She looked up at her compatriots. “Not gonna lie,” she held up her hand, keeping her thumb and forefinger centimeters apart, “I’m this close to soiling myself right now.”
“Then I thank you for going first,” Hammet said.
Zahra smiled.
“Yes,” Yana added, “being underneath you would be
The incoming ocean air battered Zahra. It slammed her against the cliff face a half dozen times before her feet touched down atop the U-boat’s conning tower platform. She quickly unclipped and stabilized herself against the wall before turning and joining up with Kyle and Ethan. The two men had smartly secured the rappelling line to the rail of the sub’s conning tower so they wouldn’t have to hold it steady themselves.
Zahra pictured the vessel falling and dragging along one of their Sno-Cats. Then again, the line would more than likely snap before that would happen.
“Well, that was awful,” she muttered, blowing out a long breath of air.
“Yeah,” Kyle agreed, “I’ve had better descents. Had worse, too.”
Zahra nodded. “Same. Why wasn’t this found before now? It’s kind of hard to miss.”
“That’s easy,” Kyle replied. “A chunk of ice the size of a bus station broke loose last week. Our boat’s been right here the entire time but just out of sight. We’re lucky the ice didn’t shear off the entire front half of it.”
Zahra was impressed. Still, they needed to get moving. “So, what do we have?”
“Besides an open U-boat. Not much,” Ethan said. Zahra hadn’t talked to the man all that much and had just noticed that his accent was similar to Kyle’s.
“You from Northern Wisconsin, too?” Zahra asked.
Ethan shook his head. “Dad was, but I was born in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.”
“Oh, a Yooper, huh?”
“I am, though I only lived there until high school. Moved down to the suburbs of Detroit when I was fourteen.” He grinned. “should have heard my accent back then. You would have needed Google Translate to understand a word I was saying.”
Zahra smiled and looked up, hearing a roar of anger above. Yana was also having some trouble with her descent, though she was being much more vocal about it than Zahra had. The coherent words were in Russian, and they were incredibly foul.
“What’s she saying?” Ethan asked.
Zahra quickly shook her head. “You’d need therapy if I told you.”
Yana landed with a bang, attracting everyone’s attention. They stared at her with disdain.
“What?” she asked. “If I go down, I’m taking you all with me.”
Zahra rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the cut-open hatch. She knelt, leaned over it, and looked inside. Nothing odd could be seen from up here. It looked as utilitarian as she had expected. A metal ladder led down to an uninspiring gray floor. The atmosphere emanating from within the U-boat was stale and eerie.
If Cork had been here, she would have already been inside.
“What’s that for?” Yana asked, kneeling next to Zahra. She looked up from the hole, smiling. “Thinking of someone special?”
Zahra snorted. “You could say that. I have a friend back home that would have loved this.”
“Another history expert?”
“No,” Zahra replied. “Just a thrill seeker with no knowledge of danger.”
“Ah, yes, I know a few people like that. Typically, they have all the fun while everyone else suffers. And then they die horrifically because they’re an idiot without a sense of limitation.”
Zahra wouldn’t have put it so gloomily, but she didn’t argue, either. Over the years, Cork had gotten Zahra into plenty of trouble without her deserving it.
The pair looked back up the cliff just in time to watch Hammet flawlessly execute his descent down to the submarine. He allowed his much heavier frame to fall like a bomb. He sliced through the whipping wind like Thorin Oakenshield’s elven sword slicing through goblin throats, slowing only once he neared the vessel. His feet hit with barely a sound.
“Show off,” Yana mumbled. She grinned. “A
Zahra smiled. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“I’m sure you haven’t…”
“Ready?” Hammet asked, unclipping from the line.
Zahra sat and dangled her legs over the edge, just as she’d done up top. “Waiting on you, slowpoke.”
Hammet wasn’t amused.
Zahra shifted her attention to Kyle and Ethan. “You boys coming along?”
Both men shook their heads.
“No,” Kyle added. “I’m just here for moral support. Personally, I’d be useless down there. Unless it’s aeronautics, I’m not really a World War II connoisseur.”
“Plus,” Ethan added, “I’m not sure the boat can take the added weight. We’re already pushing our luck.” He looked back up the cliffside, then back to Zahra. “I’d hurry if I were you.”
With that ominous warning, Zahra found a ladder rung with her foot, turned, and began her descent. The condition of the air grew worse and worse, but at least the Antarctic wind was gone.
