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WERE OVER two hundred"It&039;s incredible! If it weren&039;t for this" She held the paperweight up as she sat on the sofa in the hotel&039;s front roo the letters as if fearful they would so for fifteena pot of coffee, "and I haven&039;t understood a thing you&039;ve said Wait until I get in there"

"When&039;s the earliest I can get a ston?"

"Hard to say," Moore called back "The relay operator sometimes works for an hour or so on Sundays, soe off!"

"Settle down," he said, bringing in a tray with a coffeepot and two cups He set it down on the table and poured some for her and then for himself "If it&039;s all that iht" He sat beside her "All right, I&039; Who&039;s Wilhelm Korrin?"

"He was one of the few U-boat aces of World War II," Jana said "There weren&039;t many others: Prien, Schepke, Kretsch they sunk Well, at the end of the war the others were all accounted for, either dead or in prison camps, but Korrin had vanished without a trace, and since the war he&039;s been a puzzle to roup of sport divers found a U-boat wreckage near Jamaica; there wasn&039;tour records we found it was unidentifieci Korrin&039;s last known command was in the Caribbean, so of course we assuht makes all the difference And it&039;s even more vital to preserve the U-boat now; there&039;ll be war diaries aboard, Korrin&039;s personal log - who knohat else It&039;s a treasure trove for both the Foundation and runted "He was that important, was he?"

"Very," Jana said "Korrin alle-handedly blocked off the northeastern coast of the United States; on one particular tour of duty his U-boat crept inside a convoy to strike at three tankers All of theht&039;s Cross for him in Berlin, but he never returned to accept it In the early part of 1942 his area of operations was the Caribbean; he was one of the first U-boat coiven a free choice of targets The unverified reports say his boat shelled the Trinidad oil refineries, slipped into Castries harbor to torpedo an anchored freighter, and sank the British cruiser Hawklin with a single concussion torpedo that snapped it amidships The Hawklin survivors testified that the U-boat returned several hours later to fire on their lifeboats; if that incident had ever been proved, Korrin would have gone on trial for his life - if he&039;d ever returned to take his punishment, that is Communications between the U-boats were kept at a minimum for the sake of security, and there was no way Korrin&039;s movements could be tracked

"Then he vanished His boat&039;s number - U-198 - never reappeared on any of the Ger - a ruthless, highly intelligentmissions But for the last forty years he&039;s been ayour homework"

"I did asthat U-boat off Janht down and looked at hi This afternoon you didn&039;t even want me near the boat Why was that?"

He put his cup on the table and paused for ahappened when Kip and I went in; soerous very dangerous"

"Tellto probe until she found it "The bodies inside aren&039;t skeletons; they&039;ve been ht"

"I can handle it"

"No It&039;s aze on hi how to say it "So h, but then she saas deadly serious and she stopped herself "You h and clenched his hands together "I&039;ve gone over it in my head a hundred times Kip says it was a hallucination, the effect of the fu real there, in the boat&039;s central passageway And it looked like aon board"

Moore shook his head quickly "I ether in the control rooterrible inside, and I&039;ination" Jana began

"NO!" Moore looked up at her, and his expression frightened her because she could see his own fear, working deep within hiined; it was real"

They sat in uneasy silence for a few ht aside, finished her coffee, and then stood up "It&039;s ti in," she said "I&039;m an early riser I&039; on you for transportation around Coquina; if it&039;s too much trouble I suppose I could rent a bicycle down in the village"

"It&039;s no trouble," he said quietly

"Well, if you&039;re sure I&039;d like to , and of course I&039; to have to talk to the constable"

"I don&039;t think Kip&039;s going to change his mind"

"We&039;ll see If I have to, I&039;ll fly back to Kingston to get legal intervention" She stood over hiht," and one up a few steps she turned back to reassure hiht better of it and continued on to her roo time And then he felt it - the sensation that very near to hi hatred that at any e It was the same sensation he&039;d had while in the boat, and he was unable to shake it Then he thought of the forty-five-caliber automatic he kept in a drawer in his room He stood up and locked both the screen door and the wooden door, walked through the corridor into the kitchen, and bolted the rear door as well Only when he was satisfied the hotel was secure did he snap off the lights and mount the stairway in the dark

Thick, bilious clouds swept through the night, covering over the ainst s and roofs, and rivulets of water crept along gutters The sea flattened, pocked by the rain, and when the dawn caed at the horizon Only a lighter patch of gray above the turbulent ocean indicated where the sun was hanging

The wind that had forced the clouds in frorim stillness and silence lay across Coquina

Kip hadn&039;t slept well He had been awakened continually by i in the brush outside his , a far-off crying of birds, the scratching of rats at the walls He had gotten out of bed and read until dawn, trying to keep his attention on the printed pages, but his mind was too full to allow hies autoray light filled the small house and Myra cooked breakfast in the kitchen, Kip sat with his hands folded before hiht

"We&039;ll be ready to eat in a fewin on him "Shall I wake Mindy?"

"No," Kip said "Let her sleep a while longer"

The woman understood that her husband wanted to be alone, so she went back into the kitchen and began to get out the silverware

For the past few days, he knew, he hadn&039;t been as warht suddenly; they have found us through the barriers of both time and death, and they will not sleep until they destroy us The U-boat was eating into hi the very air he breathed What kind of men, Kip wondered, had made such a death machine as that? Who drove the rivets, who ha beneath the decks? Who packed explosives into the torpedoes, set the equipment into place in that hellish control rooht bulkheads into their fra had been conceived and built for one purpose: destruction In life it had prowled the currents seeking to carry out its purpose, and in death the thing&039;s ie seeht, and there is no escape

He ate his breakfast quickly, barely hearing what Myra was saying to hi out problems was often to draw inside himself until he had found a solution He helped her with the dishes, kissed her and the still-sleeping child, and then left the house for histo handle the Thornton wo; she couldn&039;t see what he had seen or feel what he felt, and there was no use trying to talk to her He would have to do what he felt was right, because he was the law and he was responsible for all of the the proble over hi out frantically; it was Andrew Cale, co-er of the boatyard The lassy hollows, and tears streamed down his face There were marks on his bare arms where thorns had scratched hi "Oh, rasped the constable&039;s ar with you?" Kip asked "What&039;s happened?"