Authors: C. E. Martin
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
"What is that?" Josie asked, yelling over the wind. It was howling now, and the fine crystals of ice whipped up were making it harder to see each other. They'd found the hatch just in time.
"The Black Sun," Javi Wallach said, answering Josie's question about the strange image stamped into the hatch. It was a circle, with a smaller circle in the middle, twelve lightning bolts radiating out like spokes on a wheel.
"It's a neo-Nazi emblem used in countries where the swastika is outlawed."
"Predates that," Jimmy yelled over the howling wind. "Himmler had it put in the floor of his castle."
Colonel Kenslir was done examining the hatch now—he'd been carefully feeling around the edges for any signs of sensors or trip wires. The huge metal door, a round-cornered squarish piece of metal nearly six feet across, looked like something from a ship—a pressure door.
"Everyone step back!" the Colonel said. "It doesn't appear locked, but there could be a nasty surprise waiting."
The team all nodded and walked back, nearly vanishing in the wind and ice.
Kenslir heaved at the door, surprised at how heavy it was. Set in a slope at a forty-five degree angle its weight might be all whoever installed it thought would be needed for security.
>>>JIMMY—CLEAR IT<<<
Jimmy Kane dashed forward and ducked as he entered the gaping maw of the hatch. Beyond was pitch black, a dark recess.
His M4 rifle at the ready, he was relieved when his boots met level ground inside the opening.
>>>CLEER<<< Jimmy cyber texted back.
Kenslir came next, followed by Javi, Josie and finally the vampire. Laura Olson eased the large hatch shut after her, careful to avoid making any noise. This put what little they had seen of the room in complete pitch blackness.
The team waited as the Colonel switched on a light attached to the barrel of his autoshotgun, bathing the room in infrared light. The tactical goggles picked this up, superimposing the image over the blackness.
They were in a cavern—one clearly carved from the rock by man. The door was part of a bulwark of steel beams secured to the rock, sealing off the mouth of the cavern. The ground was basically smooth, but covered in ice. At the far end of the large room a block wall had been built, with a traditional ship's hatch in place.
"U-boat hatch?" Jimmy asked.
"Looks like," Kenslir said, switching on a white light. The others did so as well, revealing more detail about the room.
The steel beams and hatches were indeed from submarines, mortared into place with concrete and huge steel pins. The blocks looked to be roughly-poured as well, probably on site.
"They scavenged a ship?" Josie asks.
"They weren't going to need it anymore," Kenslir said, feeling at rough welds around the hatch leading deeper into the ridge of rock. "I'd guess this was built either during or immediately after the war."
"They weren't planning on going home?" Laura Olson asked.
"Easier to just cut their ship up and use it to build," Jimmy suggested.
"Command, you copy this?" Kenslir asked aloud.
"Affirmative," Major Campbell said over the communications channel.
"How are we getting a signal?" Javi asked, surprised.
"They use telepath-" Josie started to respond. The Colonel held up his hand, to quiet her.
"They work, just leave it at that," he said.
Before Javi could protest, Kenslir moved to the hatch, first pulling off a glove and pressing his hand against the metal, then his ear.
"Check your weapons," he said, leaning back from the door. "Remember that all targets are to be considered hostile, human or otherwise."
"Human?" Josie asked, checking the action on her pistol then reholstering it. "There might be people here?"
"If there are, we shoot first and ask questions later," Kenslir directed.
Everyone nodded in agreement and finished their weapons checks.
"Go dark," the Colonel said, switching off his white light and resuming a nightvision mode with the tactical goggles. He motioned to Jimmy, who stood to one side of the door.
"Open it," Kenslir whispered.
***
The base was far larger than they had guessed. The hatch leading out onto the glacier was just one tiny part of a vast complex that descended down, into the mountain-like ridge the glacier had almost buried.
Tunnels and rooms had been carved from the rock, blasted and cleared like an enormous bunker complex. Signs in German hung in hallways and thin doors separated rooms from the rest of the base. Electrical conduits were nailed in place in the rock, wire baskets every twenty or so feet protecting bulbs long ago burnt out or broken. Between the bulbs, dim, glowing white rocks could be seen, providing little more illumination than candles.
The base appeared deserted.
"What's with the rocks?" Jimmy asked, reaching up with his rifle and poking a glowing shard in a wire basket. The ceiling of the long tunnel they were in was barely seven feet above the floor and almost twice that wide.
"Some kind of luminescence," the Colonel said. "Might even be radioactive."
"Now what?" Laura asked. "Doesn't look like anyone's home."
"Let's start sweeping the rooms," Kenslir suggested.
Ten minutes later, he was clearing his eighth room, stepping through a doorway, tomahawk at the ready for a silent kill or throw. But like the previous rooms he'd checked, this one was empty as well.
The base was like a museum. Rooms were preserved, glistening with a thin coating of ice over tables, chairs, clocks, and equipment. Whatever the Nazis had once used the base for, it appeared as though they'd abandoned it a long time ago.
"Got something," Jimmy called out over the comm channel. He and Josie were clearing rooms on one side of the long tunnel, while Kenslir cleared the other side and Laura and the Mossad agent provided overwatch in the tunnel.
The Colonel exited his room and met Jimmy in the tunnel. Kane shone a small penlight on a bit of paper in his hand.
"Whatchamacallit," Jimmy said as the candybar's wrapper became visible. He switched his light back off.
"Yeah, so Nazis liked candy, big deal," Laura said.
"They didn't make these until the 1980s," Jimmy said.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning the base has been in use since at least the 1980s," Josie said.
Colonel Kenslir thought about it for a moment. "Not enough. We keep looking."
"Not enough?" Javi Wallach almost yelled. "You're own psychics said the überwolves were here. Bring in the troops and let's clear this place."
"Once the team deploys, we're all stuck here," Kenslir said as though speaking to a child. "Until we know for certain, I'm keeping them in the air."
He turned back to Jimmy. "I think it's time we skip ahead. Care to try doing some tracking?"
"You got it, boss," Jimmy said, grinning. He quickly unscrewed the silencer from his pistol then stowed both away. He handed Josie his M4 then began unzip his vest.
"Hold on," Laura Olson said. She tapped a finger to her nose. "I can sniff just as good as wolfboy. But if he goes all Mississippi leghound, I won't be able to track a damned thing."
"Do you have something now?" the Colonel asked.
"I can't tell. Between you, Jimmy and Olive Oil, it's pretty ripe in here."
Javi bristled at the comment but gritted her teeth instead of replying.
"Allright, Doctor Olson and I will go ahead," Kenslir said. "Jimmy, you and Josie guard Ms. Wallach-"
"I am not a child!" Javi snapped.
"Strength in numbers," the Colonel said. "You head back to the beginning of this tunnel and perform overwatch. If we find something, head topside and wait for the team. Understood?"
"Sir," Josie said, objecting.
"I need you two to watch her," Kenslir said, pointing to Javi. "But stay on your toes—nothing says they aren't outside on the ice while we're in here looking around."
"Yes, sir," Josie and Jimmy said. Javi just glared at the Colonel.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
"I never thought we'd get rid of those third wheels," Laura Olson said.
"We're still live," Kenslir said, tapping his goggles.
"Well, pooh," Laura replied, fake pouting. "I wanted to spend some quality
one-on-one
time with you."
The Colonel and Laura Olson were now in a side tunnel of the bunker complex, working their way down, deeper into the earth.
"Do you have a scent or not?"
"I've been told I smell delicious," Laura teased.
"Laura!"
"Fine, fine," the vampire said. "Yes, I smell your stinky Nazis. And some fresh blood."
"Human?"
Laura stopped, kneeling down and rubbing a finger along the ground. She sniffed her finger then licked it. "No. Some kind of animal. No idea what." She reached to brush the finger off on her pantleg.
Kenslir grabbed her hand and held her fingertip up under his own nose. "I don't recognize it either."
"Well, well, well," Laura said, grinning from ear to ear. "If you didn't want me for my nose, whatever did you bring me along for?"
Kenslir cybernetically adjusted the output on his and Laura's tactical goggles, severing the link with Josie, Jimmy and Javi Wallach. He and Laura's markers would still appear on the team's HUDs, but the live feed was now restricted to Command only.
"Your senses are more fine-tuned than mine."
"But you do smell something."
"I can't track it. The best human nose is still far less accurate than a dog's—or a vampire's."
"Are you sure you just didn't want the others getting in the way?"
"Follow the scent," Kenslir commanded.
"Yes, sir!" Laura said, smiling and saluting. "And when are you going to shut down our connection with headquarters?"
She moved forward, leading the way further down the corridor. "Cause you know, I can hear these little gadgets." She tapped her goggles to emphasize her point.
Kenslir caught up to her, senses still straining in the barely-lit tunnels as they searched. "What do you mean you can hear? Hear what?"
"Well, the tissue that is energized, creating the twin resonance in other tissue samples," Laura said. "It's like a painful, animal scream."
"To telepaths—we know. Are you telling me you can read minds now?"
Laura laughed. "If I could read minds I'm sure you'd make me blush... but no. I can't read minds. But I can sense them. Always have been able to. I think it's how we vampires hunt."
"And you never told-"
"I just started hearing these telemitters since you brought me back," the vampire said. She paused at a door. "I think he went this way."
"Command!" Kenslir said almost excitedly. "Everyone needs to go dark, receive only!"
"What's the big deal, babe?"
Kenslir shut down the live broadcast from his and Laura Olson's transmitters. "If you can hear it, these überwolves might be able to as well."
***
"What just happened?" Javi asked. She was crouched in a doorway, behind a table she and Josie had overturned and set up as a barricade. From within the room, they had a clear vantage of the long tunnel leading away from the passageway to the surface of the glacier. Jimmy was similarly set up across the tunnel from them, in another room with only one entry or exit.
"Command?" Josie asked. "Command, what is going on?"
A virtual reality panel sprang into view in their tactical goggles, filled with Major Campbell's face. "Doctor Olson just revealed that the telemitters broadcast a signal that vampires can sense. Colonel wants you to go silent, receive only."
"But-" Josie started to say. But Campbell's screen had already blinked out and the tactical goggles flashed "RECEIVE MODE" three times.
"What is a telemitter? What is he talking about?" Javi demanded.
"These," Jose said, turning to the Mossad agent. She tapped her goggles. "These don't use radio waves to communicate."
"Then what do they use?"
"You know how twins often say they can feel each other's pain?" Josie asked. "Well, tissue from certain host organisms reacts the same way."
"I don't follow."
Jimmy chimed in. "Imagine if when you bit into an apple, the tree felt it."
"More of your magic?" Javi said angrily. It was bad enough she had to wear the dragon bracelet to keep from freezing to death.
"No, not magic," Josie said. "At least I don't think it is. It's more like a psychic phenomenon. Tissue samples are halved, kept alive and energized. One in our telemitter, one in a telemitter back at HQ."
"Energized? Is that something like electrocuted?"
"Yes."
Javi looked down at her vest, and the pocket where the small transmitter and black box for the tactical goggles was stored. "So there's living tissue in these things?"
"Yep," Jimmy said.
Javi sat quietly for a moment. "What kind of tissue? From what?"
***
The Nazi was at it again, pounding away at Dean's leg, his good leg, with a hammer and chisel. His third chisel and his fourth hammer.
"Give it a rest, Hans," Dean said, wincing with each blow. He was amazed his stone body hadn't cracked yet. As it was, he had a number of grooves cut into him.
The German paused, wiping sweat from his brow and examining his chisel. The end was deformed and cracked. It too was eventually going to break. "That is not my name," he said.
"
Bruder
!" another überwolf declared sliding into the room.
"What, Bernhart?" Friedrich exclaimed. Even though his body didn't tire, he was growing frustrated at the lack of progress with the Golem.
Bernhart switched to German. "Do you not feel it, brother?"
"Feel what?"
"They're here!"
Friedrich started to scoff at the idea, but then he finally noticed it as well. "Yes, like this one's."
He turned back to Dean Johnson. "Your communication device, how did it work?"
"Ask Steve Jobs," Dean smirked.
"
Nein
!" Friedrich yelled, smashing his hammer down on Dean Johnson's chest. "I know what an iPhone is, Herr Golem. I am not an id-"
Friedrich noticed the look on Dean's face. It had been momentary, but it had been there. Pain.
"So, the stone man has an Achilles heel after all..." Friedrich leaned down and laid his ear against Dean's chest. He struck the chest lightly with the hammer beside his head.
Dean struggled against the chains holding him, bucking, but he could not break free.
"
Bruder
!" Bernhart said. "What do we do?"
"Go. Take care of them. How many can there be?"
Bernhart looked back and forth between the door out of the machine shop and his brother. "But-"
"I am busy!" Friedrich exclaimed. "Go!"
Bernhart nodded, then dashed out of the room, a blur of vampiric speed marking his passage.
Friedrich smiled at Dean and selected a metal spike from a nearby work bench. It looked like a railroad spike. He placed it against Dean's chest, just below where his heart would be.
"So stone man, why are you hollow? What secrets do you hold inside?"