The Black Knight (8 page)

The SEAL team leader, Lieutenant Riggs, stepped forward. ‘Can we expect any kind of resistance?’

Jarvis appeared non-committal.

‘That’s uncertain at this time, as we simply don’t have enough data. What we do have is evidence that the signals are being emitted from a site that was originally occupied in 1946.’

Ethan stared at the monitor for a long beat before he could speak. ‘Who the hell was up here in 1946?’

Jarvis appeared as stunned as the rest of the crew as he replied.

‘According to what we’ve managed to uncover, the only country known to have established a base up here in Antarctica in the months following World War Two was Germany. Not only that, but we chased them up here in an attempt to destroy what they created.’

Hannah Ford spoke up. ‘And what exactly did they create up here?’

‘A subterranean base,’ Jarvis replied, ‘and we’ve been trying to locate it for seventy years.’

***

IX

‘The Nazis had an Antarctic base?’ Ethan asked.

The briefing room had fallen silent as the soldiers, scientists and
Polar Star’s
Captain Forrester listened to Jarvis as he replied from the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington DC.

‘The Germans had been sending exploratory missions down to Antarctica since the early nineteenth century,’ he said. ‘The Antarctic Plateau was claimed for Norway by Roald Amundsen as the King Haakon VII Plateau when his expedition was the first to reach South Pole in 1911. The name Queen Maud Land was initially applied in January 1930 to the land between 37°E and 49°30’E discovered by Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen and Finn Lützow-Holm during Lars Christensen’s Norvegia expedition of 1929. Norway’s claim was disputed by Germany, which in 1938 dispatched the German Antarctic Expedition, led by Alfred Ritscher, to fly over as much of it as possible. The ship
Schwabenland
reached the pack ice off Antarctica in January 1939. During the expedition, an area of about a hundred forty thousand square miles was photographed from the air by Ritscher, who dropped darts inscribed with swastikas every sixteen miles. Germany attempted to claim the territory surveyed by Ritscher under the name New Swabia, but lost any claim to the land following its defeat in the Second World War.’

Ethan frowned as Hannah replied.

‘So if they were prevented from annexing the territory after their defeat then how could they have built any kind of operational base up here, much less kept it secret for seventy years? There are at least twelve research stations all across Queen Maud Land belonging to many different nations.’

‘That’s what’s caused the confusion,’ Doctor Chandler replied. ‘The entire story of a German base being built in Antarctica at the end of the Second World War, which has been in circulation for decades, has always been rejected by historians based on the assumption that because the Germans spent so much time surveying Queen Maud Land, that’s where the site of the base must be. These recent signals intelligence tells us that the assumption has been wrong.’

A digital image of Antarctica replaced Jarvis on the monitor as Chandler went on.

‘The legend purports that the Nazi mission was supposed to establish a base on Antarctica in order to set up a staging post for further invasions of countries in the southern hemisphere prior to the invasion of Poland. However, records show that the mission was merely an attempt to scout new territories into which the Nazi machine could spread as the war progressed. Historians have repeatedly pointed out that the supposed discovery by the Nazis of warm water and vegetation within Antarctica’s wastes, which would have been used to sustain a population or a base of some kind, were false and that there were no such sources.’ The image changed again to a portion of the continent’s eastern shores, north west of the
Polar Star’s
current location.

‘That was until 2015,’ Chandler said, ‘when surveys conducted by scientific teams on the continent and orbiting satellites detected a series of subterranean pathways that were channeling warm water beneath the Totten Glacier, a seventy mile long and eighteen mile wide feature and the largest on the continent’s east coast.’

Ethan watched as graphics taken from research published in the
Nature Geoscience
journal showed a trough some three miles wide that had formed a gateway deep underneath the glacier, along with another tunnel that could allow warmer sea water to penetrate the glacier base.

Captain Forrester nodded as he observed the graphics.

‘It’s is the most rapidly thinning glacier in East Antarctica,’ he said. ‘Our own surveys have shown that much, but we didn’t know anything about a warm water channel beneath it.’

‘During a voyage to the frozen region during the past southern hemisphere summer,’ Jarvis replied via the screen, ‘researchers found the waters around Totten Glacier were around a degree and a half Celsius warmer than other areas.’

‘Doesn’t sound like much,’ Ethan pointed out. ‘Would that have made much of a difference to the Nazis?’

‘It could have,’ Chandler said. ‘The warm water channels to the eastern coast could have provided one of the most important access routes into the continent: subterranean sea channels, perfect for concealing the movement of German U-boats that could have been used to supply the base.’

‘What does this have to do with Black Knight?’ Hannah asked.

Jarvis reappeared on the screen as he spoke.

‘As many people know, the Nazis and Hitler specifically were obsessed with the occult, the paranormal and pretty much anything other-worldly. The Nazi regime placed great stock in anything that supported their notion of an Aryan master race, from whom they were thus supposedly descended and destined to rule the world. You name it, they went after it: Atlantis, the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail and many other artifacts both mythical and obscure. But one particular device caught the attention of investigators during the post-war period: something called
Die Glocke
, or The Bell.’

Jarvis spoke as the screen’s image split into two and revealed an image of a large, metallic object shaped somewhat like an acorn. Ethan could see strange symbols written around the circumference of the object’s base, almost like hieroglyphics.

‘This object was reportedly part of the Nazi’s most secretive research and development programs in progress toward the end of the war. The Germans were making truly tremendous strides in technology, pioneering jet engines, electromagnetism, superconductivity and other exotic discoveries that we’re only really coming to terms with today. There were rumors among the allies that in the rush to conquer Germany and occupy Berlin in the final days of the conflict, the governments of America, the United Kingdom and Russia were also keen to confiscate German technology for themselves, acts which created some friction between them even as the last shots of the war were being fired.’

‘You’re saying that what might be up here is something that belonged to the Nazis?’ Captain Forrester asked.

‘Again, we can’t be sure just what’s up here,’ Jarvis cautioned. ‘The truth is that if the Nazis did have an Antarctic base then they may well have attempted to regroup there in the aftermath of the German defeat, and taken much of their technology with them. It’s not often broadcast by NASA, but after the war the vast majority of former Nazi scientists were brought back to the United States. The men who had previously worked for the Nazis on rocket technology for their infamous V-Bombs ended up pioneering the race for the moon. Werner Von Braun, one of NASA’s best known scientists during the space race and the creator of the Saturn V rockets, was a German scientist who worked for the Nazis.’

Ethan peered at the schematics of
Die Glocke
.

‘That doesn’t look like anything we ever sent to the moon, except maybe the lunar capsule.’

‘
Die Glocke
was not a spacecraft,’ Doctor Chandler replied, ‘at least as far as we can make out. No evidence of it was ever recovered from Germany after the war, at least as far as official records reveal, and scientists like Von Braun never admitted any awareness of the project. However, there is a tantalizing trail of evidence supporting the notion that something was indeed created in Germany that matches
Die Glocke
in a number of ways. The Third Reich had an underground scientific laboratory in a facility known as
Der Riese
, or The Giant, near the Wenceslaus mine near the Czech border. Experiments conducted there refer to a device made out of a hard, heavy metal that was some twelve to fifteen feet high and nine feet wide, similar in shape to a large bell. The device contained two counter-rotating cylinders which were filled with a metallic substance somewhat like mercury but violet in color and code-named Xerum-525. Other
leichtmetall
, or light metals, like thorium and beryllium oxides are also referenced in the documents, as well as the extraordinary effects that the bell would create when activated. Supposedly, within a zone extended some two hundred meters out from the object crystals would form in animal tissue, blood would gel and separate and plants would decompose into a greasy substance. What sources we do have said that several scientists died while experimenting with the device, and that many feared even approaching it whether activated or not.’

As Jarvis spoke, the image of a concrete framework standing derelict in a thin forest appeared on the monitor, like a hollow Colosseum with arches intact.

‘This object, The Henge, in the vicinity of the Wencelaus mine, is said to have served as a test-rig for the device, which remained tethered within while tests were being performed to determine its supposed anti-gravitational properties.’

Several of the SEALS tutted and shook their heads, Ethan catching their skeptical mutterings from where he stood.

‘It’s myths and fantasies,’ Amy said, speaking for the first time. ‘None of this supposed evidence has ever been substantiated in any way, all of it merely shared by conspiracy theorists on the Internet without any effort to check sources or interview witnesses.’

‘It all sounds like conjecture to me,’ Ethan said finally. ‘And again, it doesn’t reveal anything about the Black Knight.’

‘Except that it does,’ Chandler replied, ignoring Amy as she rolled her eyes. ‘In 1936 an object is known to have plummeted out of the sky near Freiburg, in Germany’s Black Forest, and was recovered by the Nazis there for study. Whatever the object was, its discovery coincided with the sudden rise in military might and technological prowess of the Third Reich. I had our data analysis team calculate the object’s trajectory and then run it backwards to obtain orbital information, and its position would have coincided almost precisely with the current polar orbit of the Black Knight.’

Ethan’s eyes narrowed as he tried to understand what he was hearing.

‘So Black Knight deployed something? Or maybe there was more than one of them?’

‘Perhaps,’ Jarvis said. ‘After all, according to orbital data it must have been up there for several thousand years and thus may have become unstable over time. If there was more than one, that’s what the Germans may have ended up with’

‘And this supposed German crash?’ Hannah asked. ‘Are you saying that what we’re heading toward in Antarctica must be where the Nazis hid it?’

‘All we can say for sure is that elements of the Third Reich fled to Antarctica via South America in the aftermath of their defeat, and that British and American forces attempted to pursue and destroy them in expeditions that ended not just after the war but some
decades
later.’

‘Decades?’ Hannah echoed. ‘We were still chasing them so recently?’

‘Many of the most wanted Nazis, those who served the SS and who ran the concentration camps, fled before the end of the war and many of them disappeared in South America,’ Chandler pointed out. ‘Israel especially spent many decades hunting down former war criminals and bringing them to trial.’ He gestured to the map of the Antarctic on the screen beside him. ‘The warm water channels into the Totten Glacier prove that no matter how outlandish it may seem, the Nazis could have travelled deep into the continent’s interior and developed a staging post for their proposed domination of the world, perhaps using Antarctica for a surprise naval attack. The Nazis were extremely fond of their naval power, Germany itself being landlocked, and had very well developed expertise in building submarine pens in marine environments.’

Ethan looked at the map of Antarctica dominating the briefing room as Jarvis went on.

‘I’ll leave Captain Forrester to fill you in on what we think happened after the war, and I’ll check back in again in twelve hours to find out what’s happening. We need to get this situation under control by the time Black Knight re-enters our atmosphere, because the continent’s going to get real busy once the Russians and who knows who else see the object come down and wander down there for a look around.’

‘Roger that,’ Ethan replied as the monitor went blank and he turned to Captain Forrester. ‘So, what’s your take on all of this?’

Forrester beckoned them to follow him from the briefing room.

‘I’ll show you.’

***

X

Telfs-Buchen,

Austria

The mountains of Innsbruck-Land soared above the quaint village nestled at their base, the dawn sunrise touching the sky with delicate shades that contrasted with the angular granite slopes of the Mieminger mountain chain.

Victor Wilms stood on the balcony of an exclusive hotel apartment, a cup of coffee in one hand as he shivered against the dawn chill and took in the extraordinary view. Despite the cold air he always performed this ritual with the sunrise, for it represented to him a brief glimpse into what the Earth looked and sounded like without the human stain upon its surface, without the noise and the conflict and the endless suffering of so many for the peace and prosperity of a small few.

The news had reached Victor at a most inopportune moment, on the very morning that he was due to first brief the members of Majestic Twelve on the momentous events about to occur on the opposite side of the planet in the frigid wastes of Antarctica. Despite his lofty position within the cabal, Victor had never before laid eyes upon the controlling members, had never before been accepted as one of their own despite half a lifetime of service. Now he was about to be accepted into the fold and yet once again had to be the bearer of bad news.