The Passenger Read Online Free PDF

undertow of nervous agitation flowing beneath the palpable disappointment, and after some reflection, he concluded that the cause was very likely the proximity of the dead. Sailors were notoriously superstitious.
    When Lorenz returned to the forward torpedo room he was pleased to find the area clean and smelling of carbolic. The two bodies had been laid out next to each other, arms by their sides.
    â€˜What do we do now?’ asked Juhl.
    â€˜Search them,’ Lorenz replied.
    Sutherland’s pockets were empty but Grimstad had been carrying a small notebook. Juhl stood and handed it to his superior. ‘It’ll be full of mathematical equations.’ Lorenz flicked the pages, and a wry smile appeared on his face. ‘What?’ Juhl inquired.
    There were no numbers in the notebook. Instead, it was filled with neatly copied symbols composed of straight lines of varying length. Some of these symbols resembled letters—one was like an ‘F’, another like an ‘R’—and the way they were grouped suggested words and sentences.
    â€˜Look,’ said Lorenz, holding the notebook open.
    Juhl squinted. ‘Runes?’
    â€˜That’s what I think.’
    â€˜It could still be a code.’
    â€˜But why choose runes?’
    â€˜I don’t know.’
    â€˜Perhaps Professor Grimstad wasn’t a scientist after all. Perhaps he was a specialist in old Norse languages—or a historian of some kind.’
    â€˜What possible use would such a man be to the SS? What could a historian know that’s so important?’
    â€˜The SS have obscure interests.’
    â€˜Even so, Kaleun.’
    Lorenz put the notebook in his pocket and ordered Voigt to find some clean blankets. The bodies were wrapped and carried onto the deck. Above the eastern horizon the clouds were aglow with a sickly, putrescent light. Lorenz called for the boat to be stopped and descended the conning tower. He read the burial service and the two bodies were tipped into the ocean. One of the seamen made the sign of the cross, and Lorenz was reminded of the professor’s odd gesture, the triangle the old man had drawn in the air on coming around after his ‘seizure.’ The waves were slow-moving and evenly spaced. Lorenz touched the cover of Grimstad’s notebook with his fingertips. What had the SS been up to?

    L ORENZ WAS DREAMING, AND IN his dream he was standing on the deck, observing the slow materialization of an approaching raft in a vertical column of moonlight. The tableau was vaguely familiar: two figures, one standing with a raised arm and the other sitting and slumped forward. Ice floes were knocking together and a frozen mist was depositing crystals on his beard. He looked through his binoculars and expected to see empty sockets and an exposed jawbone. Instead, he found himself looking into the neutral eyes of the British commander. Sitting at Sutherland’s feet was Professor Grimstad. Lorenz heard a voice and it was only when the sentence had ended that he recognized it as his own: ‘No, I’m not coming with you.’ He was no longer asleep, and he was breathing shallow and fast. Reaching out, he tugged the curtain aside. Lehmann was turning the hydrophone wheel, his features illuminated by the glowing dial, his ears obscured by headphones. Clearly, he hadn’t been disturbed. Lorenz turned on the lamp, listened to the electric motors, and wondered if the wind was still whipping up twenty-meter crests on the surface.U-330 was sailing silently through a dark green void, high over submerged summits and valleys that had never known light. An image came into Lorenz’s mind. He pictured a monstrous sea creature roused by the sound of the boat’s screws: sucker-bearing tentacles stirring ancient sediment, fish with bulging eyes and whiskers scattering in black water.

    T HE FOLLOWING DAY THE CLOUD-COVER was low and oppressive: a sagging canopy of grey beneath