SecondWorld

by Jeremy Robinson

  The giant SUV launched into the air, spinning like a flicked coin. The gunman was launched from the open window like a rag doll from a cannon. He flew three hundred feet, snapping dry branches from pine trees before having his head removed by a thick maple limb. Blood sprayed from his body as it spiraled toward the earth and landed with a thud in the forest’s thick leaf litter.

  The aerial arc of the SUV was much shorter, but no less dramatic as it flipped over the Mini Cooper. The roof of the SUV crushed the Cooper’s as it rolled and nearly struck Miller, but its momentum carried it forward. The SUV bounced off the road behind Miller and spun into the open air above the lake. The vehicle fell, and with a loud whoosh, struck the lake’s surface upside down. Water poured in through the open windows. Thirty seconds later, the SUV slid beneath the lapping waves.

  Miller watched the SUV sink.

  Adler ran up to him. “Holy shit!”

  He just nodded and kept watching. After a minute, he felt satisfied that no one would be surfacing and checked the Glock’s clip. One round left. He slapped the clip back in and started jogging toward Huber’s road. “Let’s go.”

  Adler followed, and had no trouble keeping pace. “You have nothing to say about what just happened?”

  He looked at her. Her posture was perfect, her steps even. “You’re a runner?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Endurance?”

  “I’ve run a few marathons.”

  “Good,” he said, before picking up his pace. She fell in line and became too winded to talk. There was no way to know if a second crew would be sent out, or if they were already on the way. And they still needed to find Huber, get him someplace safe, and hopefully get some answers to a growing list of questions.

  They crossed a small stone bridge onto the island. The road became dirt and skirted the shoreline. They followed the road and soon came to the one and only house—Huber’s.

  The average-sized log home was in stellar condition and situated in the middle of a cleared section of land that ran down to the lake’s edge. Miller saw an empty dock and feared Huber might actually be out on the lake, which would complicate things. Further out on the water he saw two men fishing from a canoe, but neither looked like an old man.

  After slowing his pace and catching his breath, Miller entered the paved, and empty, driveway. A stainless steel carport stood to the side of the driveway, but there was no way to see inside without making noise. Weapon in hand, Miller took the three steps up onto the farmer’s porch and silently stepped up to the red door. He gently took hold of the handle and turned. The door opened silently.

  Adler stood next to him. “It’s unlocked?” she whispered.

  The same thing had concerned Miller, too, but then he once again remembered they were in the woods of New Hampshire. He suspected they’d find most doors unlocked, especially if the residents were home.

  Miller and Adler crept into the house. It smelled of pine and woodsmoke and the temperature felt ten degrees cooler than outside. The front hall, which held a coatrack and welcome mat, opened into a dining area on the left and a small kitchen on the right. The table was thick and rough, sporting two long benches like a picnic table. The marble kitchen counters were spotless and reflected sunlight streaming in through the window over the sink. Directly ahead of them was a long living room that ran the length of the house. Mounted buck busts lined the outside wall above a line of windows that provided a stunning view of the lake. And it was that view that nearly cost Adler her life.

  She stepped into the living room, eyes on the window.

  Two metallic clicks pricked Miller’s ears before he entered the room. “Elizabeth, freeze,” he said.

  “What? Why?”

  The voice, that of an old man, came from the corner of the room, behind Adler. “Because, fräulein, I’m still deciding whether or not I should kill you.”

  28

  Miller hung back in the kitchen, out of view. Adler stood rigid in the middle of the living room, her back to the man that had just threatened her life.

  “I’ve been expecting you for some days now,” the man said.

  “Expecting me?” Adler said.

  “Ja. I knew you would come once I saw the shade effect over Miami. Though I must admit I am surprised you are a woman.”

  “Huber,” Miller said.

  “Don’t do anything foolish,” Huber warned.

  Miller eased toward the living room. “I think you have us confused with someone else.”

  “You take me for a fool?”

  “I’m going to walk in with my back to you.” Miller eased into the living room. He held his gun out first and when he felt Huber could see it, he ejected the clip and dropped the weapon onto the floor. “I’m unarmed.”

  After three slow steps, Miller stopped next to Adler, his arms raised. Huber could kill them both with two quick pulls of the trigger, but Miller had to risk it.

  “I heard gunshots from the road,” Huber said. “Who did you kill?”

  “Your neighbors are fine, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Miller said.

  “They have kids,” Huber conceded.

  “I can’t say the same for the four men that were coming to kill you,” Miller said.

  “How do I know you’re not here to kill me?”

  Because you’d already be dead, Miller thought, but said, “If you’ll let me turn around, I can show you.”

  “Slowly.”

  Miller turned around, keeping his hands high and his motions slow. As he turned, Miller looked at the line of mounted deer busts. If they were Huber’s kills, the man knew how to shoot. Giving him a reason to pull the trigger would be a very bad idea.

  Huber sat in shadow, but the double-barreled shotgun was easy enough to see. And while he couldn’t clearly see Huber’s face, Miller knew the old man had seen his. The shotgun lowered slightly as Huber leaned forward. He stood and walked into the light. His face was old and weathered, but his spectacled eyes burned with intensity. A full head of gray hair and a week’s worth of stubble framed his confused expression. “Am I supposed to recognize you?”

  “Most people seem to, these days,” Miller said with a frown. If Huber didn’t recognize him, his plan would go up in smoke. “My face has been on TV a lot lately.”

  “Do you see a TV?” Huber asked.

  Shit. Miller didn’t.

  “Newspaper?” Miller asked.

  Huber shook his head, no.

  “How do you know what’s happening in the world?” Adler asked.

  “Radio,” Huber said.

  Miller realized he had just one hope. “Lincoln Miller, you know the name?”

  Huber thought for just a moment. “The survivor from Miami, yes, but—”

  “I am Lincoln Miller.”

  Huber looked at him like he’d just claimed to be Hitler himself.

  “I’m going to reach into my pocket,” Miller said. “For some ID.”

  “Slowly,” Huber said, keeping his aim tight on Miller’s chest.

  Miller pulled out the iPhone and flicked it on.

  “That’s not a wallet,” Huber noted.

  “My wallet is under fifty feet of water off of Key Largo buried beneath a blue whale,” Miller said as he opened the Web browser, opened a news network Web site, and watched the new headlines rotate. “Kind of hard to reach right now.” When a photo of his face appeared in the rotation, he tapped the article to expand it and held it up for Huber to see.

  Huber’s face shifted through a variety of expressions. The article clearly showed Miller’s face, name, and identified him as the man who’d survived the attack on Miami and saved a little girl, but didn’t explain how Miller had gotten to New Hampshire, or why he stood in Huber’s living room.

  “I’m Special Agent Lincoln Miller with the NCIS.”

  Huber gave a small nod. “That’s what it says under your photo, but—”

  “I’m here at the behest of the president of the United State
s,” Miller said.

  That got Huber’s attention. “Figured it out then, have you?” Huber motioned to Adler with the shotgun. “And you? Sie sind Deutsche.”

  Adler turned around and eyed the shotgun pointed at her gut. “Elizabeth Adler. I’m a German liaison for Interpol.”

  Huber’s eyes darted back and forth between the two of them, searching their faces for some sign of deception. Finding none, he lowered the shotgun.

  Miller noticed the old man’s free hand shaking. A trickle of sweat rolled down the man’s face. Huber was terrified. “You have a beautiful home,” Miller said, trying to put the man at ease. If he had a heart attack, he wouldn’t be any use to anyone.

  “It is my sanctuary,” Huber said, returning to his seat.

  A great stone fireplace stood to Miller’s right, its chimney rising up through the center of the cabin. He stepped closer to the mantel lined with framed photos. Older pictures showed Huber with a woman, presumably his wife, and two young girls—daughters. Newer pictures showed an aged Huber with two older women—the daughters grown up—and a line of what had to be grandkids. “When did your wife pass?”

  Huber sniffed. “Fifteen years ago. Cancer ate her alive.”

  “Sorry,” Miller said.

  Huber shrugged. “You’re not here to talk about my family and I would prefer you had nothing to do with them. I am no longer burdened by the hatred of my youth. And up until this moment, I thought myself free of that past. But it seems history is repeating itself once again.” He turned to Adler. “The evil born in our homeland has raised itself from the ashes once again.”

  “Millions are dead,” Adler said.

  “Sixty million lives were taken in the Second World War,” Huber said. “What you have seen is just the beginning.”

  Miller stepped toward Huber. “The beginning?”

  “Tests.”

  “For what?”

  Huber leaned forward and pushed his fingers together. “Have you determined where the iron particles came from?”

  Miller remembered the vague news report he’d seen in Miami. “I heard something about a cloud of iron that the solar system passed through.”

  Huber shook his head at the crude explanation. “The iron is extraterrestrial in origin—”

  “Aliens?” Adler asked.

  Huber laughed and waved a dismissive hand at her. “Nothing so foolish. There is a vast cloud of finely divided particles on the fringe of our solar system. It is typically held at bay in the heliopause by the sun’s solar wind.”

  “Heliopause?” Miller asked.

  “The heliopause is the region of space where the sun’s ions meet the galaxy’s. There are particles in this region of space, about one hundred and ten astronomical units from the sun—an astronomical unit is the distance between the Earth and the sun, nearly ninety-three million miles. During times of low sunspot activity, which occurs roughly every ten years, some of these particles slip through into the solar system. Many reach Earth and burn up harmlessly in the thermosphere. A period of extremely low sunspot activity occurred in 1933. Combined with an infrequent alignment of the planets, particularly the gas giants, a large cloud of iron particles entered the solar system and over the past seventy years have been journeying toward Earth.”

  “And it reached us a few days ago?” Adler asked.

  “Oh, no,” Huber said. “Those were small clouds that arrived in advance and allowed for the tests to be conducted.”

  “How do you know all this?” Miller asked.

  “Because,” Huber said, meeting Miller’s skeptical gaze. “I was there when Wernher von Braun calculated its arrival.” The old man craned his head toward Adler. “Of course, he wasn’t absolutely sure until your grandmother confirmed the accuracy of his math.”

  29

  Adler’s mouth hung open for a moment. “You knew my grandmother?”

  “I met her twice,” Huber said with a nod. “I was a youth at the time, working in von Braun’s laboratory and living in his loft. She was a stunning woman. Taller, and fairer to look at than you, I’m afraid, but you share her eyes. She was instrumental in the completion of Lantern Bearer. Was she how you found me? Is she still alive?”

  “She kept a journal,” Miller said. “Your name was in it, among others.”

  Huber pinched his lips together, moving them side to side. “We always suspected her loyalties were not fully aligned with those of the Reich, but we never told the Obergruppenführer about our suspicions.”

  “Emil Mazuw?” Miller asked.

  “The same. A ruthless man and stalwart believer in the superiority of the Aryan race. He would have had her shot.”

  “Why?” Adler asked. “Why didn’t you turn her in?”

  “Aside from the fact that her brilliance made our advances possible?” Huber settled back into his chair. “Tell me, what do you know of your grandfather?”

  “My grandfather? My grandmother said he was kind and gentle.”

  “He was.”

  “And he died during the war. Allied bombs.”

  Huber shook his head. “I’m sorry to say, this is not true. Your grandfather died in 1979, just a few years after you were born, I suspect. He was ninety years old.”

  Adler sat down in the chair across from Huber, her hand to her mouth.

  “He loved your grandmother very much and forbade the rest of us from turning her in. He was a dedicated Nazi, a valued colleague, and we trusted his judgment. And while your grandmother certainly helped with the success of several Nazi projects, many of them were born from the mind of your grandfather. In fact, without your family’s involvement, the world wouldn’t now be in danger.”

  To say that these revelations were stunning was an understatement. Adler had gone pale and had a lot to process. She felt guilty because of her grandmother’s association with Project Lantern Bearer, but now her grandfather was involved as well, and on a much more grand scale. Her grandparents’ hands were stained with the blood of millions. As horrifying as this was, Miller needed to keep the conversation on track. “What can you tell us about the project?”

  Huber shrugged. “Everything I remember. But it won’t help and I’m sure a lot has changed since we worked on the prototype.”

  “What do you mean, changed?”

  “Debus, Gerlach, Oberth, and von Braun were all scientists of notoriety. The Allies were well aware of their keen minds and sought them out at the end of the war. If they’d been shot, or taken with the prototype—”

  “Taken where?” Miller asked.

  “We were never told.” Huber cleared his throat and stood. He wandered to the fireplace and looked at the photos on the mantel. “Anything other than capture would have raised suspicions and begun a search. Turning themselves in kept attention away from the project long enough for it to disappear. It also served another purpose that allowed the project to continue into the present day.”

  “Which was?” Miller asked.

  The old man rubbed a thumb over the photo of his grandkids—three smiling girls and two boys. “Recruitment.”

  The word twisted Miller’s gut. Von Braun had been made the director of Marshall Space Flight Center and Debus the director of the Kennedy Space Center. They would have had access to the best and brightest U.S. scientists.

  “I can see you understand the implications,” Huber said, looking at Miller. “Our former affiliation with the Nazi regime was well known. We had no trouble finding like-minded scientists. In fifteen years, von Braun and I recruited more than thirty scientists from a variety of fields. Once initiated, they were picked up and we never saw them again.”

  Huber turned his attention back to the photos. “But we soon began having children, and grandchildren. And this was their home. Our families were American. And we came to love this country and its … diversity, as our own. We decided, as a group, to end the recruitment program. But it seemed our bold move was a hollow gesture. We were never contacted again.”

  “Wh
y not?” Miller asked.

  “Based on the events of the last few days, I’d guess it was because we sent them everyone they needed, and every time a recruit left, we ran the risk of exposing the program.”

  “So you just kept it all to yourselves?” Miller said. “Why didn’t you expose the program?”

  “Just because we weren’t contacted doesn’t mean we weren’t being watched. We stayed silent for the same reason Walther Gerlach never visited his granddaughter.” He looked at Adler when he said it. Gerlach was her grandfather. “A man will suffer a great deal of guilt to protect the ones he loves.”

  Miller got in front of Huber. “And now?”

  Huber shook his head as a great sadness seeped into his expression. “Now, we’re all going to die.”

  “When?” Miller asked. “How long do we have?”

  Tears fell from Huber’s eyes and landed on the photo of his grandchildren. “The second, more massive cloud of iron particulates will arrive in five days.”

  “And the targets?”

  Huber’s face screwed with confusion. “Targets?”

  “What cities!” Miller said.

  “There is only one target,” Huber said.

  One target? Miller thought. His mind ran through everything he knew. Millions were dead. Three major cities had been struck, but how could just one more achieve anything? Washington, D.C., would kill a lot, but the government would be evacuated as the first red flake fell from the sky. In fact, most cities were already preparing large-scale evacuation plans and casualties would be minimized. Hitting a city like Jerusalem might set off a regional war, but after the attack on Tel Aviv, not even the Arab world was blaming Israel. The weapon’s initial success came mostly from its effects not being known. But now, unless you were trapped with no way out, escape should be possible.

  But there is always someplace to go, Miller thought, unless …

  Oh no …

  “The planet? They’re going to wipe out every living thing on the planet?”