Alexis picked up the radio on her belt and held it to her mouth. “Uh, guys?” she said, transmitting across the length of the abandoned airstrip. “You should come take a look at what I found.”
Jonah reached out to touch the hull of the U-3531, a look of wonder in his eyes as a smile spread across his face. He ran his hand down the length of the bow, fingertips playing across the rough, rusted surface. “Incredible,” he whispered, his gaze locked on the submarine.
Hassan had never seen Jonah quite so taken with anything, much less a seventy-year-old hulk laid up on concrete blocks. Getting it inside the hanger would have been a massive, logistical operation with powerful winches slowly hauling the German sub out of the ocean and onto a wheeled cradle.
The U-3531 still stood tall, despite the partially collapsed ceiling of the concrete hanger. The top lip of the conning tower loomed some forty feet above the landing party, the wheeled trucks beneath her keel long since frozen with rust.
“You know anything about her?” asked Hassan, nodding toward the submarine. “She can’t possibly be from the second World War — could she?”
“She could, and she is,” answered Jonah. “Alexis is right; she’s definitely World War II vintage. She’s a Type 21, the submarine that could have won the war for the Germans. She had triple the batteries, a streamlined, quiet hull, and more torpedoes than any of her contemporaries. But only a handful ever made it into the service, and by then, it was too late to turn the tide. The war at sea was over the minute the Allies cracked German and Japanese codes. They mercilessly tracked down and sank every sub they could find using next-gen radar, sonar buoys, and airdropped torpedoes. Not even the Type 21’s had a chance at that point.”
“She looks so much like the Scorpion,” Alexis observed.
“She is the Scorpion. They’re more or less sisters. You need any spare parts? You could probably grab them right off the U-3531 if you really needed to.”
“I wouldn’t put a single bolt from that rust bucket anywhere near my ship.”
Jonah chuckled. “She isn’t a rust bucket. She is— was — a wolf.”
Hassan reached out and laid his palm against the vessel as if feeling for a heartbeat. “I don’t understand — the Scorpion cannot possibly date to the World War II.”
“Maybe more like mother and daughter,” Jonah said, correcting himself. “The Type 21 was one of the most influential designs of the twentieth century. She inspired a slew of improvements to British and American submarines; France even re-commissioned and operated a captured one for two decades. But nobody went further with the captured technology than the Soviets. The Type 21 design became the foundation of their entire fleet. They started with ‘Project 633,’ a one-for-one knockoff. It became obsolete at the advent of the nuclear navy, so they farmed out decommissioned subs and designs to every client state on their Rolodex. China built almost one hundred; others went to Bulgaria, Syria, Egypt, and Algeria, just to name a few. North Korea still operates at least seventy, the backbone of their fleet.”
“So basically the AK-47 of submarines,” said Alexis.
“And that’s how you knew we could out-climb the DPRK submarine and hit the surface before them,” Hassan said.
“Pretty much,” said Jonah, winking at his engineer. “We were in a drag race between identically spec’d-out cars — it all came down to who had less curb weight, and the better mechanic.”
Alexis grinned ear to ear at the compliment.
“Her long-lost sister,” Hassan said, now also marveling at the U-3531. “I imagine this is a significant find — and quite the prize to a maritime museum.”
“I’d just like to point out she’s in the wrong ocean,” Alexis said.
“Not necessarily.” Jonah sat down on the concrete foundation and crossed his legs, leaning against the U-3531’s hull. “The logistical links between Germany and Japan were almost instantly severed when the war began. A few blockade-runners ran the gauntlet at first, but it was impractical over the long run. The two countries were initially content to keep to their own hemispheres. But by the end of the war, the separation had become an incredible problem.”
“I remember this from my studies,” said Hassan. “Germany had technology, but not nearly enough raw materials.”
“That’s right,” said Jonah. “And Japan was resource-rich, but much of their weaponry was a decade behind Germany’s, and no match for the Allies. So they devised a tech-for-resources trade. Materials like quinine, opium, rubber, and tungsten went west to Europe. So did stolen gold. In return, Japan received the cream of German technology — guns, optics, engines, you name it.”
“And the only way they could transport these cargos was underwater,” Alexis realized. “But weren’t all the German submarines accounted for by at the end of the war?”
“Not entirely,” said Jonah. “The Germans and Allies kept meticulous wartime records. However, putting it all together after the fact was a bit of a crapshoot. They tried to compare Allied attack reports to when the Germans lost track of their submarines, and ended up with a reasonably accurate facsimile of what had happened to each. Still, there were errors. One Type 9 was supposedly lost off of Africa before she was discovered in 1991 by divers in New Jersey. And then there were a few that slipped through the Allied net and ended up in places like Argentina.”
“You have a soft spot for these men, don’t you?” Alexis said. “I feel like I’ve just seen you meet your favorite movie star.”
“I have to admit I do.” Jonah shrugged. “The Kriesgmarine — the German Navy — was the least-political arm of the Nazi military machine. And yet they suffered the worst casualty rate out of any service in the entire war. For the most part, they were brave men in a bad situation, not diehard Nazis.”
“Then when you’re done with your love fest here, you should take a look at the other thing I found. A marker engraved with what I’m guessing is the crew’s names.” Alexis cocked her head toward the sub. “Something tells me her crew didn’t make it to the Philippines alive.”
“Something tells me you’re right,” Jonah said.
Hassan considered the information for a few moments, staring up once more at the painted insignia on the conning tower. “Our German half-sister indeed,” he marveled. “Do we know which Soviet client state once operated the Scorpion? Or perhaps Russia herself?”
“No,” said Alexis, shaking her head. “I’ve been over every inch her, and I haven’t found a single clue yet. My guess is Bettencourt thoroughly covered his tracks after the acquisition. After all, somebody fucked up big time letting it fall into his hands.”
“I was a salvage diver,” chuckled Jonah. “My entire career was dependent on people fucking up.”
It took Jonah almost an hour to climb up the exterior of the concrete hanger, selecting each handhold on the crumbling structure with care. He grasped vines, and jammed the toes of his booted feet into spreading cracks and eroded divots until he found himself standing at the edge of the collapsed section, staring down into the darkness from above. Entire trees had sprouted from the roof, claiming it once more for the jungle, their roots dripping into the darkness within. Jonah picked the oldest, largest tree and began to slowly descend its thick limbs, lost to the darkness until his outstretched toes brushed against the upper edge of the U-3531’s tall conning tower.