INCEPTION (Projekt Saucer, Book 1)

by W. A. Harbinson

  ‘That’s true,’ Wilson said.

  They were having their tea in Wilson’s glass-panelled office in the main hangar at Kummersdorf. After glancing at Himmler’s immobile bodyguards, both granite-faced and wearing menacing black-leather overcoats, Wilson studied Captain Ernst Stoll who, in his SS uniform, was sitting silently beside his beloved Reichsführer.

  After returning about a year ago from Poland, where reportedly he had laid the groundwork for the regular movement of Jews and Poles to either the concentration camps or the secret underground and research establishments of the rapidly growing Third Reich, Stoll had been a changed man: a more fanatical Nazi, now devoted to Himmler, and untiring in his dedication to Projekt Saucer and its ultimate goal, which was to protect an underground colony of SS masters and their slaves in Neuschwabenland. Yet as Wilson knew, Stoll remained a frustrated romantic... and Wilson could use him.

  Indeed, he already had.

  By the time Stoll had returned from Poland with his renewed dedication to Himmler’s planned world of ice and fire, Wilson had come to understand something important: While it was true that German scientists as a whole were producing extraordinary innovations in weaponry and aeronautics, it was equally true that their separate projects were not being coordinated. So great were the rewards for success in Nazi Germany, but so terrible the penalties for failure, that even formerly cooperative scientists had been reduced to currying favour by competing ferociously with one another.

  In this sense, the Peenemünde situation was typical.

  While Himmler had the cream of his rocket engineers working on the V-I and V-2 rockets at Peenemünde, on the Baltic, the V-I was a Luftwaffe project, the V-2 was an Army project, and both sides were competing instead of putting their heads together. Similarly, while various research establishments scattered throughout Germany and Austria were working separately on gas turbines and jet propulsion, heat-resistant and ‘porous’ metals, gyroscopic mechanisms and boundary layer-defeating airfoils, only Wilson had had the sense to link their often startling innovations together, into the one, revolutionary aircraft.

  That aircraft was not Schriever’s flying saucer, about to be testflown. It was the small, disc-shaped Feuerball, which Wilson was ostensibly creating as a flying anti-radar device, but which in fact he was secretly using as an experimental prototype for a full-scale, vastly more advanced flying saucer, to be constructed and used only when he saw fit.

  As Stoll did not know about the secret Feuerball experiments, he had been more than willing to arrange for Wilson to travel the length and breadth of the Third Reich on numerous visits to other research establishments.

  Wilson had already used him, then, and would do so again... for something much more important.

  ‘You have that faraway look in your eyes, Herr Wilson. What are you thinking about?’

  ‘Nothing, Reichsführer.’

  ‘You never think of nothing, Herr Wilson. You think all the time.’

  ‘I was just thinking about the flying saucer,’ Wilson lied, ‘and wondering if we’ll succeed.’

  ‘I never thought you’d doubt yourself for a moment. I am truly surprised.’

  ‘I have doubts occasionally,’ Wilson lied again. ‘All human beings do.’

  ‘You’re not as human as most, Herr Wilson. You think too much and feel too little.’

  Wilson nodded. ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘And yet you have doubts.’

  ‘Yes,’ Wilson lied for the third time, not wanting Himmler to know and fear his invincible arrogance.

  Himmler placed his empty cup on the small table beside him, then stared steadily through his glittering pince-nez. ‘In the words of our beloved Führer: “One must listen to an inner voice and believe what it tells you.” Would you not agree, Herr Wilson?’

  ‘If the inner voice is self-conviction, then, yes, I agree.’

  ‘I do, too,’ Himmler said. ‘Which is precisely why nothing can stop me.’

  ‘You’re a resolute man, Reichsführer.’

  ‘And you aren’t?’ Stoll asked.

  ‘Only average, Captain Stoll.’

  Stoll’s smile showed a degree of dry amusement. ‘I think not, Herr Wilson. In fact, you’re a man so resolute, you’d stop at nothing to get what you want. Now isn’t that so?’

  Be careful, Wilson thought. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘There are rumours,’ Himmler said, ostentatiously studying his immaculate fingernails, ‘that the dearly departed Dr Belluzzo did not deserve the fate he received. What do you think, Herr Wilson?’

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t thought about it,’ Wilson said, ‘apart from assuming that when the SS decided to arrest him, they had their reasons.’

  ‘Are you aware of what those reasons were?’

  ‘His superior officer, Flugkapitän Schriever, believed Belluzzo to be mentally incompetent and possibly dangerous.’

  ‘Did you share that view?’

  ‘I can’t remember if I discussed it with Schriever or not, but I have to confess that if I’d been asked, I would have been bound to agree with him.’

  ‘But you had no direct hand in Schriever’s report?’

  ‘No. None at all.’

  Himmler spread his hands in the air and smiled frostily. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘That’s all right, then. After all, no one is going to miss Belluzzo, who was not even German.’ He then clasped his hands together, stopped smiling, and added softly: ‘It’s just that one worries if one suspects that one’s staff are becoming too ruthless in their ambitions.’

  ‘Naturally, Reichsführer.’

  He stared steadily at Himmler, giving nothing away, but knew that the Reichsführer was aware of what he had done and would not forget it.

  ‘I appreciate a man of initiative,’ Himmler said, ‘so long as it doesn’t make him too ambitious.’

  ‘I understand perfectly.’

  ‘Good,’ Himmler said. Realizing that he had gained Himmler’s wary admiration, Wilson stared across the broad expanse of the hangar, to where the Schriever flying saucer, about to be test-flown for the first time, was being prepared. It was resting on a large steel platform that could be wheeled out of the hangar. Forty-two meters wide and thirtytwo meters high, it looked immense in the enclosed space. Indeed, raised up on the steel platform, it cast its shadow over the coveralled engineers working around it, including Habermohl and Miethe. Schriever himself was being helped into his flying suit, since he was the test pilot.

  It was a completely circular aircraft, shaped like a gigantic, inverted steel bowl and supported on four thick, hollow legs that housed the gas-turbine rotors which, it was hoped, would give it its vertical-rising capability. Another four gas-turbine rotors were positioned horizontally at equal distances around the rim of the circular body, for control of horizontal flight. It was lamentably primitive, Wilson knew. It would fly enough to satisfy Himmler and keep Schriever pleased with himself, leaving Wilson free to get on with the design of the real, vastly more advanced machine.

  Wilson’s deception was necessary. There was no one he could trust. The Third Reich was filled with ambitious, frightened men who wished to make an impression. Wilson did not trust Rudolph Schriever. He saw the madness in Himmler’s eyes. He remembered his troubles in America, the heavily guarded hangars in Iowa and Illinois, the businessmen and politicians and generals who had ruthlessly stolen his life’s work. The same thing could happen again, because the war’s end was beginning: When the battle for Russia commenced, the Third Reich would start to bleed. How long would Himmler last then? And how long could Wilson then keep his secret? He wanted to make real his secret masterplan, but what guarantee did he have that he could do it? The Nazis devoured their own kind, so they might devour even Himmler; either that or the Reichsfuhrer would turn on Wilson, destroying all he had gained.

  Heinrich Himmler: the Reichsführer. Wilson was not deceived by his mild gaze. His neat fingernails were polished with blood and his smile hid hysteria. No, W
ilson didn’t trust him, and so he gave Himmler only a little – the prototype for a flying saucer that was merely a crude airplane – while explaining repeatedly that his problems were many and he needed more time.

  It was a delicate manoeuvre. A great cunning was required. The flying saucer had to fool Schriever and the other engineers; it had to be a considerable achievement by their standards, though still lacking something. Thus Wilson had used obsolete technologies with slightly advanced ideas, letting Schriever and his engineers take pride in what they imagined was their great achievement: a saucer-shaped aircraft. Gas turbines and liquid-fuelled rockets were still the basis of their technology, but Wilson had already surpassed that. The real achievement was his other, secret Feuerball, and most of that was in his head... So he gave a little and took a great deal and listened always to Himmler.

  ‘Your health is good?’ he was asking.

  ‘Yes,’ Wilson replied.

  ‘The recent operation was a success?’

  ‘Completely, Reichsführer.’

  ‘To experiment on yourself shows great courage – or, perhaps, faith. I have to admire that.’

  ‘I’m nearly seventy, Reichsführer. My time’s running out. I’m old and my body begins to fail me, and I have to prevent that if I’m to continue my life’s work. Since the choices are otherwise nonexistent, it’s certainly worth the risk; and while so far we’ve only managed to repair my stomach and do some minor skin grafts, given time, if we continue medical experiments in the camps, I’m convinced that we’ll eventually reach the stage where we can make flawless skin grafts, replace faulty hearts, develop mechanical limbs, and maybe even make great advances in human longevity... The possibilities are limitless.’

  Himmler scratched his nose, adjusted his pince-nez, nodded solemnly. ‘I agree,’ he said softly. ‘We need that – and more than that. Let us sum up what we’ve achieved so far and see what we have...’

  His voice trailed off as he stared at Schriever’s saucer. The doors of the hangar were being opened and sunlight was pouring in.

  ‘We have our underground factories,’ Himmler said. ‘We have the location for our New Order. We have our masters, the SS, and our slave labour and your own crystal genius.’

  ‘We have everything,’ Stoll said.

  Himmler smiled but shook his head. ‘No, we still don’t have enough. We need more than normal men. What we need is a biological mutation that will lead to true greatness. We must learn to control our work force. Not with whips and not with guns. What we need is automatic control of their bodies and minds. The human brain must be examined, the body’s secrets must be explored. We must try to steal their will and their physical strength and leave them just what we need. The so-called democracies cannot do this – their regressive morals would forbid it – but here, at the dawn of the new era, there is nothing to hinder us.’

  He smiled at the listening Ernst Stoll, as if giving approval.

  ‘We must use the Ahnenerbe, hand in hand with the Lebensborn, in order to study racial characteristics and breed only the finest. That will solve the first problem – and only in that way, will we be able to create the Superman. Nevertheless, that leaves the problems of the work force, and we must solve those also. Control of body and mind. We must find a brand-new method. I think of medical and psychological experiments of the most extreme kind. The camps are ours to command. The scum there is our base material. The New Order needs a wealth of mindless muscle and your genius must find it.’

  Wilson did not reply, as there was nothing for him to say. What Himmler wanted, he also wanted, but for very different reasons; what Himmler wanted was an insane dream that he totally rejected. Yet he listened, because Himmler had the power, and he still needed that.

  ‘Do you understand?’ Himmler said. ‘My New Order will come to be. It will be broken into colonies, each individual, each with its work, all divided into masters and slaves, existing just to support us. There’s no problem in the Antarctic. It’s just another Nordhausen. You ship the subhumans in to build your underground complex, you control them with brain implants and our Death’s Head SS, and then you move in your scientists and technicians and administrators, and you bind them all together with fear of their all-seeing masters. And once there, where can they go? There is no way in or out. They will live underground, seduced by power or cowed by fear, the masters bound by their blood oaths, by their religious conviction, the subhumans by torture and the threat of death and their singular lack of a way out. Yes, American, it is possible. We are halfway there already. You must work, you must complete this great project, before we settle the matter. Now let us see this test flight.’

  The hangar doors had been opened fully. The flying saucer was being wheeled out on the broad platform, its steel body now silvery. Wilson followed Himmler and Stoll, out of the office, across the sunny hangar, then into the summery afternoon. The collapsible legs let the platform be lowered to the ground, where the wheels were removed, and the platform became a glittering launching pad with the saucer resting upon it.

  Flugkapitän Rudolph Schriever was standing in his flying suit directly in front of the saucer, his helmet under his arm. He stepped forward to give the Nazi salute, looking uncommonly nervous.

  ‘Good luck,’ were the only words spoken by Himmler.

  ‘Thank you, Reichsf

  ü hrer!’ Schriever responded, visibly swelling with pride, then saluted again and turned away, to climb the stepladder that led up the gleaming, sloping body to the saucer’s centralized cockpit.

  The Perspex canopy had been removed. The saucer reflected the sunlight. After Schriever climbed carefully into the dome-shaped pilot’s cabin, the canopy was replaced and locked into position. The engineers retreated and shielded their eyes. Himmler and Stoll hurried behind the sandbags with Wilson, then Himmler scratched nervously at his nose and adjusted his pince-nez. The saucer resembled a metallic mushroom – or, perhaps, a giant spider. Its four legs, which housed the gas turbine rotors, thrust down obliquely. There was a roar as the hollow legs spewed flames and filled the air with black, oily smoke. The saucer shuddered and shrieked. Yellow flames spat at the platform. The roaring changed and became a deafening sibilance as the machine started rising. Himmler covered his ears. His body appeared to be shrinking. The saucer shuddered and roared, lifted tentatively off the ground, hovered briefly and swayed unevenly from side to side and was obscured by the swirling smoke. Himmler turned and stared at Wilson. His mild eyes were like the sun. The saucer roared and hovered just above the ground as Himmler gripped Wilson’s wrist.

  ‘A new eral’ Himmler exclaimed as the ground shook beneath them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Bradley and Joan made love that afternoon more tenderly and satisfyingly than they had done in months. They had flown to the island of Oahu, Hawaii, for a vacation in the hope of repairing the damage done by Bradley’s increasing obsession with John Wilson’s unheralded, innovative work on rocket research and what he might be creating in Nazi Germany. That obsession had grown dangerously over the years, encouraging Bradley to be more distracted, keeping him away from home too much on his many investigatory trips, and making him increasingly thoughtless when it came to his family. Consequently, the gulf between him and Joan had widened. She had even threatened divorce. Bradley, though desperate to be part of a proper intelligence agency, such as the British Secret Intelligence Service, and use its greater resources to track down Wilson and put a stop to his activities, had begun to see the error of his ways.

  Well, not quite...

  While he had continued to use his powerful Wall Street law firm and influential clients as his personal link to Washington, DC, and General Taylor’s Army Air Force intelligence unit, he had become increasingly frustrated by the lack of progress regarding his proposals for a centralized intelligence-gathering organization. Earlier in the year he had been informed by Taylor that the beginnings of just such an organization had been made: an Offlce of the Coordinator
of Information, or COI, with its headquarters established in the State, War, Navy Building next to the White House. When another unofficial agent, William Donovan, had been appointed above Taylor as coordinator of information, Bradley had been crushed by disappointment and decided to turn his back completely on his intelligence ambitions.

  A few months later he had suggested this vacation in Hawaii as a sort of second honeymoon, designed to bring him and Joan closer together and let them start all over again.

  It appeared to have worked. Admiral Jeffrey Paris, an old friend of Bradley’s buddy, General Taylor, and captain of one of the battleships anchored off Ford Island, had found them an attractive villa on the green hills overlooking Honolulu. Bradley and Joan had settled in with pleasantly surprising ease, gradually unwound, talked through their differences, and finally came together in bed like much younger lovers.

  That afternoon Bradley had woken up from the nap they had taken to prepare them for the Saturday evening dance in the Pearl Harbour Naval Officer’s Club, to which they had been invited by Admiral Paris, and found himself luxuriating in Joan’s warmth as well as in his newfound peace of mind.

  He felt younger than he had in years. Swelling with love when he thought of how close he had come to losing Joan, he reached out to her, ran his fingers lightly over her, stroked her raised hip and waist, then rolled into her spine, slid his hand around to her soft breast, and let his passion awaken her. She turned into him, almost purring, her smile sleepily radiant, and they pressed their naked bodies together and became one again.

  ‘God, I love youl’ he whispered.

  Later, bathed and dressed – Bradley in a white dinner jacket and black bow tie; Joan in an elegant, off-the-shoulder evening dress – they had an aperitif out on the walled patio overlooking Honolulu. Bradley gazed through palm trees, palmettoes, and hibiscus toward the US Pacific Fleet, anchored in the vast bay. There were destroyers and minesweepers, oilers, tenders and submarines; and off Ford Island the battleships formed two lines, not far from the airfield where dozens of planes stood side by side. The battleships looked magnificent, glinting gray in the brilliant sunlight. Beyond them, far away, where green sea met blue sky, were the flapping white sails and gleaming brass railings of private yachts and expensive motor cruisers.