Chapter Thirty-six

The Caverns

In the large cavern, Deirdre was standing on the pier near the U-boat. She read the message sent by the pigeon and, unperturbed, crumpled it. Men were working all around her, some stringing cable to boxes of cordite across the lagoon near the sea entrance.

Outside the mouth of the cave, the fog was an impenetrable sheet of solid grey. Von Traeger emerged from the hatch in the conning tower and stared at the mist. “Your plan is useless in the nebel! They must identify the U-boat as German …”

“The fog will not be a problem.”

Von Traeger snorted. “Do you claim to control the weather, Priestess?”

“I do not let it control me. They will wait out the fog, Baron. As will we.”

  

Mother was alone, still chained in the small rocky cell. She heard footsteps passing up and down the outside shaft, and indistinct voices. Though deducing from the increased activity that Deirdre’s plan was hatching, for the moment, there was nothing Tasha could do but wait. She forced herself to accept that fact, and focused on what to do if the situation changed.

  

In the sacrificial chamber, Ian was suspended above the pit by a rope around his waist, secured with a pulley arrangement to the wall and ceiling. His wrists were also bound with thick knots and tied behind his back. McGloury lit a candle that protruded from the eye socket of a goat’s skull, an inch below the rope, close enough to eventually sever it. “You must have left your common sense back on the prairie, cowboy. Did you really ken you’d get away with it, man?” McGloury inspected his handiwork while lecturing, “Deirdre’s resurrected our old ways. She said this was the original purpose of this peculiar chamber.” Then he added gleefully, “You’re revivin’ an old tradition.”

“Glad to oblige,” came Ian’s polite, but edgy, reply.

McGloury snorted, “A pity you weren’t so obliging in your loyalty to Deirdre.”

“You don’t have your smiling brand on me. It was just business.”

McGloury gave a short laugh. “You see, Deirdre’s got a bit of obsession about betrayal—you might recall the history of these caverns. Aye, betraying her was a daft thing to do, and very poor business.” McGloury blew out the match, tossing it to the ground as he joined two armed men standing at the chamber entrance beside the sweeper man. The sweeper gave McGloury a withering look and swept up the match.

They all left, but McGloury leaned back in, “I suggest you use the time to contemplate the error of your ways.” McGloury motioned his thumb at the rope, already beginning to singe from the candle, and added, “I’d do it with some haste,” then left closing the door.

The sweeper man brushed some dirt into his dust-pan and emptied it into the pit.

  

Near the lagoon entrance, Deirdre’s men finished wiring the crates of cordite.

Deirdre yelled across the water, “Put the detonator in the escape chamber!” The men waved in acknowledgement.

Von Traeger took note of the fog. “Mein Priesterin!” He barked in relief. “I think the fog is burning away.”

Outside, the fog was thinning, and the grey sky took on a faint tinge of blue.