“So the Graf Spee won then,” Crystal said.
“No, it retreated and fled, but after another exchange of fire later on with quite a solid success, the Graf Spee retreated into the River Plate estuary. There was a stalemate, because the British ships stayed their position to keep the Graf Spee from sneaking out to the open sea again, see?” she continued excitedly. “Bear with me, I have a point on this.”
Purdue’s coffee had gone cold and after a valiant attempt at the bitter beverage, he winced and just put it down. Crystal sighed with boredom. She found history interesting, but she could not care less about Nina's stories.
“In the course of the engagement, the Graf Spee had been hit approximately 70 times; 36 men had been killed and 60 wounded, including her captain. Eventually, all her ammo had run out, and the bow was in such a bad state that she would never have been able to sail back to Germany. On top of that, the Brits bluffed, conveying the impression, that more of their ships had arrived, just waiting for the Graf Spee to try her luck,” Nina smiled. “To avoid the ship being interned for the remainder of the war under the regulations of the Hague convention, the captain eventually ordered the ship to be scuttled right there… on December 17, 1939, in Uruguay. Not Bluewater Bay, not Simonstad — Uruguay — with an audience of 20,000 people watching the fireworks. Fourteen different accounts that I followed up with say the same.”
“Could it have been fourteen versions of the same account? I really want this to be the Graf Spee,” Crystal admitted. “I’ll play Devil’s Advocate until I’m blue in the face.”
“I doubt you will, honey,” Nina smiled. “Today — and you can check Google Maps if you don’t believe me — pieces of the Graf Spee are lying at a depth of a mere 11m, clearly visible," Nina bragged with her well-researched back-up.
Crystal zoned out in thought and finally replied, “In 11m of water off the coast — that would make the wreck a navigational hazard.” She looked at Nina and Purdue. “They would have had to tow it away or dismantle it completely.”
“They did. In 2004, they raised a 27 metric tons gunnery range-finding telemeter. And in 2006, they retrieved the 400kg crest of the eagle and swastika from its stern. Boom! Mystery solved. This, lady and gentleman, is not the Graf Spee," Nina concluded.
Outside the door Cheryl’s eyes grew wide, her shaking hands covering her mouth. The distressing news made her sick, sicker than her morning withdrawal and she bolted for the bathroom. She threw up huddled over the toilet bowl; certain, that Zain would kill her if he found out she had led them on a hoax treasure hunt.
In Cheryl’s absence, the conversation continued, and had she listened, it could have saved her from a lot of inner turmoil.
“The reason I asked the two of you to hear me out first was because the funding of this expedition and its continuation depends on the two of you,” Nina said. She lowered her voice for the question she had called them here for. “It is entirely up to the two of you whether I divulge this information officially to the group. Now, I was thinking, since we already have Crystal’s contractors on their way…”
Crystal smiled. “I like your way of thinking, Nina!”
“You are saying we should pretend that we don’t know this and still tow the ship?” Purdue guessed. “Well, are you confident that this is the same class of ship?”
“Positive,” Nina affirmed, nodding zealously. Purdue had to smile at the idea. He had already spent so much money to fund the operation, so why not continue anyway?
“So it is of historic value. Who knows, perhaps even more so than the Graf Spee, depending on what we find on it,” Crystal smiled. “Let’s do it, Dave. Let’s salvage this wreck and see how far we can take it north. You never know what kind of secrets it yields!”
“But we don’t tell anyone else. Agreed?” Crystal suggested.
“Agreed,” Purdue replied.
Nina smiled slyly, closing the lid of her laptop. “It will be our little secret.”
Chapter 22 — The Second Secret
In the afternoon, Crystal got word from her men on the salvage tug that they would soon arrive in South African waters.
"We can start collecting our gear so long, people," Purdue announced as Crystal filled him in on the schedule. "Naturally the first part of the expedition revolves around the most trying and daring of all our tasks concerning Dr. Malgas' find. That is, of course, to tow the wreck into international waters without the local authorities getting wind of it.”
“Cutting it thin, aren’t we?” Dr. Malgas asked with a heavy weight of worry in his voice. He chugged back some brandy, looking quite the worse for wear since his argument with Dr. Gould. It seemed that he had abandoned all care about the ramifications of his doings, as long as he could tag along and take credit for the lost ship when the time came. His weary eyes sought Mieke’s face, who assured him with a nod that everything would work swimmingly if he kept his cool during the process.
“Cutting it thin is what we do best, Dr. Malgas,” Purdue smiled. “We have learned under harrowing circumstances that there is not really no alternative to just biting the bullet and getting things done.”
“We have researched the coastline well, Dr. Malgas,” Crystal reassured him, appearing next to Purdue as if she was his shadow. “We have investigated all the angles and factors carefully, so don’t fret. We have obtained the coast guard’s roster and schedule to make sure they do not pass us by at an inconvenient time, so to speak,” she smiled at Purdue and Sam.
Nina watched the affair with a keen eye, feeling the tension between all the factions in this excursion, but keeping her doubts and judgments firmly to herself. Crystal spoke like a stewardess, very sure of herself. But Nina wondered if the master diver was really as confident as she led on. Certainly the notion that the ship was a not what they had thought it would be had to leave her, at least, a little bit insecure.
“I have been making notes about the routines of our neighbors, their habits and such,” Sam winked at Billy Malgas. “Between myself, Purdue and Crystal we have made sure that our window of operation stays undeterred while we work.”
Crystal cleared her throat, still reeling from the secret they shared. “I hate to play Devil’s Advocate here, but…” she took a moment as everyone turned their attentions to her, “…but won’t the locals find a salvage tug a bit suspicious right here in their waters?”
As if he had been waiting for someone to ask that very question, Purdue’s face lit up. With a warm smile, he walked toward Crystal and explained, “Oh, we have no concerns about that, my dear. I have a device I have been working on since Sam informed me of this fascinating operation back in Edinburgh.”
Cheryl, Mieke, and Dr. Malgas perked up to see what Purdue was doing when he retrieved the item from a sturdy iron case. Inside the case, it was resting in a molded foam cradle to protect it from excessive vibration or impact. The gleaming little contraption gleamed like a mirrored box with a thin lid, which served as a screen or view finder for the genius inventor to mark coordinates on.
“This is the TechMag Satellite Manipulator,” he said proudly.
“Hey, I haven’t seen that one yet,” Sam mumbled, coming to scrutinize it.
“No, no-one has. I thought to keep it on hand just until I had examined the conditions under which we had to move the wreck to get it out of the 12-mile-zone,” Purdue revealed. “I designed it while we were waiting to get our logistics sorted out. Lovely little thing, isn’t it?”