SecondWorld

by Jeremy Robinson

  Miller stopped his advance next to the security station, which reminded him of a bookstore help desk, thirty feet from the vault door. C’mon, he thought, open.

  And then it did. Security was responding to what they must believe was some kind of malfunction. A terrible accident.

  As the door slid silently open, Miller turned to Pale Horse and the robo-Betty. “Point it at me!”

  Pale Horse complied without pause. The red light on the front of the machine began to blink as it scanned and analyzed Miller’s DNA. Knowing full well what the end result would be, Miller smashed the sensor with the butt of his gun, took the device from Pale Horse, and tossed it toward the opening door. He ducked behind the security station with Adler and Pale Horse.

  The robo-Betty stopped in front of the door just as it revealed ten guards—ten very surprised guards.

  The Betty bounced into the air and fired its payload. The men, who stood at point-blank range, were cut down before any of them could scream. As metal beads rolled up the ramp, Miller jumped from his hiding spot and sprinted toward the now-closing door.

  He reached it with time to spare. He stepped into the dimly lit hallway on the other side of the door. Adler and Pale Horse followed him. The hallway grew darker still as the big door closed over several guards’ bodies behind them with a crunchy squish. Miller ignored the sound and motioned the team forward. “Almost there.”

  58

  The hallway was dimly lit by two rows of LED lights running the length of the hall where the walls met the floor. Miller holstered his handgun and readied his UMP, sliding the rack. “Straight ahead, I assume?”

  Adler stepped up next to him, handgun gripped like a pro. “This hallway was bright when Brodeur brought me through. There’s a set of double doors at the end. No security. Just doors. They open to a large chamber, like we saw in Antarctica, but there’s nothing natural about this. It’s a smooth dome. There’s a control center in the middle, but it’s at least four times the size of the one in Antarctica. Security is based to the right of the control area, past rows of storage arranged like a warehouse.”

  “A warehouse?” It struck Miller strange that they would keep things stored in the space designated for security and control.

  “I think it is older equipment. Relics from the war. Maybe art. Gold. Souvenirs. I am not entirely sure, but it is all crated.”

  “Like the warehouse in Indiana Jones?” Pale Horse said.

  “Ja. But not as big. Security is past the warehouse area, through a pair of double doors that are locked. Cryogenics is to the left via an open tunnel. Same as Antarctica.”

  Miller slid up to the double doors and peeked through the windows. The space was just as Adler described it. A large octagonal control center lit in bright white filled the center of the large space. A massive viewscreen hung above it all, displaying a mix of active screen captures from the computers below as well as a mix of video feeds. Miller squinted, trying to make out the images, but distance and glare worked against him. Polished walkways outlined by white lines cut through the place, and reflected the bright lights. The ceiling of smooth concrete arched up over the hanging lights, its peak at the center concealed in darkness high above. A maze of large shipping containers, crates, and oversized canisters blocked his view of Security to the right, but he trusted it was there. He counted twenty soldiers wielding World War II–era weapons, which helped level the playing field a little bit. But there were also at least forty other, nonmilitary people dressed in lab coats or white coveralls. Most of them sat at the computers, no doubt monitoring the purification of the human race.

  He pointed to Pale Horse. “We’ll go in first. Everyone is a target, but start with the brownshirts. They’ll be the ones shooting back.” He turned to Adler. “Once things get chaotic, come in and make your way to the computers. We’ll give you as long as we can.”

  “I will get it done.”

  Miller once again wondered where Adler’s confidence came from. He remembered how quickly she’d accessed the computer in Antarctica. With Brodeur’s traitorous revelation and Miller’s nearly melting, and then freezing, he hadn’t given it much thought. She’d said it was a “Linux-based system,” but who the hell used Linux? Certainly not Interpol. Most people hadn’t even heard of the operating system. But the woman was a whiz with a computer, and a gun. And she could understand complex math. She’d claimed to not comprehend some of the other equations, but Miller didn’t believe that anymore. Once she figured out the page confusion, the rest had fallen into place, and she’d understood the math without tearing out the pages and lining them up as she had done for him.

  Focus, Miller, he told himself. She’s on your side. For now. Sort it out later.

  “Ready?” he asked Pale Horse.

  “Let’s do it.”

  Miller pushed through the double doors, raising his weapon. He picked out five targets, each a little farther away than the other. By the time the fifth registered what happened to the first, they’d all be dead. Then he’d have fifteen soldiers left to deal with, minus any Pale Horse shot, plus however many were behind the locked double doors to Security. Miller’s finger squeezed the trigger.

  A gunshot rang out so loud and so close that it threw off Miller’s aim and made his ears ring. Miller spun around, searching for a target.

  He found it at the center of Brodeur’s head.

  The man’s arm was raised. Smoke drifted from the barrel of a handgun. He turned to Miller and flashed him a smile. “Hello, Survivor.”

  Miller was about to pull the trigger when he saw Adler struggling and a gun to her head. The face of the man holding her made his hands shake: the executive assistant director of the NCIS, Fred Murdock. His friend. He was dressed in a standard brown uniform, but smiled in the same superior way as Brodeur. Miller glared at the man for a moment, but then saw movement to his right and glanced in that direction. The movement came from a twitching foot.

  Pale Horse’s twitching foot.

  Miller looked at the man. Blood covered his chest, flowing from a wound over his heart. His eyes were already glassy. Pale Horse was dead. Just like that.

  The two men shared an exchange in German and then laughed.

  Miller backed up, assessing the situation. Adler had a gun to her head. He could hear the footfalls of soldiers approaching him from behind. More soldiers filed in behind Brodeur and Murdock.

  “I have to admit, Miller,” Murdock said, “I always knew you were good, but making it here. Even I’m impressed. But as much as I’d like to pat you on the back and say good job for old times’ sake, I think I’ll just put a bullet through that Jew-boy half-breed head of yours.”

  The two men laughed again.

  “He’s seeing red,” Brodeur said. “Better put the boy down.” He turned his weapon from Pale Horse to Miller.

  Seeing red.

  Red.

  Red!

  An image of Vesely dressed in red coveralls flashed through his mind.

  Miller lowered his UMP and held out an open palm. “You win,” he said, placing the weapon on the floor. He slowly drew his pistol and placed it on the floor next to the submachine gun. Miller hated giving up his weapons. It went against all of his training. But he needed time. He raised his hands and stood up.

  “Sorry,” Brodeur said, “I’m going to kill you and then spend the next year breaking this one’s will.” He motioned to Adler with his head. “I think she’ll come around after our first child.” He looked to Adler. “Won’t you?”

  She struggled, but Murdock held her tight.

  Miller could tell he was being goaded into action. They wanted him to lose his cool, to seal his own fate. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. “If I’m dead, who are you going to torture? Or experiment on? Just admit it, Brodeur. I’ve seen the way you look at me. You’d miss me.”

  When Murdock, who was notorious for his gay jokes, burst out laughing, Brodeur’s face turned red and angry.

  Miller realiz
ed he might have gone too far.

  Brodeur looked down the sight of his weapon.

  The hammer tilted back as Brodeur slowly pulled the trigger.

  “Wait,” said a voice behind Miller. The man’s voice was cold and demanded authority.

  Brodeur held his fire, the hammer half cocked.

  “He is right,” the voice said. “This one has earned a slow death. Make it … agonizing.”

  Miller turned slowly and came face-to-face with Hans Kammler. The man looked just like he did in the few photos there were of him, but the scarring Adler mentioned marred his skin. He wore a tall general’s cap featuring an open-winged eagle perched upon a swastika. Aside from the number of pins, his uniform matched Miller’s.

  “The uniform you wear belonged to General Karl Friedrich, a friend of mine.” Kammler circled Miller. “He survived the war. Spent a lifetime frozen in a cryogenic chamber. He rejoined us just ten days ago. Do you know how that makes me feel?”

  Miller saw that Kammler was inspecting him from head to toe, the way a slaughterhouse worker might inspect a cow. If Vesely didn’t come through, he couldn’t imagine the kinds of things this man might do to him before killing him. Hell, they could keep him alive and torture him for years if they wanted to.

  Miller decided he couldn’t possibly make the situation any worse, and said, “If the rest of your men fight like Friedrich, then I shouldn’t have any problem taking care of the rest of you with my bare hands.”

  Kammler looked him in the eyes. It was like looking into the eyes of a great white shark. But Miller held his gaze and waited for a punch. It never came. Kammler continued to circle him.

  “Did you take pleasure in killing those people?” Kammler asked, motioning to the hallway. Miller thought of the people in the atrium. He didn’t take pleasure in their deaths. But he didn’t feel guilty about it, either.

  Kammler took his silence as a yes. “You are more like us than you admit. I doubt you would shed a single tear if every person in this facility were killed.”

  “That’s exactly what’s going to happen,” Miller said, his temper flaring.

  Kammler smiled. “As I thought. There are nearly three thousand adults living here.”

  Miller shrugged, but then registered the man’s words. Three thousand adults. He’d been expertly baited and trapped.

  “There are also five hundred children, seventy-five of them under two years of age. Surely, you would spare them?”

  Miller gritted his teeth, remembering the girl he’d failed to save all those years ago. He’d nearly given his life to save hers. Children were innocents. They didn’t deserve to die. But in war, sometimes the wrong people died, hopefully so more people could live. In this case it was a no-brainer. The children living here had to die so that billions could live. Their parents sealed their fates when they decided to take part in genocide; the burden of the children’s deaths belonged to them. But he didn’t answer. He wouldn’t give Kammler the satisfaction.

  “Bring them,” Kammler said, walking toward the control center.

  Miller was pushed forward at gunpoint. He followed Kammler, who stopped when the full array of viewscreens could be seen.

  Kammler opened his arms up to the screens, which showed a variety of live video feeds from around the world. A large, ten-foot screen showed the skyline of London masked by a red haze. The smaller screens to either side of the large screen showed several other cities around the world, all cloaked by red flakes falling from the sky. “Behold the birth of SecondWorld,” Kammler said with a grin. “It is beautiful. Purifying blood from the sky.”

  Miller stayed silent.

  “What we are doing is no different than what you would like to do here. You would exterminate every last one of us. Because we are your enemy. But this will not happen, do you know why?”

  Silence.

  “Because we are stronger. We are smarter.” Kammler’s strident voice became thoughtful. “We are … pure.”

  Miller stayed silent, but Adler couldn’t. “Germany lost the Second World War.”

  Kammler grinned. “Did we?” He let the question hang in the air for a moment. Brodeur and Murdock shared a laugh.

  “We discovered the iron cloud that made this possible long before the ‘end’ of the war. After calculating when the iron cloud would arrive, we began work on several projects that resulted in this.” He motioned to the screens. “Germany did not lose the war, we merely pretended to.”

  Miller’s jaw dropped a little. “Millions died.”

  “A convincing ruse. We fought to the end. The Führer killed himself.” Kammler chuckled. “And the United States somehow ended up with thousands of Nazi scientists.”

  “You sent our people to their deaths,” Adler said.

  Kammler grinned at Adler. “So much like your grandmother. Surely you must understand the sacrifice now?” Kammler said. “We traded our country for the world.” Kammler looked at his watch. “Thirty minutes from now, the air will become poisonous. A few hours later, there will be no oxygen. And in several months, when the oxygen in the lower atmosphere is replenished, the world will be purified and the Fourth Reich will rise. We have waited seventy years for this day.”

  Kammler turned to Miller. “Still nothing to say?”

  Miller just stared at the man, willing Vesely to come through soon.

  “Where does he live?” Kammler asked.

  “Washington,” Brodeur replied.

  Kammler barked an order toward the group of men seated at the control center. None of the men even glanced up. They were either very disciplined or used to being shouted at. An image of the Washington, D.C., skyline appeared on the large viewscreen. The Capitol building and Washington Monument were all in the shot, but were hard to see through the red haze.

  “This is your home,” Kammler said, noting Miller’s lack of reaction. He shrugged, growing bored of his game.

  “Don’t forget the girl,” Brodeur said. “Pitiful little thing. She worshiped you. Thought you would save her. Thought you would—”

  Miller moved like lightning, striking Brodeur’s face with a backhand that sent him sprawling.

  Kammler was equally quick. The punch came hard and fast. Miller shouted in pain, dropped down on one knee, and clutched his arm. With a single blow, Kammler had managed to strike both bullet wounds. How the hell did he know? Miller realized he must have been holding the arm differently. He’d done well ignoring the pain, but his body still reacted to it.

  Murdock was chuckling again. The laugh concealed a second sound that Miller only heard because he’d been listening for it. Been praying for it.

  The large vents overhead were no longer blowing air into the chamber.

  They were sucking air out.

  Kammler took hold of Miller’s face with one hand and pointed a gun at him with the other. Miller fumed with anger. “There you are,” Kammler said. “Defiant. Angry. Amusing. You will be a gift—”

  Miller glared at Kammler.

  “—for Mein Führer.”

  Kammler shoved Miller’s face away, stepped back, and wiped his hand with a kerchief.

  Miller grunted as he got to his feet. He held his arm, which had begun to bleed. The pain nauseated him. Exhaustion consumed him. He drew in a deep breath. Then another. And another. Then he stood tall and said, “I’ll be sure to say hello to him for you.”

  Kammler squinted at Miller, disturbed by his sudden confidence. “And how do you suppose you will do that?”

  “Well, for starters, I’m going to kill these two,” Miller said, nodding to Murdock and Brodeur, who was back on his feet. “Then I’m going to beat the shit out of you, bare-handed, and then I’m going to walk in there—” Miller pointed to the open hallway that led to the cryogenic room. He could see several of the gleaming metal chambers from where he stood. “—thaw out your goofy-looking boss, rip that mustache off his face, say hello from you, and then shoot him in the forehead.”

  Miller took several m
ore deep breaths as Kammler walked around him.

  Kammler stopped by Brodeur and held out his hand. Brodeur handed him his gun.

  “No!” Adler shouted. She realized what was about to happen at the same moment Miller did.

  But he didn’t shout out.

  Didn’t beg for mercy.

  He looked down the barrel of the gun and took a deep breath.

  Kammler fired.

  59

  Miller fell on his side, clutching his leg and shouting through gritted teeth. Kammler had shot his left thigh, the bullet coming to a stop halfway through the meat. To make things worse, Miller had fallen on his injured arm, sending a cyclone of pain through his body. The bullet wound wouldn’t kill him, but it wasn’t meant to. He was a dog and Kammler had just swatted his nose.

  As the initial pain subsided, Miller heard the men laughing. He was a Jew surrounded by thirty SS Nazi killers. He had three bullet wounds, blinding pain, and felt a level of exhaustion beyond anything experienced during the SEALs’ Hell Week.

  But he knew something that Kammler didn’t.

  Something that, in his weakened state, he found very funny.

  When he joined in the laughter, the Nazis fell silent.

  They stared at him, no doubt wondering if he had lost his mind.

  Miller’s lungs began to burn as he laughed.

  He looked at the guards surrounding them, their faces etched with confusion, and knew they felt it, too. He laughed harder.

  One of the larger men stumbled, holding his head. His muscular body required more oxygen to function and he felt the effects first. The other men watched the big man fall to one knee, and then crumple to the floor, wheezing for air.

  The sound of the man’s wheezing sparked realization.

  Kammler quickly ordered fifteen of the men to follow him. They ran for the doors to Security. Brodeur ordered Murdock to stay, and followed after the others.