SecondWorld

by Jeremy Robinson

  Perhaps there would be a trail?

  Of course, he didn’t expect to find more bread crumbs. Blood seemed more likely.

  26

  Miller left the bathroom thirty minutes later feeling clean for the first time in days. While he felt eager to hear back from Fred, he also felt thankful that he’d been given the time to just stand under the scalding water and decompress. The tension melted away from his back and the chaos in his mind eased.

  When Adler looked up from her grandmother’s diary, she noticed the difference immediately. “You look … better.”

  He sat down next to her. “I feel better.” He tugged at his ill-fitting shirt. “Though we’ll be picking up some clothes for me next time we get a chance. None of these are mine.” He looked at the journal. “Find anything useful?”

  “Obergruppenführer Emil Mazuw was general of the Waffen-SS—the Schutzstaffel, Hitler’s elite—and one of eight Higher SS and police leaders. He was definitely involved in the development of secret weapons, but the Allies captured him at the end of the war. He served sixteen years for his part in the Holocaust, which included euthanizing Jews. After his release he got a job, lived off the radar, and died in 1987.”

  “Sixteen years?” Miller said, his jaw slack.

  “Ja,” she said. “They should have hung them all.”

  Miller smiled. Part of him expected Adler to be defensive, but her voice held as much venom as his.

  “Dr. Kurt Debus. This may not be any help because he died in 1983, but he was also brought to the U.S. by Operation Paperclip and became the first director of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.”

  “Geez. Between him and von Braun, the U.S. space program was controlled by former Nazis.” The ridiculousness of this made Miller wonder if Nazi sympathizers had infiltrated the U.S. system before the war had even begun.

  “Dr. Hermann Oberth was actually von Braun’s mentor and developed liquid-fueled rockets, including the V-2 rockets, for the Reich. He wasn’t part of Operation Paperclip, but lived in the U.S. for a time before returning to Germany. He died in 1989. The last name on the list, Dr. Walther Gerlach, was interned by the British at the end of the war and some believe he helped develop their nuclear program. But he returned to Germany in 1946 and worked as a professor until he died in 1979. Another dead end.”

  “Literally,” Miller said. “Anything on Huber?”

  “Nothing. He’s a ghost. If he exists, he avoided the history books.”

  Miller gave the journal a pat and said, “Not all of them.” That’s when he noticed a passage in the journal had been circled in fresh red ink. “Found something?” Even though he couldn’t read it, Miller turned the journal around and looked at the text.

  “I’m not sure. She mentions being asked to calculate the optimal temperatures for freezing and thawing bodies without damaging the cells. But she didn’t believe a mathematical equation could help refine such a process without more data. She’d been disturbed when she was told that trials were being conducted and data would be delivered. But she never mentions it again.”

  “So she either didn’t get the data, or just didn’t bother to note it.”

  Adler didn’t reply. Miller could see she was uncomfortable with the idea of her grandmother being involved with something as heinous as freezing and thawing living human beings. He knew that such experiments were conducted on the prisoners held in concentration camps, not to mention scores of other revolting experiments, but kept that to himself. He could see the weight of her grandmother’s involvement tugging at Adler’s shoulders. “You’re right. Doesn’t sound related.” He passed the journal back to her. “But keep at it. You might find something.”

  The chime of the ringing phone made both of them jump. Miller accepted the call and placed the phone to his ear. “Miller.”

  “Damn, it’s good to hear your voice, Linc,” Fred Murdock said on the other end.

  “Thanks for visiting me in the hospital,” Miller teased.

  “I didn’t know you were there until you were gone,” Murdock said. “Things are a little crazy right now.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Where are you, anyway?”

  “Better if you don’t know.”

  “What, you think someone is going to torture me for the info?”

  Murdock’s tone turned grim when Miller didn’t answer. “This is about that red shit, isn’t it? Listen, if this Huber guy is a lead, I want in.”

  “That would be a bad idea, Fred.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “You’ve been out of the field for fifteen years and this isn’t Lethal Weapon. You actually are too old for this shit. Just please, keep this quiet. If I need your help, I’ll call. Until then, if even a mouse fart of this gets out, I’m going to feel some heat.”

  “I hear you, Linc. Loose lips sink ships. I know the drill.”

  “Thanks. What did you find on Huber?”

  “Well…” Miller could hear papers rustling on the other end. “There wasn’t much. The guy’s led a quiet life. Came to the U.S. from Germany like you thought. Was only eighteen at the time, so he’s eighty-five now. Lived in Huntsville, Alabama, for a long time.”

  “Huntsville? Isn’t that where—”

  “Home to the Marshall Space Flight Center, yup.”

  “Where is he now?” Miller asked, then snapped his fingers at Adler and pointed to a Best Western memo pad sitting on the room’s dresser. She quickly snatched the pad and handed it to him. Using Adler’s red pen, he wrote down the information as Murdock gave it to him.

  “Last known place of residence is 23 Pinegrove Circle, Barrington, New Hampshire. I don’t have a date of death on the guy, so he must still be there.”

  “Phone number?”

  “None on record.”

  “Good enough,” Miller said. “Thanks, Fred.”

  “If you need anything else—more intel, a wiretap, the cavalry—you let me know. Just stay alive, okay?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  Miller hung up the phone.

  “So we’re going to New Hampshire?” Adler asked as she read the memo pad.

  Miller stood and picked up the car keys. “Yup.”

  “What, now?”

  “It’s at least an eight-hour drive. If we leave now we can be there in time to talk to Huber over donuts and coffee.”

  “You don’t need to rest?”

  Just hearing the question made Miller feel exhausted. He’d been pushing his body hard. But he’d been trained to deal with it. And if Adler wanted to be a part of this, she would have to do the same. “We’ll drive in two four-hour shifts. I’ll take the first.”

  With a tired sigh, Adler heaved herself out of the chair, put her scattered belongings back in her purse, and headed for the door with Miller. They were northbound on Route 95 five minutes later. Miller drove in silence as Adler slept. He felt the tug of sleep on his body, but his mind, firing on all cylinders, remained hypervigilant for danger. He half expected a bullet to zing through the window, or a storm of red flakes to descend. Danger felt inescapable—far worse than his combat experiences in the SEALs. Every enemy he’d fought in the military and every criminal he’d chased down for the NCIS had a face, a clear history, and a motive. But the enemy facing him now could be anywhere, anyone, and only God knew what they really wanted.

  Would they make demands?

  Would they instigate a third world war?

  Or maybe just wait for the world to descend into anarchy?

  They could deploy a weapon capable of killing millions. All from the shadows.

  Doubt crept in when he thought about the immensity of what he was facing—he looked at Adler, sleeping in the passenger’s seat—with a German Interpol liaison whose grandmother played a key role in the development of a doomsday weapon.

  The odds were stacked severely against them, but the memory of how Arwen received her burns stuck with him. She had faced impossible odds when she raced into the fire to save
her brother. She failed in the attempt, but she tried. She ignored the danger, plunged in, and fought the odds. Miller’s odds of success seemed about as likely as Arwen’s had been. Failure was likely. But he shared Arwen’s spirit. He’d jump into the fire. Even if it killed him. As he turned away from Adler, he hoped she felt similarly. The fire was just getting started.

  Four hours later, he pulled over at a twenty-four-hour rest area in Massachusetts. Adler woke up just as he finished fueling the car. She opened the door and got out. She stretched, yawned, took the keys from Miller’s hand, and walked to the driver’s side.

  “Let’s go,” she said, climbing into the car and closing the door.

  Miller grinned. He’d worried she might be a liability, but she was carrying her own weight, so far. After moving the Mini Cooper’s seat all the way back and reclining it as far as it could go, Miller climbed in. “It’s a straight shot up Route Ninety-five. Wake me up when we hit New Hampshire.”

  Adler gave a nod and hit the gas. Miller was asleep before they left the rest area’s on-ramp.

  He dreamed of a red sky and woke up to screaming.

  27

  “Scheiße!”

  The shouted word rocked Miller from a hard sleep. His eyes snapped open as he felt the car jerk hard to the left. He saw a flash of Adler’s panic-stricken face. He drew the Glock, spun around, and searched for the vehicle that had tried to force them off the road.

  There wasn’t a car in sight.

  Then he saw it. A massive bull moose stood in the middle of the road watching them drive away. The giant easily outweighed the tiny car and towered over it. If they’d collided, he had no doubt the moose would have walked away after turning the car and its passengers into a metal-and-flesh pancake.

  “Sorry,” Adler said. “Sorry.”

  Miller sat up, raised the reclined seatback, and closed his eyes. The close encounter had set his heart pounding and adrenaline surging.

  “It stepped right out in front of me,” Adler said, her voice full of apology.

  Miller opened his eyes. “Haven’t been to New Hampshire before, I take it?”

  “No,” Adler said. “Are moose common here?”

  “They have bumper stickers that say, ‘Brake for moose.’” He smiled. “I nearly shot the bastard.”

  “I don’t think your nine-millimeter would have done much.”

  Miller looked at the gun. She was right. While it was great for putting deadly holes in a human body, the eight-foot-tall, fifteen-hundred-pound herbivore with a quarter-inch-thick hide would just be irritated by the small-caliber rounds.

  “It’s a good thing we’re not going up against Nazi moose, then,” Miller said. He took stock of their surroundings. They were on a small winding road that lacked signs or even a double yellow line. A forest of pine, white birch, and maples lined both sides of the road. The windows were open and the eighty-degree air smelled of earth and trees with a hint of something sweet. After breathing inside the rebreather for so long, the fragrant air felt like a dream to Miller. “Where are we?”

  “You looked tired,” she said. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

  Miller rubbed his eyes. He probably could have slept for a few more hours, but felt a good deal better with the time he’d got. “Thanks.”

  “We’re almost there. Maybe ten minutes out.”

  This came as a surprise to Miller. “How did you find the way?”

  She pointed to the iPhone propped up on the front dash cup holder. A map displayed a moving car and a series of winding roads surrounded by a flat green landscape. “Phone has GPS. Two more left turns and we’re there.”

  Miller picked up the phone and scanned ahead on the map. He followed the blue trail marking the roads they would take. A small bridge crossing the far side of a lake lay a mile ahead. A left turn after that would take them along the side of the lake and another left onto Huber’s street, which looked like it crossed onto a small island. He zoomed in on the residence and found the house on the outer edge of the island, overlooking the lake.

  Miller looked up and saw the bridge up ahead. It was big enough for just one car. A large lake emerged on the left of the bridge. A small pond lay to the right. Big houses with skylights, large decks, fire pits, and hammocks had been built along the shore. The water’s edge was lined with docks holding Jet Skis, pontoon boats, and an assortment of smaller canoes and paddle boats. As they passed over the small bridge Miller looked out over the lake and saw a streak of white. A boat cut across the surface pulling a large inner tube to which a bikini-clad girl clung.

  The peaceful surroundings and summertime scene gave Miller hope that things could return to normal. And maybe they could stay here in New Hampshire where there was no real target of significance to worry about. With the populations of most major U.S. cities dwarfing that of the entire state of New Hampshire, he doubted it was high on anyone’s target list.

  It was also the perfect place for an ex-Nazi to drop off the radar.

  As they approached the left-hand turn just after the bridge, a large black SUV rounded a corner and headed casually toward them. Adler put on the blinker and waited for the beast on wheels to pass. Instead, it turned down the road before them.

  “No one uses their turn signal anymore,” Adler grumbled.

  But Miller didn’t hear her. He was focused on the SUV. Nothing about the vehicle stood out, really, but the men inside were a different story. He saw the driver through the front windshield as he steered the vehicle onto the street. He had a shaved head and pale skin. A man in the backseat was skinnier, but had the same close-cropped hair. Neither had the look of men about to hit the lake for a BBQ, fishing, or boating. Miller recognized the expression on their faces. He’d seen it on his fellow SEALs before every battle. They had the look of men about to spill blood. As they passed, he saw the silhouettes of two more men on the other side of the car. A hit squad if he ever saw one.

  Miller tensed, hand on weapon, but the SUV kept on going, bouncing over a field of potholes before reaching the smooth pavement of the lake house association. They’re not here for us, he thought. They’re here for Huber!

  “What’s wrong?” Adler asked, looking down at the Glock clenched in Miller’s hand.

  “Get us up behind the SUV. But not too close.”

  “Why?”

  Miller pointed toward the SUV. “There are at least four hit men on their way toward Huber and if we don’t find a way to get there first, or stop them, we’ll be interviewing a corpse.”

  The blood drained from Adler’s face, but she nodded and steered onto the road. The SUV disappeared around a corner as the Mini Cooper struggled with the potholes. Free of the rough road, Adler punched the gas and shot forward. The road was still small, but the Cooper had plenty of room to maneuver and its low center of gravity made hugging turns a snap.

  But they only made it around the first corner before everything fell apart. The SUV was parked on the side of the road. All four occupants were out, standing across the road, aiming an assortment of weapons straight at them.

  “Steer left and get down!” Miller said, and jammed his foot on top of Adler’s. The car shot forward as a barrage of gunfire peppered the front of the car. Glass flew. Adler screamed. A sound like giant popcorn kernels popping filled the car. The first impact to shake the car was accompanied by two shouts of pain. Their assailants’ strategy had been sound, but they’d staged the ambush too close to the corner. There wasn’t enough time for them to fire and get out of the way.

  The second impact loosed a shriek of metal on metal. They’d struck the guardrail Miller had seen a split second before ducking. He sat up when the shriek stopped. They’d cleared the turn and had a stand of trees between them and the shooters.

  “You hit?” he asked Adler as she sat up.

  “I don’t think so,” she said, then looked out the windshield. “My car…”

  The front hood had large dents on either side from where they’d struck the two
men. The windshield had been shredded by rounds as the shooters had focused on hitting flesh first instead of stopping the car. But when white steam began billowing from the front of the car, Miller knew the engine had taken a few high-caliber hits.

  Miller glanced at the iPhone map. They had half a mile to cover before the turn for Huber’s street, and then a quarter mile to his house. “Gun it for as long as you can,” Miller said.

  Adler did an impressive job keeping the Cooper moving fast and on the street. But the increasing amount of steam and ruined windshield made it nearly impossible to see. Before Miller could tell Adler to pull over, the engine coughed and died. They rolled to a stop just thirty feet from the left turn onto Huber’s road. The road dropped away on their left. The lake lapped against a rocky shore twenty feet down. To their right and directly ahead was nothing but forest.

  “Get out!” Miller shouted as he snatched the iPhone, stuffed it in his pocket, and kicked open his door.

  Outside the car, the roar of the approaching SUV echoed through the forest. Miller waved toward the road. “Run!”

  Adler took off, running faster than Miller thought possible for a woman her size. Of course, when life hangs in the balance, most people can put a little extra pepper in their step. Miller, on the other hand, stood his ground and aimed back down the road. The SUV came thundering up over the rise and barreled toward him. A man leaned out of the passenger’s window and opened fire with a submachine gun. Rounds sliced through the small car, but couldn’t find Miller positioned behind the engine block and far-side tire.

  As the shooter ducked away to reload, Miller took aim, held his breath, and squeezed off a series of rounds. The first four shots missed the target, shattering the headlight and pinging off the thick metal wheel well. But the fifth shot found nothing but tire. The effect was immediate and violent. The tire rapidly deflated under the SUV’s immense weight. The rim bit into and shredded the rubber. The vehicle tilted toward the lake and the driver, fearing a twenty-foot drop, overcompensated. The SUV turned hard to the right, the tire tore away, and the rim dug into the pavement.