The two men met along the starboard Shelter Deck. Matt slowed his pace on recognizing the other, as did Dirk Kroger heading straight for him. The ersatz Dutchman was, after all, the one that he and Flash had identified, in their photograph taken deep in the hold the other night. Matt wondered if he wanted his picture back.
Now, though watchful, the spy seemed unwilling to turn away and avoid this chance encounter. Matt glanced around at the other passengers taking the promenade, or else lingering at the rail in the late afternoon sun. It wasn’t too lonely here, he decided; not dangerously so if they didn’t stay past dark. This stretch of covered deck might be perfect after all for a safe, private meeting. Here they were out of sight of the bridge and beyond anyone’s earshot, but well within view of the nearest idlers.
“Guten Tag, Herr Kroger.”
“Hello, Matt.”
The two halted, facing one another but reluctant even to shake hands. After a moment, by unspoken agreement, they stepped aside to the rail to converse as innocent friends. The roll of the ship and the slight outward cant of the deck made it inconvenient to loiter anywhere else on the promenade.
“Pleasant enough afternoon,” Matthew Vane said. He braced an elbow on the wood-topped rail, rather than leaning out over it and turning his head aside.
“Yes, it is restful,” Dirk Kroger said, similarly placing himself against the rail. “We’re not in the war zone yet.”
“Some of us aren’t even in this war,” Matt said. “But others already seem to be conducting military operations.”
Kroger laughed, ending in a wise smirk that tweaked his dueling scar. “You criticize me for doing exactly what you yourself do, sneaking after dark.”
Matt shrugged. “I’m not the one who’s traveling under a false identity.”
Kroger affected a hurt look. “You will not believe, then, that I, a poor trader, was just checking on my consignment of furs? You think I would creep below decks and spy in the dead of night, like some others?”
Vane ignored the bad acting. “My spying is for the public, not for one side or the other in an inhuman war. It’s my job as a newsman to see and hear all I can and get it into print, if it fits.”
Kroger laughed again, reverting at last to the arrogant Prussian. “Try getting what you saw the other night into print in New York, my good friend! Even your socialist scandal sheet will never touch it. As for false identities…this ship itself, a war transport, masquerades as a commercial liner, using you and your lady friends as decoys to hide behind.” His laugh softened, seeming cynical and knowing in the arrogant Junker way. “Your own home country flies the false flag of a neutral, when all the while they aid the combatants in England and France.”
“So what are you going to do, sink the ship and fight the Americans? Send a thousand innocents to the bottom, and add a few million more to the ranks of your enemies?” Vane tried to keep his tone of speech casual so as to avoid drawing attention. “That won’t help your cause. If I were you, I’d be talking peace.”
Kroger maintained a similar relaxed tone. “I have no desire to sink this ship, though I could do so easily enough. Like you, I’m only interested in finding the truth.”
Vane smiled bitterly. “No, I don’t suppose you’d want her torpedoed while you’re on board yourself. You’d better tell your U-boats to hold off.”
Kroger chuckled quite sincerely. “And how do you imagine I’m supposed to communicate with a submarine from shipboard? There’s radio silence, you know. I would have to sneak into the Marconi room.”
“At night, they’re telling us that even a lit cigar is enough to reveal the whereabouts of a ship at sea.” Vane nodded at the wrapped stogie sticking out of the Dutchman’s vest pocket. “I’m sure you know what to do.”
“Yes, but first it would require a rendezvous, even if one wished to use a light or a semaphore. A U-boat would need to know our exact position well in advance. Unless you think we are being stalked by submarines in the open ocean, or watched through a periscope right now, at full speed.” He waved a hand dismissively at the vacant waves surging past. ‘No, that’s nonsense, and there’s no need for it. If I wished, I could stop the Lusitania in mid-ocean, or even turn her back to New York.”
“Well, why don’t you, then?” Vane asked, half-hopefully calling the sable-hatted spy’s bluff.
Kroger shrugged. “It might be too dangerous. Wait,” he said, glancing over his shoulder as a lone deck-stroller ambled past.
“See here,” he said once the man was gone. Taking the jumbo-sized cigar out of his vest pocket, he stripped off the band and wrapper, letting the breeze carry them overboard. Holding the cigar in two hands, he twisted the ends first one way, then another, and placed it down sidewise on the deck between them.
“What is it, an exploder?”
“Just wait,” the spy said.
After a long, nervous interval the cigar sputtered. From both ends, green flares shot out a foot long, singeing the wooden deck and blistering the varnish. Matt first stepped back in alarm, then kicked out and swept the device overboard with the side of his shoe. It fell to the water and was immediately carried astern in the wake, still flaring and bubbling as it sank out of sight.
Matt looked nervously around, but the idlers far down the rail didn’t seem to have noticed anything. He turned back to the spy, composing himself. “A fire could stop us,” he admitted.
“In the forward hold, it could sink us,” Kroger corrected him. “You were down there. The shells, the fuses–did you see the gun cotton? Tons of it, and not packaged safely.” The German spat overboard in disgust.
“I saw enough,” Matt said. “Time was short, and it’s a hard place to get to, tough getting past the guard. What’s inside those two huge crates?”
Kroger laughed bitterly. “What, indeed? When you find out, tell me. I have my suspicions, but we both were interrupted the other night. You and your friend must have taken the difficult way in. Just go down through the crew quarters and the barracks; the whole port-side corridor is unoccupied. In wartime it’s, what do you call it?…a skeleton crew, with no hands left to watch the cargo.”
“You’re not here to sabotage the ship, then? I suppose not, or you would have done it by now. It’s easy to start a fire.”
“If I were a saboteur, as you say, my mission would be secret,” Kroger said. “I would not be chatting with you about it, would I?”
“No,” Matt reflected. “We’d be too busy trying to shove each other overboard.”
“No need for brutality,” the spy said, smiling. “This isn’t the battle front. There can still be a gentleman’s agreement between us.”
“No need even for that,” Matt replied. “My mission is to get at the truth, and I’ll do my best to see it reported. But I won’t report on you, not unless I think you’re a danger to this ship or the people on it, or to my country.” He reached out, took Kroger’s extended hand and shook it. “I’m still a neutral in this war.”