In at the Death by Harry Turtledove Read Free Book Online Page A

bed—which he didn’t get to use enough—he had a steel desk and a steel chair and the safe.
    He shielded it with his body as he spun the combination so the exec couldn’t see it: more orders. The metal door swung open. “I am putting the package in the safe,” he intoned, and did just that. “The seals are unbroken.”
    “Sir, I have observed you doing so,” Myron Zwilling said, like a man giving responses to a preacher in church. “And I confirm that the seals are unbroken.”
    “All right, then. I’m closing up.” Sam did, and spun the lock once more to keep it from showing the last number.
    “Now we go back to Boston?” the exec said.
    “Just as fast as our little legs will carry us,” Sam replied. Zwilling gave him a look of faint distaste. Sam sighed silently; if the exec was born with a sense of whimsy, he’d had it surgically removed as a kid. And the
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’ legs were indeed little. She couldn’t make better than about twenty-four knots, far slower than a real destroyer. The only reason that occurred to Carsten for picking her for this mission was that she was one of the most anonymous ships in the Navy. The enemy wouldn’t pay much attention to her. If he didn’t command her, he wouldn’t pay much attention to her himself. As they left the cabin, Sam added, “I am locking the door behind me.”
    “Yes, sir,” Zwilling said. “You’re also supposed to post two armed guards outside until you remove—whatever it is—from the safe.”
    “Go get two men. Serve them out with submachine guns from the arms locker and bring them back here. I’ll stand guard in the meantime,” Sam said. “If Jake Featherston’s hiding under the paint somewhere, I’ll do my goddamnedest to hold him off till you get back with the reinforcements.”
    “Er—yes, sir.” The exec seemed relieved to get away.
    This time, Sam sighed out loud. Pat would have sassed him right back instead of taking everything so seriously. Well, what could you do?
    Before long, the armed guards took their places in front of the door to the captain’s quarters. Sam went back to the bridge. “I have the conn,” he announced as he took the wheel from Walters. “I am changing course to 255. We are on our way back to Boston.” He rang the engine room. “All ahead full.”
    “All ahead full. Aye aye, sir.” The response came back through a speaking tube. The black gang would wring every knot they could from the
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. The only trouble was, she didn’t have many knots to wring.
    Every mile Sam put between himself and the spot where he’d met the U-boat eased his mind. That it also meant he was one mile closer to his own country did nothing to make him unhappy, either. He wanted nothing more than to get…whatever it was out of his safe and off his ship. He didn’t like having men with automatic weapons outside his door at all hours of the day and night. Were it up to him, he would have been much more casual about the mysterious package. But it wasn’t, so he followed orders.
    He also followed orders in maintaining wireless silence till he got within sight of Cape Ann, northeast of Boston. A couple of patrolling U.S. seaplanes had already spotted him by then and, he supposed, sent their own wireless signals, but nobody—especially not his exec—would be able to say he hadn’t done everything the brass told him to do.
    Two Coast Guard cutters steamed out from Rockport and escorted the
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across Massachusetts Bay as if she had royalty on board. Sam didn’t think the Germans could have dehydrated the Kaiser and stuffed him into that flat package, but you never could tell.
    When a pilot came aboard to steer the destroyer escort through the minefields outside of Boston harbor, Sam greeted him with, “The powers that be won’t like it if you pick the wrong time to sneeze.”
    The pilot had flaming red hair, ears that stuck out like jug handles, and an engagingly homely grin. “My wife