The man handling the runabout stopped its engine about a half mile from the yacht. We sat there and bobbed up and down in the water for a while, just waiting.
"Contact, bearing two five zero, Admiral. ” The man with the binoculars called out without turning and looking.
"Very good, carry on. ” The Admiral, Max and I sat in the comfortable cockpit area at a small table. There had been no conversation between any of us, since embarking on the smaller craft.
I believed they did not want to discuss their business in front of any of the crew, so I sat and just waited. Off the port side, I noticed a black hull in the water that looked like a whale, with the exception of the a long conning tower jutting above the surface. A large black submarine was moving slowly toward us. I looked at Max who had a thin smile as he handed me a life jacket.
"Put that on, please doctor. We don’t want to lose you. ” I complied and waited. It took only a few minutes for the captain of the gig to put it right along side the submarine. Lines were quickly tied off and bumpers were placed to keep the two craft from rubbing on each other in the moving ocean. Max slapped me on the back after he had tied a rope around my waist and chest.
"When I tell you to, jump. Push off hard and those boys will do the rest. ” He pointed to the sailors on the deck of the submarine that held the end of the ropes in their gloved hands.
"Go! ” He yelled in my ear and I pushed as hard as I could off the freeboard. I spun and flailed and it seemed like I was flying as I hung in space for a moment with the crewmen pulling quickly and expertly on the ropes. I landed on the deck of the submarine without ever touching water and strong hands stabilized me as I watched the other two men make the crossing with the ease of years of experience at sea under their belts. All three of us were herded down the hatch in the conning tower after the Admiral waved off the gig and saluted the captain.
The interior was cold and dimly lit with red lights as we went down a ladder like Jonah into the bowels of the Great Fish. Past the last hatchway on the pressure hull, it became very bright and the inside of the boat was all shining chrome and brass. I looked around to get my bearings while moving out of the way for the other men to come down the ladder and into what had to be the bridge. A young hard looking man stepped forward.
"Captain Leon Pavol Patrovich at your service, Admiral Jacobs. Gentlemen. ”
He saluted Jacobs, and nodded to us, speaking in a thick Russian accent. Jacobs returned the salute and then extended his hand as if to greet an old friend.
"Leon this is Dr. Ted Humphrey our guest and of course you know Max? ”
The captain shook my hand and looked directly into my eyes. His gaze was neither hostile nor friendly, but mostly curious. He turned to Max and smiled.
"Well, have you brought some more American money that I can take from you in that game you call poker? ” He slapped Max on the arm and turned to his crew.
"Diving stations, Chief take her down and prepare for silent running. Course is laid in. Lets get going. ” He turned back to us. "Our accommodations are not as good as your yacht, but they should suit you for this journey. Follow me please. Oh, here, put this on also, please. ” He handed each of us a dosimeter to be worn at all times.
"This ship is nuclear? ” I asked in surprise. He turned back looking first at me then at Jacobs, who nodded to him. We were all part of the same happy club now.
"Yes, Doctor, it is. ” The Captain said with pride. "It is known as a 'November Class’ boat by your NATO organization. She is three hundred and sixty feet long. Powered by a nuclear reactor and has a steam turbine engine of 22, 500 horsepower. She can travel at twenty-five knots submerged. And does not need to surface except for food and to get her sailors laid now and then. Unfortunately, the Soviet Submarine Service is the only part of the Soviet military that does not have female comrades on board their vessels. And, sir, it is referred to as a boat, not a ship. ” The Soviet captain smiled and showed the gold inlay on his front tooth. As he walked us forward I noticed the boat was spacious, much more so than in the old movies I’d seen like Run Silent! Run Deep! or the boats used in World War II and before. Everything was immaculate by any standard.
"This area has been set aside for your use. It is off limits to the rest of the crew unless we have an emergency of some kind. Sergei is your steward and will provide whatever you need while we are underway. Hopefully, ” he said with a grin, "we can play a little cards latter. I have been practicing. ” He looked directly a Max and winked. With that he saluted and walked back toward the bridge and closed the watertight door behind him.
"Home sweet home, doc. Let me show you your cabin. ” Max pulled open one of the doors that led to a small but exceptionally well-furnished room. It had a bunk, a small desk built into the wall, a small lavatory and a closet. I opened the locker and found clothing in it in exactly my size.
"Those are for you. ” Max continued. "Nice part about nuclear boats is you can take a shower anytime you want. You may glow a little afterwards, but that’s no big thing. ” He pointed to the two boxes of files on the bunk. "Your reading material for the next three days. Your assignment is for you to learn as much as you can before we get to where we’re heading. ”
I turned around and dropped my jacket and other effects on the bed. "And where are we going if I may be so bold as to ask? ”
"Sure you can. We’re heading for a small island off the north coast of Iceland, called Mount Grace. It’s an extinct volcano that’s been blasted out on the inside and serves as a sub pen for this boat and a couple of others. ”
"All this may not seem strange to you, ” I said apprehensively, "but we’re on a Russian submarine. That seems a little strange to me. Does any of this seem strange to you? ” I was being slightly sarcastic but Max let it go bye without offense.
"Not at all when you consider that we are in this fight together. What the politicians, ” he pointed up, "do up there is not our concern. They do not understand the importance of what this is all about. Those that do, like yourself, are willing to offer any assistance that is needed to get this job done. Anything else? ”
"What is this about a poker game? ” I was just interested and wanted to know why all the references to it.
"These are good men. But their government pays them about a third of what a boot recruit in our service makes. So whenever we take a ride we always manage to lose at cards. I’ve dumped a thousand dollars on this boat in one night. You would have thought that Captain Leon had busted the bank at Monte Carlo he was so happy. That will pay for food, clothes and braces on his kid’s teeth back in Archangel where this boat is out of. So if you do get into a game with them, do the same and I will reimburse you later. Think of it as international diplomacy and working for world
peace. ” He winked and closed the door. I still had a hundred questions but I figured I could wait until they were ready to answer them.
if if if if if
The files were a collection from at least four different locations that were running the same experiments. Each told a story of attempts at dissimilar methods of trying to close the rip that had occurred in space/time. Page after page of calculations and equations had been tried and mostly failed. It was abundantly clear a lot of good people had worked on this project, but they were all working on it from the outside in. They looked at what had caused the rip and tried to work through the problem of healing it from ground-based facilities. After reading for three hours I started to thumb through the documents and they were all the same. They would never get their hands wrapped around the problem without getting inside it. I already knew that. Poor old Bates tried that approach and failed. As I looked around the small cabin, I realized this was the reason I was here. These guys knew I had done something no one else ever did and they wanted to know how I did it. I sat there thinking about Leon and his kids with braces on their teeth. Well, the same type of poker game was going to be played by me, only I wasn’t interested in winning a grand off Max. I wanted to clean these people out, win all the chips, break the bank, then buy the casino. I wanted blood.
I tossed the file into its proper box and walked out into the corridor that led to the small lounge that had been put at our disposal. Max and the Admiral were sitting with their heads together talking quietly.
"What does a fella have to do to get a drink around here? ” I walked in and plopped down next to them. Both men were suddenly taken back by the harshness of my edge.
"I am sure we can find something to drink on a Soviet submarine, Doctor. ” The Admiral looked at me reproachfully.
"Good! ” I said slapping him on the back, raping his personal space. "I need a good stiff drink and something solid to eat. Then we’re gonna talk about all those files. ” Jacobs sat back and looked at me with his holier than thou attitude.
"Did you find something interesting? ”
"Interesting? ” I chewed the word over in my mouth. "That wouldn’t be the word I would use. ” I sat back and anteed up, tossing two white chips out there on the table. The black ones would come later.
"What would you call them, Dr. Humphrey? ” The Admiral still looked down his nose at me condescendingly, not yet realizing he had already lost all his power and position. It was time to raise the stakes for these guys.
"Why don’t we get past all the nicey nice crap, shall we? You call me Ted, I call you, well, Admiral, I guess, 'cause you never gave me your first name, Jacobs. I call him Max, he calls me Ted and we all try to be friends since what I just read made me understand that we are going to be spending one hell of a lot of time with each other. ”
I sat back and waited.
"And why would you think that Doctor Humphrey? ” The Admiral was clearly not used to subordinates and inferiors dictating terms to him.
"It’s Ted. Let’s try Ted. T-e-e-e-d. ” A smirk danced on my lips as I watched Max, a very dangerous man, get madder and madder.
"Alright... Ted. ” He said like it caused him pain. "What did you find out that suddenly makes you so indispensable to us? ” The Admiral was quicker than I had given him credit for. I had underestimated him and I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
"The fact is Admiral, ” I leaned in close getting uncomfortably far into his personal space, "that stack of papers in there? You can hand them to your Commie pal Captain
Leon and his Commie crew to wipe their asses with. ” I waited for him to call, raising all the bets around the table.
The Admiral started to smile, and for the first time it was genuine.
"You are correct, Ted. That represents nearly a billion dollars of research and they never got even near the mark. ” The Admiral turned and looked at Max. "Why don’t you get us all a bottle of that frozen antifreeze they call vodka on this boat and we will have use some drinks together. ”
"Admiral? You too? ” Max looked serious again.
"Yes, Charles Montgomery. ” The Admiral said with a jovial smile. "If I am going to work with this asshole I just hired for life, then I am going to drink with him. ”
The Admiral stuck out his hand and shook mine, this time with feeling.
"Welcome aboard, Ted. ”
"Thank you, sir. ” I stood up and reached out to Max with my hand, he took it. "And thank you for not shooting me just then, which I am sure was your first instinct... Charles Montgomery. ” Max shrugged.
"Old habits die hard. But don’t push your luck too often. I’m still an old dog. But you call me Charles Montgomery again and all bets are off. ” He smiled and walked forward to find a bottle and some glasses.
"So you are taking me to meet someone, that much is clear. They can’t come into the US, so that means they’re a little, shall we say, controversial, and you got him stashed in one of the most inhospitable places in the world and they stay there. So I was thinking, who did you have locked up that was so important? ” I just wanted to take a flying leap and see if I could read the situation right so far.
"On the nose. Ted. ” The Admiral walked over and opened the door to his cabin. He pulled a file out of his briefcase and walked back into the room and dropped it on the table between us. "Have a look. ”
I opened it and looked at the black and white picture. I read the four onion skin sheets of paper and handed the file back to him, shaking my head.
"When all those missile scientists were brought in the back door under Operation: Paperclip, we couldn’t get him in. Holy hell would have broken out in Washington and someone’s head would have been lopped off and put on a pike at the traitors gate, let me tell you. So we compromised some old friends in Red Square and got them to house him and provide equipment on that hellhole of an island up there, that nobody is supposed to know about. Oh, we bring him whatever he wants. Books, magazines, booze, candy. God, the man eats a ton of candy and never gains weight. The Russians have been good enough to station an equal amount of women to men on the island so he can flirt and have a little fun now and then, but as he gets older the old libido just isn’t up there as much. One of the girls gives him a hand job now and then and that seems to suffice and keeps him going. But he’s still working the problem as much as he can. Oh, he knows the answer to the problem, I absolutely believe that, but as long as he doesn’t give it up, he thinks we’ll protect him from the world. The truth is, he’s right and that, Ted, is where you come in. You are the only one I have seen that can match him pound for pound in sheer brainpower. I want the answer and you are going to get it for me out of that thick German head of his. ”
The Admiral looked up as the steward walked in behind Max with two bottles of ice-cold vodka and a small tray of cheeses and Beluga caviar with dry toast wedges, capers, onions and chopped boiled eggs.
"You told him? ” Max sat and looked at me.
"I did. He deserves to know. It’s the least we can do. ” The Admiral took a piece of toast and slathered on the caviar and relished it as he chewed.
"I can’t stand that stuff. ” Max commented. "Well, Ted welcome to the club. What do you think about spending the next two years with the second most wanted man in the world? ” Max poured drinks in everyone’s glass.
"First most wanted man... at this point. ” The Admiral corrected.
"I thought Eichmann was number one? ” Max asked.
"Until two weeks ago. The Israelis kidnapped him out of Argentina. Now, Hans Kammler has the singular distinction of being the most wanted man on Earth. Cheers! ” He raised his glass and drained it.
I opened the folder and looking at the picture of the man in his uniform and deaths head cap, the cold eyes of killer looking back at me. Hans Kammler, or, more specifically, General Doktor Ing. Hans (Heinz) Friedrich Karl Franz Kammler. The Uber-Gruben Furher of the Nazi Third Riech, Hitler’s second in command and the most powerful man in Germany and all Europe anywhere outside of Berlin and Hitler himself. Kammler started out as a brilliant civil engineer and high-ranking SS officer. Kammler had over 14 million people working, or more accurately, enslaved, under him, at one point or another throughout the course of the war in the concentration camp system, which he had set up and designed. He was put in charge of the V-2 missile program towards the end of the war when they couldn’t get the more advanced technology he was working on into mass production.
Kammler was the Monster of the Warsaw Ghetto who oversaw its demolition in retaliation for the Polish Revolt in 1943.
Kammler was also charged with constructing facilities for various secret weapons projects, including manufacturing plants and test stands for the Messerschmitt Me 262 and V-2. Following the Allied bombing raids on Peenemunde in Operation: Hydra in August 1943, Kammler was assigned to moving these production facilities underground, which resulted in the Mittelwerk facility and its attendant concentration camp complex, Mittelbau-Dora, which housed slave labour for constructing the factory and working on the production lines. The project was pushed ahead under enormous time pressures despite the consequences for the slave laborers employed on it. Kammler's motto at the time was reportedly, "Don't worry about the victims. The work must proceed ahead in the shortest time possible! ” Sweet!
Albert Speer made Kammler his representative for "special construction tasks", expecting that Kammler would commit himself to working in harmony with the ministry's main construction committee. But in March 1944 Kammler had Goering appoint him as his delegate for "special buildings" under the fighter aircraft program, which made him one of the war economy's most important managers, and robbed Speer of much of his influence.
In 1944, Himmler convinced Adolf Hitler to put the V-2 project directly under SS control, and Kammler replaced Walter Dornberger as its director. From January 1945, Kammler was appointed head of all missile projects and in April 1945 was named "The Fuehrer's general plenipotentiary for jet aircraft" by Hitler.
In March 1945, as US forces were advancing through Germany, the slave workers housed in the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp were to be executed as security risks. That order for their murder was received by Kammler, but, in a rare mysterious act of mercy, he did not comply with it.
Most of that was just the cover story for the "history” crowd, these files were obviously far more extensive. What Kammler was really working on was an insidious device called Die Glocke, The Clock, or the Nazi Bell because of its shape. It was the pinnacle of the SS General’s occult and super secret SS Wonder Weapons Empire.
The Bell, or The Clock, was basically the original prototype for the Beast we had in the cave at Montauk. It was 9 feet in diameter at its flared bottom and 15 feet tall. It was comprised of two counter-rotating cylinders, rotating a purplish liquid-metallic highly radioactive substance called Xerum 525 at high speeds in lead lined cylinders about 12 inches thick. It required massive amounts of electrical power and it could only be run for two or three minutes at a time as it gave off a murderous radiation and electromagnetic field. But Kammler must have known that one of these radiation fields
was the time distortion waves we’d found at Montauk, which is no doubt why they called it the Clock.
The first time Kammler turned Die Glock on it killed most of the scientists on the project. In subsequent tests, which included plants, animals and no doubt a Jew here and there, they all decomposed into a blackish goo in a matter of minutes. The chamber where they did the tests was lined with ceramic bricks and rubber mats that would not conduct the gigantic bleed off of electricity. The mats all had to be removed and burned after each test and the whole chamber had to be washed down with brine by inmates from the adjacent concentration camps, who then all died. But then again, all the scientists and witnesses who saw or worked on the Bell were murdered by the SS as the war neared its end anyway.
The upside of all of this in the cosmic karmic sense and scheme of things was he’d shown Hitler all these amazing Wonder Weapons. It was Gen. Dr. Hans Kammler that convinced Hitler that Germany was invincible, that no one could stand against them, and the whole world was their oyster. Had Hitler simply waited, biding his time by two years, a year, or even six more months, he could have brought all these weapons online into mass production and we’d all be eating schnitzel and sauerkraut in our leiderhousen sporting tiny little mustaches. It was ultimately Hans Kammler’s ego, braggadocio and hubris that had lost Adolph Hitler the Second World War.
In May of 1945, Hans Kammler, and the Nazi Bell, simply vanished from the face of the Earth. There were planted disinformation stories that he’d committed suicide with a cyanide pill, or that he shot himself, or had his aide, Zeuner, shoot him, or that Zeuner shot him just for good measure because he hated his guts.
"Two years with this monster? ” I looked up at Max.
"Or until you get him to tell you what exactly he did or you figure it out without him. ” The Admiral poured another drink for each of us.
"So, in effect, I’m a prisoner as well? ” I laughed at the thought as it hit me. Max shrugged and the Admiral toasted me again. "Maybe I can get that Russian girl to give me a hand job. ” I finished my drink then filled the glass to the brim and downed it. It hit my stomach with the explosive force of rocket fuel.
I stumbled back to my cabin and laid down. My head was already reeling. The dreams that came that night were of Sally, who I was only now beginning to understand how much I truly loved, standing naked in front of me in the doorway to my bedroom, bathed in the light from the bathroom.
But that show was being played for another man and would be for the rest of my
life.