Bruckner
Greenland Shelf
A clang! woke him from an uneasy sleep. It was a sound he had known since his earliest days at sea—the latch being thrown on a watertight bulkhead door. But there was one difference, this one had also been locked from the outer corridor.
Looking up, Erich saw the door swing open to reveal a swarthy merchant seaman, who could be Portuguese or perhaps from a North African country. He banged his hand on the metal wall and gestured for Tommy to come forward.
“What’s goin’ on?” said the young firefighter, who was sitting up on the edge of his bunk.
The man said nothing, but reached into his insulated vest and pulled out a pair of plastic restraints.
Tommy looked at him with mild disgust as he extended his wrists. “What, again? We’re on a boat in the middle of nowhere—I’m not goin’ anywhere, okay?”
Erich watched the crewman secure Tommy’s hands together, then indicate he should step into the corridor. The seaman pointed at Erich, giving him the same message. As soon as he did so, he saw another crewman waiting for them with two extra greasy-looking parkas. Where were they taking them now?
“Put. On,” he said.
A frigid draft of air snaked through the corridor, and Erich gratefully slipped into the heavy, insulated coat with a fur-lined hood. As he’d gotten older, he’d found cold weather increasingly difficult to bear, and the temperature even inside the ship’s passageway was close to intolerable.
“Where’re we goin’?” said Tommy.
“Shut. Up. You. Go.” The second crewman looked at him, pushed him forward toward a case of steel stairs leading abovedecks.
Erich followed him. Feeling the pitch of the deck beneath his feet, as he moved, he felt overwhelmed by memories of gaining his “sea legs” when he was so much younger.
Within minutes, they had reached the hatch leading to a wide, flat waist deck aft of the fo’c’scle. There were huge steel hatch covers sealing off an array of cargo holds, overlooked by the superstructure of a massive crane. On one of the hatch covers, crewmen were busy rigging a strange-looking boat—surely a submersible craft—to the cargo crane. The sky above the scene was gray and flat, whipped by a blistering, arctic wind.
Erich shuddered.
In an eyeblink, the memory of being corralled on the exposed deck of the 5001’s conning tower iced through him. He had never imagined suffering that terrible cold again.
He stood with Tommy, flanked by two rough-looking seaman, who both appeared to be awaiting further orders. Across the waist deck, a bulkhead door beneath the bridge swung open and two familiar figures emerged—the tall, muscular black man and the shorter red-haired man with the pasty complexion. Erich found them to be an incongruous pair, but that did not keep them from radiating an air of true menace. Especially the smaller, pale-faced man. His dark eyes appeared pressed into his face like raisins in dough, and they regarded everything with a terrible flat gaze that reminded Erich of a shark. The eyes of something capable of killing you without a thought.
The two men wore jumpsuits under their parkas, and they paused to give the submersible and crane assembly a quick evaluation. Behind them, four men carrying automatic weapons emerged from the bulkhead door. They escorted a thin man wearing horn-rimmed glasses, carrying an aluminum attaché or instrument case. As this second group began boarding the submersible, the black man approached Erich and Tommy.
“Captain Bruckner,” he said, his deep voice cutting under the wind. “I think you have some unfinished business.”
Everyone had moved with smooth, quick precision, getting Tommy strapped into a jumpseat along the rear compartment of the small submarine. One of the armed men assisted Erich into a seat in the forward cabin with the huge glass viewports that looked like the bulging eyes of a deep sea predator. His seat was center, middle, behind the two forward positions—one of the armed escorts sat to the left, the surly black man to the right.
While both men had excellent views through the glass, Erich could duplicate what they saw on one of several screens. The interior of the sub was far roomier and comfortable than he would have ever imagined, and he was coolly regarding the details of its controls when the crane jerked it off the deck and slowly swung it out past the gunwale of the Isabel Marie.
As the cable payed out, dropping the vessel very slowly into the angry arctic chop, Erich’s stomach resisted the sudden motion. He distracted himself by concentrating on the array of controls and digital display screens, looking to see if he could detect any of its armaments. Such a vehicle had been inconceivable the last time Erich had been beneath the waves.
Beneath the waves.
The notion touched a chord deep within him, resonating with memories of the sour-pickle confines of his U-boats. The last time he’d cruised under the cold sea, he’d been a young, young man. Erich shook his head.
Barely out of boyhood, really. It did not seem possible. Had it really happened like that? Had he ever been so young? And had such boys really been in charge of such killing machines?
He watched through the glass bubble and also the screens as the submersible slipped deeper into the dead dark sea. Here was a rattle and a loud snap as the crane’s cables and grapples released them, then the crewman in the left seat assumed control by activating four powerful halogen beams to guide their descent.
The black man touched his throat-mic, spoke into it. “Topside…and Relay, we are a go. Scanners clear. Please advise if your data contradicts that.”
“Our instruments confirm—clear.” A voice sounded from unseen speakers.
“Looks like we beat ’em to the punch,” said the pilot.
The black man shook his head. “Unless they’re already deep under the shelf. Already waiting for us.”
The pilot smiled. “Well, I think it’s time we found out.”
Erich watched the black man pull a note pad from his pocket, check it, then enter a few strokes into a keyboard. “Coordinates keyed-in. Going to a-nav…now.”
For the next ten minutes, no one spoke. All attention remained fixed on the digital screens which displayed a startling variety of real and computer-generated views of the massive shelf of ice under the surface. Erich felt the vessel move with grace and precision in almost total silence and with unimagined speed. He felt a tightening in his gut, and he could almost hear his own pulse pounding behind his ears.
Could it be possible the U. S. Navy was waiting for them? If so, Erich had no idea how things might go. Of course, if the Navy was not waiting for them, Erich felt equally uncertain what lay ahead.
“Sinclair, confirm position.” The voice from the speaker startled Erich as much from the breaking of the silence as giving a name to the black man.
“Approaching the rift,” said Sinclair. “Steady as she goes.”
Erich stared through the left front viewport. The beams of four powerful lamps probed the dark water and walls of ice. As the submersible dared ever closer, a shadow fell vertically across the shelf.
A minute passed. Close. The shadow resolved into an absence. A split in the ice. An opening. Another minute. So close now that Erich could see it clearly—an undersea chasm yawning ahead. Revealed so brightly by the halogen beams, the scale of the Greenland Ice Shelf shocked him. He had not remembered the place to be so overwhelming in scope.
“A-nav to hands-on.” Sinclair nodded to the crewman-pilot, who keyed a touchpad on his control console. Sinclair gripped a joystick that reminded Erich of an oversized version of the video games his grandson used to play.
As he consulted the sonar display, Sinclair also appraised the distance between the submersible and the ragged, open maw of ice.
Now the vessel decelerated silently as the walls of jagged ice loomed along the starboard and port sides. The sight of the dangerous passage struck Erich with a renewed respect for his U-boat and its crew, and how they’d run this gauntlet with fearless ignorance and primitive technology.
He shook his head slowly and the memory faded. He had not anticipated how strongly the images from the past would affect him. It made him think of his old crew—hard-as-nails Kress, the avuncular Massenburg, Ostermann, and so many other young faces that refused to come clear in his mind.
“Look familiar yet, Captain?” said Sinclair, turning to lean back and face him.
Anger flared in Erich, and he calmed himself with effort. “Somewhat. My memory…it is not always good.”
“It was plenty good enough to get us this far.” Sinclair grinned. “And I’m sure we can shake it up a little more.”
Erich said nothing. He knew why they needed him on this mission.
They wanted the secrets of Station One Eleven, but they also needed to find the bomb and ensure it presented no threat to their exploration of the ruins.
Back then, he had no real appreciation of its destructive power. It wasn’t until years later, on American television, that he saw what such a device could do.
He had carried it across the Atlantic on the broad shoulders of his boat before casting it out. And now it lay under the ice like a sleeping beast. Did there remain a touch that could awaken its intended fury?
How had he spent the last sixty years in such complacent ignorance? How had he watched all the newsreels and all the television shows and all the mushroom clouds without shuddering with complete terror at what he’d escaped, what he’d left undone?
How had he indeed? The thought was like a blade twisting through him.
Had there been, throughout all that time, a grim understanding?
“ETA with surface in two minutes.” Sinclair touched his mic. “You copy, Topside?”
The screens in front of Sinclair were aglow with graphics; a soft beeping emitted from an unseen speaker. Outside, under the probing beams of the vessel, the chambered ice slipped steadily past.
“Copy that,” said a voice in the speakers.
The final minutes dragged past.
“There, look. It’s a little lighter. See it?” said Sinclair’s pilot.
“Steady now,” said Sinclair. “We’ve got a visual on the surface. Ascending… Stand by.”
Erich’s gaze held on the panorama beyond the glass bubble port. As the vessel veered upward, a dull, orange-red light from the surface imparted a soft sheen to the barrier they would soon penetrate. He felt his pulse jump, his eyes began to water.
The submersible punctured the calm surface like a fisherman’s bobber, and as the water streamed away from the curving glass port, Erich felt a soft punch in his bowels as he saw the nightmare landscape take shape all around them. The images and memories ghosted back with such power, such immediacy, it was as if he only departed this place yesterday.
“We are in. On the surface,” said Sinclair. “You should now have our visual feed, Topside. We are scanning for intruders now.”
“We copy.”
The red-haired man with the Scottish accent moved forward to get a better look. “Bloody hell! What the fuck is this place?”
Sinclair said nothing. He could only stare at the strange place in defiant respect.
“The area is clean,” said the pilot as he consulted a variety of displays concerned with the presence of any other vessels or entities. “No activity detected.”
“Okay,” said Sinclair, turning to face Erich. “We move to the next phase, Captain Bruckner.”
Erich stared at him, said nothing.
“Captain Bruckner, you will now lead us to the place where you left the nuclear device.”
“What if I refuse?” He already knew the answer to this, but needed to hear them articulate it.
The red-haired man smoothed his mustache, smiled. “Come on, now, Cappy…surely you must’ve realized why we’ve bothered to bring along that numbskull friend of yours, now don’t you?”
Erich understood all too well. There was a good chance he and Tommy would be eliminated regardless of his actions. But as any submariner will tell you—even a small chance is better than none at all. He nodded, said nothing.
The pilot vacated his seat to Erich as Sinclair assumed full control of the submersible. The view through the eye-like bubble port was slightly distorted by the curvature of the thick plastic, imparting an even more surreal aspect to the strange subterranean interior.
“Which way, Captain?”
“I need to get myself oriented properly.” Erich pointed to the digital displays. “Is there a map you put on there with our position?”
Sinclair said nothing, but he keyed in a command which produced a CGI map on one of the screens. Erich squinted at it as he tried to make the topographical display agree with his memory. The more he looked at the representations, the more familiar it became, and he remembered.
“Very well,” he said. “Do you prefer compass headings or visuals?”
Sinclair remained expressionless. “Whatever works for you.”
Erich supplied a heading which angled the vessel across the vast underground sea at a cautious speed. As it closed slowly on the far shore, Erich watched Sinclair, who tried to remain stoic as he regarded the strange landscape. Not much chance of that.
Outside, the surface of the inland sea barely rippled. Bruckner stared at it, looking in the direction where he now remembered they had taken the bomb. There had been a small cove with a shallow shoreline. The dinghy carrying the device had drifted easily to a place where they’d dragged it up to the soft shore.
The minutes passed in a silence punctuated only by the occasional narrative of Sinclair to his relay contact called Topside. As the distance between the shoreline and their vessel closed, more details became discernible, but Erich could not see anything that looked like the wooden boat they had beached so long ago.
The rising walls of the great cavern drew into sharper definition as Sinclair eased within 30 meters of the shore. He tested his depth with sonar and advanced with caution.
“Do you see anything familiar, Captain?”
Erich shook his head. He had been certain this was close enough for a visual confirmation. Was it possible the device had been found sometime in the past?
Easing the boat ever closer, Sinclair’s expression suggested he might be thinking Erich was playing games with him. “Captain, I am a patient man. But you don’t want to piss me off, okay?”
Erich opened his mouth to reply, but the red-haired man interrupted him. “Hell-lo! What’s that?”
He pointed to a dark smudge against the tan clay and stone of the shoreline. Erich found it, allowed it to resolve into something familiar. It could be the upper half of his deadly cargo, but…there was something not right about it. There was a layer of water-hugging mist that kept all details along the beach indistinct. They would have to be very close to know for certain what they were looking at.
Guiding the submersible safely past the obscured object to ensure against any chance of collision, Sinclair eased it aground on the soft bottom.
“Let’s get out and have a look around,” he said, reaching his hand out to Erich.
Erich would have loved to tell him he didn’t need the assistance but decided a feigned weakness might serve him later. Straightening out and moving through the small egress was a challenge, but Erich was fit and strong beyond his years. His captors didn’t need to know that.
As he emerged from the hatch, he looked up to feel, as much as see, the curved vault of the gigantic enclosure. In the incandescence of the distant towered sphere, the mist hanging over the water seemed to carry a subtle glow.
Everyone except the pilot clambered free of the submersible, mucking through soft sandy clay to drier, firmer ground. One of the armed men hustled Tommy, still cuffed, from the hatch. The other two crewman, Sinclair, the red-haired man, and the studious-looking man in the angler’s vest and flannel shirt followed. They all paused to take in their bizarre surroundings—each man trying to reconcile the impossibility of what they witnessed with its reality.
“Sweet mother…” That was one of the armed crewman whispering a soft exclamation as he took in the total strangeness of the place. He was wearing a remote cam on his helmet, relaying a feed back to somewhere unknown.
Sinclair looked around with a slack expression. Erich could not tell if he was in total awe or merely bored.
East of their position, far away, the suggestion of the scarp of ancient buildings lay in fog. Seeing it brought Erich back through time, reaffirming the exact position from so many years ago.
Sinclair pointed through the annoying mist at the odd collection of struts and what appeared to be an oblong dome rising from the mud.
“Is that it?” he said.
“We beached the boat at the foot of a small cove. Just like that one.” Erich pointed at the object that could be the bomb.
“Get closer,” said the red-haired man. “That bleedin’ fog’s too dodgy.”
“Slowly, easy,” said the man with the horn-rimmed glasses and the flannel shirt. “We do not wish to disturb anything until I have a chance to fully inspect the mechanism.”
“Right-o, Doc.” The red-haired man slowed his pace, motioned to the armed escort, one of whom had been assisting Erich along the soft shore, holding him by the arm.
As they approached the object with great caution, Erich kept watching the man they’d called “Doc.” With each step closer to the object, the man appeared to be trying to look as casual as possible. His face was a blank slate, his eyes distorted behind thick lenses.
The closer they grew, the mist appeared thinner, less of a problem. When they were within several meters, Erich could see clearly enough to know they’d found it.
“Is that it?” said Sinclair.
Erich nodded. “Yes. But it is not as we left it.”
“What’s that? ‘Left it’—like how?” The tone of the red-haired man revealed his growing anxiety.
Erich on the other hand, felt a curious calm descending upon him. His initial sensation of dread and panic at returning to the site had dissipated. It was as if this place had been patiently waiting for him, and he for it. An unexpected comfort grew in him, and with it, confidence.
Doc, apparently a scientist, felt differently. “Oh, man, this does not look good.”
“What the hell happened here?” said Sinclair as he touched his wireless mic, activating it. “Topside, we have located the objective, but we may have a problem. Maybe a big problem…”