– just enough to convince them, and thus Himmler, that he was worth keeping on. Also, by letting them steal relatively minor aspects of his work to utilize in their own, otherwise largely worthless designs – and by then praising them individually, secretly, for those designs – he was subtly setting them against one another, which kept him in control.
Naturally, because Himmler trusted his young flugkapitän, Wilson could not inform him of this fact and instead said, ‘I must confess that Flugkapitän Schriever was surprisingly innovative and contributed greatly to the final designs. He’s an excellent physicist.’
Clearly pleased that he had chosen correctly, Himmler asked: ‘And the others? How are they faring?’
‘No problems,’ Wilson replied, not wishing to show his contempt for his fellow scientists, but being careful not to praise them too highly either. ‘Of course Habermohl and Miethe are only engineers, but their designs for various parts of the saucer have been quite helpful. Miethe designed the outer shell for the latest model and deserves a commendation for that alone.’
‘I will see to it,’ Himmler said, then gave a light sigh, unclasped his hands, and pushed his chair back. ‘So,’ he said, standing upright, ‘let us go for our short walk.’
So saying, he led Wilson out of the room and into the heavily guarded, crowded lobby of the rustic pension. Glancing across the room, Wilson saw the handsome, uniformed architect, Albert Speer, sitting on a settee and discussing the architectural plans spread out before him and his assistants. Himmler nodded coolly at him, then, when four uniformed SS guards had closed in around him, he led Wilson across the busy lobby and out of the pension.
‘Is the Führer here?’ Wilson asked, having noted the strong contingent of armed guards inside and now noting the many more outside.
Himmler nodded in the direction of nearby hills, where Wilson saw a figure in lederhosen walking through the snow, accompanied by a woman, whom he assumed was Eva Braun, and guarded by half a dozen armed SS troops.
‘He’s staying in the pension,’ Himmler explained with pride, ‘while renovations are made to the Berghof. Come! This way, Wilson.’
Followed by the four SS guards, he led Wilson to a jeep that was parked right in front of the pension. When they were both seated in the rear, one of the armed guards climbed into the front and drove toward the majestic, snow-covered slopes of the Kehlstein Mountains.
Soon leaving the village behind, they passed through the guarded gates of an area closed off by barbed-wire fences. Waving one hand airily, to indicate the ugly dormitory barracks clinging to nearby slopes, Himmler said, ‘Those barracks house hundreds of construction workers. This was once a solitary, very beautiful mountain valley, but it’s now the auxiliary headquarters of our beloved Führer. In order to make this conversion, Bormann tore down centuries-old farms and numerous votive churches, despite the protests of the parishes. Also, despite further protestations, he confiscated state forests and made this a private area that extends from the floor of the valley to the top of the mountain, covering approximately two and a half square miles. Finally, with no regard to the exceptional beauty of the area, he turned forest paths into paved promenades, laid a network of tarmac roads through the formerly lovely landscape, and erected barracks, garage buildings, a hotel, a manor house, a complex for our growing number of workers, then, finally, those ugly barracks desecrating the once-virgin slopes.’ He glanced around him with satisfaction, adjusting the pince-nez on his nose and squinting into the sun. ‘As a lover of beauty, do I disapprove of this?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘No, of course not! It’s the German genius to do what’s necessary, no matter the cost. Do you understand, Wilson?’
‘Yes, Reichsführer, I do.’
Himmler nodded. ‘Good!’ The sound of explosions reverberated around the valley as the jeep took a corkscrew bend, away from the Scharitzkehlalm ravine, then took the steep, winding road up the side of the Hoher Göll.
‘They’re dynamiting,’ Himmler explained when Wilson glanced in the direction of the explosions. ‘When war breaks out, as it must, Bormann intends having underground quarters for the Führer and those most important to him.’
‘Very wise,’ Wilson murmured.
The five-mile road that ran up to Hitler’s Teehaus had been hacked out of the side of the mountain with the sweat of slave labour. It stopped at an underground passage blasted out of the mountainside, just below the summit. Following the armed guard, Himmler climbed down from the jeep and led Wilson along the underground passage, until they arrived at a copper-lined elevator, its shaft, about four hundred feet deep, hacked out of the solid rock. That elevator took them down to an immense, high-walled gallery, supported by baroque Roman pillars. At the end of the gallery, also hacked out of the mountain, was a dazzling, glassed-in, circular hall.
Standing in that great hall, looking out through an exceptionally tall, wide window, Wilson saw only the other snowcapped mountains and a vast, azure sky – an overwhelming experience.
‘The impossible made actual,’ Himmler whispered proudly, indicating with a gentle nod of his head that extraordinary view. ‘If our dreams are grandiose, our actual achievements are more so – the achievements of men who can make the impossible commonplace. Come! Follow me!’
He led Wilson across to the panoramic window, from where they could look down on the snow-covered earth, with Berchtesgaden and Salzburg clearly visible in a mosaic of brown and white.
Pointing at a distant mountain peak, Himmler asked Wilson if he knew what it was. When Wilson shook his head, he said, ‘That mountain is the Untersberg. According to legend, the Emperor Charlemagne still sleeps there and will one day rise again to restore the past glory of the German Empire. I believe that day has come – that our Führer is the reincarnation of Charlemagne and will return us to glory.’
Removing his gaze from the distant mountain, he looked at Wilson through his glittering pince-nez. Wilson, who knew that Himmler was mad, also knew not to smile.
‘Now look down there,’ Himmler said, pointing with his index finger, then sweeping his hand from east to west, to indicate the vast, snow-covered valley. ‘Other than the villages and towns, what do you see?’
‘Just the snow-covered earth,’ Wilson said.
‘Exactly,’ Himmler said. ‘And when war comes and we move underground, that is all you will still see: just the snow-covered earth.’
Wilson grasped instantly what the lunatic was driving at.... The dream of the Thousand Year Reich had been born out of mysticism: the Cosmic Circle of Munich; the Anthroposophy of Rudolph Steiner; the Theosophy and Rosicrucianism of Vienna and Prague; a belief in Lemuria and Atlantis, ice and fire, Man as Superman... Yes, he grasped what Himmler was thinking and now knew without doubt that he could use him.
‘You despise the weaknesses of mankind, don't you?’ Himmler said, staring steadily at him.
‘Yes,’ Wilson confessed.
‘And like me, you believe in the evolution of the human race, from Man into Superman.’
‘Yes,’ Wilson agreed, though he conceived of a superior race based on science, rather than a race of so-called Supermen based on the mystic strength of the Volk and other romantic, idiotic German theories.
‘Do you know of the theories of the great Austrian cosmologist, Hans Hörbiger?’ Himmler asked, his gaze unnaturally steady behind the glittering pince-nez.
‘I don't believe so,’ Wilson lied. Actually he was fully cognizant of the fact that Himmler revered the so-called unorthodox, obviously mad, Austrian cosmologist’s theories on the birth of the universe and the destiny of Nordic man, but he didn’t want Himmler to realize that he had checked him out and now knew so much about him.
‘A great man,’ Himmler said reverently. ‘A man despised by the scientific fraternity of his day for speaking the truth.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Wilson said hesitantly, carefully. ‘I just don’t know – ’
‘No,’ Himmler said abruptly. ‘Naturally not. They would not have taught yo
u his theories in the United States of America where, as even you know, the truth is rarely respected.’
‘He was a cosmologist?’ Wilson asked, as if confused.
‘Yes,’ Himmler replied. ‘Hörbiger's theory is that the mass of free matter in the universe takes the form of frozen ice, that chunks of this ice periodically fall into stars and cause immense explosions, which in turn form planetary systems, and that since the world is formed from ice and the fiery explosions they cause – ice and fire, you understand?
– it is the natural heritage of Nordic men.’ He glanced sideways, as if expecting a reply, and receiving none, continued melodramatically: ‘Yes, Nordic men! German men! And Hörbiger believed that a return to such a world would eventually lead to men who were gods...’ Mercifully, at that moment he turned away to survey the snow-covered valley. ‘A world of eternal ice,’ he whispered portentously. ‘A world under the earth!’
Quietly exalted by his vision, he turned away from the window, crossed to the centre of the vast room, then faced Wilson again.
‘You are a man obsessed,’ he said, ‘so I know you will understand me. I do not envisage my SS as a commonplace police force, but as a religious order devoted to the creation of the Superman. Indeed, right from the start it has been my intention to eventually isolate the élite of the SS from the world of ordinary men for the rest of their lives. It is also my intention to create special colonies of this élite all over the world, answerable only to the administration and authority of this new order. My first step in the creation of this new élite was to create my special schools in the mountains of Bavaria, where the finest of the SS are indoctrinated in my ideals and convinced that they are men far finer and more valuable than the world has yet seen. My second step was the creation of the Ahnenerbe – the Institute for Research into Heredity – whose function is to finance and publish Germanic researches and to supervise the anthropological medical experiments on the inmates of the concentration camps. And my third and most important step is the Lebensborn – Spring of Life – which will, through the controlled mating of élite SS men and pure, Aryan women, breed out all imperfect traits from the German character and physique within one hundred years.’
He walked across the vast room, his footsteps echoing eerily, then stopped directly in front of Wilson, to stare calmly at him.
‘And while all of this is happening,’ he asked, ‘where will I isolate the élite of my SS?’
Wilson turned to the side, to nod in the direction of the snowcovered valley below. ‘In a world of eternal ice,’ he said. ‘A world under the earth.’
‘Yes!’ Himmler whispered. ‘Correct! But not here. Not in Germany.’ He walked to the window, pressed the palm of his hand against the glass and then turned back to Wilson. ‘Our beloved Führer is anxious for a foothold in the Antarctic,’ he said. ‘For this reason., he is sending an expedition, commanded by Captain Alfred Richter, to the coast due south of South America. From there, seaplanes will be catapulted from the deck of our aircraft carrier Schwabenland with orders to fly back and forth across the territory that Norwegian explorers had arrogantly named Queen Maud Land. It is our intention to make a far more thorough study of the area than the Norwegians had done, to photograph as much of the area as possible, and to then claim the land for the Third Reich. When that is done, Herr Wilson, we will do there what we are about to do here and all over Germany: build underground quarters for the élite of my secret order and the slave labour necessary for our purposes.’
Wilson saw the insane grandeur of the concept – even though he knew it would never work. Then, even as he was formulating his own secret plans, Himmler approached him, took hold of his shoulders, and shook him with a rare display of emotion.
‘Do you now understand, Herr Wilson, why I’m so interested in you? I will create the perfect man, you will create the perfect machine, and between us we can create a perfect society under the ice. Hörbiger’s world of ice and fire turned into reality! My perfect men, your pitiless science, and all the slave labour we require.
This is what yon are here for !’ He turned away to wave his right hand, indicating the snow-white earth, the hazy horizon, and the unseen Antarctic... ‘Your flying saucer will take us there and protect us and finally give us dominion. Now let us go back down.’
Wilson, seeing his dream forged by a madman, followed Himmler out of the Berghof and back down the mountainside.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN After eight weeks at sea, with another seven to go, Ernst had a craving for dry land that made a mockery of reason. Anchored in the South Atlantic Ocean, near the South Sandwich Islands, the Schwabewland, the command ship of the expeditionary fleet, had become his prison and home, always swaying and creaking. For most of the three weeks they were at anchor, Ernst’s sole view of Antarctica was of distant white peaks in a constant, sun-streaked haze beneath an azure sky as, on behalf of Himmler, he supervised the ruthless takeover of Norway’s Queen Maud Land.
Daily for three weeks, two seaplanes had been catapulted from the deck of the fleet’s aircraft carrier, to fly back and forth across those frozen wastelands, photograph the area, and, as ordered, drop thousands of sharp-tipped steel poles, all weighted at the tip to make them dig into the ice, with small swastikas attached to the other end. The thought of covering a vast expanse of the Antarctic with swastikas attached to steel poles seemed slightly idiotic, even comical, to Ernst, but he had his duty to perform and did it commendably, keeping his face straight, keeping his eye on his men, and receiving the film they brought back after taking aerial photographs of that same vast, icy, largely uncharted wilderness.
Surprisingly, they had found many areas free of ice, which is what Himmler had told Ernst he was particularly interested in.
He’ll be pleased, Ernst thought sourly.
Divorced from dry land and the world he had known so well, with little to do other than keep his eye on the men, Ernst spent too much time thinking about what he had lost – his engineering career, then Ingrid’s love and respect – and brooding bitterly about how he was being used as a disciplinarian when he should have been working on Projekt Saucer with that oddly unfeeling American genius, Wilson.
God, yes! The American and Projekt Saucer... Already, it all seemed so far away, beyond the ever-distant, constantly changing horizon, first shrouded in mist, then azure blue and silver striations of light, then blood that boiled out of the sun and poured over the ocean.
Ernst recalled it with disbelief and undeniable pride, since it had been, after all, his first journey away from home: the eerily gray Baltic Sea and the sickening swells of the English Channel, then the grim coastline of France, the white-walled houses on the cliffs of Portugal, giving way to the volcanic peaks of the Canary Islands and the yellow, sun-hazed ribbon of Morocco... He had never been there, had not walked on foreign soil, and felt the loss more acutely, with a pain that surprised him, when the South Atlantic Ocean surrounded him, blue and green, its waves white-capped, offering a different light, more subtle colours, alien creatures, as the boat ploughed through darkening waters into shadows cast by towers of gleaming ice.
He had seen all that and more, was disturbed and exalted by it, yet used it as his route of escape from the shame of his recent past... Great blocks of rock and ice, flashing chasms of snow, a shroud made of dark, drifting cloud, a sudden, upthrusting glacier… Time passing and stopping. His gloved hands on the ship's railing. Then ice-encased mountains, seals and whales and pelagic birds, the air dazzlingly clear, then the anchor being dropped in blue water where the sky was a mirror...
He had certainly left home far behind him.
Yet he wasn't made happy by it, because he was still unable to forget what he had lost in his private and public lives: the career he had wanted since childhood and the woman he still loved.
He had wanted to be a rocket engineer and gain Ingrid’s respect.
And had failed on both counts.
Instead, he had become a military policeman and
jaded degenerate, living only for instant thrills with willing ladies... or with whores like Brigette.
Ah, yes, Brigette and Ingrid, his whore and his wife. He thought about them night and day, but mostly at night, when he tossed and turned in his tiny cabin, on his uncomfortable bunk bed, listening to the splashing sea, the moaning wind outside the porthole, drifting in and out of an uneasy sleep punctuated by recollections and dreams of sensual experience. He thought of Ingrid with romantic longing, of Brigette with helpless lust, and spent himself shamefully in the darkness, with an adolescent’s despair, blushing guilt, and irresistible self-pity.
The days were less tormenting, but certainly more boring, because all he could really do was patrol the creaking ship and check that his men were not up to mischief – which, given this particular location, was highly unlikely. Not cut out to be a seaman, he was easily confused by the ship’s bewildering array of hatches and bulkhead doors, steep steps and low-slung pipes, with its constant rumbling and groaning and creaking, its claustrophobic confines. For this reason he could hardly endure even the common cabin, where he sometimes tried to read; instead, he spent as much time as possible in the open air, watching the seaplanes being catapulted off the end of the nearest aircraft carrier, or coming in to land on that same, dangerously swaying deck, silhouetted in the sun’s silvery striations or against the rippling, glassy sea.
If not the planes, a wandering albatross, flocks of prions, Cape pigeons, or the volcanic rock of the distant South Sandwich Islands, which, rising jaggedly on the horizon, looked like portals at the entrance to some ghastly, supernatural world. The purgatory to which he would be condemned for his recent debauchery.
‘God help me,’ he whispered more than once to the night’s starlit darkness.
Luckily, he was often joined in his lonely vigils by Captain Alfred Richter, the commander of the expeditionary fleet, a grizzled, dishevelled, gray-haired, pink-faced veteran who enjoyed conversation, did not mince his words, and was volubly contemptuous of the people Ernst had come to revere.
INCEPTION (Projekt Saucer, Book 1) Page 14
