Otto Bauer savoured a swig of hot, strong coffee from his glass mug inside the wooden hut, as he and a younger associate studied the lead samples brought to them off the ridge.
“Still too low grade,” Bauer sighed, magnifying glass to his eye. He scratched his beard, now nearly as full as the others in the camp.
“But it is improving in quality as we drill deeper in the rock.”
Bauer agreed, sniffing. He was fighting off a cold. “What depth are we now?”
“One hundred meters.”
“We have to go even deeper, or else go farther inland and start all over again.”
“Where there’s more ice to drill through?” the associate asked. “I don’t expect Wilhelm to agree to that.”
“No, I suppose not.” Bauer swallowed more coffee, grunting, sniffing, wiping his nose with a handkerchief. Two weeks and barely anything worthwhile removed from the ground. He had to be patient. Do your duty, he remembered.
The phone rang.
“Otto, it’s for you,” said a third man inside the hut.
The scientist walked over to the desk phone opposite the dirty window. “Hello.”
“Otto, it’s Wilhelm.”
“Yes, Wilhelm,” Bauer replied. “I hope you have some good news, better than the samples so far.”
“I do.” Wilhelm Raeder sounded excited. “Our number two search squad reported in.”
“Where have they been? We haven’t heard from them for two days.”
“Radio malfunction, and a bad storm inland, so they said. Nevertheless, they found something worthwhile.”
“And what did they find?”
“Won’t you be surprised?”
“I’m beginning to think that I will. Are you going to keep me in suspense?”
“Get dressed. Warm. We are going on a journey. Be ready in five minutes,” Raeder ordered, with a voice of authority.
* * * *
The journey was slow over the dry snow. The wind blew, but not hard enough to hamper visibility to any great degree. Raeder drove, navigating by a large compass and radio communication with his search team. After a slow thirty kilometres into the interior, Raeder slammed on the brakes of the canvas-covered jeep beside another covered jeep. They were in a wide, flat clearing several kilometres across.
The driver rolled down his window and gestured towards a rise to the right. “Another kilometre or more. That way.”
“Right.”
They lumbered on until the driver drew his vehicle to a halt. “Here it is,” the driver said, proudly.
Bauer stepped out onto mushy, wet snow and gazed upon a steaming pool of water approximately ten feet by fifteen feet. He bent down. The pool was clear, rocks at the bottom. The air over it warm, almost hot. He wiped his nose.
Reader followed behind. “Hot springs.”
“I can see that.” Bauer shook his head, sniffing. “Unbelievable.”
“Yes, isn’t it. In the Antarctic.”
“No, I mean, you brought me all the way out here to show me some damn hot springs?”
Raeder smiled. “Yes and no.” The geologist went to the rear of the jeep, threw off the canvas cover, and returned with four crystal glasses and the bottle of wine that Bauer had brought from Germany. “Otto, I learned a long time ago that one must always keep a sense of humour in addition to a sense of reality. With that in mind, we celebrate.”
“Why?” Bauer replied, confused.
“Time to break open Wernher’s French wine. Boys, jump in. You too, Otto. Might do wonders for your cold and your mood.”
“I hope to hell it does.”
They all stripped naked, threw their heavy clothes on the warm rocks and eased into the hot water, which had to be over a hundred degrees. Soon they were squatting in a pool up to their chests.
Raeder poured the wine. “A toast... to our luck.”
They clinked glasses, and drank.
“What luck is that?” Bauer asked, licking his lips, the dark, red wine stinging his throat. The combination of steamy water and powerful wine was actually clearing his sinuses. “Excellent, I must admit.”
“Don’t you see?” Raeder answered. “This must have been a volcanic region at one time, thousands or millions of years ago. I wonder what’s under all this ice?”
“Or perhaps,” Bauer interrupted, thinking of what the sub skipper had said about the trip under the continent, “it still is volcanic. Far beneath the earth. Oftentimes, cold areas can have the hottest springs. Iceland, for example.”
“Greenland, too,” Raeder agreed. “I saw them. I was there in 1939 and 1941, before the Americans forced us out and built their air bases.” Raeder dunked his head under the water, then popped up, massaging his hand through his slicked hair. “Otto, as a geologist I know that where there’s hot springs, there’s minerals. Sometimes close to the surface. We might be on to something. We’re going to have to move our drilling team. Right here.”
Bauer pondered Raeder’s assumption, staring into the wine. “Now I see.”
“Drink up, my friend!” Raeder laughed. “Drink up!”
“I just might do that.”
Alone in the projection room, Wesley Hollinger read the OSS dispatches — intercepted radio signals — brought to his attention. Obviously the Germans had added something to their already-potent arsenal. Loebitz airfield had a new fighter and were in direct communication with Hamburg. New call signs and codenames had been exercised. But, strange... no radio communication with the pilots, or at least not recorded. Very bizarre.
Hollinger tossed the dispatches on the seat next to him. He stood up to press the button on the side of the projector to start the film that he would see for the first time, a short piece that had been smuggled out of Germany. He shut the room light off and let the film roll. The footage was amazingly clear, with sound, and in colour! No need to act surprised. The Germans were highly advanced in such technology. Hollinger immediately recognized the rocket-powered Messerschmitt ME-163 Komet, one of the most radical and futuristic of German aerial designs. Single-seated and single-engined. According to sources, it was capable of reaching the speed of sound in level flight. The ME-163 was a short fighter, Hollinger could tell right off by the pilot standing beside it. It was also quite ugly, like a lop-sided torpedo. But looks meant nothing to the American agent once he saw the aircraft take off down the grass strip on its jettisoned trolley at a fantastic speed, smoke belching from its exhaust. It then climbed nearly straight up to the clouds... in seconds!
Hollinger gaped at the screen. Dorwin was right about one thing in his assessment of the situation in Germany. The Germans were years ahead of the Allies in aeronautical research.
What else did they have?
Heinrich Himmler strutted alongside the fighter production line, the nervous SS commandant in charge of the underground facility closely at his heels like an obedient puppy, eager to please. In the midst of the noise of construction — banging, drilling, shouts from supervisors — the commandant methodically explained the work at each station.
Together they viewed the initial stages of the strange wing formation, the landing gear, the armament, and the centre section of the Messerschmitt V-4 Experimental Series 1-1a fighter-interceptor. Following the line, they saw how the pieces were sent on rails to the next area where they were riveted in place. The rest, up the line, were finishing touches. The Reichsfuehrer and the commandant walked to the end and out the mountain tunnel entrance guarded by six tall SS guards. Outside, another SS guard was beating a skinny, pale man with a whip.
“Does this happen often, Herr Colonel?” Himmler’s tone was matter-of-fact.
The commandant, Colonel Geinns, swallowed hard and stared at the man in the sinister black uniform and high polished boots. “The beatings?”
“Yes, the beatings. What did you think I meant?”
“Yes... well... sometimes we do have to... discipline our workers, Herr Reichsfuehrer. We have to. However, conditions—”
“You had an escape last month. One of the Polish prisoners.”
The commandant tried to explain. “Yes, true, but—”
“The Fuehrer has placed a high priority on Projekt Equinox. Let me remind you, Herr Colonel, this is a top-secret installation. There will be no other escapes.”
“Yes, of course, Herr Reichsfuehrer. But we caught the prisoner in thirty minutes. Since then, we have beefed up the lighting outside the entrance and have constructed a much higher wire fence.” He sighed. “However, I must point out that the conditions are not the best here, Herr Reichsfuehrer.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our food supply for the prisoners is decreasing,” the commandant explained. “Fresh water is scarce. Very few supplies are getting through, even to the guards. Word is that our trains are being shot up enroute by Allied fighters. We cannot go on like this.”
“You’re not the only one... feeling the pressure. We must all make sacrifices at this time for the Fuehrer and the Fatherland.”
The commandant turned away for a moment to watch the guard whip and kick the worker into the tunnel, as the other guards chuckled with laughter. “Yes, of course, Herr Reichsfuehrer.”
“Stop that prisoner!” Himmler demanded.
From forty feet away, the commandant deftly passed the order to the guard, who swung the prisoner around by the scruff of his neck.
“What do you want with him, Herr Reichsfuehrer?” the commandant asked.
“What did he do to deserve the beating?”
“What did he do?” the commandant called out to the guard.
“He was caught sleeping on the line, Herr Colonel,” the guard answered.
Himmler sighed. “Shoot him.”
“Herr Reichsfuehrer?”
“I said shoot him! Now! Are you deaf? You must set an example for the others.”
“Shoot him!” the commandant ordered the guard.
The SS guard’s reaction was instantaneous. He grabbed the terrified prisoner by his coat and dragged him into the open.
“No! No!” the prisoner shouted, falling to his knees. “Please, no!”
Himmler turned from the entrance and walked away with the colonel. “These... flying tops are wreaking havoc on the enemy bombers are they?”
The commandant cleared the bile in his throat. “Yes, they are, Herr Reichsfuehrer. I am told so by the Luftwaffe High Command.”
Himmler nodded, approvingly. “Do you believe the Third Reich will win the war, Herr Colonel?”
“Certainly, Herr Reichsfuehrer. No one will conquer the German spirit.”
Himmler slipped the commandant an uneasy glance, as two pistol shots rang out behind them. “It would be wise to quit your complaining. Loyalty, unconditional loyalty, is the true quality of a man. The highest of duties.”
“Yes, Herr Reichsfuehrer.”
“Nonetheless, your men have performed well, and so have you, despite the escape.”
“You are too kind, Herr Reichsfuehrer.”
“Yes, I am. Goodbye, Colonel Geinns. Heil Hitler.”
“Heil Hitler!” The commandant saluted smartly, snatching a quick glance over to the dead prisoner lying on the ground, shot through the head.
Himmler spun on his heels and moved off to his waiting limousine.
* * * *
On the airplane, returning to his command post north of Berlin, Heinrich Himmler jotted in his diary, Projekt Equinox last chance before drastic measures are taken.
Weary, the Reichsfuehrer closed his eyes, and leaned back into the seat, while the stripped-down Junkers passenger plane continued to climb over the Thuringia Mountains. One of the most powerful men in what was left of the Nazi regime, the Reichsfuehrer was stretched to the limit these dark days. He was the head of the Gestapo state police, and the SS, Hitler’s personal guard. He controlled all German domestic and foreign Intelligence and most of the concentration camps. He was the ultimate military power in the northern German zone, Norway, Scandinavia, and Holland, as well as the chief of the Replacement Army and the newly-established Army Group Vistula fighting forces. He was Hitler’s perfect yes-man. He followed Hitler’s orders with no sense of guilt. If the Fuehrer wanted all Germans with surnames beginning with the letter Y be shot, then Himmler would do it. No questions asked. He could give a man dinner one night, laugh and joke with him, then issue a death warrant for him the following morning, with no qualms.
At this time the Nazi regime had no new territory to conquer and imprison people against their will. They hadn’t for three years. The Nazis were on the run. The Allies were closing in from all sides. Contrary to what he told the commandant, Himmler knew the war was lost. The situation was in peril. The radio-controlled fighters of Projekt Equinox would not win the war. Had they come out earlier, combined with the rest of the secret weapon arsenal, then maybe. Water under the bridge at this stage of the game. And to think his SS could have been the breeding bulls for the future master race of Aryan purity — tall, muscular, blonde-haired, blue-eyed specimens of loyalty and honour who swore an oath before God that they would give absolute allegiance to the Fuehrer and be ready to lay down their life for their master.
No more.
Deep in his own solitude, Himmler considered his options. There weren’t many. One and only one came to mind. He would have to seek peace with the West. On his own.