Ghost Ship Page 15

  “What is this place?” Edgar waved his gun around.

  “I don’t know. Let’s get out of here.” Jake led the way back down the dark corridor—turning right, right again, and then left. They finally came to a hatchway that led into a massive cavern.

  A chirping sound filled the vault.

  “Birds?” Edgar said.

  As Jake turn around, he saw a dark figure duck out of sight and an industrial-sized metal door shut.

  Edgar ran to the door and grabbed the handle. “Locked.” He aimed his Smith & Wesson and fired a couple of shots, but the slugs didn’t even penetrate the heavy-duty steel door.

  “Quiet,” Jake said.

  Edgar didn’t say another word.

  Jake pointed his flashlight upward and spotted a blur of movement. His flashlight caught the gleam of white fangs amidst a sea of flapping black wings.

  “Bats,” Edgar yelled. “They’re everywhere.”

  Jake swatted them away with his flashlight, but by then they were all over him, and he felt several sharp incisors sink into his wrist, leg, and neck. Jake dove to the floor and rolled. He knocked a couple of the hairy creatures off him, but he couldn’t roll much with the RPG strapped to his back. A dozen more bats attached themselves to his clothing. Then Jake heard a rushing sound and the whole swarm started to close in on him.

  He tried to swing his flashlight toward them, but hundreds of pointed teeth were puncturing his skin, his muscles responded in frantic reflexive movements, causing him to lose his grip on the flashlight, and it hurled through the air. A moment later, complete darkness enveloped the cavern.

  Edgar screamed in terror.

  Jake swung his arms wildly, but the large beasts were overtaking him. It was impossible to fight them all off. Through a fog of fear and panic, a thought crashed through his mind like lightening. On impulse, he reached into his leg pocket and pulled out a flare gun, which he fired. The sudden brightness caused the bats to make a desperate attempt to flee the light.

  Jake saw dozens of bats launch off Edgar and himself at the same time. In the huge cavern, the monsters darted around in panic, some smacking against the rough walls and mortally injuring themselves.

  “Keep them away,” Edgar yelled.

  “Get down.” Jake swung the RPG launcher to his shoulder and fired a grenade. A bright flash and thunderous explosion followed. Large boulders smashed down from the ceiling. Jake covered his head.

  “Edgar, are you alright?”

  “No,” Edgar yelled. He swung his pistol back and forth at the bats frantically squeezing out shots. “Get them away from me.”

  “Get down then. I’m firing another.”

  “You’ll get us killed.”

  “How’s the alternative?”

  “Fire the damn thing.”

  Jake loaded another grenade and aimed his launcher at the door.

  Another flash. Another explosion.

  More rocks crashed to the ground. One landed a few feet from Jake. Fragments stung his face. While the flare was still illuminating the cavern, Jake saw that the door had been blown open.

  “It worked,” he said.

  Edgar got up and ran for the opening, but Jake tackled him.

  “What are you doing?” Edgar yelled.

  “Saving your life.”

  “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Not yet. The bats will flee the light.”

  Within seconds, the exodus began. Desperate to get away from the bright glare, the bats flew through the now open door.

  “What about the thugs who locked us in here?” Edgar said.

  “They’re having a visitation right now.”

  In thirty seconds, all the bats were gone.

  “Now how do we get of here?” Edgar said.

  “I’ve got hand-held flares.”

  “Let’s go then.”

  “No, not yet.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to interrupt their meal. Just wait a few minutes, or we’ll get shot on the way out.”

  Five minutes later, Jake led the way down the tunnel. Huge bats fled before the bright light of his hand-held flare. Flapping sounds retreated before them, but especially at the tunnel intersection, where there must have been at least a hundred of the black beasts. This was also where Jake and Edgar stumbled upon the limp body of one of the thugs.

  “I’m gonna be sick,” Edgar said.

  “Don’t look at him. Follow me.”

  The tunnel made a sharp left turn for no apparent reason, and moving on, Jake led the way to another set of doors. He entered, and the cold gave him an unexpected welcome. Dozens of six-foot industrial fans dominated the left wall of the huge freezer and blew forcefully, creating a stinging wind-chill factor.

  But the shock did not come from the cold. The massive freezer was filled with large wooden crates and clumps of rock-hard bodies…human bodies. Dressed in white blood-stained lab coats, the people were frozen in several masses. It appeared they had huddled together in a last desperate attempt to survive in the sub-zero temperatures, but now they were all frozen solid, over a hundred of them.

  “Murdered,” Jake mumbled under the sound of the big fans. He kneeled to look at a woman and noticed frozen tears on her face. Anger crashed through his brain. Richter had to be stopped.

  Jake looked over to see how Edgar was dealing with the sad scene. He saw him standing near the cave wall, pounding his fists against the dark rock. Then Jake heard something fall amidst the scattered crates. Was someone still alive? A moment later, an object hummed past his face, missing his head by just inches. Jake saw a throwing star land in the neck of one of the frozen victims, who like most of the others, had huddled up next to one another to stay warm. As Jake dove for cover behind a clump of frozen human flesh, two shots boomed. He hunched down behind his cover, his eyes scanning the gloom. He saw Edgar, who was also taking cover behind a group of frozen bodies.

  For at least a minute he didn’t move. He was unable to make his legs walk through this house of death. It was hard to know exactly what had happened here, but the presence of a fork lift told a grim story. It looked as if the people had been loading something into the crates and then were locked in this ice tomb to die a miserable death.

  Dozens of the open wooden crates lined the perimeter of the massive freezer, and Jake had no idea which one the assassin was lurking behind. The loud humming of the big fans meant that the shooter could move around mostly unheard, and Jake would have to be very careful because the killer might also have more throwing stars, which came in silence.

  Jake glanced at Edgar, who was now lying behind the frozen corpses and playing dead. Jake motioned for him to stay put.

  Jake moved slowly … very slowly. The empty boxes being all around the edge, there was no way of knowing where the assault would come from. Jake worked his way through the stacked boxes, coming around each corner ready for action. He followed a methodical pattern, but it was possible the man could have backtracked.

  Jake involuntarily glanced back at the clusters of dead bodies. His mind reached back through decades of maritime history. Shipwreck victims had frozen in groups like this before. The images sent fear though his nerves—curved fingers as hard as rocks, frost-covered hair and white beards, bluish faces cheek-to-cheek with expressions of suffering, frozen and preserved. Several lone bodies littered the floor as if they preferred to fight their battle with the cold by themselves.

  As Jake stepped around the corner of one of the six-foot high crates, a movement snapped at the corner of his eye. Fear sprung through his nerves. He gasped with shock as one of the bodies sprung to life. The shooter had played dead. Using the advantage of surprise, he flung a knife. Jake dodged the spinning blade and fired, but his shot missed the mark, allowing the assassin to sprint for cover behind the abandoned cargo. Jake exploded into motion, pursuing his quarry. He rounded a corner ready to shoot, but instead took a kick in the chest that knocked him off balance. As he fell, the a
ttacker seized the advantage and swarmed him. As Jake hit the ground, the killer tried to stomp on his neck. Jake rolled, but in the same movement he seized the killer’s leg, cranking the knee out of joint. The man collapsed with a shriek of pain.

  Rolling free, Jake recovered his gun. “Don’t move.”

  “How can I? You dislocated my knee, you bastard.”

  Jake kicked him twice in the side of the face, causing him to scream with fury. The assassin tried to get up and fight back, but pain made him collapse with a groan of agony.

  Jake twisted his arm behind his back and frisked him, finding no more weapons. “Edgar, watch him closely.”

  Out in the hall, Jake got the other thug and dragged him in the freezer half conscious. “You two boys are going to be here for a few days.”

  “What are you talking about?” the one with the broken knee said. “We’ll freeze within hours.”

  “That’s not my problem, is it? What’s your name?”

  “Pablo.”

  “Okay, Pablo, you want to get out of here? You tell me what’s going on.” Jake looked over at the dozens of frozen bodies. Pablo didn’t respond. Jake stepped on his knee and stamped it into the ground.

  “We were just following some crazy guy’s orders,” he groaned.

  “Tell me more.”

  Holding his broken kneecap the man responded. “We had instructions to load cargo.”

  “What cargo?”

  “Bats.”

  “You killed all these people over bats?”

  “Charles instructed us to make them disappear after they loaded the filthy creatures.”

  “And this is how you did it?” Jake raised his pistol.

  “Take it easy, man.” The thug tried to stand up on his good knee but fell back down. “We was just following orders.”

  “Where are the bats going?”

  “Who knows?”

  Jake lifted his foot as if he was going to come down on the man’s knee again.

  “Somewhere of the coast of California,” he yelled. “They’re supposed to meet up with Charles northeast of the Channel Islands.”

  The other guy was coming to on the floor. Jake saw him inch towards one of the ice-covered piles and yank on one of the throwing stars lodged in the neck of a frozen victim. Jake lunged at the man and grabbed his arm before he could retrieve the sharp implement. Pablo, seeing his chance, leaped for Jake, but Jake swung his gun up under his arm as his finger squeezed.

  Jake motioned for Edgar to follow and they quickly left the cavern of doom. Back at the intersection of the tunnels, Jake started to go back outside, but hesitated. He peered down the last bored-out shaft. A misty thought was forming in his mind. The tunnel shot back fifty yards and then made a ninety degree turn.

  Jake halted in his boots.

  “What?” Edgar whispered.

  “The tunnels.”

  “What about them?”

  “The sharp turns.”

  “So what?”

  “All four tunnels make sharp ninety degree turns.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “They’re in the shape of a huge underground swastika.”

  “Oh, my God,” Edgar said. “Get me out of here.”

  ***

  Off the coast of Southern California

  Ashley stretched her arms and neck. She was stiff from sitting all day in the captain’s seat of the Wolverine. She had been monitoring the single-sideband frequencies that covered the coast of California. There were so many channels. She was listening to Coast Guard, ship, and weather talk. She also tuned into VHS, ham and marine telephone stations for signs of the Queen Mary. There had been no reports of her near the position that she had last been seen.

  “Has anyone spotted the Queen Mary?”—that was most common line refracting off the ionosphere at 12 and 16 MHz. The answer was always “Negative. No visual contact. No radar contact.” The more it was discussed, the more voices chimed in. “No sign of her here.” Positions were tossed around, and Ashley plotted them on a map. It appeared that the Queen Mary had simply vanished.

  When the phone rang, Ashley pounced on it. “Jake, I was worried about you. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Jake said while standing on the beach in Punta Arenas. He took a deep breath of fresh sea air. “How’s Astoria?” He didn’t want her to learn of the horror he had witnessed in the caves of Tierra del Fuego. Better not to worry her.

  Ashley glanced over at Wan-Si, who was piloting the boat down the coast of Northern California. “Oh, it’s great. Real nice. Maybe we could visit together some time.” Ashley saw Wan-Si nod in approval. She hated not telling Jake the truth, but she also knew that he would never have agreed to her plan to sail the Wolverine down to Southern California.

  “Where’s the Queen Mary?”

  “I can’t find her anywhere. Boats sailing along her expected course report no sign of her. She’s dropped off the map.”

  “Look, a couple of guys in Tierra del Fuego told me the Weissenburger’s course. She’s headed to the Channel Islands. See if you can pick up on her location. We’ve got to find her. Most likely, the Queen Mary is nearby.”

  “I’ll keep trying.”

  “Thanks, Ash. Look, there’s something strange going on down here. Something involving bats.”

  “Bats? What does that have to do with Richter’s insurance scam?”

  “I have no idea, but this guy is sick. We need to stop him. What I do know is that he has no problem killing people to get what he wants. There’s got to be some reason why Richter wanted bats as cargo. Do some research and see what you can come up with.

  CHAPTER 43

  Northeast of the Channel Islands

  Pacific Ocean

  Under a blood-red sunset, two hundred miles off the California coast, three massive seagoing vessels hung together by their big mooring lines. The Queen Mary overshadowed the cargo ship Weissenburger, and the red sky bathed the ships in crimson light. The heavy lift crane ship Hercules floated between them, its huge crane spiking towards the sky.

  The Hercules’ cranes had amazing capabilities. Huge auxiliary hooks enabled the vessel to easily remove the refrigerated containers from the cargo ship and place them on the 34 meter high Sports Deck of the Queen Mary.

  Two hours later, L.W. Collins, captain of the Hercules, watched as the final shipping container was lowered onto the Queen Mary. Deck crewmen manning thin ropes attached to the container guided it into place. This was the final task for L.W.’s crew after they had removed one of the stacks from the iconic ship and assisted with a sloppy gray paint job.

  Over on the Queen Mary, Koch entered the wheelhouse where Charles Richter was watching the mid-ocean transfer. “What did you do to the Queen Mary? Why the paint job?” he said.

  “Oh, I have my reasons. You will see very soon. The culmination of my years of planning are coming to fruition.”

  Koch raised his eyebrows. “The boat is about to be sunk, and you took the time and expense to paint her? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “It makes complete sense. And with the cargo you just delivered, the operation is ready to proceed.”

  “What the hell is that cargo? The stench on board that rust bucket is atrocious.”

  “Bats.”

  “Bats? That’s your idea of valuable cargo? They’re worthless. How much did you insure them for?”

  “Don’t worry about that. They are perfect for what I have planned. They’re more valuable to me than a billion dollars.” He glanced at Koch, who was standing by a floor-to-ceiling column. “Now, my satchel please.”

  “He took it.”

  “Who took it? Bring it here now!”

  “Sands has it.”

  “He has my satchel? I sent you to Chile to bring me my satchel and you couldn’t accomplish that simple task?”

  Charles paced across the Queen Mary’s wheelhouse a few times, his shoes snapping on the steel deck. Then he paused. “Follow me.” Richter led Koch to the
Grand Salon to a model of the Wilhelm Gustloff that was kept dust-free in a rectangular glass case.

  “Tell me, how come you couldn’t stop an incompetent maritime professor from taking my satchel?” Charles stared at the model of the Wilhelm Gustloff. “Here is a ship, a ship bulging with nine thousand passengers, many times the amount it was meant to carry. Every nook and cranny bulges with refugees, women, children, severely wounded soldiers, and young girls. Pick any section of the ship.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Pick a section of the ship.” Richter gestured to the model encased in glass.

  Koch took a few steps forward. “The rear section.”

  Richter’s eyes opened wide. “Nice choice. What do we have in the rear section?”

  “The rudder.”

  “What else, damn it? You would know about the bowels of a ship, wouldn’t you?”

  “A shaft alley.”

  “Forget the machinery. What else would we find on the Wilhlelm Gustloff?”

  “People.”

  “Of course! People filling every nook and cranny. What fills every nook and cranny?”

  Koch grimaced. “People.”

  “Very good. Now picture three torpedoes launched from a submarine. Picture those torpedoes racing through the water. See those torpedoes slam into the big ship and explode. What do we have now?”

  “A sinking ship.”

  “No, we have water pouring in through the holes. What is a captain to do?”

  “Abandon ship.”

  “No, the ship has watertight bulkheads, so the captain’s first move is to seal off the areas where water is flowing in.”

  “Yes, you’re right.”

  “So what do we have in those sections?”

  “Water, salt water, I mean.”

  “We have people in those areas.”

  “Yes, there are lots of people.”

  “That’s right, water is filling the bulkheads, and what does that mean?”

  “People are dying.”

  “Yes. That’s a tough call for a captain to make. It wouldn’t be hard for you or me to make that call, but for your typical captain…”