by P. W. Child
“Madam, I shall leave your dinner on the dining table, then,” Maisy announced, refusing to allow the alien setting to unsettled her.
When she turned to leave the intimidating stature of the occupant greeted her from the door.
“I think we should have dinner together tonight, don’t you agree?” Mirela’s steely voice insisted.
Maisy thought momentarily on the danger Mirela posed, and, not one to underestimate innately callous individuals, she simply agreed, “Certainly, madam. But I only made enough for one.”
“Oh, that is nothing to fret over,” Mirela smiled, gesturing nonchalantly while her eyes glinted like a cobra’s. “You can eat. I shall keep you company. Did you bring wine?”
“Of course, madam. A modest sweet wine to compliment the Cornish pastries I baked especially for you,” Maisy answered submissively.
But Mirela could tell that the housekeeper’s apparent lack of alarm bordered on patronization; a most annoying trigger that provoked gratuitous hostility from Mirela. After so many years at the head of the most feared cult of Nazi maniacs, she would not tolerate an insubordinate behavior at any cost.
“What are the codes for the doors?” she asked frankly, bringing forth from behind her a long curtain rail, fashioned into some sort of spear.
“Oh, that is only for employees and servants to know, madam. I’m sure you understand,” Maisy explained. Still, her voice held absolutely no apprehension and her eyes met Mirela’s squarely. Mirela pointed the edge of the tip at Maisy’s throat, secretly hoping that the housekeeper would give her a reason to shove it forward. The sharp edging dented the housekeeper’s skin and punctured it just so that a pretty button of blood formed on the surface.
“You will be wise to retract that weapon, madam,” Maisy suddenly advised in a voice almost not her own. Her words fell in a harsh accent on a tone that lingered far deeper than her usual cheery chime. Mirela could not believe her impudence and threw her head back in laughter. Clearly the common servant had no idea who she was dealing with and for good measure, Mirela struck Maisy across the face with the limber aluminum rail. It left a burning welt on the housekeeper’s face when she recovered from the blow.
“You will be wise to tell me what I demand before I dispose of you,” Mirela sneered, delivering yet another lash across Maisy’s knees, provoking a screech of agony from the servant. “Now!”
The housekeeper wailed, face down on her knees.
“And you can whine as much as you like!” Mirela growled with the weapon at the ready to bore through the woman’s skull. “As you know, this cozy little nest is soundproof.”
Maisy looked up, her big blue eyes void of tolerance or obedience. Her lips curled back over her teeth and with an unholy hum that crept from the depths of her belly, she pounced.
Mirela had no time to swing her weapon before Maisy broke her ankle with one powerful sweep of her shin across Mirela’s lower leg. She abandoned her weapon in the fall while her leg throbbed with excruciating pain. Mirela unleashed a torrent of hateful threats through her hoarse screams, her pain and rage competing.
What Mirela did not know, in turn, was that Maisy was not employed in Thurso for her culinary skills, but for her adept martial efficacy. In the event of a breach she was instructed to strike with extreme prejudice and make full use of her training as operative of the Irish Army Ranger Wing, or Fianóglach. Since her entry into civilian society Maisy McFadden had made herself available for hire in close protection capacity, mostly, and this is where Dave Purdue came upon her services.
“Scream as much as you like, Miss Mirela,” Maisy’s low voice came from above her writhing foe, “I find it very soothing. And tonight, you will be doing quite a bit of it, I assure you.”
Chapter 29
Two hours before dawn, Nina, Sam, and Purdue walked the last three blocks up the residential street, as not to alert anyone to their presence. They had parked their vehicle well away, among a whole line of cars parked on the street overnight, so it was rather inconspicuous. With overalls and rope, the three colleagues scaled the fence of the last house on the street. Nina looked up from where she had landed and gazed on the intimidating silhouette of the massive ancient fortress on the hill.
Wewelsburg.
Silently it presided over the village, watching with the wisdom of centuries over the souls of its inhabitants. She wondered if it knew that they were there, and with an inkling of imagination she pondered if the castle would allow them to defile its subterranean secrets.
“Come on, Nina,” she heard Purdue whisper. With Sam’s help he had pried open the large square iron lid that was situated in the far corner of the yard. They were right next to the quiet, dark house and tried to move without a sound. Fortunately the lid was mostly overgrown with weeds and long grass, making for a silent flip onto the surrounding thickness when they opened it.
The three stood around the black gaping mouth in the grass, obscured even more by the darkness. Even the streetlight lent no light to their footing and it was a perilous aim to find their way into the hole without plummeting to injury below. Once under the brim, Purdue switched on his flashlight to survey the drainage hole and the condition of the pipe below.
“Oh. God, I can’t believe I’m doing this again,” Nina moaned under her breath, her body tensed by claustrophobia. After her grueling encounters with submarine hatches and too many other tight spaces, she vowed never to subject herself to anything like it again—but here she was.
“Don’t worry,” Sam soothed her, rubbing her arm, “I’m right behind you. Besides, it is a very wide tunnel from what I can see.”
“Thanks, Sam,” she said hopelessly. “I don’t care how wide it is. It is still a tunnel.”
Purdue’s face peeked out from the black hole, “Nina.”
“All right, all right,” she sighed, and with one last look up at the colossal castle she climbed down into the gaping hell that awaited her. The darkness was a material wall of soft doom around Nina and it took every ounce of courage from her not to claw her way out again. Her only solace was that she was accompanied by two very capable and deeply caring men who would do anything to protect her.
From across the street, concealed behind the thick brush of the unkempt ridge and its wild foliage, a pair of watery eyes glared at the threesome as they sank beneath the rim of the manhole behind the house’s exterior cistern.
Once they stepped into the ankle deep muck of the drainage pipe, they slouched carefully toward the rusted iron grid that separated the pipe from the larger network of sewage channels. Nina uttered a disgusted grunt as she passed through the slippery portal first, and both Sam and Purdue dreaded their turn. Once all three had come through they replaced the grid. Purdue opened his tiny flip-out tablet and with a sweep of his elongated fingers the gadget grew to the size of a handbook. He lifted it toward the three separate tunnel entrances to sync with his previously entered data of the underground structure to find the right hole, the pipe that would grant them access to the boundary of the hidden structure.
Outside the wind howled like an ominous warning, mimicking the moans of lost souls through the narrow crevices of the manhole’s lid and the air that passed through the various channels around them grazed them with a foul breath. Inside the tunnel it was much colder than the surface and walking through dirty, frigid water only exacerbated the experience.
“Far right tunnel,” Purdue announced as the bright lines on his tablet aligned with his recorded measurements.
“Off we go, then, into the unknown,” Sam added, getting an ungrateful nod from Nina. He did not mean for his words to sound so morose, though, and merely shrugged at her reaction.
A few yards in, Sam took a piece of chalk from his pocket and marked the wall where they entered. The scratching startled Purdue and Nina and they swung around.
“Just in case of the eventuality . . .” Sam started to explain.
“Of what?” Nina whispered.
“In case
Purdue loses his tech. You never know. I am always partial to the old-school way. It usually withstands EMPs or flat batteries,” Sam said.
“My tablet does not work with batteries, Sam,” Purdue reminded him and continued on into the narrowing corridor ahead.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” Nina said, and stopped in her tracks for fear of the smaller tunnel ahead.
“Of course you can,” Sam whispered. “Come, take my hand.”
“I am reluctant to light a flare in here, until we know we are out of range of that house,” Purdue told them.
“It’s all right,” Sam replied, “I’ve got Nina.”
Under his grasp, against his body where he kept Nina against him, he could feel her body quivering. It was not the cold, he knew, that had her terrified. All he could do was hold her securely against him and caress her arm with his thumb to keep her calm as they passed through the section with a lower ceiling. Purdue was preoccupied with mapping and watching his step, while Sam had to maneuver Nina’s unwilling body with his in the throat of the unknown network that had now swallowed them up. On her neck Nina felt the icy stroke of the underground air movement and from afar she could perceive the dripping of drains over cascading trickles of sewer water.
“Here we go,” Purdue said suddenly. He had discovered a trapdoor of sorts above them, a wrought-iron gate fixed in the cement that was crafted in ornate bends and curls. It was definitely not a service entrance like the manhole and drains. Clearly it was decorative for some reason, denoting perhaps that it was an entrance to another kind of underground structure and not another grid. It was a round, flat disc in the shape of an elaborate swastika forged in black iron and bronze. The twisted arms of the symbol and the edges of the gate were thoroughly hidden under the wear of ages. Congealed green algae and erosive rust had fixed the disc securely into the surrounding ceiling, making it nearly impossible to open. In fact, it was lodged solidly, immovable by hand.
“I knew this was a bad idea,” Nina chanted from behind Purdue. “I knew I should have bailed out after we found the journal.”
She was talking to herself, but Sam knew it was the intensity of her fear by the environment she was in that had her in a semi state of panic. He whispered, “Imagine what we are going to find, Nina. Just imagine what Werner had gone through to hide this from Himmler and his animals. It must be something really special, remember?” Sam felt like he was coaxing a toddler to eat her vegetables, but his words did hold a certain motivation for the petite historian who was petrified to tears in his hold. Finally she bore forward with him.
After several attempts by Purdue to dislodge the lock bolt from the eroded strike he looked back at Sam and asked him to check the satchel for a handheld blow torch he had slipped into the zippered bag. Nina clung to Sam, afraid that the darkness would swallow him up if she let go of him. The only light they could utilize was a pale LED flashlight and amid the vast blackness it was as meager as a candle in a cave.
“Purdue, you should also burn off the hinge, I think. Doubt it will still swivel after all these years,” Sam advised Purdue, who nodded in agreement as he fired up the small tool to cut the iron. Nina kept looking around her as the sparks illuminated the grimy old concrete walls of the huge channels and the orange glow that flashed brighter every now and then. The thought of what she might see during one of the brighter moments scared the hell out of Nina. Who knew what could be lurking in a dank, dark place that stretched for acres and acres underground?
Soon after, the gate came loose from the hot severed hinge and strike on its sides, and it took both men to bear its weight down to the ground. With much huffing and groaning they had lowered the gate gently to maintain the ambient silence, just in case a ruckus could summon any attention it reached by earshot.
One by one they lifted themselves into the dark space above, a place that immediately had a different feel and odor to it. Sam marked the wall again as they waited for Purdue to find the route on his small tablet device. On the screen a complex set of lines appeared, making it difficult to discern between the more elevated tunnels and those slightly lower. Purdue sighed. He was not one to get lost or to navigate in error, not usually, but he had to concede to being uncertain of the next steps.
“Light a flare, Purdue. Please. Please,” Nina whispered in the dead darkness. Here there was no sound whatsoever—no dripping, no water, or wind movement to give the place some sort of life. Nina felt her chest crushing her heart. Where they stood now there was a horrid smell of burnt wires and dust with every word uttered by her, dampened into a concise blurt. It reminded Nina of a coffin; a very small, confined casket with no room to move or breathe. Slowly the onslaught of her panic overwhelmed her.
“Purdue!” Sam urged. “Flare. Nina is not dealing well with these surroundings. Besides we need to see where we are going.”
“Oh, my God, Nina. Of course. I’m so sorry,” Purdue apologized as he scrambled for a flare.
“This place feels so small!” Nina gasped, falling to her knees. “I feel the walls against my body! Oh, sweet Jesus, I’m going to die down here. Sam, please help!” Her gasping turned to rapid panting in the pitch dark.
To her great relief the crack of a flare brought a blinding light and she felt her lungs expand under the deep inhalation she forced. All three squinted their eyes in the sudden glare, waiting for their sight to adjust. Before Nina could enjoy the irony of the size of the place, she heard Purdue utter, “Holy Mother of God!”
“It looks like a spacecraft!” Sam chipped in, his jaw agape with wonder.
If Nina thought the idea of a confined space around her was disturbing, she now had reason to reconsider. The leviathan structure in which they found themselves had a terrifying quality, somewhere between an underworld of mute intimidation and grotesque simplicity. The wide arches overhead emerged from smoothed gray walls that melted into the floor instead of meeting it in a perpendicular fashion.
“Listen,” Purdue said excitedly and raised an index finger while his eyes combed the roof.
“Nothing,” Nina observed.
“No. Maybe nothing in the sense of specific noise, but listen . . . there is an incessant hum that runs through the place,” Purdue remarked.
Sam nodded. He heard it too. It was as if the tunnel was alive with some sort of almost imperceptible vibration. On both sides the great hall dissipated into the blackness they did not illuminate yet.
“It gives me the creeps,” Nina said, holding her own arms firmly over her chest.
“That makes two of us, no doubt,” Purdue smiled, “yet one cannot help but admire it.”
“Aye,” Sam agreed as he pulled out his camera. There was no discernible feature to capture on the photograph, but the sheer size and smoothness of the tube was a marvel in itself.
“How did they build this place?” Nina wondered out loud.
Obviously it had to have been built during Himmler’s occupation of Wewelsburg, but there had never been any mention of it, and certainly no blueprint of the castle ever recorded the existence of such structures. The size alone proved to have had considerable engineering prowess on the part of the builders while the world above apparently never noticed the excavations beneath.
“I wager that they used prisoners from concentration camps to construct this place,” Sam remarked as he took another picture, including Nina in the frame to fully capture the size of the tunnel in relation to her. “In fact, it is almost as if I can still feel them here.”
Chapter 30
Purdue thought it well for them to follow the lines on his tablet, which now pointed eastward, using the tunnel they were in. On the small screen, the castle was marked with a red dot and from there, like a giant spider, the vast tunnel system spread out in mostly three cardinal directions.
“I find it remarkable that after all this time these channels are mostly void of debris or erosion,” Sam remarked as he followed Purdue into the darkness.
“I agree. It makes me ver
y uncomfortable to think that this place has been left vacant and yet it has no remnants of what happened here during the war,” Nina agreed, her big brown eyes taking note of every detail of the walls and their round merger with the floor.
“What is that sound?” Sam asked again, annoyed by its constant hum so subdued that it almost became part of the silence in the dark tunnel.
“It reminds me of a turbine of sorts,” Purdue mentioned as he frowned at the strange object that appeared a few yards ahead on his schematic. He stopped.
“What is it?” Nina asked with an inch of panic in her voice.
Purdue continued on at a slower pace, wary of the square object he could not place from its diagrammatic shape.
“Stay here,” he whispered.
“No fucking way,” Nina said and hooked her arm into Sam’s again. “You won’t leave me in the dark.”
Sam smiled. It was good to feel so useful to Nina again and he enjoyed her constant touch.
“Turbines?” Sam repeated with a contemplative nod. It made sense, if this network of tunnels were indeed used by the Nazis. It would have been a more clandestine way to generate electricity while the above world was oblivious to its existence.
From the shadows ahead of them Sam and Nina heard Purdue’s excited report, “Ah! Looks like a generator!”
“Thank God,” Nina sighed, “I don’t know how long I’d be able to walk in this pitch darkness.”
“Since when are you afraid of the dark?” Sam asked her.
“I’m not. But being in an undiscovered, creepy underground hangar with no light to see what is around us, is a bit unnerving, don’t you think?” she explained.
