The Charlemagne Pursuit Page 2

  PROLOGUE

  NOVEMBER 1971

  THE ALARM SOUNDED ANDFORRESTMALONE CAME ALERT.

  “Depth?” he called out.

  “Six hundred feet.”

  “What’s beneath us?”

  “Another two thousand feet of cold water.”

  His gaze raked the active dials, gauges, and thermometers. In the tiny conn the helmsman sat to his right, the planesman squeezed in on the left. Both men kept their hands locked on control sticks. Power flickered on and off.

  “Slow to two knots.”

  The submarine lurched in the water.

  The alarm stopped. The conn went dark.

  “Captain, report from reactor room. Circuit breaker has blown on one of the control rods.”

  He knew what had happened. The safety mechanisms built into the temperamental thing had automatically dropped the other rods—the reactor had scrammed, shut itself down. Only one possible course of action. “Switch to batteries.”

  Dim emergency lights came on. His engineering officer, Flanders, a neat and deliberate professional on whom he’d come to depend, stepped into the conn. Malone said, “Talk to me, Tom.”

  “I don’t know how bad it is or how long it’s going to take to fix, but we need to lighten the electrical load.”

  They’d lost power before, several times in fact, and he knew batteries could provide temporary power for as long as two days provided they were careful. His crew had trained rigorously for just this kind of situation, but once a reactor scrammed the manual said it had to be restarted within an hour. If more time passed, then the boat had to be taken to the nearest port.

  And that was fifteen hundred miles away.

  “Shut down everything we don’t need,” he said.

  “Captain, it’s going to be hard holding her steady,” the helmsman noted.

  He understood Archimedes’ law. An object that weighed the same as an equal volume of water would neither sink nor float. Instead it would remain level at neutral buoyancy. Every sub functioned by that basic rule, kept underwater with engines that drove it forward. Without power, there’d be no engines, no diving planes, no momentum. All problems that could easily be alleviated by surfacing, but above them wasn’t open ocean. They were pinned beneath a ceiling of ice.

  “Captain, engine room reports a minor leak in the hydraulic plant.”

  “Minor leak?” he asked. “Now?”

  “It was noticed earlier, but with the power down they request permission to shut a valve to stop the leak so a hose can be replaced.”

  Logical. “Do it. And I hope that’s the end of the bad news.” He turned toward the sonar tech. “Anything in front of us?

  ”

  Submariners all took their cues from others who’d sailed before them, and those who’d first fought frozen seas passed down two lessons. Never hit anything frozen if you don’t have to and, if that’s not possible, place the bow to the ice, push gently, and pray.

  “Clean ahead,” sonar reported.

  “Starting to drift,” the helmsman said.

  “Compensate. But go easy on the power.”

  The sub’s nose suddenly pitched down.

  “What the hell?” he muttered.

  “Stern planes have gone to full dive,” yelled the planesman, who rose to his feet and pulled back on the control stick. “I can’t get them to respond.”

  “Blount,” Malone hollered. “Help him.”

  The man fled the sonar station and rushed to assist. The downward angle increased. Malone gripped the plotting table as everything that wasn’t attached tumbled forward in a wild avalanche.

  “Emergency plane control,” he barked.

  The angle increased.

  “Beyond forty five degrees,” the helmsman reported. “Still on full dive. Not working.”

  Malone gripped the table harder and fought to maintain his balance.

  “Nine hundred feet and dropping.”

  The depth indicator changed so fast the numbers blurred. The boat was rated to three thousand feet, but the bottom was coming up fast and the outside water pressure was rising—too much, too fast, and the hull would implode. But

  slamming into the seabed in a powered dive wasn’t a pleasant prospect, either.

  Only one thing left to do.

  “All back emergency. Blow all ballast tanks.”

  The boat shook as machinery obeyed his command. Propellers reversed and compressed air thundered into tanks,

  forcing water out. The helmsman held tight. The planesman readied himself for what Malone knew was coming.

  Positive buoyancy returned.

  The descent slowed.

  The bow angled upward, then leveled.

  “Control the flow,” he ordered. “Keep us neutral. I don’t want to go up.”

  The planesman responded to his command.

  “How far to the bottom?”

  Blount returned to his station. “Two hundred feet.”

  Malone’s gaze shot to the depth indicator. Twenty-four hundred. The hull groaned from the strain, but held. His eyes locked on theOPENINGS indicators. Lights showed all valves and breaches closed. Finally, some good news.

  “Set us down.”

  The advantage of this sub over all others was its ability to rest on the ocean floor. It was just one of many specialized traits the design possessed—like the aggravating power and control system, of which they’d just experienced a graphic demonstration.

  The sub settled on the bottom.

  Everyone in the conn stared at one another. No one spoke. No one had to. Malone knew what they were thinking. That was close.

  “Do we know what happened?” he asked.

  “Engine room reports that when that valve was closed for repair, the normal and emergency steering and dive systems failed. That’s never happened before.”

  “Could they tell me something I don’t know?”

  “The valve is now reopened.”

  He smiled at his engineer’s way of saying, If I knew more I’d tell you. “Okay, tell them to fix it. What about the reactor?

  ”

  They’d surely used a crapload of battery power fighting the unscheduled descent.

  “Still down,” his executive officer reported.

  That hour for restart was fast expiring.

  “Captain,” Blount said from the sonar station. “Contact outside the hull. Solid. Multiple. We seem to be nestled in a boulder field.”

  He decided to risk more power. “Cameras and outside lights on. But this will be a quick look-see.”

  The video displays sprang to life in clear water speckled with glistening bits of life. Boulders surrounded the sub, lying at angles across the seabed.

  “That’s odd,” one of the men said.

  He noticed it, too. “They’re not boulders. They’re blocks. And large ones. Rectangles and squares. Focus in on one.”

  Blount operated the controls and the camera’s focus tightened on the face of one of the stones.

  “Holy crap,” his exec said.

  Markings marred the rock. Not writing, or at least nothing he recognized. A cursive style, rounded and fluid. Individual letters seemed grouped together, like words, but none he could read.

  “It’s on the other blocks, too,” Blount said, and Malone studied the remaining screens.

  They were engulfed by ruin, the pieces of which loomed like spirits.

  “Shut down the cameras,” he said. At the moment power, not curiosities, was his main concern. “Are we okay here, if we sit still?”

  “We settled in a clearing,” Blount said. “We’re fine.”

  An alarm sounded. He located the source. Electrical panels.

  “Captain, they need you forward,” yelled his second in command over the squelch.

  He scrambled from the conn and hustled toward the ladder that led up into the sail. His engineer was already standing at its base.

  The alarm stopped.

  He felt heat and his eyes lock
ed on the decking. He bent down and lightly touched the metal. Hot as hell. Not good. One hundred fifty silver-zinc batteries lay beneath the decking in an aluminum well. He’d learned from bitter experience that their makeup was far more artistic than scientific. They constantly malfunctioned.

  An engineer’s mate worked four screws that held the decking in place, freeing them one by one. The cover was

  removed, which revealed a churning storm of boiling smoke. Malone instantly knew the problem. Potassium hydroxide fluid in the batteries had overflowed.

  Again.

  The deck plate was slammed back into place. But that would buy them only a few minutes. The ventilation system would soon disperse the acrid fumes throughout the boat and, with no way to vent the poisonous air, they’d all be dead.

  He raced back to the control room.

  He didn’t want to die, but their choices were rapidly diminishing. Twenty-six years he’d served on subs—diesels and nukes. Only one in five recruits made it into naval submarine school where physical exams, psychological interviews, and reaction times tested everyone to their limits. His silver dolphins had been pinned on by his first captain, and he’d bestowed the honor to many others since.

  So he knew the score.

  Ball game over.

  Strangely, only one thought filled his mind as he entered the conn and prepared to at least act like they had a chance.

  His boy. Ten years old. Who would grow up without a father.

  I love you, Cotton.

  ONE

  GARMISCH, GERMANY

  TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, THE PRESENT

  1:40 PM

  COTTONMALONE HATED ENCLOSED SPACES.

  His current unease was amplified by a packed cable car. Most of the passengers were on vacation, dressed in colorful garb, shouldering poles and skis. He sensed a variety of nationalities. Some Italians, a few Swiss, a handful of French, but mainly Germans. He’d been one of the first to climb aboard and, to relieve his discomfort, he’d made his way close to one of the frosty windows. Ten thousand feet above and closing, the Zugspitze stood silhouetted against a steel-blue sky, the imposing gray summit draped in a late-autumn snow.

  Not smart, agreeing to this location.

  The car continued its giddy ascent, passing one of several steel trestles that rose from the rocky crags.

  He was unnerved, and not simply from the crowded surroundings. Ghosts awaited him atop Germany’s highest peak.

  He’d avoided this rendezvous for nearly four decades. People like him, who buried their past so determinedly, should not help it from the grave so easily.

  Yet here he was, doing exactly that.

  Vibrations slowed as the car entered, then stopped at the summit station.

  Skiers flooded off toward another lift that would take them down to a high-altitude corrie, where a chalet and slopes waited. He didn’t ski, never had, never wanted to.

  He made his way through the visitor center, identified by a yellow placard as Müncher Haus. A restaurant dominated one half of the building, the rest housed a theater, a snack bar, an observatory, souvenir shops, and a weather station.

  He pushed through thick glass doors and stepped out onto a railed terrace. Bracing Alpine air stung his lips. According to Stephanie Nelle his contact should be waiting on the observation deck. One thing was obvious. Ten thousand feet in the high Alps certainly added a heightened measure of privacy to their meeting.

  The Zugspitze lay on the border. A succession of snowy crags rose south toward Austria. To the north spanned a soup-bowl valley ringed by rock-ribbed peaks. A gauze of frosty mist shielded the German village of Garmisch and its companion, Partenkirchen. Both were sports meccas, and the region catered not only to skiing but also bobsledding, skating, and curling.

  More sports he’d avoided.

  The observation deck was deserted save for an elderly couple and a few skiers who’d apparently paused to enjoy the view. He’d come to solve a mystery, one that had preyed on his mind ever since that day when the men in uniforms came to tell his mother that her husband was dead.

  “Contact was lost with the submarine forty-eight hours ago. We dispatched search and rescue ships to the North

  Atlantic, which have combed the last known position. Wreckage was found six hours ago. We waited to tell the

  families until we were sure there was no chance of survivors.”

  His mother had never cried. Not her way. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t devastated. Years passed before questions formed in his teenage mind. The government offered little explanation beyond official releases. When he’d first joined the navy he’d tried to access the court of inquiry’s investigative report on the sub’s sinking, but learned it was classified. He’d tried again after becoming a Justice Department agent, possessed of a high security clearance. No luck.

  When Gary, his fifteen-year-old, visited over the summer, he’d faced new questions. Gary had never known his

  grandfather, but the boy had wanted to know more about him and, especially, how he died. The press had covered the sinking of the USS Blazek in November 1971, so they’d read many of the old accounts on the Internet. Their talk had rekindled his own doubts—enough that he’d finally done something about them.

  He plunged balled fists into his parka and wandered the terrace.

  Telescopes dotted the railing. At one stood a woman, her dark hair tied in an unflattering bun. She was dressed in a bright outfit, skis and poles propped beside her, studying the valley below.

  He casually walked over. One rule he’d learned long ago. Never hurry. It only bred trouble.

  “Quite a scene,” he said.

  She turned. “Certainly is.”

  Her face was the color of cinnamon which, combined with what he regarded as Egyptian features in her mouth, nose, and eyes signaled some Middle Eastern ancestry.

  “I’m Cotton Malone.”

  “How did you know I was the one who came to meet you?”

  He motioned at the brown envelope lying at the base of the telescope. “Apparently this is not a high-pressure mission.”

  He smiled. “Just running an errand?”

  “Something like that. I was coming to ski. A week off, finally. Always wanted to do it. Stephanie asked if I could bring”—she motioned at the envelope—“that along.” She went back to her viewing. “You mind if I finish this? It cost a euro and I want to see what’s down there.”

  She revolved the telescope, studying the German valley that stretched for miles below.

  “You have a name?” he asked.

  “Jessica,” she said, her eyes still to the eyepiece.

  He reached for the envelope.

  Her boot blocked the way. “Not yet. Stephanie said to make sure you understand that the two of you are even.”

  Last year he’d helped out his old boss in France. She’d told him then that she owed him a favor and that he should use it wisely.

  And he had.

  “Agreed. Debt paid.”

  She turned from the telescope. Wind reddened her cheeks. “I’ve heard about you at the Magellan Billet. A bit of a legend. One of the original twelve agents.”

  “I didn’t realize I was so popular.”

  “Stephanie said you were modest, too.”

  He wasn’t in the mood for compliments. The past awaited him. “Could I have the file?”

  Her eyes sparked. “Sure.”

  He retrieved the envelope. The first thought that flashed through his mind was how something so thin might answer so many questions.

  “That must be important,” she said.

  Another lesson. Ignore what you don’t want to answer. “You been with the Billet long?”

  “Couple of years.” She stepped from the telescope mount. “Don’t like it, though. I’m thinking about getting out. I hear you got out early, too.”

  As carelessly as she handled herself, quitting seemed like a good career move. During his twelve years he’d taken only three vacatio
ns, during which he’d stayed on constant guard. Paranoia was one of many occupational hazards that came with being an agent, and two years of voluntary retirement had yet to cure the malady.

  “Enjoy the skiing,” he said to her.

  Tomorrow he’d fly back to Copenhagen. Today he was going to make a few stops at the rare-book shops in the area—