Jon F. Merz

RAIDER X

^{A HARRISON THATCHER THRILLER}

DISCLAIMER

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

CHAPTER 1

Two things occurred to Thatcher as he stood against the wooden post with his hands tied behind him. The first was that it was much colder this early in the morning before the sun had done little more than peek over the horizon and he wondered briefly if he ought to have used the latrine before being marched out.

The second was that the eight men holding rifles twenty paces away looked a hell of a lot scarier than he would have ever dared imagine.

He supposed that was the reason for the blindfold they offered. Thatcher had turned down the officer with a smile. He still couldn’t get over the absurdity of the situation. He was about thirty seconds away from being shot by a firing squad.

Thatcher had never seen an execution before. He’d heard stories, of course, about how after being riddled with the large caliber bullets, the officer in charge would administer the final pistol shot to the heart, what the French called the coup de grace.

Thatcher figured the phrase meant “overkill,” since he doubted that one small pistol round would hardly be needed after the riflemen had done their job.

He thought about the brick wall immediately behind his post. Did the firing squad ever worry about ricochets?

Probably not.

He wondered how it would feel when the bullets pierced his body. Was it like getting stuck with a really big hypodermic? Or lanced with a hot poker? Would it even register or would it be over so fast that he didn’t even know he was dead?

This was what it boiled down to, he supposed: the worry of death rather than the actual feat itself. By that time, things were too far along to give much of a damn. But the anticipation, well, that was something else again.

The captain of the guards looked young. Probably the son of some wealthy aristocrat. Another year would possibly find him either dead or leading troops against the Germans. Already their war machine was grinding along and chewing up land across Europe, killing thousands every single day as they gunned toward England. This time around, they just might succeed.

Thatcher wondered what would happen if they did conquer Britain. Would they open the prisons up and let criminals go?

Doubtful.

Thatcher almost grinned. One way or another, his fate seemed to be tied to the same post his hands were. And it wasn’t exactly the thrilling glamorous life he’d thought he might lead when he first got mixed up in crime.

What was the hold up? Why wasn’t the captain barking out orders? Thatcher’s bladder was full. He could tell. He thought about politely informing the captain of the situation.

“Pardon me, old chap, but when you come by to hoist my carcass, there’s liable to be quite a spot of piss on the ground and covering me as I’ve got the full tank, you see.”

Better leave it a surprise. And besides, his bladder wasn’t the only thing about to let go. Death was the greatest plumber of all time. No clogs left in the pipes when the Grim Reaper got through with you.

The sun continued to climb and Thatcher felt momentarily thankful for the bit of warmth that seemed to settle down on his shoulders and face.

“Ready!”

The barked command startled him. That’ll teach you to go daydreaming, Thatcher, he thought. Especially when you ought really to be focused on other important things like the end of your bleeding existence.

The guards looked serious now. Thatcher could see the grim expressions on their faces. He wondered if many of them had done this before. Maybe this was a new training exercise for the British Army to make sure its soldiers could kill a man before they went to war.

At least it was a convenient way to get rid of the criminals like Thatcher.

The captain seemed to have found his calling. Thatcher could see the seriousness on his face. Was he enjoying this? Did he realize that Thatcher was about to die? Did he care?

“Aim!”

Apparently not. The rifle barrels looked like eight black eyes staring into Thatcher’s very soul. He’d already had a priest come to his cell to hear his final confession. Thatcher wasn’t a man of the church, but he did believe in covering all his bets. After all, who knew what waited on the other side?

He would have asked for a cigarette if he smoked. He could have stood there puffing away on the thing while they shot him. Cool as ice it would have been. And it would have kept him in good stead with the lads back in Luton who’d gather at the pub.

“Good old Thatcher,” they’d say, “he went out in style, he did.”

And then they’d toast him with a quick pint before getting back to darts.

But no cigarette burned between his lips. Just an acidic taste in his mouth. Bile, most likely, he reasoned. The old stomach’s gone and churned some up for me one last time.

The captain seemed to be looking his boys over once more. Those Enfield rifles must have been getting heavy. He’d give the command soon and that would be it. Harrison Thatcher, dead at last.

“Ready to die, then?”

The voice in his ear made him jump. He turned his head, aware that the rifles still hadn’t moved. Staring him in the face was a man he’d never seen before. Thatcher couldn’t help but marvel at how a free man would willingly choose to stand where he stood.

Before Thatcher could say anything, the man smiled and nodded across the yard. “Looks to me as though the lads down there are all set to squeeze their triggers and send you off to the netherworld. Probably taking up the slack on them now even as we speak.”

Thatcher managed to swallow. “And yet here you are.”

“Here I am.” The man looked around the yard as if he were appraising a home for sale. “Rather a lovely morning, I’d say.”

“I’ll withhold my opinion for the time being if it’s all the same to you, mate.”

“Indeed.”

Thatcher shifted. The rifles still hadn’t moved. “You need something then, sir?”

The man looked back at him. “You want to live Thatcher?”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, do you want to live? Or are you one of those self-pitying fools who reckons his time is all but used up and wants to get sent off on a one-way down the River Styx?”

“I’d rather live.”

The man nodded. “Bit late to make that kind of decision now though, isn’t it? After all, you chose to kill that poor blighter when you had the option of letting him run.”

Thatcher frowned. “I’m an innocent, man, sir. I didn’t commit that murder.”

The man’s eyebrows jumped. “That so? Then I suppose you most definitely aren’t the man I’m looking for. I’d best let those chaps down the range get their work done. I expect they’re rather hungry for breakfast.”

He started to move away. Thatcher cleared his throat. “And just what kind of man were you looking for, sir?”

He turned back and walked closer to Thatcher this time until Thatcher could smell the coffee on his breath and see the yellowed teeth in his mouth.

“I’m looking for a man who can kill. My file told me that was you, Thatcher. But if you’re an innocent man, then perhaps there’s been a mistake on my part. Good day.”

He turned and started to walk away. Thatcher’s heart hammered inside his chest. A man who could kill? What was that about? Why now? Why here?

“Sir!”

The man stopped but didn’t turn around. Silence draped itself over the courtyard like a wet blanket. Even the birds seemed to be listening.

Thatcher’s voice sounded distant. “I couldn’t let him run.”

The man turned around. “Why not?”

“He would have gone straight to the police. I couldn’t risk it.”

“So you made your decision.”

Thatcher nodded. “Not my proudest moment, sir. I’ve never claimed I enjoyed killing, not even to my best mates. But when the time came, I felt I had to do it.”

“And you did.”

“Yes.” It felt weird hearing himself confess it. He hadn’t even done that with the priest last night. But here he was blathering away to a complete stranger like they were two old gals gossiping about the latest scandal.

The man walked back toward Thatcher. “Think you could do it again?”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“You heard me. Could you kill again?”

Thatcher’s heart hadn’t stopped pounding. His head hurt now with all these questions. And throughout this brief exchange, those damned rifles still hadn’t moved.

Thatcher looked the man in his eyes. “I could.” He swallowed the bile that had been reaching up toward his mouth. “If I had to.”

The man continued to stare at him. Thatcher stared back.

After a moment, the man smiled ever so slightly. “You interested in a job, then?”

“A job?”

The man frowned. “Mind you if you say yes, the first thing we’re going to have to work on is you answering questions with more questions. It’s bloody annoying.”

“Just how long is this job, sir?”

The man smiled. “Is that a yes?”

Thatcher glanced back at the captain and the guards. He could see their frustration. He grinned this time.

“It’s a yes.”

The man nodded, turned, and waved to the captain. “I’m afraid we won’t be needing your services this morning after all, Captain Wakefield. You and your men are dismissed.”

The captain’s face fell, but he recovered himself quickly, barked out two more commands and the squad marched away, their boots stomping in perfect rhythm.

Thatcher stood there watching his executioners move off. He remembered to breathe and soon his face felt flushed.

The man came back and stood in front of Thatcher. “My name’s Stanley Hewitt. You and I are going to be fast friends, we are. And boy, do I have a job for you.”

CHAPTER 2

Two hours later saw Thatcher freshly shaven and dressed in the rumpled dark gray suit he’d worn at his trial. He sat next to Hewitt as a grim-looking driver who looked as though he could easily tear the head off a lion without blinking drove them into London.

Hewitt noticed Thatcher giving the driver a steady look. “He’s my bodyguard. It’s his job to stop anyone who might have designs on harming me.”

Thatcher shook his head. “Why would anyone wish to harm you?”

Hewitt chuckled. “Wartime, Thatcher. London’s got a problem right now. German Abwehr agents are scattered throughout our lovely island home and they’ve been paying particular attention to my organization as late.”

Thatcher turned to watch the rest of the world pass them by. “Which organization do you work for? SIS?”

Hewitt showed a small smile. “You’ve heard of them?”

“Rumors mostly.”

Hewitt shook his head. “I don’t work for SIS. Damned fools have nearly ruined everything in Europe. Had two of their best captured by the Nazis at Venlo in the Netherlands last year. Took the Germans about two months to dismantle their networks. Awful state of affairs for them, I think.”

Thatcher wondered about trying the door handle and rolling free. How far he could run before he was captured? His hand was close to the handle. It wouldn’t take much to grab it and lever it open. He knew how to roll from a moving car thanks to a circus performer he’d known some years back who used to jump and run from trains. Probably the same principles applied.

Thatcher felt his heart thumping hard again. He tried to grin. Show his interest. “So, if not SIS—?”

“SOE,” said Hewitt. “Stands for Special Operation Executive. We were created initially to help partisans in the countries the Germans have grabbed, to organize them into some form of a coherent saboteur group. Some of our operatives parachute into these areas and get things cracking. It’s dangerous work, mind you.”

Thatcher didn’t mind danger provided he was the one who determined when he got involved in it. And the job Hewitt seemed to be hinting at seemed less like something Thatcher wanted to be involved with.

The door handle was mere inches away. Thatcher looked forward and saw a small jam of traffic. This would be it, he’d grab the handle and heave himself out. Before the beast in the front seat could do a thing, Thatcher would be blocks away.

Hewitt seemed oblivious to the machinations of Thatcher’s mind. He sat there puffing away on a pipe, filling the car with odious smoke.

They passed Grovesnor Square and Thatcher could see the source of traffic. An old woman crossing the street. Car horns blared trying to get her to move. She ambled along at her own pace.

The car slowed.

Thatcher steeled himself.

As the car stopped, Thatcher lunged for the door handle and yanked it back.

Nothing happened.

Hewitt turned ever so slowly in his seat and regarded Thatcher. “Did I forget to mention this car’s a bit different from some of the ones you’ve probably ridden in? Jeremy here thought it might make better sense to not enable the doors in back to be opened from within. You understand, don’t you? We didn’t want you doing a runner without hearing us out first.”

Thatcher slumped back into his seat with a sigh. “You’re going to parachute me into Europe?”

Hewitt smiled. “Oh heavens no. We’ve something far more special in mind for the likes of you.”

“That’s good. I rather hate airplanes.”

Hewitt looked at him. “Indeed? And how do you feel about boats?”

“I don’t know a damned thing about them.”

“Excellent.” Hewitt pointed ahead of them. “Here we are. Save your questions and I promise they’ll be answered soon enough.”

The car drew abreast of a small office building. Baker Street. Thatcher saw the number 64 on the door. “Ah, I see it now. You’re Sherlock Holmes then. Am I to be Dr. Watson?”

Hewitt’s door opened first. Before he got out, he stared at Thatcher. “Mind yourself here, Thatcher. Don’t fuck about.”

Hewitt walked around to his side and so did his bodyguard. Thatcher noticed Jeremy stayed ahead and to Hewitt’s left side.

Then Thatcher’s door opened and Hewitt’s smiling face beamed into the interior. “Let’s go.”

Thatcher let Hewitt lead the way. This time, Jeremy stayed behind them. Probably more to keep me in line than protect him, thought Thatcher. But any thoughts of running had deserted him when he noticed the telltale outline of a pistol underneath Jeremy’s overcoat.

A uniformed guard who probably had no idea what he was guarding inside the building held the door open for them. Hewitt strode inside.

Contrary to the bustling city scene outside, the inside of the building was as quiet as a library. An opaque white marble floor led up to a dark brown mahogany desk that Hewitt shouldered Thatcher up to. Behind it, an older woman sat staring at them. She might have known who Hewitt was, but she gave no indication of it. Her voice was business only.

“Gentlemen, please place your identification papers on the desk in front of me.”

Thatcher noticed one of her hands stayed out of sight. Hewitt and Jeremy both placed their papers open. The woman’s eyes looked them over. She regarded both of them and then nodded.

“Thank you. Nice to see you again, Mr. Hewitt.”

Hewitt collected his papers and smiled. “And to you, Mrs. Henshaw.”

She nodded at Thatcher as if she’d only then noticed him. “Who’s this then?”

Hewitt grinned and slipped on a cockney accent. “Don’t you know? This here’s Harrison Thatcher. Come to save Queen and country he has.”

Mrs. Henshaw smiled. “Looks like he didn’t know that was going to be the plan. Well, no matter, let’s get him set up with a pass so you gentlemen can go about your business.”

She wrote something down on a piece of paper and offered it to Thatcher. “Pin this to your right lapel. Keep it there while you’re in this building. If you lose it, report to me at once. If you leave this building, this pass stays here.”

Thatcher took the pass. “What if I forget?”

Mrs. Henshaw’s hand dipped beneath the desk and when it reemerged, there was a nasty looking gun in her hand. “Then we’ll just have to shoot you, dear.”

Thatcher looked at Hewitt. “Is it a requirement for everyone in this organization to have some sort of predisposition to violence?”

“Just being careful,” said Hewitt. “Come on.” He turned back to Jeremy. “We’re all set from here on out. I shan’t need you for an hour or so.”

Jeremy nodded and ducked back outside. Thatcher watched him go. “Not very talkative that one.”

Hewitt eyed him. “Jeremy had his tongue yanked out by the Gestapo during a torture session in Holland. Despite that, he managed to escape and make his way back here. I’d rather say that speaks volumes about his character, don’t you think?”

Thatcher swallowed.

Hewitt pointed to an elevator. “You, on the other hand, are nothing right now but a rogue with a stay of execution. Whether you remain that or not is the question we shall have to answer.”

Thatcher rode the lift in silence. At the third floor, Hewitt pulled back the grate and they walked down a musty hallway. Here and there, Thatcher saw another person pass from one door to the next. But all the doors were firmly shut. Each frosted glass window had cryptic letters and symbols on it, with nothing identified by common names.

Hewitt reached a door toward the end of the long corridor, unlocked it and then ushered Thatcher inside. There was a heavy wooden desk and several chairs. By the window, sandbags had been stacked to protect against flying glass in case of another bombing by the Germans. On the wall was a huge map of the world.

Hewitt helped himself to a decanter of brandy on the side shelf. He offered one to Thatcher who took it without a word. Hewitt sat down behind his desk and sipped the brandy. After a moment, he set the drink down and regarded Thatcher.

Thatcher drank the brandy and found it stiff but good. He finished and nodded to Hewitt. “Thank you.”

“You’ve probably been needing that since this morning.”

Thatcher grinned. “Absolutely.”

“Just don’t get addicted to the stuff. Last thing I need is you going straight on the piss.”

Thatcher said nothing. Hewitt continued to study him. “Been one cocked up life you’ve led so far, hasn’t it?”

“I haven’t done badly.”

Hewitt sniffed. “I suppose that’s a matter of perspective. From my view, things had pretty much gone down the drain as of this morning. Barring my appearance, of course.”

Thatcher shrugged. “From my perspective, they might be looking up.”

“You haven’t heard the job yet.”

Thatcher glanced at the map on the wall. “Well, it’s got to involve a boat or something, since you asked earlier about that.”

Hewitt smiled. “How much of the news did you manage to get while inside jail?”

“Not a lot.”

“Have you heard of the commerce raiders?”

“No.”

Hewitt unlocked the side drawer of his desk and brought out a sheaf of papers and photographs. He passed these to Thatcher. Each photo showed what looked like a merchant ship.

“They look innocent enough, don’t they?”

“German cargo ships?” Thatcher passed the papers back. “What about them?”

Hewitt stood and walked to the map on the wall. “They’re anything but true cargo ships. What they are, are carefully disguised war ships. Complete with cannon, torpedo, and even reconnaissance aircraft.”

“For what purpose?”

Hewitt stabbed his finger at the Indian Ocean. “Here’s where they’re most active. In this link between Indochina and Europe. We’ve got thousands of tons of shipping passing through here every month. Food, ammunition, fuel, supplies for our garrisons in the Far East. They’re busy with the Japs and a lifeline to us is essential for their survival.

“What these ships do is little short of piracy. They run false flags, show the colors of neutral or allied countries and then, when they get close enough, either sink or capture the ships. They take prisoners and the supplies.” Hewitt turned to Thatcher. “They are quite literally sinking us out of the war.”

“I thought U-boats were a more serious threat.”

Hewitt nodded. “The wolf packs are a problem. No doubt. But these commerce raiders have the ability to operate for months at a time, and they are quite adept at sneaking around the thousands of miles of oceans. Our navy boys are trying their damnedest to stop them, but they’re like ghosts these things.”

“How many?”

Hewitt sat back down. “Nine. We thought they’d stop there — be content with just the nine of them.”

“They’re not?”

Hewitt shook his head. “Intelligence reports that they’re getting ready to launch a new one. We’ve codenamed her Raider X. A tenth commerce raider said to be larger and more destructive than any of the others combined. If Raider X takes to the seas, Britain could be out of the war within a matter of weeks.”

Thatcher looked at the map and then back at Hewitt. “And I’m supposed to do something about this?”

Hewitt smiled. “We want you — quite simply — to destroy Raider X.”

CHAPTER 3

“You’re mad, of course.”

Hewitt continued to smile. “Not at all. You’ve been selected as the appropriate choice for the job. You have certain qualifications that we feel would most likely project a positive outcome.”

Thatcher looked at the brandy decanter and wondered if another shot would help steel his reserve. “That sounds rather sterile to me. Almost as if we’re discussing a business venture.”

“Aren’t we? Isn’t war merely a larger function of national corporations eager for more resources, a larger market share, or some manner of trade?” Hewitt leaned forward. “In any event, it’s irrelevant. You are the man we want.”

“Judging by what you told me about SOE, you ought to have many other suitable candidates for a mission like this.”

Hewitt grinned. “Well, that’s the thing, see? We do have other operatives, but since we’ve invested quite a bit of time and money into their training, we’re rather reluctant to send them off on this particular venture.”

Thatcher glanced at the brandy decanter again. “So, it’s that kind of operation then? I’m not supposed to come back.”

Hewitt shook his head. “Not that. We’d like it if you did come back safe and sound. The likelihood of that happening is slim, however, and if we lose you, then there’s no drama as you were set to die anyway.”

“Rather convenient.”

“It is a war, after all. One must be pragmatic.”

Thatcher sniffed. “Never fancied myself a pragmatist.”

“You certainly seemed to be this morning. Jumped at the chance to change your fortune.”

“Nor did I think I’d ever be of any good to the Crown.”

Hewitt stood, walked to the window and looked outside. “There, you see? Your life’s not a complete waste after all. Do this little errand for us, get some semblance of respect back, and who knows what tomorrow might bring?”

“My death, if what you say is true.” Thatcher shook his head. “Seems I’d be a damned fool to go through with this.”

Hewitt waved his hands. “Ah, Thatcher. One man’s fool is another man’s hero. It’s all rather subjective at the end of the day. What matters is the mission gets done. Certainly no one here is going to think ill of you for accepting the assignment.”

“And if I say no?”

Hewitt shook his head. “Then that eager young captain at the jail is going to be plenty happy tonight; we’ll ship you back and have you shot at sunset.”

Thatcher looked at Hewitt. But Hewitt busied himself with getting the papers and photographs into a neat pile before he stowed them back in the cabinet. Without looking at Thatcher, Hewitt chuckled. “I suppose it wouldn’t be too difficult to find another sorry loser who’s about to end up on the wrong end of a headstone. Might even take less time to talk them into than it’s taking you.”

“It’s not that I’m not-“

Hewitt’s head snapped up. “What? That you’re not grateful? Well, that’s precisely what you are Thatcher. You’re an ungrateful bastard with a lousy lot in life. You’ve mucked about for years with little to show for it. What good have you done while you’ve been using up air during your time alive? Have you ever done anything for the greater good?”

Thatcher chewed his lip. “Probably not.”

Hewitt considered him. “At least you’re honest. That puts you in a slightly different category.”

“You asked me earlier if I wanted to live.”

“Yes.”

“I told you I did.”

Hewitt jabbed a finger at him. “If that’s true then this is your chance.”

“By running off on a suicide mission? Sounds a bit contradictory to me.”

Hewitt sat again. “If you’ve got such a lust for life, then carry out your assignment and let that zeal for living bring you through this. Despite the odds, despite the incredible danger, if you want to live badly enough, then perhaps God will smile upon your hapless soul and grant you that which you so dearly wish for.”

“He might just as well turn the other cheek.”

“Indeed he might. He certainly seems to be with Jerry running amok. But then again, perhaps he’s just waiting for an opportune moment to step in. He might even be waiting for you, Thatcher. Imagine that.”

Thatcher grinned. “You really believe the crap you espouse?”

Hewitt kicked his feet up on the desk. “It’s not me who’s got to believe it, Thatcher. It’s you who has to decide if you believe in yourself enough to get done what needs getting done. Me? I’m perfectly content sitting here in my office, dodging German bombing raids, and waiting for a better day to turn up.”

“I don’t have that luxury.”

Hewitt’s eyes lit up. “Ah! So there’s some sense getting through to you. That’s encouraging.”

“Are you this sarcastic with your other operatives?”

Hewitt’s feet came down with a thud. “You’re my only operative right now, Thatcher. And that’s all you need to be concerned with. So mind your manners.”

“Touchy.”

Hewitt stood and walked around the desk. When he stopped, he leaned in until his face was a mere inch from Thatcher’s. “Now you listen to me and listen good: you do as I say. I am your handler. It’s my job to steer you into your operational environment. It’s my job to lay out the specifics of this job and see you get cracking on it. It’s even my job to try to get you out safe and sound. What is not my job is taking any degree of insubordination from you. I will brook no attitudes. I will tolerate no idle chatter. Nor will I allow you to question my motives or how I might interact with others who have come before you. Is that understood?”

Thatcher looked into Hewitt’s eyes. Something had changed in them. And for the first time, Thatcher saw that Hewitt was serious. Apparently about a lot of things.

“Understood.”

Hewitt’s frown broke into a smile and the tension evaporated from the room. “Well, good then. Let’s have another drink.”

Thatcher drank the brandy Hewitt offered him. “You mind me asking what happened?”

Hewitt sucked down his brandy and then refilled it quickly. “What happened was I trained a crack operative. Trained them until I couldn’t train them anymore. Until they were as ready as they could ever be to do what they were supposed to do.”

He rose and set his glass down on the cabinet, peering at the map of the world again. “And as soon as they hit the ground they were snapped up by the Gestapo. Someone had sold us out. They knew we were coming. And they were ready.”

Thatcher swallowed. Hewitt looked at him.

“Yeah, that’s right. They’re dead. But not before the Gestapo had a field day with them.”

“Sorry, mate.”

“You know what the Gestapo does to women, Thatcher? They rape them and beat them and sodomize them mercilessly. They keep them alive naked and freezing while their doctors conduct all sorts of horrible experiments. We know this based on reports we’ve gotten from the very lucky few who have escaped.”

“Your operative was a woman?”

“Why so surprised, Thatcher? You’ve never known a woman who was a criminal? Or a woman who could do the job of a man, only better?”

“Sure, but-“

“She was gold, my boy. Top drawer stuff. But by the time they got done with her, by the time they finally shot her dead, she was no more than a shell. And there wasn’t one bloody thing I could do to save her.”

Wonderful footsteps to be following in, thought Thatcher. “I don’t suppose they returned the body to you for proper burial here?”

Hewitt shook his head. “Not a chance. Espionage agents aren’t granted the same treatment or consideration soldiers are. That is, if the Gestapo even played by the Geneva rulebook, which they don’t appear to. Lucy was,” Hewitt cleared his throat, “she was my most apt pupil.”

Thatcher let silence claim the room for a minute until he judged enough respect had been shown for the dead. “I don’t fancy ending up the same way, Mr. Hewitt.”

Hewitt watched him for a moment before nodding. “Then you’d sure as hell better be all that I hope you are. And a whole lot more.”

“You’re going to train me, then, too?”

Hewitt’s smile wasn’t full of joy. “No time my young friend. You’re going in as you are right now. In fact,” he checked his watch, “you leave in a matter of hours.”

Thatcher looked outside. The sun was making up for its extended absence. Thatcher could hear birds singing somewhere off in the park. Voices from the sidewalks below drifted up to him.

Would he ever see this again? Would he ever appreciate it as he did right then?

He looked at Hewitt. “Then I suppose you’re going to want to start briefing me properly.”

“Let’s get started,” said Hewitt.

CHAPTER 4

“You’ll be traveling aboard a regularly scheduled transport ship, the SS Archimedes,” said Hewitt. “It departs out of Poole around five this evening.”

Thatcher frowned. “That’s not much time. How are you getting me down to Poole?”

“We’ve got a small plane waiting to fly you down,” said Hewitt. “A Defiant, I believe. Ever ridden in one before?”

“Uh… I don’t even know what that is.”

Hewitt grinned. “I think you’ll enjoy it at least. Not a bad way to travel.”

“Fantastic,” said Thatcher. “Tell me about the commerce raider. What’d you call her, Raider X?”

Hewitt nodded. “We give them all letters to keep them straight, but with Raider X, we don’t know much. Our agents have managed to secure a bit of useful information, however. Specifically, the name of her captain. Klaus Schwarzwalder.”

“Black Forester?”

Hewitt grunted. “Brilliant, you’ve still got a grasp of German. That’s good to hear.”

“Been a while. Might be a tad rusty.”

“Fortunately on this jaunt you won’t have much need of it to make you look as though you’re German. We’re not sending you in undercover. This is a straight sabotage mission.”

Thatcher glanced around the office and saw it was devoid of any family photographs. Likely Hewitt had little use for such things — if he even had one to begin with. “What’s so special about Schwarzwalder?”

Hewitt leaned back. “Often you can tell a lot about the nature of the coming mission by who is in charge. Schwarzwalder, for example, was classically educated at Mürwik Naval School as well as Preußische Kriegsakademie.”

Thatcher blinked. Hewitt had just given the name of the Prussian Staff College in perfect rendered German. “You speak German.”

Hewitt shrugged. “When you deal with them all the time, you tend to pick up the language. But I’d never hold up under scrutiny.” He waved his hand. “In any event, Schwarzwalder comes from a wealthy family in the south of Germany, but his upbringing was strictly northern. He’s got quite a reputation.”

“I’ve heard something of Nazi reputations.”

Hewitt shook his head. “That’s just it: Schwarzwalder is no Nazi. If anything, he likely despises them. After a sterling career, he retired only to be called back into action. He was pressed into service in this war. With a wife and three sons, he knew better than to defy Hitler. No telling what might have happened to his family if had done so. It’s the way with a lot of naval captains; they didn’t subscribe to what Hitler espouses, but rather than see their lives torn apart, they reluctantly agreed to go back to sea. We expect that Schwarzwalder is much the same.”

“How does that have any bearing on my assignment?”

“Well, for one thing, it means your survival chances are better than if someone else was captaining the ship. Other commerce raider captains are likely to leave any survivors floating in the ocean until they either freeze to death or the sharks finish them off. Schwarzwalder likely won’t let that happen.”

“‘Likely?’” Thatcher smirked. “You don’t sound all that positive.”

Hewitt scratched his face. “Well, we can’t be, can we? Raider X has supposedly only just put to sea. Schwarzwalder is on his premiere cruise with her as we sit here. That said, his actions are likely to be more genteel than others. He won’t be merciless with civilians, in other words.”

“Why not?”

“Because despite the Nazi belief that every enemy should be executed, such a notion will run counter to everything that Schwarzwalder was taught in his military education. Like us, those schools implore their students to maintain some sense of discipline in warfare. Enemy combatants are one thing; civilians are quite another. Schwarzwalder won’t have the death of innocents on his conscience. I expect he will pick you all up and formally make you prisoners of war. Or he might even drop you off on some island or neutral port somewhere.”

“But there’s no guarantee.” Thatcher took another sip of his brandy. Curiously enough he still felt like he was awaiting the executioner’s command to fire. There was no real reprieve with what Hewitt was offering him. Just a different chance to die for his country. He smiled in spite of it all. And then he noticed Hewitt had stopped speaking.

“Listen Thatcher: I know all about you. I know how your mind works.”

“Do you now?”

Hewitt leaned forward and took a sip from his own glass. “You might be thinking somewhere in the head of yours that if you do get popped by Raider X and picked up by Schwarzwalder, that you could just as easily offer your services up to Hitler. Or maybe you could implore Schwarzwalder to drop you off in Portugal or somewhere else where you could set up a new life.”

Thatcher said nothing while Hewitt eyed him.

“Let me relieve you of that fanciful notion.” Hewitt now had his gaze firmly locked on Thatcher. “You don’t have much that we can hold over you once you leave the confines of this office, that is true. Your immediate family is back in the States or scattered to the four winds, some are dead and some are simply nowhere to be found.” Hewitt shuffled a few papers on his desk. “But you do have an aunt living out near Hereford, don’t you? You haven’t seen her in quite some time but it’s my understanding that you dote on her quite a bit when you do. Maybe you view her as the last link to your mother, I don’t know. But we have documentation here that tells me you care an awful lot about her.”

Hewitt put the papers down and looked at Thatcher again. “It would be a terrible shame if anything were to happen to your little old aunt. I mean, I imagine she wiles most of her time away on a rocking chair in front of the fire on these cold afternoons, wouldn’t you?”

Thatcher felt his jaw tighten. “Perhaps.”

“And if we got word that you had somehow… flittered away like a little bird, off to some warmer locale to sun yourself on a beach without a care in the world, that would mean we’d have to tear her away from that cozy life she’s got for herself.”

“Unless I’m mistaken,” said Thatcher, “this isn’t Nazi Germany. Is it? You can’t very well just uproot a little old woman and put her in jail.”

Hewitt recoiled. “Oh, my goodness, I wouldn’t dream of putting her in jail, Thatcher.”

“Well, it’s just that you-“

“What I would do is ship her north to one of our estates in Scotland. Far removed from any village. And there, I would put her out in the middle of a night exercise for our trainees. She would be live training for sentry removal with a knife.”

The words dropped hard on the desk as Thatcher looked at Hewitt and again saw the expression that revealed his handler had absolutely no qualms about what he had proposed.

“You can’t do that.”

Hewitt shrugged. “You know, you’re probably right. In any other time when the homeland isn’t being routinely attacked by the raving maniac across the channel, I couldn’t. But these aren’t ordinary times, Thatcher. And the Emergency Powers Act gives someone like me an awful lot of latitude when it comes to making sure my organization is successful. You see, we’ve been charged with disrupting Hitler any way we possibly can. And when the Prime Minister gives you a direct order, one tends to take that mandate very seriously. As I have.”

Thatcher leaned back in his chair and smiled. “So yes, while in peacetime, you could perhaps fly off as you’d like, during wartime, there’s nothing to stop me from dragging auntie out of her warm bed in the middle of the night and making her stand outside in the frigid highlands while a student trainee sneaks up from behind and punches a blade into her flabby neck.” He glanced down at the papers on his desk again. “You’d do well to remember that. If you have any sort of affection for your aunt, then you’ll quell that desire to use this assignment as a gateway to freedom and concentrate instead on making sure you complete it to the best of your ability.”

“Or die trying.”

“Exactly. Die trying,” said Hewitt. “And god help auntie if you die without trying because we’ll know about that as well.”

“What else?”

“What else?”

“Cover story? What’s my background?”

Hewitt shrugged. “You don’t really have one. We’ll give you your official papers back, but that’s it. You were hoping to travel to Portugal and later Spain to do business. You’re in real estate.”

“Nothing else? What if they do a background check on me?”

Hewitt grinned. “You’ll be at sea and there’d be no way to confirm or deny anything at that point. And as you’ll find, Thatcher, sometimes, the simpler the lie, the easier it is to pull off. Most times, in fact.” Hewitt checked his watch. “And that is about all I have to say to you.”

CHAPTER 5

Hewitt actually shook Thatcher’s hand as they parted. “I’d wish you luck, but you’re going to need a whole lot more than that on this mission, Thatcher. The fact is, this might be our last time together.”

“You always send your operatives off with such a lofty pep talk?”

Hewitt grinned. “No, usually I think they have a shot at returning. You? I’m not so sure. This thing has suicide mission written all over it. There are too many variables, but we have to try. The Prime Minister wants Raider X destroyed without us having to launch an entire fleet to have to hunt it down. So it’s down to you to get it done.”

“And what happens if I manage to do so?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I just asked: what happens next? I make my way to some neutral country and go to the embassy? You send a boat to pick me up? What?”

Hewitt eyed him. “You come back here. Any way you can manage to do so. You’re a resourceful lad. I don’t much care of you swim home and up the Thames. Get back here as soon as you can. And don’t let me find out that you took off or else.”

Thatcher sighed. “I know, I know.”

“Good,” said Hewitt. He nodded behind Thatcher. “Now Jeremy here will see you off to your flight.”

Thatcher turned with a start. Hewitt’s bodyguard had materialized out of nowhere and his presence was rather off-putting. Thatcher tried to smile but Jeremy just looked at him with the sort of eyes that reminded Thatcher of a dead fish. It was not a comforting sight.

Hewitt cleared his throat. “Off you go then.”

Jeremy turned and Thatcher followed him toward the front of the building, pausing only to remove his pass and give it back to the nice old lady with the machine gun under her desk. Outside, Jeremy stepped into the driver’s seat without even looking at Thatcher. Thatcher took a glimpse at the crowded street and wondered how far he could sprint before the tongueless bodyguard caught up with him and beat him senseless.

With a sigh, he climbed into the back of the car and Jeremy instantly rolled away from the curb. Thatcher got the distinct impression the bodyguard had wanted him to try something funny. He was glad he hadn’t done so.

They rolled through the London traffic while Thatcher took everything in. The streets were crowded with all manner of people while trucks belched exhaust. Horns sounded as people made their way throughout whatever lives they had here. Thatcher absorbed it all wondering if he’d even ever see it again. As much as he hated the bustle sometimes, he had to admit that even in wartime, London had a certain charm that he would no doubt miss while away.

His mind went to the specifics of the operation and then he realized he didn’t really have any. Hewitt had given him no timetable of how this was going to happen. He had no clue where the ship he was traveling on was even heading although he concluded it must have been toward Portugal since that was where Hewitt had told him he was going. But even still, the vagaries of the assignment gnawed at him. It was as if Hewitt hadn’t even invested much into making sure the mission was a success. He had simply found some loser with nothing else to live for and handed it off to him.

Thatcher, he thought, you have once again shown yourself remarkably adept at attracting the worst circumstances to your life.

Jeremy drove them outside of London to a small airstrip based on a converted mansion’s grounds. The planes were lined up on the manicured lawns and as they drove in, he could see a few of the pilots mooching around drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. Jeremy drove up to a single plane and Thatcher got a look at it for the first time.

What was it Hewitt had called it? A Defiant? Whatever it was called, it didn’t look like it had been made to transport someone. Jeremy slowed the car to a stop and they both got out. Jeremy handed the pilot who was sitting nearby a sheet of paper. Then he simply turned, glared at Thatcher, got back into the car, and drove away, leaving Thatcher alone with the pilot who was still reading. After a moment, he looked up and nodded at him.

“You Thatcher?”

“Yes.” Thatcher stepped forward to shake the pilot’s hand. But he didn’t offer.

Instead he looked over his shoulder and whistled. “Oy, Steaks, got us a mission.”

A grossly overweight mechanic stepped out of the small shed nearby. He stood perhaps five feet tall and almost as much wide and was chomping on something that Thatcher assumed was food.

“Who’s this then?”

The pilot eased off of his seat and rubbed his ass. “Special guest of His Majesty. Just got paperwork says I need to fly him down to Poole. Best get him outfitted with the necessary kit. It’s urgent.”

The Pilot walked off to start pre-flight checks of his plane while the beefy mechanic motioned for Thatcher to follow him. “This way.”

Thatcher followed him to the shed and the mechanic turned and eyed Thatcher up and down. “Yeah, mate, that outfit’s not really going to work here. You see that turret in the back of the plane?”

Thatcher looked at the plane for the first time and noticed that there was a section behind the pilot with a gun turret. From this sprouted a series of four barrels of machine guns. Thatcher could see no other armaments on the plane. “I’m sitting in the back then.”

Steaks nodded. “Exactly and they didn’t quite make it roomy, so I need you to get into this here kit.” He held up a strange-looking suit that reminded Thatcher of someone going diving under the sea. And then the mechanic also showed him a sort of pouchy garment that apparently fit over the form-fitting suit. “This here’s your rhino suit.”

“Rhino suit?”

Steak grunted. “Got your chute in it case you run into trouble. ‘Course with you just heading down to Poole, it shouldn’t be an issue. Now come on, strip off them old clothes and let’s get you kitted up.”

Fifteen minutes later, after much pulling and prodding, Thatcher waddled out of the shed and toward the Daffy, as the plane was apparently nicknamed. He’d given up wondering why they called it that. All he knew is he felt absolutely ridiculous waddling about like penguin in his kit. Steaks had given him a bag for his civilian clothes and then thrust it back into Thatcher’s hands.

“Hang on to that. You can get changed down at Poole and make sure you give Leftenant Simpson the rhino suit back.”

“Thanks.”

As he struggled to walk normally up to the aircraft, the pilot Simpson turned back and regarded him. “All set are you? Let’s go. Schedule to keep and all.” He pointed out how Thatcher could climb up on the wing to gain entry to the rear turret.

Thatcher did so but couldn’t figure out how to get in. Then Steaks reappeared and showed him how to move it to the side to grant entry. “If you need to get out, that’s how you do it in reverse, so don’t forget. Got it?”

Thatcher nodded. “Thanks.”

“Oh, and if you do have to ditch over the water for some reason, get out of the chute as soon as you hit the drink.”

“Why?”

“Because it will pull you under like an anchor and you’ll drown in about twenty seconds if you don’t.” Steaks clapped him on the back and jumped down, surprisingly adroit for such a beefy little man. Thatcher climbed into the rear turret and found himself staring out of the back of the plane, which was a weird sensation.

He heard a bang as the engine kicked to life and then pulled on his headset, hearing Simpson already communicating with the makeshift air tower requesting permission to depart. The tower confirmed his approval and then Simpson guided the plane away from it’s resting place near the shed.

His headset crackled and Thatcher heard Simpson’s voice in his ear. “You ever flown before?”

“A few times.”

“Good. Don’t puke in my plane. I’ll have you down to Poole in no time. Just sit back and try to relax.”

Thatcher grunted as he squirmed about the turret. The plane had not been designed for comfort, that much was obvious. But he hoped the flight wouldn’t take that long because the sooner he was out of this bizarre flying kit and back into his civilian clothes, the better he would feel.

The Daffy turned again and pointed its nose toward the improvised runway. Thatcher looked at the mansion a half a kilometer away and wondered if the owners had ever expected to see a fleet of planes on their property. Probably not, he decided.

But then his thoughts were diverted by the Daffy as it rushed down the improvised runway — which was little more than grass cut extra short — and then lifted off the ground and into the sky.

CHAPTER 6

As soon as the Daffy’s landing gear came up and tucked away in its belly, the plane felt a lot smoother. Simpson kept the plane’s nose pointed skyward and they ascended. He banked twice and took a heading before settling the plane into its proper direction.

For Thatcher, it was weird sitting backward and seeing the world vanish as if falling away from him. The sensation wasn’t a bad one and he marveled at the miracle of flight as he tried to get some room in the turret to make himself feel comfortable. The mounted machine guns swung around slightly as he twisted this way and that. But he was largely unsuccessful at doing anything that might make his trip to Poole any more comfortable and Thatcher realized his best option was to simply hope that the trip was quick and uneventful.

“There’s not a lot of room back there, I’m afraid,” said Simpson in his earpiece. The radio crackled with static every time he spoke and Thatcher realized he could hear more than just the two of them.

“I appreciate the ride,” said Thatcher. “But how do you find someone who can tolerate this discomfort?”

Simpson laughed. “You find someone who is a lot smaller than what you are, mate. Most of the gunners are short, thin guys who can actually maneuver a bit. Although even for that lot, it can get challenging.”

Thatcher looked around. The setup seemed fairly evident. The four machine guns were electrically controlled from a main firing trigger. Thatcher also discovered that his turret would rotate if he pressed a lever on one side and it would go the other way if he pressed it the other direction. He shifted back and forth a few times, causing the turret to shudder in one direction and then the other.

Simpson laughed again in his earpiece. “Getting a feel for it, are you? This is a much better version than the earlier one we had. We’ve got airborne interception radar on this model, which is quite the improvement.”

“Have you shot down a lot of Nazi fighters with this?”

“The Defiant is primarily used against bombers. But yes indeed. 264 Squadron was one of the principal players in warding off the Blitz. Not sure what’s been happening lately, but the bombing runs have become less and less. I’ve seen a lot of mates get shot down as well. The Defiant isn’t the best when it’s forced to face Nazi fighters. They can generally out-maneuver us. But this little lady can do some great stuff if she’s put in the right position.”

Thatcher smirked. Any of the pilots he’d ever known had always referred to their planes as women. The same with ship captains. The world was apparently full of studs, he decided.

It was at that point that Thatcher heard a series of beeps going off from somewhere in the plane itself. “What in the world is that?”

Simpson’s voice crackled in his ear. “That is the radar system. I’m getting a number of hits on the scope in the cockpit here.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Other planes,” said Simpson. “Stand by.”

Simpson immediately began speaking to someone that Thatcher assumed was back at the air traffic control tower. He felt a spasm in his gut. Then he heard Simpson’s voice again in his ear. “Change of plans.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry, mate, but apparently the Jerrys have decided to send a bombing mission over London right now. Base is tracking a whole bunch of them coming over the Channel as we speak. We’ve been directed to link up with the rest of the squadron and see that they don’t get through.”

“We’re going to shoot down bombers?”

Simpson chuckled. “That’s exactly what I’m saying, yes.”

Thatcher’s stomach dropped. “How late is that going to make me?”

“I have no idea, but the priority is stopping the bombers, not getting you to your cruise ship.”

Thatcher frowned. If only Simpson knew the nature of his assignment, he wouldn’t be so cavalier about what this transport was for. He just hoped Hewitt was being kept abreast of the fact that his suicide mission was in danger of not getting started properly because Thatcher was flying into combat.

The Defiant’s engine throttled up as Simpson increased his air speed and brought them back around as if they were heading back toward London. Simpson’s voice came over the headphone again. “I don’t mean to be rude. But I’m going to basically stop talking to you unless I need you. I need to communicate with the rest of the squadron. But do me a favor, would you?”

“Sure.”

“Test fire the machine guns, would you?”

Test fire? Thatcher squeezed the trigger and the turret came to life as the guns fired automatically, sending a quick volley skyward. Thatcher, shifted the turret from left to right and then right to left, noting that the angle of the guns themselves was perhaps fourteen degrees aimed upward.

“Good stuff,” said Simpson. “Now do us a favor and if we get into position and have any bogeys coming at us, shoot them down.”

“Shoot them down? I’m no pilot, Simpson.”

“Neither is anyone who sits back there, mate. But for the time being, you’re my gunner. And if I tell you to shoot, you’d damn well better shoot or else we’re going to be in the shit. You got that?”

Thatcher took a breath, already feeling like he wanted to vomit. He’d started the morning staring down the barrels of a firing squad. And then he’d apparently been given a bit of a reprieve. Yet here he was now about to go into battle and he had no choice but to do it. Or else he might die.

Seems a rather constant theme in my life right now, he thought with a frown.

Simpson was already talking to the other pilots in his squadron. Thatcher saw other Defiants rising up to meet them as they veered east and headed for the Channel. There had to be at least thirty of the planes now and they were joined as well the likes of Spitfires and Hurricanes. That made Thatcher feel somewhat better. The Hurricanes and Spitfires would be there to help protect the Defiants from any fighter escort that the Germans had brought with them on their bombing run. Having the benefit of being able to stage from bases in occupied France meant the fighters could easily make the run across the Channel with the bombers and fight a bit before needing to return when their fuel ran low.

The Channel itself yawned before them now and Thatcher, twisted in his seat to try to see what was happening thought the view was magnificent. But his back ached and he couldn’t keep himself oriented to the front. He tried rotating the turret and the guns swung around as he did so. Now he was facing front and felt a measure of relief.

At least I can see what’s coming at us, he thought.

“When we get into it,” said Simpson then, “make sure you turn those guns to the rear. The Jerrys will fly past us and you’ll be able to get a good shot at them.”

“All right.”

“Just don’t shoot down any of my mates in the process. You got me?”

“I’ll do my best,” said Thatcher. “But I’ve never operated guns like this before.”

“There’s a first for everything.”

Thatcher’s mouth felt dry as Simpson spoke with the squadron leader. He could hear the conversation, but he didn’t think he could speak and be heard except by Simpson. That was probably for the better, he decided. The last thing Thatcher wanted was to be known at this point. He was going to have a helluva time just trying not to shoot down any friendly planes, let alone being able to take out a Nazi bomber.

As he looked toward the east, he detected a slight rise in Simpson’s voice and the plane veered once more. The radar had pinpointed the attacking squadron of German bombers and now they were on a collision course with them and their fighter escorts.

Simpson’s voice crackled in his ear once more. “You ready, mate?”

“No,” said Thatcher.

Simpson laughed. “At least you’re honest. I’ll give you points for that, at least. Just remember to breathe and keep your wits about you. Any of these fuckers get on our six, you let me know immediately or we won’t last for sure. Understood?”

“Y-yes,” said Thatcher again feeling a need to vomit.

“Good stuff,” said Simpson. “Because here they come.”

CHAPTER 7

They were on them in an instant, a swarm of angry hornets buzzing about the sky while the slower-moving German bombers tried to gain elevation. The Messerschmitt fighters zipped this way and that, their guns already blazing at the Defiants that had risen en masse to destroy the bombers. Thatcher marveled at their maneuverability as they twisted and dove and rose again with bullets shredding the sky as they did so. Within the first minute, they had knocked out two of the Defiants that somersaulted over and fell from the sky toward the ocean below.

But then the Spitfires and Hurricanes joined the fight and gave the Messerschmitts a bit of a challenge. Thatcher didn’t have time to watch their dogfighting, however, because Simpson was jockeying the Defiant for position under the belly of a large German bomber. Thatcher had no idea what type it was, just that it was probably laden with high explosive incendiary bombs that it would be dropping on London or some other target within minutes if they did not stop them.

His heart pounded in his chest and his breathing came in spurts as Simpson eased them up closer toward the belly, drawing them to within about two hundred yards.

“Get those guns ready!”

Thatcher spun the turret, lining the Browning machine guns up until he had the target. As soon as the belly of the bomber came within view, he opened up without Simpson prodding him. The noise of the four guns firing thundered within the plane. The four barrels smoked as lead poured out of them and Thatcher looked up at the underside of the bomber, noting that the heavy rounds were stitching across the belly of the beast in a deadly line.

“Wings, mate, get the wings!”

Thatcher adjusted his aim and as soon as the first of his bullets hit the wings, the smoke that poured from them was black and ominous. Thatcher got into the firing and maneuvering of the machine guns now, easing his aim and ripping rounds back and forth from the main fuselage to the wings. A burst of flame erupted from the left wing and then the entire craft slowly turned over on its right side and then banked toward the sea far below, yawning as more smoke belched from its underside.

“That’s the stuff!”

Thatcher felt a moment of elation. He had done it! Let Hewitt pin a medal on his chest for that bit of heroic display, he thought as pride surged in his chest.

But it was short-lived when he spotted something directly behind them and then heard a rip of gunfire come arcing across the tail section. Most of the bullets missed but two of then struck the rear flaps.

“There’s one on our tail!”

Simpson didn’t respond but immediately put the Defiant into a steep dive. “Shoot back!”

Thatcher tried his best to line the guns up as Simpson dove this way and that trying to shake the hunter behind them, but the Defiant’s guns seemed specifically designed to attack bombers, not be of help in a dogfight. Thatcher couldn’t adjust their elevation and the Messerschmitt on their tail seemed to know that. It stayed level with them rendering firing the guns nearly useless as Simpson started calling for help on his radio from any other pilots in the area.

Out of the setting sun to the west, Thatcher saw a Spitfire break across the rear of the Messerschmitt and open up with its guns. The line of rounds screaming through the sky moved from empty air to across the canopy of the Messerschmitt and Thatcher could see them impact the pilot who almost exploded within the glass canopy into a red spray before falling forward and causing the Messerschmitt to go into a steep dive toward the sea.

“Got him!”

Simpson brought the Defiant back to level and put it on another bomber that had continued to lumber along. “We’ve lost a bunch of fellows,” said Simpson then.

Thatcher looked and saw that while the Spitfires and Hurricanes were continuing to fight with the smaller German fighters, the rest of the Defiants had suffered tremendous losses. Of the thirty or so planes that had risen with them, half were gone now. And worse, the Messerschmitts continued to dive this way and that while they danced with the British defenders, aiming to punch the Defiants out of the sky before they would need to break off and head back to occupied France because of low fuel.

Thatcher lined up another bomber in his sights and sent volleys of rounds into it. More and more of the German bombers fell from the sky as the Defiants did their work. But there seemed to be so many of them, blotting out the sky like a giant shadow moving from Hitler’s Fortress Europe toward the city of London.

Which was when Thatcher saw another black shape on their tail again. “Messerschmitt!”

Even as he said it, an explosion of gunfire erupted from the German fighter and it stitched across the back of the Defiant. Instantly smoke poured from the wound and Thatcher shouted when he saw it. “He got us!”

“I know it!”

Simpson drove the Defiant down and then tried to regain altitude. The Defiant spun over in a barrel roll and Thatcher saw the entire world go upside down, felt his stomach lurch, and then steadied himself as Simpson brought them level again.

“I can’t control her anymore. I’ll try to get us some altitude and put us closer to the land.”

“What does that mean?”

But Simpson was already yammering away into the radio that they’d been hit and were going down. Thatcher’s mind raced. Going down? Did that mean-?

“Turn that turret to exit it,” said Simpson then. “We’re going to have to bail out.”

Thatcher started panicking, feeling himself gasping for breath as he tried to work the turret.

But it wouldn’t move.

“It’s frozen!”

“The bullets must have hit the hydraulics,” said Simpson. “Look down to your right and you’ll see a manual crank. Grab that and turn it to turn the turret. Hurry, mate, you don’t have much time!”

Thatcher looked down and saw the crank, grabbed it, and started turning it. Or he tried to. But the crank was old and slightly rusted and didn’t seem to want to turn at all. Thatcher heaved and finally got it to start moving the turret. He was sweating now, it was hot inside the plane. He didn’t even know if Simpson was still with him or not.

The turret finally kept moving and then Thatcher could see the exit swing around as the guns faced to the side of the plane. He risked a quick glance out and saw that the ocean below was frightfully close, a huge expanse of blue that seemed to surround them. They were nowhere as close to the land as he had hoped they might be.

He punched out the exit door of the turret and felt a blast of cool air hit him in the face. He released his straps and then started climbing out before the thought hit him that he’d never jumped with a parachute before. He glanced down as the wind buffeted his face making it hard to see. He yanked down his goggles and found the rip cord dangling off of the weird suit that Steaks had put him into before they’d left the airfield.

He took a final look at the turret, grabbed his traveling bag and felt the plane suddenly lurch. They weren’t high now and the nose suddenly dipped and fell straight for the sea. Simpson had vanished and Thatcher assumed that the pilot had already jumped even though he couldn’t see the man’s parachute anywhere.

And then, he wasn’t in the plane any longer, either.

For a moment, Thatcher had the distinct sensation of floating, almost as if he hadn’t really jumped at all. But that was because the plane had simply fallen away from him and its bulk seemed to defy the laws of physics at the rate it fell at.

Then Thatcher felt the slipstream grab him and he started plummeting toward the sea as well.

How high up were they? When was he supposed to yank his cord? Simpson hadn’t told him when to do it. Thatcher fell and fell, somersaulting as he did so, over and over again.

The hell with this whole thing, he thought. He reached up for the cord and yanked on it with everything he had left.

He heard nothing and felt nothing.

As he somersaulted toward the water below, it occurred to Thatcher that it was probably going to hurt an awful lot when he smacked into the cold ocean.

CHAPTER 8

Just as he thought that he was dead, Thatcher heard a rush of material escaping his weird suit and then felt an abrupt jerk in his crotch that made him want to scream. He looked above him and saw that the canopy had finally opened, braking him hard as his bruised scrotum would probably be able to testify to. Now Thatcher drifted down ever closer to the sea, his fear only slightly lessened by the fact that the chute had opened and he wasn’t going to hit the sea and immediately die.

No, he thought now, he was probably just going to drown.

His entire field of vision was occupied by the white-capped waves below him. He still felt like he was falling far too fast, but he couldn’t seem to do anything about it. What was it Steaks had told him before they’d taken off? Twenty seconds before the weight of the chute would pull him under the waves and he’d drown. As Thatcher descended, he was already trying to figure out how to wriggle out of the strange suit contraption that held his chute, looking for some type of release catch to undo.

Was that it? His fingers fumbled as the Channel waters suddenly seemed far too close. He started unbuckling it and then he hit the waves and immediately went under before surfacing again with a sputter of water and a cough. He hadn’t even blocked his nose before he’d gone in and now he was choking on water while he was desperate to grab a decent breath. The water was cold and he was shivering already but his fingers kept working the clasps on his suit.

One came free and Thatcher started on the other, willing his frozen digits to work the clasps until they too came free and then he shrugged the entire suit off as the silken chute vanished beneath the waves, its strings yanking at Thatcher already like some undead corpse reaching up from a watery grave.

One more to go and now Thatcher was being pulled under the waves. He couldn’t see anything because the salt water stung his eyes shut and he was barely able to keep from opening his mouth and letting the water rush in and finish him off. Where was the clasp? His fingers fumbled all over for it and then he finally located it.

He was sinking deeper now. How far away would the surface be if he made it that far? Come on, fingers work! The clasp wouldn’t unbuckle. There was just one more… there! Thatcher found the pin and got it free. The suit came away in an instant and Thatcher, his lungs aching to fill with air launched himself upward hoping that he was shooting toward the surface and not even deeper in to the Channel depths.

He broke the surface with a gasping shout and filled his lungs before he sank back slightly again. He clawed to the surface and again gulped fresh oxygen into his lungs.

From above, the Channel water had looked reasonably peaceful, but now waves broke over his head with startling irregularity and Thatcher found himself consuming a whole lot more ocean water than he’d ever wanted to before. He turned around in all directions but could see no sign of land and he was being tossed to and fro in the drink with no real sense of current or direction.

He steeled himself then and tried to remember where the land had been when he’d first touched down. It had been in front of him, he’d gone under and then shot to the surface so if he turned in this direction, he ought to be facing it.

Of course, if it turned out to be the wrong direction, the chances were good he’d have to swim to France. And if he missed that, then he’d drift out into the Atlantic itself.

Where was Simpson? Thatcher hadn’t seen any indication that the pilot had even managed to bail out with his chute. One moment he’d been in the plane and the next he was simply gone. Had he fallen? Or been shot? Thatcher didn’t know but he would have been grateful for any company right then. Being alone in the middle of the ocean as the sun was starting to set wasn’t the greatest feeling in the world. And the water was already growing colder with each passing minute.

He took a breath and settled on a course of travel. No sense simply bobbing about in the drink waiting to die, he reasoned. He’d been in other dicey situations in the past; this was no different even if the environment was. Thatcher steeled himself and set off. He wasn’t a strong swimmer by any means, but he knew he could stay afloat and as long as he kept moving, he would eventually reach somewhere. That as all he was concentrating on then. Just keep moving through the waves and make progress in one direction.

He swam this way for perhaps a quarter of an hour as the waves continued to break over his head and as he did his best to minimize the amount of sea water he was swallowing. He knew the dangers of drinking the salt water but trying to keep his mouth closed was tough because the clothes he wore still weighed him down even though he had freed himself from the chute.

Still, he reasoned that he was doing something productive. Hewitt’s schedule was going to hell, though, he thought with a brief bark of laughter. Part of him actually felt pretty good about disrupting it. The SOE man had made a point about getting Thatcher down to Poole in time to catch a transport and now that was all destroyed because of the German bomber run that had sidetracked them. And then of course, being shot down had put a permanent kink in the plans.

Thatcher realized that if he did manage to make it to land, he had options. Hewitt would never know if Thatcher had managed to bail out. And if he knew that he had, there was no way of possibly knowing if Thatcher had landed in the water and promptly drowned. He might have never managed to free himself from the chute and been dragged down beneath the depths to his death. SOE wasn’t about to dispatch a search party to try to scour the depths for the body of a single man just so Hewitt could rest assured that his sacrificial lamb was dead. No chance. If Thatcher could make his way to land, he could literally vanish. The hell with Hewitt’s little assignment; Thatcher could make his way north, get his aunty secluded somewhere safer for her and then disappear forever knowing that she was safe from Hewitt’s nasty vengeance.

That might work, he thought. And with that thought came a renewed energy to make it all happen. Thatcher set himself forward now, his strokes becoming stronger as he cut through the waves. He was surprised at how much progress he was making. But when a wave lifted him higher than before, he managed to get a glimpse of the land and his heart sank when he saw how far off it was.

Miles.

He’d have to swim miles before he reached the sandy shoreline.

And his strength ebbed then with that realization. It was too far. Thatcher was a fit man, but he’d never swum that far before. And with night coming on, there was no way to keep his bearing without getting lost. The darkness combined with the temperature of the water would surely kill him before the sun could make its return appearance tomorrow morning.

Thatcher stopped swimming then because his ears had picked something up over the crashing waves around him. Something out of time with the natural rhythm of the sea and the wind.

A motor.

More specifically, a boat’s motor. Thatcher stopped swimming and bobbed about trying to get a fix on its position. There were still fishing boats that plied these waters even with the threat of the Germans always a factor. Perhaps one of them was on its way home.

“Help!”

Thatcher’s voice broke from his throat and lifted into the air. Again and again he shouted as the din of the motor grew ever louder. Thatcher bobbed in the waves being lifted up and then smashed down as he continued to shout. This would be his only chance, he realized. If the boat kept going on its way, then he was a dead man for sure.

He took one last gulp of air and then let out the loudest shout that he had ever given in his life. “HELP ME!”

The motor was even louder now and then he heard a loud horn honk in the distance. A light swept across the waves and then blissfully came to rest right on Thatcher himself.

He was saved.

CHAPTER 9

As he bobbed in the water transfixed by the light, he could make out the shape of a large ship about two hundred yards away. There was shouting on the upper deck and he heard several of the crew readying a smaller boat to lower into the water so they could reach Thatcher. As he treaded water, Thatcher considered his good fortune. He had been facing a firing squad this morning, then plucked out of that fate, only to find himself drafted for an assignment he wanted nothing to do with.

His opinion on the war was that it was an unfortunate evil but it was also one that didn’t affect him personally. If Hewitt had been charged with destroying a mysterious German ship, then let him go and find the damned thing. Thatcher wanted to get on with his life, away from the reality of war.

But even still, he’d later found himself in aerial combat, shooting down Nazi bombers and fighters before being shot down himself. His chute had almost not opened and Thatcher could have easily drowned in the English Channel. Now, he was about to be rescued once more from an early death and he was beside himself with the thought of the opportunity that lay before him.

The chance to disappear and start life anew was almost intoxicating to him.

The smaller boat touched down on the water and Thatcher heard a motor spark to life as it plowed through the surf and headed his way. He waited until it was close and then lifted his arms as several of the crew dragged him out of the water and onto the boat. Thatcher flopped heavily among the benches and felt the hard wood beneath him for the first time in several hours.

A face peered closer to his. “Blood hell, mate. Where’d you fall out of the sky from?”

Thatcher smirked. “Truer words were never spoken.”

“Bloke’s a pilot,” said another crew member. “Jerries must’ve shot his plane down.”

“Not a pilot,” said Thatcher. “Just an unfortunate passenger.” He glanced around. “Does anyone have any water?”

One of the crew put a canteen to his mouth and Thatcher sucked the cold water down, feeling it revitalize him as he did so. He pulled it away and exhaled with a long sigh. “Thank you for rescuing me.”

“Least we can do seeing how you lot keep shooting down the bad guys,” said the first crew member. “But let’s get you back aboard the ship and into dry clothes. Looks like those are a bit water-logged for sure. A few more minutes and you likely wouldn’t have been able to keep your head above water any longer.”

“You’re not joking,” said Thatcher. He leaned back and closed his eyes. He was exhausted.

He felt the smaller boat kick up and then spin about heading back toward the ship. The crew attached the lines and it was then plucked out of the water by the winches manned by other crews. Thatcher was only dimly aware of this because by the time he was hoisted aboard, he had passed out. Several pairs of hands carried him gently out of the smaller rescue craft and through the corridors of the ship to a cabin where a doctor quickly looked him over and pronounced he was in good health despite his marathon bathing session in the Channel. Then he was tucked away in bed and left to sleep.

When Thatcher regained his senses and woke, it was nearly twelve hours later. He opened his eyes and for a moment forgot where he was and assumed this was the after life. But then vague memories came back to him. Being carried, having his uniform stripped off and being immersed in warm water to heat his core before being tucked away to sleep.

He rubbed his eyes and took in the room. It was small and tidy but comfortable nonetheless. He spotted a proper set of clothes laid out for him and judging from their look, they were of decent quality.

Thatcher was also aware that his stomach was grumbling for food and the gnawing sensation drove him to forsake the comforts of laying in bed for a little while longer. He got up, aware that he didn’t smell like the English Channel anymore, which was nice. He dressed, smoothed his hair back using the mirror, and checked himself over.

Not bad Thatcher, old boy, he thought. Almost looking rather sporty again. He smirked and then slid on the pair of shoes that had been left before opening his cabin door. He took note of the number — six — and then walked down the corridor, hoping to make his way out into the fresh air.

When he stepped out onto the deck, he noted the skies overhead were still gray and foreboding, as if a storm was coming on. Despite the fact that he felt a few drops of rain, Thatcher stood by the rail and inhaled deeply, tasting the salt air but not minding it this time since he wasn’t floating in the stuff. He looked down at the water and shook his head. Not this time, he thought.

“Good morning, sir.”

He turned and saw a crew member standing there. Thatcher smiled. “It is indeed a good morning, thank you.”

“I’m Geoff. Captain apologizes for not having a proper uniform for you, but says the clothes that were in the cabin ought to fit you.”

Thatcher patted himself. “They do indeed.”

Geoff grinned. “Captain would like a word with you if you’ve got a moment.”

“Absolutely,” said Thatcher. “Lead on.”

Geoff led Thatcher through the corridors and up several flights of steps until they at last came to the bridge. Geoff stepped inside and stood at attention. “Sir, the pilot from last night.”

Thatcher stepped onto the bridge and found himself being appraised by the captain, a man of maybe sixty who had deep lines running across his face and a neatly-trimmed beard that gave him a squared off jaw. His eyes were sharp and Thatcher could tell that this man would brook no dissent from his crew.

He stepped forward and held out his hand. “I’m Captain Adamson. Pleasure to meet you.”

Thatcher found his grip hard and firm. “I can’t thank you enough for rescuing me, sir. A little while longer and it would have been my bloated carcass pulled out of the water.”

Adamson nodded with any mirth. “You were close to death indeed. It’s lucky we got to you when we did. Thankfully I usually post a watch out on the deck and they heard your shouts. How’d you come to be in the water?”

“Shot down,” said Thatcher.

“So you’re a pilot?”

Thatcher shook his head. “Gunner on a Defiant. We were tasked with taking on a squadron of German bombers yesterday.”

Adamson grunted. “I heard you got a fair number of them. Good work.”

“Thank you.”

Adamson frowned. “I’m afraid I can’t turn the ship around and run you back into land, however. We’re well on our way and cannot disrupt the schedule now — it would put us all in jeopardy. I’m sure you can appreciate that.”

Thatcher resisted the urge to smile. He had hoped for just such a thing. “I understand completely.”

“We can radio back to England and let them know you’re alive, however.”

Thatcher held up his hand. “It’s perfectly fine if you don’t.”

But Adamson frowned again. “Those are the regulations. You know that. Any armed forces person we rescue has to be called in. Now, what’s your name?”

Thatcher paused. He hadn’t anticipated the need for a fake name. And now the captain was eyeballing him suspiciously. “Thatcher,” he said before he knew what he was doing. They’d taken his clothes after all. There was a likely chance they already knew who he was.

Adamson grunted and walked over to the radio station, nudging the clerk as he did so. “Ring up London, Gordie.”

The radio clerk nodded, “Sir.” And then he began speaking into the microphone. After a minute of this, he removed his headphones and handed them to the Captain. “I’ve got them, sir.”

Adamson took the headphones and put them on. Then he picked up the microphone and started speaking into it. Thatcher watched as he spoke for several minutes. But he could only hear one side of the conversation. His hopes for a quick escape were fading fast he realized. As soon as Adamson gave word that he’d plucked Thatcher out of the water, London would know he was still alive.

Just when things had started looking up, thought Thatcher. Now another wrinkle in his grand plan.

Adamson took the headphones off, snapping Thatcher back to reality. The captain came over and smiled at him. Thatcher steeled himself for what he would say.

“You’re a rather popular man, aren’t you?”

“Sorry?”

“Turns out you’ve got some friends in high places. One of them would like a word with you.”

CHAPTER 10

Thatcher took the headphones and microphone. “Yes?”

“Well, well, well… look who had themselves a lovely little swim,” said a voice that Thatcher recognized as Hewitt’s. “Well-rested this morning, are you?”

“Marvelously so.”

Hewitt chuckled. “You had us worried when your plane went down. Imagine my relief when word came through that someone named Thatcher had been plucked out of the waters.”

Thatcher frowned. The joy in Hewitt’s voice was starting to annoy him. “Yes, I’m sure you were absolutely over the moon with jubilance.”

“Something like that,” said Hewitt. “Listen Thatcher, it wasn’t my idea to have you go off shooting down German bombers. If I’d had my way, you would have continued on your flight to Poole and caught your cruise. But I was outranked on that front and your plane was diverted. It’s lucky you didn’t take any bullets when you were shot down. Small miracles, I suppose.”

“I appreciate your care for my well-being,” said Thatcher. He didn’t know who was listening to his conversation, but he assumed everyone on the bridge was.

“Now listen carefully: Adamson has no idea what your mission is. He only knows that you work for London but he has no idea in what capacity. Keep it that way. We’ve gotten word that the fox has left its den. Do you understand what I mean when I say that?”

Thatcher assumed he meant that Raider X was now our of port and actively looking for hens to hunt. “I believe I do.”

“Good. We’ll try to track it as much as we can, but the fact of the matter is you should consider yourself being actively pursued now. If I were you, I’d take steps to make sure you aren’t caught unaware. Once you clear the coast of France, I’d expect you’ll be in for some company within a short span of time. Plan accordingly. Try not to spend too much time in the water also.”

“Why not?”

“Sharks,” said Hewitt. “Good hunting, Thatcher.”

The headphones went dead and Thatcher frowned again as he removed them and handed them back to Gordie the radio operator. “Thank you.”

He walked toward Adamson who appraised him as he did so. The captain leaned against the bridge and nodded. “Thought you were thinking about giving me a fake name back at the start of our conversation.”

Thatcher smirked. “I was, actually.”

“Why?”

“Let’s just say that I’m not one hundred percent thrilled about my employment status.”

Adamson chuckled. “Given you were shot down yesterday, I’m not surprised to hear you say that. But you’ve done a good bit of service for the Crown, so we should be grateful for your work.”

A thought occurred to Thatcher then and he couldn’t shake it. Why had Hewitt told him that Raider X was hunting them now? Hadn’t Thatcher missed the boat he was supposed to be on?

“Something wrong?” asked Adamson.

“This ship,” said Thatcher. “What’s its name?”

“The Archimedes,” said Adamson. “I thought you already knew that.”

Thatcher felt his world reel for a moment before he stabilized. What were the odds that he had been plucked out of the ocean by the very ship he was supposed to have sailed from Poole aboard? It was as if the universe was telling him there was no way he was going to escape his destiny. At least not yet. Thatcher wouldn’t stop trying, however. At least once he managed to get his aunty squared away some place safe. Then Hewitt could go shove his secret missions.

“The Archimedes,” Thatcher said slowly. “Well, lovely. How about that for coincidence?”

Adamson smiled. “I’d put it down to blind luck, myself, but if you want to call it coincidence, then by all means go ahead. We put you in the cabin that had been reserved for you. That’s where we found the clothes you’re wearing. Seems someone sent ahead a few bundles worth of clothes.” He looked out of the bridge at the rolling waves before them. “You must be starving.”

“Indeed,” said Thatcher. “I could eat everything in the pantry.”

Adamson smiled. “Mess deck is two down. Tell the cooks I said to feed you until you can’t move. That should help get you back up to normal in no time. They make a great meal.”

“Thank you,” said Thatcher. He headed for the door.

“Thatcher.”

Thatcher turned. “Sir?”

“Welcome aboard. But don’t cause any fuss. We have other passengers on this ship and I aim to get us all the way to Portugal safely. Is that understood?”

“Perfectly.”

“Good. Enjoy the food.”

Thatcher ducked out of the bridge and headed down two decks where he found the mess and a couple of portly souls busily serving up food to a few of the other passengers. He sat down at an empty table and waited for one of the crew to come by. When he did so, Thatcher told him what Adamson had said and then ordered a full breakfast along with tea and juice. The crew member nodded and left.

Thatcher took a deep breath, filling his lungs with air as he took in the world he’d been thrust into. Here he was, safely ensconced on the ship he was supposed to have boarded yesterday. And yet even now as he sat there waiting to eat, there was a German commerce raider on the prowl looking for the Archimedes.

Thatcher knew the Archimedes didn’t have any sort of armament to defend itself with, but perhaps that was the point. If there had been a chance that she’d fight back, Raider X would simply sink her. Perhaps Hewitt had reasoned that Schwarzwalder might be more inclined to rescue prisoners from the ocean if the ship was completely unarmed. The passengers, after all, weren’t combatants.

Thatcher would have to play that role up if he was indeed plucked out of the sea by Raider X. He was young and fit and obviously of fighting age. The Germans would want to know why he wasn’t in the service and his presence would likely trigger immediate suspicion. Thatcher took a moment to think about what he could tell them when the questions inevitably arrived.

What sort of ailment would disqualify Thatcher from service? Hearing loss was the most applicable to Thatcher at the moment. He could feign deafness in one ear and that might do it. But then Thatcher chastised himself. What was the point in lying about it? Why not simply tell the Germans the truth? After all, it would be relatively easy for German spies to find out that Thatcher had been a criminal who was due to be executed. Thatcher could then say he’d simply escaped and made his way to the south where he boarded the Archimedes knowing it was bound for Portugal. Once in Portugal, he would be free to start a new life under an assumed name.

The more Thatcher thought about it, the more he liked that plan the best. It was, he decided, better to base his lie on a foundation of truth. That way, even under interrogation, it would hold up. Plus, if they did check him out, the German spies would confirm his story. That would give Thatcher more credence than if he had simply said he was deaf in one ear.

Thatcher nodded to himself and a smile crossed his lips. He wasn’t crazy about being on the ship at the moment, but who knew how this would all play out? There was still a chance that Thatcher could turn this situation to his advantage. He just had to be cagey about it. And that was something he knew how to be quite well. Play along with Hewitt for the time being and then make his move when it was most advantageous. Hewitt, after all, would have no way of knowing if Thatcher would even survive Raider X sinking the Archimedes.

It occurred to Thatcher just how much of Hewitt’s plan was dangerously reckless. There were no guarantees at all that it would work out for the best. Hewitt had simply placed Thatcher into the breach with the hope that it would. It was an interesting realization, Thatcher decided. And he wondered just how many of Hewitt’s other operations were planned like this.

Then again, Thatcher might well have been the first to be sacrificed in this fashion. He smirked. I’m not dead yet, he thought.

The crew member reappeared and set several heaping plates before Thatcher. Eggs, bacon, toast, sliced fruits, muffins and more piled high on the plates. Thatcher looked at it all and felt a rumble in his belly as he nodded his thanks and then set about tackling the feast before him.

“That’s a rather formidable meal you’ve got for yourself there. Is anyone else joining you? Perhaps a marching band?”

Thatcher smiled as he looked up into a pair of the most exquisite eyes he’d ever seen. And when he saw the rest of her face, he forgot about the feast sitting in front of him.

“I could use some help,” he said then.

CHAPTER 11

It was, Thatcher decided, perhaps the purest shade of black that he had ever seen in the woman’s hair. It was styled in a simple bob that fell to just above her shoulders and framed her face perfectly, giving her eyes a a facial point that immediately drew him into them where he gladly would have stayed had it not been inappropriate to simply gawk at her.

“May I?”

Thatcher nodded for her to sit and as she did, he couldn’t help but appreciate the curvaceous styling of her dress that accentuated her bust and hips, slowly drawing his gaze to her shapely calves. She looked like she stayed active but Thatcher wasn’t entirely sure what she might have done to do so. Perhaps she’d been an Olympian? He didn’t know.

He looked down at his plate and felt rather gluttonous. “You’ll have to forgive me for looking as though I’m engaging in one of the seven deadly sins at the moment.”

The woman smiled and leaned back appraising him. “From what I heard about you falling out of the sky last evening, I’d say it’s not only warranted, but mandatory.”

“Even still,” said Thatcher. “I could use a little moderation.” He glanced around. “Have you eaten yet? I could easily ask the waiter to bring a plate over?”

She held up her hand. “I dined earlier when the rest of the passengers ate. But I had to come back and introduce myself to the brave pilot who was shot down yesterday.” She smiled again and held out her hand. “My name is Cyra.”

Thatcher took her hand and felt its warmth. He held it a moment longer than a simple introduction as he smiled at her. “I’m Harrison Thatcher. It’s a pleasure, although I’m not a pilot. Just an unfortunate bystander if I’m being honest.”

He released her hand and she brought it back to her lap. “You don’t sound quite like a Brit. There’s enough of an accent there, but you’re not British, are you?”

“Guilty,” said Thatcher. “I’m American. From Boston.”

“You don’t have a Boston accent, either,” said Cyra.

Thatcher grinned. “Blame my father for that. When we were growing up he was determined that none of his children would ever have a telltale accent.”

“Interesting,” said Cyra. “And how did he go about achieving such a peculiar goal?”

“We studied multiple languages. Romance, Germanic, plus exposure to as many cultures as we were able to travel too. Which was plenty given the fortune my father inherited. It was a pleasant childhood.”

Cyra’s eyes bore into Thatcher’s. “So what happened to bring you across the ocean to this part of the world where war is just a heartbeat away?”

Thatcher ate his breakfast and took a sip of the juice. He shrugged. “I guess I wasn’t satisfied with being a trust fund baby. I think there was part of me that wanted to earn my own way. So I left it all behind.”

“All of it? As in you could never go back?”

Thatcher shrugged. “Oh, I’m fairly certain if I made amends, my family would welcome me. But to be honest, I don’t know that I ever want to go back. I like the unpredictability of my life these days.”

“Well, sure, who wouldn’t enjoy being shot down over the English Channel?” Cyra smiled again as she mocked him.

“Fair point,” said Thatcher. “But you can’t say it was boring.”

“Indeed.” Cyra glanced around before looking back at Thatcher. “And what will you do now that we have plucked you from the ocean? Will the captain turn this ship back to port to return you to England?”

Thatcher smiled. “Believe it or not, I was supposed to be aboard this ship in the first place.”

“How is that?”

“A friend of mine insisted on having someone fly me down to the port and that was when my world got turned upside down. I don’t imagine he thought I’d be going into aerial combat, but alas, that’s exactly what happened. When the captain had me radio back this morning, he was nearly beside himself with worry.”

“You must have interesting friends,” said Cyra evenly.

Thatcher took another sip of juice. “He’s recently gotten a promotion in the army. More of a desk job, but it did enable him to pull a few strings on my behalf. I told him it was completely unnecessary, but I think he was enjoying his bit of administrative power, if I’m being perfectly honest with you.”

“Power is always… something,” said Cyra.

Thatcher eyed her. “And you? What’s your story? I can’t place your accent and your hair is simply beautiful.”

Cyra touched her hair and then smiled again. “Do you like it?”

“Very much.”

“It’s rather obvious though, isn’t it? I could have it colored to a more neutral tone, but I do so love the depth of its blackness. It’s like light vanishes within it.”

“If it’s natural then I would be fascinated to learn where you call home.”

“Where do you think I’m from? At least in part?”

Thatcher leaned forward and stared into her eyes. Cyra held his gaze and didn’t blink which Thatcher found even more tantalizing than he wanted to admit. “Given your tresses, I would say there is Mongolian stock somewhere in your past. But your eyes aren’t missing their epicanthal folds so that means there are other genetics at play within your family line. More powerful genetics at that. Your accent is vaguely Teutonic but not from northern Germany or Prussia but more southern, perhaps Austrian or even Swiss.” He leaned back. “If I had to guess, you were probably educated at a prestigious girls’ school in Switzerland where you were exposed to any number of languages, resulting in your accent being slightly diluted as it is, rather than unmuddled like someone else.”

“Unmuddled,” said Cyra. “An interesting turn of phrase.”

“Makes you more intriguing,” said Thatcher. “Well, at least to me.”

Cyra leaned forward and smiled at Thatcher again. “Do you enjoy intriguing women, Harrison?”

“Ever so much more than boring ones,” said Thatcher. “You’ve been all over the world, perhaps even more than me I would think.”

Cyra leaned back. “You have a keen eye for details, don’t you?”

“It’s a necessary part of my life,” said Thatcher. “Being able to spot details helps me to survive in this world.”

“That’s never been more true than it is these days I would hazard to guess,” said Cyra. “What with the world at war now.”

“Not yet,” said Thatcher. “The world, I mean. But I suspect that won’t be the case for too much longer.”

“The United States is not yet involved.” Cyra fixed her gaze on him again. “Do you think that will ever change?”

Thatcher nodded grimly. “I wouldn’t be surprised. There’s no way Britain can continue on her own as she’s been doing for the last few years. She needs the US in the war. And without them, she probably has under another year before Hitler brings them under his heel.”

“But the US is full of people who don’t want war. What could prompt them to ever enter it?”

Thatcher finished his meal and wiped his mouth. “There is always a way to manipulate people into seeing a new path forward, provided they are stimulated toward a certain belief. In this case, I would suspect some sort of precipitous attack would nudge the general population into accepting the necessity of war. But it would have to be a rather spectacular affair. Something enormous and the losses would need to be huge for the masses to really get behind the war effort. I don’t know that Hitler has the means to do so, but if he were to somehow reach New York or Washington with a flight of bombers, that would probably be enough.”

“That would indeed be something,” said Cyra. “To see Lady Liberty bombed… I imagine the US would go crazy with the desire for vengeance.”

Thatcher nodded. “But that’s neither here nor there, is it? I mean, after all, we’re simply here on a ship steaming toward Portugal.”

“And what happens in Portugal?” asked Cyra. “Will you vanish off into the wilds of the Basque countryside or will you set up shop on the shores of the Mediterranean and bathe in the warm waters therein?”

Thatcher smiled. “I will need to first find a way to support myself. A man can’t very well enjoy any of the Spanish delights without some sort of income, now, can he?”

“You don’t strike me as the type who will want for money for long.”

“No?”

Cyra shook her head. “I have a feeling that money has a way of finding you whether you want it to or not. You are one of those rare individuals for whom money is not an issue. You may have other challenges throughout the course of your life, but money is not one of them.” She winked at him. “Nor, it would seem, are women.”

CHAPTER 12

Cyra left Thatcher a few moments later with plans to meet later for a proper dinner. As he watched her walk away, Thatcher marveled at the styling of her skirt across her backside and appreciated the view just long enough before turning back to the cup of tea before him. He took a moment to look into his teacup at the amber liquid it contained and allowed a small smile to play across his face.

This was it, he thought. The moments of peace that he had to remind himself to appreciate. The simplicity of a cup of tea when all the world around you was in the midst of chaos could not be underestimated in its ability to evoke bliss. He lifted the cup to his lips and sipped the tea, tasting its warmth as it rolled back across his tongue and down his throat. It had cooled only slightly which made it the perfect temperature to consume. Thatcher remembered his father instructing him that he should never bend his head to drink the tea but rather lift the cup to his lips. That was how the aristocracy would do it; commoners would bend their heads forward.

Thatcher finished his tea and thanked the staff of the mess deck for their attention. Satisfied and in need of a walk, Thatcher strolled outside on the main deck and paid attention to the Archimedes for the first time. She was about four hundred and sixty feet long and roughly sixty feet at her beam. A pair of stacks jutted from her and belched steam into the sky as she plied ahead at a speed Thatcher estimated was somewhere around fourteen knots. Given her size and speed, he figured they had one more day at sea before they docked. After all, the ship had already been at sea for over a day even though Thatcher had slept through the majority of it.

There weren’t many passengers that he could see. Not that he could blame anyone. A cruise meant you were taking your chances on the open ocean with German U-boats prowling the waters. And apparently, commerce raiders. Thatcher had only managed to get bits and pieces of the news when he was in prison. He knew from his discussion with Hewitt that the commerce raiders were severely affecting British shipping. And if Raider X was their newest and most lethal addition to their fleet then once it reached the Indian Ocean, it would wreak havoc on any shipping it could find.

But in order to reach the Indian Ocean, it would need to set out from the North Sea ports the Germans operated. It would sail south then through the English Channel perhaps, or even around to the west of Ireland to better avoid British patrols. Once it reached the open Atlantic, it would immediately head south. That was where the Archimedes was right then. Thatcher assumed Raider X would have a U-boat escort until she could be relatively assured that she wouldn’t encounter any British naval vessels. It would be open season then.

Thatcher put his hands on the rail and looked off into the distance where he saw nothing but the blue ocean meeting the blue of the sky, which had broken out into sunlight from the earlier clouds. He was sitting on a massive pile of bait, he reasoned. And he wondered what Adamson would say if Thatcher told him what the plan was. Could he convince the captain to steam for the coast and pretend that Thatcher had gone overboard? Would he do Thatcher a favor in order to save his ship?

Thatcher sighed. Probably not. Adamson seemed a strictly by-the-book sort. Worse, he would probably voluntarily sacrifice his ship if he knew of the plan to destroy the German raider. He would love to be part of the Crown’s effort to hurt the Germans. No, thought Thatcher, Adamson was no help to him at all.

He did several loops of the upper decks, getting a feel for the layout of the ship. He had no idea how the Archimedes would be attacked, which necessitated that Thatcher be as familiar with every part as he could be. If Raider X sent a couple of torpedoes into the side, then the Archimedes would list to one side or the other, or it could simply break apart into two and sink. Thatcher wanted to know the best evacuation route in case of such a thing. He forced himself to note lifeboat locations as well as the means of winching them down. The last thing Thatcher wanted was to be adrift in the ocean again. Sharks, he remembered Hewitt telling him. Thatcher shivered. He had no desire to ever see the things up close and personal.

His best bet, he reasoned, was to make his way to the lifeboats immediately once Raider X attacked. There seemed to be plenty of life boats available given the paucity of passengers he had seen thus far. There was no need for panic provided the initial attack wasn’t completely overwhelming and destroyed everything. He suspected it would not be. The Germans were more interested in sinking merchant ships than killing the passengers that rode on them. And Hewitt’s idea of using the Archimedes for bait would be a tempting target for Raider X. Her captain would be itching to get his crew into action to test them, especially as a proud Prussian military man. This Schwarzwalder character would want to see how his men operated and use the time spent sailing for the Indian Ocean to drill them into a perfect unit. So yes, it would attack the Archimedes, almost certainly.

Thatcher grinned to himself. Hewitt, for as much as he had wagered a rather staggering amount, seemed to know what he was doing. At least in regards to planning the operation. There was still the question of how exactly Thatcher was supposed to scuttle the ship when he was taken prisoner aboard it. Most likely he would need to gain access to some of the ship’s munition stores and rig an improvised charge that would set it all off.

He sighed again. He had gone from getting shot down, to riding on a ship that was presumably going to be sunk, to eventually being taken prisoner on another ship that he was going to try to sink. The ridiculousness of the situation made him almost laugh. He was thirty-two years old and he’d been in the war for less than two days. And he was already tired of trying to survive it.

But that was his life in a nutshell. Thatcher had lost count of how many times he had jumped out of the proverbial frying pan and into the fire. And then done it in reverse it seemed. Most times, the only thing that saved him was his knack for self-preservation. Maybe that was why Hewitt wanted him for this assignment so badly. Perhaps he didn’t want to sacrifice Thatcher after all. Maybe he thought that his new secret agent might actually be able to survive the harrowing ordeals and make it back to England intact.

Part of him wanted to die just to prove Hewitt wrong. But that would be silly. Thatcher had no desire to die. There was still a great deal of the world he wanted to explore. There were still a great deal of wealthy women he wanted to liberate from their riches. And that meant he would need to survive in order to do so.

It was funny, standing there by the rail being employed by the Crown in its efforts against the Germans. Thatcher was an American citizen officially, yet that hadn’t mattered at all when he was charged with his crimes in England. He couldn’t even get proper representation from the US embassy. It was as if he had been forsaken. He wondered if his father and his powerful connections had had anything to do with it. When Thatcher had left the US, he had walked out on everything that he’d ever had, determined to make his own way in life. The family had turned its back on him for doing so.

And even though Thatcher had killed that man in self-defense, the charges had been absolute and the verdict almost pre-ordained. Interestingly enough, though, once the sentence of death was pronounced, Thatcher had spent the better part of six months in jail waiting for it to be carried out. He wondered if he had been on Hewitt’s radar for a great deal longer than the SOE man had been willing to admit. Perhaps Hewitt had been grooming Thatcher for far longer, waiting until just the right time to offer him a job, knowing that the option was either death or serve the Crown.

Fucking Brits, he thought. They could be as polite and gracious as ever and yet you’d never know they were equally as cunning.

Time would tell, thought Thatcher.

CHAPTER 13

Thatcher took a quick nap before dressing for dinner. As Adamson had noted, the closet in his cabin was full of clothes that Hewitt had presumably had bought for him prior to the trip. At least whoever had done the shopping had a sense of style, thought Thatcher as he browsed the selection. He chose a starched white shirt, tie, slacks, and a jacket. He tucked a red pocket square in the breast pocket for a splash of color that matched the tie and then checked his hair in the mirror before leaving his cabin.

Cyra was already seated when he arrived. There was a bottle of white wine sitting nearby that had been previously uncorked. Cyra held the glass with all the elegance of a woman who appeared to have the entire world exactly where she wanted it. In any other time and place she might have been holding court with scores of admirers. But here they were on a ship in the midst of a world at war.

She glanced up approvingly as Thatcher walked over and sipped her wine. Thatcher smiled at her. “You look exceptionally lovely this evening.”

Cyra put her glass down and her eyes twinkled. “Oh, this old thing? Just something I had leftover from a shopping excursion in Paris last year. It’s frightfully out of style.”

“If you say so,” said Thatcher as he took his seat. “I think it looks splendid on you.” He leaned forward noting the jewels that sparkled in her ears and around her neck. “Those are sapphires if I’m not mistaken.”

“Indeed they are.” Cyra smiled again. “You have an eye for detail.”

“It helps,” said Thatcher. A waiter appeared and filled his wine glass. Thatcher lifted it and clinked his against Cyra’s glass. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” said Cyra taking another sip. “The wine selection for a ship like this is rather limited, but this is a passable vintage.”

“I’m a gin man, myself,” said Thatcher. “But wine takes a close second.”

“Not whiskey?”

Thatcher shook his head. “I’m afraid I do better on clear spirits than I do on the darker ones. They’ve just never really settled with me for some reason.”

“Perhaps you’ve never been exposed to the proper brand?”

Thatcher took another sip of his wine. “I wouldn’t say that. I’ve sampled some of the best. Hundred year lagunins from small distilleries in Scotland and Ireland and damned if I can find one that I like.”

“But gin has such a broad palette of flavors to it. How do you choose?”

“It’s true,” said Thatcher. “I prefer a more citrus and floral bouquet than some of the others. Preferably with a lime wedge or two.”

“And tonic water or soda?”

“Tonic water,” said Thatcher. “Light on it, over the rocks. Makes for a delectable drink, let me tell you.”

“I should like to try one some time,” said Cyra. “Perhaps when we reach Lisbon?”

“That sounds marvelous,” said Thatcher. And it would have been, too if Raider X probably wasn’t going to make short work of them before they ever reached the coast of Portugal. “I’m sure we can find a hotel bar that offers the proper brand I have in mind.”

The waiter came by and took their order. Cyra asked for her filet cooked rare and to be served with fingerling potatoes and carrots. Thatcher ordered a filet as well, cooked rare, and served with potatoes and no vegetables, which provoked a raised eyebrow from Cyra when the waiter had departed again.

“No vegetables?”

Thatcher shook his head. “I’ll tell you the truth: I’m still traumatized from when I was a young child and my mother used to insist we eat the most horrendous vegetables imaginable. Beets, of all things. Lima beans. Awful. Simply awful. To this day, I eat very few vegetables.”

“And yet you appear to be the picture of good health.”

Thatcher smiled. “A bit of exercise does wonders for the body, isn’t that right?”

“So I’ve been told. I studied dance at school. Sometimes I still enjoy it when I’m by myself.” She looked out across the deck. The ocean to their starboard side was calm as the Archimedes steamed ahead and the sun dipped toward the horizon. “But it has been a while, unfortunately.” She turned back to Thatcher. “What about you? Do you dance?”

“Probably not nearly as good as you, but I’ve been known to take a turn or two on the floor before. Nothing solo, mind you. But if I had the right partner, I’m fairly certain I’d make a respectable showing.”

“Something else we’ll have to try to find in Lisbon then,” said Cyra. “I could do with a spot of dancing. It would help take my mind off the current affairs plaguing the world.”

“Where do you call home now?” asked Thatcher.

“Soon enough, Lisbon,” said Cyra. “I was considering settling in London for a bit, but the Blitz put a damper on that. Plus, if I’m being honest, the weather was a bit too dreary for my liking. The warmer climes of Lisbon are much more in line with my preferences.”

“And its neutrality? Does it bother you?”

Cyra shrugged and sipped her wine. “Harrison, I have been to so many countries and through so many cultures that I am a woman without a nation to call her own. The tide of war flows as it ever does and I do my best to stay above the fray. Or at least beside it or else unconsumed by it as much as I am able.”

“Some people would call that selfish,” said Thatcher. “Not that I would, mind you.”

Cyra shrugged. “I gave up caring what people think about me a long time ago. You reach a whole new level of freedom when you do so. I highly recommend it.”

Thatcher took a sip of his wine again. “I quite agree. It’s why I set out on my own to do whatever I wished.”

“And how has that worked out for you so far?”

Thatcher glanced out at the ocean. He was laughing inside at her question. He’d been convicted of killing a man, sent to prison to face a firing squad, snatched away from that at the last moment, and drafted to become a secret agent for the Crown, only to then be shot out of the sky, nearly drowned, and finally plucked out of the ocean, only to be presumably torpedoed at some point in the near future.

“Rather well, actually,” he managed to say then.

Cyra teased him with a smile. “You are quite a specimen, Harrison Thatcher.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” said Cyra leaning forward and plucking the wine bottle from the cooler, “that I believe we need another bottle of this rather delicious wine for dinner.” She turned and motioned for the waiter to come over whereupon she ordered a fresh bottle.

“I never have a problem with another bottle,” said Thatcher. “But we should endeavor to keep our wits about us to some extent.”

“Where is the fun in that?”

Thatcher gestured to the ocean. “There are predators out here on the waves. And beneath them.”

Cyra reached over and touched him on his arm. “If anything happens, promise me you’ll help me, would you? I’m afraid swimming is not my strong suit.”

“Nor is it mine,” said Thatcher. “But don’t worry. I think we’ll have plenty of room in the life boats. I don’t think it will be a problem.”

“We’ll reach Lisbon I’m told by about two o’clock tomorrow afternoon,” said Cyra. “That doesn’t leave much time for the sea wolves to get to us, does it?”

“I suppose it rather depends on where they are at the moment,” said Thatcher. He turned his head to once again take in the spectacular sunset. It would be dark soon. He just hoped that Raider X wasn’t close; he did not want to be in the ocean at night.

“We have miles to go before we sleep,” said Cyra. “At least we can console ourselves with a sumptuous dinner and more wine.”

Thatcher nodded. “And once we reach Lisbon, we’ll be free to do whatever we wish.”

“We’re free right now if you think about it,” said Cyra. “But Lisbon is perhaps better suited to our quests.”

“Quests?”

Cyra smiled at him again. “For a proper gin and a proper dance.”

“Ah. Yes,” said Thatcher. “Those quests.”

“Were there any others that we should undertake?” Cyra ran her hand through her hair. “After all, I don’t really have many pressing engagements when we reach land.”

Thatcher leaned forward. “In that case, I feel confident in saying that we will probably be able to find any number of excursions that will be very enjoyable.”

“I hope so,” said Cyra. “I get bored easily and adventure is sometimes the only thing that satisfies me… completely.”

“Noted,” said Thatcher as the waiter arrived with their food. “Let’s eat.”

CHAPTER 14

They walked the upper deck after dinner, stopping near the stern and looking out at the wake of the churning propellers that pushed them ever closer to Lisbon. Or Raider X, thought Thatcher as he watched the white frothy ocean diminish behind them.

“Do you ever think about your past and how much you’ve come through to reach the present moment?”

Thatcher looked at Cyra. “Doesn’t everyone?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, really. It seems to me that most people try to completely forget about any of the lessons they may have learned in favor of simply doing whatever they want to do in the present. Almost as if they’re so grateful that they persevered that they forsake the very things that enabled them to reach this moment in time.”

Thatcher leaned on the railing. “Maybe the past is too painful for a lot of people.”

Cyra leaned with him, her shoulder touching Thatcher’s. “I understand that. I don’t necessarily agree with it, however. Don’t we all have pain and frustrations in our past that we may be trying to forget?”

“Certainly.”

“But not all of us act like the majority. Some of us hold onto our pain and use it. Some of us know how to be… motivated, let’s say, by those skeletons in order to create a better future. Don’t you think?”

“I really don’t know,” said Thatcher. He took a deep breath and sighed. “My own past is one of a lot of pain. Confusion, too.”

“Why confusion?”

“I never felt like I fit in anywhere. I was born into money and I enjoyed the trappings of it immensely. But I never felt like I fit in with the sort of society my family wanted me to fit into. I was supposed to take a certain path, live up to their own expectations about what their son would become. When I decided I didn’t want to do that anymore, that I wanted to live for myself, it was seen as the ultimate betrayal. They couldn’t wrap their heads around why I would choose to do something else, something that would potentially hurt the family. But that was never my goal; I simply wanted to be happy. Happy with myself and happy with my life.”

Cyra was quiet for a moment. “In a lot of Asian cultures, the parents are seen as the ultimate authority figures. The children are raised to believe that their elders can do no wrong, that even after the kids are adults, their parents are still the head of the family.” She frowned and shook her head. “That’s always struck me as terribly damaging. Not just to each successive generation, but to the nation as a whole. How can children be allowed to express themselves under those conditions?”

“I don’t think they can,” said Thatcher.

“Exactly.” Cyra took a breath. “Each generation grows up resentful. And when the previous generation’s parents pass on, the new ones assume their place, finally relieved of that awful burden that they now project onto their own kids. It’s a sort of, ‘I had to endure this for years so now it’s my turn to make you all miserable.’”

“I don’t know much about Asian culture,” admitted Thatcher. “Although I do have dreams of visiting the Far East.”

“It’s a marvelous place,” said Cyra. “But it’s also extraordinarily dangerous.”

Thatcher smiled. “I don’t mind danger from time-to-time.” He could smell Cyra’s hair along with the brine of the sea. Combined with the two bottles of wine they’d demolished at dinner, Thatcher was feeling exceptionally relaxed.

And when she turned to him to say something, he leaned in and kissed her lightly on the lips. Cyra returned his kiss and then broke apart from him, turning back to the sea with a sigh. “I didn’t think I would find anyone interesting on this cruise, I must admit.”

“Neither did I,” said Thatcher. “Isn’t it funny how we can sometimes be so utterly and completely wrong?”

“It’s nice to be wrong sometimes,” said Cyra. “I just hope when we reach Lisbon we don’t lose the thrill.”

“Why would that ever happen?”

Cyra stood back up. “We’re trapped on this ship. Thrown together as it were. Maybe once we land in Lisbon, we’ll both feel a sense of urgency about exploring and meeting new people.”

“It’s possible, but who says we couldn’t do all of those things together?”

“You’ll have to start making your new life, won’t you? Isn’t that why you’re going there?”

Thatcher shrugged. “No one told me I had to wait until I reached Portugal to start creating a new life for myself. I’m perfectly happy starting now.”

Cyra smiled. “Has anyone ever told you that you have the most charming smile?”

Thatcher grinned. “I may have heard that once or twice in the past.”

“Only once or twice?”

Thatcher waved his hand. “To tell you the truth, I don’t usually even think about it.”

Cyra eyed him. “I don’t know that I believe that. Men like you know exactly where their strengths lie. I feel fairly confident you know you have a certain look that takes a woman’s breath away.”

“Men like me?”

Cyra nodded. “Handsome, self-assured. Funny without being a clown. All of the things that most women would die to obtain in their future husbands.”

“Most women. Not you?”

Cyra kissed him again and then stared out over the stern. “My future is hard to predict, frankly. I get bored so easily I don’t know that I would ever inflict myself upon a man as his wife. I wouldn’t blame him for wanting to run as soon as he got to know me better.”

“That’s not a very high opinion of yourself,” said Thatcher. “Perhaps you are incorrect.”

But Cyra shook her head. “No, I’m not. As I said, we all have pain and skeletons in our closets. Mine are a tad more grievous than most I would think. There’s rather too much there that I think most men would shy away from if they knew about them all.”

“Most men again,” said Thatcher. “Not all of us.”

“Don’t say such things, Harrison. You don’t know what you’d be getting into.”

Thatcher paused. “I’d like to find out. If I may.”

Cyra laughed now. “I can guarantee you would not like it. Trust me on this, all right? Don’t press anymore to discover my secrets. They’re nothing to be proud of. But they are a part of who I am so I suppose in some way I have to find a means to make peace with them. Somehow.”

Thatcher stood and felt the wine affecting him some more. He took Cyra in his arms and she didn’t pull away. “I’m not asking you to be my wife, Cyra. I’m only asking for a kiss.”

She obliged him and then pulled back and away, but still stayed within his embrace. “Is that all you want from me, Harrison Thatcher? Just a simple kiss?”

Thatcher smiled and she pointed at him. “You see? There it is.”

“There what is?”

Cyra nuzzled him again. “That look. It’s lethal against a woman’s reputation.”

“You don’t strike me as the type of woman who cares what other people think about her reputation. You said as much at dinner.”

“I said I didn’t care what other people think about me. I didn’t say I didn’t care what I think about myself.”

“Fair point,” said Thatcher. He kissed her again. Cyra moved deeper into his embrace and pressed her body against his.

“Do you have a large cabin on board the ship?”

Thatcher shrugged. “It’s modest. I don’t think they have any suites here. Too much cargo being transported to the continent for them to make any real money transporting passengers.”

“That’s why there are so few of us,” said Cyra. “The captain must be charging a fortune to make this dangerous run.”

“Maybe so,” said Thatcher. “I don’t know that much about him.”

“He’s irrelevant to our conversation anyway,” said Cyra.

Thatcher felt her lips on his neck and closed his eyes. “I couldn’t agree more.”

“How far away is your cabin?”

“Two decks,” said Thatcher. “Perhaps a grand total of five minutes walking time.”

“I’m a bit tipsy,” said Cyra. “The wine we had at dinner is catching up with me, I think.”

“Me as well,” said Thatcher.

“I’m afraid the journey back to my cabin may be too far for me to make it on my own. Perhaps you could escort me there?”

“It would be my honor,” said Thatcher. “And as chance would have it, my cabin is along the way.”

“Is it?”

“Indeed.”

“Then perhaps we could stop there for a brief nightcap? Just a way of closing out what has been a wonderful enjoyable evening.”

“I think that sounds like an excellent idea,” said Thatcher. He turned and held out his arm to Cyra. She looped her arm in his and they headed off together.

CHAPTER 15

Thatcher awoke to daylight peeking in through the curtains that barely obscured his porthole. He stretched out with his arms overhead touching the wall of his cabin. Cyra was correct: it was far too small to allow for a proper level of acrobatic shenanigans. He smirked. Somehow they’d made do and for Thatcher, it had been the first time he’d been with anyone since he’d been arrested for the killing. It was wonderful being back in the warm embrace of a spectacular woman. He turned his head at the thought.

But Cyra was already gone.

Thatcher hadn’t heard her leave, but then again, between the wine and the sexual escapades, he had dropped immediately off into a deep sleep after they had finished. The last thing he could remember was Cyra’s head on his chest, telling him all about how she’d grown up in northern Italy on the Austrian border before going off to school in Switzerland. Her voice had been low and rather singsong and had a hypnotic effect on Thatcher who had closed his eyes and drifted off soon thereafter.

The mission, he thought, did have a few perks.

He grinned, rose from his bed, and bathed quickly in the small bathroom attached to his cabin. Thatcher dressed in comfortable clothes: a pair of light slacks, a button-down shirt, and a light sweater. Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was just after eight o’clock in the morning. A frown creased his face. If they were going reach Lisbon by this afternoon, he expected that Raider X would hit them at some point within the next few hours.

He left his cabin and walked toward the mess deck to get some breakfast when he heard a commotion coming towards him. Several of the crew members ran toward him and rushed past. He grabbed one of them.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s the captain,” said the crew member. Then he broke free from Thatcher’s grasp and continued on his way. Thatcher took a moment to consider and then hurried after the crew.

When he reached the next corridor, he could see that the door to Captain Adamson’s quarters was ajar and there were several crew members loitering nearby. Thatcher pushed past them and poked his head in the door. The ship’s doctor knelt close to where Adamson’s body lay on the carpet. There was a puddle of blood around Adamson’s head but no obvious wound that Thatcher could see.

“He’s dead?”

The doctor looked up. “You’re the pilot we rescued.”

Thatcher shrugged. “Gunner, but yes.”

“I attended to you when they brought you aboard. Glad to see you’re well.”

“Thank you,” said Thatcher. “At least better than the Captain. What in the world happened?”

The doctor nodded for Thatcher to come inside the cabin. As he did so, Thatcher noted that there were no signs of a struggle. The cabin was neat, sparse, and in keeping with the sort of man that thatcher estimated the Captain to be. He knelt next to the doctor. “What happened here?”

“Some sort of blunt force trauma, if I had to guess,” said the doctor.

Thatcher eyed him. “Are you being asked to guess? It seems like you ought to know for sure.”

The doctor grunted. “If I had the proper facilities aboard this ship, then I’d be willing to agree with you. But as it is, this was only just discovered. The captain failed to show up this morning and the executive officer sent a runner to see if he was all right. When the captain didn’t answer the door, the crewman noted that the door was ajar and pushed in. This is what he found. He sent word for me immediately and here we are.”

“How long has he been dead for?”

The doctor frowned. “Again, it’s just a guess but at least four hours. There is some rigidity already setting in. And the discoloration around the eyes indicates as much.”

“Any idea what was used?”

“If it was actual murder and not some sort of accident?”

Thatcher looked around the room. There were a number of odd edges that the Captain could conceivably have knocked his head against if he tripped and fell. But Thatcher didn’t feel like that was the cause here. “We’re in the midst of a war. Do you really think that was an accident?”

“Frankly, no,” said the doctor. “But who would want to kill the captain of a steamer like the Archimedes? Adamson wasn’t some high profile member of the military. What’s the value in eliminating him?”

“I don’t know,” said Thatcher. “But there’s no sign of a struggle, either, which means that whoever did this must have taken him by surprise.”

“He’s still dressed in his uniform,” said the doctor. “Which means this happened either after he got off duty last night or as he was readying himself for duty this morning.”

“What time was he supposed to be on the bridge?”

“Seven-thirty.” The doctor sighed. “He was disciplined; never late. Hence the alarm from the crew when he failed to show up.”

Thatcher nodded. “He definitely struck me as someone for whom the discipline was vitally important.”

“You would find no one else so regimented in his approach to life,” said the doctor. “But even with that said, it appears as though someone got the better of him.”

“Any enemies among the crew? If he was a disciplinarian, was there a chance he’d punished a crew member for some infraction?”

“I’ve heard nothing about any of that,” said the doctor. “The crew loved Adamson. He was more of a father figure to them than an overlord. He took care of his people and was known for helping anyone with a problem. I sincerely doubt you’ll find the killer among the crew.”

“That leaves the passengers then.” Thatcher looked around the cabin but failed to find anything of note. “How many of them are there?”

“In total? Perhaps twenty. We haven’t sold out our berths in some time since most people are reluctant to put to sea what with the Germans prowling the waves.”

“Then we’ll need to figure out who might have had access to the Captain’s cabin and where they were during the night.”

“You as well,” said the doctor rising from where he knelt. “No disrespect intended, of course. But you are as likely a suspect as anyone else.”

Thatcher nodded. “None taken. I’d insist on the same if I were in your position. I wish I could say that I had a solid alibi but after dinner, my companion and I returned to my cabin where the effects of the two bottles of wine took their toll on me and I passed out rather soon thereafter.”

“Immediately upon reaching your cabin?”

Thatcher cleared his throat. “Not quite immediately.”

The doctor grinned. “I see. And your companion, was she with you when you awoke this morning?”

Thatcher frowned. “No, I supposed that she had returned to her own cabin instead of waking me. She would have preferred to be discrete about where she stayed last night, as one would imagine.”

“Indeed,” said the doctor. “And what is her name.”

“Cyra,” said Thatcher. “I know her only by her first name.”

“I’ll have a look at the manifest and find out where she is staying and what the proximity of her quarters are to the Captain’s.”

“I highly doubt she’s the killer,” said Thatcher.

“As do I,” said the doctor. “But we must address each and every person with the means to do so. If we find nothing among the passengers, then we will need to also interview the crew. And we have little time to do so before we dock in Lisbon. Once there, this will become a matter for the British Embassy most likely since they are the representative of the Crown in the region.”

“Understood.” Thatcher took another glance around the room. “Who will have the key to this cabin once his body is removed?”

“I will.” The doctor shook his hand. “They said you were named Thatcher. I’m Wilkins. Glad to meet you.”

Thatcher shook the man’s hand and found it firm. “I appreciate you looking after me when they pulled me out of the Channel.”

“Just doing my job,” said Wilkins. “As I would for any other poor sod who was floating in the drink.”

Thatcher smiled and started to turn when he heard shouting in the corridor outside. Wilkins and Thatcher both raced to the door. Wilkins questioned one of the crew members outside.

“What in the world is going on now?”

“Ship on the radar, sir.”

“How far?”

“Two kilometers and closing fast.”

“Friend or foe?”

But the crewman just shook his head. “She looks like a freighter but she’s running a German flag. And we spotted guns on her as well. One of them commerce raiders we’ve been hearing about, I’d expect.”

CHAPTER 16

Thatcher and Wilkins ran to the bridge. As they arrived, the executive officer had a pair of binoculars up to his eyes and was scanning in the direction to the Archimedes’ starboard side. Thatcher turned and saw the ship emerging from the horizon. Raider X must have tracked around to their flank to come at them head on. As he watched, the ship started to turn so it was broadside to the Archimedes.

“Why is it showing us her side?” asked Wilkins.

“To bring all of her guns into play if necessary,” said Thatcher. And even as he watched, he could see crew members now scampering all over the main deck, uncovering other firing points. Toward the rear, Thatcher spotted tubes being uncovered that were obviously torpedo launchers. If Raider X wanted to, she could turn the Archimedes into a burning hulk that would sink within minutes.

Wilkins looked at the XO. “Is she hailing us?”

The XO shook his head. “Not yet.”

Thatcher heard a boom and whipped his head around. “Incoming!”

Everyone braced but the shell went over the bow and exploded some distance away in the water, spraying an enormous amount of water skyward as it did so.

“Bring us to a stop,” said the XO.

“All engines stop, aye sir,” confirmed a crew member. The Archimedes slowed and then stopped, floating about in the water as Raider X sidled closer to her.

Thatcher watched as the gunnery crew at the lead cannon loaded another shell. He had a spasm in his gut and suddenly did not want to be on the bridge. “They’re going to take out the bridge,” he said then without realizing it.

Thatcher sprinted for the door even as he heard the cannon fire. He dove down the steps that led to the bridge and crashed into the floor of the deck below, knocking his shoulder and head against the side of the ship as the round impacted the bridge and exploded. Debris rained down on Thatcher as he desperately tried to put distance between him and the bridge. The radio antenna collapsed, crashing down across the deck as Thatcher backed away even further. The entire bridge was gone and the smoking, fiery remains blazed. Everyone who had been there was gone. Killed in the moment of the explosion.

Thatcher looked out at Raider X sitting there peacefully some distance away. Would they stop firing now that they’d rendered the Archimedes inert? She was dead in the water without the means to radio for help. And even if she could, they were still too far from the coast for any Royal Naval vessels to come and help.

The answer came quickly. Another volley of shots impacted the Archimedes both near the bow and at the stern. Thatcher could hear the screams of people as the shells impacted and the entire ship lurched from the explosions.

Raider X’s guns fell silent now and Thatcher tried to get his senses back. The concussive impact of the shelling had disoriented him but a few deep breaths helped clear his head. If what Hewitt had said was correct about Schwarzwalder — and Thatcher dearly hoped it was — then Raider X should maintain its vigilance but not fire any longer now that they rendered the Archimedes helpless.

Thatcher rose shakily, gripping the handrail for support. The air was filled with smoke and more people screamed as the flames from the explosions kept growing.

It was fairly obvious to all that the Germans had arrived and that their scheduled stop in Lisbon was probably not going to happen any longer. Thatcher pushed his way through the people on deck. He had to find Cyra.

He found her coming up the steps to the main deck and she looked worried. “Why have we stopped?”

“A German raider is out there ready to sink us.”

“Sink us?” Cyra looked terrified. “I can’t swim.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe. I promise.” He held her close in his arms and then pulled back. “What time did you leave last night?”

Cyra shrugged. “I don’t know, actually. I was quite tired after… that. Perhaps three o’clock in the morning? I’m sorry I can’t be more specific.”

Thatcher guided her to the deck where the life boats were kept. There were already crew members readying the winches to let them down. The Archimedes was starting to list to the port side slightly. The sooner they were off the ship, the better.

Thatcher heard a motorboat of some type and turned to see a smaller craft racing over from Raider X toward the Archimedes. The Germans were coming.

The motorboat zipped up to the side of the Archimedes and Thatcher could see the six German sailors with machine guns trained on the Archimedes. One officer stood near the bow with a bullhorn.

“Attention, SS Archimedes: lower your gangway and prepare to be boarded. If you refuse, you will be sunk. If you do not resist, all passengers and crew will be treated well. You have one chance to comply or we will sink you.”

Thatcher glanced at the few remaining crew members. “You’d better do as they say. I don’t think they’re going to ask twice.”

“We have to get permission first-“

Thatcher grabbed him. “Your captain is dead and the XO and everyone on the bridge is dead, too. Lower the damned gangway and let them aboard. It’s time to think about your own life, man. Get to it.”

Thatcher shook him and then let him go. The crew member blinked and then nodded. He ran toward the lower deck with another crew member and Thatcher heard them lowering the gangway. The motorboat eased up to it and then the first Germans came up the gangway with their guns brandished. Thatcher heard a second motorboat coming and this one was larger than the first, holding about twenty German sailors. He assumed this would be the raiding party that would decide if there was anything of value aboard the ship they could take. If not, they would presumably have charges to scuttle the Archimedes when they were done with her.

The goal now was to somehow get aboard Raider X and destroy her, thought Thatcher. Especially now that gaining his freedom in Lisbon no longer seemed to be a viable option. He held Cyra close and hoped that he would appear to be just another passenger. If he could stay with Cyra, all the better.

He heard footsteps as the Germans rushed up to where they all stood. One of them stepped forward, with his gun aimed at them. “Do not try to do anything foolish. We will shoot you if we have to, but my Captain wishes me to inform you that if you do not resist, you will be well-treated as our guests. You are non-combatants and will be treated accordingly.”

Thatcher glanced around at the rest of the passengers, but noted there were only about a half dozen of them left. No doubt the shell that had taken out the bridge had also killed some of the other passengers in the area nearby. Along with the few crew members he had seen, Thatcher estimated there were only about eighteen people left alive on the Archimedes. That wouldn’t be too taxing for Raider X to move aboard. And he figured that there was less chance of them being put into lifeboats and set adrift. At least he hoped that was the case.

Other Germans now boarded the Archimedes and set about going through the ship to search it for anything they wanted. As they did so, the officer who had spoken to them started directing them down toward the motorboats.

Despite the fact that they were the enemy, Thatcher had to admit the Germans were being extraordinarily considerate of the passengers’ welfare. Especially an older couple who had trouble moving as adroitly as was needed to navigate the gangway. Two of the German sailors even shouldered their weapons to help get them aboard. Thatcher chalked that up to the Captain they served under. He would not tolerate any sort of injustice toward non-combatants. Such a thing would grate on every fiber of his military bearing.

Thatcher helped Cyra into the motorboat and then stepped aboard himself. They waited until the boat was filled and then two German sailors fired up the engine and steered it back toward Raider X. As they cut through the waves, Thatcher got a good look up close at Raider X and saw that she was truly impressive. Her gun ports were all carefully constructed to blend into the sides of the ship. And there were far too many to count. While she wasn’t a naval vessel, per se, she was certainly outfitted for a full range of offensive capabilities. And if this was her practice mission for what she hoped to accomplish in the Indian Ocean, then Thatcher had a better understanding now of why Hewitt had deemed her destruction such a top priority.

More German sailors lined the decks of the commerce raider looking down at the passengers coming toward them. The goal now, thought Thatcher, was to survive long enough to destroy this ship.

CHAPTER 17

They were helped aboard Raider X by several German sailors while other kept their machine guns trained on them. It was almost like being back in prison, thought Thatcher, although he thought the Germans were being more considerate than the guards back at the jail. They helped them reach the deck, especially the elderly couple, and then had them stand together near the stern of the ship.

Being up on the deck now, Thatcher could see how much more impressive the ship was. While from the exterior it did indeed look like some sort of merchant ship that had seen the better part of more than forty years of service, once on the main deck he could see it was a brand new ship, outfitted with at least a dozen 5.9 inch gun emplacements, bristling with antennas that gave it state-of-the-art communications including Seetakt naval surface radar abilities, and much more. Left alone to do its nefarious work, it could easily send thousands of tons to the sea floor each month. Within a few months, Britain would be starved out of the war.

Cyra stop close to Thatcher and whispered, “What happens now?”

Thatcher shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m sure they’ll tell us shortly. Best just to keep quiet until they do. I wouldn’t want to upset our hosts.”

He glanced to his left and watched as the motor boats zipped back and forth from Raider X to the Archimedes. Some of them carried over the remaining passengers and crew while the others sent over supplies to the Archimedes. Thatcher guessed they were setting scuttling charges that would send the proud ship to the bottom. But watching them work was truly impressive. There seemed to be no wasted effort and Thatcher wondered if Schwarzwalder was watching all of the activity from the bridge of Raider X for later critique. That was why the passengers had been left to stand idly by, the captain was busy watching his men at work. The passengers were not the priority at the moment.

For any commerce raider, the task was always to grab the ship, get the passengers and crew off — provided the German captain wanted that added responsibility — and then look for anything important before scuttling it. Thatcher had heard that there had been one such raid last year that had netted the Germans a treasure trove of classified communications about the British forces in Malaysia. It had been seized and then given to the Japanese. The Japanese had then used that information to plan their invasion of the peninsula and had succeeded in driving the British back. For that, the Japanese high command had presented the German captain of the commerce raider with a prized samurai sword for his efforts.

The sun overhead soon gave way to bloated clouds that threatened rain. Thatcher glanced skyward and wondered if Schwarzwalder would permit them to stand there and get soaked. The answer came soon enough. A German naval officer that Thatcher presumed was perhaps Schwarzwalder’s second-in-command, stepped out on the deck and spoke to the crew watching the passengers. Thatcher was able to grasp the majority of what he said.

“Get the passengers inside. Put the elderly in the mess and bring the younger ones to the bridge.” He had nodded toward both Thatcher and Cyra, which told Thatcher where they were headed. He thought about letting Cyra know, but then decided against it. There was nothing pressing about the information, so letting her know that Thatcher could understand German wasn’t proper just yet.

The German sailors immediately snapped to attention and began carrying out the order, but still with respect. They approached and one of them explained what was happening in English. The older couple was asked to follow them toward the mess deck, while two others separated Thatcher and Cyra from the group, informing them that the Captain would like a word with them. Thatcher said nothing but smiled and nodded to show he understood. He thought it would be best if he pretended to be slightly scared rather than confident and unfazed by the fact they’d just been taken over by a German naval ship.

As they were led into the superstructure, he noted that the entire assembly was meticulously clean. There was no rust anywhere; Thatcher assumed the Captain would consider it a personal affront to his honor if that had ever been allowed to happen. The interior of the structure was equally clean. The floors gleamed from having been waxed. It was as if Raider X had two sides: its exterior which was justifiably burnished looking to aid in its camouflage, and its interior which looked as spotless and modern as Thatcher would have expected from a recently-commissioned vessel.

The sailor they followed led them up a flight of steps and then another until they reached the exterior of the bridge. The sailor bade them wait there while he went inside. Cyra grabbed Thatcher’s arm and he gave her a gentle squeeze to reassure her.

Finally, the sailor came back out and ordered them both to enter.

As soon as Thatcher stepped onto the bridge, he saw the dizzying array of instruments that lined it. The communications hub itself had two sailors working it. Two more were plotting navigational courses on charts. One sailor stood by the wheel. And two others busied themselves with other tasks. Standing beside the bank of windows looking toward the Archimedes with binoculars in his hands was the Captain.

As Thatcher and Cyra entered, he lowered the binoculars and then turned to face them for the first time. His eyes were a brilliant blue that immediately drew Thatcher’s attention. His beard was gray but neatly trimmed to frame his handsome face. There were the beginnings of crows feet at the edges of his eyes that, despite his stern demeanor, Thatcher suspected indicated the Captain had a good sense of humor and laughed a lot.

“Welcome about the Loki. I am Captain Klaus Schwarzwalder, in command of this vessel. The German high command regrets the inconvenience that has been forced upon you, however, our two nations are at war currently. And the Loki is thereby within its rights to board your ship and take you all prisoners.”

He stepped forward and offered his hand to Thatcher. “What is your name?”

“Thatcher. Harrison Thatcher.”

Schwarzwalder shook it firmly and with a smile before moving to Cyra. “And you, miss?”

“My name is Cyra Dumiere.”

Schwarzwalder bowed his head and then brought it back up. “It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance.” He stepped back and regarded them both. “I have instructed my men to separate you two from the rest of the passengers for what I hope are obvious reasons?”

But Thatcher wasn’t about to offer his theory so he waited. Schwarzwalder looked at them both for a moment with a vague grin on his face before continuing.

“No? Well, the rest of your co-travelers appear to be somewhat older than you.” He turned and looked back at the Archimedes before resuming. “You are both much younger. And I am always interested in learning more about people your age who travel during these dangerous times. After all, you, Thatcher, would appear to be in prime age for serving your country. And yet, you are aboard a ship. How does that happen?”

“I’m not British,” said Thatcher. “That’s one thing.”

“And the other?”

“I’m a criminal. I escaped from prison and took a plane hostage. I was shot down over the Channel and then the Archimedes fished me out of the water before I could drown.”

Schwarzwalder looked at him more closely now. “What a remarkable story.”

Thatcher shrugged. “There doesn’t seem to be much point in lying. I’m sure you could find out anything you wanted by radioing back to Berlin about us.”

Schwarzwalder inclined his head slightly. “It would take some time, but you are not incorrect.” He looked at Cyra. “And you, miss? What brings you aboard the Archimedes?”

“My reasons are my own,” said Cyra. “But I am not part of your war. I prefer to steer clear of anything having to do with such things.”

Schwarzwalder nodded. “And yet, you are my guests and I would prefer that we treat each other with mutual respect. I could have easily simply sunk the Archimedes from a distance with a few torpedoes. Yet, I chose not to because it surely would have resulted in your needless deaths.”

“But you shelled the bridge and killed the crew,” said Thatcher. He didn’t know whether Schwarzwalder knew about the death of Adamson or not yet.

“Indeed but their deaths were a necessary part of our operation. We couldn’t risk the Archimedes sending out a distress call.” He nodded toward the window. “Look.”

Thatcher stepped forward and saw that the last motorboat was streaming back toward Raider X. The Archimedes lolled in the waves and then there was a tremendous explosion midships that broke its keel in two.

Within seconds, the Archimedes vanished beneath the waves.

CHAPTER 18

Schwarzwalder turned back from the window and eyed both Thatcher and Cyra. “I’m afraid you no longer seem to have a boat upon which to return to your country.”

Thatcher shrugged. “I was trying to leave anyway. No harm, no foul as far as I’m concerned.”

Cyra looked at Thatcher and then back at Schwarzwalder. “I was journeying to Lisbon. I don’t suppose there’s any chance that you’d consider dropping us off there, would you?”

Schwarzwalder stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Perhaps. Lisbon is a neutral port, after all. But we are bound for the Indian Ocean and must adhere to the strict schedule that has been imposed upon us by German high command. For me to deviate from that would be tantamount to treason and I do not wish to find myself at the end of a firing squad when the Führer hears about my change of plans. He has tasked us with a nearly impossible quota of ship sinking within the next month once we round the Cape of Good Hope.”

“What about passengers then?” asked Thatcher. “Surely you won’t be keeping them aboard?”

Schwarzwalder shook his head. “We will rendezvous with another ship coming back to Germany and transfer them aboard that. They will dropped off at a location of that Captain’s choosing and they will eventually return home.”

“And as for us?”

Schwarzwalder continued to stroke his beard. “I think I would enjoy your company for a bit longer than that. I am intrigued about your story, Herr Thatcher. And also that of your traveling companion here.” He looked up as his second-in-command came onto the bridge and whispered something in his ear. They conversed in tones too low for Thatcher to hear, but as soon as the XO was done speaking with the Captain, he departed once more.

“I had hoped that we might find something intriguing aboard the Archimedes, but it appears I was incorrect. I’m assuming you only set sail within the last few days?”

Thatcher nodded. “That’s correct.”

“Unfortunate,” said Schwarzwalder. “But a good training lesson for my men. I’m happy with their performance. It was rapid and efficient. Just as it should be.” He seemed to muse for a moment before snapping back to the present. “In any event, my officers tell me that there was something aboard the ship that they did not expect to find.”

“What’s that?”

“A dead captain,” said Schwarzwalder. “It would appear that someone killed him and recently as well.” He eyed them both. “Do either of you have any knowledge of this?”

Thatcher shook his head. “I had only just heard about it when you appeared and disrupted the start of an investigation.”

Schwarzwalder said nothing but looked at Cyra. “And you, my dear?”

“As Harrison stated, we had only just heard about it. Once your ship appeared, we forgot about it completely as you would well expect.”

Schwarzwalder nodded as if satisfied. At least for the moment. Thatcher cleared this throat. “Is it your intention to question the other passengers as well?”

“I’m not sure I see the point,” said Schwarzwalder. “They are all a good deal older and likely incapable of committing such an act. Had the captain been shot or stabbed, then perhaps I would. But my officers tell me the body had the apparent signs of traumatic injury which rules out someone older because someone like Captain Adamson would be able to fend them off and call for help.”

“Captain Adamson,” said Thatcher. “You knew him?”

“Oh, I knew of him,” said Schwarzwalder. “He was a gifted seaman who plied these waves for many years. I had hoped to see him once more, but death is a cruel thing that steals from us that which we take for granted. And this time, it is I who is the poorer for it.” He sighed and turned back to the spot where the Archimedes had been scuttled. “I knew him as a good man. And he would have proven a formidable foe if ever we had crossed swords. I find his murder extremely troubling.” He nodded at both of them. “I think it would be best if I separated both of you and had a lengthy conversation at some point soon with each of you.”

“There were other passengers aboard that ship. But they died when you shelled it as you did.”

Schwarzwalder nodded. “I will bear that in mind. But I’ll keep you separated regardless.”

Thatcher glanced at Cyra but she seemed completely unperturbed by this proposal. Thatcher looked back at Schwarzwalder. “Are we prisoners then?”

Schwarzwalder cocked his head. “Not prisoners of war, no. But I suspect you of perpetrating a crime, therefore I am well within my jurisdiction to hold you until such time as I can figure out who the killer is.” He nodded and two guards stepped closer to bothThatcher and Cyra. “You’ll be held in a cabin and given food and drink. Make yourselves as comfortable as you can. I will speak with you both as soon as we’re underway once more.”

And with that, Schwarzwalder turned back to his bridge and began issuing orders to get underway in German. Thatcher marveled at the crisp responses that his crew gave him. But then he was nudged by the guards and left the bridge.

Cyra nudged him as they walked. “What happens now?”

Thatcher shrugged. “Like the man said, he’ll question us. Try to rest up and get some sleep. That’s what I intend to do.”

The guards stopped first and placed Cyra in a cabin close by the bridge. One of them stayed there after locking her inside. The last Thatcher saw was Cyra looking at him with those incredible eyes of hers. He felt his heart skip a beat but managed to give her a quick smile before the door closed and he was prodded along by the remaining guard.

The descended to another deck and Thatcher did his best to memorize all of the elements that he could as they moved along. At some point, he was going to have to find his way down to the engine room presumably to start an explosion that would sink the ship. Thatcher had no clue how he was going to do that. He hoped that if he was ever able to make his way back to England, he could convince Hewitt to invest in some training for him. Thatcher was no saboteur and being asked to be one without much of any knowledge save for what he already knew, was a bit daunting.

Still, he figured that Hewitt had done enough research into his past to know that Thatcher would be able to effect some type of explosion when it came down to it. It had been years, of course, but Thatcher figured he had enough know-how still bouncing around his skull to make something work if and when he got his chance.

The thought of Adamson’s murder was a peculiar one for Thatcher to wrap his head around. Why kill Adamson in the first place? And who could have done it? Unlike Schwarzwalder, Thatcher wasn’t ruling anyone out. For all he knew, it could have been a disgruntled crew member or one of the other passengers. There was also a good chance the murderer had been killed when Raider X shelled the Archimedes. If Schwarzwalder was hoping to uncover the killer, then he might be completely out of luck. After all, Thatcher certainly hadn’t done it. And Cyra…

Thatcher frowned. Could she have killed Adamson? She’d been with Thatcher most of the previous night but the truth was that Thatcher had no memory of anything that had happened after they’d made love. He had dropped into a deep sleep and Cyra could have easily dressed and left his cabin before he knew she was even gone.

But she’d told him she’d left in the early morning.

Unless she had lied.

Anything was possible. As smitten as Thatcher was, he wasn’t a damned fool. He’d seen enough high society women turn to true evil from time-to-time. And he knew that anyone could murder if they had the cause and justification in mind to do so.

The question of why forced its way to the forefront of his brain, however. Why would Cyra kill the captain? What had Adamson done that would have mandated such a fate? It didn’t make any sense at the moment, but perhaps when Schwarzwalder came by for his talk, Thatcher could turn the tables a bit and ask some questions of his own. The task before him most immediately was convincing Schwarzwalder that he was not the murderer. After all, he’d already confessed to being a criminal. Certainly that would factor into Schwarzwalder’s line of questioning.

“Halt.”

Thatcher stopped as the guard behind him stepped in front and put a key into the cabin lock. He opened the door and gestured for Thatcher to enter. Thatcher inclined his head and said, “thanks,” before stepping inside.

He hardly had a chance to examine the cabin before the door closed behind him and he was once again a prisoner.

CHAPTER 19

Thatcher appraised his new surroundings. There was a porthole that he moved to almost immediately. From it, he could see the patch of ocean where the Archimedes had been scuttled, but the ship had already vanished. The scuttling charges had broken her keel and flooded the ship within a minute, taking her to the bottom soon thereafter.

As he watched, Raider X slowly turned away and its engines began to gain momentum. Thatcher could feel the ship starting to speed up and knew they would want to leave the area as quickly as possible lest they be tracked down by any Royal Navy ships in the area. Although Thatcher doubted there would be any operating close by. Hewitt would have made sure of that. He wanted the Archimedes taken and Thatcher to be brought aboard. So far, Hewitt’s plan had worked out precisely according to plan. Albeit with the murder of Adamson not being part of that consideration.

Thatcher turned away from the porthole and took in the rest of the cabin. There was a bunk, a toilet was partitioned off with a simple folding door, and a small desk and two chair made up the rest of the Spartan surroundings. But it seemed comfortable enough. Thatcher lay down on the bunk and wondered how long it would take for Schwarzwalder to make his way to his cabin and question him.

How had he known Adamson? Thatcher wondered if it was just a smaller community among captains that brought them both into each other’s circle or if it was something else entirely. Was there more to Adamson than just being the captain of the Archimedes? Was he more involved in the war effort than just as a captain? Had he been pressed into some sort of service in the same manner that Thatcher had? And if so, had that role brought to him to the attention of someone who would want to kill him?

He closed his eyes and thought about last night. The dinner with Cyra had been delightful. And the wine had been rather spectacular. He was sad that that part of this trip was now over. He was firmly in enemy hands, and yet Thatcher didn’t feel nearly as endangered as he might if he truly had any skin in the game. The fact was, he still wasn’t sure how he felt about the whole mission. Aside from needing to ensure his aunt was left alone, Thatcher didn’t really give a stuff about Hewitt’s grand plan. And he resented being pressed into service at his behest.

Had Thatcher had his way, he might have stolen down to some part of deeper Africa and hung out with the rich Colonials that he knew were waiting out the war in their mansions amid the equatorial weather. Or even Lisbon might have provided a more temperate atmosphere for him to engage in his usual proclivities of wining and dining wealthy dowagers and divorcees while he worked to relieve them of their money.

Anything was preferable to doing what he was currently doing, he decided. But it was what it was and Thatcher was stuck aboard the Loki now. Raider X still had secrets to give up and Thatcher would uncover them all if he could.

There came a knock at the door and then it opened even as Thatcher rolled his feet off of the bunk and sat up again. Schwarzwalder stood in the doorway and despite the fact that the Loki was his ship, he bowed his head. “Do you mind?”

Thatcher held out his hand. “Please.”

Schwarzwalder entered and removed his hat before taking a seat across from Thatcher who remained on the bunk. He glanced around and smiled at Thatcher. “I’m afraid it’s probably not up to the standards of the previous vessel you were riding upon, but I’d caution you it’s a damned sight better than if you’d been taking aboard U-boat.”

Thatcher grinned. “I certainly won’t argue with you there.”

“As a commerce raider, what we lack in armoring and armament, we make up for with crew quarters. The men who serve under me are much more comfortable than many of their brethren aboard the various German naval vessels currently operating.”

“It’s a fantastic ship,” said Thatcher. “Although I must admit I’m torn.”

“How so?”

“Well, as we rode over on the launcher, the ship looked, forgive me, a bit weathered and worn. But once aboard, it sparkles as if it was commissioned only yesterday.”

“A few weeks previously, actually,” said Schwarzwalder. “And our exterior appearance is to make us look like less of a threat than we are. You’ve heard of commerce raiders before?”

Thatcher shrugged. “I was in prison. We didn’t get much in the way of news.”

Schwarzwalder smiled. “Indeed. We approach and board ships who mistake us for being a merchant marine ship — most of my fellow raiders are former refrigeration vessels. Once aboard, we take what is of value before scuttling it. For those ships that we cannot take, we sink through other means. The Führer has dictated that we sink as much of allied shipping as we can in order to deprive our enemies of needed goods.”

“Sounds like a dangerous job.”

“Indeed it is,” said the captain. “If we were to be discovered engaged in our activities, we would almost certainly be sunk by responding forces. And they would be well within their right to do so.” He leaned back in the chair. “You’ve been very forthright with declaring that you were a criminal. Do you mind me asking why you were imprisoned?”

Thatcher smiled. “I apparently deprived far too many woman of their jewels and stocks to be tolerated any longer.”

For a moment, Schwarzwalder said nothing and then a big grin broke out across his face. “You were a thief?”

“I prefer the term ‘liberator of antiquities, liquidities, and proclivities’ myself,” said Thatcher. “But that works too.”

Schwarzwalder nodded. “And for that they sent you away to prison. Interesting.”

Thatcher shrugged. “I apparently annoyed a great many women once they discovered my true vocation.”

“And you’re American as well.” Schwarzwalder leaned forward. “We are not at war with Americans.”

“And yet you hold me as a prisoner,” said Thatcher.

“Yes, but not as one of war; but rather as a suspect in the murder of Captain Adamson.” He leaned back. “Were you surprised this morning to hear of his death?”

Thatcher nodded. “I owed him my life for fishing me out of the English Channel. If he hadn’t seen me, I would certainly have drowned.” Thatcher sighed. “I had no reason to see him killed.”

“How did you come to be in the Channel once more?”

Thatcher frowned. “I stole a plane. And I got shot down when a bunch of German bombers came across my path and their fighter escorts riddled my plane with bullets. I barely managed to get out of the plane.” He shuddered. “And the water was frightfully cold.”

Schwarzwalder said nothing but merely looked into his eyes. He stayed that way for a moment, almost as if daring Thatcher to look away. But he didn’t and finally the captain broke contact. “I suppose escaping from prison isn’t for everyone. Your story is quite remarkable.”

“I wish it had been anything but,” said Thatcher. “I could do with a good bit of downtime from anything exciting. When I found out the ship was headed to Lisbon, I was excited. It would be a chance for me to start life anew. I would have taken the time to re-establish myself.”

“Robbing the women of Lisbon?” Schwarzwalder smirked. “You might have ended up in prison sooner than you thought.”

“I was considering a new vocation,” said Thatcher. “You know, once I had the working capital necessary to fund it.”

“And what new job would you have taken on?”

“Wine maker,” said Thatcher.

“You know how to make wine?”

Thatcher shrugged again. “What’s to know? You grow grapes and then ferment them. I’m fairly industrious; I don’t think it would have been all that hard to make it work.”

“You are indeed industrious, I’ll give you that,” said Schwarzwalder. “After all, any man who can escape prison and steal a plane — let alone fly it — is a rather intriguing specimen if I do say so myself.”

“Why are you so interested in solving the murder of Adamson?” asked Thatcher. “I get the feeling he was more to you than just a simple acquaintance.”

“That’s true, he was.” Schwarzwalder stayed quiet for a moment. “Adamson was my wife’s cousin. Estranged from the family though ever since he moved to England some time ago.”

Thatcher leaned back. “I’m sorry for your loss then.”

“Thank you. I will have to convey this news to my wife, but it has been a long time since they even saw each other. I doubt it will be that troubling for her.”

“Why did Adamson move to England.”

Schwarzwalder looked at Thatcher. “Because he was a spy.”

CHAPTER 20

“Adamson was a ship captain,” said Thatcher. “What in the world are you talking about him being a spy?”

“Adamson was asked to become a spy for Hitler’s regime in Berlin,” said Schwarzwalder. “Him being a captain was just the cover story that they created for him. He grew up in England after having been born in Germany, so his English was flawless and he spoke German as well. His name worked. The Abwehr were thrilled with him.”

“So he wasn’t really a captain?”

“Oh, he was most assuredly a captain,” said Schwarzwalder. “He was part of the Reichsmarine, which was subsequently renamed the Kriegsmarine, and graduated with full honors. That’s how he met Admiral Canaris.”

“Canaris,” said Thatcher. “I don’t know the name.”

“He’s the head of German intelligence. A former naval captain himself. They had a long relationship going back years. When Canaris was tasked with taking over the Abwehr, he made a dramatic push to get more agents into the field. Adamson was one of his first and most prolific. He was assigned to work the routes between England and Lisbon and Spain, passing messages to other Abwehr agents back in England from the Abwehr stations in those neutral countries. He’s been doing it for years.”

“Years.” Thatcher was relatively speechless by this revelation. Someone had killed Adamson for being a German spy? Was it possible? And did Hewitt know about this? There were far too many questions about Adamson to know what Hewitt had realized and what he had not. The biggest question still remained: who had killed him and why?

“You really don’t know about all of this, do you?” Schwarzwalder was looking at Thatcher earnestly and Thatcher tried to put a grin on his face but it came out more like a nod.

“I had no clue. But then again-“

“You’ve been in prison, yes, we were able to confirm that,” said Schwarzwalder. “A quick radio transmission back to Berlin was all it took to find that bit out. The rest of your story makes sense, although we couldn’t confirm the fact that you stole a plane. Not really surprising since I’m sure the Royal Air Force wouldn’t be keen on releasing such information.”

Thatcher grinned. “This is utterly bizarre. I was completely taken in by Adamson’s ruse. I feel like a damned fool.”

“Don’t be,” said Schwarzwalder. “He had everyone fooled. The fact that the English left him alone was a remarkable tribute to his station. Plus, the fact that he was somewhat older than one would expect from a field operative probably helped his cause. He didn’t do much of anything else except put to sea and pass messages when he returned.”

“I’m assuming the messages he passed weren’t time critical, given the length of a ship’s voyage.”

Schwarzwalder nodded. “Probably more bureaucratic than anything pressing. Those would be sent via radio. In any event, that’s why he was estranged from my family and why I never really knew him. I was at sea when he apparently made the decision to relocate to England and engage in espionage activities. It had been my hope for many years to come across him on the open waves and perhaps have a talk. Alas, such is not the case now.”

“Well, I’m sorry for your loss,” said Thatcher. His head was still reeling and he felt like he’d missed a step on the way down the staircase and was falling. He’d never really known Adamson, but the fact that he’d managed to get Hewitt on the radio seemed a bit odd given that he was a German spy for Berlin.

“Thank you,” said Schwarzwalder. “Now the question becomes who actually killed him? I don’t think it was you, Thatcher. Especially given your rather visible reaction to the news I just told you.”

Inwardly Thatcher made a mental note that he would have to learn how to control his facial expressions. But the fact that Adamson had been a German spy was such a surprise that Thatcher simply couldn’t help himself. It was non-damaging in this case because it convinced Schwarzwalder that he had nothing to do with the death, but who knew if it would help or incriminate him in later years? Provided he survived this crazy first jaunt, he thought.

“So what happens now?”

“I continue my investigation,” said Schwarzwalder. “I am intrigued by your traveling companion, Cyra. Berlin had no information on her anywhere in their files, which I find very interesting. Perhaps it just means that she goes by another name now. Or perhaps it means something else. She seems capable enough, but I wonder if it was her or perhaps someone else aboard the ship she was helping.”

Thatcher frowned and Schwarzwalder caught it.

“What’s wrong?”

“Not to be indelicate, but you should know that we spent a portion of the night together before Adamson was killed.”

Schwarzwalder’s eyebrows raised. “You say a portion?”

Thatcher sighed. “We had dinner, drank too much wine, and returned to my cabin. We made love and then I promptly fell asleep. Where she went while I was blacked out, I do not know. But she was not with me in the morning and it was then that Adamson’s body was discovered in his quarters when he failed to report for his usual shift.”

Schwarzwalder stroked his beard again, pondering. “So it’s possible she slipped out of your cabin, went to Adamson and killed him, before presumably returning to her own cabin.”

Thatcher nodded. “Entirely possible. I hate saying it, but I’d be a fool to rule out the possibility of her involvement.”

“I appreciate you sharing that information with me.”

“Will you interrogate her now?”

Schwarzwalder stood and smiled. “We are not the SS, thankfully. But I am well within my rights as the ship’s Captain to question her. If I find that she is not being honest, I can easily make arrangements to drop her off somewhere where she can be transported over to those jackals. And they will get what they need out of her. It may not be factual, but they will get something.”

“What if she’s innocent?”

“Then she has nothing to worry about while she is my custody. I appreciate honesty. But once I turn her over to the SS, her innocence becomes irrelevant. The SS only cares about producing results on paper. She could be the killer or she might not be: but once they get their claws on her, she becomes whatever fits their narrative and her arc within that particular story becomes regrettably a short one. Most likely they would torture her and then stand her up against a wall before putting a volley of bullets into whatever remains of her body.”

Thatcher frowned. “I would not wish that upon anyone.”

“Nor I,” said Schwarzwalder. “But such are the times we live in.” He shook Thatcher’s hand once more. “I appreciate all that you’ve shared with me. I will have dinner brought down immediately. I hope you find it palatable.”

Thatcher nodded. “Thank you, Captain.”

Schwarzwalder paused. “I meant what I said earlier.”

“About what?”

“The fact that we are not at war with America yet. I don’t consider you the enemy; you are merely a temporary guest aboard my ship.”

“Albeit confined,” said Thatcher.

“Schwarzwalder grinned. “For the moment perhaps. But that may change. I will let you know if it does. Eat and get some rest. I’m sure it’s a bit strange being taken prisoner and seeing the ship you were riding on blown apart.”

“It wasn’t my typical day,” said Thatcher. “But then again, I’ve sort of forgotten what normal was in recent years.”

“Then this is your new normal,” said Schwarzwalder. “I will strive to make it comfortable for you.” He ducked out of the cabin and Thatcher heard the door lock once more.

He kicked off his shoes and then lay back down on the bunk. It had been a struggle to keep the conversation going when his mind wanted to turn over all of the information he’d just learned about. Adamson a German spy! Who would have thought it possible? Certainly it wasn’t the impression Thatcher got when he’d met the man. But he could certainly see why this shipping route would be a valuable one. It gave the Germans a ready method of transporting passengers, material, equipment, and messages from a neutral staging country back to a prime theater of their operations. Thatcher knew the Abwehr was active in Britain, but this was a revelation any way you looked at it.

What were the chances that Hewitt knew about Adamson? That was the most pressing question that Thatcher had right at that moment. Hewitt hadn’t mentioned the man during Thatcher’s briefing, but perhaps he’d merely wanted to keep Thatcher fixated on the right stuff. There may not have been time enough to go into all of the details. Still, if he had suspected Adamson of being a German spy, one would think that the SOE man would have at least given Thatcher a heads-up about it.

Thatcher frowned. Then again, perhaps not.

CHAPTER 21

The guard brought Thatcher a meal of schnitzel, roasted potatoes and carrots. Thatcher ignored the carrots but ate the rest of the meal and found it of decent quality for a war ship. He would have much preferred being back aboard the Archimedes and settling in for a three course meal complete with wine, but at least he wasn’t dead. As he polished off the remnants of the food, he he decided to adopt that as his motto from here on out: at least he wasn’t dead.

One could do a lot with that, he mused. It was a pretty decent thing, after all. No matter how bad things got or how much of a failure one might have thought they were, at least they weren’t dead. He wiped his mouth on the cloth napkin that had come with his tray, took a drink from the glass of water, and then leaned back at the small desk where he’d set himself up to eat, feeling relatively content.

He had to figure out how he was going to sabotage this vessel. Especially when he was confined to quarters for the moment and had an armed guard outside of his cabin. There would be no way he’d ever have the freedom to roam the ship and find out its weak points.

He also needed to know how soon the Loki was planning to offload the other prisoners it had taken from the Archimedes. Thatcher certainly would not move to blow the ship up while there were still lots of innocents aboard. The sabotage would have to come later.

In a way, he figured it was a good thing. If he did get any measure of freedom, then he would use the time to build up his trust with Schwarzwalder, hoping the Captain didn’t figure him for much of a threat. Get in his good graces and then see if an opportunity arose that Thatcher could exploit to his own ends.

He wondered if Hewitt was back in London tracking the progress of Raider X. He figured probably not, although by now he would know that the Archimedes was sunk. Thatcher sighed. All of this would have been so much easier if they could have simply had a few destroyers lay in wait and shell Raider X as she came out of port. Either that or a few bombing sorties could have finished her off as well.

But no, Hewitt had to insist that his sacrificial lamb could do the job with less risk. Lucky him.

There was a knock on the door and Thatcher looked up. “Come in.”

The door opened and his guard stood there. “Herr Thatcher, Mein Kapitan asks you to come with me.”

Thatcher stood and wiped his mouth once more. “Shall I leave this here?”

“Ja.”

Thatcher nodded and followed the guard back out into the passageway. They retraced their steps but instead of heading for the bridge, the guard diverted and went up another flight of stairs that led to a new corridor Thatcher had never seen. He did his best to memorize every step he took. The day was waning quickly and it would be dark soon, he figured. Already there were lights on in parts of the ship. Thatcher wondered if dinner had been served to the crew yet. Or if any of the passengers from the Archimedes had been fed.

Outside of a door, the guard knocked once and then stepped back. Thatcher heard the call to enter and the guard opened the door and then stepped back and away allowing Thatcher to proceed.

Schwarzwalder’s cabin reflected the man’s discipline. It was sparse and without much in the way of decor, but somehow, it seemed to fit. There were no pictures of family, although the shelf running over the bed was filled with books on an array of topics.

Schwarzwalder stood and shook Thatcher’s hand. “Thank you for coming.”

Thatcher smiled. “I am a guest on your ship. One does not refuse an invitation.”

The Captain smiled. “Indeed. In any event, please, have a seat and make yourself comfortable.”

Thatcher looked around and saw a small chair so he sat in that. Schwarzwalder meanwhile brought out a small bottle and two small glasses. “Schnapps?”

Thatcher nodded. “A drink would be welcome.”

Schwarzwalder poured them each a measure and placed it in front of Thatcher before putting the bottle away. He hoisted his glass. “Prost.”

“Prost,” said Thatcher. He drank the schnapps and found it was peppermint, which happened to be his favorite. He felt the pleasant burn of the liquor as it sank down his throat. Then he put the glass back down and smiled. “Excellent.”

“I get it from a small distillery,” said Schwarzwalder. “They make only several hundred bottles each year. But I would not put to sea without a store of it in my possession. It makes the cold nights pass much easier, especially when one is away from friends and family.”

Thatcher tasted the peppermint and smiled. “I could see how it would. It tastes like Christmas.”

“Indeed,” said Schwarzwalder. He clapped his hands. “In any event, I did not ask you here to debate the merits of my schnapps.”

“All right.”

“I spoke with Cyra shortly after I spoke with you this afternoon.” Schwarzwalder sighed. “I must admit that my conversation with her was not nearly as enjoyable as yours. She was reluctant to speak with me and did not give up much in the way of information.”

“That is unfortunate,” said Thatcher. “I don’t know why she would be so recalcitrant.”

“Nor I,” said Schwarzwalder. “I was quite accommodating to her, but I must admit that her unwillingness to speak with me has me wondering if she is indeed the murderer. And if so, then I must take steps to transfer her to the proper authorities.”

Thatcher frowned. “The SS.”

Schwarzwalder sighed. “I have no wish to do so, but the murder of a German Abwehr agent demands that the culprit be found and turned over for prosecution, as you can well imagine.”

Thatcher smirked. “No offense, Captain Schwarzwalder, but we both know the SS will not prosecute Cyra if she is indeed the killer. They will torture her first and then shoot her.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Schwarzwalder. “And I have no desire to see any Gestapo aboard my vessel, but this puts me in a very delicate situation. As captain, I am required to report anything untoward to the High Command. My executive officer is equally required to do so, that is how we are a checks-and-balance system. And I know that my XO will report all of the things we found aboard the Archimedes. Including the deceased body of Adamson. Once word gets back that he was Abwehr, they will demand an investigation. And I will be forced to put my thoughts in writing and transmit them. They will find about you and they will find out about Miss Dumiere. At that point, I will be most likely advised to put into port and await a team from the Gestapo who will assume command of the investigation. Any authority I have will be superseded at that point rendering me rather impotent, I’m afraid. Therefore it is in my best interests to solve this crime myself and wrap it up with a… Christmas bow, shall we say?”

“All right,” said Thatcher.

“All of which would be immensely easier for me to accomplish, if I could simply get your companion to speak with me. But she shows no signs of wanting to cooperate and I worry that the longer this goes on for, the less room to maneuver I will have. Do you understand?”

Thatcher nodded. “I do. But I still am not quite sure what you want me to do.”

“I want you to talk to Cyra. I want you to find out what she knows and report back to me. Let me know if you think that she may, in fact, be the one who killed Adamson.”

“And if she is?”

Schwarzwalder sighed but set a steady gaze on Thatcher. “Well, you tell me: would you rather cover up for her and risk the wrath of the Gestapo? Or would you see a criminal be held to account for their crimes?”

“You’re asking a hard question,” said Thatcher. “And it’s one that I’m not really confidently able to answer at the moment.”

“We are in war,” said Schwarzwalder. “I’m afraid that there are almost never any easy questions. We either figure out a way to get Cyra to talk and give up any information that she may have. Or else I will be forced to turn her over to the Gestapo at the next port we can put in at.”

“That would be unfortunate,” said Thatcher.

Schwarzwalder nodded. “Indeed it would. Because knowing the Gestapo as I do, they would also take you.”

CHAPTER 22

A knock on the door interrupted their conversation. Schwarzwalder called out for the guard to enter and he did. He leaned over and whispered something in the Captain’s ear. Schwarzwalder grunted and dismissed the guard. Then the Captain looked back at Thatcher.

“The ship that will take the rest of the passengers is off our port side. It’s time to begin the transfer procedure so we can be free to get on with our mission.”

“How long will it take to transfer them?”

Schwarzwalder shrugged. “An hour, no more. There are not that many left from the Archimedes, so barring any unforeseen circumstances, it should move along rather quickly. I am in a hurry to resume our course south toward the Cape of Good Hope anyway. With the Führer demanding a certain amount of tonnage sunk, we are well underway now that the Archimedes has been sunk, but that does not mean we can afford to relax.”

“A question,” said Thatcher.

“Yes?”

“Why, if Adamson was a spy for the Abwehr, would you go about raiding his vessel? And if so, why would you then scuttle it?”

Schwarzwalder smiled. “We had hoped to help Adamson further secure his status by attacking his ship. Our orders were to attack the Archimedes and establish contact with Adamson. After doing so, I would have a conversation with him and then later transfer them all back to a neutral country. Adamson would return home eventually but with his status immune from suspicion.”

“Berlin thought that would help him?”

Schwarzwalder shrugged. “The thing about spies is they are always under suspicion. I was told that Adamson was no different and that despite his best efforts, he felt as though there had been added scrutiny upon him lately.”

Thatcher frowned. “If that is true then it opens up a larger list of potential killers, does it not?”

“I don’t know,” said Schwarzwalder. “Frankly, I see but one possibility. And that is the woman I want you to have a conversation with.” He stood and walked to the door. “When you are ready to do so, ask the guard to accompany you to her cabin. I’ll give you the next few hours, but beyond that, I must report in with Berlin about the Archimedes. I would delay if possible, but such things are not tolerated. I’m sure you understand.”

Thatcher stood. “Very well.”

“I will see to the other passengers. Good luck.” He knocked on the door and it opened again. The guard stood waiting for Thatcher to exit and then guided him back to his cabin before locking him back inside.

Thatcher walked back and forth across his cabin, stopping to look out of the porthole. The light from the Loki illuminated the sea around them and Thatcher could see the approaching ship jockeying for position alongside. Thatcher turned away from the porthole. His main concern now was trying to convey to Cyra the necessity of answering his questions honestly.

Was she even the killer? If she’d been sent by London to kill Adamson for being a Nazi spy, then why the hell hadn’t Hewitt told him about it? Was he the backup in case Cyra failed? Did they expect that Adamson would have been taken captive? Would he have been aboard Raider X when Thatcher sabotaged it? If so, what guarantee would they have that Adamson would or would not be killed?

None.

It didn’t make sense, thought Thatcher. None at all. Thatcher intended to scuttle Raider X as soon as possible but not without having some means of making sure he didn’t go down with the damned ship. But if he was supposed to scuttle it with Adamson aboard, he would have had no way of knowing that he was saving a spy.

Thatcher shook his head. No, there was too much in this that didn’t make any sense whatsoever. And he hoped that Cyra could at least shed some light on a few things. Perhaps the most important was whether she killed Adamson or not. If she had, then Thatcher could at least work from there. If he could figure out her motivation then that would help.At least he hoped so.

His head hurt from the niggling questions that the conversation with Schwarzwalder had produced. He found it intriguing that the German High Command had actually sent him on a mission to rendezvous with the Archimedes solely for the purposes of helping Adamson look better in the eyes of anyone in Britain who might suspect him of espionage. That seemed like a bit of a stretch to Thatcher. He could understand wanting to help reinforce a cover story, but at the cost of sinking the man’s ship? Thatcher wasn’t so sure he bought that excuse.

He wondered instead if the Archimedes had been carrying something else. Perhaps something that the Germans knew about and wanted sent to the bottom of the ocean instead of reaching its destination.

Or maybe Schwarzwalder had needed to convey some sort of top secret message to Adamson, hence the need for a rendezvous that wouldn’t arouse suspicion. Once they had taken the Archimedes, it was reasonable that Schwarzwalder would want to speak with the rival captain. Doing so wouldn’t have elicited any suspicion on the part of the other crew members of the Archimedes. Schwarzwalder could communicate the message and then Adamson and crew would have been dropped off at a neutral port or ship free to continue his mission. Whatever that was.

That at least seemed more likely to Thatcher than Schwarzwalder’s initial explanation. But even that wasn’t as ironclad as Thatcher’s brain wanted it to be. He still felt like he was missing out on several key components of the story. That lack of which poked at his head until it started to hurt and he found himself wishing he could have more of the schnapps that Schwarzwalder kept.The temptation to consume it all would have been too great for Thatcher to get much accomplished afterward, however. No, he needed his head clear right now because it was the only way he was going to have any hope of figuring this all out.

Adamson was a spy; now he was dead. Schwarzwalder captained a brand new commerce raider and had been ordered to rendezvous with the Archimedes for some unknown reason; and Cyra was the variable in all of this: she was either a hapless bystander or the killer which meant she was either working for the Brits or the Germans.

Thatcher stopped. What if she was a German operative? He hadn’t much considered the possibility before, but why not? She was clearly well-traveled and educated and spoke numerous languages. She would have been a compelling candidate for espionage. Plus, she was beautiful. Thatcher frowned as the thought percolated in his head. If Cyra was an agent of the Germans, then what reason would she have for killing Adamson?

Unless Adamson wasn’t working for the Germans after all.

Had he been turned? Had the Brits gotten to him? Was he working for SIS or SOE now? That would explain why Schwarzwalder had been sent to rendezvous with the Archimedes. Perhaps to take custody of Adamson and bring him back to Berlin for questioning. The Gestapo would probably like nothing better than to get their hands on a traitor like that.

But if that was true then why was Cyra sent to kill him? Had two branches of the German military not communicated with each other? Schwarzwalder, after all, was a regular German sailor. Adamson had been with the Abwehr. Perhaps those in charge of the Abwehr had wanted to take care of the traitor on their own and dispatched an assassin to do the job for them rather than risk Adamson getting wind and fleeing. If he had been working for the British they would have secreted him away if they thought he was in danger.

This way though, the Germans had a fail-safe method for accomplishing the same thing: killing Adamson.

Thatcher’s brow creased as he tried to figure out if that made more sense or not. The world of espionage, such as he been thrown into it, certainly seemed like a lot of weird mirrors that didn’t reflect back the actual truth. It was like being in some funhouse that was really anything but.

There was one way to find out if he was on the right track or not, and that was to talk to Cyra.

He walked over to his cabin door and knocked on it. It opened up immediately and Thatcher looked at the same guard who had been with him all along. “Please take me to Cyra’s cabin.”

“This way,” said the guard.

CHAPTER 23

Thatcher noted there was a guard outside of Cyra’s door as well.

“Captain’s orders to let this one see the woman,” said Thatcher’s guard in German. Thatcher was relieved that his understanding of the language was making a speedy comeback. It had been years since he’d had the chance to speak it with any degree of regularity. But just being aboard Riader X was giving him ample opportunity to hear it and restart that portion of his brain that stored his previous knowledge.

Cyra’s guard nodded and then asked if Thatcher’s guard had eaten yet. Thatcher’s guard grunted that he’d been standing outside the cabin since earlier in the day.

Cyra’s guard looked Thatcher over and then knocked on Cyra’s cabin before opening the door. As soon as Thatcher stepped inside, the two guards continued conversing outside.

The cabin was dimly-lit and Thatcher stood there for a moment trying to figure out why. “Cyra? It’s Harrison.”

“Harrison? Is that you?”

There was a curtain over the porthole although drawing it back wouldn’t have let in much light since it was already nightfall. But even still, the interior of the cabin made Thatcher want to do so, so he crossed toward it and as he did, he saw Cyra laying in the cabin’s bunk with the blankets drawn up around her face.

He stopped. “Are you all right?”

“I’m not… feeling very well,” said Cyra.

Thatcher sat down on the bunk mattress and peered closer. “Can I turn on a light to look at you? I can barely see a thing in here.”

“Yes. Go ahead.”

Thatcher rose and found the light switch. The cabin instantly became brighter and much cheerier than it had been otherwise. This cabin was much the same as Thatcher’s and he wondered if they housed any of the sailors or not. There was nothing within either his or Cyra’s that spoke to personalization. No family photos, nothing of personality, just two bare bones cabins. Perhaps they were used expressly for the purpose of housing any prisoners that Raider X took in the course of its missions?

He sat back down and looked at Cyra. Her face seemed quite pale and he wondered if she was suffering from some sort of seasickness. But Cyra had already been aboard the Archimedes for days and shown no adverse effects. And it certainly wasn’t like the Loki was experiencing any sort of rough seas at the moment. The journey thus far had been relatively calm, fortunately.

“What seems to be the matter?”

Cyra took a breath and then sighed. “I don’t know. I feel very weak. Standing made me dizzy so I decided to lay down and rest. I guess I must have fallen asleep because I had no idea what time it was until you entered.”

“Any other symptoms? Just the fatigue?”

“The fatigue is the worst.”

“Have you eaten?”

She nodded. “I think they brought me something earlier. I nibbled at it and then had them take it away. It wasn’t very good. Nothing like our meal together on the Archimedes.”

Thatcher grinned. “I don’t know if we’ll be having any of those for a while.” He paused. “Listen to me, Cyra: I need to ask you something.”

“Right now? Can’t it wait?”

Thatcher paused. She clearly wasn’t feeling well and he felt a bit like a heel for pressing the issue on her. That said, Schwarzwalder had made it clear they had a time limit here before he would be forced to radio the situation in.

Cyra grabbed his hand suddenly and Thatcher nearly jumped when he felt how icy cold it was.

“Oh Harrison, I do so wish we’d made it to Lisbon. We would be in the city right now enjoying a sumptuous meal. And you might have even introduced me to some of your gin cocktails.”

Thatcher smiled. “I might have at that.” He grasped her hand. “You’re freezing. Can I get you another blanket?”

“I don’t feel cold,” said Cyra. “I don’t think it’s all that necessary, to be honest. I’m sure I’ll be fine in a little while. I just need to get some good rest. Let me sleep this off and in the morning, I’ll be all right.”

“When we were on board the Archimedes,” Thatcher started to say. But then he stopped.

Cyra looked up at him. “Darling, please let me sleep. I promise I’ll answer all your questions in the morning.”

Thatcher took a breath and let it out slowly. Finally, he nodded. “All right then. But do rest up and get better. We have some rather pressing issues to address once you’re able to speak about them.”

“I promise,” said Cyra.

Thatcher rose from the bunk and then walked to the door before switching the light off. He glanced back at the bunk but all he saw was the gentle rise and fall of Cyra’s chest as she felt back to sleep.

Thatcher turned back to the door, knocked softly and it opened. He walked out into the corridor and looked at Cyra’s guard. “What did she have for supper?”

“Schnitzel,” said the guard.

Thatcher nodded. The same meal as he had eaten and Thatcher had felt no ill effects from it. If anything, it had actually been quite good. Still, some people had adverse reactions to meals that couldn’t quite be explained. He glanced at his own guard. “Is it too late to see the Captain?”

“Right now?”

Thatcher nodded. “Yes, it’s important.”

Thatcher’s guard sighed and then nodded for Thatcher to follow him. As he started to do so, he glanced at Cyra’s guard. “She’s not feeling well and is sleeping. But it probably wouldn’t hurt to check in on her from time-to-time.”

The guard nodded once and then resumed his position as Thatcher followed his man down the corridor.

They found the Captain still on the bridge and Thatcher waited for Schwarzwalder to give his okay before he stepped onto it. He nodded at Thatcher as he approached. “You’ve seen her?”

“Briefly,” said Thatcher as he looked out across the bow of the ship. It was plowing through the waves at a good speed. No doubt, Schwarzwalder wanted to make for the tip of Africa as quickly as possible to get into the Indian Ocean. “But she’s feeling ill at the moment and my attempts to question her were fruitless.”

Schwarzwalder frowned. “Did her meal not agree with her?”

“Perhaps,” said Thatcher. “But it’s more likely that the boarding earlier did more to upset her than the schnitzel. A good night’s rest ought to see that corrected one would expect. I’ll be sure to ask her questions in the morning. But I thought you should know that I did try to ask her now.”

Schwarzwalder nodded his head. “I appreciate you keeping me updated. I had hoped to radio this situation in right now, but obviously, I’ll need to wait a bit before doing so.”

“Where are we now?” asked Thatcher. With the darkness, there was no way to get any sort of indication where they might be, although even if it had been daylight, Thatcher might only have seen the sea surrounding them.

Schwarzwalder pointed to their left. “That way lies the Mediterranean. Gibraltar as the gateway to it.” He nodded ahead of them. “We’re steaming south right now. We’ll pass Casablanca probably before breakfast.” He sighed. “If only we had the Suez Canal, we’d shave nearly two weeks off our travel time. But the Brits are obstinately defending Egypt at the moment and that renders such a course impossible. So we sail around the Cape and hope for the best.”

“Is it always a hard go?”

Schwarzwalder shrugged. “It depends on the seasons, mostly. But we shouldn’t have any problems. The biggest danger is any of the British naval vessels we might encounter along the way, but we have some more advanced radar on the ship that should enable us to avoid them.”

“And once we make it to the Indian Ocean?”

Schwarzwalder looked at him. “My goal is to not have you or the woman on this ship by that point. If we can solve this murder ahead of that time, I’ll put in at a friendly port and get you both off of my ship. I have orders to carry out and frankly, I’d be better off doing so without having to play host to two civilians. You understand, I’m sure.”

Thatcher held up his hand. “No offense taken, Captain. Just making idle chat.”

Schwarzwalder paused for a moment and then nodded. “Let us hope the woman is well enough in the morning to discuss the matters of importance.”

“I hope so, too.”

“In that case,” said Schwarzwalder. “I wish you a very good night’s sleep, Mr. Thatcher.”

CHAPTER 24

But despite the Captain’s sincere wish for Thatcher to sleep well, he did not. Thatcher tossed and turned all night long, finally awaking around six-thirty full of frustration at not having been able to get the sort of deep restful sleep he knew his body craved. He splashed some water on his face and threw on some of the clothes that the German sailors had provided for him. A knock at his door signaled the entrance of his guard who bore a tray of food.

“I heard movement so I figured you were awake.” The guard was different from the fellow that had been there most of yesterday and Thatcher smiled at him.

“I was, thanks. Is that breakfast?”

The guard nodded. “My name is Steinkopf, if you need anything.”

Despite his attempts to hide his fluency in German, Thatcher could not repress a smile. “Steinkopf? Really?”

The guard grinned sheepishly. “My ancestors were miners who worked quarries for many years. They were known as the ‘rock heads’ and the name just stuck, I guess.”

Thatcher took the tray of food from him and nodded his head. “Well, it’s a great name. Much better than something as boring as ‘Thatcher.’”

Steinkopf smiled and then backed out of the room. “If you need anything, please let me know.”

The door closed and Thatcher sat down to the meal before him. The simple meal of some type of warm pudding with a few links of sausage and strong coffee with a packet of sugar was demolished in a few minutes as Thatcher realized he was ravenous. If he could have done so without insulting his hosts, he might have even asked for another tray of the stuff, but he figured that the sailors wouldn’t be getting seconds so there was no way he would, either.

Plus, he didn’t want to single himself out as demanding extra special treatment. At the moment, he had a decent relationship with Schwarzwalder. All of a sudden becoming a pain in the ass would jeopardize that and he needed it intact if he was to accomplish anything of value for Hewitt, who loomed forever in the back of his mind like some unforgotten nightmare.

He wondered what it must have been like for his handler, sitting in some office back in bombed-out London. Was he anxiously awaiting updates? There was obviously no way that Thatcher could reach out, but did Hewitt have other methods for obtaining information about what his sacrificial lamb was up to? He was certain that Hewitt knew the Archimedes had been taken by Raider X, that much seemed sure. But would he have any other means to avail himself of or was he simply in the dark and hoping against hope that Thatcher would succeed? More to that point, did Hewitt go through this every single time he sent one of his operatives off on a mission? It must have been excruciating, thought Thatcher. You send someone off and then you have to wait to hear anything that indicated they were either successful…

Or dead.

Thatcher sighed and sipped the coffee, finding it too bitter until he dumped the sugar in. Then it was palatable. He sipped the drink and shook his head finally. There was no way he could do what Hewitt did. He couldn’t bring himself to send anyone out into near-certain death. But then again, Thatcher preferred only ever relying on himself for as much as he could.

It was why he’d left the family behind. And all its money.

He sighed and looked at the coffee cup before him. There was a time, he recalled, when a cup like this wouldn’t have been fit for him. They used to summer in Newport, near the Cliff Walk built along the sea and enjoy tea every afternoon at one of the hotels. The simplicity of the daily event provided an occasion to revel in the fact that everyone around them was swimming in money procured when their ancestors had helped create the industrial revolution within the United States. There were Rockefellers and Rothschilds and other members of that elite group circulating around the area and one couldn’t help but appreciate the lifestyle that the family money afforded them.

Tea time would conclude and the men would make their way to the club rooms for cocktails. It was here that Thatcher had learned to appreciate the intricacies of crafting a fine drink and all that it entailed. He heard more business deals being conducted over a drink than he ever had on a golf course. He’d mentioned it once to his father who had sniffed at the idea.

“Real men don’t golf. That idea is flouted by imposters who attempt to look wealthier than they actually are.”

It had made little sense to Thatcher. So he pressed his father for more details. The elder Thatcher had appraised his son with one of his withering looks that told his son that he’d asked something quite foolish.

“Golf is reserved for those who have never attempted daring in their miserable lives. The game is just that: a game. The drink and everything that it entails is reserved for the doers who are willing to risk it all. Tell me what risk there is to hitting a ball into a tiny hole? Are they practicing their sexual acumen? Are they simply bored?” His father had sipped his own drink at that moment and then held the glass up as if to worship it all the more. “But this… there is a simplicity and yet it unfolds with all the complexities of life and death. I can propose many things and dare even more while in the throes of a fine cocktail. Fortunes have been made and lost over drinks. Never over golf. Don’t ever get involved in such a ludicrous pasttime as it. A man’s worth isn’t defined by how many strokes he can shave off of his game; it is measured in how much he is willing to dare and risk it all. Golf is neither.”

Thatcher sighed as he took in another sip. He would have probably been willing to kill for one of those finely-crafted cocktails at the moment. But then again, at least he’d dared and risked it all as his father had espoused. Thatcher grinned in spite of himself. His father had always loved a daredevil. He used to take Thatcher to the barnstorming shows as a child, pointing out how the pilots were literally risking their lives for the approval of the crowds. And as much as his father had renounced Thatcher for leaving the family, there was part of him that knew his father probably had a level of grudging respect for what Thatcher had done: he had risked it all.

He probably wouldn’t be thrilled to learn that I’ve been fleecing wealthy dowagers of their trust funds and the like, thought Thatcher. But then again, nobody’s perfect.

And now his son was a spy for the British. Thatcher shook his head. There had to be some degree of respect in that, didn’t there? Perhaps when the war was finally over, Hewitt would allow Thatcher to return home where he could inform his father of everything that he’d been able to accomplish in the name of stopping Hitler and his war machine from taking over the world.

That was, if he managed to survive.

Sitting there in the cabin, Thatcher realized for the first time that he actually missed his family. As dysfunctional as it was. He missed the dinners and the summers and the holidays. It hadn’t been the same since he’d left and while he’d had more adventures than he probably deserved, Thatcher missed the useless drama of finding out that his aunt had been seen cuddling up with so-and-so’s husband or something equally un-earth shattering.

He finished his coffee and set the mug back down on the tray. He wondered if Cyra was feeling any better today now that she’d had a full night to sleep and recover. He hoped she was because it was imperative that Thatcher find out what her role — if any — was in the death of Captain Adamson. If he couldn’t then Schwarzwalder would contact the Gestapo. And if that happened, Thatcher’s life was going to get a whole lot more awful than it currently was.

He had no desire to see that happen. And he certainly didn’t want to have to endure any sort of torture that he knew they were capable of inflicting.

He rose from the small table and was about to knock on the door to let Steinkopf know he was finished when he heard shouting from outside his cabin door. Then an alarm sounded somewhere else on the ship.

What in the world was going on?

CHAPTER 25

Steinkopf opened the door before Thatcher had a chance to. “Something is wrong in the engine room. Come with me.”

Thatcher needed no further encouragement and followed Steinkopf down the corridor and descended into the lower bowels of the ship. Thatcher’s knowledge of ships was limited to the times he went sailing on the bay back home. He was completely out of his element in this environment, but he understood that anything wrong within the engine compartment was cause for great concern.

As they descended the stairs, a terrible smell issued up from below and greeted them. It was so revolting that it made Thatcher almost retch and vomit his entire breakfast. But he bit back on the rising tide of bile in his throat and continued on. Steinkopf muttered in German as they made their way ever deeper into the ship. They passed other sailors coming the opposite way looking ashen-faced and pale. Whatever was down there was apparently spooking them all.

Finally, a blast of heat hit them as they ventured further. Thatcher kept with Steinkopf who seemed driven to reach the engine room. Around them, the alarm was still blaring away and it echoed in Thatcher’s ears like some never-ending bird chirping away on an early morning when you wanted to sleep in.

He smelled the heavy copper on the air before he saw the sight before him.

Steinkopf reeled to a halt, blanched, and then turned to one side to vomit. Thatcher took advantage to get his first look at the engine compartment.

It looked like a slaughterhouse. The walls of the entire compartment were smeared with deep crimson that Thatcher knew was human blood. Flesh and gristle and guts draped about the place like a sort of sick Christmas festivity scene. Thatcher’s eyes couldn’t process the destruction. As the engines continued to churn in the background, the pieces of humans that adorned the walls lay silent, still dripping their various liquids onto the walls and floors, making everything slick with viscous juices that had no business being outside of the human body.

“What is he doing here?”

Thatcher snapped back to the moment as he recognized Schwarzwalder’s voice booming up from the floor of the compartment. Steinkopf recovered himself quickly, but before he could say anything, Thatcher took the offense and addressed the Captain.

“I insisted he bring me here. It’s my fault.”

Schwarzwalder frowned and then shrugged. “Well, as you can see, we have… this.” He gestured for Thatcher to come down and join him.

As much as he would have preferred staying exactly where he was, Thatcher descended the last of the metal stairs and gingerly touched his shoes to the slick floor of the engine room. He was already sweating buckets given the profuse heat the bellowed out from the engines as they churned away. The temperature of the room combined with the smell of the slaughter did not make containing his breakfast any easier. Still, he forced himself to get closer and engage with the Captain.

“There were five men in this compartment,” said Schwarzwalder. “Now they’re all dead.”

Thatcher looked around but he wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking at. There were limbs that looked as though they had been torn from bodies littering the ground and some were stuck to the walls by some unseen adhesive most likely comprised of drying liquids the nature of which thatcher had no desire to know.

But what drew his eye the most as he surveyed the carnage was the presence of the bones — at least he assumed they were bones. Splotches of pure white were rare, but every now and again he would spot some. For the most part they were stained by blood and broken apart in such a way that made it look as though they had been forcibly removed from their host bodies and then broken open almost like a coconut.

How was such a thing possible? Thatcher clamped his jaw shut and tried his best to focus on viewing the scene before him as objectively as he could lest the reality of it force him to expel the contents of his stomach. He didn’t think that adding his own contribution to the scene would enamor him to the Captain.

For his part, Schwarzwalder looked angry and concerned. Losing five men in a single night to some unknown occurrence was something that none of the military academies across the world would ever be able to prepare him for. How had this happened? And who had done it?

Schwarzwalder rose from where he squatted and looked at Thatcher. “Five men. Good men at that. Now dead.”

Thatcher shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything this horrible before.”

“You seem to be handling it all right.”

Thatcher smiled weakly. “Frankly, it’s taking every ounce of self control not to vomit profusely.”

Schwarzwalder nodded his head. “I’ve seen abattoirs before. That is probably what’s helping me. But in any event, we should get some fresh air. I need to get this mess cleaned up before the fear infects the entire crew.”

Thatcher shook his head. “Word has already spread.”

Schwarzwalder looked around. “Someone shut off that damned alarm!”

Within seconds the alarm died off, leaving a ringing in Thatcher’s ears. But he was grateful for the lack of the blaring now. He waited as Schwarzwalder ascended the steps leading out of the room, taking one final glance around. Was there anything that he could see that would clue them in to the identity of the killer? Because surely this wasn’t some sort of industrial accident. But who could have done this? Or what-?

Thatcher took a breath. What indeed.

He turned and followed Schwarzwalder up the steps. They passed by Steinkopf who fell in behind them without saying a word. He nodded a grateful thanks to Thatcher as he passed however. Thatcher nodded in return and continued following Schwarzwalder up the steps to the next deck. Gradually, as they ascended, the smell of the slaughter receded mercifully and Thatcher even felt the heat lessening. He was soaked from sweat and the breezes as they walked up the stairs and passed through corridors on the ship cooled him.

Finally, Schwarzwalder stepped out on to deck into the fresh air and the early morning light. Thatcher stepped out as well and his lungs instantly demanded that he breathe as expansively as possible in an attempt to flush every bit of what he had just witnessed from his body and mind. He reeled and had to reach out for the side of the ship to stabilize himself.

“Are you all right?” asked Schwarzwalder.

Thatcher nodded without saying anything. He continued to breathe for several moments until he felt his head clearing. The ocean was thankfully calm and the ship wasn’t rolling. Thatcher leaned against the railing and then looked over at Captain Schwarzwalder.

“What the hell happened back there?”

Schwarzwalder shrugged. “Five men on duty overnight. While there was a skeleton crew on duty, they were slaughtered somehow.”

“But who — what — could have done that?”

Schwarzwalder eyed him. “I do not know. Certainly nothing that I can imagine. It is as if some sort of animal was loosed within that compartment with the sole purpose of devouring everyone inside.”

“I am unaware of any such animal that could produce such an amount of damage and devastation and leave no trace of it passing out of the same compartment.”

“Indeed,” said Schwarzwalder. “I saw no tracks. No footprints. Nothing. It was as if it materialized within the room, did its killing, and then disappeared in much the same way as it entered.”

“It’s impossible,” said Thatcher. “Nothing could have achieved that.”

“And yet, the results say otherwise,” said Schwarzwalder. “I would otherwise agree with you were it not for the very evidence we just witnessed.”

Thatcher shook his head. “I am no forensic scientist. Is it possible we missed something?”

“Nor am I,” said the Captain. “But I do not think we need to be to see what is obvious before us. There is, somewhere aboard this ship, a killer. We knew this already with regards to Adamson. But now it would appear that whoever is doing this is also intent on attacking my crew.” He paused. “How did you sleep last night?”

“Fitfully,” said Thatcher. “I tossed and turned all night long.”

“As did I,” said Schwarzwalder. He stared at Thatcher. “I wonder how your traveling companion found her first night aboard my ship?”

Thatcher frowned. “Surely you can’t be suggesting-“

“Why not?” asked Schwarzwalder. “She is already the prime suspect in Adamson’s murder. Is it such a stretch to believe she could have done this as well?”

“I don’t know,” said Thatcher. “Could she kill five men all on her own?”

CHAPTER 26

“There’s only one way to find out, I suppose,” said Schwarzwalder. “Let’s go and see her.”

Thatcher followed the Captain to the cabin where Cyra was being held. Along the way, Thatcher made sure to keep his eyes open. All of this traveling to and fro across the breadth of the ship was giving him a fairly detailed map in his head of how to get around. Fortunately, Thatcher’s status as an American didn’t seem to put Schwarzwalder off and he seemed content to have Thatcher around rather than keeping him locked up all day long.

As they approached Cyra’s cabin, the guard snapped to attention. Schwarzwalder addressed him in German. “Have you been here long?”

“Two hours, Captain.”

Schwarzwalder grunted. “And the man you took over from, did he have anything to report?”

“Nothing, sir. All was quiet during the night.”

Schwarzwalder frowned. “Very well. Open it up.”

The guard turned and knocked once before opening the door. Schwarzwalder entered immediately followed by Thatcher.

Cyra sat at her table eating breakfast. She looked up with a big smile breaking across her face. She seemed completely unlike how she was on the previous day, Thatcher noted to himself.

“Captain, Harrison. How lovely to see you both.”

“How are you feeling?” asked Thatcher. “You looked pretty ill yesterday.”

Cyra smiled some more. “I’ll forgive you for insulting my appearance. I must admit something did not sit well with me yesterday, but it was nothing that a good sound sleep couldn’t cure. I awoke a short time ago feeling imminently refreshed and strong as ever. Perhaps I had too much excitement with the Archimedes being boarded and subsequently sunk.”

Schwarzwalder leaned against the wall regarding her. “I must inform you that I am inclined to distrust that which you say. You are one of two suspects in the murder of the Archimedes Captain Adamson.”

“Am I?” asked Cyra. “And who is the other?”

“This man here,” said Schwarzwalder.

Cyra laughed lightly. “If you consider him a suspect, why does he travel about the ship with you as if he is a free man?”

“Because he has seemed less and less like the killer over the last twenty-four hours. While you, madam, have seemed more and more likely the candidate.”

“Rather an awful thing to tell someone upon first waking up,” said Cyra. “Do you treat all of your guests in this manner, Captain? Or is it just the women who inspire this level of hostility?”

“Your gender has nothing to do with my appraisal,” said Schwarzwalder. “Your inclination toward guilt does, however.”

“And why on earth would a Captain in the German navy care so much about the Captain of an enemy vessel? Isn’t that rather an odd thing? I would imagine most times you would be overjoyed at the death of an enemy.”

Schwarzwalder shook his head. “Adamson was not an enemy combatant. Nor was he an enemy at all. He was a spy in the employ of the German intelligence service, plying the routes between England and Spain and Portugal to great effect for the benefit of the Führer’s war effort. And seeing as he was killed, it is my duty to find the killer and report all findings to the High Command in Berlin for appropriate measures.”

Cyra nodded with solemnity. “It is apparent that you take your responsibilities very seriously, Herr Captain. But I wonder if you know the full story of Captain Adamson? Perhaps you have only known what those in charge wished you to know.”

Schwarzwalder frowned. “If you have some relevant information to the matter, it would behoove you to inform me of it. Otherwise, I can make arrangements to put you off at a nearby port and let the Gestapo have their way with you.”

“Do threats such as those ever succeed in having the effect you want them to have?” asked Cyra. “I would be willing to wager they do not. You know that you can catch more bees with honey than vinegar? Have you ever heard that expression before?”

Schwarzwalder frowned. “I don’t believe that is something that Germans would appreciate.”

“No,” said Cyra. “I don’t think they would. You tend to be far too pragmatic for your own good sometimes and lose sight of the fact that there are many ways to achieve a goal without always needing to resort to threats and aggression.”

Schwarzwalder came off the wall of the cabin and pointed a finger at Cyra. “Were you in this cabin all night?”

“Of course I was. Where else would I be? There’s a guard outside of my door, at least last I checked. How could I have gotten out?”

Thatcher’s eyes flitted to the porthole for a brief second but Cyra must have caught the movement because she laughed.

“Surely, Harrison, you aren’t suggesting I somehow managed to shrink myself down like Alice in Wonderland and crawled out of the porthole? And even if I was able to do such a fantastical thing, where would I go?”

“The engine room,” said Schwarzwalder then in a move that surprised Thatcher.

“And what is down in the engine room?” asked Cyra.

“Obviously the engines,” said Thatcher, heading Schwarzwalder off before the Captain could answer her. Thatcher wasn’t sure he wanted Cyra having all of the information that they knew. It would give her the advantage.

But Schwarzwalder apparently didn’t care. “There are five dead men down there.”

“How did they die?”

Schwarzwalder kept his gaze fixed on Cyra. “If I had to guess, I would say someone ripped their very bones from their bodies and feasted upon them.”

Cyra glanced down at her tray of food and then pushed it away. “Well, that is one way to ruin a woman’s appetite. Thank you, Captain. I was fearful I was putting a bit of weight on given the rich food I’ve been dining on lately. I don’t think I will have any problem avoiding meals for a while.”

“Perhaps you didn’t need to eat that breakfast at all,” said Schwarzwalder.

Cyra eyed him. “Are you actually suggesting that I had something to do with the deaths of those five men?”

“All I know is this: someone killed those men and I am down five crew members. You are the prime suspect in the murder of another man, therefore I don’t think I can be faulted for suspecting you in these murders as well.”

Cyra stood and turned around. “Look at me, Captain. I am but a solitary woman. I have no special strength, nothing out of the ordinary that you can see, and yet you think me capable of attacking and killing five men who are in the prime of their lives? Surely, you are either complimenting me in the most fantastical way or else you are courting insanity by such thinking.”

Schwarzwalder’s frown deepened and creased his forehead. “What would you do in my position?”

“Look for evidence. Isn’t that what all the detectives do?” Cyra sat back down and took a sip of her coffee. She frowned and tore open the sugar, dumping it into the swirling black drink.

“There is no evidence save for the mutilated bodies of the brave men who served with me,” said Schwarzwalder.

“In that case, you have no grounds to accuse an innocent woman of anything,” said Cyra. She turned her attention to Thatcher. “And I must say, Harrison, I am more than a little disappointed that you seem to have bought into this outlandish theory, such as it is.”

“I’ve bought into nothing,” said Thatcher. “I’m still trying to figure this all out as well.”

“And aren’t you the criminal anyway? How is it that the Captain seems more interested in prosecuting me for these crimes than he is with the most obvious choice of them all standing right in front of him?”

Thatcher shook his head. “Perhaps his instincts have determined that I am not the guilty party in this case.”

“And I am?” Cyra shook her head. “Well, as crazy as that is, I’m exceedingly annoyed at being accused of such monstrous actions. And I would very much like you to leave. Both of you.”

Schwarzwalder kept his eyes on Cyra. “This is my ship and I will go wherever I like, whenever I deem it appropriate.” He paused. “You are still aboard only by my graces, which are running dangerously short for your sake. I hope you will take this seriously because that is how I mean it: if I find out you had anything to do with the deaths of my men, I will see you handed off to the Gestapo and tortured to the extent that you will wish for death. Is that understood?”

Cyra’s eyes seemed to turn to stone as she regarded the Captain. “You have made yourself clear, Captain. The earnestness of your statement is heard and acknowledged.”

Schwarzwalder grunted once and then turned to the cabin door.

“Have a nice day, gentlemen,” said Cyra then. “I hope you find your killer.”

CHAPTER 27

Captain Schwarzwalder stood outside Cyra’s cabin and addressed the guard standing there. “I want to know if anything happens here, is that understood?”

“Anything… happens, sir?”

“Strange noises, any unusual requests, even polite conversation. Report it all to me.” He turned and strode down the hallway without waiting for the guard to acknowledge the order.

Thatcher hurried to catch up with him. “Well, that didn’t go precisely how I thought it would. She’s clearly not going to answer any of our questions.”

“And why should she?” Schwarzwalder frowned. “She knows we don’t have any evidence. And aside from the slaughterhouse we saw in the engine room, she’s absolutely correct. If this was any other time but war, she might be able to convince anyone of her innocence. But this is not such times and she is clearly willing to allow me to consult with the Gestapo on this. So I intend to. Eventually.”

“Eventually?”

Schwarzwalder steered them toward an outside deck and then followed the steps leading down toward the stern. “I have other matters to attend to first.”

By the rear of the vessel, Thatcher saw what remained of the five bodies wrapped in the flag of Germany. He found it interesting to note that the flags did not have the swastika on them. He mentioned this to Schwarzwalder who shook his head. “This is a German naval vessel, not an instrument of the SS. I would prefer to keep it that way as much as I am able. I answer to the High Command, not one of those crazy zealots.”

Thatcher stayed back while Schwarzwalder addressed the sailors that had gathered to send their comrades off to burial at sea. He spoke of their competence and their loyalty, praising them for their work ethic during these trying times. It was a speech of gratitude for their bravery and service, but also one of the need to keep their memory alive by doing their jobs as best they could given their deceased comrades and how well they had done theirs.

When he was finished, Schwarzwalder mentioned a bit of brief prayer and then ordered the bodies consigned to the deep. One by one, each sailor was slid overboard with a splash that barely echoed amid the churning motors of the ship itself. They couldn’t afford to pause in their journey even for a few minutes; it was vital they reach their operational grounds before any Allied ships were able to hunt them down. And they still had a very long way to go.

Schwarzwalder and his men stood there in silent respect for another five minutes until Thatcher felt that it might have become awkward had it carried on much longer. Then Schwarzwalder dismissed the men and told them to get back to work. As he came back toward Thatcher, he was interrupted by another officer who asked to speak with the Captain. They had a huddled conversation for several minutes and the officer gave Schwarzwalder something that Thatcher could not see.

When he left, Schwarzwalder approached Thatcher. He held up the item and Thatcher could see it was a piece of bone. He grimaced. “Is that what I think it is?”

The Captain nodded. “The ship’s doctor performed as much of a post-mortem as he could, which is to say, it wasn’t very thorough given the condition of the deceased. Still, he did have something to report that he couldn’t quite explain.”

Thatcher pointed at the bone. “And it has to do with that?”

Schwarzwalder handed it to him. “Take a look. What do you see?”

Thatcher turned the bone fragment over in his hand. It was roughly six inches long and two inches at its widest point. The bone fragment had been cleaned, that much was obvious because it was no longer discolored by blood or gristle. As Thatcher turned it over in his hand, he marveled at how light it was but he didn’t think that was what Schwarzwalder was referring to so he peered closer. The core of the bone was hollow. Thatcher stopped. He looked at Schwarzwalder. “Where’s the middle part of the bone?”

“The marrow is the word you’re looking for I believe,” said Schwarzwalder. “And that is precisely the point. There is none. According to the doctor, none of the bones he recovered had any, either.”

Thatcher shook his head. “What does that mean? Whoever killed these men did so for their bone marrow? That’s the reason the scene in the engine room was such complete and utter slaughter?”

“It makes no real sense,” said Schwarzwalder. “But that appears to be the case. If the bones are missing their marrow then one can only assume that was the goal of the killing itself: to obtain it.”

Thatcher sighed. “Why would anyone want marrow, though?”

Schwarzwalder shook his head. “I do not know. The doctor tells me that marrow is considered the source of certain blood cells. Perhaps that is the reason. But I do not pretend to have any real theory why anyone would want it. Let alone what they would do with it.”

Thatcher leaned against the nearby railing. “Let’s give some air to your theory about Cyra. Suppose she did kill Adamson-”

“That seems highly likely.”

Thatcher nodded. “I’m not arguing that point. She certainly had the means to do so. But one does not necessarily equate to the other.”

“But it does make it more likely than not.”

“Perhaps,” said Thatcher. “But what if there is something else aboard this ship that killed those men? Cyra’s cabin is guarded day and night.”

“Speaking of which,” said Schwarzwalder. “What happened to Steinkopf? He was with you up until we got to Cyra’s cabin. Then he vanished.”

Thatcher shook his head. “To be honest, I didn’t even notice.”

“In any event, you are correct: she is guarded day and night. There is no way for her to get out of that cabin without being seen. Unless she is somehow able to shrink herself down and exit through the porthole.”

Thatcher smiled. “Which we both know is utterly ridiculous.”

But Schwarzwalder didn’t comment on that. He paused and looked out at the ocean. “You know, I have always found the sea the source of security. Whenever I think about whatever problems may plague me, I simply stare at the ocean and they seem to vanish. There is serenity in its tempestuousness that I find reaffirming somehow. In some way, perhaps I find it to be a mirror of life; in all of its chaos, there is still a rhythm to it that can be used to soothe almost anything.”

“Perhaps except to find a killer,” said Thatcher. “After all, I too have guard on my cabin door.”

Schwarzwalder grinned. “Yet, here you stand.” He held up a hand. “I do not care that you are here with me. To be honest, I find your company welcome especially as I struggle to solve this barbaric crime.”

“Well, thanks. Please don’t give Steinkopf too much grief. Maybe he had to go to the bathroom or something.”

“Perhaps,” said Schwarzwalder. “No, there is no method that we know of for someone to shrink themselves down and exit through a porthole. That I know in as much as I have ever seen to be true. But what if someone has figured out how to do it?”

Thatcher shrugged. “But how? You would need to figure out how to alter mass, shape, size, body weight… it’s too fantastic to give credence to.”

“When one eliminates the impossible, what must be left is the possible, right?”

Thatcher grinned. “Supposedly.”

“What if the reverse is true? What if one eliminates the possible? What is left can only be the impossible.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning just what we said. Cyra’s cabin is guarded day and night. She cannot simply open the door and leave to do her killing. The guard would hear her and report the fact that she tried to leave. Which would be difficult because her door is also locked. There are no other doors that would provide her with an exit. Therefore, the one thing that would is the porthole. As impossible as it seems, that must be how she is leaving the room. Somehow, some way, she is able to do so — as impossible as it seems to both of us.”

Thatcher frowned. “You realize we’re delving into science fiction here if indeed that is the case.”

Schwarzwalder shook his head. “We’re delving into science non-fiction if indeed that is what is happening. We must be willing to consider it; we cannot afford not to at this moment simply because we do not possess a more palatable theory.”

Thatcher sighed. “You’re correct, of course. It’s just all so bizarre.”

“As impossible as it may seem, the deaths of five of my men are as real as you and I and we must confront that fact.”

Thatcher eyed him. “But only if we are correct: that Cyra is indeed the killer.”

CHAPTER 28

“I’ve waited long enough,” said Schwarzwalder then. “It’s time for me to radio Berlin and ask for instructions. They’ll be expecting it and any more delay will result in them looking at me rather than the person responsible for these deaths.”

“That’s my goose cooked then, too,” said Thatcher. “Once the Gestapo hear there’s an American aboard, I’m sure they’re going to want to have a sit-down with me as well.”

Schwarzwalder eyed him. “I don’t have to include you in the report.”

Thatcher smiled. “Very kind of you, but I’ve been seen by too many of your crew. All it will take is one of them accidentally mentioning the American and you’ll be relieved of your command and presumably shot given the stories I’ve heard coming out of Germany.”

“Your assessment isn’t incorrect,” said Schwarzwalder. “But I’m sure we can come up with something. Any Gestapo involvement would necessitate us putting in at a port that is neutral or at least friendly to us. It’s not like they can land a plane nearby and swim aboard. There’s still time, if you get my meaning.”

Thatcher wasn’t sure he did, but since Schwarzwalder didn’t seem in any hurry to hand him over to the Gestapo, it was all the better for him. If they ended up going into port, Thatcher would slip over the side and swim for it before he allowed himself to be handed over. He had no desire to wind up in a Gestapo dungeon and be tortured for all of his secrets, few though there were.

Schwarzwalder nodded as Steinkopf reappeared. “Make sure you stay with him this time.”

Steinkopf snapped to attention and then Schwarzwalder eyed Thatcher. “I’ll see you later. Perhaps after dinner. We can discuss our… options.”

Thatcher nodded and watched him go. He glanced at Steinkopf. “Where’d you wander off to?”

Steinkopf grinned. “I hadn’t eaten so I grabbed a quick meal. Then I got caught up talking with my friends about what happened down in the engine room.”

Thatcher shook his head. “The Captain was ready to throw you overboard.”

Steinkopf smiled. “Kapitän Schwarzwalder would do no such thing. He’s stern but a fair man. The dressing down he just gave me was his punishment enough. No one wants to disappoint him.”

“That was a dressing down?” Thatcher shook his head. “Rather gentle.”

“Schwarzwalder sees no need for elaborate punishments unless there is no other alternative. That’s one of the many reasons why we all love serving with him. He’s stern-“

“-But fair, yes you said as much,” said Thatcher. “In any event, it was horrible what happened down in the engine room.”

Steinkopf nodded. “The men are nervous but none of us will show it around the captain. We don’t want him to think that any of his crew are worried.”

“Even though you are.”

Steinkopf shrugged. “Can you blame us? Their bones were…” His voice trailed off as he shuddered.

Thatcher looked at him. He was young, perhaps only twenty. Maybe this was the first time he’d been away during wartime. Maybe he was still unused to the way of the world. Hell, he might have been a virgin for all Thatcher knew. It wouldn’t have surprised him. Steinkopf, despite his name, had a baby face and bright blue eyes that screamed innocence. Thatcher wondered if he truly was.

“Their bones were sucked free of their marrow,” said Thatcher then. He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d shared that nugget of information, but somewhere in his head he thought that a little fear running rampant among the crew might facilitate his true mission. There was nothing wrong with exploiting a situation for his personal gain, especially if it could result in sinking Raider X and giving Hewitt his victory.

“Marrow? What is that?”

“The core of your bones is made of marrow,” said Thatcher. “It produces blood cells in the human body, I believe the doctor told the Captain.”

“So whoever killed those men… did what with the marrow?”

“I have no idea,” said Thatcher. “But it certainly wasn’t left in the bones where it should have been.”

Steinkopf shook his head. “Horrible stuff. I can’t imagine having my bones ripped out of my body. It’s too gruesome to even think about.”

“And yet it apparently happened,” said Thatcher. “To five of your shipmates.”

Steinkopf crossed himself without apparently thinking about it. Thatcher smiled. He’d grown up Catholic but was as lapsed as it was possible to be. He didn’t think that God was going to protect Steinkopf or anyone else from whatever was killing people aboard this ship. But he knew that it wouldn’t stop the faithful from claiming they had his protection anyway. How many people had died still clinging to that notion in spite of their impending doom? Too many to count, he decided.

“In any event, I’m sure the Captain will figure things out,” said Thatcher.

“You think so?” asked Steinkopf.

There was a definite note of hope in his voice that Thatcher found cute. Steinkopf had replaced his own father with Schwarzwalder. He supposed a lot of the younger sailors did. They needed a father figure and Schwarzwalder was an appropriate choice. But whether the Captain could live up to their expectations was, of course, another matter entirely. Especially when someone was killing people on his ship.

“I’ll head back to my cabin now,” said Thatcher.

“Of course.” Steinkopf led the way and Thatcher noted that he was still armed with the pistol around his waist.

“Have you ever fired that gun before?”

Steinkopf glanced down at the pistol and shrugged. “In training. Captain also makes sure that we practice every week or so for the purposes of the boarding parties in case we ever run into any sort of resistance.”

“Has that ever happened? Resistance, I mean.”

“This is my first assignment,” said Steinkopf. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Ah,” said Thatcher. And there it was. Steinkopf was brand new to the sea. And already he was being confronted with the situation on the ship. “Well, I’m sure you’ll do just fine your first time out.”

“I have to work my way up to being a part of the boarding parties,” said Steinkopf. “Another few months of hard work at the very least. But I’ll do it and the Captain will see that I can hold my own. I’m more than capable of killing someone if they put up any sort of fight. I would die for the Fatherland and the Führer.”

“Don’t be in such a rush to kill,” said Thatcher. “It’s not what you think it is.”

Steinkopf stopped. “You think I’m a coward?”

Thatcher shook his head. “Not at all. I can see your bravery is apparent. But if you’ve never killed before then the image you have of what it’s like… it’s not like that at all. And it will haunt you. If you have to do it, then do it and move on. But I’m simply telling you that it’s not as easy as they would have you think. Stuff like that has a tendency of sticking with you.”

Steinkopf eyed him. “And you? Have you killed a man before?”

Thatcher paused and then nodded. “It was self-defense. He came at me meaning to cut me open. I had no choice but to kill him.”

“You killed him with a knife?”

In Thatcher’s mind he saw the scene replay itself as it often did late at night. How he had managed to avoid the swipe of the blade and grab it, ripping it free from the man he faced. The knife was slippery from sweat and then it cut his hand, sending blood all over them both as they toppled to the ground, grappling and struggling. Thatcher could hear the man’s grunts and exhalations as they both breathed hard, hearts hammering away inside of their chests. In that moment, there was no longer any civility; just sheer primal instinct to turn the blade upon the other and sink it home. And when Thatcher finally did, the knife went in far easier than he ever thought it would have, sinking its full length to the hilt. The shocked gasp of surprise followed by a slow exhalation as the man’s eyes locked one final time on Thatcher’s before rolling back as he slid away in a haze of blood, sweat, and exertion.

“Herr Thatcher.”

Thatcher blinked and the image vanished, leaving him once more aboard Raider X on the deck. A cool breeze blew over him and Thatcher realized that he had actually started sweating as he’d relived the memory. He looked at Steinkopf and took a deep, shuddering breath.

“Yes. With a knife.”

Steinkopf stared at Thatcher. “I can see it still haunts you.”

“At night, mostly,” said Thatcher. “But it is as vivid today as it was when it actually happened.”

Steinkopf turned away. “We should go.”

“Yes,” said Thatcher. And he followed the young guard off the deck.

CHAPTER 29

Thatcher didn’t see Schwarzwalder until well after dinner when Steinkopf knocked on the door to his cabin and informed him that the Captain was asking to see him. Thatcher followed Steinkopf who asked what Thatcher had thought of the dinner they had served today.

“The chicken was quite juicy. The potatoes could have used a bit more time boiling, I thought. But overall, quite good.”

Steinkopf nodded proudly. “The cook is one of the best. The Captain was able to procure him because of the nature of our work. Commerce raiders, like U-boats are able to requisition better crew and talent given the danger of our missions. The least they can do is give us a cook who can keep our spirits up when things take a turn for the worse.”

“Have they?” asked Thatcher.

Steinkopf just eyed him. “You tell me how things ought to be when five of your friends are brutally killed.”

“Point taken,” said Thatcher.

Steinkopf stayed silent for the rest of their journey until they reached Schwarzwalder’s cabin. He knocked twice and then opened the door for Thatcher to enter.

Schwarzwalder was perusing some file which he closed when Thatcher entered. “You’ve eaten?”

“I did,” said Thatcher. “I was informing Steinkopf that the cook is excellent and he told me that you were able to procure his talents.”

“Such as they are,” said Schwarzwalder with a smile. “We’re not as fancy as that ship the Archimedes that you cruised on, but we do all right. A good cook is invaluable to the morale of the crew.”

“Speaking of which,” said Thatcher. “You may have some problems in that department. Steinkopf mentioned that a lot of the men are a more than a bit upset at the nature of the killings.”

“They share the same frustration that I feel,” said Schwarzwalder with a grunt. “I’m not happy about them, either. As a Captain, it’s my job to bring my crew home after every cruise. I’m already down five men and we haven’t even started our official hunting just yet.” He glanced at Thatcher. “Taking the Archimedes, notwithstanding.”

“Noted,” said Thatcher. He pointed at a chair. “Do you mind?”

“Please.” Schwarzwalder moved his own chair to give Thatcher some room. Then the Captain let out a heavy sigh. “As I mentioned, I radioed Berlin and informed them of the situation. Both with Adamson and the recent killings.”

Thatcher nodded. “And I’m sure they were not happy.”

“An understatement to say the least. But they very much want to question Cyra so we’re being ordered to make for Tenerife where I’ll offload the woman and be done with her finally.”

“Tenerife?” Thatcher shook his head. “Never heard of it.”

“It’s part of the Canary Islands. A little more than three hundred kilometers off the coast of Africa. The Spanish own them, which is fortunate for us since they’re neutral to a point but they also owe Germany a great deal of money and have been known to help us quite a bit. We’ll find a friendly harbor when we arrive there. And I’m told the Gestapo have an outpost of sorts on the islands, so they can take ownership immediately and make plans to transfer her back to Berlin.”

Thatcher frowned. “What are the odds that the Gestapo had a unit in such a strange place?”

Schwarzwalder held up his hand. “I do my best not to ask any questions that I do not wish to know the answers to, especially when it comes to people like the SS and the Gestapo. It is better if my world does not intersect theirs as much as is humanly possible. I would prefer if it never did, but given the nature of these killings, I now find myself forced to put into port rather than continue on our trek into the Indian Ocean. Delays upset me and they upset my schedule. The sooner it is done, the better off I will feel.”

“Understood,” said Thatcher. “How soon until we reach Tenerife?”

“By my clock? Twenty four hours,” said Schwarzwalder. “And it can’t come soon enough. I want that woman off the ship.” He paused. “You know in the old days, they used to consider a woman on a boat as bad luck. I never put any sort of thought into it, but I’ll be damned if I don’t find myself wondering if there was any sort of wisdom to the notion in the first place, especially in light of what has happened.”

Thatcher smiled. “Superstition is one of those things a person can find a reason to believe in if they aren’t careful.”

“Indeed. But you must grant that it’s not as outlandish as you might have thought before all of this.”

“Indeed,” said Thatcher. “Although I would hope that there is nothing to it. It would certainly make cruising a thing of boredom were it not for the fairer sex aboard.”

Schwarzwalder frowned. “I’m a navy man. I can’t even imagine taking a cruise for pleasure of all things. My duty lies with my country and what I will do to help her win the war.”

“Then let us hope that your stay in Tenerife is a short one and that you proceed without any more issues on your way to the Indian Ocean.”

Schwarzwalder reached up and brought down the bottle of schnapps that he had produced the previous night. “Well, you said as much that you slept poorly last night. As did I. Let us hope another small drink won’t make it two nights in a row.” He poured a measure into two glasses and handed one to Thatcher. “Prost!”

Thatcher clinked his glass and drank the schnapps down immediately. It burned going down his throat but he relished the flavor of the strong drink. He put the glass back down on the small table and regarded Schwarzwalder. “There is that other matter we discussed.”

“Your matter,” said Schwarzwalder. “Yes. I have been thinking about that.”

“And?”

Schwarzwalder poured them both another drink and then leaned back, taking his time with this pour to savor it a bit more than he had the first time. “I think you should plan to slip over the side and vanish when we approach the port. There’s a portion of the channel that I think will be accessible and an easy swim ashore from the ship itself.”

“Sharks?”

Schwarzwalder shrugged. “The beasts are everywhere along this stretch of coastline and no doubt present around the islands as well. But they’re nowhere near as bad as they would be when we round the tip of the continent. I should think your chances are rather good, actually. Provided you swim quickly.”

Thatcher sighed. “Not exactly doing much for my confidence.”

“Better the sharks than the Gestapo,” said Schwarzwalder. “At least with the sea wolves, you’ll know the outcome once they take the first bite. I’d rather that then languish in some Gestapo prison being tortured nonstop.”

Thatcher frowned and sipped his drink. “Brilliant choices, the both of them.”

“Or you’re welcome to stay aboard and wait for the Gestapo to wonder why an American is here. No doubt they’ll have quite an extraordinary number of questions for you to answer and one would think that the time it would take to ask such a volume would preclude them from doing so on this ship, especially given the urgent need for us to be in the Indian Ocean.”

Thatcher grinned. “You do have a way with words, Captain.”

“Well, it’s your choice, Thatcher: swim with the sharks or get eaten by them once you’re carted back to Berlin. That is, if you even survive the journey. God knows what that woman will be like when they try to take her prisoner.”

Thatcher frowned. “I wouldn’t want to be around for that.”

“It’s fortunate that you didn’t start to have feelings for her.”

Thatcher shrugged. “I do my best not to. It tends to complicate things to the point that they fall apart rather quickly.”

“Indeed,” said Schwarzwalder. “I would hazard to guess that you do not allow feelings to ever complicate your life.”

“Yes and no,” said Thatcher. “But only when I can afford it. This was not one of those times. As delightful a companion as she may have been for the first twenty-four hours or so.”

“Then let us hope that the transfer is both speedy and efficient. I will let you know when you can slip over the side and make good your escape. You must be ready at a moment’s notice because no doubt they will be on the lookout for our arrival.”

“Noted,” said Thatcher. “Do you intend to tell Cyra what is going to take place?”

Schwarzwalder lifted his drink and sipped it before putting it back down on the table once more. He fixed Thatcher with a steady gaze and smiled. “Would you tell her?”

“No,” said Thatcher.

Schwarzwalder nodded. “Exactly.”

CHAPTER 30

Back in his cabin, Thatcher considered the choices before him. He’d lied to Schwarzwalder but it was more out of shame than any sort of tactical decision. The truth was, he had developed feelings for Cyra, albeit they were more powerful when they’d been aboard the Archimedes than ever since they’d been taken aboard Raider X.

He was embarrassed because he’d let himself fall for her before checking himself. Thatcher didn’t usually allow that to happen, especially a woman he didn’t even know. And yet somehow Cyra had beguiled him to the extent that even now he was considering whether to tell her of Schwarzwalder’s plan. He sat at the small table and thought about it. But as he did so, Hewitt’s face floated through his mind chastising him for letting a woman potentially derail the entire operation.

Because Thatcher still had a job to do. And that was sink Raider X.

How in the world he was going to manage that when they reached Tenerife was a serious problem. It meant that he would have to find some way of accomplishing the task before they reached the cluster of islands. Less then twenty-four hours.

Thatcher needed to get out of the cabin, down to the engine room where the scene of the slaughter was, embed some type of explosive and plant it near the keel so that the resulting explosion tore the ship in half and sent it to the bottom. He needed to do this without the benefit of a timer that would give him an exact amount of time to be near the lifeboats when it detonated.

No pressure, he thought with a frown. How come Hewitt couldn’t have spared any sort of time for training on how to be a saboteur?

He shook his head. Regardless of that fact, he still had the job to do and complaining about Hewitt’s lack of prepatory training wasn’t going to change the situation he was in currently. He needed to figure it out and carry on. That was it.

Thatcher had been on boats most of his life, although they were usually smaller and more exclusive yachts. But in principle, all of them had the same vulnerabilities. In this case, an explosion near the keel was what Thatcher needed. In and among his travels around the ship, he had noted the gun emplacements. There were always shells stacked nearby. But grabbing one of them wasn’t as simple as pick-pocketing a wallet. The shells were all about eighteen inches long and looked to weigh around fifty pounds. Taking one would mean Thatcher would need to somehow be alone and able to grab it and stow it somewhere until he could place it properly near the keel and work out how to make it explode at the right time.

The task was seemingly impossible while he was a prisoner in the cabin. There was no way Steinkopf or any other guard going to permit Thatcher to pop out and grab one. He smirked. “Lovely night for a stroll, isn’t it? Mind if I take that high explosive round?”

Accomplishing this mission was going to take every bit of guile he possessed and Thatcher frankly wasn’t sure he had enough of it to pull it off. That said, the ticking clock was driving him to consider any number of extraordinary options he might not have considered previously, including overpowering his guard, grabbing the shell, lobbing it into the engine room, and then quickly diving overboard before anyone knew what was happening.

He had already clocked the amount of time it would take to run from the engine room up to a side deck where he could dive off the ship as being somewhere around forty seconds. It wasn’t a lot of time in any other situation, but when you were on board a potentially sinking ship, it was a lifetime. And he would need to get past the guards and sailors who would be rushing to the engine room to put out any fires and contain the damage. Obviously, they would try to stop him.

If that was the fastest he could manage to get off the ship, then he would need to move faster. In his mind, Thatcher ran through the plan. There was nothing complex about it but one thing would hinge on all the others. If he couldn’t successfully take out his guard, then nothing else would fall into place. The time of night was also important and Thatcher figured that somewhere around three in the morning would work best. From his previous criminal activities, he knew that most people slept deepest around that time. The ship would only be slightly different. His guard would presumably be tired. If Thatcher made convincing noises like he was sick and the guard entered to check on him, he could use that to club him on the head, tie him up and gag him, and then get to work.

He leaned back from the table. It might work. It had to work, he quickly reminded himself. He was here at the behest of the Crown and he was alive for no other reason than to get this bit of work done. Forget Steinkopf, forget Schwarzwalder, forget Cyra — they were irrelevant to the matter at hand and Thatcher started preparing himself to do the job as soon as they got closer to the islands.

The other option to diving overboard would be to try to get one of the lifeboats down into the water. Or the motor launches that they used to board the ships they targeted. Thatcher wondered how quickly it took to free one of them. Probably far too long. And worse, if he was in any sort of boat, he was going to subject himself to fire from Raider X if the sailors spotted him and opened fire with any of the deck guns.

Still, it was better than swimming through shark-infested water.

Thatcher sighed. Schwarzwalder had told him they would be in Tenerife in twenty-four hours. That left tonight and part of the night tomorrow before they docked in port. If Thatcher did it tonight then he was still too far away from land to swim safely to shore and the sharks would easily take him before he reached land. That left tomorrow night. The activity level on the ship would be heightened due to the impending docking in port. It would have to alter his timeline. Three o’clock in the morning wasn’t going to be an option.

Unless Raider X stood just offshore until the following dawn and waited to pull into harbor during the daylight. Thatcher smirked. He was willing to bet that Schwarzwalder would do that. He was a proud German naval academy graduate and even though Raider X wasn’t a war vessel as much as a battleship, it was nonetheless a vessel in the German navy and he would want the locals to see the ship sailing in. Schwarzwalder was a proud man and proud of his crew. He would give them the opportunity to look the part that the vessel played when it wasn’t busy disguising itself as a merchant ship. And docking in the middle of the night, while tactically smarter, wouldn’t be what Schwarzwalder or his men would want.

Which meant an extra few hours to do the deed, Thatcher decided. Good. He could get everything into place in the meantime and not have to rush through this. Rushing, as he’d learned many times in his past, was the best way to make mistakes. Slower was better when it came to capers like this and he intended not to make any errors. His own life was on the line.

With Raider X standing just offshore, he could get the explosion accomplished and then slip overboard. If the ship sank, it would do so in relatively shallow water — perhaps no more than one hundred feet — but it wouldn’t matter at that point: Thatcher had accomplished what Hewitt had demanded. If not in the way that Hewitt had initially visualized, then at least to the letter of the law. Thatcher couldn’t be faulted for not sinking the damned ship in thousands of feet of water where it couldn’t be salvaged. Even though he doubted the Germans would bother launching a salvage operation in Tenerife.

He crawled into bed and turned off the light, laying there for several more minutes, replaying the scenarios in his head. He went through each of the steps in turn, from stealing the high explosive round to lobbing it into the engine room down near the keel. That was the best he was going to be able to do. He suspected that once he removed the safety device on the shell, it would explode on impact provided he threw it high and far enough within the compartment.

Hopefully, the blast didn’t kill him in the process.

CHAPTER 31

Schwarzwalder’s schnapps once again failed to do anything to guarantee Thatcher a good night’s sleep, however, and he found himself once more tossing and turning despite his best efforts to get rest. This time, instead of fighting it, Thatcher got up, but kept the light off, and dressed. He stalked toward the cabin door and put his ear against the door to listen. He could hear nothing and wondered if there actually was a guard outside of his room or not. He risked turning the knob and found that it was locked. But interestingly enough, no one from outside his cabin came in after he rattled it once or twice. Where was his guard?

Thatcher bent down and examined the lock as best he could in the darkness. It was a simple latch system that he could pick in seconds. He glanced around the cabin and found a pen with a clip that he removed and then worked into a useable shape. Then he slid it into the keyhole, carefully raked it against the lock, and heard the distinct pop a few seconds later.

Thatcher removed his improvised lock pick and slid it into his pocket. Then he squeezed and turned the door knob, cracking the door as he did so. A bit of fresh air swept into the room and Thatcher peered through the crack out into the hallway. It was the first time since he’d been aboard Raider X that he’d actually felt like he had freedom.

He stepped out into the hallway, glancing in both directions, but saw no indication of his guard anywhere nearby. Thatcher pulled the door shut behind him and then stalked to one end of the corridor. The ship was quiet even though a skeleton crew would still be manning all the duty stations. Outside on the deck, Thatcher saw one of the gun emplacements and looked around. No one was nearby. This was his chance.

Thatcher stole up to the emplacement and peered to the side, finding one of the shells. He picked it up, then turned and headed back to this room. This was the thing he needed to hopefully send Raider X to the bottom. Now he just had to conceal it somewhere.

He heard voices to his left, hushed but not too distant. He felt his heart rate kick up another notch and hurried back into the corridor where his cabin was. If anyone spotted him now, the gig would be up. He was holding a large shell and would have to answer questions as to why he was. Thatcher put it out of his mind, and stumbled a bit down the hallway toward his cabin door.

Behind him, he heard the voices louder now. Was it his guard? He had to hurry.

He reached the door, opened it, and slid inside.

But just as he did so, he heard the voices outside. It was his guard, which meant the Thatcher couldn’t re-lock his door at the moment without alerting the man. So instead, Thatcher crept across his cabin, hoping he didn’t trip on anything in the dark. He knew that he could hide the shell under his berth and it would be reasonably safe there provided he could keep the cylindrical round from rolling about. He would need to wedge other stuff against it to keep it from moving around. If something knocked against it and managed to release the safety, it could blow up right underneath Thatcher.

He frowned. Hewitt would get a two-for if that happened. Raider X might not sink and but Thatcher would be dead. Thatcher shook his head and continued stowing other gear against the shell. When he was finished, he felt a measure of relief at having managed to gain access to an explosive round he could use. He just had to keep it concealed for the next twenty hours. Only time would tell if he was capable of doing that or not. He hadn’t seen any indication that someone entered his room when he wasn’t there, but that could always change.

He was about to remove his clothes and try to sleep again when he heard a shout outside of his room. Quickly he got up and moved to his door. The voices on the other side were muffled but insistent. Thatcher couldn’t make them out aside from someone imploring the other to come with them.

Without thinking, Thatcher opened the door.

Steinkopf stood there with another man. They both looked at Thatcher in surprise.

Steinkopf nodded. “You’re awake?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” said Thatcher. “I was about to ask you if I could take a walk when I heard the commotion.”

Steinkopf frowned and seemed to be weighing something. Finally, he just motioned for Thatcher to come with them. “Another one of the crew is missing.”

Thatcher frowned but followed them both as they hurried down to the next deck. Thatcher recognized they were heading toward Cyra’s cabin. By the time they reached there, Schwarzwalder and several other sailors were already there. Schwarzwalder crouched on the floor and seemed to be examining something. He glanced up, saw Thatcher and looked about ready to yell at Steinkopf but instead motioned Thatcher over.

“The guard outside of her door is gone.”

Thatcher frowned. “When?”

“We don’t know. The man who was supposed to relieve him came down on time and found no one here.”

Thatcher eyed the cabin. “Has anyone been inside?”

Schwarzwalder stood and shook his head. “We only just got here.”

“What’s on the ground there?”

Schwarzwalder pointed. “It would appear to be a smear of blood, judging by the smell of it. But just a drop.”

Thatcher squatted and saw what Schwarzwalder had been looking at. Given the state of the engine room on the previous night, the fate of the missing man seemed fairly predictable. He stood again and looked at the cabin door.

“Knock?”

Schwarzwlader shook his head. “I’m done knocking.” He looked at one of the guards and asked for his pistol. The guard handed it over and Schwarzwalder chambered a round before taking the key and inserting it into the cabin lock. He turned the key and then stepped back.

As Thatcher watched, Schwarzwalder chambered a kick and then exploded forward into the cabin with the pistol at the ready.

Thatcher was inside immediately after the Captain, anxious to get a glimpse at whatever sight might be awaiting him within.

The cabin was empty.

Schwarzwalder lowered the pistol and shook his head. “She’s gone as well.”

Thatcher sniffed the air. He knew the smell of blood and it cloyed to the air of the cabin. Schwarzwalder must have smelled it as well because he frowned and then turned to the men that were assembled there.

“I want the woman who was in this cabin found. Turn the ship upside down. Two-man parties only. No one alone. Take guns and search everywhere.”

The men dispersed and Thatcher felt his gut twinge. If they searched everywhere then there was a good chance that they would find the shell in his cabin even though it was hidden. If they found the high explosive then they would naturally want to know why Thatcher had stolen one.

That wasn’t good.

Schwarzwalder eyed Thatcher. “You seem fully dressed.”

Thatcher nodded. “I couldn’t sleep again. Despite the best efforts of that wonderful schnapps.”

Schwarzwalder grunted. “The same fate befell me. I don’t know that I’ll have any degree of rest while that woman remains aboard the Loki. The sooner we find her, the better.”

“Where could she be?”

The Captain shrugged. “It’s a big ship. If she finds a crevice or a nook, she could hold out for a while until we finish searching.”

Thatcher eyed the pistol the Captain still held. “At least you all have weapons. I feel naked without one, frankly.”

Schwarzwalder chuckled. “Are you in any danger?”

“I might be.”

“You slept with her,” said Schwarzwalder. “Isn’t that what you told me?”

“Yes.”

“Then you should have nothing to fear,” said Schwarzwalder with a sly grin. “Unless, perhaps, you weren’t up to her expectations. In that case, you might have more to fear than any of the rest of us.”

Thatcher frowned. “Oh, that’s quite amusing, Captain. Thank you.”

“Maybe even now she waits for you in your cabin.”

“In which case, I’m a dead man,” said Thatcher.

“My men will find her,” said Schwarzwalder. “They will be methodical about how they search the ship. They will leave no place unchecked. If she is still aboard the ship, they will find her no matter where she chooses to hide.”

Thatcher took a breath and let it out slowly. That was exactly what he was afraid of.

CHAPTER 32

“How many men do you have aboard?” asked Thatcher a moment later.

“We had 340,” said Schwarzwalder. “We seem to be down six currently.”

It was a sizable crew, thought Thatcher. The Loki was long enough and big enough that Cyra could presumably hide in any number of locations. But why was she hiding at all? Had she actually killed those crew members? Had she killed the guard outside of her cabin? Thatcher wanted to put his own plan into motion but was seriously hamstrung by the fact that Cyra was off creating her own chaos.

Was there a way for Thatcher to take advantage of the chaos to make his own plan work? More importantly at the moment, was there a way for him to safeguard the shell he’d stolen from the gun emplacement? As soon as his cabin was searched, he knew they would find it. Schwarzwalder’s men weren’t lazy; they were professional sailors who would carry out his orders to the best of their ability.

That didn’t leave Thatcher much time. It was still the middle of the night. Could he secrete the shell to the engine room now? Thatcher dismissed the idea immediately. The damned thing weighed fifty pounds and was eighteen inches long. It was not the sort of thing he could waltz through the corridors carrying. He’d be stopped as soon as he stepped out of his cabin.

Gunfire sounded just as he was about to broach the idea of being free to walk around with Schwarzwalder. But the Captain pushed past him. “Come on!”

Thatcher ran to catch up with him and they raced down to the lower deck. There was commotion by the stern and then as they rushed closer, the sea plane that was strapped down to the Loki’s deck blew up, flames jetting away from it as the fuel burned. A second later, a massive fireball went up and the machine gun rounds exploded spraying everywhere.

Thatcher tackled Schwarzwalder to the deck as the blast went off and the bullets exploded. Thatcher kept their heads down until the chaos died down and there were no more bullets ricocheting anywhere.

They got to their feet slowly seeing the devastation before them. All around the deck were the bodies of the men who had been caught in the hail of bullets that had gone off. Thatcher counted at least two dozen bodies unmoving on the deck while scores more moaned and bled about the place.

Schwarzwalder grabbed the closest sailor. “What the hell happened?”

“One of the men thought he saw someone by the plane and fired at it. It must have blown it up.”

Schwarzwalder let the man go and shook his head. “Of course it blew up, the fuel in the wings would have caught as soon as the bullets touched it.”

“So it wasn’t Cyra?”

Schwarzwalder shrugged. “I have no idea if it was. She could have been there, but the sailor who shot should not have fired knowing what could happen.”

Medical teams raced to help those who could be saved. Schwarzwalder moved among the injured and dying, taking his time to tend to them. Thatcher glanced around and knew he wouldn’t get a better opportunity than this. He turned and ran back toward his cabin, ducking inside as more sailors rushed past him, seemingly oblivious or uncaring what Thatcher was up too.

As other armed parties moved past, Thatcher told them that there were tons of injured on deck. He wasn’t lying. The explosion of the plane had effectively whittled down the Loki’s crew considerably. And if Cyra was on the prowl, then there was a chance she was going to have her fill as well.

At his cabin, Thatcher grabbed the shell and headed toward the engine room. As he descended toward it, he had to stop once and shove the shell into a crevice while more sailors pushed past him. They eyed Thatcher but no one asked him what he was doing. Thatcher retrieved the shell and moved deeper into the bowels of the ship while more alarms blared around him. He had no idea if the plane was still the issue or if some new chaos had erupted. He wondered if Schwarzwalder even realized he was gone yet.

Probably. The Captain was astute. Although he was also preoccupied with tending to his men.

Thatcher took another set of steps that were steeper and he had to juggle the shell carefully as he did so. The sooner he got the damned thing into the engine room, the better he would feel. He just didn’t want to be seen carrying it. That would pretty much end his chances of sinking the damned boat if someone did see him. There was no way ammunition like this would ever be housed near the engine room. It didn’t take a scientist to realize that Thatcher intended to sabotage the ship.

He had almost reached the engine room when he heard voices up ahead. They were speaking rapidly but Thatcher by now was accustomed to hearing German and knew they were worried about what was happening on the ship. He looked around for a place to hide the shell or himself. But the length of the corridor he was in afforded him no chances to hide.

There were two sailors walking toward him, so Thatcher decided his best course of action was to bluff and be confident. He’d used it any number of times in the past. The fact was, if you acted like you were doing something proper, most people wouldn’t even think twice. Act guilty and you radiated vibes that attracted inquisition.

So as they approached one another, Thatcher merely nodded. “Ein verrucht nacht.”

“Ja,” said the first sailor with a grim laugh. The other chuckled as well and then they passed Thatcher. Thatcher was about to breathe a sigh of relief. It had worked.

“Halt!”

He turned, still cradling the artillery shell in his hands. Both of the men eyed him as if realizing for the first time that the American had spoken German to them. Then their eyes went down to the shell that Thatcher carried. They exchanged a glance with the other and one of them nodded at Thatcher. “Why are you carrying that shell?”

“Captain’s orders,” said Thatcher still in German. “I don’t know why. He was busy tending to the dead and dying up on the deck.”

“How many of them are dead?” asked the other sailor.

Thatcher sighed. “I don’t know. Perhaps twenty? The explosion was horrible. I was caught in it too.”

“Since when do you speak German?” asked the first man.

Thatcher smiled. “I’ve been speaking German since I got here. My family is German.”

But the sailor shook his head. “No, I don’t think you have. You’ve spoken English. I’ve heard the others talking about how you don’t speak any German. And now you’re down here with that shell… I don’t think the Captain told you to bring that down here.”

“But he did,” said Thatcher. “Go and ask him yourself.”

“Oh I will,” said the sailor. “But you’ll be coming with us.”

Thatcher hefted the shell. Fifty pounds was getting harder and harder to hold onto. He’d made it this far on adrenaline alone but the fact that he’d been seen now was beginning to affect his strength and he wanted nothing more than to put the shell down.

“Fine,” he said with a sigh. “But I’m not lugging this thing back up to the main deck only to have to carry it back down here when the Captain tells you I was telling you the truth.” Thatcher eased the shell down to the floor and stood it up so it leaned against the wall. He wiped off his hands which were all sweaty and looked at the sailors. “Lead on.”

But as he said those words, a shape filled the area behind the two sailors and Thatcher couldn’t believe what he was seeing. A darkness rose up behind the two men voiding out all of the light in the corridor.

Before Thatcher could even say a word, the two sailors turned at almost the same time and saw what was behind them.

It defied description but then there was no more time. The shape fell upon the men and they both screamed.

Thatcher backed away as the shape fell upon both men and started tearing them apart. He squatted, grabbed the shell, and ran.

Behind him, the sounds of carnage still reached his ears and made Thatcher consider blowing himself up right then. But the engine room lay somewhere ahead of him and he knew now more than ever that he had to reach it and blow this ship to smithereens.

What he had just seen could never be allowed near land.

CHAPTER 33

Thatcher reached the entry to the engine room and paused long enough to place the artillery shell down next to the door where hopefully no one would see it. Then he entered the engine room and called out, “Hilfe mich!”

The replacement engine room crew members who numbered three looked up and started running en masse toward Thatcher. He pointed back the way he’d come and shouted that the men in the hallway were being attacked by something. Before they could ask any questions, Thatcher was shouting for them to hurry and they did as he told them, rushing out of the engine room before reason could prevail.

Thatcher waited just long enough for them to get some distance before retrieving the artillery shell. He had just sent those men to their deaths presumably, but he chose not to focus on that at the present time, but rather concentrate instead on the mission at hand: sinking Raider X.

Where to stow the artillery shell? The engine room was a complex affair and Thatcher was unfamiliar with the nature of the engines that he now faced. He could tell that Raider X had two screws, not one. And judging by the names on the machinery, there were four diesel Kupp-Germaniawerft and two Siemens Schuckert motors. What that meant to Thatcher amounted to little but he assumed the engine technology was new and probably gave the Loki a cruising speed of at least eighteen knots per hour.

But he did know that placing the shell close to the bottom of the engines would likely amount to the most damage when the shell exploded, especially since it would hopefully shatter the keel and let thousands of gallons of sea water in as soon as it broke apart. That would help send the ship to the bottom within minutes, Thatcher felt confident in assuming.

Thatcher heard a fresh round of screams issue forth from somewhere behind him. He frowned and sweat broke out along his hairline. If that was indeed Cyra back there killing then there was a good chance she was going to come after him when she was done killing the rest of the crew.

Concentrate! Thatcher chided himself for thinking about her at a time like this. He moved ahead and found a nook underneath the main engines close to the shafts turning the screws where he could nudge the shell into. A moving part was good and Thatcher knew that it was a matter of time before it struck the tip of the shell and caused the explosion. Or so he hoped. Without thinking, he removed the safety pin and then turned to get the hell out of the engine room.

But as he did so, he saw the form of something blocking the exit.

“Hello, Harrison.”

It was Cyra’s voice, he knew, but Thatcher could find no other indication that the creature before him was in fact the woman he had slept with just days previously. What in the world had happened to her?

“What are you?” He asked before reason could prevail.

There was a painless followed by a chuckle of sorts. The air was caked with the scent of blood and Thatcher knew the body count was surely growing by the minute. “I am what you saw before you. What you made love to. Just...different now.”

“You were a woman,” said Thatcher. “Of that I have no doubt.”

“I still am. Just not as you knew me.” She paused. “I am better now. So much better.”

“But how?”

“A special experiment conducted by a doctor gifted with extraordinary foresight. He was intrigued with the idea of melding two life forms to produce a better one,” said Cyra. “I was the first successful recipient of the formula. The ones who got it before me were not this lucky. There are some who, unfortunately, did not accept the alterations as easily as I did.”

“Meaning they died?”

“Meaning they were unfit for being let loose into the world to do the Führer’s bidding,” said Cyra.

“The Führer? You mean you’re working for the Nazis?”

“Of course. I was sent to kill Adamson. He had turned double-agent and was spy for the British. The only just punishment for his treason was death.”

Thatcher frowned. “Fair enough, but we’re on a German ship now. Why would you want to kill the crew and destroy the ship?”

“Orders,” said Cyra. “It was suspected that Schwarzwalder might be aiding his brother. The people who command me determined that this ship should be destroyed as a result.”

“You’re telling me the Nazis would see their newest flagship commerce raider destroyed because the captain might be helping a traitor?”

“Yes.”

Thatcher shook his head. “That makes no sense. You could have easily just killed Schwarzwalder and left the ship alone.”

“That was the original intent, but Schwarzwalder had suspicions about me from the start. That meant that my original plan would no longer suffice, and I had to adapt the plan accordingly. I was told that if I could not get to the captain, then destroy the ship.”

That shook his head. “No, that can’t be all of it. There’s something else special about this ship that the Nazis don’t want falling into British hands. That’s the only explanation for the order to destroy it. What is it? A new radar system? A code machine?”

“I don’t feel compelled to answer those questions,” said Cyra. She paused. “And now that you know all about me, what are you doing bringing a shell down to the engine room?”

“I don’t know all about you,” said Thatcher. “Why kill these men in such a horrific fashion?”

“The serum that gives me the ability to… mutate is dependent on the blood cells found in bone marrow, hence the need for me to ingest it. There’s nothing supernatural about what I am, I am merely an evolution of humanity that is far superior to modern man.”

Thatcher studied the creature before him. She was half again as tall as she had been which meant she towered over Thatcher and any other man aboard the ship. Her face was drawn back as if someone had grabbed the entire front of her head and yanked it back into her hairline. Her neck resembled the turkey-esque features that Thatcher had seen on many old women. But she was obviously not as weak as an elderly woman or man. Cyra radiated a bizarre strength that frightened Thatcher and kept him from moving. Perhaps it was the way her arms now resembled muscular claws rather than the dainty appendages that Thatcher remembered from before.

Cyra spread these arms now and smiled at Thatcher. “Don’t be scared, darling. We could still have some fun.”

“Fun?” Thatcher shook his head. “What sort of fun would you want to have? You’d rip the bones out of my body and eat the marrow from them.”

Cyra shook her head. “I would not dream of doing such a thing.”

“Really.” Thatcher frowned. “And what makes me different from any of those poor men you’ve already killed?”

“I haven’t just been sent out into the world to do the bidding of my masters,” said Cyra. “There’s yet another reason for my release. Another experiment, if you will.”

“Which is what?”

“Procreation, of course.” Cyra smiled at Thatcher and he could see that the front teeth had also morphed into pointy fangs that reminded him of a vampire. But Cyra was no blood sucker. Just a terribly mutated version of a woman. It was then that her words finally reached his ears and he heard what she was saying for the first time. It nearly caused him to retch.

“There’s no way I’m impregnating you.”

“But you had no problem bedding me before, Harrison. In fact, I think you quite enjoyed yourself the other night.”

“I did. But that was before I knew the truth of what you actually are.” Thatcher took a breath. “And that’s a deal breaker right there.”

Cyra stepped down into the engine room, closer to where Thatcher stood. “Men are such fools. Driven only by what they see before them. Imagine, Harrison, being part of something extraordinary.” Cyra looked down at herself. “Look upon the glory and triumph that this mutation has caused within me. I am stronger now than any other woman on Earth. Most men as well. I have had my genes mutated to transform into what awaits us all eventually. Now the goal is to discover whether this can be passed down from mother to child. That is where you come in, Harrison. You could be the father of the first generation of mutated offspring. It is a glorious honor to have bestowed upon you.”

“I don’t think so,” said Thatcher. “I’m not really ready for children yet. Too much responsibility.”

“You would have no cares in the world about raising them. They would be cared for by the same team of scientists that created me.”

“That makes me feel even less good about doing it then. There’s no telling what those kids would be subjected to.”

Cyra’s eyes narrowed. “You disappoint me, Harrison.”

“Well, then that makes two of us.”

CHAPTER 34

But even as Cyra spread her arms and moved toward Thatcher, there was a burst of gunfire from behind her and she reeled forward. Blood spattered the air and Thatcher didn’t wait. He took off running out of the forward exit from the engine room, hoping that the motor shaft would detonate the artillery shell and sink Raider X. And if it happened to take out the monstrosity that was Cyra, as far as Thatcher was concerned, all the better.

He had no idea what sort of scientific evil genius had masterminded the experiment upon hera, although he was willing to bet that Hewitt might know. But the end result was a shocking and terrifying display of what happened when mankind thought they were the gods of creation. Some things, Thatcher decided, most definitely should never be trifled with.

Down the corridor away from the engine room, Thatcher ran into Steinkopf heading in the opposite direction with a machine gun at his side. “Herr Thatcher!”

Thatcher grabbed him. “You don’t want to go back that way, kid. There’s something terrible in the room.”

For a moment, Steinkopf hesitated but then Thatcher saw the look of determination come over his face. There was no way he wasn’t going to go back there. Especially when his buddy came up behind them both and pushed past Thatcher. Steinkopf hurried after him. Thatcher watched them go for a moment and then turned and headed for the upper deck.

Several bursts of machine gun fire echoed out of the engine room and caught up with Thatcher as he ran. The screams took longer to reach his ears, but they too came with startling speed. Thatcher sped his way toward the open air. If anything, it was now preferable to take his chances with the sharks than it was to remain on Raider X with what had once been Cyra.

Part of Thatcher had hoped that there might be another seaplane aboard Raider X that he could use to make his escape in. But the only one had been destroyed in the explosion when Schwarzwalder’s men had fired at the plane and set it ablaze. He wasn’t sure where he would have flown anyway. He’d practiced taking off but he really had no idea how to navigate once he was in the air. His flight lessons had been interrupted by his arrest back in England.

That left the motor launches that he knew would require more men than just himself to get down to the sea.

Or the lifeboats.

Thatcher knew that most of the newer model lifeboats could be operated by a single soul in case of extreme emergency. He was counting on that being the case for the ones on Raider X. He just had to reach them before Cyra caught up with him.

He wondered if the bullets he heard being fired across the ship were having any sort of impact on her. Was she even susceptible to gunfire at all? Or did she simply shrug them all off? Maybe she had the ability to heal herself, thought Thatcher. Who knew what sort of bizarre powers manipulating her genes had given her. If nothing else, Thatcher needed to get this information back to Hewitt. If they could find out where these experiments were being conducted, they could bomb the place back into the Stone Age and not have to worry about anyone else like Cyra being released into the world ever again.

He broke out on to deck and gulped fresh air by the bow of the ship. He looked back and wondered if he should close the door leading back inside. He didn’t think it mattered. If Cyra was somehow able to stretch and shrink herself down so she could get through the porthole in her cabin, then no amount of barring a door was going to keep her contained. She would go wherever she wanted to go on this ship and kill as she pleased.

It struck Thatcher as insane that the Nazis would permit one of their assassins to kill as many sailors as Cyra was doing at the moment. Even less likely was that they would permit the sinking of their newest and most lethal commerce raider. And yet, here she was doing exactly that.

There had to be a reason why. And even as Thatcher looked ahead and saw the lifeboats that hung ready to drop and further away saw the first lights from the islands that Raider X was steaming toward, he instead chose to dash for the bridge. Anything of import was likely to be there somewhere.

It was foolish as hell and he knew it. But he also knew that the destruction of Raider X and her crew was apparently vitally important to the Nazis. Which meant it had to be carrying something that Hewitt would most likely love to get his hands on.

He dashed up the steps toward the bridge. Even as he did so, more gunfire broke out elsewhere on the ship. What was the body count now? Had Cyra whittled down the crew to almost no one? Were there bodies scattered everywhere, broken and ripped apart as the others had been? Thatcher shuddered at the thought of how Steinkopf must look now that he was dead. He and his friend had raced right into the thick of things. With a gulp of air, he chose instead to shut the image out of his mind and concentrate on reaching the bridge.

When he did so, he found but two sailors there. One manned the wheel and the other was busy on the communications equipment, desperately radioing ahead for help. That was when Thatcher saw it: a small box about the size of a thick suitcase that was attached to the cipher machine nearby the radio operator. It looked like something that a typewriter might fit in. Thatcher had heard whispers of German encoding devices. Was this a brand new machine they were trying out on Raider X for the first time? If so, the Allies would obviously be desperate to get their hands on it as soon as possible.

The sailor manning the wheel was unarmed and so was the radio operator. That was fortunate. But what concerned Thatcher now was that the shell in the engine room had not yet detonated. Perhaps it never would. Maybe Thatcher’s idea of placing it near the shafts was a stupid one. Blame it on Hewitt, he decided for not training him up to speed on sabotage techniques.

But he still had a job to do. So even as he broke onto the bridge and both sailors suddenly looked up, Thatcher was breathless and gasping as he pointed back the way he’d come. “There’s some sort of creature on the ship. It’s killing everyone. You’ve got to hurry.”

The sailor on the wheel turned back and kept his eyes fixed on the far port of Tenerife which was drawing ever closer by the moment. The radio operator sent one further distress call and then removed his headphones and stood up.

“Where are the weapons?” asked Thatcher. “We need to arm ourselves.”

The radio operator looked at the wheelman who only nodded. The radioman motioned for Thatcher to follow him. He led the way to a small room at the back of the bridge that was locked. He fished a key out of his pocket and opened the door. Inside Thatcher saw a small assortment of pistols and machine guns along with a crate of grenades, the potato mashers he’d seen in newsreels before his arrest.

The radioman handed a pistol to Thatcher who promptly clunked him over the head. The radioman dropped to the floor of the bridge and Thatcher grabbed a handful of grenades and stuffed them into his belt. He stepped out and stepped behind the wheelman. Too late the sailor realized it just as Thatcher knocked him unconscious with the butt of the pistol. He dropped to the floor of the bridge as well.

Thatcher eyed the port. It was dark out so he only had the lights of the harbor to go by but he estimated they were only a few miles away. Tune was running short.

He ducked out of the bridge with the pistol at the ready. It had been years since he’d shot a gun, but it came back to him easily as he chambered a round and headed down below.

If he could manage to reach the engine room again, he would hurl the grenades inside and then run for the life boats. If he could get one down he could slip over the side and row to shore even as Raider X was going up in a ball of flames.

He hoped.

CHAPTER 35

With the gun in hand, and grenades stuffed into his belt, Thatcher made his way down the steps once more into the belly of the ship. The gunfire was more sporadic now than it had been and he wondered if there were any survivors or if Cyra had killed them all. Such a ruthless stance toward a ship and her crew was truly horrifying to Thatcher especially given there were three hundred and forty souls aboard this ship that would soon be dead.

He needed to end this now. As he made his way deeper into the bowels of the ship, he slowed. Yes time was rolling by he also didn’t want to run into Cyra. For all he knew she could smell him anyway. But if Thatcher could keep away from her he might just have a chance to fulfill his mission after all.

It was on the third level down that he thought he heard something close by. But for whatever reason he didn’t think it was Cyra. It sounded far too furtive to be her and Thatcher thought he knew her well enough that she would no longer be sneaking about but rather fully embracing her mutated state.

So who was it?

Thatcher proceeded with caution, pausing at key intervals to determine if he was getting closer to the person who was ahead of him. He heard a few more shots ring out but nothing sustained. Cyra was probably combing the ship looking for any survivors to kill.

Which meant that aside from Thatcher and the two men he had incapacitated back on the bridge, there might only be a few survivors left.

His mind drifted to Schwarzwalder. Where was the captain of Raider X and what was he doing about the creature on his ship? Was he already dead? Probably, thought Thatcher. Cyra was relentless and would stop at nothing to ensure that Raider X and its crew were destroyed. Those were her orders after all.

If he’d had time to debate with her, he might have asked deeper questions about her abilities and how she’d managed to get them. Cyra didn’t strike him as a Nazi and she certainly didn’t look like one but they had obviously gotten her to agree to be experimented on with devastating results. Had they offered her something she couldn’t find elsewhere?

The questions would have to wait, Thatcher knew. And if he was successful, he would never get answers to them.

He had no idea what the depth of the water was, but he figured it would be deep enough that if he could trap Cyra below decks when the explosion happened she would be unable to escape and find herself trapped by the immense water pressure. At least that was the plan. As Cyra had demonstrated, she didn’t play by anyone’s rules but her own. And those who commanded her.

Thatcher just needed to make his way to the engine room and finish what he had started. He felt sure that a couple of grenades exploding would surely detonate the artillery shell as well, which was far more powerful and capable of ripping a hole in the keel. He just had to reach it.

He crept along the corridor now, still hearing faint noises up ahead of him. Whoever it was, they seemed to be heading in the same direction as Thatcher.

Steinkopf was presumably dead; he had rushed into mayhem when Thatcher had tried to stop him. He didn’t know who else might be left.

He reached a junction and squatted before peering around the corner. There.

A lone figure armed with a pistol and a bag slung over one shoulder crept along the same corridor. Thatcher gave a very low whistle and the person stopped.

Turned.

Thatcher breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it was Schwarzwalder. The Captain looked relieved as well upon realizing it was Thatcher behind him. He waved him forward and Thatcher came abreast of him.

“Thought I was the only one left alive,” said Thatcher

Schwarzwalder grinned. “You and me both.” He eyed the grenades. “What are you planning to do with those??”

“Blow up the ship. Destroy the creature. Whatever it takes.”

“A couple of grenades aren’t going to do the job,” said Schwarzwalder. “You need something bigger than that.”

“I managed to get one of the artillery shells down into the engine room earlier before I had to flee from Cyra,” said Thatcher. “I thought if I threw the grenades inside they might trigger the shell as well and rip a hole in the keel.”

Schwarzwalder laughed. “There’s armor plating under the keel, it won’t work. Not without scuttling charges.” He gestured to the bag he was carrying. “Which I happen to have.”

“You’re going to scuttle your own ship?”

“It’s either that or risk that thing escaping. I’d rather the ship went down with her on it than her being able to escape. We can’t let that happen.”

“Agreed,” said Thatcher. “So where do we put the charges?”

“In the engine room but under the main engine assembly. If we blow that, the resulting explosion will shred the ship’s engine and blow a gaping hole in our underside, armored plating and all.”

“Excellent,” said Thatcher. “We just have to make sure we don’t run into Cyra.”

Schwarzwalder frowned. “I haven’t heard any gunfire in a few minutes. Do you think everyone else is dead?”

“Yes,” said Thatcher. “We’d be fools to think otherwise.”

Schwarzwalder sighed and Thatcher knew he was feeling the loss of all of his men. He gave him a quick moment and then nudged him forward.

“We need to keep moving.”

“All right,” said the Captain. And they headed off toward the engine room.

“So what’s the truth about Adamson?” asked Thatcher. “Did you know he was spying for the British as well?”

Schwarzwalder grunted. “I knew. He’d asked me for some help and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I saw him again.”

“How did he communicate with you?”

“And old system we had worked out many years ago when we were first in the navy together.”

“You never mentioned you were in the navy together just that you were always on separate ships.”

“I didn’t know how much you might know already. Better to keep things private if at all possible.” Schwarzwalder sighed again. “In any event I wasn’t sure if I could help him. I mean my family is still in Germany. What if the Nazis found out?”

“They did find out,” said Thatcher. “Cyra is here to kill you for betraying your country.”

“But I did no such thing,” said Schwarzwalder. “I only agreed to meet with him. But by that point it was already too late. He was already dead.”

“Cyra killed him as well. Her orders come from someone in the Nazi chain of command,” said Thatcher. “And worse, she’s been sent to destroy your ship for whatever it is that you’re carrying aboard here.”

Thatcher expected Schwarzwalder to deny the fact that the ship had anything classified on it, but instead the Captain nodded slowly. “The new cipher wheels for the Enigma machine. If those fell into Allied hands then they would be able to break all of our latest codes. It could prove devastating for Berlin.”

Thatcher made a note to try to get back to the bridge before he jumped overboard. Getting his hands on one of those new cipher wheels would be a tremendous benefit and might even get Hewitt to let Thatcher go back to his old life.

“We need to sink the ship,” said Schwarzwalder. “It’s the only way to ensure the wheels are safe and that Cyra is dead.”

They moved further along the corridor and gradually drew down to the engine rom itself. The hallways were littered with the dead. The corridor had been painted in blood. Bodies torn asunder, corpses laying askew with limbs literally ripped off. Bones jutted out of pockets of skin where they shouldn’t have in the first place. And the stench of death made the place reek.

Thatcher stopped counting the dead after reaching fifty. There were scores more besides but it didn’t matter. As far as he knew, there were three people left alive on the ship: him, Schwarzwalder, and Cyra.

The only question that remained right now was whether he and Schwarzwalder would be able to scuttle Raider X and somehow make it off the ship alive before Cyra tore them apart as well.

A few gun shots echoed from somewhere else on board behind where they had come from. Schwarzwalder looked hopeful but then they heard a scream and both men knew that whoever it was was now dead also.

There was nothing left to do but finish the grim task before them.

CHAPTER 36

They rushed to the engine room since it appeared that Cyra was somewhere behind them finishing off the rest of the crew. “I don’t know why bullets wouldn’t even bring her down,” said Schwarzwalder as he motioned for Thatcher to follow him across the room toward the main engine assembly. “Once it seemed apparent we couldn’t kill her, I should have given the order to abandon the ship.”

“And what good would that have done? There’d be no one left to buy us some time and she would have succeeded in killing everyone. The Loki seems doomed regardless.”

“You believe in superstition?”

“Not really. I make my own luck.”

Schwarzwalder grunted. “I would expect a criminal to say something like that, even one as talented as you are.” He suddenly saw the artillery shell and smiled. “I see what you were trying to do here but it simply wouldn’t have worked. Still, see if you can unwed that from where it is right now and bring it over to where I’ll set the charges.” He bent to work pulling the explosives out while Thatcher attempted to get the shell out of where he’d put it.

“I had a dream the night before we put to sea,” continued Schwarzwalder. “In it, I lost my ship. Everyone on it was dead. They were walking around and I knew they were all dead. Just vacant mindless eyes staring back. And they gradually realized I was still alive so they started chasing me all over the ship until there was nowhere left for me to flee.”

“That’s not a good dream to have at any point, let alone the night before you leave port.” Thatcher managed to free the shell from where he’d placed it and he carried it over to where Schwarzwalder was setting packages of some grayish material and running wires back and forth to them. “How’d you feel after having a dream like that?”

“Like putting to sea was the last thing I wanted to do. But it was my duty so I kissed my wife and children good-bye and tried to put it all out of my head. That’s what a captain has to do.”

“You’re a good man,” said Thatcher. And he meant it. He didn’t view Schwarzwalder as the enemy. This wasn’t Thatcher’s war, frankly. And if they’d met at any other time, it was likely they might have even become friends. In effect, they had over the course of a few days together. “And it’s apparent your men respect you tremendously.”

“Well, they did, perhaps,” said Schwarzwalder. “Before I let that creature aboard and she started killing them.”

Thatcher nodded at the explosives. “Are those almost done? The sooner we get out of here, the better.”

Schwarzwalder nodded. “Almost done running the detonation cord into the timer. How much time do you think we need to reach the lifeboats?”

“I’m assuming the motor launch is too much trouble to lower?”

“We’d need at least two more men to get it down properly. The lifeboats are designed for quicker launch times in case of emergencies.”

“Ten minutes?” asked Thatcher. “That should give us enough time to try to sneak quietly back to where we need to be.”

Schwarzwlader grunted and set the timer. When he was done, he stepped back and looked at the scene. Then he moved forward, wedged the packages of explosives in tighter so they almost blended to some extent with the main engine. The artillery shell was noticeable but there wasn’t much they could do about that. “All right, it’s done.”

“Let’s move then,” said Thatcher. “The sooner we’re off the boat, the safer I will feel. You know, unless Cyra has the ability to fly as well.”

Schwarzwalder sighed. “I’ve heard whisperings and rumors that there were scientists being rounded up to work on special projects for the Führer. Some of them sounded nightmarish. But they went anyway. Hitler seems to have taken advantage of the natural curiosity that drives a man of science to forget their humanity.”

“There’s nothing scientific about being a monster who creates another monster,” said Thatcher. “They could all be working for a greater good and instead they’re helping drive Hitler’s twisted agenda of racial purity. It’s disgraceful any way you try to cut it.”

“Give me one of your grenades.” Schwarzwalder took one from Thatcher and then led them out of the engine room. “We can discuss such things at a later time. Right now, we need to get out of here.”

Thatcher brought his pistol up as they left the engine room and carefully made their way up the stairs. The only noises remaining aboard the ship were those made by the engine as it continued to grind away, spinning the propeller shafts and other ambient noises. Thatcher had no doubt Cyra was anxiously searching for them. She would know who she had killed and who she had not. Neither Thatcher nor Schwarzwalder had stood before her since Thatcher’s run-in at the engine room the first time. Cyra would relentlessly scour the entire ship until she found them. The goal was simply to reach the lifeboats and lower them without being attacked.

Thatcher thought about heading for the bridge but disregarded it. His safety was paramount in his mind. Grabbing the cipher wheels would have been nice but they weren’t even part of the overall mission in the first place. Hewitt would have been overjoyed if he’d managed to grab them, of course, but as long as Thatcher fulfilled the other parameters of his mission, he didn’t think Hewitt would have such a problem with it. Hell, Thatcher didn’t even have to tell him that they were on board. After all, he hadn’t even been briefed about them.

Schwarzwalder brought them out on to the lower deck and the fresh air hitting his face felt like a massive relief to Thatcher even though they still had half a boat length to go to reach the life boats. The Captain kept his pistol up and ready to shoot while Thatcher did the same. Together they moved ever closer to where the life boats were kept, hanging on a simply pulley system that would allow anyone to drop them to the sea below.

Neither man said anything as they crept forward, but Thatcher’s heart raced at the thought of being able to finally get off the ship. Schwarzwalder reached the lifeboats first and tucked his pistol, away in his holster before checking the rigging on the pulley. He nodded for Thatcher to do the same at his end.

Thatcher reluctantly put his gun away. Then he looked at Schwarzwalder and nodded. It was an easy enough system. A simple release valve would allow the pulleys to start working and the life boat to descend. Schwarzwalder nodded once more and Thatcher released it, grabbing the ropes as he did so to ease the boat as gently as they could to the ocean below.

The fifteen foot wooden life boat eased down toward the churning waves far below and Thatcher’s heart again kicked up with adrenaline and excitement. They were close.

That was when the rope in his hand suddenly broke away from him and the life boat fell down at an angle as the bow tipped toward the waves while the stern still under Schwarzwalder’s control was still on a higher level than that.

“Shit,” said Thatcher before he could stop himself.

“Stand clear,” said Schwarzwalder then. He dropped the line in his hand and the life boat leveled out before finally hitting the waves with a grand splash. But the noise from the pulley reels had been louder than the surrounding night and Thatcher looked around worriedly half expecting Cyra to materialize out of the darkness and tear him apart.

The life boat bobbed in the surf below, the lines still attached to the side of Raider X, and started being dragged through the waves as Raider X continued to plow ahead. If they didn’t time their jumps correctly, they’d have to swim to reach the life boats or Raider X would simply tow the boats away from anyone who dove overboard.

“You first,” said Schwarzwalder checking his watch. “I’m the Captain, after all.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“That I’m the Captain?” Schwarzwalder grinned at him. “Yes, I’m absolutely-“

But even as he said the words, a dark form reared up behind him and grabbed him up in her claws. Cyra ripped Schwarzwalder’s left arm off, releasing a gout of blood that sprayed everywhere. Schwarzwalder screamed.

Thatcher yanked his pistol out and started firing at Cyra, even though he knew that it would do no good.

She had come for them at last.

CHAPTER 37

The bullets from Thatcher’s gun seemed to punch into Cyra right around her heart but they did little to affect her. She tossed Schwarzwalder’s body aside as she still gripped his arm in her other claw. This she tilted it toward her mouth and suckled at the tip of his humerus, creating an awful suckling sound that made Thatcher’s stomach lurch.

He had no idea if Schwarzwalder was dead or not, but the wound was grievous and he lay still on the deck as Cyra calmly finished her meal of marrow and tossed the arm over the side of the ship into the ocean below.

“Now that we’ve gotten everyone else out of the way,” she said. “How about you tell me the truth of why you’re here, Harrison?”

Thatcher frowned. He was out of bullets and the gun was useless anyway — the rounds had done nothing to affect Cyra.

“And what truth would that be?”

“You’re not a criminal. You’re here for another reason.”

Thatcher shook his head. “You’re mistaken. I am a criminal. I was in jail before my escape. If you don’t believe me, I don’t care. But that’s the truth.” And it was, just carefully edited. Thatcher had lied a great many times in his past and the thing that made people believe was by building them on a foundation of truth.

But he’d never lied to a creature like Cyra before and he didn’t know if she was as gullible as most humans were. Hell, was she even human anymore? Thatcher couldn’t figure it out. She looked more like a monster than the woman he’d slept with and even the image of that revolted him now. What in the world had he copulated with?

“We’ll see how much your lies hold up when the Gestapo get their hands on you.”

Thatcher frowned. “And what about you? You’ve been living a lie the entire time you knew me.”

Cyra shrugged. “I’m not bound by any code of decency. I do whatever it takes to get my assignment done. That is it.”

“You should have been honest with me,” said Thatcher. “I had no idea you were-“

“What? Something out of the realm of your nightmares?” She paused. “I must admit I was reluctant to share my essence with you because of it. What those scientists were able to do to my body is nothing short of amazing and I am proud to be their finest creation. But it is also a heavy weight to bear. I am only able to assume the form you made love for a short time before my appetite gets to be too much and my desire to reveal my true essence gets to be too overwhelming. I must both feast and be in my true form to be at peace.”

“How did they do that to you?”

“They are scientists. I make no claim to understand what they are doing in the Polish countryside. I was merely the beneficiary of their expertise. Or their horrible visions, one or the other.”

“And now what? You destroy the ship because of the cipher wheels on the bridge?”

Cyra shrugged. “I am a weapon to be used for whatever the Führer requires of me. That is my role in this world. I exist for no other purpose.”

“To what end, though? To kill and destroy. And then what? Eventually, all wars end. What happens to you then? Do you somehow get made back into the woman you were? Or are you what you are for the rest of your life?”

“Why do you care, Harrison? Would you love me for what I was even if I could no longer look like an average woman? Could you find it within your heart to love me when I look like this? For that matter, could any man?”

“Probably not,” said Thatcher.

“At least you’re honest.” Cyra cast a glimpse next to Schwarzwalder’s body. “Such a shame that he turned out to be a traitor to the Reich. There were great things ahead for him if he had simply followed orders. But he let family love get in his way and as such, he had to be punished.”

Thatcher wondered how much time was left on the bundle of explosives in the engine room. How much time had elapsed since he and Schwarzwalder had fled and lowered the life boat? It couldn’t be that much longer, could it?

Cyra regarded him. “If I had my way, I might actually keep you alive for a little while.”

Thatcher cocked his head. “To what end? Your dream of procreation? It’s not gong to happen. There’s no way I’m going to sleep with you again.”

“I don’t need your penis to make a baby,” said Cyra. “Only what is contained within your seed. And there are plenty of ways to gather that then by simple copulation. Your involvement can be as pleasurable or as painful as you want it to be.”

“You want to do it right here? On deck? Right now?”

Cyra laughed which sounded like someone was choking on their own spit. “Don’t be foolish. For an experiment like that to be successful, it must be done under carefully controlled conditions. There’s no way it would work on a ship like this.”

“So what, we head for Poland?”

“Something like that. What do you say?”

Thatcher shook his head. “What in the world would you expect me to say? The idea is ludicrous and there’s no way you’re getting any of my sperm for your crazy experiments. The last thing I want is for any of my future children to look the way you do right now. Or do any of the horrible things you’ve done here tonight.”

“What horrible things?”

“You’ve slain the entire ship. Three hundred plus are dead because of you.”

Cyra seemed to frown although Thatcher couldn’t be sure if it was actually a frown or not given how twisted and misshapen her face now was. “That was a necessity. As I said, my appetite sometimes gets the better of me and it must be sated before I can regain any semblance of control over myself. Have you ever known such hunger before, Harrison? Or perhaps it would be better described as desire.”

“I thought you were pretty desirable before I knew your truth. Now I’m horrified at what you’ve become.”

“Only because you don’t understand the essence of what I am.” She paused. “But perhaps that can be changed if you take a journey with me. I would need to get it cleared first but the idea is an interesting one.”

“What idea?”

Cyra laughed again. “Perhaps you could become an instrument of the Reich as well. The two of us could work together wreaking fear and havoc upon the Allies and anyone who stands in the way of the Führer and his dreams world conquest. We would be unstoppable. There would be nothing that could kill us.”

“How so? A lot of people have guns.”

Cyra nodded. “Indeed, but bullets can be turned aside if you skin is altered and mine is. The benefit of dining on marrow is that it contains very base level cells that rapidly aid in healing me. Unless the damage is catastrophic, there is little that can kill me. And the same could be your truth if you just let it happen.”

Thatcher shook his head. “I rather like the way I look at the moment.”

“As do I,” said Cyra. “You were a rather delicious human for the time we spent together. It was a shame I couldn’t reveal my true self to you then because the experience would have shattered every vision of reality that you possess. And you would long for such a tryst again and again.”

“I don’t know if I agree with that assessment, but even still I’m not in any sort of hurry to transform myself into a creature I can’t even look at in the mirror. And I’m certainly not about to go to work for the Führer.”

“You don’t even know his grand plans yet, Harrison. What would be the problem with simply hearing him out?”

“Because I’ve seen what he’s capable of.”

At that moment, a deep boom sounded from within the bowels of the ship and it listed abruptly to one side. Thatcher felt his feet slip out from under him as he went down to the deck. Schwarzwalder’s body slid closer to Cyra who adroitly regained her balance and footing as if nothing had happened.

“I see the Captain has decided to scuttle the ship. Excellent.”

Thatcher got to his feet.

Cyra started to come toward him. “It’s time to go.”

CHAPTER 38

“How are we getting out of here?” asked Thatcher.

Cyra pointed overboard. “We’ll jump. There’s a lifeboat down there and I imagine that the Gestapo unit currently in Tenerife will be more than happy to meet us once we get closer.”

Thatcher frowned. “How did you know about the Gestapo being there?”

Cyra smiled. “They’re there because of me. This was all planned from the start right down to the timeline. Schwarzwalder was foolish enough to believe that he was too clever for the German High Command. But once his communications with Adamson were intercepted, it became necessary to put a plan into action to destroy every part of the conspiracy.”

Another explosion sounded within the ship. This one sounded even more dire than the first and the ship listed in the other direction for a moment before again listing to the starboard side.

Cyra frowned. “We need to leave now. I can’t swim that well.”

Thatcher laughed out loud. “Are you joking? After everything those scientists did to you, you mean to tell me that you can’t swim? How utterly ridiculous is that? How come?”

“I don’t like the water,” said Cyra. She looked at the ocean which was now closer than it had been. “But a quick dunk should be fine and the life boat is still tied up to the side so I’ll be fine.”

Thatcher backed up. “I’m not going with you.”

Cyra frowned. “Don’t make me kill you, Harrison. We had some fun together. But the time to go is now. Your future is assured once you are safely off of this boat.”

Thatcher shook his head. “You’ll have to kill me.”

Cyra chuckled. “You don’t want that. You have no idea how much pain I could put you through. Stop being a fool.”

But Thatcher backed up even more trying to put space between them. Another explosion echoed up from below and the ship listed more. Now a hole opened up in the deck and Thatcher could see the sea water rushing into fill the void. There were seconds left to make his decision. It had to be now or never.

Which is when he saw Schwarzwalder use his one arm to drag himself up, first to his knees and then to a squat before finally standing. He had the grenade that he’d taken from Thatcher back in the engine room in his hand. He put it to his mouth and pulled the safety ring out, spat it on the deck and stumbled forward pressing the grenade into Cyra’s back. For a moment, she actually seemed surprised, but then her shock turned to rage.

“Jump!” Shouted Schwarzwalder. “Jump now!”

Thatcher didn’t hesitate, but turned to his right and leapt off the deck even as the grenade exploded and tore both Cyra and Schwarzwalder apart. Or at least that was how it looked in the split second of time that Thatcher had actually caught a glimpse of what was going on before he crashed into the sea.

He came out of the waves spitting and gasping. Above him, the whole starboard side of the ship was dangerously close to the sea. Thatcher swam for his life and made his way to the lifeboat. He had to untie the rope before it was all pulled under when the ship went down.

Thatcher managed to grab the side of the lifeboat and pulled himself aboard before stumbling forward to where the rope was tied. He studied the knot and tore into it but it was soaked from the seawater and didn’t want to budge.

“Come on!” Thatcher shouted at the knot as his fingers ripped away doing his best to untie it. He felt some give and pushed for more as he kept swearing under his breath. Raider X loomed above him as if it would come crashing down and crush him unless he managed to get the life boat freed in time. He heard more explosions now and an awful creaking that told him that metal was being bent by the inexorable assault of the water.

One of the knots came undone and Thatcher scrambled to untie the next. Who had tied this damned thing? He thought nautical knots were supposed to be easy to untie in case of an emergency.

There!

The rope came free from Raider X and instantly the lifeboat started drifting away. Thatcher collapsed in a heap in the boat struggling to get air into his lungs.

Raider X’s main engines groaned once and came to halt as the ship listed even more almost now completely on her side. Thatcher got both oars into their oarlocks and started pulling to get away from the ship. He knew when it went down it would create a huge sucking void that could pull him under as easily as if he’d been swimming nearby.

Which is when he saw Cyra’s head break the surface twenty yards back in the direction of the ship. “Harrison!”

She was struggling in the waves. Thatcher could see the fear in her eyes. How in the world had she still managed to survive a grenade exploding right in her back? She should have had all of her internal organs blown apart. And yet she was somehow in the water now desperately trying to claw her way toward the life boat.

Thatcher kept pulling for all he was worth.

Raider X was sinking fast. And already Thatcher felt the ocean pulling on the life boat to drag it back and under. He groaned as he pulled harder on the oars, straining in their oar locks under his exertion.

“Harrison! Save me!”

Cyra’s voice carried to him despite the crashes and explosions coming from the ship as it yielded to the immense pressure of the ocean. Thatcher could see the desperation in Cyra’s face. She had apparently not been lying about not being able to swim.

But he didn’t stop. Whatever she was, he couldn’t save her. He would have lost his own life in the process and he had to get back to England. Not just because he’d completed his mission but because Hewitt needed to know about what the German scientists were creating in the Polish countryside. If there was one creature like Cyra then there would be others unless those same scientists were stopped.

He pulled harder now as the backdraft of ocean water threatened to drag him into the maelstrom vacuum that the sinking hulk of Raider X created. Cyra was being sucked back toward the ship now, screaming and gurgling. Waves washed over her head and she coughed and sputtered as she was yanked into the vacuum.

But still her eyes locked on Thatcher’s and he felt his heart lurch. He’d never considered himself a cold and heartless man before, but as he pulled on the oars he knew what the priority was. And as hard as it was to watch her die, that was exactly what he had to do.

Raider X seemed to take a huge gulp of air and then with a mighty groan, it rolled beneath the churning seas sucking everything down with it. Despite his best efforts, Thatcher was being pulled toward it as well. His arms screamed at him as he tore at the oars trying to pull against the toughest current he’d ever felt in his life. Its pull seemed interminable and without yield and yet he knew that if he did not find a way to escape, he was surely as dead as Cyra.

He spotted her head one final time before she was sucked beneath the surface into a watery grave.

But still Raider X demanded more and sought the lifeboat that Thatcher occupied.

“Come on, baby, come on!”

Thatcher wrenched the oars again and again. He had blisters breaking out and popping even as he did so but he shut out the immense pain lancing through his hands and kept pulling as hard as he could. Over and over again he pulled even as he heard the roar of the vacuum so frightfully close that he thought he was surely going to drown at any moment.

But then with a final gasp, the vacuum released its hold on him and Thatcher felt the lifeboat surge away from the spot where Raider X had sunk. He kept pulling. Part of him thought it was entirely possible that Cyra would somehow find a way to break the surface and claw her way onto the life boat. Thatcher just kept pulling on the oars until he could no longer feel his arms.

Only then did he collapse back into the lifeboat, groaning from the amount of exertion he had just expended.

Silence fell over the entire sea, broken only by the lapping of waves against the bow of the lifeboat.

Thatcher lay there gasping for air for what felt like hours.

Right until a passing fishing boat found him.

CHAPTER 39

TWO WEEKS LATER…

“That’s it, put the det cord in just like so. Good. And now step back.” The instructor peered over Thatcher’s shoulder eyeballing every little action he took. He was an older fellow with quite a number of missing teeth. But he hadn’t lost any of his fingers so far which made him a legend among demolitions instructors.

“Initiating!” said Thatcher with a yell. He fired the trigger and the log which he had just finished wiring up with plastic explosive went boom and rose several meters into the air before coming down with a fearsome crash in the clearing on the expansive grounds of the mansion in the Scottish Highlands.

“That’s taking it down,” said the instructor. “Piece of piss. Nicely done.” He clapped Thatcher on the back. “We’ll make a saboteur out of you yet.” He nodded back toward the main house. “Right, run along, I think someone’s come up to have quick word with you.”

Thatcher glanced back in the direction of the mansion house which had been converted to a barracks for the trainees of this course, albeit a very luxurious barracks indeed. Meals were cooked from whatever game roamed wildly across the hundreds of acres that was owned by the family so Thatcher had been eating quite well, feasting on quail, deer, and even wild boar. But if they ate well, the DS — directing staff — made sure they also worked it all off with early morning runs and “beastings” — exhausting bouts of exercise and calisthenics. Then there was the hand-to-hand combat and knife fighting that they worked hard to drill into Thatcher. Firearms were also of paramount concern so every afternoon was spent live firing on the ranges they had built.

It was an impressive place and Thatcher took off at a slow jog meandering down the paths until he emerged from the woods and came abreast of the manicured lawns. In a pinch, the lawns could double as runways for a squadron of fighters and short range bombers. But right now, the hundreds of yards of green reminded Thatcher of some of the estate he had grown up back in the States. And yet, here he was in the midst of a war that wasn’t even sanctioned as yet by his home nation.

He wondered if that made him a traitor or not? He couldn’t figure out if fighting for a friend was some sort of crime. In any event, he was already a convicted criminal so what difference did it make?

He had been sleeping better than he’d expected as well. Thatcher felt certain immediately afterward that his sleeping hours would be plagued by dreams of Cyra and her last evil stare at Thatcher as she had been sucked beneath the waves. Yet despite that memory of her, Thatcher had been able to compartmentalize it and move on. Even the doctors who asked him about the mission as part of his training now seemed perfectly content with Thatcher’s ability to rationalize what he had done as necessary to ensuring he lived to communicate some of the things he had discovered in the midst of the operation.

Hewitt stood about a hundred yards away, dressed as if he was out for a brief holiday in the countryside. He had a pipe in his mouth which Thatcher thought fit him rather well, although he felt certain Hewitt would have preferred a stiff measure of brandy rather than a smoking pipe.

Thatcher slowed to a trot aware that he no longer sweated profusely as he did upon first arriving here. The runs were not as taxing now that his body had grown accustomed to the physical training. He had also packed on some decent muscles which he did not mind seeing reflected back when he looked in the mirror.

“Looking rather fit, aren’t you?”

Thatcher slowed to a walk now and shook hands with Hewitt. “Thanks. The training seems to suit me.”

“Indeed,” said Hewitt. “I’ve heard good things about you from all the DS here, including the doctors who have been probing those inner recesses of your mind to see if they could discover whether you have the sort of stuff that we like in our agents.”

“They were wondering if I carried any guilt from what I did,” said Thatcher. “And the truth is, I don’t. It was a matter of priorities, I guess. Plus, I didn’t want to allow you the satisfaction of having me die on the operation. I figured the least I could do was survive and make your life miserable for a little while longer.”

Hewitt chuckled. “I probably deserved that, didn’t I?”

“You always like rescuing the condemned and sending them off on suicide missions?”

Hewitt shrugged. “The Department of Sacrificial Lambs. What do you think of the name?”

“Sounds horrible,” said Thatcher. “Is that what we are?”

“Until I find some more wayward souls with nothing else to lose,” said Hewitt. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any friends about to be executed that I could offer a job to, have you?”

“I appear to be fresh out,” said Thatcher. “Besides, this job has crap for perks. And the pay isn’t much, either.”

Hewitt held up his hand. “Now, now, that’s not entirely fair.” He handed Thatcher an envelope.

Thatcher took it and opened it. Inside was a bank note showing a very sizable deposit had been made at a bank in London in his name. Thatcher looked up at Hewitt. “Is that really mine?”

Hewitt nodded. “Indeed it is. From a grateful Crown for your service. With Raider X out of the way, you’ve saved countless tonnes of shipping. It was felt that appropriate renumeration was definitely in order. Plus, the extra intelligence you were able to supply was also deemed invaluable to our war effort.”

“Thank you,” said Thatcher. He paused as they started walking along the gravel foot path. “Did you know?”

“About what?”

“Adamson. That he was a Nazi spy?”

Hewitt smiled. “I wasn’t running him, if that’s what you mean. He was an SIS agent. He’d been instrumental in sending disinformation to the Nazis. His loss will be felt dearly. We have no idea what Schwarzwalder would have done if he’d been able to connect with him. There’s some thought that we might have been able to turn him as well, but I’m not so sure.”

“Neither am I,” said Thatcher. “Schwarzwalder was a principled man. He cared more for his family than whatever government he worked for. But he would have tried to find a way down the middle where he could help Adamson without sacrificing his family.”

Hewitt shook his head. “That way never works, unfortunately. You can’t walk a fine line in the middle when you’re caught between opposing forces. Only fools and cowards think that is the best way. Sooner or later, you’ll have to take a side.” Hewitt stopped walking and looked up at Thatcher. “Speaking of which: have you decided yet?”

“Decided what?”

“On whether you’ll take a side or not?” Hewitt lit a match to his pipe and breathed in, stoking the tobacco within the bowl until it glowed red and a halo of smoke issued out of it.

“I would have thought it was readily apparent by now,” said Thatcher. “I didn’t vanish when I had the chance to.”

It was true. After being picked up by the fishing boat in Tenerife, Thatcher could have easily made his way back to the mainland and ended up in either Portugal or Spain. He evaded the Gestapo waiting at the harbor and managed to secrete himself aboard a merchant ship plying the waters under a neutral flag between the Canary Islands and the African mainland. Once in Morocco, he snuck aboard another ship bound for Lisbon and there, he headed right for the British Embassy who tucked him away on a plane and flew him back to England at first light.

Hewitt puffed on his pipe. “If it makes any difference, I never would have kidnapped your aunt.”

Thatcher nodded. “It does, actually. Thank you.”

Hewitt started walking again, his feet crunching the gravel underneath. Thatcher fell into step beside him. “So… what’s next?”

“What’s next is you finish your training here. That’s imperative. I can’t send you out again unless you have the prerequisite skills needed by someone in the field. If Schwarzwalder hadn’t aided you in demolishing Raider X, I don’t know that you would have been able to do it with your makeshift skills.”

“But I now have the skills,” said Thatcher.

“They need refinement,” said Hewitt. “You nearly obliterated that poor pine tree a while back.”

“You saw that?”

Hewitt said nothing but just chuckled as he puffed some more. Finally, he took the pipe out of his mouth. “After much debate, it has been decided that your next outing should be to confirm the existence of what Cyra told you. Namely the laboratory that seems to be modifying people and turning them into some sort of super soldier.”

“Poland,” said Thatcher.

“Indeed,” said Hewitt.

“How long do I have?”

Hewitt checked his watch. “A few days. No more. Time is of the essence. We can’t have super soldiers running around decimating our boys on the battlefield. That simply will not do.”

“It’s going to be dangerous,” said Thatcher.

“Extremely so,” agreed Hewitt.

“The Department of Sacrificial Lambs, huh?”

Hewitt shrugged. “It’s just a name. So try not to live up to it will you?”

And with that, he spun on his heel and started back toward the mansion house. Thatcher stood there for another moment with a smile on his face before following after him.

Harrison Thatcher will return in

THE EICHERT FORMULA

^{Coming soon!}

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jon F. Merz is the author of over 50 novels ranging from urban fantasy to espionage and sword & sorcery fantasy. Prior to becoming a full-time writer Jon served in the United States Air Force, protected a variety of Fortune 500 executives, and taught defensive tactics to government agencies like the State Department, Bureau of Prisons, and others. He is an active CrossFitter, a 5th degree black belt in Togakure-ryu Ninjutsu, enjoys doing GORUCK challenges, and in 2014 started acting (starring in The Cars That Made America on History Channel and in the new scifi feature film MOTHER/ANDROID) He lives each and every day by the motto, “Who Dares Lives.” He and his wife Joyce (who runs the hugely popular food blog The Tasty Page) live with their two sons in suburban Boston.

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THE LAWSON VAMPIRE SERIES

1. The Fixer: A Lawson Vampire Novel

2. The Invoker: A Lawson Vampire Novel

3. The Destructor: A Lawson Vampire Novel

4. The Syndicate: A Lawson Vampire Novel

5. The Price of a Good Drink: A Lawson Vampire Story

6. The Courier: A Lawson Vampire Mission

7. The Kensei: A Lawson Vampire Novel

8. Enemy Mine: A Lawson Vampire Story

9. The Ripper: A Lawson Vampire Novel

10. Rudolf The Red Nosed Rogue: A Lawson Vampire Story

11. Interlude: A Lawson Vampire Story

12. The Shepherd: A Lawson Vampire Mission

13. Red Tide: A Lawson Vampire Story

14. Frosty The Hitman: A Lawson Vampire Story

15. A Fog Of Fury: A Lawson Vampire Mission

16. Invitation to Dance: A Lawson Vampire Story

17. The Crucible: A Lawson Vampire Novel

18. Oathbreaker: A Lawson Vampire Story

19. Do You Kill What I Kill? A Lawson Vampire Story

20. Incident at Palmyra: A Lawson Vampire Mission

21. Lady of the Dead: A Lawson Vampire Mission

22. A Forced Disappearance: A Lawson Vampire Mission

23. Here Comes Santa Claus: A Lawson Vampire Story

24. The Succubus: A Lawson Vampire Novel

25. The Koryo Escort: A Lawson Vampire Mission

26. Daughter of Night: A Lawson Vampire Mission

27. Roll-Up: A Lawson Vampire Story

28. The Arcanum: A Lawson Vampire Novel

29. The Bakeneko: A Lawson Vampire Story

30. Let It Blow, Let It Blow, Let It Blow: A Lawson Vampire Story

31. Ghost Work: A Lawson Vampire Mission

32. The Specialist: A Lawson Vampire Story

33. A Deadly Silence: A Lawson Vampire Story

34. The Estranged: A Lawson Vampire Story

35. ’Tis The Treason

THE LAWSON VAMPIRE ORIGINS SERIES

1. Dead Drop: A Lawson Vampire Origins Story

2. The Enchanter: A Lawson Vampire Origins Novel

3. The Cairo Connection: A Lawson Vampire Origins Mission

4. Mission: Malta: A Lawson Vampire Origins Mission

5. Have Yourself A Deadly Little Christmas: A Lawson Vampire Origins Story

6. The Infiltrator: A Lawson Vampire Origins Mission

7. Killing Around The Christmas Tree: A Lawson Vampire Origins Story

8. Ghost In The Machine: A Lawson Vampire Origins Story

9. The Snitch Who Stole Christmas: A Lawson Vampire Origins Story

ALSO BY JON F. MERZ

The Harrison Thatcher Series

Raider X

The Eichert Formula (coming soon)

The Ninja Apprentice Series

The Lost Scrolls of Fudo Shin

The Tsuba of Kotogawa

Hand of the Yakuza

The Death Master Series

Black Widow Rising

Dark Incelebration

The Zombie Ryu Series

Torn Asunder

Memories

The Shadow Warrior Series

The Undead Hordes of Kan-Gul

Slavers of the Savage Catacombs

Temple of Demons (coming soon)

The Rogue Angel Series (as Alex Archer)

Warrior Spirit

Soul Stealer

Polar Quest

Sacrifice

Footprints

Sacred Ground

Phantom Prospect

False Horizon

The Oracle’s Message

Labyrinth

Fury’s Goddess

Standalone Books

Parallax

Vicarious

Danger-Close: A Jake Thunder Adventure

Prey

This Time of Night (collection)

And many more books & stories at Jon’s website!

https://www.jonfmerz.net/all-on-one

Copyright

Copyright © 2021 by Jon F. Merz

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.