Atlantis Found Part 44

"On my way."

Suddenly, without warning, Pitt felt a hand on his shoulder. He froze, and his slowly beating heart abruptly accelerated and pounded like a jackhammer. The contact was not exactly a tight grip; it was more like the hand was resting between his arm and neck. Beyond shock lies fear, the paralyzing, uncontrollable terror that can carry over into madness. It is a state characterized by a complete lack of comprehension and perception. Most men go totally numb, almost as if anesthetized, and are no longer capable of rational thought.

Most men, that is, except Pitt.

Despite his initial astonishment, his mind was unnaturally clear. He was too pragmatic and skeptical to believe in ghosts and goblins, and it didn't seem possible for another diver to have appeared from nowhere. Fear and terror melted away like a falling quilt. The awareness of something unknown became an intellectual awareness. He stood like an ice carving. Then slowly, carefully, he transferred the dive light and briefcase to his left hand and removed the dive knife from its sheath with his right. Gripping the hilt in his thermal glove, he spun around and faced the menace.

The apparition before his eyes was a sight he would take with him to the grave.

21

A WOMAN, A BEAUTIFUL woman, or what had once been a beautiful woman, stared at him through wide, sightless, blue-gray eyes. The arm and hand that had tapped his shoulder were still outstretched, as if beckoning. She wore the standard Fourth Empire black jumpsuit, but its material was shredded, as though a giant cat had raked its claws across it. Tentacles of flesh strayed from the openings and wafted under the gentle current. A finely contoured breast was exposed by the torn cloth, and one arm below the elbow was missing. There were insignia badges of rank on the shoulder straps, but Pitt did not recognize their significance.

The face was strangely serene and bled white by the cold water. Her features were enhanced by a ma.s.s of blond hair that rose and floated behind her head like a halo. Her cheekbones were high and her nose slightly bobbed. Her lips were loosely open, as if she were about to speak. Her blue-gray eyes seemed to be staring directly into his opaline green eyes less than a foot away. He was in the act of pushing her away as if she were a demon from the underworld, when he thought better of it and realized what he must do.

He rapidly groped through her pockets. It came as no surprise when he came up empty of identification. Next he took a thin cable from a reel that was hooked to his weight belt and tied one end around the corpse's booted foot. Then he ascended through the huge split in the U-boat's hull and headed for the dim aura of light 160 feet above.

After his decompression stops, Pitt surfaced precisely in the center of the jagged hole in the ice and swam over to the edge where c.o.x and several members of the crew had gathered around. Evie Tan stood nearby, shooting pictures as Pitt and his bulky dive gear were pulled from the water onto the ice by several strong arms.

"Find what you were looking for?" asked c.o.x.

"Nothing we can take to the bank," Pitt replied, after his mask was removed. He pa.s.sed the line to c.o.x that led down into the water.

"Dare I ask what's on the other end?"

"I brought along a friend from the U-boat."

Evie's eyes stared at the obscure form rising from the depths. As it surfaced, the hair fanned out and the eyes seemed to be looking directly at the sun. "Oh Lord!" she gasped, her face turning as pale as the ice floe. "It's a woman!" So shocked was Evie, she neglected to shoot photos of the strange woman before she was wrapped in a plastic sheet and loaded onto a sled.

Pitt was helped off with his air tanks and gazed at the sled with the body that was being dragged by crewmen toward the Polar Storm. "Unless I miss my guess, she was an officer."

"A great pity," said c.o.x sorrowfully. "She must have been a very attractive lady."

"Even in death," Evie said, sadly, "there was an undeniable sophistication about her. If I'm any judge of character, she was a woman of quality."

"Maybe," said Pitt, "but what was she doing on a submarine that should have been destroyed five decades ago? Hopefully, she'll provide a piece of the puzzle if an identification can be made on her body."

"I'm going to follow this story to its conclusion," she said resolutely.

Pitt removed his dive fins and pulled on a pair of fur-lined boots. "You'd better check with the Navy and Admiral Sandecker. They may not want this affair leaked to the public just yet."

Evie started to voice a protest, but Pitt was already walking in the tracks of the sled back to the ship.

PITT showered and shaved, soaking up the steam in the stall before relaxing with a small gla.s.s of Agavero Liqueur de Tequila from a bottle he'd purchased when he was on a dive trip to La Paz, Mexico. Only when he had collected his thoughts in proper order did he call Sandecker in Washington.

"A body, you say," said Sandecker, after listening to Pitt's postmortem of the events following the a.s.sault on the ship. "A female officer of the U-boat."

"Yes, sir. At the first opportunity, I'll have her flown to Washington for examination and identification."

"Not easy, if she's a foreign national."

"I'm confident her history can be tracked down."

"Were any of the artifacts from the Madras damaged in the attack?" asked Sandecker.

"All safe and intact."

"You and everyone on board were lucky to escape without being killed."

"It was a near thing, Admiral. If Commander Cunningham hadn't shown up in the Tucson when he did, it would be the Polar Storm lying under an icy sea instead of the U-BOAT."

"Yaeger ran an investigation of the U-2015 through his data files. The sub was an enigma. The records indicate that she was lost off Denmark in early April of 1945. However, some historians believe she escaped the war intact and was scuttled by her crew in the Rio de la Plata between Argentina and Uruguay near the site where the Graf Spee was blown up, but nothing has ever been proven."

"So her ultimate fate was never established?"

"No," answered Sandecker. "All that is known for sure is that she was completed in November of 1944, sent to sea, but never entered combat duty."

"What did the German navy use her for?"

"Because she was a new generation in German electrode-sign, she was considered far superior to any other submarines then in service by any nation at the time. Her lower hull, which was packed with powerful batteries, enabled her to outrun most surface vessels, remain submerged for literally months, and travel great distances underwater. What little information Yaeger was able to dig out of old German military doc.u.ments was that she became part of a project known as the New Destiny Operation."

"Where have I heard that term before?" Pitt muttered.

"This was a blueprint drawn up by top n.a.z.is, in collaboration with the Peron government in Argentina, for the flow of immense wealth acc.u.mulated by the n.a.z.is during the war. While other submarines were still maintaining combat patrols to sink Allied shipping, the U-2015 was traveling back and forth between Germany and Argentina on a mission of transferring hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of gold and silver bullion, platinum, diamonds, and art objects stolen from the great collections of Europe. High-level n.a.z.i officials and their families were also transported along with the treasure cargo, all discharged in absolute secrecy at a remote port on the coast of Patagonia."

"This went on before the war ended?"

"Right up to the bitter end," Sandecker answered. "The story that circulated in unconfirmed reports suggests that Operation New Destiny was the brainchild of Martin Bormann. He may have possessed a fanatical adoration of Adolf Hitler, but he was smart enough to see the Third Reich crashing and burning in flames. Smuggling the n.a.z.i hierarchy and a staggering amount of valuables to a nation friendly to Germany was his goal even before the Allied armies crossed the Rhine. His most ambitious plan was to smuggle Hitler to a secret redoubt in the Andes, but it fell through when Hitler insisted on dying in his bunker in Berlin."

"Was the U-2015 the only U-boat transporting riches and pa.s.sengers to South America?" asked Pitt.

"No, there were at least twelve others. All were accounted for after the war. A few were sunk by Allied planes and warships; the rest were either turned over in a neutral country or scuttled by their crews."

"Any clues as to what happened to the money and pa.s.sengers?"

"None," Sandecker admitted. "A sailor from one of the U-BOATS who was interviewed long after the war-he disappeared shortly after-described heavy wooden crates loaded onto trucks sitting at a deserted dock. The pa.s.sengers, dressed in civilian clothes, looked and acted as if they were important personages in the n.a.z.i party, and were hustled off in waiting cars. What happened to them or the treasure is not known."

"Argentina was a hotbed for old n.a.z.is. What better place to recruit and organize a new world order on the ashes of the old?"

"Probably less than a handful are still alive. Any n.a.z.i who held a high position in the party or military would have to be ninety or older."

"The plot thickens," said Pitt. "Why would a bunch of old n.a.z.is resurrect the U-2015 and use it to destroy a research ship?"