The Omega Sanction by Andrew Scorah (the best ebook reader for android .txt) 📕

Trotsky nodded. “And the Nazis were experimenting with this energy with all the fervour of the Manhattan Project.”

Jennifer’s eyes grew wide. “An unlimited source of power. If they had discovered it, it would have changed the course of the war.”

The professor lifted one hand, correcting her. “Who is to say they didn’t discover it? It is documented that in the last months of the war, the Nazis had achieved remarkable breakthroughs. Projects with the name Feuerball and Kugelblitz. Details of which can be found among the unclassified records of the British T-Force. But the discoveries came too late. Facilities were bombed, scientists killed, research stolen. Whatever was left disappeared into the deep black projects of various nations.”

“But not the Bell,” Bane said, drawing the discussion back to its original point. His would not let the conversation stray too far afield.

“Not the Bell,” the professor agreed. “Kammler managed to escape with the heart of the Chronos Project, born of research into zero point energy. The project was given a new name by Kammler. Schwarze Sonne”

“Black Sun,” Bane translated.

“Sehr gut.” Professor Guyler added.

“But what about this Bell?” Bane said. “What did they originally want it to do?”

“Die Glocke started out, putting it most simply, the Nazi Bell was in fact a heavy particle accelerator used as an artificial neutron source to breed Protactinium 233 from Thorium 232. Protactinium would naturally degrade after 27 days into pure bomb grade Uranium 233.”

“It was a device to speed up their Uranium program then,” Trotsky said.

“Yes, but after a couple of accidents they uncovered the devices true potential.”

“For a time travel device and a doomsday weapon, as well as the zero-point energy emitter.” Bane said.

They were approaching a sharp right hand turn in the tunnel. Trotsky slowed down the vehicle.

“Exactly, how they came to this is not totally clear, even Kammler was unsure, or unwilling to tell.”

Trotsky took them around the corner, and they saw in the distance a barricade of vehicles across the road. Several black clad men manned the barricade. Koenig’s men.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The chalet was a dark shell full of empty rooms,

The chalet was a dark shell full of empty rooms, over two floors with not a scrap of furniture anywhere. It smelled of mildew and age.

“Well if there’s an entrance in here they must have sealed it up along time ago,” Charlotte said when they arrived back in the hallway.

“There’s got to be one here somewhere, I have a feeling those men were here guarding the building.”

She leaned against the stairs to retie her boot-lace. A crack of splintering wood rent the silent air of the chalet. She pitched back into empty space, then found herself plunging head over feet down a wooden flight of stairs into darkness.

Charlotte shook herself. She felt bruised but unhurt. Rogan’s torch beam stabbed down the stairs before her.

“You okay, Charlie?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, feeling stupid, but fine.”

He was next to her, handing Charlotte her torch which she had dropped in the fall.

“You seem to have a knack for uncovering secrets,” Rogan said, as he helped her to her feet.

They were in a low ceilinged cellar. Rogan shone his torch around the room. The floor was relatively clear of dust and rubbish as if it had recently been swept. A few boxes were stacked along the far wall. He tracked the beam across to the wall behind the staircase. The light revealed a short ramp going down to a double set of stout looking wooden doors. A danger sign with German writing on it was pinned to the doors which were secured with another brand new padlock.

Rogan tried the key. This time it failed to open. He took a small crowbar from his back pack and popped the lock.

“Are you ready?”

He spoke in a whisper.

Charlotte nodded, but in her mind a thousand thoughts were whirling. The presence of the warning sign did not fill her with good cheer.

Rogan must have seen the signs of stress on her face. He placed his hands on her shoulders.

“If it becomes to dangerous we’ll come back up, and wait for the rangers, same goes if we find the device. Stay close to me, and don’t touch anything, or go wandering off.”

She nodded, and he opened the door.

As the door opened wider an odour of damp and old brickwork spilled out. The beam of the torch revealed a short flight of concrete steps going down to a small hallway. Leading off this was another concrete staircase disappearing down into Stygian gloom.

She followed Rogan through the door.

“Hey, look at this.”

He shone his torch across to the wall which had been hidden to them. A petrol powered generator sat against the wall. Cables connected to the machine ran into the floor.

“This is new, someone has been down here recently.”

He fired it up. A bare light bulb burst into life above their heads.

“Well at least we can see where we’re going easier,” Charlotte said, as she switched off her torch. Rogan did the same.

They started down the staircase, even though they did not think anyone else would be down in the bunker with them they held on to their procured Glocks.

At the foot of the staircase Rogan and Charlotte found themselves in a long narrow corridor. Bulbs had been strung along the ceiling to provide illumination. The only sound was the rattle of the generator above them. There were numerous openings on both sides of the corridor, all either without doors at all or with doors that were standing wide open. Some of the rooms had clearly been used as offices, equipped with desks and chairs, and each time they looked into a room and saw anything in it, they stepped inside to investigate. In several rooms the chairs had toppled over, evidence of a hasty departure . In some, dust-covered paper littered the floor and covered the desks, but Rogan scarcely gave it more than a cursory glance. The edges of some were chewed, evidence of rats or mice, or maybe even insect activity. It all had the impression of departure happening only a few days ago and not years.

‘Isn’t it worth checking some of these documents?’ She asked.

Rogan shook his head. ‘If I was a German-speaking historian specialising in the Second World War, it might be , but my guess is that most of this stuff will just be routine administration, orders for food or fuel or equipment, that kind of thing. Anything that was important to the project would have been taken away or destroyed.”

Someone had been down in the bunker recently. This was evident from bootprints left behind in the dust. They were all heading in one direction, a metal door at the opposite end of the corridor.

“Do you think whoever made them could still be down here?”

Charlotte stared uneasily at the prints.

“I’m not sure, there are no prints of the same kind returning. But the door was padlocked and the generator was cold so it hadn’t been used for some time.”

“Maybe those guys upstairs locked them in, and they used torches to negotiate the way.”

“Good point, we need to be very careful from now on.”

Rogan pushed open the metal door, his weapon raised. They stepped through into a similar hallway to the one upstairs. Another flight of steps brought them to the second level which was a twin of the one above. All but a couple of the rooms were secured. In the ones they had access to they found bits and pieces of unidentifiable equipment, one door had the universal sign for radiation.

“I wonder what’s in there?”

She turned and looked at Rogan.

“I don’t know, c’mon let’s find the entrance to the tunnels.”

The far end of the corridor swung left. They walked into a short passage which terminated at a wall which had a six foot hole. At one time there must have been a door but at sometime in the dim past it had been sealed. Someone had broken through.

Beyond the hole was darkness.

Rogan flicked on his torch and poked his head through.

“Wow, this is gonna be fun, I hope you don’t mind heights.”

Charlotte gulped.

“What do you see?”

“At one time a ramp led down from this door, part of it’s collapsed. We have about a twenty five foot drop to negotiate.”

“Great, I’ll get the ropes ready.”

If it was one thing she hated it was heights, she had no idea where the fear had come from as it had always seemed to be with her. She even got tense riding in an elevator.

“No need, someone has left us a rope ladder. I’ll go down first, you shine your torch down below and cover me, just in case.”

As Rogan started down the ladder she did as he asked. The light from her torch revealed piles of rubble on the ramps below but little else.

She watched as he negotiated the ladder with practised ease. It took him less than a minute to reach the pile of rubble.

“Now your turn,” he called up to her, “I’ll cover you from down here, just take it nice and easy and you’ll be fine.”

Easy for you to say, she thought as she began her journey down. In the end it was easier than she thought it would be. The ladder was sturdy and did not sway much.

She reached the bottom and pulled out her torch. Rogan was already scrambling over the rubble to where the ramp continued. She followed him and they continued their descent down-wards. They were in some kind of shaft, the ramp switched back and forth with flat landings every few feet.

Because they only had torch-light to light their way the ramp seemed to go on for ever. After twenty minutes they reached the bottom of the shaft.

“Surely there must have been an easier way down,” Charlotte said as she played the beam of her torch around what appeared to be a small hallway.

“Possibly but this entrance may have been some kind of emergency exit. A lot of our underground bases have them.”

Her torch illuminated a sub-marine style door set in the wall across from them, a rusted looking locking wheel in its centre.

Rogan grasped it and after a bit of a struggle managed to turn it. The hinges shrieked with lack of use as he pushed the door open. He ducked through, Charlotte followed behind him.

They found themselves in a massive open area. The beams of their torches picked out two huge tunnels leading away. It was colder here, and they could here the ploick, ploick sound of dripping water from up ahead.

Rogan’s more powerful torch swept to the left side of the room. Both gasped at what they saw.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Keep driving,” Bane said, “Remember we belong

“Keep driving,” Bane said, “Remember we belong here.”

Bane took Trotsky’s weapon, and hid it alongside his own in the gap under his seat. If anything would give them away to Koenig’s men it would be modern weaponry.

“What if someone speaks to me and the professor? We don’t know any German.”

“Better hope I can bluff our way through again.”

As they approached the barrier a man stepped out holding up his hand. He was one of Koenig’s men.

“No one is allowed past here,” he said.

“I have orders to take paperwork to General Kammler, it is vital he gets it.”

Bane counted ten men behind the barricade, if a firefight broke out here they would be slaughtered.

“What ever it is is of no importance now, the war is lost, go back the way you came, and try to escape.”

Bane was thinking fast, they had to get through. A thought came to him.

“It is about, Die Glocke, new findings. If they attempt to operate it with the settings and levels they have now, they will cause a quantum leak into the Hertzog field