Dexter McCauley
Crofton, Maryland
After the confrontation with Tommy and the cool-down over a few beers, Dex felt a little better. His advice had been for everybody to go home to their families and relax. Good advice for just about the whole bunch of them—except maybe Tommy and himself. Dex hadn’t had a “family” in so long, he hardly remembered what the word meant. Both his parents had died while he was in the Navy, and both times while he was on duty in some faraway port. He had an older sister, but she was off living her own life, raising her own family, none of whom had much time for “weird Uncle Dex.”
He grinned as he thought about that and keyed the ignition of his Ford 150 to back away from the wharf parking lot. Don was still onboard the Sea Dog, and he waved once then went back to checking all the tie-lines in case a storm came up out of nowhere. They had a way of doing that in the middle of the night. Waving back, Dex threw the pick-up into first gear, and patched out like he was in a hurry to get somewhere.
He wasn’t.
And his list of options ranged from totally avoidable (going back to the Dive Shop and doing the QuickBooks statements) to mildly objectionable (going home and doing all the piles of laundry) to eventually necessary (stopping at the B&O Diner for the meatloaf special).
Being hungrier than he’d first figured, he refueled first at the diner, then headed home, which was a townhouse condo in a little satellite of Annapolis called Crofton. He’d been there years now, and it was finally beginning to feel like it really was home. Although he’d always tell people he didn’t need much space, Dex had done a pretty decent job of filling it up with plenty of stuff—power tools, woodworking gear for his handmade furniture projects, and spare diving equipment. It made the basement look acceptably junky; plus, the second bedroom was shelved high with old records, magazines, paperback books and outdated rack-mounted stereo components. His old Technics turntable had given up the ghost years ago, and he kept saying he was either going to fix it or finally chuck all those “LPs.” (Did anybody still call them that? Did anybody even know what an LP was?)
The thought made him smile as he closed the front door behind him and stepped into the living room. His years in the Navy had taught him how to be neat when he had to be, and it was reflected in the clean lines and uncluttered look of the place. Plenty of shelves and books, some modern lighting and the requisite flat-screen TV, but not much else that couldn’t have been in the room fifty years ago.
Flopping down on the couch, Dex remoted on the cable news, fighting the room’s silence, more as background noise rather than the focus of his thoughts. He was tired, but he knew he couldn’t sleep yet. As much as he’d been trying to be cool, he kept thinking about that sub they’d found.
Not Tommy and his gold.
That was most likely crap. Dex hardly gave it a thought. He was far more interested in finding out why it ended up in the Bay. And its crew? What happened to those guys? Even though he’d told his men there was nothing special about sunken U-boats, he had a good hunch this one might be different. Its size for one. Almost twice as long as any ever built for the German fleet.
And maybe that number—5001. So maybe what Dex saw on the inside hatch was the answer. Getting an ID on the boat would be the first thing they’d need to start unwinding the mystery of the big sub.
Getting up from the sofa, Dex bounded upstairs to the second bedroom, which served as office and library. Filled with shelves and bookcases and a big desk, it was a dark, comfortable place where Dex spent most of his time at home.
After checking a few of the more obvious websites and databases, he found absolutely nothing on U-boats of the huge size they’d found, but that didn’t surprise him. Near the end of the war, the Nazis (despite their penchant for detailed record-keeping) started to run out of time, and there was a good chance they didn’t keep up their registries as well as they normally would. And Kevin’s memory had been correct; there were no numbers in the five thousands. The highest number he could find was the U-4718—a boat that had never been commissioned, probably never finished. Then there was—
The phone bleated electronically and after checking the ID on the little screen, he grabbed it. It was Kevin Cheever.
“Hey, Kev…what’s up?”
“Well, cutting to the chase,” said Cheever. “I was just wondering about what you made of today’s adventure?”
Dex exhaled. “Not a lot, so far. I have a few ideas, but nothing concrete.”
“Me too,” said Kevin. “I figured it might be easier to talk now than doing it tomorrow. With the rest of them there. Especially with everybody thinking we’re going to be rich. That’s all Mike’s ex needs to hear. I can smell her lawyers salivating already.”
“I know. Can you believe Tommy? What a goof.”
Kevin cleared his throat. “Hey, boss, it wasn’t me that brought him to our little party.”
Dex smiled. “Mea culpa. I guess I feel sorry for him.”
“The same way you feel towards dumb animals?”
“You really don’t like him, do you, Kev.”
“I don’t know. Just kidding, I guess.”
Dex exhaled slowly. He hated when conversation devolved into bullshit chatter.
“C’mon, your point—you did have one, right?”
“Yeah,” said Kevin. “I’ve been checking all the usual websites and sources…”
“Yeah, me too,” said Dex.
“Well, I don’t know about you, but according to the official records I’ve been able to track down, that boat we found today never existed. I couldn’t find any reference to the Nazis ever building anything that big.”
“We’ve got to get coordinated so we’re not duplicating the same work,” said Dex. “You check the number too?”
“Yeah. Nothing.” Kevin paused. Then: “You still have some friends in the Navy?”
“A few. And some of them have some friends. We’re a long way from being shut-out at this point of the game.”
“I have a guy at work, Sal Robustelli,” said Kevin. “Good guy. World War II nut. You know the type.”
“Sure.”
“Anyway, I’ll ask him if he has any ideas.”
“Sounds good. What about your own thoughts?”
“I’m thinking prototype,” said Kevin.
“Me too. And it looks pretty obvious to me—that superstructure on the aft deck was a hangar.”
“For a plane.” Kevin spoke definitively. It was not a question.
“You bet…”
“Now that would be cool—we get into that hangar and find a plane. That would make it pretty interesting. Maybe we found one of their secret weapons.”
“We’ll know soon enough,” said Dex.
“You know, I remember reading about a Japanese boat like this one. But I don’t think it got off the drawing boards. An underwater aircraft carrier. To knock out the Panama Canal. Can you imagine?”
“Man, that would’ve been something…” said Dex as he imagined the Japs pulling it off.
“So it wouldn’t be all that crazy for the Nazis to be thinking of something like that.”
Dex nodded. He liked solving a good mystery. “So listen, keep me up to date on your guy at work and make sure you copy me on it, so I don’t re-invent the wheel—and I’ll give some of my old Navy buds a call and see what’s what.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Kevin.
“The other option might be a little trickier—depending on how clean it is in there.”
“What’s that?”
“The Germans usually put a small, metal ID tag on one of the torpedo tube hatches in the forward compartment. A little plate with boat’s designator, the date completed, and the yard where it was built. I just read that somewhere.”
“If we can find that, it’s going to make all this work a waste of time.” Kevin chuckled. “Yeah. So, I guess I’ll see you at the dock.”
“Seven a.m., pal.”
He killed the call, and reached for his address book. It was old and beat-up and filled with scratch-outs, changes, margin notes, and outdated info. He really needed to re-do his address book—get rid of the guys who were dead, married, missing, whatever. Another one of those projects he just never got around to doing. Like replacing that low-pressure showerhead, which was starting to drive him crazy. Save water, my ass…
Not now, he told himself. Stay focused, on course. Up until now, he knew, his little dive club and chowder society had been just dicking around, but now it was serious business.
Dex finally faced what was lurking just beneath his thoughts—that damned boat kind of scared him.
He hoped the rest of the guys realized what they might be up against.