Operation Wolfe Cub: A Chilling Historical Thriller (THE TIME TO TELL Book 1) (22 page)

By then, it was quite obvious what he was doing. Still, he carried on as if he were just fixing a minor plumbing problem with some crazy-looking electrical switches. He switched the black box engine toggle to “on.” Nothing happened immediately, so he waited. Slowly, grief struck his face. He tossed what appeared to be a useless box in the water and cursed as he paddled away as fast as he could with Junior Lieutenant.

Strange things had happened in their journey. With a remarkable spark of luck that perhaps even the US
Wehrwolf
herself might have been delighted by. Inside the cockpit of that doomed German girl, an inexplicable thing happened for reasons perhaps only the US
Wehrwolf
could know. As she pointed hopelessly at her rival across the sea, ticking like a time bomb, the rules of engagement had to be broken by her loneliness—alone.

One by one, every one of her set sequences on the controls lit up like a Christmas tree. Somewhere in the midst
of all of the control lights flashing, her gloves came off. She kicked her starter lights on. She was just a machine—or was she? The proof ultimately lay in her twin engines, fins, and the spin of whatever lay within her. Like a dragster on race day, both the Rolls-Royce Merlins started cranking. Full steam ahead was all she needed to put it all behind her.

US-2 and Junior Lieutenant were but a couple of spectators. To see the first remote-controlled US
Wehrwolf
must have been exciting. US-2 began to swim on his back just so he could get a better view.

And so it was, as far out in the sea as one could see, their great, dead boat finally woke up to take her bomb elsewhere. Anywhere but there must have felt like a huge favor that could have never be repaid. She said “good-bye” in her own special way when her engines fired up.

BooWAAAAAHHH!

Twin jet blasts of white water shot high into the air, sending the signal that her flag of white spray offered absolutely no surrender. In the blast of takeoff, her stern smashed down onto the sea with a colossal clap, then catapulted forward into a last mad dash. It wasn’t just
she
that was going down; she was headed straight for the goliath with a double
coup de grace
grandiose fii nish.

Onward she sped, faster and faster across the ocean with no one inside her empty cockpit to read the speed. She gained to one hundred knots, and she was far from being done!

Captain Nelson, looking straight out with his binoculars, focused on the grave sight headed straight for them with an explosive sound. As he lengthened his frown, he jumped back and threw his binoculars aside. “My God, look. It’s taking flight…it’s coming right at us! We have a suicide!”

He turned and ran while his lieutenant followed. “Abandon ship!”

“Abandon ship!”

Anyone would have called it suicide by then. She reached such speeds off her last waking jump that her recklessness seemed inevitable. Something else had to intervene for her mindless navigation to succeed, and it did. Just as she glided back down to tap the ocean once again, she leveled off, dipped for more traction and then continued on.

She seemed like she wanted to go faster. How much faster, nobody knew. What seemed most important through her ruined hull was that her propellers still churned like a bat out of hell.

No attendance in the cockpit had its consequences, however. The ropes gripping the controls showed signs of fraying. They quickly released the wheel, but it didn’t matter. The way this fiendish female kept flying, she seemed destined to get there.

Just up ahead, another ready-made stage of wondering waves offered up a quick blow of the weather. But just when she seemed ready to take it on like the last one, something went terribly wrong. She’d sapped every last drop of that precious fossil fuel from her already-empty tank. Immediately, she spanked herself into a full-fledged lock-up, thanks to nobody except the sinking fuel pod that came back to haunt her.

Kirchuuunnnk!

Her screaming motors died instantly from the terrible bite of vapor lock. They were done for, but she wasn’t. Silence traded places with deafening exhaust as she skimmed across the ocean at a wild speed. As she approached the wave, nothing but the slashing sound of water came and went as she launched into the air.

The black she-tyrant, who once roared across the Atlantic, reduced herself down to nothing more than a terrible bomb. But her heroism turned for the worse when one of her fins caught a surging gust of wind.

Crash-skip-skip-tashhh!

Instantly, she flung herself spinning into chaos. The mystery machine made in the name of peace instantly began to shed her existence—piece by piece. First her fins came off. Then out of the cockpit flew everything else, leaving a hopeless shell, ripped of her identity.

Still, she had her complete hull to mull over. Incredibly, at just under one hundred knots, the mindless shell kept charging. Maybe it was inertia, but then again, maybe it was a mystical push. Nobody really knew how it happened in those last colliding seconds.

Kaboooooom! BOOOOOOOOOOM!

She hit the U.S.
Chameleon
dead center. Fire and smoke blistered into a massive, towering torrent as the explosion grew heavy, then finally toppled over.

Down low at the site of the explosion, in the midst of the smoke slowly clearing away, were two torn pieces of what once was the U.S.
Chameleon
, bobbing vertically. She sunk before the smoke had completely cleared, leaving practically nothing a float except for cork and balsa wood burning on top of the ocean.

Nothing recognizable remained in the area, except for one thing. A single piece of the US
Wehrwolf
began to emerge from among the sinking debris. It was difficult to tell what it was until it bobbed up to the surface bearing the mysterious, golden mark of the rolling star.

The two crewmembers formerly aboard the US
Wehrwolf
were still alive and safe, however. They looked to be the only
castaways between the two doomed ships as they swam toward the
Blessit
and climbed aboard.

As fire and smoke dissipated in the backdrop of the distant sky, US-2 began to explore everything on the old boat. As if he were a new tenant in possession of a fully furnished apartment, he quickly picked up, opened, and inspected almost everything he encountered along the way, but then he started throwing out whatever things he had no use for.

The radio was still playing, even though he couldn’t understand it. He was quite pleased with the current station, so he dialed it in for a little better reception as he kept rummaging around:

“This is JDVL…J-Devil Maine. We’re bringing to you, the most up-to-date, popular songs of yesterday and today. Next is a beautiful song from the Spinners called…guess it for yourself…well okay… It’s called ‘Comin’ in on a Wing and a Prayer.’ Hope you like it—”

US-2 opened the baby’s bonnet to give him a little fresh air, then grinned and said, “That’s radio…what’s the American saying? What do you say, Junior Lieutenant? Speak up.”

The day’s recent atrocities seemed like fun-filled excitement to US-2. Close calls, bombs, fire, losing his vessel—none of it seemed to matter. He carried on, swaying and nodding along with the radio’s song, as if amnesia were a kind, softhearted friend of his.

On a nearby shelf, he picked up a cache of dirty salmon jerky with blood on it. He tried to clean it off with his shirt but this didn’t work, so he rinsed it in the ocean and took a bite and mumbled, “Good taste, Junior Lieutenant. Want some? No? Okay. I eat. You suck bottles, okay?”

He took another big bite. “So…did you feel the Strong Ray? What did you think about that, Junior Lieutenant?
Ha
,
Strong Ray…
eh
, Junior Lieutenant? Didn’t think I could pull out of it…felt like
God
or maybe
Satan
tugging my ass… wow, never again…glad it’s down under the sea…it’s where it belongs, you think? Fine, don’t say anything then.”

He carried on investigating before stopping dead in his tracks. Curiosity caused him to step back to the edge of the boat for a moment to capture the bigger picture of his oh-so-quiet surroundings.

The devastation left behind from his rapid-fire guns was overwhelming. No wonder he stopped to look, but surely he should have seen it earlier. Up close, he examined the huge, fist-sized holes everywhere across the decrepit boat. From there, he traced down the busted, blood-spattered boards at his feet.

Immediately his attitude changed. He seemed so carefree until he walked around nothing but a partially enclosed platform of ruin. Apparently, he’d never before experienced the devastation of his own handiwork before.

Everything he looked at, without exception, was obliterated and sprayed with blood. Large pools of it too thick to dry, still remained on deck. Even the cabin he walked through had been afflicted, all the way up to the red-stained curtains blowing in the breeze in front of the broken window frames. He just kept going from one gory sight to the next, until he stopped to look at what it was he was walking on. Shards of wood and glass mixed in with flesh and blood crumpled beneath his shoes.

He stopped chewing his jerky for the moment, then energized his walk as if wanting to forget, but he continued to make his way through the broken, bloody disarray. At least for the time being, he was marooned aboard the residue of this horrid nightmare, and he knew he couldn’t avoid it.

Just then, he looked over to what remained of one cabin wall, which seemed normal enough. His vulnerabilities gathered there too, unfortunately. Staring back at him were old
pictures of the two bold, ignorant men. He paused to study them, seeking comfort perhaps, but then his frown deepened even further. The pictures were quite a bit clearer than he wanted them to be. Some of them were framed, but most had none. The frameless ones were simply tacked to the wall, yellowed, and curled around the edges from being hung out in the weather too long. Front and center was a picture of Buzz and his brother Jed in their younger years. Another picture revealed their proud pose next to a trophy swordfish.

He singled out one picture and stepped over to get a closer look at it. Surprisingly, it was Buzz all cleaned up. He was clean-shaven, posing in swimming trunks as he flexed a strong arm. In fact, he looked as young and muscular as US-2 was at that very moment. US-2 comparatively flexed his own bicep then stared closely. For a moment, he looked as if he was wondering if the men in the pictures really
were
the same putrid fellows he had shot and killed.

Most all of the pictures of the two brothers shared something else: their blue-and-white boat the
Blessit
was pictured right along with them, except it was almost like new.

US-2 wheezed and then quickly shook off his drooping expression once more. Forgetfulness was his friend once again as he strolled away looking for something else to do. He carried on. From one trinket to the next, he picked it up and either put it back or threw it overboard. Suddenly, he paused, as if he saw something dear to him.

Slowly, he bent down to pick up Buzz’s old Winchester rifle, scabbed over with blood. He quickly figured out the gun, cocked its lever, and then aimed out to sea without pulling the trigger. He grew shocked when he glanced through the two sights. The front one at the tip of the barrel was broken off. In all likelihood, he survived Buzz’s quick draw by nothing more than poor aim.

As he placed the gun down, he took a knee to pick up a live cartridge on the deck for examination. Surprisingly,
it showed its tarnish from years of age without ever being used. Somber feelings relentlessly reappeared upon his face for wisdom’s whip must have lashed him again.

By then, he seemed to have set his mind on trying to forget again. In nervous haste, he looked around for another distraction. He quickly opened a cabinet next to the captain’s chair, but there was nothing but a crammed-up mess of whiskey bottles and nude magazines. He had to think about that one for a minute. While he did, the weather’s breeze offered to fan open the well-used pages while some of the bottles rolled out onto the deck.

Shameful sights of booze and boobs quickly evaporated his remorseful look. Afterwards, he quickly looked around as if his bloody mess of remorse didn’t bother him at all. Somehow, his heart petrified to match the expression on his face. He took another double-take at the mass of liquor they must have consumed then sneered at the magazines stuck wide open. Wishful thinking while drinking was what it looked like.

Immediately afterward, he tore through drawers and cabinets, as if he knew exactly what he was looking for. Trash and more trash popped up everywhere. The more he searched, the more desperate he became, until unexpectedly, his eyes locked onto a little brass drawer in front of the captain’s chair. Like fire under his feet, he jumped over to it to yank it open.

“
Tee-he-yeah
!
Ah
, come to Papa.”

He ran his fingers through the only thing inside—a nice, open box of long, fat cigars. He couldn’t figure out which one to grab first, there were so many. Hastily, he picked one out then swept up a nearby matchstick and lit it up. He toked on it until a bright cinder glowed beyond the tip of his nose. After fanning the smoke away he whispered, “Marvelous…
ah
yes…marvelous.”

Bumping into the captain’s chair to sit down and relax, he didn’t notice the gross amount of blood he was sitting on.
What mattered most was his peaceful smoking. This gave rise to him kicking up his feet. Once he positioned himself, he gazed around at the old, beaten-down interior as if he’d just beautified the whole place by putting on rose-colored glasses.

And so the
Blessit
got what she sorely needed which was a good clean-up. Smoking and housekeeping went hand in hand as US-2 straightened Buzz and Jed’s pictures on the wall among other things. When he was done, he backed into his chair and started to laugh hysterically.

He laughed even harder when he spotted Buzz and Jed’s half bottle of whiskey rolling around at his feet. With a quick swoop of his hand, he grabbed it up and pulled the cork out with his teeth. As quickly as he could, he guzzled the whole thing down.