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“Between the cicada and Henri Archambault’s mark, there’s no doubt the bottle’s from the Lost Cellar.”
“Good work,” Sam said. “What else?”
“I also finished dissecting the translation of Manfred Boehm’s diary. There’s a line in there about ‘the Goat’s Head’ . . . ?”
“I remember,” Remi replied. Both she and Sam had assumed it had been a Rum Cay tavern Boehm and his shipmates had visited.
“Well, I massaged the translation a bit, using both High and Low German, and I think the Goat’s Head is a landmark of some kind—maybe a navigation aid. Problem is, I did some digging and I couldn’t find anything about a Goat’s Head related to Rum Cay—or any of the other islands, for that matter.”
“We’ll keep our eyes peeled,” Sam replied. “If you’re right, it’s likely a rock formation of some kind.”
“Agreed. And last, I owe you guys an apology.”
“For?”
“An error.”
“Say it isn’t so.”
Selma rarely made mistakes and those that she did were almost always minor. Even so, she was a strict taskmaster—more so with herself than anyone else.
“I was slightly off in translating the abstract from the German naval archives. Wolfgang Müller wasn’t the captain of the Lothringen . He was a passenger, just like Boehm. Another sub captain, in fact. He was assigned to the midget sub UM-77.”
“So Boehm and Müller and their subs are aboard the Lothringen, which sails across the Atlantic, puts in at Rum Cay for resupply and refit—”
“That’s the word the sailor—Froch—used in his blog, correct?”
“Correct. Refit.”
“Then a week later, Boehm’s boat, the UM-34 ends up in the Pocomoke River and the Lothringen is sunk. Which begs the question, where is Müller’s sub, the UM-77?”
“According to the German archives, it’s listed as lost. According to U.S. Navy archives, they found nothing aboard the Lothringen when it was captured.”
Remi replied, “Which means the UM-77 probably went down on its own mission—something similar to Boehm’s mission, I’m betting.”
“I agree,” Sam said, “but there’s also a third possibility.”
“Which is?”
“She’s still here. It’s the word ‘refit’ that got my attention. The Lothringen was what, one hundred fifty feet long?”
“About that,” Selma replied.
“To refit a ship that big would have taken a fair-sized facility—something big enough that it would have been discovered by now. I’m beginning to think the refitting they mentioned was for the UM-34 and the UM-77, and if we’re right about their mission being top secret, they sure as hell weren’t going to do that in the open—not with U.S. Navy PBY spotter planes flying out of Puerto Rico.”
“Which means . . . ?” Remi asked.
“Which means we may have some spelunking in our future,” Sam replied.
They finished unloading the Bonanza, then staked her tie-downs deep into the sand and started looking for a campsite. Nightfall was only a few hours away. They’d get a fresh start in the morning.
“We’ve got a competitor,” Remi said, pointing down the beach.
Sam shaded his eyes with his palm and squinted. “Well, that’s not something you see every day.”
A quarter mile away, nestled against the tree line along the cove’s northern arm, was what looked for all the world like a Hollywood version of a tiki hut, complete with a thatched conical roof and plank walls. Hanging between the hut’s two front posts was a hammock; in it was a figure, one foot dangling over the edge, rocking the hammock back and forth. Without looking up the figure raised a hand in greeting and called, “Ahoy.”
Sam and Remi walked the remaining distance. In front of the hut was a fire pit surrounded by wave-worn logs for seating. “Welcome,” the man said.