Blackbone by George Simpson, Neal Burger Read Free Book Online Page A

care of Loring Holloway, Metropolitan Museum, New York. There’s some kind of a lid on information regarding sinkings but—”
    “Sinking?”
    “Yeah... latest word is that the Delaware Trader was torpedoed by a German U-boat seven days ago. She went down with all hands.”
    Loring’s eyes shot to the floor.
    “And cargo,” Warren added.
    She hardened. “All of it?”
    “Well, now, that’s the interesting part. There was a survivor—”
    Loring looked up sharply.
    “—from the U-boat. A German officer. Nice catch for the Navy. Seems that after they torpedoed the Delaware Trader, this U-boat surfaced to finish her off with their deck gun. Very dumb. They got nailed by one of our antisub patrol bombers. The survivor was their gunnery officer, one Herr Leutnant Rolf Kirst, rescued at sea by the destroyer escort USS Sharpe.”
    “When did they pick him up?”
    “Oh, couple days later. He was found floating around in the Atlantic inside—guess what?—a crate.”
    Loring stared at Warren. A weight descended in her stomach. “Where is it?”
    “You’re so sure it’s yours, aren’t you?”
    Oh, Christ, Warren, she thought. You don’t know how sure I am, how I know, I know! But I have to know for certain and can’t you please stop playing this little game and get on with it... ?
    “It’s a goddamned miracle, is what it is.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “That he’s alive at all. I went to see Commander Lehman, captain of the Sharpe, over at the Brooklyn Naval Yard. He said nobody survives that amount of time in the Atlantic this time of year. Kirst should have died of exposure within minutes, but somehow he found that crate and crawled inside—”
    “Was it my crate?”
    Warren glared at her. He wanted to tell it his way. “Yes, damnit. Stickered and tagged, stenciled all over it— ‘Property of Metropolitan Museum, New York City, U.S.A.’“
    Loring’s heart jumped. “You say he was found inside it? What about the—the shipment—the artifacts... ?”
    “The only thing in the crate was Kirst.”
    “Well, what did he do with... ?”
    “Nobody knows. He wouldn’t talk. Lehman questioned him through an interpreter. He didn’t even respond to German. Not a peep. But the crate was empty—”
    “Did you... ?”
    “I asked, yes. Lehman figured Kirst must have thrown everything out in order to make room for himself.” Warren gave her a hard look. “He was trying to save his life. I doubt if he looked at your stuff and put his hand over his heart and said, Oh, my God, the museum needs this, I’d better jump out.”
    “I want to meet him.”
    “Not possible. He’s been shipped to a POW camp.”
    “Where?”
    Warren smiled thinly. “Ah, that’s where Sherlock really had his work cut out for him. I had to hop my ass over to Naval Intelligence and see someone named Zalman Ball. I invoked the museum, the city of New York, the State Department, Anglo-American friendship, and he just kept saying, Sorry, the disposition of prisoners in this country is classified, and so is the location of POW camps. And since I couldn’t exactly be too open with him about what was in the goddamned crate that was even remotely interesting to State—”
    “The shipment contained archaeological artifacts from a dig in Iraq. Call him up and tell him, and find out where they sent Kirst.”
    Warren stared at her with a little crooked, drunken smile. He sipped more coffee. “At last a morsel, a tidbit, a tiny scrap of a hint. What sort of artifacts?”
    “Pottery, tablets, some things over two thousand years old—a major find, Warren.” She didn’t dare tell him more.
    Warren sipped loudly. “A sad loss for the world of archaeology, I am sure.”
    “More than that.”
    “What more?”
    “The significance would be... meaningless to you. It wouldn’t make sense.”
    “It already doesn’t.”
    Loring shifted uncomfortably.
    “Look, Lor. The stuff in the crate is gone. It went to the bottom of the ocean so