The Titanic Secret (30 page)

‘You’ll have to use your left hand to fire it,’ Tremayne said. ‘Now, you were ready enough to shoot me in the corridor and again when I came in here, so maybe it’ll be third time lucky for you.’

Kortig moved with the speed of a striking snake, grabbing the pistol and raising it to point at Tremayne, his finger already starting to pull the trigger.

But fast though he was, Tremayne was quicker. The Colt coughed twice in his hand and Kortig slumped back in the chair, one bullet crashing into his chest and tearing his heart to shreds, the second ploughing through the centre of his forehead and blowing off the back of his skull.

‘Or maybe it’ll be third time unlucky,’ Tremayne muttered, staring for a moment at the spew of blood, bone and brain matter sliding off the back of the chair.

He slid the Colt into his trouser pocket, and turned to leave the suite. Then his eyes fell on an envelope lying on an occasional table. It looked almost identical to the one he’d taken from Bauer’s stateroom. He picked it up, broke the seal and took out the contents: it was another set of the same documents he’d seen before.

Tremayne slid the envelope into the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘I’ll see if I can hang on to these this time,’ he muttered to himself.

He looked around again and found Kortig’s door keys and a ‘Do not disturb’ sign. He let himself out of the suite, locked the door and hung the sign over the handle, then strode away down the corridor.

14 April 1912
RMS
Titanic

Gunther Voss was feeling reasonably satisfied with what had happened that morning though it was a shame that Jonas Bauer was dead. Both Voss and Kortig had tried to persuade him to let one of the bodyguards remain in his suite overnight, just in case Maitland tried to break in, but Bauer had been adamant. He was a light sleeper and believed he was big enough and strong enough to tackle the British agent single-handed.

Clearly, he hadn’t been, Voss reflected, but there was nothing they could do about that now. Fortunately, Maitland had then fallen into their trap outside Kortig’s stateroom, and now he was dead. Capturing the woman had been unexpected, because Voss had assumed Maitland would be working alone, but he hoped she could be useful. If she was another secret agent, albeit American, it would be worth interrogating her to find out exactly what both the governments knew before they killed her.

Voss stepped out onto the Promenade Deck and took a few deep breaths. One or two couples were already out on deck, walking briskly in the cold light of early morning, perhaps trying to give themselves an appetite for the breakfast which was already being served in the dining saloon. The day was really cold, the wind a keen-bladed knife which cut through all but the thickest clothing.

Voss didn’t need the exercise, especially in those conditions. He had, quite literally, been up all night, and he was famished. He’d come to the Promenade Deck as soon as it was full daylight for one reason only: he wanted to make absolutely sure that there was no sign of blood on the deck planking or guard rails which might suggest foul play. Even if there was a patch of blood, of course, there would be little or nothing that the ship’s officers could do to discover what had happened. But Voss would rather there was no evidence at all.

He walked twice around the Promenade Deck, his head bent forward as he searched for any stains, looking especially carefully on and near the guard rails, but he found absolutely nothing. It looked as if Vincent had done his usual competent job. He’d told the bodyguard to get some sleep afterwards – he, too, had also been up all night – and to meet him in the smoking room after lunch.

Voss strode back to the entrance and returned gratefully to the warmth of the ship. He began making his way down the staircase as he decided on his next move. He would, he thought, go down and question the girl after he’d eaten breakfast. That would be a pleasant, and hopefully informative, way to spend the morning. And then that night, once the public areas were again deserted, Vincent could dispose of the girl the same way he’d got rid of Maitland.

As he walked into the dining saloon, Voss licked his lips at the anticipation of what the day would bring.

14 April 1912
RMS
Titanic

Alex Tremayne held the Colt pistol inside his jacket, his left hand gripping the weapon awkwardly by its suppressor through the material. The corridors and passageways in the first-class accommodation section were now busy with people going to, or returning from, breakfast. He clearly couldn’t allow anyone to see the pistol, and with the suppressor attached it was really too big to conceal in any of his pockets. And he couldn’t remove the suppressor, in case he had to quickly use the weapon again.

He glanced in both directions along the passageway, picking his moment, and then rapped firmly on the door in front of him, the door to Voss’s stateroom.

His plan, if so simple a concept really justified that title, was to force his way inside Voss’s suite, make the man tell him where Maria was hidden, and then kill him. But it all depended on Voss being in his stateroom and, from his observations of the past few days, Tremayne knew that the Prussian appeared to spend most of the time in the public rooms, particularly in the smoking room. It was the second time he’d tried knocking on the door, and it now seemed clear enough to him that Voss wasn’t inside. Tremayne knew he would just have to wait until later in the day, perhaps even that evening, when the man would return to dress for dinner, and then try again.

A couple of minutes later he was standing in his own stateroom, the first time he’d been in the room without Maria by his side, wondering where she was, hoping to God that she was still alive, and trying to decide what else he could do. He had no idea of the name of the bodyguard who’d taken her, and even if he had known, that wouldn’t have helped.

He presumed that the bodyguards had also been travelling first class and he could hardly have knocked on every door on the off-chance of eventually finding the right one.

His fervent hope was that Kortig had been right, and that Voss would want to question Maria before he killed her. If he interrogated her during the day, they would probably keep her alive until that night, simply because it was much easier to force a person to walk out onto one of the open decks and then kill them or simply throw them over the side, than it was to lug a dead body down passageways and up staircases in order to dispose of it. So unless Voss had already killed Maria and dropped her body into the sea, she was almost certainly still alive, hidden somewhere on the ship.

With every fibre of his being, Tremayne wanted to find her, to wander the corridors hoping that he would hear her voice or glimpse her through an open stateroom door, but he was a professional, and he knew that course of action would be futile. Wherever Maria was hidden, the bodyguards would make sure she couldn’t cry out, and certainly wouldn’t have the door open.

Tremayne considered his logic another couple of times, and decided that it made sense. And that, in turn, meant that there was nothing he could do for the moment. Voss had already left his stateroom, and on past form he probably wouldn’t return there until it was time to dress for dinner. And although at that moment Tremayne wanted to do nothing more than to go out and find Voss and stick the barrel of a pistol in his mouth and pull the trigger, he knew that in the public rooms, which were almost always crowded with people, Voss was essentially invulnerable.

He could do nothing but wait, and Tremayne also knew that perhaps his biggest asset at that precise moment was the fact that he was dead – or at least Voss thought he was. Sooner or later, the Prussian would start to wonder why he hadn’t seen Vincent anywhere, or why Kortig wasn’t in the dining saloon or the smoking room, but by that time Tremayne hoped he would be in a position to kill him. In the meantime, he needed to keep out of sight, and that meant staying in his stateroom. If Voss or one of his bodyguards saw him and realized he was still alive, he had no idea what they might then do to Maria.

Tremayne was tired and sore. The wound in his side was aching, and he realized he ought to inspect it, and probably change the dressing. Manoeuvring Vincent’s dead body – a literal dead weight – over the side of the ship must have put a lot of strain on his injury.

He locked the stateroom door, placed Vincent’s pistol on the occasional table, where it would be within easy reach, and then got undressed. He removed the bandages holding the dressing in place over his wound, and carefully peeled away the pad which covered it. The edges of the cut still looked ragged and raw, and there had obviously been some fresh bleeding, but not enough to concern him. More importantly, he couldn’t see any sign of infection anywhere in the wound. He prepared a fresh pad, put it in position, and then tied the bandages around his torso again, getting them as tight as he could. It didn’t look anything like as neat as when Maria had done it, but Tremayne hoped that it would hold.

Then he lay down on the bed, closed his eyes and waited for sleep to come, haunted by thoughts of Maria.

14 April 1912
HMS
D4

Just after twelve noon, Eastern Standard Time, Lieutenant Bernard Hutchinson bent over the plotting chart and compared the submarine’s actual position with the location he had expected it to reach, based on the speed he had estimated the boat would be able to achieve in the prevailing weather conditions.

He checked again, and then nodded. They were a little behind schedule – only a couple of miles – but enough to be a worry. The sea conditions were still fairly calm, though it was bitingly cold, the water temperature obviously below freezing, and this was the indirect cause of the boat’s slower than expected progress. What they were having to watch out for were the occasional icebergs, grubby dark lumps of floating ice that would do incalculable damage to his vessel if they hit one, but which were easy enough to avoid: with its twin propellers, the submarine was manoeuvrable, and the icebergs essentially stationary.

But the icebergs worried Hutchinson, and either he or William Evans were always on duty in the conning tower ready to give the appropriate helm orders as the submarine headed south-west. They were doing four-hour watches each and after dark, because of the extra concentration needed, two-hour watches. And although it was a tight fit, Hutchinson had also ordered two lookouts in the conning tower, day and night.

As well as avoiding the icebergs, they were also having to steam through occasional patches of broken floating ice, presumably the remains of bergs which had broken up further north. Most of these fragments were quite small, just a foot or two across, and wouldn’t damage the submarine. Nevertheless, he and Evans invariably ordered a speed reduction every time they encountered one of these ice packs, just in case there were larger pieces lurking somewhere amongst it.

Hutchinson pulled on an extra sweater and his foul-weather clothing, and climbed up the first few rungs of the ladder into the conning tower. Then he called up and ordered the lookouts to come down while he took over from Evans. He stood back and waited as the two seamen clattered down the ladder into the control room.

‘Cold?’ he asked.

‘Bloody cold, sir. Absolutely perishing.’

Hutchinson nodded. ‘Get a hot drink and some food inside you,’ he instructed, then pulled on his gloves and climbed up the ladder himself.

Evans was waiting for him in the conning tower, his nose red and raw from the cold, and most of his face invisible behind a woollen scarf.

For a couple of minutes, Evans briefed Hutchinson on the situation, pointing out the icebergs they’d avoided and the few which were visible ahead of the submarine; at least two of them would necessitate a slight change of course.

Finally, Hutchinson said he was satisfied, and took over the watch.

‘Thanks, Bill. I have the boat,’ he said formally.

But Evans didn’t leave the conning tower immediately. He glanced at Hutchinson as the other officer swept the horizon with his binoculars.

‘It’s a bit of a rum do, this,’ he said. ‘I still don’t really know what on earth we’re doing out here in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.’

Hutchinson lowered the binoculars and looked at his First Lieutenant. ‘To be perfectly honest with you, Bill, I don’t know either. But I suppose that’s life in the Royal Navy. Some admiral comes up with what he thinks is a brilliant idea, a string of orders gets issued, and a shipload of poor unfortunate sailors spend a couple of weeks performing some completely pointless evolutions. A report gets written, filed and forgotten, the admiral gets promoted or retired, and life plods on in much the same way as it did before. I’d have thought you would be used to it by now.’

Evans smiled behind his scarf. ‘I am, and I’ve certainly done my share of pointless exercises, but what we’re doing now just seems to me to be ridiculous.’

‘We’ll just have to wait and see what the next signal says but hopefully, by tonight, we might be able to turn round and head for home.’

14 April 1912
RMS
Titanic

After he’d finished breakfast, Voss decided to enjoy a cigar, and had returned to the Promenade Deck. There, he’d spent a contented three quarters of an hour wreathed in blue smoke before he stood up to leave.

It was only as he was walking out of the smoking room that he wondered where Lenz Kortig was, and decided to visit his stateroom on his way downstairs. On B-Deck, he stopped outside the suite occupied by the banker, and smiled when he saw the sign attached to the door handle. Obviously Kortig had found the events of the night more than a little trying, and had decided to sleep in. No matter: he would catch up with him during the afternoon, or that evening at dinner.

Voss continued walking along the starboard passageway until he reached the forward first-class staircase lobby, and then began descending. He went down two decks, where the ornate and impressive staircase finished, and then took the more utilitarian stairs down to E-Deck, where each of his bodyguards occupied a first-class single stateroom. He checked a small notebook to find the correct number, then strode down the passageway before stopping and knocking at one of the doors to an inside stateroom.