“Erich Heinz Bruckner,” said Dex. “Our captain.”
“What’s that, his passport?” Tommy reached out, barely touched it with his fingers as if it were a magic amulet.
“Something like that. But strictly military. See these tables and spaces on the right pages? That’s where they kept track of your service — ranks, promotions, assignments, duty tours, commendations, all that stuff. You were to keep this with you at all times.”
“Is that what the guys in the movies are always talking about when they say ‘your papers’?” Tommy chuckled at his small humor.
“Yeah, one of them.” Dex pulled the next item from the box — a tan booklet similar to the first one. Under the eagle carrying the swastika was the word Soldbuch, and beneath that the word Kriegsmarine.
“And this one too.”
He opened it to reveal Bruckner’s photo in full military dress, displaying the hat and insignia of Kapitaenleutnant. The guy looked like a pro, no doubt about it. Looking at his pictures, Dex received an immediate impression of total confidence, knowledge, and authority.
“Is that his passport?” said Tommy.
“No, it’s his really official ID in the military. The other one’s just more Nazi bullshit. This is the one that counts.”
“How do you know this stuff?” Tommy looked at him like a little kid.
“You mean other than because I’m a really smart guy?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know, I was always kind of interested — fascinated, really — by the whole Nazi thing,” said Dex. “I’ve read a lot about them.”
“You read German?”
Dex shook his head, pointed to some entries on the right page of the Soldbuch. “Nah. But if I could — see this? — it’s a record of all our Captain’s assignments. We could find out a lot about this guy.”
“That’s cool.”
Scanning the printed words in the small entry spaces, Dex pointed to a column and smiled. “Yeah, and look at this. Here’s exactly what we’ve been looking for.”
“What?” Tommy leaned closer.
“Right here. This line. The last one filled in? The last assignment — U-5001.”
“The name of the sub?”
“I’m sure of it now,” said Dex. “I saw those numbers stenciled on the inside of a hatch lid. If we can find an ID plate somewhere, that’ll just confirm what we already know. The torpedo room is usually where they put them. If we get that, it’s just icing on the cake.”
“U-5001.” Tommy tapped the open lid of the box. “So this thing’s a home run, huh?”
“Oh yeah. It should help unravel most of this boat’s total story. Or at least point us in the right directions.”
“We’re gonna need somebody who reads German,” said Tommy.
“That won’t be a problem. If I have to, I can transcribe this stuff and run it through a translation website.”
“They got stuff like that?”
Dex looked at him. “You need to explore more of the world than its bars.”
Tommy grinned, raked his fingers through his thick, black hair.
Reaching back into the metal container, Dex pulled another book from it. Thick, heavy pages bound into a durable but flexible cover. The pages were filled with writings. Rather than cursive, the words were printed in bold block letters, with a fountain pen. A handwriting specialist would probably say the printing had been by someone of great confidence and authority.
“Wow, take a look at this,” said Dex as he began to flip through it.
“What is it?”
“This is the captain’s log. Day-by-day entries on what happened onboard the boat. See, here’s the dates. And then look here — the little column down the right margins? And the check marks?”
“Yeah,” said Tommy.
“That indicates when the entries were forwarded home to U-boat control. Every day’s activities of every sub were kept in Berlin — they were called BdU KTBs. It was a perfect record of a boat’s orders, communications, engagements… you name it.”
Tommy chuckled, shook his head. “Man, how the hell you know this stuff?”
“I read a lot,” said Dex with a shrug. “Plus I watch the History Channel.”
Tommy, perhaps shamed into silence, nodded and tried to look suitably serious.
“We need to find out what this says.” Dex closed the log. “And we will.”
“What’re we gonna do?”
“You’ll see,” said Dex, folding the log up and carefully placing it on the table. “But let’s see what’s left in there.”
Looking down, he saw one more item in the box — a thick envelope filled with medals and decorations, which he picked up, opened, and spread out on the bench.
“Here’s another Knight’s Cross, with the ribbons,” said Dex.
“Yeah, and hey, are those things diamonds?”
Dex nodded. “Yeah, this one is. With the oakleafs. It was one of the highest medals they could get. This guy, Bruckner, he must have been special.”
“You mean good?”
Dex grinned. “Well, that’s a relative term when you’re talking about these guys.”
“You know what I mean.”
Dex nodded, started returning Captain Bruckner’s effects to the steel box. “Let’s take a quick look at the brick. Then we’ll see what we can get out of that journal, okay?”
“You’re the one who knows what you’re doin’. Sounds good to me.”
Dex retrieved the remaining object from the backpack, laid it on the bench. Although roughly the shape and size of regular red brick, it was surely nothing so mundane.
“Man, it looks freakin’ weird in the light,” said Tommy.
And it did.
As Dex regarded it under the fluorescent light, he noticed right away that he couldn’t actually identify its color. The smooth surface on first glance appeared to be a slate gray, but light seemed to dance and shimmer just beneath the surface, imparting a spectral aspect to it. It was as if the object were somehow absorbing light and reflecting different wavelengths at random. This effect also gave it a less substantial appearance — just the slightest suggestion of wavering, like a special effect in an old movie.
But it was a real, solid object. It had a lot more mass than most things its size, and Dex wondered if it might be some weird isotope the Nazis had been screwing around with. He knew they’d had several deuterium plants up and running in Norway before a few Lancaster bombing runs took them out.
A thought burned through him — could it be giving off dangerous, or even lethal radiation? Then he shrugged inwardly. If it was, then it was already too late to worry about it.
“Not much I can make of it,” he said. “We need to have some science-guys take a look.”
“Maybe Kevin knows somebody where he works.” Tommy reached out, touched the odd surface. “Feels kinda cold.”
“Yeah, I wonder if the density of the material is allowing it to retain the temperatures from the bottom of the bay.”
“You got me there. I slept through my science class, know what I mean?” Tommy chuckled at his own wit.
Dex had been only half listening to him. He was wondering more and more about these strange objects they’d dredged up from the past, and his paranoia meter continued ticking like a Geiger counter. If this thing were some kind of odd element, giving out weird radiation, then they’d been absolute jerks to expose themselves and anybody else who might have been close enough. There was definitely something odd about the surface and the color of the object, and that could only be the beginning.
Plus there was the whole question of how many people he wanted to involve in this — if there was something special, or dangerous, associated with this brick, he wasn’t sure he wanted any government types getting their noses out of joint about it.