Hatteras Blue (18 page)

Caffey was at home, said he was doing fine, but that his family was driving him nuts. He insisted on coming over from Avon that night. After a few more calls Galloway hung up, grinning, and strolled back down the pier.

Austin's Sanitary Fish Market was a relaxed place. Pin-balls and videos were going all out against one wall, and balls clacked in a room farther back. Men glanced at them from the bar, then went back to their beers. Hirsch, Galloway, and Keyes slid into a booth, Bernie beside Tiller. The waitress was slow-spoken but the food came fast. Before long they leaned back, replete with the clear clam chowder that was a Carolina Banks tradition, spiced shrimp steamed in beer, plenty of fried flounder stuffed with crabmeat, and mountains of string fries and doughy-centered hush puppies. When they were done with the deep-dish strawberry pie Galloway stirred sugar into his third cup of coffee and raised his eyebrows. "Been to Morehead before, Parole Counselor Hirsch?"

"No, this is my first visit, Tiller."

"Fascinating town. Hosts one of the biggest billfish tournaments on this coast. There's a museum. And there are lots of shops. Over in that direction." He pointed.

"You want me to leave so you can talk."

"Well, now you put it that way—"

"All right. All
right
" She got up and threw the napkin down; a fork clattered to the floor. "But you can count me out of the rest of this. I'm washing my hands, Galloway. I'm renting a car back to Manteo tomorrow morning. And believe me, I'll be doing some serious thinking about revoking your parole."

She stalked out. Galloway watched her go, an equivocal expression around his eyes, then turned back to Keyes, cradling the coffee cup.

"Is she serious? About your parole?"

"She doesn't kid around." He thought briefly of the woman he'd glimpsed during the storm. "But I don't think she'd do that—yet. Okay. Let's get down to business."

"What kind of business?"

Galloway put the coffee down. He leaned forward. "It's time to get some things straight here, Mr. Keyes. I've been going along with you blind up to now. You're promising me money, but I'm beginning to wonder if the risks justify it." He paused. "Now let's have it straight. Who you are, and what you're after. If you still don't want to talk, then settle your bill and find yourself another boat."

The other didn't respond for a while. He pushed the remains of his pie around on his plate. At last he said, "I suppose you've earned it. You've taken the risk and suffered financial loss. Though of course I'll pay for your gear and repairs."

"This'd be a good time to make me sure of that," said Galloway.

Keyes looked around. The waitress had left them, and they were several tables away from the nearest fishermen. He nodded, opened his wallet, and counted out thirty more of the same new hundred-dollar bills he had given old Aydlett. Galloway stared at them in his hand. They were a little damp, but they looked like real money.

"The fact is, Tiller, what we saw down there is a German U-boat. It was sunk during the Second World War. What I'm after is inside it."

"You want to salvage it?"

"That's right."

"Why? What's in it that's so valuable?"

"Precious metal."

"Well, that's always nice to have," said Galloway, after a moment. "But what was it doing aboard a German submarine?"

"Bullion was transferred that way several times during the war. The U.S. Navy brought the Philippine treasury out during Bataan. The British did the same in Greece."

Keyes cleared his throat. "This shipment was loaded in Kiel in March of 1945. It came by special train from Berlin, guarded by the Special Branch of the SS in cooperation with the Reich's Minister of Finance branch in Prussia. The boat, one of the new Type Twenty-ones, got underway as soon as it was loaded and slipped out through the North Sea into the Atlantic, running submerged day and night to avoid Allied patrols."

Galloway studied him. 'You seem to know a hell of a lot about it."

Keyes watched the ceiling fan revolve.

"Where was it bound?"

"The same destination as the other U-boats that didn't surrender. Argentina. But it never made it."

Galloway chewed that over in his mind. "But why was it off Hatteras?"

"At that stage of the war the U.S. Navy was either in European waters or on its way to the Pacific. The captain probably reasoned this area would be undefended again, that he'd stand a better chance of getting through here than in midocean. It would be risky—but logical."

"I'll ask you this one more time," said Galloway. "If I don't get an answer this time the deal's off. All of it. How do you know about this, Keyes?
Who are you?"

"My father was aboard that U-boat when it went down."

Galloway began to smile, then stopped. The man opposite looked serious. 'Tour
father?"

"Let me explain. He grew up in Kiel, on the sea. He was in U-boats from the beginning of the war. He was lucky; he not only survived, he rose to what we'd call a chief machinist, an engineer.

"The last Allied air attack on Kiel sank his old boat at the pier. He volunteered for the Volkssturm, but instead they assigned him at the last moment to another boat. It was a new kind, and was ringed with guards; once they were aboard the crew were locked in. After they sailed he heard rumors they were carrying a special cargo. Something valuable. He saw nothing, though. There were a lot of crazy stories going around in those days and that sounded like one more.

"They were attacked twice from the air heading out the North Sea. After that they ran at snorkel depth at night and completely submerged during the day. The new boat could do this better than the older types, but it was still a hardship and very dangerous.

"When they arrived off the coast here they'd been underwater for two weeks and conditions were bad. Some of the crew wanted to return to their families in Germany. They mutinied. Four men were shot. My father thought the worst was over. Then, late one night, they were attacked again." He paused there, seeming to expect something from Galloway. "This time it was an American destroyer—"

"The
Russell
," said Galloway suddenly. His look had gone far away, years and miles beyond the restaurant where they sat. "By my father."

"That's right. By then Lieutenant Commander Lyle Galloway the Second, U.S. Coast Guard.

"My dad barely made it out of the engineroom hatch. He was hit in the arm by a machine-gun slug and fell over the side into the sea. He saw several other people in the water as well, and at one point he recalled a raft. But they drifted apart in the darkness. The Americans picked him up the next morning. Alone. As far as he knew, he was the only one who survived the sinking."

"Is that why you picked me for this job?"

"Believe me, I didn't plan this, Tiller. I was startled when the name Lyle Galloway jumped up at me from the
Marine Directory.
There seemed to be a kind of poetic justice in hiring the son of the man who sank my father's ship to find her again."

"I see. What happened after the sinking?"

"Since the war had ended, he was only detained briefly, then repatriated. But the winter of forty-six was very bad, very grim. He saw no future in Germany, though he did get married there. He went to Spain, where I was born, and then to Argentina, where he started a manufacturing firm. Things went well with him there. In the sixties I came to the States to go to college, and I liked it here; when I graduated I joined a tool and die company in the Midwest. He died in 1975. Now I'm in marketing insurance. Still, I often go back to South America on business, and to see my mother and my father's old friends."

"These old friends. Nazis?"

Keyes made a face. "That was so long ago. You don't take that seriously, do you?"

"Keyes doesn't sound very German."

"Obviously because it isn't my real name."

"I guess that was a stupid question," said Galloway. "What is your real name?"

"Does it matter? Actually it's Schliissel. I translated it into English when I got my citizenship."

Tiller nodded. "Go on."

"One day at a gathering in Buenos Aires I overheard a discussion of cached funds. Swiss banks, smuggled gems, overseas investments. One of the old men remarked that a shipment that had been supplied by the
Reichsicherheitshauptamt
from special facilities in the East had disappeared in Kiel during the last days of the war. I pricked up my ears. It was the first time it occurred to me that the shipboard rumor my father had mentioned might be true; that such a thing had actually existed.

"I sniffed around a bit, keeping my inquiries low key. Party chatter. No pun intended. The shipment had never reached Argentina. Therefore, it might really have been aboard that U-boat when it sank.

"What did the Germans think happened? I checked with a military historian and found that the sub was listed as missing in the North Sea. It had been claimed as a kill by a British bomber pilot—one of the ones who'd attacked them there.

"I realized then, Tiller, that I'd stumbled on something of fantastic importance, and, moreover, that
I was the only one left who knew it
—my father was a silent man; he never talked about his wartime experiences to anyone but me."

"Didn't they know about my father's sinking a U-boat?"

"There's something funny there, Tiller. Apparently his after-action report was classified. The sinking took place after the war; there may have been some other reason for it as well, it's strange that it was never released. But no one else had any reason to disbelieve the English pilot's claim, and there was no way to tie your father's report, on the other side of the Atlantic, to a specific boat."

"Where does the life raft fit in? The bodies in Kin-nekeet?"

"I was still without one vital item of information: where the U-boat lay. You know how hard it is to find something on the bottom without coordinates. Especially here, with so many wrecks. My father had no idea, he worked in the engine room, and the only place name he remembered was Hatteras. But when I read about the bodies I thought instantly: This was the raft he saw. There
were
other survivors. But now we know they were ambushed and shot by Aydlett and his friends that night they came ashore."

"Ambushed? He said the Germans fired first."

"Whatever. Actually I—"

His voice sank as the waitress breezed up to their table. "Moah coffee?"

"No, I think I'll have a beer. Draft, if you've got it."

"And you, sir?"

"More ice water will do me fine," said Keyes.

"Say, would you have some aspirin at the desk?" Galloway asked her.

"Why, sure. Does your head hurt?"

"My back."

"Well, now, that's too bad. Just you wait one minute." She returned in seconds with two tablets, full glasses, and a wide smile for both of them before she went back to the fishermen.

Galloway popped the pills and washed them down with a draught of Miller's. "Quite a story. But possible. Yeah. They just recovered that wreck on the West Coast, the monthly gold shipment from California, went down in 1851. Several million bucks. How much you figure's down there?"

"I heard different figures from different people. I know what the rumors my father heard on the boat were. A metric ton; twenty-two hundred pounds of gold-

Galloway coughed beer back into the glass. He dabbed at his face with a napkin and stared at Keyes. The waitress hurried over. "Are you all right, sir?"

"It s fine," said Keyes. "He gets these coughing fits from time to time. Just give him a moment to recover."

Galloway regained his voice. He leaned forward, looking after the woman, and whispered hoarsely, "When you started talking 'wreck' I thought bronze propellers, scrap metal, deck cargo—maybe even weapons from a wartime freighter. This isn't in the same league! And you're doing this alone?"

"All by myself," said Keyes. "My money, my effort, my profit. You understand now why I had to hire a small salvor, not a big firm. If we mounted a large-scale operation word would get out, people would be curious. In the end there'd be legal fights, other claimants, tax difficulties. The state, the federal government, maybe the German government—the court actions would take years before we saw a penny.

"As it is, if no one but us knows what we recover, I can broker it in small lots in New York and Europe. You can take your percentage in raw metal if you want, but it'd be smarter to let me convert it and give you and this Aydlett your cuts in U.S. currency."

"We can discuss that later," said Galloway. He sat back, eyes intent. "Let's not get starry-eyed. Neither of us has seen it yet. You'll bet your ass it's down there?"

"In a sense I have. If
Die Spinne
—the Spider, the organization of old Party members in South America—finds out this is still at large, they'll do anything to get it. They'd look at it as theirs."

Galloway nodded slowly. "And you think Mr. Mysterious could be one of them?"

"Who?"