“Commander to the bridge, commander to the bridge.”
Akin looked up at the intercom box and then back to the others, and then to his watch. They were nearing the harbor and it was time to start preparing the ship to dock, offload, and debfrief. His mind raced for a moment with everything that was going to be discussed and everything that has happened and his mind continued to trip on one detail; nothing was accomplished and two men were medevaced out. Cole thinks that the ship slipped further into the black, nazi’s might be on their way to erase a chunk of Manhattan, and I let it happen.
Perry, oblivious to the turmoil in Akin’s head, spoke up, “I’ll try my luck explaining everything to Cole, sir. Even if he doesn’t listen, I’ve got The Navy to call for backup.”
Akin replied stoically, “Commadore Cole will be debriefed by me and you, Lieutenant. If he makes a decision than that is his to keep. I would recommend contacting your Naval colleagues sooner rather than later.”
Perry nodded and swatted Ke on the shoulder and tilted his head to Wells and then the hatch. Without another word the room was empty save for Ke. She sat in the silence and felt the ship roll on the tide gracefully. She went over the events of the day in her mind over and over. She had seen the ship on its side, seen the brothers rise out from it, seen it come up righted and sail away. Under her hands were the words of a ghost ship and her crew and she still couldn’t fathom it.
The Nazi plan, Wormwood seemed so hair brained. Have the most scientifically advanced ship ever made just sink a few ships at a time and steal their supplies and move silently? That was short term thinking, war teaches everyone how to adjust to new threats. The US would have figured a new way to deal with the issue of an invisible sub. She rested her hands on her knees and drew her legs up on the chair, eyes scanning the next passage. Eyes that began to grow wider and read faster.
December 28, 1944 Kaptain Sajer U-5918 Brunhilde
We are all precise and exact chess pieces in play for this war. Some of the lads on the east front will be pawns some days, some of the lads are knights on others. The U-Boats were supposed to be the rooks, the castle gates to our fatherland, but the ramparts have been smashed. When we left port we believed we would be making way to New York, to listen to Yankee jazz music, to rattle Yankee myths of impenetrable defenses. That mission was a lie.
Lieutenant Kessler is a bishop in the entire game of chess. Kessler and a third of the scientists and Hochberg and some of the crew. I don’t believe the Führer knows about this plan, I don’t know who would. The highest rank that took charge of this insanity seems to be Donetz but I can’t fathom he’d be mad enough to try for this.
We are to surface near the coast of Canada and offload a team of Kessler and the rest of the snakes. They are supposed to sneak into the North Americas and incite communist revolts, spool up the unions and act as general provocateurs. We are trying to plant another Lenin to pull America out of the war. Maybe it can work, the Yanks have almost every able body fighting across the oceans. It’s possible, but it seems like lunacy. Hochberg and Kessler are mad men.
It seems that Burton has been running very private tests on Kessler, embuing his body with Kettle Steam in some sort of hybrid. Apparently it’s nearly perfect, the communist bastard will live to be 300 by Burton’s guess.
We go topside tomorrow to poison the Allies. We played this game in the last war and we created a complete monster in the east. I wonder what price we are willing to pay to attempt such a disaster again.
Sieg Heil, Gloria Viktoria