Meckler Castle control room, November 23, 2010
Max’s left eyebrow bled a continuous stream as he was thrown on and then cuffed to a heavy metal chair. His vision was blurred from losing consciousness, but he was aware that he was not the only one in the room as countless voices echoed from somewhere behind him.
A cold splash of water hit Max in the face.
“Thanks, that felt good.” He managed a crooked grin at Hermann Wehr, who was holding a metal bucket. Wehr’s fist flew, hitting Max, and sending one of his lower teeth flying out of his mouth. Max spat a glob of bloody saliva onto the black SS suit he still wore. “Good to see you, too, Hermann.” He blinked hard, trying to focus and get a reading on his situation.
Hermann lifted his hand once more, but was stopped by his father’s raspy voice.
“That’s enough, Hermann. You can do what you want with him when we are done, but for now I want him to see what he failed to stop.”
“All I wanted was the girl. I don’t much care for your goose-stepping bullshit.” Max spat out another mouthful of blood and saliva as he spoke.
General Wehr shook his head. “You have no idea what you have come across.”
Max looked to his left and saw that Ditter and Solange were in similar chairs, handcuffed and gagged. It was then that he began to take in the surrounding space. He was seated in a theater-style room, with three rows of seats in front of him. To his right and back were a series of control stations. To his left, past Ditter, was a wall lined with what looked like servers. The room was white all over; even the iMacs were white. In front of him was a dark, wall-to-wall glass viewing window that reflected the rest of the room behind him, showing a crowd of men and women dressed in white doctor-type coats. It reminded Max of a NASA control room. The area also felt like that of a clean room, but it wasn’t. His blood on the floor made that clear. Max looked up once more when he heard Wehr speak.
“Ditter, Ditter....” Klaus looked down at him, shaking his head. “I guess you are wondering how all this could be. How could a man who had escaped this place find himself here once more? Well, the answer is in the castle’s logbooks. And you, Herr Von Ludger, caused some serious problems back in your day. Did you know that you are the only person to have ever known about this place outside of the Order? That is right, you were never indoctrinated. We had such high hopes, but then you had to go and sabotage your future.” Klaus was starting to enjoy himself. “So, when I came across the notes on your escape I figured that the lowly lieutenant on the pages had met his death when he flew off the cliff in a car. A car!” Klaus laughed and shook his head. “You are one crazy old man! So it was to my surprise when I ran into you so many years after the war. I was a young man making my way in the world, trying to climb up that political ladder at that heads-of-state dinner. Remember? You told me your name and I did not think twice about it until you mentioned that you had flown in the war. So I did a bit of background checking on you, and what do you know? I had found the only man to successfully infiltrate the castle, cause damage to the infrastructure, take out a squad of SS guards, and escape.” Klaus clapped his hands in a sarcastic cheer to Ditter.
“Since it had been so many years after the war and you had stayed quiet about the incident, I decided to sit back and watch you from afar. And then I met your widowed daughter-in-law, Olga.” He smirked at the odds of him falling for her. “Love!”
Ditter stared him down.
“Oh, you don’t think a man like me could love? Well, I can, and still do. Question is, will she stay alongside her man when all this is revealed?” He looked at his reflection in the glass wall. “Turn on the floodlights!”
The control room’s lights dimmed and an immense room came to life in front of Max, just past the glass enclosure. A camera crew stepped into view, pointing a digital camcorder and spotlight at Wehr.
“What am I looking at, Wehr?” Max asked as he coughed, spraying a fine mist of bloody saliva onto the seat in front of him.
“You are looking at the beginning. You will see the New World Order reborn from this room. We will have control of world industries through the use of fear. We will conquer anyone who opposes us. We will rightfully take back that which was taken from us so long ago. We will once again become the master race.”
“Wehr, I think you have been spending too much time playing soldi—”
The punch came out of nowhere. Max almost lost consciousness. Hermann picked up the bucket and poured the remaining ice-cold water over Max’s head.
“Thank you, Hermann. Lieutenant Commander, you are trying my patience, but since my son will be killing you soon, I will allow your slander. Now if you don’t mind, I will continue.”
This time, Max kept his mouth shut.
This can’t be. It’s not possible. This guy is fucking nuts.
Max stared into Wehr’s eyes. He took another long look at his surroundings, and then it hit him: The crazy fucker is going to do it. After over 60 years he is actually doing it. He looked at Wehr and tried to listen to what the man was saying through the ever-increasing humming noise.
“I digress. The sniper’s bullet killed the general and left that scared 12-year-old this scar that fateful day in Berlin.” Wehr reached up and caressed the scar hidden from view by the years of anger etched on his face. “But not before I was told about this.” Wehr reached out with his hands, gesturing all around him. “He told me about what would happen and how I could bring back our dream of the one true race. Unfortunately, he was unable to tell me everything, but he said enough to lead us here. This will be the most important event the world has ever seen. Your life and mine are about to change. In a few moments it will all come to light and the final pieces to the puzzle will be in my hands to continue that which was lost. We will make the world bow to us. Soon we will have all we need. Soon we will be feared and respected once more.” Wehr’s crazed eyes grew wide. He took a deep breath and regained his composure. “I was the only one left with the secret.” He looked back down at Max. “I was the only one left standing when the bombs fell. It was a miracle.”
“Sir, countdown in one minute,” said one of the technicians behind a control center.
“Can you believe it?” Wehr once again became excited at the thoughts racing through his head. His son looked at him in awe. “They left it all to a 12-year-old boy. It was I who was destined. It was I who would bring it all back!” Wehr pulled down on his uniform jacket and turned to face the empty room beyond the thick glass wall.
“Technology has been kind and allowed us to upgrade the systems since they were last tested. I couldn’t risk 60-year-old equipment malfunctioning at this critical moment.” Klaus laughed at his own joke. “We had all the codes except one—the most important one. All we needed next was the correct frequency, and time of activation, which you so kindly provided for us.” He held up the thin black notebook that he had taken from Max back at the spa. “What are the odds? Incredible! Using the other codes we have tested and tweaked the computers so that today we would have a perfect evolution. The first couple were...” He searched the room for the correct word. “…messy. But eventually my team of scientists got it right and now we have a steady stream coming through!”
Klaus flipped through the notebook, then looked up as a female said, “Sir, it’s time. Thirty seconds and counting.” Klaus looked out into the staging area beyond the thick glass and regained his composure.
The film crew directed the camera to frame Wehr within the shot.
Behind them the control room increased in activity. “Rockets one through 16 are green. The Bell’s accelerating past 600 knots, and climbing,” said one voice in German.
“Ring’s counter-rotation stable. Electrical current on and active. Electromagnets running full capacity. Systems reaching one gigawatt,” someone with a South African English accent said in the background. “Center ring passing 12,000 rpms and climbing, all systems are armed and ready.”
“Now, watch, and see as the New World Order returns!”
All the remaining nonessential personnel stopped what they were doing and looked up.
Max felt a strange vibration as his chair began to shake. The room lights flickered, then turned off. The sound grew louder and louder. His chair began shaking uncontrollably.
The left side of the tunnel grew brighter with every passing second. A red strobe light came on as a female voice counted down. All around them hard drives began to whirl and keyboards clicked as the rehearsed, machine-like dance occurred behind him.
“Six...”
“Initiating radar frequency,” said another voice in French.
“Five...four...”
“Gate stabilization at 100 percent!” the South African voice shouted over the ear-piercing humming.
Inside the staging area, beyond the safety of the control room, water sprinklers came on, sending a constant spray inside the tunnel.
The sound became unbearable. Max’s insides began to vibrate with every passing sound wave.
“Three...”
“Servers have control!”
His eyes squinted as he saw the staging area glow white-hot. Wehr, to his right, began laughing uncontrollably.
“Two...one...”
The darkness was now light, and in front of him stood the closed sliding door, its glass cracked outward from where the bullet had lodged a split second ago. His mind was still and all was quiet.
“You all right?” asked a voice next to him.
“Yeah...it’s quiet. What was that light?”
“I don’t know.”
His hand went up and touched the bullet—it was hot. Strange, he thought. His eyes began to focus past the bullet wedged in the plate glass and on the winter wonderland past it.
“It’s beautiful outside today.”
He saw the white snow falling on the shapes behind the cracked plate glass. Where was he? What was it he was doing? He looked down at the machine gun and cocked his head as if trying to remember what had just happened. He looked past the cracked window again.
People...white statues of people....
“Sir?”
“Yes?”
“Oh, my God. Dean!” Collins grabbed Dean and dragged him past the second door. “Get down...NOW!”
Max could not believe it. A moment ago there was nothing, then the next there was the biggest subway train he had ever seen. The train glimmered white as if it had just come in from a blizzard. The spray of water had turned to snow.
Max looked the train up and down and figured that most of it was hidden out of sight.
“She is beautiful, isn’t she, Hermann? Beautiful!”
All around them cheers erupted.
Max saw as the father and son team hugged each other passionately. He could have almost sworn he saw Wehr cry.
Max looked at the scene that unfolded in front of him. The train’s outer skin was now starting to condense as vapor began to rise away from it. A yellow strobe light was drowned out as the hundreds of spotlights began to illuminate the staging area, which had suddenly turned into some sort of subway station. Behind him the scientists were back at work describing what they read on the screens.
“Phoenix evolution is at a 100-percent retrieval rate. Open decompression gate one, five percent.”
“Electromagnetic plates reversal on and active. The Bell has come to a complete stop. Temperatures stable. Ring speed decreasing at a stable rate,” said another voice.
“Prepare maintenance team for next evolution 64 hours 32 minutes on my mark. In three, two, one, mark.”
“Oxygen levels increasing. Two minutes to level one for chamber door opening.”
Max looked over the train and concentrated his gaze on the far left subway car. There was something off about the metal. He squinted. Right near the middle of the subway car, above the window line, was a hole big enough to fit a man. He pondered the problem, when suddenly the whole car expanded outward and burst into thousands of pieces.
It took less than a second for the concussion to hit the observation room glass wall, imploding it. Both Wehrs were sucked in through the new opening, followed by the camera crew, guards, and a couple of the scientists screaming past him. Max was saved the short ride into the subway station, as he was held firm to his chair by handcuffs.
The alarms went off all over the room’s terminals. People started screaming at each other as steel plates slid across the destroyed window, effectively sealing the control room from the vacuum within the station.
“Open all the vents! We need to resupply the tunnel with air!”
Max looked around, trying to get his bearings. Loose sheets of paper danced in midair to the beat of the red strobe lights and wailing alarms. Then he felt something odd—a tingling in his numb hands as if the handcuffs had been loosened. He brought up his arms and the handcuffs were gone.
What the…?
He looked down at his wrists, then up at Solange and Ditter, and kneeling next to them was a man in a lab coat. Max climbed over the rows of seats and violently swung his limp right fist at the scientist’s head, trying to knock him out, but the strike was blocked.
“Jesus, Max, you look like shit.” Val smiled as he held on to his friend’s wrist.
Max relaxed his guard and dropped his fighting stance. “Great timing, as always. How the hell did you get in here?”
“Man, can we talk about that when we get the fuck out of Dodge?” Val said as he un-cuffed Ditter. “Let’s go.” He pushed Ditter and Solange forward toward the server wall to their left.
“By the way, nice job on the train,” Max said as he crunched down next to the seats, trying hard not to be seen by the scientists scrambling around the control room.
“If it were any other day I’d take credit for it. But today, that wasn’t my work.” Val handed Max his .22. “I got it off one of your guards before they went flying through the window. Almost got sucked out myself. Lucky for you my foot got stuck under one of the seats!” Val reached the server and stepped around it.
Max took the gun and checked that it was loaded. “Thanks. You’re always one step ahead of the game.”
They followed Val from the observation room and into a small hole in the wall beside one of the countless servers. Max was last in line as he stepped through and shut the hatch, leaving the chaos of the control room behind him.
Max looked at his new surroundings. The inside of the tunnel was lined with tubes and wires of all thicknesses and colors. They extended away in both directions from where he stood. Max bent down under one of the pipes as he rushed forward.
“Let’s go,” Ditter said.
Max hurried, trying hard to see the obstructions on the floor and avoiding the overhead pipes that were dimly illuminated by the unevenly spaced incandescent light bulbs. After some time he stepped into a cross tunnel to find Ditter and Solange hugging each other. Once Solange saw Max, she let go of her grandfather and ran to him, kissing him hard on his cut lip. Max winced at the pain, but kissed her back.
“Thank God we escaped.”
“Well, we’re not out of this yet. Val, what do we have here?” Max asked as he looked at their surroundings.
“First, introduce me to the lady, then we talk business.” Val smiled at Solange.
“Solange, this is my best friend, Val.”
Solange went over and gave Val a big kiss and a hug.
Val blushed.
“That was for saving us,” Solange turned her attention to Max. “How do we get out of here?”
“Well, that depends.” Max turned to Val. “How’s the situation looking?”
“Pardon my French, but the situation is all fucked up. First, no offense, Ditter, but you should have warned me about all the body parts in the cistern warehouse. That room was fucked up. Then after I spent a few minutes puking out my dinner, I noticed that I was passing out from a lack of O2.”
Ditter looked at Val. “Sorry, I did not figure that after 60 years they would have still been doing experiments.”
“Seems that they got it right this time, though,” muttered Max.
“Yeah, whatever. Anyway, I had to hold my breath and hope that the door on the opposite side was unlocked, and luckily for all of us it was. Well, it led into this tunnel with a yellow stripe and it too was empty, but I did find a couple of storerooms with boxes and shit, and that’s when I found these service tunnels. Man, this place is fuckin’ immense. Ditter, let me tell you that you have yet to see what we are standing in. I actually ran across an electrical processing plant as big as the Hoover Dam. The tunnels went farther on, but I was pressed for time. Then I heard the strange humming sound. So, like a cat, I went to go check it out.”
Max rechecked the MP5. “That’s when you found us?”
“And then some.”
Max jumped, as did the others, when they heard the loud rapping of machine gun fire. The cross tunnel they were in began to spark as the nine-millimeter bullets ricocheted off the walls and tubes around them. Val grabbed Ditter and Solange from the line of fire and pulled them to safety.
“Val, is that the way out?” Max asked as he fired his MP5 down the tunnel.
“Yeah, we just follow the yellow tube next to you; that will take us to the cistern room level. Come on, I’ll cover you.” This time Val shot his MP5, keeping the attackers at bay.
“No, you guys go. I’ll draw them toward me and hold them back for a while.”
“Max, no!” Solange screamed over the sound of the firing machine guns.
“Don’t worry about me! I’ll be with you in no time!”
Max winked as he saw Val toss his vest at him.
“You need it more than I do. Good luck! First one at the bar buys the drinks, and don’t worry, I’ll take care of your girl!” Val let out another round of bullets down the tunnel, then grabbed Solange and pulled her away.
The sound of gunfire diminished the farther away they got. Solange was angry about having left Max, but the big guy behind her would not listen. “Damn it! How could you leave him, Val? He is your best friend!”
“Honey. First...keep your voice down; and second, my friend back there is now in his element.”
“What do you mean?”
“Max is the best man I’ve ever met at the art of one-man war. I’d worry for the other guys if I were you.”
Val took point once he thought that they were ahead of any danger. He slowed his pace down at the cross tunnels, which in turn helped give Solange and Ditter time to catch their breath.
“Not much farther n—”
Solange stood in shock as two wires shot out from a dark cross tunnel and into Val’s chest. He started shaking uncontrollably. Ditter ran toward Val, pushed Solange aside, and knocked the wires away from Val’s chest with his outstretched arms.
Val fell to his knees, dropping his weapon in the process. He was conscious, but weak when three men clad in dark uniforms ran forward and knocked Ditter and Solange down with a strike from their weapons.
Val tried to raise his hand as the third man came toward him, but he couldn’t. The man stood above him, smiled, and spoke in a South African English accent. “I’m going to have me some fun torturing this Kaffir.”