had a hard time with both.

  Then more images of Audrey’s energetic lovemaking came to mind. Her teeth biting my shoulders, her hot wet mouth…

  “Good morning,” she said softly as she turned and wriggled herself so that she was lying on my chest, “Did you sleep well?”

  I shook my head to clear the images and emotions away, “Like Rip Van Winkle. How about you?”

  She chuckled sardonically, “Let’s just say I haven’t slept that hard in a long time.”

  “Were we up that long?” I asked.

  Audrey giggled, “Oh, somebody was up quite a bit, as I recall. Are you all right?”

  I looked over at her and her glacier blue eyes contained a look of concern, “I don’t think you broke skin, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  She laughed, “I’m sorry… I get a bit carried away, especially when it’s good… and God was it good… but that’s not what I meant.”

  I sighed, “I know. But it’s rather an awkward thing to talk about with another woman, if you see what I mean.”

  She stroked my chest softly, “I kind of forced myself on you. I’m honestly not usually like that… I don’t know what came over me, exactly… I just… well, I just was so horny I guess… and there’s something about you… I just went for it. But I really wasn’t very kind to you, was I?”

  I cocked an eyebrow at her, “I wouldn’t exactly call your actions unfriendly, Audrey!”

  She smiled, “You know what I mean. I know you’re still hurting… and I also know, as I said before, what it feels like to be vulnerable and to have somebody take advantage of that.”

  “Don’t fret about it,” I said, “I’m a big boy.”

  She emitted a low chuckle, “that’s true.”

  “Perhaps it was time,” I said, “And you just gave me the… uhm… push… I needed to take the last step. How’s that old coarse expression go? The best way to get over someone—“

  “Is to get under someone,” Audrey finished with a laugh.

  “There you go,” I said.

  “So you’re… okay with what happened?” She asked tentatively.

  I shrugged, “I feel a bit guilty… but I think that’ll pass. I’m okay. Although I do have to say… the language! I mean… I never!”

  She guffawed, “I tend to let loose, sorry… and I seriously doubt that you never. So what’s a girl got to do to get a cup of coffee in this motel?”

  I smiled at her, “I’d make a suggestion but I’m not sure there’s anything I can think of that you haven’t done already.”

  Her eyes narrowed and a wry grin settled onto her full lips, “Oh, don’t be so sure, honey. I’ve got a few surprises left.”

  “Yikes…” I muttered as I got up and padded out into the kitchen.

  I slipped on a pair of shorts and let Morgan out into the backyard. Then I went back into the kitchen and started setting up the coffee maker. I looked at the clock on the oven and it read a quarter after eight. That reminded me that Foster and Brody wanted an answer in less than an hour.

  “Or what?” I asked myself, “They’re not the boss of me.”

  “What’s that?” Audrey called from my bedroom.

  I turned to see her walking out of the bedroom door wearing my black bathrobe. She carried my shirt and handed it to me as she entered the kitchen and kissed me gently on the lips.

  “Oh, was just musing about how I’m supposed to tell Brody and Foster whether or not I’m working for them at nine,” I said, “And how I’ll tell them or not when I’m damned good and ready. Kind of tweaked that they’d give me an ultimatum.”

  She grinned, “Such a tough guy. So what will you tell them?”

  I shrugged as I pressed the power button on the Mr. Coffee, “No idea. What do you think?”

  “It’s a toughy,” She said, “Because you either work for granddad or Brody. They’re direct competitors. You really can’t do both.”

  “I could,” I said, “I could pretend to bail on Hank and work for Brody and funnel info back to you guys.”

  She seemed to ponder that for a moment, “Our half tipsy conversation from last night notwithstanding, I don’t think that’ll work. Brody wouldn’t believe it.”

  “I suspect you’re right,” I said, “I suspect that he wouldn’t believe it no matter what. And if their intelligence gathering is still going on, then they probably know that your rental car has been sitting in my driveway all night. And they’ll jump to certain conclusions on that account.”

  She nodded, “Sorry.”

  I scoffed, “yeah, you should be! The fact is, though, that their offer was bullshit from the
start. They already knew we’d met and I’d met your grandfather. I think they just want to see what I’ll do.”

  “So? What will you do?”

  I retrieved my phone from the counter and dialed the special number on Foster’s card. It was his personal cell, which I’m sure he didn’t give out to everyone.

  “Good morning, Scott,” Greg Foster said cheerfully. He obviously had my cell number as well, “Have you made any decisions?”

  “Yes,” I replied, “I’ve decided that you and Brody were screwing with me. You don’t want to hire me, do you?”

  Foster protested.

  “Come on, Greg,” I said, “You know I’ve already met Audrey and Henry. I’ve agreed to work for them.”

  There was what I felt was a significant pause, “I figured that already. I just hoped that you’d decide to go with the winning team on this one. I’m disappointed, Scott, but not surprised. If nothing else, your notorious sense of honor wouldn’t let you switch sides… or even play double agent. It’s a shame though. You may come to find that you’ve made the wrong decision.”

  I bristled at that, “Is that a threat, Foster?”

  Foster laughed, “Of course not! Scott, we’re gentleman competitors, not enemies. I like you and I like your style. That’s why I said that. Often things aren’t what they seem and when the full story is revealed… well… it’s not uncommon to have a regret or two. Like me, for example. I regret that you and I didn’t get to know each other long ago.”

  “Greg… we met several years ago when I was with OPD.”

  He chuckled again, “You think I forgot that? No, Scott, no… but that was a different Jarvis than the man I’m talking to now. We can’t change the past, but the future is wide open. Sorry to hear of your decision, though. I’ll tell Jack. Enjoy your morning… and tell Ms. Lambert I said hello.”

  The connection was broken before I could say something unpleasant. And I was going to. I didn’t like being watched.

  “You look pissed,” Audrey observed.

  “He knows you’re here,” I said, “I’m a little sick of being spied on by these assholes.”