by David Meyer
My spine prickled. I didn't know why. Maybe it was the sheer size of the glacier. Or maybe it was the strange way it seemed to absorb the snow without growing an inch in any direction.
I brushed away some powder. Underneath it, I found a thick layer of ice. I unsheathed my machete and poked it at the glacier. Bits of ice chipped away. Gradually, a small hole took shape.
I pushed harder. Ice fragmented and broke under my sharp blade. Large chunks dislodged and fell to the ground.
The blade pinged as it struck something hard. I peered into the small hole. "It's concrete."
"There's a building under there?"
"Not just any building." My pulse quickened. "Werwolfsschanze."
I jabbed my blade at the ice. More concrete came into view. It was cracked and broken. Individual sections varied in condition, ranging from dilapidated to ramshackle.
I circled around the ruins. On the opposite side, I came across a section of thick ice. It jutted away from the rest of the structure.
I chipped at it. Slowly, the top half of a metal door appeared. It was heavily warped and appeared to plunge straight into the ground.
Wind assailed the ruins. My ears started to ring. I carved up more ice, revealing the knob. Twisting it, I shoved the exposed door. It didn't open.
I jabbed my blade into the doorjamb. My muscles strained as I tried to pry the door open. It didn't budge.
I maneuvered my boots, sweeping collected snow away from the area. Then I slammed my shoulder into the door. The impact nearly wrenched my shoulder right out of its socket. But the door stood fast.
I lay down on my back and kicked out. My boots slammed into the metal. Pain shot through my legs, followed by an unpleasant tingling sensation. But the door remained shut.
Graham walked around the corner. "Won't open, huh?"
"Not yet."
"I've got an idea. Come with me."
I followed him around to the north side. It looked similar to the east side, albeit with a more sloping snow bank.
"See what I mean?" he said. "It's shorter over here. Plus, the snow is much more compact. You might be able to climb it."
Sheathing my machete, I trudged closer to the ruins. I bent my knees and coiled my body. Then I jumped.
My fingers caught hold of a thick ridge. Muscles straining, I pulled myself into the air. Then I climbed onto the roof. It was uneven and slanted to the north. A thick layer of snow covered it.
Suddenly, the snow caved under my feet. White powder shot into my face. I thrust out my hands, searching for something to grab.
But all they touched was air.
My feet slammed into concrete. My knees buckled and I rolled. I tried to stand up. But my left leg couldn't hold the weight. Slowly, I crumpled to the ground.
"Cy?" Graham's voice sounded distant. "Where the hell did you go?"
I winced. "There's a hole in the roof."
"So, you're inside? Well, hurry up and open the door already. It's cold out here."
Grumbling, I turned on my flashlight. A soft glow permeated the dark corners of the small room. The concrete floor was broken and twisted in numerous places, probably due to shifting ice. Tables, sawhorses, and machinery were lined up against the crumbling walls. Wood, metal slabs, and other raw materials lay scattered throughout the space.
I limped to the door and cleared away some large chunks of concrete. Then I grasped the knob and pulled with all of my strength. The door opened, scraping loudly over the concrete floor.
A wall of ice blocked the doorframe's lower half. So, Graham got down on his belly and crawled through the open space. "This is Werwolfsschanze?" he asked as he lowered himself to the floor.
I pointed my beam around the room. "Yeah, it's not exactly what I pictured either."
"I've seen bunkers like this one. The Nazis built them all over Europe. Lots of them are still standing." He looked around. "What's all this stuff?"
"Raw materials and tools from the looks of it."
"Werwolfsschanze was a workshop?"
"This part of it was." I aimed my beam at the south wall. The light glittered dangerously as it touched a metal surface. "But there's another door over there."
"That's not the only thing."
I followed his flashlight beam. In the southwest corner, I saw a shadowy silhouette. It was buried under a mountain of rusty tools.
I hiked to the corner and removed a broken shovel. Carefully, I examined some red splatter on it. "Could be paint."
"I wouldn't bet on it."
I tossed away a bunch of tools and shifted some concrete blocks. Graham pointed his beam at the pile. It illuminated the face of a middle-aged man. Judging from the thick layer of frost on his skin, he'd been in the room for a long time.
"How'd he die?" Graham asked.
"I don't know. We need a closer look." I pulled a rusty pickaxe out of the pile. Large pieces of concrete shifted. Dust shot into the air. A coughing fit seized me.
As the dust settled down again, I studied the man's uniform. His armband was black and adorned with a white symbol. "He's definitely a Nazi. But that's not an ordinary swastika."
Graham leaned in for a closer look. "It's a horizontal Wolfsangel, with a crossbar running down the middle. Wolfsangel was an ancient German rune. It resembles a wolf-hook, a device once used to hunt wolves."
"How do you know that?"
"You weren't the only one who did research." He leaned in for a closer look. "This particular version of Wolfsangel was created in the mid-1940s. It represented the Werwolf Freischärler. Translated loosely, that means Werwolf guerrillas."
"So, that cinches it. This building is Werwolfsschanze."
"It sure looks that way." Graham shifted his beam. "Damn, look at those wounds. It looks like something tried to eat him."
"I suppose the Nazis could've brought animals here. Maybe they got hungry when everyone died. Of course, that still doesn't explain how people died in the first place."
"Maybe. But whatever attacked this guy was powerful. Damn powerful."
"What makes you say that?"
"Look at his head. It's barely attached to his body."
Chapter 26
The building quaked. The floor cracked and shifted beneath me. Dust shot into the air, forming a thick cloud cover over my face. Bits of concrete worked themselves free from the dilapidated ceiling. They hurtled toward the ground, pelting me like hail.
I grabbed Graham's arm and dragged him toward the west wall. Kneeling down, I covered my head with my hands.
The wall trembled. Small pieces of concrete struck my arms. More dust kicked into the air. Then a loud shrieking noise rang out.
A section of the east wall quivered. With a horrible groaning noise, it collapsed. Concrete and ice crashed to the ground. More dust lifted into the air. Snow joined it, whirling about in all directions. I could barely see.
The quaking stopped. The dust and snow began to settle. I waited a few seconds before removing my hands from my head.
"This place could come crashing down at any minute," Graham said. "We should get the hell out of here."
"You go. I'll be right behind you."
"You're sticking around?"
"Yes."
He exhaled through his nostrils. "Then so am I."
I swept my beam across the room. It passed over the newly formed pile of concrete and ice. Despite Graham's presence, I suddenly felt very alone. It was a far cry from Manhattan.
I'd traveled the world for the last three years. But I'd always considered Manhattan to be my home. I didn't love it, not exactly. Manhattan was like an old whore, used-up and tired but with enough tricks in her bag to keep you coming back for more.
She wasn't dead, not yet. Manhattan was still a giant, still unimaginably wealthy, still teeming with life. People from all over America—hell, from all over the world—traveled to visit her, to pay their respects, to experience just a tiny bit of her grandiosity. But her heyday had passed and it wasn't comi
ng back.
I'd never been overly fond of the tourists or the foot traffic. In fact, my favorite Manhattan memories were of late nights. The traffic would lighten up, the tourists would return to their hotels, and the noise level would drop a few decibels.
Many evenings, I'd seek out an empty street. I'd stroll down the sidewalk, close my eyes, and listen to the crickets chirping in Central Park. For a split second, I'd experience an exceedingly rare moment of Manhattan life—blissful silence. Back then I'd craved solitude. Now, I had it.
But I was no longer sure I wanted it.
I crept to the south door. It was partially ajar. I slid through it and entered a second room. Once upon a time, it had served as some kind of scientific facility.
Now, it was a tomb.
Corpses lined the floor. They lay sprawled over fallen desks. They were heaped onto piles of papers and shattered test tubes.
I stopped next to the body of a young man. He wore a white lab coat. An armband on his left sleeve displayed the Werwolf Freischärler symbol. His body was well preserved and I could still make out some of his facial features. What was left of them anyway.
"More bite marks," I said.
"That's putting it mildly," Graham replied. "It looks like something chewed up his head and spit it out."
"No windows. No privacy. Below freezing temperatures. And then something ate him. Hell, I almost feel sorry for the poor bastard."
"I don't care much for rules. But here's one to live by." Graham bent down to adjust his mechanical leg. "Never feel sorry for Nazis."
"We're not talking about Adolf Hitler here. We're talking about a couple of scientists who got stuck working in the Nazi equivalent of Siberia."
"Scientists." He made a face. "More like torturers."
No photographs of the original Amber Room existed. However, I had a pretty good idea of what it looked like. So, I pointed my beam around the room. I didn't see it. But I did see a bunch of crates lining the east wall.
I poked inside a few of them. They contained microscopes, balances, clamps, test tube racks, beakers, and Petri dishes.
I moved down the line. In one crate, I saw a large puddle of dried liquid, paper slips, and pills. I could make out three of the words printed on the papers. "Ever heard of Pervitin?" I asked.
"I think its methamphetamine."
"How about Eukodal?"
"That's an old name for oxycodone."
"And D-IX?"
"Never heard of it."
Meth and oxy. I wasn't sure what to make of them. But one thing was becoming increasingly apparent. The Nazis had built more than a vault in Antarctica. They'd built some kind of laboratory too.
I lifted my flashlight. The beam passed over a series of metal doors that ran along the south wall.
I moved closer to examine them. They looked like skinny van doors and offered an airtight fit to the surrounding frames. Hollow metal tubes were attached to each door.
I wrenched a door open. The temperature dropped a few degrees. A smoky odor filled my nostrils.
Graham grimaced. "What the hell is that?"
I pointed my flashlight into the room. It was small, maybe two or three square feet. I cast my eyes about the floor. Any sympathy I'd held toward the scientists melted away.
"Ashes," I said. "And bits of bone. This isn't a laboratory. It's a gas chamber."
Chapter 27
"See this metal tube?" I peered into it. "Its singed on the inside."
"Meaning what?"
"Meaning the Nazis didn't just pump gas through it. They stuck something else inside it—probably a flamethrower—to burn the bodies."
Bile rose up in my throat as I gathered a few bits of bone for testing purposes. I wanted to wipe my mind, to completely forget what I'd seen. But the ashes and bones haunted my brain.
I checked the other rooms. They were similar to the first one. Some of them were empty. Some of them contained sprinklings of ashes and bones.
"Why would the Nazis transport prisoners thousands of miles across the ocean just to murder them?" Graham asked. "Why not take them someplace closer, like Auschwitz or Dachau?"
I looked around the laboratory. I saw the broken tables, the shattered equipment, and the dried puddles. Slowly, it dawned on me. "They didn't do exterminations here. They did experiments. They were testing some kind of gas."
Graham's eyes widened.
"What do you know about Nazi experiments? Were they trying to do anything in particular?"
"Not really. It was a hodgepodge of horror. Some scientists injected dyes into eyes in an attempt to change eye color. Others inflicted phosphorous burns on prisoners or shot them with poisonous bullets. Still others sewed twins together, hoping to create conjoined twins.
"How about cold weather stuff?"
"I think one guy subjected prisoners to freezing cold temperatures and tanks of ice water. I don't know why though."
I was quiet for a moment. "How could anyone do those things?"
"Evil is everywhere."
"I can't imagine this happening back home."
"Have you ever heard of Dr. John Cutler?"
I shook my head.
"In the 1940s, he served as acting chief of the U.S. Public Health Service's venereal disease program. Later, he rose to the rank of Assistant Surgeon General under President Eisenhower. Sounds like a good guy, right?"
I nodded.
"Well, it turns out Dr. Cutler had a dark side. He oversaw the deliberate infection of fifteen hundred Guatemalans with syphilis, gonorrhea, and other sexually transmitted diseases. Later, he got involved with the Tuskegee syphilis experiments. He and many others deliberately withheld proper treatment from almost four hundred black men with syphilis, even after penicillin was proven to be an effective cure."
"That was just one guy."
"Over the years, scientists funded by the U.S. government have deliberately exposed people to radiation, chemical weapons, biological weapons, and deadly diseases. They've conducted forced sterilizations. They've subjected people to brain-altering drugs. They've injected them with every substance known to man. For all I know, it still happens today."
"Why doesn't someone stop them?"
"Because no one cares. Most experiments are done on poor people, prisoners, and minorities. In other words, the undesirables. Think about it. If someone experimented on your neighbors, you'd go ballistic. But I doubt you'd care if it happened to a prisoner. Hell, you might even convince yourself he deserved it."
"What if he did?"
"Still doesn't make it right."
I shifted my beam toward the crates. "Let's find the Amber Room. I don't want to stay in this place any longer than necessary."
For the next ten minutes, we searched the crates. But all we found were more supplies and scientific instruments.
"Damn it," I said as I closed the last crate. "It isn't here."
"Maybe the answer is in these papers." Graham quickly sifted through a small pile of documents. "That's interesting."
"What's interesting?"
"According to this, the Nazis used this place to test various drugs. But it looks like the manufacturing process occurred somewhere else."
"Where?"
"It doesn't say." He stopped to read something. "You wanted to know about D-IX right?"
I nodded.
"According to this, it contained five milligrams apiece of Eukodal and cocaine. Plus, three milligrams of Pervitin."
"Oxy, coke, and meth. That would mess someone up real quick."
"Or enhance them."
"Oh?"
"According to this, D-IX caused brief bursts of superior performance. Subjects were able to carry heavy packs through the snow for two to three days straight." He flipped to another paper and quickly scanned it. "Here are some notes about genetics. Or rather, eugenics."
"Eugenics?" I searched my memory. "Wasn't that the excuse the Nazis gave for the concentration camps?"
"Yes, but it wasn't just th
e Nazis. Eugenics was a worldwide movement in the 1920s and 1930s. The basic idea was to weed so-called genetic misfits out of the population. The Jews, the poor, the idiots, the blind, the deaf, and the promiscuous all got caught up in the movement. They were segregated, sterilized, and often killed."
I thought back to our research on Werwolf. The mysterious Nazi operation was originally designed to recruit and train soldiers to operate behind enemy lines. But maybe it had bigger ambitions.
The building trembled. A layer of dust dropped into the room. A few small pieces of concrete collided against the floor.
"I might know what the Nazis were doing here," I said.
Graham stared uneasily at the ceiling. "What?"
"Maybe they were trying to fulfill the dream of every military power since the dawn of man. That is, create a soldier without genetic defects who could operate beyond normal human limits." I paused. "Maybe they were trying to create a supersoldier."
Chapter 28
"Damn it, Cy." Graham eyed the ceiling. "Let's go."
I ran to the opposite side of the workshop. "I want to check something."
"There's nothing left to check."
"Just give me a minute."
"The Amber Room's not here. It's time to cut our losses."
"Go." I stopped next to the dead body. "I'll be right behind you."
Graham twisted around. He hoisted himself through the open part of the doorframe and vanished from sight.
I quickly searched the dead man. I found a lighter and cigarettes in one jacket pocket. A black and white photo of what looked like an extended family filled another one.
The building groaned. A ripple ran through the walls. I heard a distinct cracking noise. It grew louder and louder.
I rooted about the floor. I found a gun—a Walther P38—lying a few feet away from the corpse. I picked it up and detached the single-stack magazine. It was empty. Apparently, he'd fired it before he'd died.
The concrete pulsed and throbbed. I heard an earsplitting crack. The thick walls sagged. The ceiling started to break apart.
I started toward the door. But a hint of leather caught my eye. I shifted my gaze and saw a small book partially obscured by the man's leg.