Sinclair had no choice. He would arrive at Station One Eleven as quickly as possible. If the United States Navy was waiting for him, he would have to take his final card and hope it was not the joker.
The sound of an approaching aircraft coincided with a coded transmission to the radioman, and both events effectively yanked him from his thoughts. He watched the small, agile chopper drop down to the pitching deck where one of the large, flat hold-covers served well as a landing pad.
Sinclair exited the bridge. It was time to get Hawthorne up to speed.
“I’m going to edit through the interrogation video, and hit the important stuff,” he said. “See if you can tell me what to expect — from what the old man told us, that is.”
Hawthorne nodded as he sat in front of the small monitor. He was an almost bald, gray man who looked every bit of his sixty-three years. Too many sandwiches and six-packs had given him a generous belly, overflowing his belt and baggy jeans cinched way too low. Wearing a flannel shirt and an angler’s vest, he looked worn out and totally disinterested.
Sinclair hit the play button and the screen jittered into motion:
The scene was from the Isabel Marie’s infirmary/barber shop quarters — tight quarters with a single bed on a swivel base that could be converted, with the throw of a few levers, into a kind of chair as well. Drab yellowing walls that had once been white, plus dented cabinets and scarred counters completed the locale.
Reclining at a forty-five degree angle was Erich Bruckner, eyes closed, flesh tight against the planes of his facial bones, and looking younger than Hawthorne. Sinclair and Entwhistle flanked him and a third man, the ship’s medic, stood off in the background, ready if needed.
Sinclair spoke: “We’ve read your KTB, Captain. And we need to ask you a few questions. Will that be acceptable?”
Bruckner spoke but his eyes remained closed: “Yes.”
Sinclair: “You retrieved a scientific sample from the Station. What happened to it?”
A pause, then: “Lost. McCauley retrieved it from the sub. But then lost it.”
Sinclair: “How did he lose it?”
Bruckner: “When his dive boat sank.”
Entwhistle nodded, spoke softly: “What about the, ah… the bomb? Can you tell us about it?”
Bruckner: “What do you wish to know?”
Sinclair: “Why did you leave it at One Eleven?”
Another pause: “Because I felt uncomfortable transporting it. I did not want it on my boat.”
Entwhistle: “Yet you did not just remove it from your boat — you armed it. You tried to set it off?”
Bruckner: “Yes.”
Entwhistle: “And why would you want to do such a thing, Captain?”
Another pause. Then: “Because it was an… evil place.”
Sinclair: “Why do you say that?”
Bruckner: “Old. Very old. Not us. We were… intruders there.”
Sinclair: “Were you threatened?”
Bruckner: “Not sure.”
Entwhistle: “Look here, Captain, do you have any idea what the kiloton rating of your device might have been?”
Bruckner: “I… cannot recall.”
Sinclair: “What about its size. Can you give us the dimensions?”
Bruckner: “Perhaps six or so feet in length, and a diameter of two and a half feet.”
Entwhistle: “How did you arm it?”
Bruckner: “I… I am having trouble remembering the exact procedure. My engineer, Herr Kress, had been in charge of sealed instructions. He was the one who actually armed the device.”
Sinclair: “If it was an aerial bomb, was the detonator altitude-dependent?”
Bruckner: “I do not know. Or if I did, I have forgotten.”
Entwhistle: “Is that all Kress did — followed his instructions, like a bloody tinker toy?”
Bruckner: “No, he had brought along one of the packed charges used to scuttle a boat. He used the timer. And ordnance from the 105 deck cannon.”
Sinclair: “What kind of ordnance? You mean a round?”
Bruckner: “Yes, a 105 millimeter shell. Kress aligned it with… I cannot remember the name… some kind of rings.”
Entwhistle: “Do you have any idea why it failed?”
Bruckner: “None.”
Entwhistle: “Do you remember the location? Where you left the device?”
Bruckner: “Possibly…”
Entwhistle: “What about the source of the inter-matter? Do you remember its location?”
Bruckner: “I… think so.”
Sinclair keyed off the video, looked over at Hawthorne, who was grinning slyly as if he’d just figured out the punchline to an in-joke.
“That old buzzard. Absolutely amazing,” said the nuclear tech.
Sinclair didn’t share the joke. “Does his story make sense?”
“In what way?”
“In every fucking way! Hawthorne, don’t make yourself sound more dull than I suspect you might be…”
“Sinclair, come on now — you yanked me out of retirement and I’m supposed to feel good about that?”
He leaned close to the florid face of Hawthorne and whispered, “You know there’s only one way to ‘retire’ from our happy little club… and I don’t think you’re asking for that, are you?”
“No, actually. I guess I’m not.”
Sinclair stepped back, glared at him. “Then just answer my questions. We don’t have time to fuck around.”
“I understand.” Hawthorne paused, suddenly attentive and obviously concerned his superior wouldn’t find his answers satisfactory.
“Start talking.”
“Everything he says is plausible.”
“Okay,” said Sinclair. “Let’s start with that 105 shell. Could it still be live?”
“Sure. They can be live for generations. And in this case, we’re not talking some third world crap. German, remember? I’d put my money on anything from the Krupp war machine.”
Sinclair agreed. “Better to err on the side of caution, not reckless assumption.”
Hawthorne rubbed his hands together, a nervous habit. “So let’s assume that shell is very much live.”
“Okay, then… any idea why the timed detonation failed?”
“Not without looking at it. Could be a loose connector. Bad battery. Anything. Gotta figure the engineer knew what he was doing if he’d been trusted to arm their first nuke.”
“Okay, what about the nuke itself. What’s the chance it’s a dud?”
“Again, I need to look at it. Any way we can get radiation readings ahead of time?”
Sinclair had no idea. He’d have to check on that. “All right, what else can we expect?”
Hawthorne rubbed his chin, a parody of deep thought. Sinclair was not happy about having to trust this guy with the fate of the operation and perhaps his life. “Based on OSS records, the basic German design was sound. The materials they said they used would produce a very stable core.”
“Which means what?”
“Basically, the bomb itself would remain fissionable for an indefinite amount of time. So, in that sense, yes — hot and not much chance of being a ‘dud,’ as you say.”
Sinclair could have hoped for something less challenging. “What about the detonator? Does is sound like the engineer could have made it work?”
Hawthorne shrugged. “Yeah, probably. The old guy mentioned a ‘ring,’ right? That’s how they’d set it up back then. Simple and almost foolproof.”
“Why?”
“They called it the ‘gun design’ because the detonator was exactly that — firing a controlled blast. It’s crude, but it almost always guarantees adequate compression of the detonator ring to create fission.”
Sinclair didn’t like this at all. “How dangerous? To get in there and disarm it?”