With Baumann’s dismissal, Peter had an unexpected, and largely unwelcome, wealth of time on his hands. While he would have liked to keep Mina company, if for no other reason than to try and assuage his own sense of guilt, he only allowed himself a very brief visit each day, under the guise of learning more about Kleist’s macabre role in the facility’s operation and to make sure the soldiers refrained from abusing her. She said nothing to him, nor he to her during these visits. He looked in on her and tried to find some comforting words to say, but she refused to respond. Curled up in the same corner of the cell, she was quickly withdrawing from reality, trying to build up a wall around her psyche that he could only hope would help her weather the coming storm. She refused to eat. The only thing she would take was water. Kleist was threatening to force feed her, but Peter convinced him to hold off.
“Well, you’re probably right,” Kleist had finally admitted. With a conspiratorial smile, he had added, “That will get her ready for her time in one of my jars!”
Peter had forced a smile before he left Kleist laughing at his own joke.
The rest of the time, beyond what little he spent eating alone in the mess hall, he stayed in his room to work on his journals. While it was still a tedious process, he had become adept at translating his thoughts into the numerical book cipher. After encoding the most critical technical information, including a transcription of the coordinate system that Hoth was using and what he hoped were the essential elements for understanding Kleist’s ingenious work on defining the associated evolutionary trajectory patterns, Peter reluctantly opened the ancient copy of The Black Gate. He had reached for it on more than one occasion over the days that passed while the capacitors were repaired, but had never quite been able to bring himself to touch it. The black leather bound volume at once attracted and repelled him. He couldn’t help but be fascinated by its topic and the revelatory, if fantastical, origins of the text as von Falkenstein had described it. But there was something dark about it, an inescapable sense of malevolence that radiated from the yellowed pages, that seemed to grow stronger the more time he spent in its presence. He knew it was only his imagination, but his fingers tingled nonetheless as he drew it toward him.
Carefully flipping open the cover, he began to read.
***
Four hours later, with his heart pounding and a bead of sweat trickling down his spine, he slammed the book closed and shoved it away from him. While he wasn’t fluent enough in Elder Futhark to fully translate the text, the gist had been clear enough. He had harbored some small hope that the book might tell him some wondrous tale about the fall of Atlantis, as much to validate his father’s peculiar interests as anything else. In truth, it was a technical manual for the gate written as a series of allegories. The ancient builders had constructed a device that von Falkenstein and Hoth had duplicated through their own independent research. The book described a great ring of gold in spellbinding detail. The only major difference had been that the Atlantean gate, if he dared call it that, had been far larger. From what he could gather from the text, it must have been over a thousand feet in diameter, perhaps larger. The original builders, however, had solved the Schwarzchild radius stabilization issue that had led von Falkenstein to set his gate on a horizontal plane. The ancients had built theirs in a vertical orientation so that travelers could simply step forward into the darkness from a massive platform that spanned the gate’s diameter, and return to a similar platform on the far side.
Like von Falkenstein, the ancients had theorized their own versions of Heaven and Hell, which in the book were referred to as the Light and the Dark. The book supported the claims of Blavatsky and others that Atlantis had been home to black and white “magicians,” who had been engaged in a series of wars spanning centuries, if not millennia. But only the black magicians had actually built a gate, and had discovered the transformation phenomenon that they later used to create chimeras to suit their whims, from creatures optimized to provide sexual pleasure to man-animal hybrid warriors to unleash against their enemies.
While Peter suspected the ancients were initially driven by nothing more sinister than curiosity and personal gratification, he couldn’t help but feel as he read onward that they had flung themselves headlong into a moral abyss as deep as that plumbed by the Nazis. The book described abominations that had emerged from the far side of the gate, each more horrific than the last as the ancients reveled in the glory of one horrific discovery after another.
Reading the descriptions of the horrendous creatures that emerged, Peter could only wonder if the beasts of legend might not have been travelers through the gate, or perhaps their descendants. The similarities with some of the more popular creatures of fantasy — vampires, werewolves, and the like — certainly made a compelling case. What if some had somehow survived the event that had destroyed the ancient builders?
But it was the final chapter that had left his heart racing, for it spoke of that very apocalypse. The text described the last operation of the ancient gate, when the black magicians sent for a legion of men and women to be transformed into immortal warriors that could feast on the blood of their enemies. In the largest transit ever made, those doomed souls marched forth en masse through the gate.
But they did not return alone. Even as the travelers returned, the gate vomited forth a deluge of unexpected horrors that quickly overwhelmed those guarding the return side. The gate, its operators exterminated, remained open. Peter could only imagine the desperation of the original author, whom Peter presumed to be one of the black magicians, as he frantically wrote the last few lines. Unable to stem the tide of invaders flowing through the gate, the surviving Atlanteans triggered a nameless weapon that disrupted the tectonic plates beneath the island continent, destroying their civilization and the enemy in an orgy of volcanic destruction.
Von Falkenstein, who had translated the book himself, knew exactly what had befallen the ancient builders. He suspected Hoth, too, must have known; that would have explained his nervous reaction when Mina had brought up the possibility of travelers coming from the other side, unbidden. But von Falkenstein had chosen to ignore the warning, or perhaps thought he could control it where the ancients, whose genius far eclipsed his own, could not. It was now clear to Peter that the menace posed by an army of immortal Nazis was far less than that posed by the gate itself. Or, more precisely, whatever lay on the far side.
Unfortunately, there was nothing more Peter could do. He could only hope the Allies would take heed and could somehow destroy this place. All that remained for him was to continue to play his role in this accursed undertaking.
Taking up his pen and the well-worn copy of The Mystic Will, he began to encipher the salient details from The Black Gate in one of the journals.
He was nearly finished when the door flung open.
It was Baumann. Behind him stood a pair of grim-faced SS soldiers, weapons held at the ready. “You are to come with me. Now.”
Trying to keep his hand from shaking, Peter set down his pen and closed The Mystic Will and the journal.
“What is that?” Baumann snapped, pointing to the journal.
“My project notes, sir,” Peter answered carefully as he stood up. “May I ask what this is about?”
Baumann stepped over to the desk and snatched the journal from the desk and flipped it open. Turning icy eyes on Peter, he asked, “Since when does anyone write in numbers, Müller?”
“Sir, I can explain…”
“Yes, you will. But not here.” Grabbing up the second journal from the desk, along with von Falkenstein’s precious copy of The Black Gate, Baumann turned to the guards. “Take his sidearm.”
Peter made no move to stop them as one of the soldiers took his Luger while the other kept his assault rifle aimed at Peter’s chest.
Without another word, they marched him out of his room and down the corridors to von Falkenstein’s suite.
Baumann gave a perfunctory knock before opening the door and st
epping into the parlor, where von Falkenstein was studying a long series of equations on an enormous blackboard. He turned around, an irritated expression on his face. “What is the meaning of this, Herr Baumann?”
“Forgive the intrusion, Herr Professor,” Baumann told him, “but I fear that we have a second spy in our midst. Hauptsturmführer Müller made an unauthorized transmission over the wireless, and I also found him with these.” He stepped forward and handed the journals to von Falkenstein before setting The Black Gate down on the coffee table beside the blackboard.
Von Falkenstein quickly flipped through the journals, a puzzled expression on his face.
“Those are my project notes, sir,” Peter offered, trying to inject some indignation into his voice. “The information is protected with a book cipher that my father taught me.”
Von Falkenstein closed the journals and stared at Peter. “Protected from whom?”
“From the Allies, sir.”
Baumann snorted.
“I am not a defeatist, sir,” Peter said, “but I believe that even under the best of circumstances, we may lose this facility. The Anglo-Americans are roughly a hundred and fifty kilometers to the west and moving closer every day. They…”
“…will be desiccated corpses long before they can reach us here,” Baumann said, cutting him off. “The soldiers I will lead through the gate will stop them in their tracks.”
Peter shook his head. “With all due respect, I beg to differ with you, sir.”
As Baumann opened his mouth to argue, von Falkenstein said held up a hand for him to be silent. To Peter, he said, “Explain.”
“Sir, as important as this facility is, you must agree that the Führer’s first priority will be to stop the Red Army’s advance on Berlin. He simply will not allow — cannot allow — Berlin to fall to the communists, no matter the cost. In light of that imperative, it is inevitable that the first wave of men through the gate will be sent to defend the heart and soul of the Reich.”
Both Baumann and von Falkenstein looked uncomfortable at the thought, but neither offered up an argument.
“Once the Allies deduce where those men came from,” Peter went on, “and they will, even if Fräulein Hass did not pass them that information, they will use every means at their disposal to destroy this facility.” He nodded at the journals von Falkenstein was holding. “The information on the gate’s construction and operation is more valuable than the gate itself. Everything here can be rebuilt if it is lost. But the information on how it is done is beyond value, especially if anything unfortunate should befall you, sir, or Herr Hoth.” He took a deep breath. “My journals contain the essentials of how to construct and operate the gate. And once I have finished this first set, I will courier them to Reichsführer Himmler.” He met Baumann’s gaze with a hard stare. “As per his personal orders before I departed SS Headquarters.”
“We already send updates and information on the gate to SS Headquarters,” Baumann snapped, “and all key personnel already keep their own notes.”
“Of course, sir. But those reports are for the consumption of the headquarters staff, at least those few who are cleared to read it, and the journals of the facility staff are primarily for their own use. These journals are for the Reichsführer himself, the information protected in a way that can be easily deciphered by him with the proper key, but nearly impossible to break otherwise.”
“And the Reichsführer told you all this,” Baumann asked through a sneer of disbelief, “in person, did he?”
“Yes, sir. In the span of roughly two minutes in his office just before I left Berlin to come here. I make no claim to be a personal acquaintance.” Peter could see that Baumann was having none of it, but von Falkenstein wore a thoughtful expression.
“And what about this?” Baumann pulled a neatly folded page from his tunic and handed it to von Falkenstein. “This is the communications log. Hauptsturmführer Müller sent an unauthorized message over the wireless.”
Von Falkenstein looked at it. “Was the message properly enciphered?”
“Yes, but…”
“And was it sent over the proper frequency and to a valid recipient?”
A flush was rising up Baumann’s neck. “Yes, yes, but…”
The Herr Professor handed back the log. “Then the only violations were that he did not inform you before he sent the message, and the original text itself was not logged. Am I correct?”
“Yes, but…”
Turning to Peter, von Falkenstein said, “What was the purpose of this message?”
“It was an update for the Reichsführer on the progress of my journals, sir,” Peter told him. He looked at Baumann. “I did not wish to go behind anyone’s back, sir, but the Reichsführer gave me very strict orders that I was not to reveal his instructions to anyone here.”
Von Falkenstein nodded, satisfied. Handing the journals back to Peter, he smiled and said, “Yes, Baumann, we have a spy here, but a spy for the man under whose auspices we conduct our operations.”
“You’re not angry, sir?” Peter asked, perplexed.
“Not at all. I know the Reichsführer quite well, and he is not a trusting man, nor should he be. I knew that he must have at least one set of eyes here that I did not know about. It just happened to be you.”
Baumann’s expression spoke volumes about what he thought of Peter at the moment, none of it good.
“And since you brought up the topic of communications with the Reichsführer,” von Falkenstein went on, with a nearly imperceptible nod to Peter before he turned to Baumann, “I have something of my own to discuss with the both of you. I had intended to wait until our dinner this evening, but since you are both here and the topic is at hand…” He went to his desk and opened a drawer, retrieving a folded sheet of paper. “It should come as no surprise that I have filed reports on both of you to Herr Himmler, and he has been unstinting in both praise and deed.” Unfolding the paper, he handed it to Baumann. “As directed by Reichsführer Himmler, you are now promoted to Brigadeführer and assigned command of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. Congratulations, my friend!”
Baumann’s mouth dropped open in surprise as von Falkenstein took his hand and shook it.
Peter did the same, hoping his parody of happiness for his commander looked real. “Congratulations, sir! That’s a great honor.”
“Thank you,” Baumann whispered, looking anything but honored. A dark band of red began to creep up from his neckline.
“And you, Peter, are hereby promoted to Sturmbannführer.” Von Falkenstein shook his hand. “You will also lead the first contingent of men through the gate.
Even though Peter already knew what von Falkenstein had planned for him, it was now a reality. Little less than a miracle or a bullet to the head could save Peter from plunging through the gate. He held the smile on his face even as a spear of ice lanced through his heart.
Beside him, Baumann simply glared.
TRANSIT
Peter used the unanticipated free time to encipher as many details about the gate as he could. By the time the soldier arrived bearing orders from von Falkenstein to prepare for the next transit, Peter was confident that any physicist worth his salt who read his journals would be able to recreate what von Falkenstein and Hoth had accomplished.
But the grim satisfaction he felt quickly faded as he headed down to Level Three to fetch Mina. With four soldiers in company, he marched to her cell. Two of the men unlocked it and swung the door open on smoothly oiled hinges.
“It’s time,” Peter said quietly as he stepped across the threshold. The soldiers moved past him toward her. One of them tried to grab her wrists and drag her out, and she punched him in the throat. Gagging, he sagged to his knees as the other three men raised their rifles to butt stroke her. “Let her be,” Peter barked.
Brushing by the choking soldier as his companions dragged him to his feet, she favored Peter with a frigid look as she stood up, smoothed out the lab co
at she still wore, and marched past him, head held high.
“Fall in behind us,” he told the soldiers as he turned to walk beside her.
Mina said nothing for a long while as they navigated the maze back toward the elevator, her face a rigid mask that concealed her feelings.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to come down more.” Peter’s whisper was lost in the sound of footsteps echoing from the concrete around them.
She didn’t bother to look at him. “What good would it have done?” After a pause, she asked, “Has Baumann spoken to you?”
“Not since von Falkenstein told him he was being reassigned. I haven’t seen or heard a word from him. I assumed that he’s already left for his new posting.”
“Going through the gate is Baumann’s dream,” she whispered. “He will not give it up, even if the Führer himself gave the order.”
“I agree that he didn’t seem overly happy about the situation, but I’m not sure what he can do.”
“He can, and will, do anything. You must be on your guard.”
Peter snorted. “I think we have more pressing concerns than Baumann at the moment,” he told her. “I’ve wracked my brain trying to figure out a way for you to escape,” he whispered, “but it’s impossible.”
“Of course it is,” she snapped. “There are only two exits, and both are heavily guarded. Every guard knows me, and will know that I am a prisoner.” Her voice dropped lower. “The only way out is through the gate, unless…” She glanced over her shoulder at the guards, the same men who had tried to rape her, and clenched her fists.
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