Fast Ice

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Fast Ice Page 18

by Clive Cussler


  With an electronic chirp, the answer appeared on the screen.

  Joe leaned close and read it aloud. “Laser Jet Pro,” he said. “Euroline PLC Model 9117, serial number 783-692 D-19.”

  “We’re seeing that, too,” Yaeger announced over the phone. “Stand by while we try to get a fix on where the Euroline printer with that serial number might be located.”

  “This all seems a little far-fetched to me,” Leandra said.

  Kurt thought so, too, until he considered that most modern printers were connected to the internet and that everything on the internet used IP addresses and “handshakes” and other technical ways of identifying itself to every other bit of electronic machinery on the network. For whatever it was worth, Hiram seemed to think it would be a slam dunk.

  It didn’t take long for him to be proven correct. “Here’s your answer,” he told them. “This page was printed at the Berlin Document Center in Germany.”

  “Please tell us that’s not a FedEx or Kinko’s or random internet café,” Kurt said.

  “Not at all,” Hiram said. “In fact, it’s exactly what we’ve been looking for.”

  30

  BERLIN

  Paul and Gamay arrived in Berlin, finding it warmer and wetter than Finland but just as gloomy. The overcast sky was heavy and low. A spitting rain drifted in the air like mist.

  “I’m sure we’ll see the sun again,” Paul mused. “One of these days.”

  “Not anytime soon,” Gamay said. “By the description Rudi gave, we’ll be going underground soon.”

  Traveling by car, they crossed Berlin, passing the Brandenburg Gate and then the famous Reichstag, which housed the German parliament before World War II, only to be abandoned and left to rot until the reunification of East and West Germany.

  The Reichstag was an impressive structure, old in style and designed with unrepentant grandeur but updated with modern touches, including a glass-domed roof that was lit boldly at night.

  Berlin was filled with many such buildings, along with plenty of modern architectural wonders offering eye-pleasing lines. The Berlin Document Center was not one of them.

  As they pulled onto the property, Paul summed it up succinctly. “This is a depressing-looking place.”

  “It was once the secret headquarters of Hermann Göring and the SS,” Gamay replied. “Surely you weren’t expecting rainbows and unicorns.”

  The name itself was part of the problem. Calling it the Berlin Document Center conjured up images of a modern government building, something big and square, with glass walls and open plazas. But the BDC was made up of smaller buildings constructed in the 1940s. The structures aboveground had once accommodated loyal SS members, while the bunkers down below served as a domestic spying operation in which hundreds of trained eavesdroppers tapped phone lines throughout the city. Nearby lay barracks that had once housed squads of vicious commandos and brutal interrogators waiting for their next victim.

  In stark contrast to the drab site, Paul and Gamay were greeted by a stylish woman named Andrea Bauer. She was attractive but stern, wearing rimless glasses and a navy blue pantsuit. Ms. Bauer was the lead historian at the center.

  “Guten Morgen,” Gamay said. “Vielen Dank, dass Sie uns so kurzfristig getroffen haben.” She’d been learning German for several months and was attempting to say Good morning. Thank you for meeting us on such short notice.

  “You’re most welcome,” Ms. Bauer replied. Her accented English was better than Gamay’s attempt at German. “Your office in Washington alerted me to your needs. We have everything prepared. Please come this way.”

  They followed her past the small buildings and through a heavy iron gate to a larger concrete structure. On the far side, they took a stairway down to one of the bunkers.

  After passing through a bombproof door installed in 1943, they emerged into a large open room. What had once been the heart of the wiretapping operation now was a research center. Staff members stood at tables around the room, busily working on various documents.

  Ms. Bauer explained. “Millions of files from the Nazi Party were recovered after the war. And millions more have been rounded up over the past fifty years. They have been meticulously stored and catalogued here. A microfilm record was made in 1994, but microfilm has been proven to be inadequate to capture all the details of the files, like colors or faded notations. Nor does the film last forever. As a result, we are in the process of making a new and more detailed record with high-definition cameras.”

  Gamay had a feeling she’d given that speech before.

  Speech completed, Ms. Bauer led them through the main room and into a smaller, secondary annex. Modern lighting, sleek office furniture and new computers resting on clean desks helped brighten appearances, but the heavy architecture remained. The walls were unadorned concrete, solid steel doors with exposed hinges hung at the far end of the room. A row of cast iron safes lined the wall.

  “What are those for?” Gamay asked.

  “We don’t use them anymore,” Ms. Bauer said. “They once held the personnel files of high-ranking Nazi leaders. In truth, they’re too heavy to move. But we also have no desire to forget what this place was truly used for.”

  Paul and Gamay took a moment to appreciate where they were. Paul imagined the treachery that had been plotted in these rooms, the terror once devised there. Gamay felt the darkness of the place. Yet also a sense of triumph, that the Allies vanquished the Nazis and rebuilt a society in which the truth had not been wiped away and hidden.

  Ms. Bauer seemed to read her mind. “When the Allies swarmed in, the Nazis were already in the act of destroying what they could, but they’d waited too long and had wildly underestimated the task. The German war machine had kept such vast and meticulous records that the truth could not be burned or destroyed even with several days’ notice to get the job done. That attention to detail convicted many of the gestapo and SS murderers during the postwar trials.”

  “We’re looking for something earlier than that,” Paul mentioned. “And far less violent or controversial.”

  “Yes,” Ms. Bauer replied. “The files Ms. Emmerson viewed. They have been pulled and collated for you there.”

  Gamay turned to see two small stacks of paper, each about a foot high. Many folders and documents were covered in protective plastic, others were not.

  “We may need help with the translations,” Gamay said. “I’ve learned some German, but not enough to read through pages of text at any sort of speed.”

  “You won’t need any help at all,” Ms. Bauer promised. “At least, not human help. The terminals are equipped with instant scan translators. You place the paper under the scanner and a virtual document is created. Using the keyboard, you can get an instantaneous translation into any language you wish. All we ask is that you use the gloves while handling the files.”

  She pointed to a box of white gloves that would keep the oil on their fingers from damaging the documents.

  Paul slid on a pair of gloves and plucked the first sheet of paper from the stack. It was a Hamburg weather report, circa 1938. Placing it under the scanner and looking at the screen, he saw a perfectly reproduced image. Tapping on the keyboard, he found a menu. He clicked on the tab marked with the English flag.

  Paul expected a text box to pop up, indicating what had been written and where, but instead the image blurred and then refocused. Overall, it looked identical to the original image. Every crease, smudge and stray ink mark remained where it had been before, only the words had changed from German to English. But even this was not accomplished in a clumsy, computer graphics style. It looked as if the ink on the page had magically rearranged its molecules into a new language. Even the handwriting looked the same.

  Paul looked from the screen to the paper and then back to the screen. “Remarkable.”

  Ms. Bauer beamed with pride. “It use
s an artificial intelligence system and is accurate ninety-nine-point-seven percent of the time. It has even learned and translated many of the unique forms of shorthand and symbols some SS officers used. I believe you’ll find it quite helpful.”

  Paul was impressed. “If we had this back at NUMA, it might be able to read Kurt’s chicken scratch.”

  Gamay laughed. “What if it finds something it can’t translate?”

  “In that case, the system will flag it,” Ms. Bauer told them. “We have human interpreters on staff who can help you. Or you can simply ask the system to guess.”

  “Impressive,” Gamay said, pulling on a pair of gloves and settling in at a second terminal across from Paul.

  Ms. Bauer waved a short good-bye. “I’ll leave you two alone. Contact me on the white phone if you need anything.”

  The pile of folders waited. “I suggest we read through everything and then make a list of documents that might be helpful,” Paul said.

  “Look at you,” Gamay said. “Choosing logic over going at this willy-nilly.”

  “When have I ever done anything willy-nilly?”

  Gamay laughed but said nothing. She was already pulling out her first document and sliding it under the scanner.

  At first, she found herself mesmerized by the virtual translation. After a short while, she grew so used to the technology that it seemed totally natural.

  Despite the advanced system, progress was slow. After an hour of work, they’d gone through only a quarter of the stacked folders, most of which related to ship movements and aircraft assignments.

  The second hour brought them records from various vessels. This included more weather reports and bills of lading. The first sign they were getting anywhere came with the appearance of a familiar name.

  “I’ve found some records related to the Schwabenland expedition,” Gamay announced.

  “That must be where Cora started,” Paul said. “But I may have found something even more interesting. Look at this. It’s a photo of a second freighter that was originally supposed to join the expedition. There’s a communiqué here indicating it was left behind in Hamburg after a damaged boiler had to be replaced. It finally sailed”—he was looking for a date—“two weeks later.”

  Gamay looked over the photo of the ship. It was an old freighter, similar to the Schwabenland, right down to the catapult and a pair of Dornier flying boats secured on deck.

  “Hiram’s analysis of the photo ruled out any members of the Schwabenland air crew as being part of the photograph,” Gamay said. “But what if the people in Cora’s photo were on the other ship?”

  “My thought as well,” Paul said.

  “What’s the name of the ship?”

  “The Bremerhaven.”

  Gamay began looking through the documents in her pile for anything related to the Bremerhaven. She found nothing from the Schwabenland’s captain or crew referencing the ship. “See if you can find the ship’s log?”

  Paul searched but found only a harbor document indicating its departure date and a return date of May 7. “That’s roughly five months, the same length of time the Schwabenland spent at sea.”

  Gamay nodded. “It could have easily made it to the South Atlantic and back by then. But why haven’t we ever heard of it?”

  Paul continued plucking through the pile. “Maybe this is why. According to this directive, the ship was operating under special orders from Admiral Doenitz, head of the Kriegsmarine. While the official trip was being undertaken to claim a section of Antarctica for Germany, the Bremerhaven was used to look for suitable places where the German Navy might operate a remote fueling facility. They stopped at Bouvet Island and then continued on down to Antarctica to perform their official duties.”

  “A secret attachment to an already secret mission,” Gamay noted. “How clandestine of them.”

  “Apparently, that wasn’t enough,” Paul said. “There’s another directive here classifying the entire mission as ‘Highest State Secret’ under the orders of the Schutzstaffel in 1942.”

  Gamay tilted her head slightly. “Two questions. First, why would anyone feel the need to reclassify a mission that happened three years before? And, second, why would the SS be the one classifying it? I thought it was a naval mission, under Doenitz.”

  Paul looked back through what he’d found earlier. “It was.”

  “See if you can find anything about the aircraft that were carried on that ship,” Gamay said. “Logbooks or flight paths.”

  Paul divided the stack of documents related to the Bremerhaven and each of them looked through half in search of answers.

  Gamay made the first strike this time when she came across the very image Cora had copied. “Here’s the photo.”

  Paul looked over as Gamay held up the black and white image of the men out on the ice with the Nazi flag. “Are there any notes attached?”

  “It’s connected to a personnel record of this man,” Gamay said.

  The file was annotated with the service photo of a middle-aged pilot. Gamay compared the photo in the file with the photo of the men out on the ice. Aside from a growth of stubble on his face and a few pounds added to his body, the images were identical. “This is the pilot,” she said. “This is our man.”

  Paul looked over, studying the picture. “That’s him, all right. What’s his name?”

  “Jurgenson,” Gamay said. “Captain Gunther Jurgenson, aircraft commander of Dornier Do J Wal flying boat D-AGRB, nicknamed Thrace. According to his personnel file, he was originally a Lufthansa pilot, trained in operating amphibious aircraft on the South American run.”

  Gamay continued reading from the translated page. “His induction date into the Nazi Party is only a month before the ship sailed from Hamburg. Some handwritten notes reveal he wasn’t quite a shoo-in for the position.”

  “Really?”

  Gamay nodded and read the text. “The subject’s loyalty has not been adequately verified. Trade union affiliations have been discovered. However, they are not currently active. Expedition approval conditional.”

  “Conditional upon what?”

  “Probably had to renounce his past,” Gamay said. “Unions were considered fronts for the Communist Party in 1930s Germany.”

  Gamay looked back into Captain Jurgenson’s personnel file, reading aloud when she found anything of interest. “Assigned to the Bremerhaven, November fifth, 1938. Suspended from duty due to a crash, January twenty-eighth, 1939. Cleared of responsibility and returned to duty, May twenty-first that same year.”

  “January twenty-eighth would have been during the time they were in Antarctic waters,” Paul pointed out. “Which makes sense, because I have this from the Bremerhaven.”

  He held up a plastic-encased document. “It’s the catapult log from the Bremerhaven. The officer of the deck kept it and recorded each flight launch and who commanded it. According to the list, Jurgenson launched in his Dornier each of the first two days. The second aircraft was launched on day three, and both aircraft sortied on day four, with Jurgenson launching first and the backup aircraft launching several hours later. Five additional flights took place on the following days, but all of them were undertaken by the second aircraft. Jurgenson never flew again. Nor did the aircraft he’d been given command of.”

  Gamay looked through the personnel file for anything relating to the crash. Eventually, she found an “action verdict” that reappointed him to flight status. The report had been signed by a Luftwaffe Colonel in Hamburg. It read

  Captain Jurgenson could not have been expected to know the peril of the rapid icing agent present in the lake upon which he landed. His exemplary flight skills not only saved himself but his entire crew. Reinstatement to active flight status is effective immediately.

  “He did crash,” Gamay said.

  Paul had discovered a map, drawn by the Bremerhav
en’s commanding officer. Long, thin sections were marked in red and numbered. They looked like flight plans to Paul, out and back from the Bremerhaven’s position.

  “Eins, zwei, drei, vier, fünf,” Paul said, doing his best to pronounce the German numbers. “If Jurgenson’s plane crashed on flight number four, this would have been his planned flight path.”

  The long outbound flight covered five hundred miles of territory. A thirty-mile crosswind turn took them east, before another long leg brought them back to ship’s position. “That’s still fifteen thousand square miles,” Paul said.

  “Better than half a million,” Gamay replied. “Which is what the Schwabenland expedition covered.”

  “It’s not a bull’s-eye,” Paul said. “But it’s a start. All thanks to our friend Jurgenson. Whatever happened to him anyway?”

  Gamay returned to his personnel file, summarizing aloud as she went. “He was discharged prior to the start of the war. He was then reactivated for duty in December of 1942.”

  “Total war,” Paul said. “On two fronts at the same time. At some point, the Nazis began running low on pilots, soldiers and everything else.”

  “Except he wasn’t assigned to fly,” Gamay said. “When I look at his personnel record, he was assigned directly to the SS itself.”

  Paul’s eyebrows knitted together. “You’re kidding me?”

  She read the orders. “Captain Jurgenson reinstated to military service and promoted to rank of Major, concurrent with responsibilities required by Alpine Unit, Schutzstaffel.”

  “Drafted and promoted,” Paul said. “Interesting.”

  Gamay continued. “His initial post was to the Norsk Hydro plant in Norway.”

  “Norsk Hydro was the Nazi heavy water manufacturing facility,” Paul said. “The British blew it up, concerned that the Nazis were on track to building an atomic bomb.”

  “He was there only a few weeks,” Gamay said. “His later assignment took him farther up the peninsula, to the top of Norway, above the Arctic Circle. That was his last posting. He was killed during an attack by Norwegian resistance members two months after arriving.”

 

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