Erich had been confident the Americans would believe him — for several reasons. One, he gave them real names, and the feds were able to verify all three of them had been members of the German Navy. Two, there was no record of Manny, Hausser, or Erich sailing on any other boats — the 5001 never officially existed and adjunct crew were routinely omitted from regular boat crew-lists. Three, the Navy did have records of attacking and sinking U-boats sighted off the Virginia and Carolina coasts in January of ’45. which made it more than likely they sank the boat carrying Erich and the others. And four, Erich had no reason to be lying.
They did believe them, and eventually, after passing through the bureaucracy, Erich, along with Manny and Freddie Hausser, went about the business of becoming Americans.
Chapter Forty-One
As Jason maneuvered along the not-crowded streets of downtown Lancaster, Dex listened to Erich Bruckner, who had proved himself a decent narrator.
“Opa, you never told me any of that before,” said Jason.
“I hedged my bets, as they say.” Bruckner looked out the window wistfully. “I was hoping I would never need to.”
“It must have been hard to keep all that in, all this time,” said Augie, who’d been listening with rapt attention.
“For a long time, I had Manny who shared our secret — who believed in staying silent as much as me. Of course, often, that can be a problem.” Bruckner turned to look at Dex, smiled. “Ben Franklin said something about such a situation, Mr. McCauley. Did you ever hear it?”
Dex smiled. He knew the quote well. “Two men can easily keep a secret… as long as one of them is dead.”
Bruckner nodded. “And that has been the case for seven years now.”
“But what about before then?” said Jason. “How did you keep it so quiet?”
Erich regarded his grandson, pausing to find the right words. Then he said, “Manny and I were… what is the word… haunted by the ruins we’d found. And the suggestion that something had been awakened in the base after the explosion. We agreed the place was best left alone. Forgotten. Like a tomb with a curse. And the curse turned out to be the Project Norway bomb.”
“Yeah, I can understand that,” said Jason.
“Besides,” said Erich. “The odds of anyone ever finding a passage under the Greenland Shelf seemed almost impossible.”
“Yeah, but what about the science stuff? That beacon thing?” Jason spoke softly, with a very respectful tone. “I mean, whoever built that, they sounded so much more advanced than us. Maybe we should try to—”
“No,” said Erich, holding up a hand. “Better left alone. Maybe we should not know what became of them.”
“Hmm, yeah,” said Tommy. “I never thought of it like that, but you’re right, you know.”
Bruckner continued: “I had one other overriding concern. Remember, I had left my logbook in my quarters on the U-5001. For many years, I worried about that. I wondered if anyone might ever find the remains of our boat. If they did, I wondered if they would be able to discover facts regarding our true mission.”
“But the years went by, and Manny and I carried on our lives. We married American girls, saved our money. We opened our first bar near the Cross Street Market in Baltimore. We did well. When we discovered the old world ways and the German influences up here in Pennsylvania, we decided to sell the bar and move our families, and open a new place. It was a fine idea.”
“Yeah, Opa, you did great, you really did.”
Bruckner smiled as he patted his grandson’s shoulder. Then he turned to Dex: “All that time going by, and no word on our U-boat. Manny was convinced it was gone forever, but my instincts told me to never be certain of anything — that’s why, after Manny died, I told Jason his ‘uncle’ had been in the German submarine service, that his boat was called the U-5001, and I stressed to him if he ever saw any mention of the boat — any at all — I would be interested in knowing about it.”
“Okay,” said the grandson. “It’s all making sense now.”
“All that time,” said Dex. “And then along comes me and my divers.”
“Yes,” said Bruckner. “In all these years I have learned many things — one is to not be surprised by the workings of fate.”
While the old man had been talking, Dex had been partitioning his thoughts, wondering how much he should tell Captain Bruckner about the people who were after them. He was an officer, and deserved to know, but it would probably be best to wait until the Admiral’s people reached them.
As much as Dex hated to even think about it, not only Bruckner might be in danger, but the rest of his family as well.
So what did he say? And when and to whom?
He remained silent as Jason pulled onto the Bruckner’s street. As the SUV drifted into a lazy turn into the driveway, Dex tapped Jason on the shoulder.
“Can you stop here for a sec? I need to get something from my truck.”
Tommy looked at him initially with surprise, then understanding. He didn’t want to alarm the others, but he didn’t want to go walking into a trap.
Reaching his hand into the pocket of his windbreaker, Tommy nodded. “You go on,” he said. “I’ll go in with Captain Bruckner and see if he needs any help.”
“I’m right behind you.” Dex turned and walked out to his F-150 on the sidewalk. Just as he reached it, he heard the first whump-whump sounds of a helicopter somewhere above them. Why hadn’t Whitehurst called back to confirm it?
Jason and his grandfather had reached the front door, followed by Augie and Tommy. Dex couldn’t move, seized by indecision. He had the Mossberg in the truck, but that was a desperation weapon. Useless in a crowd when not everybody in the crowd was a bad guy. Quickly opening the passenger door, he grabbed his backpack from the rear cab and rummaged an extra magazine for the Sig. With his hand in his jacket, he clicked off the handgun’s safety, and headed for the Bruckner house, where the group had entered and closed the door behind them.
Now that was weird…
The night sky resonated with the distant beat of rotor blades — were they getting louder, closer?
Jesus, he wasn’t trained for this kind of situation, and besides that, he was feeling too old to pull it off. He knew they’d been dumb-lucky the first time they’d locked horns with the enemy, but Dex had a very bad feeling they wouldn’t let themselves be that stupid twice.
Rotor blades whumping in the darkness. Definitely drawing closer. The Lancaster airport was dead north of his position, and only by a few miles.
What now?
Pulling out his Trac Fone, he hit the re-dial. If the connection locked him into the infinite carousel of the Pentagon routing system because it was after hours, he was fucked. If it—
“Whitehurst,” said a voice.
“Admiral, it’s McCauley — what’s going on? I never heard from you and the chopper’s on its way.” His gaze moved skyward as he spoke; now the running lights of the Sea Ranger, as well as its engine, had become a faint signal of its approach.