“I know that, Chief. I did some preliminary checking on your list — now fill me in.”
Dex did his best to summarize the sequence of events that pushed him to make the call. When he’d finally finished, Whitehurst didn’t speak for a moment. Then: “Jesus Christ, you’re serious, aren’t you? About all of it… and the old U-boat captain, he’s really still alive?”
“Yes sir, all true.”
“I need some time to let all this settle, to see the larger picture. If that secret base is even close to what you think it might be…” Whitehurst paused again.
Dex waited, then risked interrupting his thoughts. “Admiral, sir?”
“Yes?”
“I… I just need to know. And I don’t want you to get upset with me for even asking a question like this, but… those guys who’re after us…”
“Stow it, sailor,” said Whitehurst. “They’re not ours. We wouldn’t do that to our own. You’ll be safe with me, McCauley.”
“Well, I must’ve already believed that, or I’d never have called you.”
“Noted,” said Whitehurst. “However, you should know we’re going to need to pick you and your people up. You’re still in danger.”
“Any idea who those guys could be?”
“We’ll find out.”
“So, what’s our next move?”
“How many in your group are we talking about?”
“Four.”
“I’ll scramble a Sea Ranger from the Naval Hospital in Philly. They’ll get it there within the hour, I’m sure. We need to get you and your people down here to DC for a debriefing. Can the old bastard fly?”
“Pretty sure. He looks plenty healthy to me,” said Dex. He was feeling an electric surge in his pulse, a coiled spring tension in his shoulders and arms. He’d almost forgotten what that sense of readiness was like. But it was as comfortable as an old shoe, and Dex smiled.
“The pilot will call you when he’s close to the field. I’m assuming Lancaster has an airport — if not we’ll coordinate as soon as I get a confirmed LZ, okay? But I think you should get started right away.”
“Yes sir, and thank you for calling back, Admiral.”
“Let’s just say you got my curiosity. Get moving, sailor.”
Disconnecting the call, Dex re-entered the room and told everybody the plan. When Captain Bruckner learned of the Navy’s plan to fly him out, his eyes brightened, warming to the suggestion of adventure.
Dex was about to suggest they start making plans when something occurred to him. One of the things he’d always done in Rescue was have a back-up plan, and with this in mind, he spoke to Bruckner.
“Captain, is there any way you might be able to make me a map? Can you remember what that place looked like? Enough to give me an idea where you left the bomb?”
Bruckner nodded. “Yes. I will never forget that place.”
Moving quickly, Erich found some copy machine paper and a pen from the office area. He cleared the drinks and snacks off the tray and let the old man start sketching. As he watched him slowly connect a series of shaky lines, Dex became aware of the music playing beneath their feet. The steady thump of a bass line sounded like the beating heart of a great beast, buried, but slowly awakening — which was exactly what was happening, wasn’t it?
While he watched Bruckner, the door opened at the landing and Jason appeared with new drinks and some bar snacks. Dex thanked him and explained what his grandfather was trying to do.
Jason nodded, put the tray on the table between the chairs. Quietly, he gestured for Dex to follow him back out of the room where the old man couldn’t hear them.
“You know,” he said. “It’s funny, I keep going over all this — everything I’ve found out today — and I keep trying to figure out whose fault it is.”
“Hey, come on…” Dex started to say something.
Jason waved him off. “I mean, that’s how they teach us to think these days — that it’s always somebody to blame, right? So I’m thinking — how did all this shit get so complicated? So fast? And every time I look at that sweet old guy, the guy who’s loved me and taught me so much since I was just a kid, I… I can’t believe he did anything like this.”
“He did what he had to do,” said Dex. “Just like he’s doing now.”
“So, you’re… you’re okay with him?” Jason looked apprehensive.
“You kidding?” said Dex. “‘Okay’ with him? Your grandfather’s an officer — I’m counting on him.”
Jason absorbed that simple truth, and unleashed a genuine smile.
They returned to the room to see that Bruckner had finished his map. Although the lines were a little shaky, and the scale wasn’t altogether accurate, the relative positions of things he’d described were all there. He showed it to Dex with an expression of obvious self-satisfaction.
“Not bad, eh?” he said.
“Pretty good, actually,” said Dex. “We may need this at some point. I can keep it, right?”
“Of course.”
As Dex folded it up to stash in his pocket, the old man looked away for a moment as if replaying another memory.
“You know, there is something else,” said Bruckner. “One more thing.”
“What’s that?”
The old man grinned, waved his finger chidingly at Dex. “No, I must show you. Telling would do no good.”
“What’re you talking about?” said Jason.
Erich sighed. “As I said before, as the time passed, and nothing ever came of our sunken boat. Buried under the bay, and forgotten. There was only one thing to tie us to any of it, and Manny and I had to decide what to do with it.”
Dex nodded. “And what thing is that?”
“Something we retrieved from the wreckage,” said Bruckner. He shook his head, as if to indicate there was no way he could relate it to them.
“Was it a piece of metal? Shaped kind of like a brick?”
Bruckner looked surprised. “How did you know that?”
“I read your log, remember?”
“Oh, yes, of course. And yes, I’ve kept it all these years.”
“Plus, we found another one,” said Dex. “Right where you must have left it — by the aft hatch.”
“Yes, I remember… when it dropped away from me.” Bruckner’s gaze was somewhere else in the corridors of his memories. “Where is it? Do you have it with you?”
Dex shrugged, not feeling like this was the best time to unravel the rest of his story concerning the attack on the Sea Dog. “No… we… lost it… in an accident. It’s back in the Bay.”
“No matter. I made provision to keep the one I took. It was the only solid proof I had… the proof we had really been there.”
“Where is it now?” Dex looked around at the small group, then directly at Bruckner. “You can tell us all, Captain — we’re all in this together.”
The old man looked at his grandson. “Jason knows. He was with me when I secured it there. Conestoga Memorial Cemetery. Next to Manny’s headstone, we buried it there, right after he died, remember?”
Jason nodded. “I remember,” he said in a solemn voice.
“I had kept that object with me all these years, in a box I kept by my bed. It was the only thing that proved to me it had all been real. But when Manny died… I don’t know, there was nothing left to connect me to the past.”
“I think we should leave it there for now,” said Dex. “Believe me, sir, you don’t have to prove anything to me.”