“This is where they keep the Stargate!” Juan squealed with excitement as the iconic entrance came into view.
“There is no Stargate, you crazy geek,” Dave Sutton punched his buddy in the arm.
“Oh yeah, you keep telling yourself that, then.”
Jack Coulson and Sam Krupsky sat quietly on the fold out bench opposite the two civilian scientists. After all they’d seen and been through, nothing would surprise them ever again.
Captain Jameson and Durand sat alongside. Neither had spoken for a while. There was still a lot of unresolved tension over the whole torpedo incident, as Durand referred to it.
“How’s the shoulder?” Jack tilted his head toward Sam’s bandaged and slung arm.
“Hurts like a bitch, but they tell me there’s no significant bone damage and I should regain most of my mobility.”
“Enough to stay in the service?”
Sam shook his head. “Medical discharge is in the works for me. Sucks, though. This is all I know.”
“I’m real sorry, Sam. But like you said, you were getting too old for that shit, anyway.”
“I meant too old for your shit, Jack. I was doing fine before I got sucked into your black hole of death, destruction and mayhem.”
Jack arched a brow, “Mayhem? That’s a good word, Sam. Did you manage to get some reading done on the flight to Peterson?”
The long flight to Peterson Air Force Base, the nearest AFB to Cheyenne Mountain, was a tedious flight and came on the back of a medivac flight to a Black Site where Sam was treated for his gunshot wound and the others for a variety of lacerations and abrasions.
Sam had moaned the entire flight. More than anything, he wanted to go home.
“Bite me. You don’t look so hot yourself, Jack,” Sam observed, looking over the cuts to Jack’s head that had been expertly stitched and butterflied. “Did you know they were bringing us here?”
“I had a suspicion. They don’t want us telling anyone what happened down there, that’s for sure.” Jack looked over at Juan and Dave who were goggle eyed at the sight of the Cheyenne Mountain entrance filling the windscreen. “They wouldn’t even let these two clowns call their family or friends to say they were alright.”
“Do you think they’re gonna kill us?” Sam asked calmly.
“Our government doesn’t kill its own. Besides, would they patch us up if they were going to do that?”
Sam shrugged his good shoulder in response. He wasn’t convinced and had a bad feeling about their future.
The security guard waved them through after inspecting the driver’s papers. They were clearly expected.
Continuing through the arched tunnel into the heart of the complex, Jack felt the weight of the thousand foot granite mountain above him crushing down on him like an invisible force. He didn’t like the feeling.
Eventually the armored transport stopped and they were ushered through a series of passageways and then into an enclosed walkway that took them to a freestanding three-story building. The windowless building had been built inside a hollowed out section of the mountain and looked incongruous against the hewn granite that surrounded it on all sides.
“Great,” mumbled Jack as he took in the claustrophobic atmosphere.
“Yeah, I know, right,” Juan pipped like a teenage girl.
Finally they were steered into a sterile, lifeless conference room where they were directed to be seated.
A door to one side opened and the familiar fireplug like figure of Colonel Chuck Daniels marched into the room. Only he wasn’t wearing an army uniform. Today he was dressed in a crisp Air Force uniform but other than that, he looked almost exactly the same as he had when Jack and Coulson had last seen him in Pine Gap.
Almost.
The cuff of the Colonel’s right jacket sleeve had been neatly pressed and pinned to the elbow. He noticed Coulson and Krupsky trying not to stare.
“I was lucky to get away with just losing an arm in that fracas. Bastards. We got caught with our zippers down but that won’t happen again.”
“Can I ask why we’re here, Colonel?”
“You’re a trouble maker, Coulson. You’re like a magnet for havoc and destruction, it follows you wherever you go and it sticks like shit to a blanket to anyone around you.” He scanned the two civilians, Durand and Sam.
“That’s a little exager—”
“You blew up a two and a half billion dollar submarine for chrissake, Coulson! How do we explain that to the Auditor General?”
“Actually, sir, it was…” Jack pointed in Durand’s direction.
“It doesn’t matter who actually pushed the button, Coulson, my point is that you attract trouble.”
“Yes sir. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, we could use a man like you Coulson,” Daniels said sincerely as he pulled out a chair and plopped himself down. He was plainly in pain as he placed his left hand on what remained of his right arm.
“Sir?” Jack quizzed.
“You kicked the hornets’ nest and exposed an enemy we didn’t even know we were fighting. You also uncovered The Bell. By the way, trying to cover that up has been like herding cats — damn near impossible.”
“You knew about The Bell?” Jack’s jaw dropped as the implications raced through his mind.
“Of course we knew, Coulson. How do you think we won the war against those Nazi fuckers?”
The silence in the room was palpable.
“Let me clue you in,” Daniels leaned in and began to explain.
The men sat silent and engrossed as the colonel shared one of the greatest secrets of the Second World War with them. The Allies were on the verge of surrendering to the Germans. The technological superiority of the Reich had outpaced the most exhaustive efforts of the Allied researchers and whiz kids.
“The German atomic program was the turning point,” Daniels continued, “the Manhattan project was years behind and it looked like the Germans were on the verge of testing a successful weapon. That would have ensured a Nazi victory for sure. We’d all be speaking German right now if they’d been allowed to complete their atomic tests.”
“But how does The Bell fit into all this?” asked Jack.
“The Nazis liked to compartmentalize their projects. One hand never knew what the other was doing. Kammler didn’t know or care about the atomic bomb. He started off developing a propulsion system that used an extremely rare atomic byproduct, Xerum 525. Then he discovered that his device had the potential to move through time. When we found out about his experimental device, we saw it as the only way to turn the tide against the Nazis.”
“By going back in time and sabotaging the German’s weapons development projects,” Dave Sutton marveled as the pieces fell into place.
Juan rubbed his head. “This whole time travel paradox is making my brain hurt. I’ve got a million questions, but here’s one for starters… how did we even find out about this Bell device?”
“Ironically, that was Kammler’s own doing. One of his own test subjects went back in time and appeared in Poland just after the German invasion. He tried to warn them about Hitler’s genocide program but they all thought he was mad. A British spy, a Commander Fleming, filed a report and mentioned that the man claimed to have been sent back in some kind of German time machine. Fleming had quite a vivid imagination, according to his superiors, so not much attention was paid to the report until it was almost too late.”
After Colonel Daniel’s astonishing revelations had been absorbed by the small group, Sam asked the question that had been bugging him the whole time.