When Peter awoke, he found the light terribly bright. He squinted and moved up to a sitting position, leaning against the wall. He was alive and just felt disoriented. It could have been a lot worse.

A silhouette of a woman appeared, towering above him.

"I can't believe it. He brought a fed here."

He knew that voice. He raised his hand to screen his eyes from the light.

"Alex Hunter."

She sat down on her heels to level with him.

"Adler must be serious if he risks getting a search posse on your tail."

Peter looked around the room. A window covered from the outside and one closed door. A bed that had been slept in. It was empty except for them and Neal, who seemed to be still asleep. Alex saw him watching the kid.

"Relax, Burke. He's got a pulse."

Peter rolled his shoulder and got to his feet. The bed must be Alex's. That meant that she was probably locked up here too.

"Adler?" he asked. She shrugged.

"I haven't seen him since he brought me here."

The kid made a sound. Alex sat down beside him. Peter sent the young con man a glare. The kid had said to do this the FBI way, and still, he had swept that glass without consulting him.

"Alex," Neal giggled, "I was looking for you."

Alex turned her head to Peter.

"Should I?"

"I think it'll help," Peter nodded.

Alex slapped the kid. Somehow he had known what she meant when she asked. Something he would never do himself. And it was not okay to do. Actually. Not even when he was angry at the stupid kid.

Neal grunted.

"Thank you."

Peter sighed, walked over, and pulled him to his feet.

"Come on."

He held a hand on the young man's shoulder. Neal felt stable. Good.

"This is part of a plan, right?" Alex asked. "You let yourselves get caught, then the FBI rides to the rescue."

Peter and the kid exchanged glances.

"You got the first part right," Peter said. It did not make the young woman happy. Had anyone even noted that he or Neal was missing yet?

"You have any idea where we are?" Neal asked.

"It's a warehouse. That's all I know. They drugged me, too."

There was a sound at the door, and it was opened by the guy from the car. Vincent Adler marched in.

"Glad you're awake."

"Why are we here?" Neal asked at once.

Adler cocked his head with a smile.

"Better if I show you."

He walked over to the covered windows and put a key in the black box under it. He turned the key, and the covers slid aside.

Outside was a large storage area, and in that area was a rusty submarine. Peter, Neal, and Alex stared out the window in awe.

"My God," the kid whispered. "You found it."

"Incredible, isn't it?" Adler said with a proud and enthusiastic face. It was no surprise to Peter that Neal and this man had become friends once. They shared the same passions. "Shall we go down and have a closer look? Miss Hunter stays here, of course."

As they left the room and walked downstairs to get to the floor where the sub was, Peter noted that Adler did not even bother to tell them not to run. They were joined by a goon, hovering behind them, but it was as if Adler knew he had them intrigued.

"The last days of the war," Adler began, hands in his pockets, as they stood beside the huge piece of rusty mental. "This u-boat was supposed to reach Argentina, but something happened. The crew had to scuttle it off our coast. They were going to retrieve it after the war, but, obviously, that never happened."

"How do you know this?" Peter asked.

Adler stopped his walk along the sub.

"Because one of the crewmen survived." Adler looked him straight in the eye. "He was my father." A reliable source, without a doubt.

"Why do you need me?" Neal asked.

"The crew rigged the interior with explosives to prevent enemy access. I need someone who can open it without setting the charges off. Luckily, I already know the best." Adler glanced at the kid. "That's why you're here, Neal."

"And if I refuse?"

"You won't. Alex will be with me. You can pretend you're doing it to protect her and Peter, but we both know the real reason. You want to see what's inside."

"Curiosity kills the cat," Peter said and tried a smile. Adler did not even bother to comment on that one. People like Adler did not plan on dying any time soon.

Adler started a lift and motioned them to get inside. He maneuvered it upwards along the hull to reach the top. There he had arranged a scaffold to take them from the lift to the deck.

"I'll need equipment," the kid pointed out. "Carbide-tipped drill, fiber-optic borescope.—"

"I think you'll find everything you need."

They stood by the entry hatch.

"Getting the hatch open is a two-man job. You gonna help me?"

"No. I will be behind blast-proof glass. Agent Burke can help you. Keep in mind, you'll be wearing a remote camera. Don't try and play a hero."

Adler left, and Peter stood watching the hatch of the old, trip-wired submarine. Was he there as a result of Neal trying to do things right? If that was the case, it was ironic.

"Can you do this?" he asked his pet convict. Neal sent him a look like he had asked if he could draw.

Neal pulled his jacket off, and Peter did the same. He inspected the tools laid out on the deck. He had hoped to be able to stall, insisting on something missing, but there was all he could possibly need. There was even a blueprint of the sub taped to the tower.

There was also a pair of safety glasses with a camera and a microphone. He put his thumb on the mic while he put it on.

"Any chance of the cavalry?" he mumbled.

"Where would they go?" Peter returned with a slight shrug. He was probably right. They would know they were missing by now and draw their conclusions. Maybe even Sara had noted he never turned up on their date in his own home. But from there, to actually have a place to search, no.

Neal started to drill a hole through the place beside the hatch.

"You ever safe-crack a submarine?" his handler asked.

"No. But the principles should be the same."

Peter handed him the camera, and Neal pushed it down the hole. Peter looked at the screen.

"What do we got?"

"Looks like a typewriter," his friend answered.

"A typewriter?"

"Yeah, but I don't see any explosives."

That was a start. He pulled the camera out.

"All right. Help me get these bolts off." He handed Peter a wrench, and they started getting the plate loose.

"This really a two-man job?"

"I figured I'd save you from a bullet," Neal said.

"By putting me in front of a bomb?" It was hard to tell if Peter was serious or not. But he had a point. Neal grinned.

"Stop talking," Adler's voice was heard from a speaker. No, Vincent had no saying in this.

"If you don't like it," Neal said, glaring at the man on the other side of his blast-proof glass, "come do it yourself."

"That shut him up," Peter grinned. He put a crowbar under the rim of the plate and heaved it upwards. Neal got his fingers around it. "Here we go."

Neal pulled it up and away and looked down at Peter's 'typewriter'.

"It's an Enigma."

"Code-breaking machine. I'm sure it's wired to blow up."

Neal saw no explosives, just as Peter had said. He lifted the machine up by its handles.

"Careful," Peter mumbled. Neal placed the Enigma by the hole and glanced down at what it had been standing on.

"That would be TNT." It looked just as it did in old Western movies.

"Yeah," Peter sighed. "A lot of TNT."

And wires from the bundles to the Enigma. Fantastic.

"All right, the Enigma uses a series of pins and rotors to encode words."

"Fifteen billion-billion possible combinations," Vincent's voice told them.

"Yes. Thank you, for that." It was not like he was going to test his way through this. Neal looked at Peter. "You're good with crosswords."

"Not that good."

"You have a favorite color?"

"Oh, funny. This is your skill set, not mine."

"All right," he said, studying the swastika-branded TNT sticks. "Beige is usually a neutral or bluff wire."

"Usually?!"

"I don't know if they bluffed with wire sixty years ago. The live ones should be the silver or the black."

"El's favorite color is purple."

"That doesn't help. I think it's the black."

"Okay."

"Or the silver."

"Mm."

"Or both. All right, if we cut 'em both, that would work." He was playing with lives here. But he knew he worked well under stress. "Should work." He turned to grab two nippers. "I'll cut the black, you cut the silver."

"Good. Good!" Peter said, relaxed by Neal's confidence. "One, two, three, clip?"

"Okay," Neal nodded, putting his nipper in position. But then pulled it back. "Wait, Peter. In case this doesn't work…" It was so much he wanted to say but not while Vincent was hearing.

Peter looked at him with a faint smile.

"Yeah. Me too."

His best friend.

He put his nippers back, and so did Peter.

"All right. One… Two… Three."And they cut their wires. There was a small bang of some sort, with a puff of smoke, but nothing else happened. Wrong. It did. There was a sound from the Enigma. A fast ticking.

"What's it doing?" Peter asked.

"I think it's a timer."

"How much time do we have?"

"I don't know, but it sounds like it's moving fast."

"How do we stop it?!"

"I don't know, Peter!" He needed a password! But which password?

"It's a legend!" they heard Alex's voice instead of Vincent's. "The enigma password is a legend. The story of an ancient king with a golden touch that destroyed him."

"Midas. Alex, are you sure?"

"The radio operator who received the u-boat's final S.O.S. signal was my grandfather."

"You're Gerhard Wagner's granddaughter?" they heard Vincent say.

"He told me to always remember the story."

"Do it!" Vincent commanded.

"Midas. M-I-D-A-S." When Neal had pressed the keys on the old keyboard, the fast ticking stopped, and there was a click.

Neal felt like jelly. He sat down on his butt on the deck. Peter did the same. What a rush.

"That was close," Peter breathed.

"We've cut it closer."

"I don't think so." Peter crawled over to the hatch and turned the wheel, unlocking it. "All right."

"You got it?"

The wheel reached its stop, and they helped each other to pull it open. Neal felt foul air pass his face.

"Whoa. Careful." Neal saw what Peter meant.

"More TNT. Great." There was plenty attached to the inside of the hatch. He stared down into the darkness of the sub's belly.

"This better be good," Peter said.

Yeah. It better be worth it.

Please remember to follow me on Buy Me A Coffee Dash Altankatt for updates. It is free.