The Titanic Secret (19 page)

Inside the case were two shaped recesses, and in each one was a distinctive black semi-automatic pistol, of a type that he recognized immediately: they were both Lugers, and they looked brand new, perhaps a gift to Voss from his German associates.

Then he looked inside the lid of the case, and saw a small metal plaque there, bearing an inscription in German, which he quickly translated: ‘To Gunther Voss with grateful thanks from his friends in Germany for the idea and the execution.’

It was hardly concrete proof of what Voss had been doing, and there could have been a number of alternative explanations for the wording, such as some radical new business venture, but Tremayne didn’t believe that for a moment.

He picked up one of the Lugers and worked the action, pulling back the unusual jointed arm which in use would eject the spent cartridge case and then chamber a new round, the well-oiled moving parts clicking smoothly as he did so. Tremayne knew pistols, and had fired Lugers on many occasions. It was a design he had always liked.

He replaced the weapon in the recess, closed the lid and locked the catches again, sliding the case back under the bed where he had found it.

He stood up and looked around the stateroom again, but saw nothing that he thought would merit any further investigation. No documents of any sort, in fact.

Tremayne took a last look round, then left the bedroom, crossed the lounge to the door, opened it and let himself out into the corridor. Maria was waiting for him exactly where he’d asked her to.

As before, there was nobody in sight, so Tremayne quickly bent down and relocked the door of Voss’s stateroom. Then he stepped over to join Maria, and they walked down the cross passage to the starboard corridor, which took them back to the forward staircase, and then they carried on to their own stateroom.

‘Well?’ Maria asked as Tremayne closed the door behind them.

‘Not what I was hoping to find. No documents, nothing in writing at all, in fact. The only thing I found was a pair of Luger pistols in a presentation case. They’d been given to him by somebody in Germany, but the inscription didn’t say who. They were thanking him for “the idea and the execution”.’

Maria didn’t look impressed. ‘That’s circumstantial evidence, at best. You and I can place one interpretation on it and think we know what it means, but to anyone else it could seem entirely different. If it had been signed by someone important – the German Foreign Minister or the Kaiser, say – that might be fairly convincing. But as it is, it’s not enough. Nowhere near enough. We need more, something definite.’

11 April 1912
RMS
Titanic

In the dining saloon, the clinking of cutlery on fine china was overlaid by the buzz of conversation, a sound which rose and fell in a discordant, irregular rhythm. Voss and his two companions were seated at a table on the port side of the large room, and had already consumed two excellent courses when they saw a familiar figure approaching, wearing a dinner jacket and weaving his way between the tables, almost all of which were occupied by diners.

Voss stood up as the man approached his table.

‘Yes, Vincent?’ he asked. ‘What is it?’

‘I just went down to check your stateroom, like you asked, and there was a guy just opening your door and stepping inside. A woman was with him, but she was keeping out of sight, standing in the cross passage. Guess she was watching his back. The man might still be in there now. You want me to take care of him, maybe her too?’

Voss shook his head, unconcerned. ‘There’s nothing in there for him to find, unless he’s just a sneak thief. Don’t do anything right now. Describe them to me.’

Vincent, the leader of the bodyguards Voss had hired in New York, painted a brief picture of the two people he’d seen. He’d only caught a fleeting glimpse of the woman, but he’d had the man in sight for several seconds.

When he’d finished, Voss nodded. ‘You would recognize the two of them again, I hope?’ he asked.

Vincent nodded. ‘You bet I would,’ he replied. ‘The man, anyway. And if the woman is his partner, all I have to do is spot him, and she’ll probably not be too far away.’

‘Right, then. Come and see me after breakfast tomorrow morning, and I’ll tell you where we’ll be during the day. Then you can go and check all the first-class public rooms until you find these people. Don’t approach them, just come and tell me. Then I’ll decide what we’ll do about them.’

‘You’re the boss,’ Vincent said, nodded and retraced his steps across the dining saloon.

‘A problem?’ Jonas Bauer asked.

‘At the moment, I don’t know. My guess is the man’s probably just a petty thief, picking the lock of one of the most expensive staterooms on the ship in the hope of finding jewellery or a good watch, something like that, which he can sell once we get to New York. In that case, I’ll tell Vincent to show him the error of his ways and give him a good beating.’

‘But what if he isn’t? Suppose he’s an American government secret agent, or even a British one?’ Bauer asked. ‘And was there anything incriminating in your stateroom? Anything he could find that might tell him what’s going on?’

Voss shook his head. ‘Nothing to show what we’re doing.’ He touched the left side of his jacket. ‘I always carry the envelope with me, in a waterproof pouch, just as I hope you two do as well, with your copies. So there’s nothing for him to find. Everything else is locked away in the hold. I told you before that was a good idea.’

‘But if he is an agent?’ Bauer persisted. ‘What then?’

Voss shrugged. ‘If he is, then I’ll have to find a more permanent solution for him.’

‘And the woman as well?’

‘The same rules apply. Just because she’s a woman, she won’t get any special treatment from me.’ He paused for a moment, then smiled wolfishly. ‘Well, she might get
some
special treatment, I suppose.’

12 April 1912
HMS
D4

Lieutenant Hutchinson was pleased with the progress of his submarine, in view of the circumstances. The weather since he’d sailed had been basically good, with light but very cold winds and weak sunshine. More importantly, the sea had been comparatively calm, and he’d been able to keep the boat running on the surface at about twelve knots, which seemed to him to be a reasonable compromise between his maximum speed of fourteen knots and his best speed for endurance, which was a little over ten.

As a result, he was only about four miles behind the position he should have reached by noon that day, which in terms of the overall mission was an insignificant distance. His diesel tanks were still relatively full, and the weather looked as if it would stay fair for the rest of the day.

He took a last look around from the top of the conning tower, then handed over the position to the officer of the watch and climbed down the ladder. He poured himself a mug of hot coffee and took it to his tiny cabin, but he’d barely sat down before a crewman knocked on his door.

‘Sorry to disturb you, sir,’ the signalman said, ‘but we’ve received a message marked most urgent, and for the attention of the captain only. It’s classified “top secret” and encrypted,’ he added.

‘Thanks,’ Hutchinson said briefly, took the envelope and signed the signal log to show that he had received it. From a small safe bolted to one bulkhead, he removed a code book and started the painstaking process of decrypting the message he’d been sent.

His coffee turned cold while he worked. The message was quite lengthy. The first section informed him that the second oiler would reach the rendezvous position the following day, as planned, and had reported generally good weather in the area, a moderate sea state and a slight south-westerly swell. That part seemed routine.

The second and third sections of the message were both much more unusual, and had been sent on the authority of the head of the Submarine Service, the first time Hutchinson had seen any message from that individual. The message baldly instructed him that HMS
D4
was to be at the specified rendezvous position on the date and time previously ordered, and was to have the two bow torpedo tubes loaded with live weapons and ready to fire on arrival. All other considerations were secondary to achieving this objective.

He was then to remain on the surface, with his wireless equipment manned at all times, and await further orders by radio. If and when those orders arrived, he was to acknowledge them immediately, and then execute them promptly and expeditiously, and without question. Under no circumstances was he to divulge any part of those orders to any other member of the crew. If the order to engage a vessel was given, as soon as he had acknowledged the instruction, the submarine was to dive and remain submerged until after the attack had been completed. Throughout that time, only the captain himself was permitted to look through the periscope at the target ship. Having read that far, Hutchinson could almost have guessed the last line of that part of the signal: after the attack, no discussion of any sort was to be permitted about any aspect of the operation.

‘Just what the hell is this all about?’ he muttered to himself. ‘And why is Commodore Keyes giving personal and direct orders to a mere lieutenant?’

Appointed on 14 November 1910 as the Inspecting Captain of Submarines, a unique post in Royal Navy commands, Roger John Brownlow Keyes was the head of the British Submarine Service, now holding the rank of commodore.

The third section specified precisely what information Hutchinson was allowed to pass on to his crew, the cover story he was to tell them, which was barely plausible and would no doubt cause talk and speculation on board. But there was nothing he could do about that. He had his clear – very clear– orders.

Hutchinson replaced the code book in a safe, along with both the original and the decrypted signal, and locked it. Then he picked up his mug of cold coffee and walked the few steps to the control room. He studied the navigation chart for a few minutes, and then ordered a two-knot increase in speed. It was better, he thought, to cover the distance a little quicker than he’d originally planned, to make absolutely sure that the boat did make the rendezvous on time.

Because the unspoken message that he’d just read in that signal was that if he
didn’t
get his submarine into position as ordered and on time, his naval career would be over.

12 April 1912
RMS
Titanic

When Voss had returned to his stateroom the previous evening, he made a careful check of all his possessions, and had found everything intact and apparently undisturbed. If Vincent hadn’t seen the unidentified man enter his stateroom, he would never have known there’d been an intruder.

And that was bad news, because it meant his guess was wrong. The man who’d so expertly unlocked his stateroom door and then searched through his belongings clearly hadn’t been looking for an expensive watch to sell in New York. If he had, he would definitely have taken at least one of the three which Voss had left in one of the drawers.

Obviously the Americans – or perhaps more likely the British, bearing in mind the events which had taken place in Berlin while he’d been in the city – had found some information about what he and his companions were planning to do, and had got this unidentified man and his female companion on board the
Titanic
to tail him. Well, it was still a long way to New York. It was a big ocean and a comparatively small ship. Accidents could happen.

In fact, Voss was going to make sure that accidents
did
happen.

As had become his routine, Voss and his two compatriots took seats in the first-class smoking room as soon as they’d finished breakfast, and Vincent found them there shortly afterwards.

‘The man you saw wasn’t a petty thief,’ Voss told him, ‘but someone much more dangerous. I think I know what he was doing in my stateroom, and what he wants.’

The bodyguard knew very little of what Voss had been doing in Europe, only that his employer had been involved in important meetings with senior German government staff. Vincent wasn’t particularly interested. His job was to protect his employer, and to do what he was told, and he was quite happy about that.

‘So as I said last night, the first thing you have to do is find that man and the woman who was with him, and then let me know where they are. I’d like to get a look at their faces before I decide what to do about them.’

Vincent nodded. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ he promised, then turned and walked away.

Voss stared at the bodyguard’s retreating back for a few seconds, lost in thought, then he turned round to look at the two men sitting at his table.

‘Your bodyguard only gave us a pretty general description of this man he saw,’ Bauer said, ‘and he hardly saw the woman at all. I reckon the man’s description could apply to a lot of people here in the first-class section. Of course, he might be travelling on second- or third-class tickets, and just took a chance and sneaked in while almost everybody was at dinner last night.’

Voss nodded. ‘You could be right,’ he replied, ‘but if Vincent says he can recognize him, then I’m sure he can. He’s very reliable. If this man is travelling in one of the other accommodation areas, it’ll just take him longer to identify him, that’s all.’

He glanced up as the smoking-room door opened. Half a dozen people entered and sat down at a table on the opposite side of the room, talking animatedly together. Several other tables in the room were already occupied. It was quite a popular place to relax during the day, mainly for people who enjoyed smoking, but quite a number of others seemed to just like the atmosphere. None were within earshot of the table where the three men were sitting, and they felt free to discuss their plans without reservations.

‘Anyway,’ Voss said, ‘just forget about that couple for the moment. When Vincent finds them, we’ll decide what’s necessary. Let’s just go over the sequence of events one more time. That way, once we get back to New York there’ll be no problems with co-ordinating our actions. Jonas, why don’t you go first?’