by Greig Beck
Run for it, Jim’s mind screamed. Big Jim Halloday, aged fifty-nine years, eleven months and twenty-two days, turned and fled.
There was a deep zumm and then the creature hit him and stuck to his back – scaring the living shit out of him.
“Get the fuck offa me!” He screamed, flapping big beefy arms up over his shoulders.
Its needle like legs clung to him, and then something like fire latched to his neck and burrowed in deep. But it was nothing compared to the pain that followed.
CHAPTER 20
Entering Polish Airspace
Matt pored over the small diary. The pages were cramped with Hitler’s tight, forward-sloping handwriting. Pictures drawn in ink were interspaced with notes, references to other books, and personal quotes.
There were many from a Professor Rudi Hokstetor, and Matt assumed he’d been tasked with deciphering the unique language carved into the stone.
The things that Hokstetor had deciphered were obviously enough to convince Hitler to dispatch a U-boat on a secret mission to the farthest corner of the world to procure the other stone. It seemed he was building his future war effort around using whatever it was the stone promised.
Now and then Hitler had drawn some of the symbols, obviously from the stone he had, and Matt translated them.
“They have come and they will come again.”
Matt straightened. It was exactly as he had deciphered from the other stone. But Hokstetor had added some of his own text: “They can be used.”
“They can be used,” Matt repeated softly. “So it is a weapon.”
He sat back and rubbed his face, feeling the fatigue around his eyes. He closed them for a moment, and let his mind relax. He took himself back to calm beaches and waves that broke in blue tubes calling for him to ride them. He could almost smell the sea salt in the air as the wave broke onto a sandy beach somewhere in the tropics, and it became Lana’s profile picture.
He jerked forward and quickly pulled out his phone. He messaged her.
Hi, miss you. What’re you doing?
He sat waiting and watching the small screen. And waited some more, and then some more. But it remained mute.
A shadow fell over him and he tucked the phone back in his pocket before looking up.
“Supposed to be a comms blackout, Professor. Don’t you know that?” Klara squatted in front of him.
“Yeah, don’t worry, it was nothing.” He sighed. “Just something I think I lost.”
“Are you working with someone else? Spying on us, Professor?” Klara looked at him from under her brows, and her lips just curled at the corners.
“What? No.” But for some reason she made him feel guilty. “That’s just dumb.”
“Don’t make me torture you.” She stared.
Matt peered back into her pale eyes and swallowed. “What?”
She held his gaze for a moment, but then broke into a low chuckle. She gripped his forearm. “I’m only playing with you. I know you’re okay.”
Matt swore softly and shook his head.
Klara rested her arms on her knees. “So, are you managing to pull anything else helpful from Adolf’s personal thoughts?”
“Well, he definitely thought the stones were going to reveal to him some way to win the war. Something he could use as a weapon. Then when things were all going to crap for him, he hid the one stone he had in his possession somewhere in the Owl Mountains. We think.”
Klara held out her hand and Matt placed the small leather book in it. She flipped some of the pages back, and then forwards. “I think the stone was too valuable to him to just leave it to someone else to hide without him keeping a record of where it was.”
Matt threw his hands up. “I agree, but there are no coordinates. No map. Maddock tells me the tunnel system was numbered but there’s not even a secret code I can find. I’ve translated all of the German I can see here, and even the areas where he has included the Aztlantean interpretations.” Matt sat back. “Nothing but bad spelling, erratic thinking, and random marks and doodles while he planned his mass genocides.”
She held the small book up. “Yeah, but this diary, this particular one, meant something to him. You said it was the one diary he kept with him at all times in the last few weeks of the war.” She rubbed the cover with her thumb for a moment. Her mouth quirked up. “I think it’s time you got inside his head.”
Matt turned to her. “You know, I had the chance to do that last night … get inside Hitler’s head, I mean.” He chuckled, darkly.
“I’m serious.” She reached out to take hold of his arm again. “In the rules of engagement, when trying to understand a madman, use a madman’s logic.”
Matt nodded. “Okay, go on.”
“Maybe there is a code hidden in here but not as you’d expect.” She reopened the diary, flicking through the pages. “At the end, Hitler was paranoid, so he might have obscured important elements of his thoughts. Maybe some words written across several sentences that form a single important sentence? Something hidden right in front of you – you said yourself there were misspellings. Perhaps they weren’t misspelled at all.”
Matt sighed, and took the diary back. He stared down at the page again. After several minutes he began to shake his head and then used his thumb to fan through the pages. He stopped dead. Matt frowned and craned forward. “Hey.” He quickly began to skip back and forth on the pages. “I think you might be right.”
He smiled. “He did leave clues that are maybe more like a signature of sorts.” Matt flipped some of the pages back again and then pointed to one of the doodles in the top right corner. “See this?”
There was an image of a rounded-looking cross, like a curved swastika.
“Yeah, I recognized it. It was one of Hitler’s favorite doodles,” Klara replied. “He started drawing that long before he even came to power.”
Matt flipped the page. The image appeared in the top right corner again. He flipped the next page.
“And here.” He turned more pages. “And here, and here, and then … look.”
On the next page the image had changed. This time it was like a tree, except the lines were straighter like a many-pronged trident or fork.
“Yeah, it’s different,” she observed.
“It’s the only one like this and I don’t think this is a doodle.” Matt felt his excitement bloom in his chest. “I think it’s a map. It’s our way forward.”
Klara leaned toward the page. “Holy shit – one of the prongs, just one, has a dot at its end.” She looked up at him, her pale eyes blazing. “The Owl Mountains. If we knew where to start, we might be able to follow it.”
“Many of the tunnels have been found, so I’m sure you guys could get some sort of schematic. That’ll give us a scale, and also allow us to see what’s already been located and mapped.”
She nodded. “And if that particular tine of the fork hasn’t been found?”
Matt sat back and folded his arms. “Then we just located the missing tunnel, and perhaps the lost extinction stone.”
CHAPTER 21
Copernicus airbase, Wroclaw, Poland
Matt stamped his feet to keep warm as they waited for their new chopper to refuel. He watched as the pilot, a local, climbed into the cockpit. They also kept a lookout for a guide that Jack Hammerson had arranged to take them into the Polish interior.
The man was Alojzy Mazur, a retired military reservist and someone who supposedly knew the Owl Mountains like the back of his hand. Matt hoped he had big hands as the Owl Mountains covered an area of nearly eighty square miles.
Alojzy had apparently also acted as a guide for several of the larger companies and outfits that had searched for the missing Nazi gold and other looted treasures inside the tunnels.
The refueling was soon done, and Roy Maddock approached Matt.
“Our boy is late.” Maddock looked over the mist-heavy airport. They were waiting at the far end of a runway, well away from any public scrutiny. As far
as everyone knew they didn’t exist and their mission wasn’t recorded in anyone’s book or flight system.
“I know it’s a big area, but can we go on without him?” Matt asked.
“Sure,” Maddock replied. “If we want to spend days just searching for the correct entrance.” He exhaled, his breath escaping in a stream of vapor. “I spoke to the colonel, there’s been more attacks. Whatever these things are, bugs or whatever, they’re growing in size and number. Moving to bigger and bigger towns throughout the world. We need answers, Professor, and at this point all we’ve got is a 75-year-old diary, and a map based on a madman’s doodling.”
“Better than nothing,” Matt shot back.
“It better be. Lives are at stake. Lots of them,” Maddock countered.
A car sped onto the rear of the tarmac, causing Vin and Klara to ease back into the shadows and draw weapons. The car pulled up next to a maintenance shed, and the driver got out and waved.
“Stay cool,” Maddock said.
The guy threw a pack over his shoulder and jogged toward them.
Klara and Vin reholstered their weapons but remained focused on the approaching figure.
“Halooo!” the guy waved.
Matt saw that he seemed to be mid-fifties, broad-shouldered and with a beard and mustache shot through with silver. He looked from the HAWCs to Matt and must have decided that Matt looked a little more approachable than the soldiers so made a beeline for him.
“I am you guide, Alojzy Mazur.” He grinned, his teeth showing white through his thick beard. “Hello.” He stuck out a large hand.
“Matt.” Matt shook the hand and then pointed. “And –”
Maddock glared.
Matt continued, “… my friends.”
Alojzy nodded. “I understand. Secrecy is important.”
“Good man.” Maddock waved them toward the chopper. “Give the pilot the coordinates of our destination and then we can brief you as we go. Time is catching up to us, so let’s get moving.”
The five people loaded into the helicopter, and in seconds they were away. The Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk, purchased from the US military by the Polish armed forces, could travel fast at around two hundred miles per hour so it would take them just forty-five minutes to reach the heart of the mountainous timberlands. The same journey by foot would take a week.
Matt looked out of the windows as they passed over the beginning of the woods. The Owl Mountains were situated in an ancient forestland of spruce, natural beech and yew. He’d done some quick research and read that the massive green mountains sometimes looked blue in the morning mist and they covered an enormous amount of wilderness.
It was an area of almost mythical beauty and, with its forests, mountain peaks, and dark valleys, was mostly inaccessible to even the most experienced hikers. Plus the geology was old: Precambrian gneiss rock that was hard and cold, and the perfect place to hide a person, or an entire system of caves and tunnels stretching hundreds of miles.
The four-bladed, twin-engine, medium-lift helicopter could seat a dozen fully equipped combat soldiers, so they had room to spare. Matt and the HAWCs were seated on each side of Alojzy in the rear cabin as he spread a map on a small portable table. Even with the sound muffled by the armor plating, they had to shout.
“Here.” He tapped the map. “Here is the entrance to what was called Project Riese.”
Maddock traced the map with his fingers for a moment, as though trying to memorize the topography. “What are our chances?”
Alojzy looked up and grinned. “There were seven underground structures located in the Owl Mountains and also beneath Książ Castle in Lower Silesia. Most have been found. But the historical experts believe there are still many miles of tunnels that were expertly sealed over and hidden.” He tilted his head. “And believe me, many, many have looked for them.”
Vin gave him a gum-chewing grin. “But we got something all those other suckers didn’t have.” He thumbed at Matt. “This guy.”
“No pressure,” Matt shouted back. “Do you have any sort of schematic of the already found tunnel systems?”
Alojzy nodded and pulled out a roll of paper that fitted over the map. It was a clear paper that showed through the mountains’ topography as if X-raying the area. It was marked up with the tunnels – branching tree shapes in several places.
“Perfect.” Matt produced a sketch he’d made of the diary drawing of the tree. “This is widely out of scale. But this is what we’re seeking.” He laid it beside the tunnel system, and began to slowly move it around, comparing to what was there.
“This one.” He pointed.
“The Sokelec system.” Alojzy nodded. “Could be. But there are differences.”
Matt looked up. “Exactly. And it’s the differences we’re interested in.” He looked at Maddock and raised his eyebrows.
The HAWC leader sat back. “Alojzy, give the pilot the coordinates of the Sokelec system. That’s where we’ll start.”
*
It was mid-morning when the chopper lowered them into one of the few level areas where it was able to touch down.
Matt was first out and his cheeks prickled and his breath steamed in the amazingly cold, clean air as he waited. The land here was heavily forested and the geology so uneven it bordered on primordial. It seemed as far from human contact as was possible.
But it was in this very area some seventy years ago at the end of World War II, thousands of prisoners of war, plus German engineers and Nazi military personnel, built one of the most elaborate and sophisticated tunnel systems ever created.
The land had obviously healed. Or perhaps it had just grown scar tissue over the corruption still buried beneath its earthen flesh.
The rest of the group jumped down from the chopper with their kits, and all assembled around Roy Maddock as they waited for the machine to lift off. In seconds it had vanished over the treetops.
Maddock looked around slowly, sniffed and listened for a while. The other HAWCs did the same. Matt knew they were probably smelling for wood smoke, tobacco, or even aftershave, and perhaps also listening for any sounds of habitation. A helicopter touching down would undoubtedly intrigue anyone in the area, and the HAWCs didn’t want company.
Maddock turned to their Polish guide. “Alojzy, we’re in your hands. Take us in, sir.”
Alojzy checked a small GPS device and then motioned with a flat hand. “This way.” He led them into some of the thickest forest Matt had ever seen.
CHAPTER 22
USA – USSTRATCOM Headquarters
Hammerson held the phone from his ear for a moment as he read from his screen about the latest reports from mainland China. It seemed they were carpet-bombing large areas of their countryside with high-intensity thermite ordnance.
He knew what they were doing – cauterizing an infection. Just like in a lot of other areas of the globe right now, the weird bugs were surfacing and ravaging the countryside. Everything living was being sucked dry.
Bone dry, he mused darkly.
He put the phone back to his ear. “The Chinese are cleansing their countryside with thermite. You told me these things are almost impervious to heat. Will it work?”
Phillip Hartigan, one of the senior scientists working at the biological warfare section of USSTRATCOM, ummed for a moment.
“They’re impervious to extreme temperatures, but if you use enough heat then anything can be incinerated, melted, or transformed. But broad carpet-bombing is hardly a precision tool, is it?”
“No, it is not, so I’m assuming there’s no live bodies in their kill zone. And if there were survivors before, then they’re not survivors anymore,” Hammerson replied evenly.
“There are other options for dealing with silicon-based life-forms,” Hartigan said.
“What else have you got, because I’m reserving recommending carpet-bombing our home territory for a last resort and even then I can’t see the president ever signing off on it.” He sighed. “Until it beco
mes inevitable.”
“I’ve been running tests on the sample specimen. The carapace is mainly a biological silicon chitin. It’s very tough and more similar to a form of super-tough glass than the long-chain polymer component of exoskeletons of arthropods such as crustaceans and insects.”
“Yeah, and?” Hammerson wished these guys could say something in five words instead of fifty.
“Acid,” Hartigan replied. “To be precise, the best acid to dissolve silicon-based compounds is hydrofluoric.”
Hammerson groaned. “Hydrofluoric acid? Seriously?”
“Yes, I know it is dangerous to work with. But it’ll give you the best and fastest results. Risk verse return, Colonel.”
Hammerson tilted his head back for a moment. “We tried that for chemical weapons decades back, but abandoned it.” He sat forward. “The damn stuff remains suspended in the atmosphere for days and will permanently damage lungs and eyes. But the main reason we junked it was if it gets into the waterways, it can stay there for years and also becomes aqueous hydrofluoric acid. It’s a contact poison that has a nasty habit of hanging around and giving you deep epidermal burns and necrotizing tissue death. I’d rather a fast and clean burn than using that.”
“Colonel, my job is to give you some options. Use them or not,” Hartigan retorted.
The scientist sounded offended; Hammerson couldn’t care less. “That’s not enough. Bottom line, we need more information. There’s a major swarm moving over Texas, and smaller swarms starting up in Wyoming, North Dakota, and Ohio. At this point the National Guard is the first line of defense. But I don’t think simple man-power is enough, do you?”
“Probably not, sir.” Hartigan said slowly. “Colonel, one question: which direction are the swarms headed?”
Hammerson thought for a moment, and then tilted his head. “Not in the same direction, and in no pattern we can discern.”
“Could they be converging?” the scientist asked.
