The Black Gate

by Michael R. Hicks

  Lost in thought, he stumbled as he exited the elevator, earning a quick look from one of the guards. “Damn knee,” Peter muttered as he hurried down the main corridor toward his room. He looked at his watch. He had precisely four minutes to make himself presentable and get to the dining room.

  Grasping the polished brass doorknob to his room, he turned it and pushed the door open. He had to simply stand there in the doorway for just a moment to admire the opulence of his accommodations. He’d only stayed at an exclusive hotel once in his life, at the Mayfair in London before the war, and this was every bit as luxurious.

  But a proper appreciation of his apartment would have to come later. Hurrying to the bathroom, his heels clicking on the polished marble floor, he washed his hands and splashed some cold water on his face in hopes of staving off his exhaustion for a bit longer. Then, opening the wardrobe, he found his extra uniforms. Someone had arranged his clothing with finicky precision. The shirts had been pressed and crisply starched, the other uniform jackets and trousers had been freed of the slightest wrinkle, and his spare boots gleamed with a fresh coat of polish. Even his underwear and socks had been pressed and folded before being arrayed in their respective drawers as if for inspection.

  He hurriedly doffed his tunic and stripped off the sweat-soaked shirt he’d worn since leaving England, marveling that it had only been a matter of hours since the B-24 had taken off. After a brief moment of indecision, he grabbed the mess-dress shirt and put it on, along with the accompanying bow tie. He thought briefly about trying to shave, but decided it would be better to be a tad unsightly with his five o’clock shadow than be late to his first official appearance before the Herr Professor.

  As he withdrew the mess-dress jacket from the wardrobe and shrugged it on, his gaze lingered for several heartbeats on the ornate brass bed. It felt like weeks had gone by since he’d slept in a decent bed. With a sigh, he shook his head. “No rest for the wicked.”

  After making a few swipes of his comb through his matted hair, he left the room and closed the door.

  Hobbling down the hall toward the elevator that led to the surface, he turned right at the junction, taking the corridor that would take him to the dining hall. He hurried even faster when he saw that no one else was heading in that direction. Even though his watch said it was 10:59, being the last one to arrive meant he would be considered late.

  “Damn,” he hissed.

  The two SS guards at the gilded double doors opened them like mindless automatons at his approach, and he stepped into a dining room that looked like it had been plucked from a millionaire’s mansion. An enormous oval mahogany table occupied the center of the room, with what he guessed were about two dozen guests arranged around it at precise intervals. A huge chandelier with hundreds of glittering glass facets hung above the center, illuminating the room with dozens of small electric bulbs, and every place was set with fine china and silver.

  Von Falkenstein occupied the seat at one end of the table, and was involved in a conversation with the bespectacled man to his left. The other seats were occupied mostly by men, although a few women were present, as well. The women all wore formal evening gowns, while the men were dressed in formal evening attire, mess-dress uniforms for the SS officers and tuxedos for the civilians. None of them paid him the least bit of attention.

  Peter breathed a small sigh of relief at having made the right choice in clothes, if nothing else. He stood there, surveying the scene, uncertain how to proceed in what would otherwise be a straightforward social situation.

  One chair, on the opposite side of the table near the center, was empty, and he could only assume it was meant for him. He had a choice of going around the foot of the table and trying to avoid von Falkenstein for the moment, or taking the tiger by the tail.

  Taking a deep breath, he headed toward the head of the table.

  “Ah!” Baumann exclaimed from his seat at von Falkenstein’s immediate right. “Our hero has decided to join us. Please, Müller, be seated.” Baumann threw a glance at the civilian who sat beside him. The man instantly rose to his feet and moved down to the empty chair Peter had intended to take.

  It was as if Peter had stepped through a curtain and was now visible to the assembled illuminati of the project, all of whom paused in their conversations to look at him.

  “Thank you, Standartenführer.” Peter limped around the table, taking the proffered seat. A waiter in white livery whisked away the as yet unused china and silverware and another waiter placed a new setting. Yet another stepped forward as part of the carefully orchestrated ballet and filled Peter’s wine glass.

  As Peter sat down, he saw that he was directly across the table from Mina. If she had appeared beautiful before, she was absolutely radiant now, even with the scar on her cheek, which was partially concealed with makeup. Her long blond hair was in an elegant coif, and she wore a simple black dress that hugged her body. In an irony of Nazi ideology that did not escape him, she was the only other person in the room beside himself and Baumann who had blond hair and blue eyes. She favored him with a perfunctory nod of her head, but nothing more.

  “Herr Professor,” Baumann said to von Falkenstein as he put a hand on Peter’s shoulder, “you met him briefly when he arrived earlier, of course, but please allow me to formally introduce the latest addition to our merry company, Hauptsturmführer Peter Müller, fresh from Berlin.”

  “Professor von Falkenstein, sir,” Peter said, “it is a great honor to meet you.”

  Von Falkenstein graced him with a flick of his eyes and an absent nod, as if Peter were nothing more than a new file clerk.

  “I heard your lecture in Berlin in 1938,” Peter went on, “and followed your work before then. It was a great pity that I wasn’t able to find out any more about your theories after that. You seemed to have disappeared as if through an Einstein-Rosen bridge.”

  The room instantly fell silent. Across from him, Mina sat rigid as a statue, her eyes fixed on the china plate before her. The stewards who were just bringing out the first course stopped in their tracks. Beside Peter, Baumann quietly hissed through his teeth.

  Von Falkenstein slowly turned his head back to face Peter, who forced himself to return the older man’s gaze. “Is that so?” The professor said in the baritone voice that Peter well remembered, even now. Von Falkenstein was a captivating public speaker. “And what did you think of my theories, Hauptsturmführer?”

  Peter heard the underlying threat in the man’s voice, but the die had been cast. Ignoring the knots that were tightening in his stomach, he said, “I must confess, sir, that much of your work is, of course, over my head, and I would be lying if I said I was able to immediately accept such possibilities as those you put forth. But the history of science is filled with examples of theory transcending implausibility to become verified fact, is it not? Otherwise we would still believe that the Sun revolves about the Earth, or that man could never take wing to soar with the eagles.”

  “Quite true, young man,” von Falkenstein conceded, a shade of warmth creeping into his voice as he gave Peter a more contemplative look. “Quite true. My peers at the time did not have your agility of thought. But, as you can see,” he said, gesturing with his hands at the opulent room around them, “the Führer had a more open mind and greater vision.”

  “That comes as no surprise at all, Herr Professor,” Peter agreed with a bow of his head, and a number of people around the table chuckled. The tension in the room began to subside. As if time had been paused and then set into motion again, the stewards resumed serving dinner.

  Mina took a shuddering breath and looked up at him, but said nothing.

  “So, young man,” Falkenstein said after he took a sip of wine, “you have had some time to inspect our malfunctioning computational machine. Tell us, what have you discovered?”

  “Since I had less than an hour to study the machine, my assessment can only be considered preliminary,” Peter said.

  Von Falkenstein’
s eyes narrowed. “And?”

  “I don’t believe there is anything wrong with the computer itself.”

  “That’s preposterous!” The civilian to von Falkenstein’s left blurted.

  The professor held up his hand, and the man choked off whatever else he was about to say. “Calm yourself, Dr. Hoth.” To Peter, von Falkenstein said, “Explain.” The threat was back in his voice and a veil of tension had again descended on the party, although not quite as dramatically as before. All eyes were on Peter.

  He looked at the porcine man with the glasses who had exclaimed his disbelief at Peter’s assessment. A red flush was creeping up the man’s neck as he glared at Peter. “Dr. Ernst Hoth?” Peter asked.

  The man, clearly surprised that Peter recognized him, responded with a jerk of his head.

  “Mein Herr,” Peter said, holding up his hands in a gesture of supplication, “please forgive my rather blunt appraisal. Had I realized you were present, I would have been more…measured in my reply to the Herr Professor’s question.” Hoth was one of Europe’s leading researchers in the area of superconducting materials, which had first been discovered by Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes in 1911. Some of Hoth’s papers on the subject had been among Peter’s required reading while he was studying at Heidelberg University. Peter had wondered about the enormous golden ring in the cavern, and understood now that Hoth must have been behind its design.

  “I’m sure the good doctor is not offended,” von Falkenstein rumbled, the beginnings of a smile turning up the ends of his mouth. His expression had again warmed up, this time by a significant measure. “Now, please explain your findings…in a more measured reply, as you might say.”

  “Of course, sir. Let me guess what has been happening. The computer performs as it should to a certain point, then one or more of the vacuum tubes burn out, even if they’ve been recently changed. And in some cases the failure is sufficiently severe that the wiring to the failed tubes is also damaged, usually melted from excessive heat.”

  “Yes, yes,” Hoth said, bobbing his head and making his neck jiggle like a turkey’s wattle. “That is precisely what is happening. But there is no apparent cause!”

  “There was a cause,” Baumann said with a shark’s grin. “We had a saboteur, and he must have left something behind, something you, Herr Doktor, have been unable to find.” He took a sip of wine. “Your former comrade, Klaus Model, was responsible for the machine’s failure. He admitted as much.”

  Hoth’s face reddened even more. “And you killed him before he could tell us what he had done!”

  “While I certainly can’t discount sabotage,” Peter said smoothly, keeping his attention focused on von Falkenstein, who seemed content to let the other two men wage their war of words, “I believe the root cause may very well be microphonics, subtle vibrations in the tubes that can lead them to fail. High frequency vibrations, or perhaps even the release of large quantities of energy in close proximity to the machine, might be the cause.”

  Hoth and von Falkenstein shared a look.

  “The machine worked perfectly until the damnable British destroyed the Möhne Dam and flooded the cavern,” von Falkenstein said, his forehead creased in a display of concentration. “The computer was replaced with an identical unit, but it has never functioned reliably.”

  “There is nothing identical about these machines, sir,” Peter said, shaking his head. “From what I have read, they are, of necessity, hand crafted, each of them unique. If you’re subjecting it to unusual physical stresses, even subtle differences in its construction could make a difference. Vacuum tubes are delicate enough as it is. They do not tolerate undue stress very well. And in a machine as complex as this one…” He shrugged.

  “Model also redesigned the platform,” Hoth added in a thoughtful voice. “The original was badly damaged and had to be rebuilt.” He frowned at Baumann. “Perhaps there was no sabotage at all.”

  “But he confessed!” Baumann snapped.

  “Anyone would confess to any crime with you as an inquisitor,” Hoth said. “You had Kleist cut him to pieces! That hardly demonstrated his guilt.”

  Peter had no idea who Kleist might be, and he was now rather afraid to find out.

  “Perhaps I should interrogate you, Herr Doktor,” Baumann said in a voice barely above a whisper.

  Hoth blanched.

  “Gentlemen, please,” von Falkenstein told them. “Enough of this bickering.” Leaning back in his chair, he favored Peter with an approving nod. “Very good, Peter,” he said. “How would you suggest we proceed?”

  “I will need to verify my assessment, of course, but I suspect the problem may be corrected by shielding the computer from whatever external forces may be acting upon it.” One of the stewards set a bowl of thick potato soup in front of him. The aroma was heavenly, and his stomach let out an eager growl, which was met with laughter from around the table.

  “That would be a most welcome development. Please, Peter, eat.” This time, von Falkenstein truly did smile. “Tell us,” he went on, changing the focus of the conversation, “how is Berlin faring in these troubled times?”

  Peter ate a spoonful of the excellent soup, which was every bit as good as his mother used to make, using his very real hunger as a cover to buy himself a little extra time to remember everything he could about the intelligence assessments he’d read about Berlin. Much of what he knew was useless to him now, focused as it was on the power infrastructure, so he would have to improvise with generalities. “There are many casualties from the Allied air raids, of course, but the people endure. They believe that despite the setbacks in the war effort, victory is still possible, but not through traditional force of arms. With the Anglo-Americans approaching from the west and the Red Army from the east, and the skies filled with Allied aircraft both day and night, it is impossible to believe otherwise.” He set down his spoon for a moment and dabbed his mouth with a napkin. Giving von Falkenstein what Peter hoped was a convincing look of guarded optimism, he said, “They look to those such as you and von Braun, the creators of our wonder weapons, for salvation.”

  “And they shall have it,” von Falkenstein said in a tone of such utter conviction that the words sent a shiver down Peter’s spine. “What you have said is exactly true. And it is also true that what we are doing here will save the Reich. The Bolsheviks will never set foot in Berlin, and we will toss the Anglo-American swine back into the English Channel where they belong.” He leaned toward Peter. “But we can only save the Reich if we act quickly to bring this project to its long-delayed fruition.”

  “Sir, if the question isn’t inappropriate,” Peter said as the stewards whisked away the soup bowls and began to lay down plates heaped with Rheinischer Sauerbraten, “what exactly is this project? I was told absolutely nothing about it when I was ordered to report here, and even after my brief time in the cavern, while I confess to being amazed, I still have no idea what the mechanisms there actually do.”

  Von Falkenstein smiled like a father about to brag about his most beloved son. Hoth, too, looked proud, but Peter noticed that some of the others around the table diverted their attention from the discussion to the food before them.

  “If you recall the key point of my lecture in 1938,” von Falkenstein said, “I hypothesized that what the religious fools think of as Heaven and Hell are indeed real, just as real as our facility here or any other place on the face of the Earth or in the universe that surrounds us. They occupy locations in space-time just like everything else, although not quite in the same way. They are slightly out of phase with our own reality, hidden in an invisible mist, if you take my meaning.” He waved a hand in a dismissive gesture and scowled. “Had that idiot Einstein taken his theories just a little bit further, he would have seen what I have seen.”

  Peter nodded, his dinner momentarily forgotten as he listened.

  “And because of these peculiarities, we could never reach those places or others like them through space travel, in
one of von Braun’s theoretical rocket ships, for example. Those are nothing but children’s toys.” He leaned forward again and lowered his voice as he stared into Peter’s eyes. “But we can reach them through a type of Einstein-Rosen bridge, a wormhole. Those two simpletons managed to deduce that much, but they fell far short of the true possibilities.”

  “The ring in the cavern,” Peter said slowly as a cloud of butterflies exploded in his stomach. “It’s a wormhole generator.”

  “Precisely!” Von Falkenstein sat back and gleamed at Peter as if he were a child who had correctly deduced the answer to a particularly difficult riddle. “Hoth here was able to create a device based on the principles of superconductivity that, when huge amounts of power are applied in just the right way, is able to create a portal in space time.”

  The bite of sauerbraten Peter had just swallowed coiled in his stomach like a snake as he considered the possibilities. “With such a portal,” he said slowly, “you — we — could send agents or troops anywhere we wished. We could assassinate the allied leaders and leading generals in their beds, put troops or bombs right in the middle of their command bunkers or the American Pentagon…” He felt the blood draining from his face and hoped the others around the table wouldn’t take notice. “Even now, with the Allies knocking on our very door, the Reich could win the war in a matter of months, perhaps even weeks, with no more than a handful of men.”

  Von Falkenstein’s beaming expression faltered.

  Hoth cleared his throat, his proud smile having evaporated into a frown. “Unfortunately, that is not how the gate functions,” he explained. “It is a portal through space-time, yes, but we have not yet been able to make it function as the Einstein-Rosen theories would have you believe. It is a doorway, but not one that we can open at any location we might choose.”