Greta was already there, peering uneasily at his microbial cultures on the lab bench. "Ah, I see your appetite for the work has you up early too," Schmidt said.
She glanced up. "I'm not used to such enthusiasm so early in the morning, Doctor. Why the good cheer?"
"Why not?" Reflexively, his hands went for another cigarette but then he remembered the injunction against smoking belowdecks. "We're about to set sail for the Reich, where the High Command is bound to be delighted at the gifts we'll be bearing. I assume your data still suggests one hundred percent efficiency when the drug is reduced to a powder?"
"There are no guarantees until we administer it to human subjects. I just hope the antibiotic is effective against a broad array of bacteria. If, as I suspect, this substance is many times more effective than penicillin, there are many sick people we'll be able to help."
"Yes, of course." He gazed at her with wonder. Did she really think they were here to cure a flu?
Greta noticed his look. "Not that
you
care. I know you and Jürgen have a different goal."
"Do you now?" Schmidt looked amused.
She leaned back wearily. "I can halfway understand Jürgen's point of view. He's a soldier. He wants to win. But you're a doctor, Schmidt. You swore an oath— "
"The only vow I took was a personal one. To follow knowledge's path wherever it led me. These organisms you and I have harvested these past few days— our respective contributions to the Reich— they are a higher form of efficiency, a purer biology. Only the ignorant walk away from knowledge— especially knowledge that can be used in defense of the homeland."
Greta looked at him sadly. "You lied to me, didn't you? You never had the microbe in Germany. You collected the spores not just for these tests but to take back home."
"If you figured that out, Frau Drexler, you're the last one on the boat to do so. The collection is necessary only because you threw your indignant fit in 1939 and destroyed your cultures, betraying science."
"So if I hadn't agreed to come back here this time to save Owen, there wouldn't be a threat of plague." Her tone was hollow.
"Don't exaggerate your importance. I would have come for the bacteria anyway. Still, I'll concede you've been useful. Now you have your drug and I have my microbe. We've gathered more than enough spore material for our purposes. And if the enemy retraces our steps, they'll find nothing."
"What are you talking about?"
"Do you think we're reckless enough to let other nations follow our example? We set explosives to bury the springs where the spores emerge. Let the Allies poke where they will,
if
they come. They'll find rubble. And by March the Reich will have cultured enough to wipe out all our enemies."
Greta looked at him in dismay. Yet her heart began to beat faster, a flicker of excitement pushing aside her weariness. "Then what we have on this submarine are now the
only
microbes and spores?" she clarified.
"More precious than gold," Schmidt enthused. He gave Greta a wary look. "And I suppose you're about to volunteer to help me safeguard our stash: protect them as you did on the
Schwabenland.
Well, you needn't bother. The microbe has become a matter of state security and I've found a spot aboard for the remaining spores that I alone know about."
She looked at him with disquiet. "That's dangerous, Max. What if a sailor stumbles on them? What if Freiwald finds out what you've tucked around his U-boat?"
"Safer than putting them in
your
custody. Safer than leaving them in this lab."
She had no comeback for that.
Schmidt turned to go. "The spores are mine, the drug is yours. My advice: keep your mind on the drug. Since your purification process appears to work, I suggest you concentrate some more of this cave slime to make room. An additional load will be coming on board from the cave soon."
The gloom of the underground lake abruptly deepened.
Hart stopped, treading water. It wasn't completely dark because there was still a faint blue glow from the ice roof, but the reflected light that came from the lantern at the upper end of the cave waterfall had gone out. He waited a minute for the storm troopers to restore it but nothing happened. The pilot shouted. There was no answer. He could just make out the pale glimmer of the falls and he began breast-stroking toward it. The light didn't come back on.
He reached the rock shelf at the base of the waterfall, rested a moment, and then boosted himself up. With growing apprehension he side-stepped along the ledge to the waterfall and groped in its spray for the climbing line. The rope had disappeared.
"Hans!" he yelled. "Rudolf!"
Silence.
They'd abandoned him.
So much for Drexler's promise. Greta must have succeeded with the drug and the couple's usefulness was at an end. Worriedly, he wondered if Drexler would harm her.
Hart had expected them to wait until the last of the lake growth had been delivered to the sub. His escape plan— it was more a desperate
hope
than a plan— had always called for Greta's assistance. She'd organize a distraction of some sort, make sure he had at least some supplies— enough to attempt the unthinkable.
By simply leaving him in this dark hole, though, Drexler seemed to have foreclosed that possibility. He tried to think. They must be satisfied he couldn't follow even though he'd mentioned his climb out in the dark before. How could they be so sure? What were they counting on?
Of course. Rudolf had said it. They were going to blow up the cave.
"My God."
He shivered.
Don't panic! If you panic you'll never get back to Greta.
He realized he had one chance. They must have allowed time for themselves to get clear of the grotto: Fritz's skeleton had forcibly demonstrated how unstable the tubes were during a nearby explosion. The lantern hadn't been extinguished that long. It was plain: he'd have to catch them before the timer went off.
He clenched the cliff. He
would
catch them.
He'd climbed this waterfall and chimney so frequently along the rope, learning hand- and footholds, that he should be able to do it blind without one. Now that would be tested. Reaching up in the cold water he groped for a familiar handhold, found it, and pulled, placing his foot next. Yes. Just as he remembered. Think! Go slow enough to think.
When would the explosion go off?
He pushed himself up as the water beat on him in the dark, leaning out to gasp for breath.
Damn them!
But anger spoiled concentration. So. Carefully. Three points on the rock at all times. Reach only with one hand or one foot. Up...
It was disorienting in the dark, but he climbed until echoes told him he'd reached the point where the water fell out of its pipelike chute toward the lake. He reached in back of himself and his palm slapped rock. Yes! He pushed off, his back slamming against the other side of the chimney to wedge himself. Now he could ascend with more confidence.
How many minutes had passed? How long would the timer be set for?
Progress was painful: at one point the chute widened so much that he had to brace with his arms instead of his back, trembling from the strain. Then he was past it and sound and touch told him he was finally near the chute's upper lip. Bending and bracing, he brought himself around to a point where he could lunge face-first into the rushing river above the edge of the falls, frantically grabbing for slimy handholds to prevent himself from being swept back down into the lake. Then he kicked and pulled furiously until he was up, kneeling in the level stream, chest heaving, one hand around a vine for support.
A vine?
He dropped it as if shocked. It had to be the wire of the demolition charge.
"Jesus Christ." He stood, swaying as he caught his breath. It was pitch black. He carefully shuffled forward against the current until his shin brushed the wire and elaborately stepped over it. A thought occurred to him. If the Germans had bothered to set explosives on the downstream end of the grotto, where the river would eventually cut a new path anyway, they'd certainly wire the upstream end as well. He'd have to watch for explosives there too.
How much time?
He counted his steps upstream, trying to visualize the grotto. One chance, one chance, he kept telling himself.
By his calculation he was near his sleeping spot. There wasn't even a spark of illumination. It was blacker than night, as black as a tomb. But if they'd been hasty... He crawled out of the river and groped in the sand, the mineral smell of the hot spring giving him a crude compass. Yes! The wool of his blanket! He scrambled across it, banged painfully into a rock, felt its underside... Thank God. They'd left what he'd stored there: his parka, boots, and helmet. The miner's helmet. The bastards had been too arrogant or too lazy to pack his gear out. Too stupid. He sobbed a prayer of relief.
He found the battery and flicked on the light, its modest glow seeming brilliant. Hastily he hauled on clothes and boots and sprang up with the helmet on his head, the beam stabbing wildly around the lip of the falls. He spotted a drooping wire connecting two charges on either side of the water. A box, a clock. He inspected. The timer hand had stalled at the zero point! Had the demolition failed? He bent closer, peering, and realized there was an audible ticking. The timer hand was simply close. Very close. Two minutes to go?
He didn't have a clue what would happen if he tried to disconnect the wire.
He began running upstream, water spraying and the beam of his helmet bouncing madly. Ahead was the dark hole of the tunnel that led out of the grotto. He jumped, wedging his arms into the tunnel, and kicked upward. Another wire caught on his coat. Damnation! Gently he lifted the parka free and humped over it like a worm, losing the thread of seconds he'd been counting in his brain. His boot snagged and he tensed for an explosion that didn't come. Then he was past the wire and crawling furiously through the narrow tunnel, his sphincter tightening at the thought of the charge about to go off at his back. He came to the tight squeeze he and Greta had found and wriggled through it like a madman, his clothes a smear of dirt. Then on and on, each yard a measure of safety...
Something kicked him hard from behind and a roar clapped his ears. The explosion actually lifted and shoved him forward, hot as hell, the roar blasting his helmet off and sending it sailing ahead of him until the battery wire yanked taut. Then he came down with an oof and a gout of heat and smoke and gritty debris rattled past him, choking his throat with dust. Somewhere he could hear the crash of immensely heavy rock falling.
Crawl, dammit! Crawl!
He was clawing now, the helmet jammed back on his head, wriggling forward until he could rise to his hands and knees, then to a crouch, staggering as fast as he could with his bent back scraping rock. Air kept pummeling him as the ceiling gave way behind, each collapse triggering another in a chain reaction. He managed a stooped run just as the roof of the low tunnel gave way with a roar. Something heavy clipped him like the swipe of a claw... and then he was beyond the cave-in, coughing painfully in a swirling cloud of dust and smoke, his head ringing and the miraculously shining beam of his headlamp knocked awry.
For the moment, at least, he was alive.
He stood a minute, dazed. Then he dimly remembered he didn't have time to rest: the storm troopers were well ahead of him, no doubt readying another explosion at the outer entrance. He stumbled on, finding the haze beginning to clear as he climbed up the slope of broken basalt boulders. Ahead was the vertical chimney that led out of the mountain. He climbed to the plug that choked the chimney's base.
Anxiety plagued him. Had they blown the outer entrance? No, not yet. Of course not yet: the Germans hadn't had time to climb out themselves. Get a grip! Panting, he worked around the jam of rock to where he could see up the immense chimney, flicking off his headlamp.
Far, far above was the bob of lamps like his own, as remote as stars, as elusive as fairy lights. It was them. The storm troopers. They were still hoisting themselves and their packs of lake organism out of the cave, slowly inching up the chimney toward the tunnel that led to his alternate exit. The lights were like a taunting beacon.
Somehow he'd have to outrun them. He groped along the wall. Yes! They were packing out so much cargo they'd failed to carry out all the ropes. And why bother? With the initial explosion the American was certainly already dead, the cave useless. So they'd left in place the climbing line that followed the first pitch up the vertical shaft. He grasped it and pulled as hard as he could with grim satisfaction. Should have cut it, Bristle-Head. Should have stopped to make sure. Too cocky. Too lazy. He put up a foot to climb.
The cave quivered then and he put out a hand to brace himself. Another explosion? No, a tremor from the sister volcano. A sympathetic echo to the manmade bomb. He heard cries of alarm from the Germans far above, and behind him there was a growl of settling rock. Shards rattled down the chimney and he crouched, listening to them whine and shatter. Christ, what a hellhole he'd found!
Then the cave quieted again. The shouts echoed away. Both Hart and the Germans resumed climbing, the pilot going as hard as he could while watching the lights above. At least he wasn't burdened with a damn pack. He was gaining.
Twenty feet. Fifty. Seventy. All by feel up the rope. The cave so dark it was as if he was climbing in space. It became a kind of rhythm, his trance broken only by another falling rock, this time dislodged by someone above. He hugged the chimney wall as it sizzled past with terrifying energy, its fragments clicking like angry insects when they ricocheted back up the shaft around him. The rock had to be an accident, he told himself. There was no way the Germans could be throwing at him. No way they could see unlit Owen Hart, the stalking ghost.
He reached the tunnel shelf where he and Greta had first entered the cave and risked a quick blink of light. Another climbing line was still in place. He grasped it.