Page 103 of Shadow Ticket
“…so you can appreciate that to hand over the U-13 to the ship-breakers makes no more sense than it would to commit suicide myself—wait, what’d I just say…”
Indeed. As he would later come to explain it, that moment was the beginning of his new career of nonbelligerence, though other forces were already at work, running, you could say, deeper—fear of and desire for oceanic depths despite the U-13 having been originally designed for shallower missions, for actually creeping about onretractablewheelsover harbor floors at modest depths, still there will come over him an urge more ancient than anything he knows of to go deeper, to descend, rivets creaking, into depthslegendary as those of the Valdivia Expedition of 1898–99, which brought up into the daylight a pitch-black critter known as the Vampire Squid, by whose name, these days, the U-13 has since come to be known.
—
“What we expected,”Bruno handing Daphne an account number at a bank in Geneva, “it’s here. I was going to leave you this at the last minute and now’s about as last minute as it’s going to get, so here you go, my li’l midnight pumpkin, all for you.”
“Don’t want your money, never did.”
“Better than money.”
“No such thing.”
“It’s information. Enough on the secret history of the InChSyn, and the full membership, anonymous and otherwise, to send the whole business up in one giant fondoozical cataclysm.”
“And whatever’s left gets grabbed up by pikers and riffraff—Kraft, Unilever, the Cheese Exchange in Sheboygan, oh, Pop, no, how can I—”
“All safe and sound in a vault under a remote Swiss mountain range just waiting for you. You’ll know when, if, and how to use it. Everything the Al Capone of Cheez was Al Capone of is now in your hands, you’re the Alcaponissima.”
“Di Formaggio, thanks, Pop. The boat’s all set to go, Drago says he does this all the time, a look-alike in a beat-up old jalopy with 8 cylinders under the hood will lead them miles out of the way and then go invisible, meantime you’re off with Drago’s crew doing a little harmless night fishing. Skipped before anybody knows it.”
“Where’d I ever get the idea you were just some kind of innocent bystander.”
“Gossip columnists will say anything. Better you find out now than when it’s too late.”
“Oh, Daphne—”
“Don’t know why I said that. Forget it. It’s not too late, Pop, never will be, not for us.”
Quick look at a Rolex Oyster Perpetual he does not seem to recognize, as if thanks to the psychical ambience he’s been in all evening it has just apported onto his wrist, “Could be if we don’t hurry.”
—
Close to dawn,a pale foreglow revealing clouds sweeping over and down from the Karst, Drago Pebkac, at the wheel of his little coaster, having threaded his way innocently among a number of islands, out in the open Adriatic at last, is presented with an unexpected dilemma—is the dark shape now looming ahead a solid real-world vessel, or some fragment of nightmare reluctant to withdraw into the early light?
“Not a mirage,” his Moor’s-head earring in a whisper only he can hear. “Solid steel and on a collision course.”
Drago stops the engine and heaves to. A hatch in the U-boat’s conning tower opens, and Ernst Hauffnitz, in an old-time Austro-Hungarian captain’s uniform, brass buttons, visor cap with gold braid and so forth, comes out with a megaphone. “You have an American passenger aboard.”
“Looks like that won’t be for much longer.”
“Where were you taking him?”
“Hadn’t decided. Dubrovnik?”
The Skipper hauls out his pipe and lights up as Bruno emerges on deck in a state of agitation. “I thought we had a deal.”
“A young woman handed me an envelope full of banknotes. I took you aboard. In your country that may pass for a sacred covenant. Out here…” A shrug.
“How much more will it cost you to let me off in Dubrovnik?”
“Take it up with this gentleman and his U-boat. I have no inclination this morning to be torpedoed.”
Captain Hauffnitz puffs away, mischievously beaming. “Dubrovnik’s loss. Come along, Mr. Airmont, and welcome aboard.”
The hatch is secured behind them and the metallic command to dive is heard on the loudspeakers. Bruno is escorted to a snug though not uncomfortable cabin and handed a cigar compliments of the U-13. He lights up, sits awhile smoking and stupefied. Goes over to a porthole and observesa tuna looking back in at him showing every sign of wanting to communicate. Is this the brig I’m in, he wonders. No, submarines don’t have brigs, theyarebrigs. The tuna winks its visible eye and swims off. Bruno turns abruptly. Lounging in the doorway is somebody he thinks he ought to recognize.
“Howdy, Bruno.”
