It was becoming more and more difficult for Danny to keep focused on the assignment in the face of so much loss and suffering. “How deep did you get?”
Shima motioned Danny forward. “Deep enough. That is why you are here, correct, Lieutenant?”
Danny turned and looked at Shima to elaborate, but the doctor merely smiled sadly and waved him on. “Do not touch anything, Lieutenant. I cannot say how strong the walls are.”
As Danny turned on his flashlight and headed downward, the doctor following behind him, he wished he had brought a few MPs along to take point. But Hillenkoetter had given strict orders: keep it contained. The less that knew, the better.
“I have not let many people down here,” Shima said, as if Danny had been thinking out loud. “I cannot allow more to risk their lives. So it has been myself, my nurse, and a single worker. That is all.”
Looking around, the entire basement was choked with rubble, so much so that in many places, Danny couldn’t tell where the floor or ceiling started or stopped. It was just a big pile of junk. Concrete, wood, metal, and electrical wiring had all come down in little pieces, and he was burrowed somewhere in the middle of it.
Shima took out his own flashlight and assumed the lead. Burrowed, as it turned out, was the right word — the doctor and his people had managed to carve out a tunnel through the rubble no more than four feet high and three wide, held up by a few impromptu supports wedged into the walls.
“Why did you tunnel?” Danny asked. “Why wouldn’t you start from the top?”
Shima shrugged. “It is hard to explain. The laborer I hired to help in here insisted on going down to the subbasement. He said it was important. He recovered many remains, so I did not argue with him. I originally assumed that is why he tunneled.”
“What happened to this worker?” Danny asked. “I may need to speak with him.”
“He was Korean. I believe he went home after a while. He did not show up one morning. I can’t say I blame him. If this is not your home, why would you be here?”
“Maybe he found something.”
“It is all as we found it,” Shima said. “Do not worry.”
Danny ducked a bit lower to get through a particularly tight passage. “Nonetheless, doctor, I’ll need the worker’s name.”
“Of course.”
After a few more minutes, during which the tunnel grew tighter and delved deeper, the passage finally opened up into a smallish room somewhere far in the hospital’s basements. Danny could just barely make out tiled walls and a concrete floor. He estimated they were at least two or three stories beneath street level, with several tons of rubble above them. And yet there was enough room here for both Danny and Shima to stand and stretch.
And in the center of the room… there it was.
Danny exhaled under his breath. Holy shit. It was true.
“Dr. Shima,” he said, turning to the doctor, clearing his throat. “I’m afraid that under the authority of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, this area is going to be under quarantine from here on out.”
To Danny’s surprise, Shima merely smiled. “It is a rare thing, Lieutenant Wallace, to have something of value in the midst of this kind of devastation.”
“Excuse me?”
“What we have here, I know you wish to study. This is why you came. And because you came alone, Lieutenant, it is safe to assume you are one of the only Americans who know that it is here.”
The air had become heavy with tension, and in the same motion, both drew their firearms and stood, less than five feet away, weapons pointed at each other in silence.
“I have no wish to harm you, Lieutenant,” Shima finally said.
Danny stared hard at his guide-turned-adversary. “Then you should drop your weapon.”
Shima smiled and lowered it to his side. “I just wanted you to know that I could have shot you, but I will not. You seem an honorable young man, and I hope we might treat each other with honor here.”
Danny knew better than to mince words — or holster his sidearm. “What do you want?”
“I want your word that your government will rebuild our city.”
“You’re serious?” Danny asked. Shima’s face remained unchanged. “I’m just a junior officer. You realize I don’t have that kind of authority, right?”
“No, but those that sent you here — without anyone to protect you — I’m quite sure they do.”
Smart guy. “I could just shoot you, Doctor.”
Shima shrugged. “You could. But before I die, I could detonate the charges I’ve placed around these tunnels, burying you and me and keeping your discovery from ever seeing the light of day. How long do you think it would take them to find this room again, if ever? How long to find your body?”
“I can carry your request up the chain. And I’ll make sure you’re able to treat as many victims here as possible.”
Shima nodded. “Where are you from, Lieutenant?”
“St. Louis.”
“And if someone bombed your city into dust and ash, would you not do all you could to see it rebuilt?”
Danny finally lowered his weapon. “We should continue this conversation back aboveground, Dr. Shima.”
“If you come back in force, I will detonate the charges. I want assurances.” And with that, Shima turned his flashlight back on and made his way up the tunnel.
Danny made as if he would follow but paused for a moment in that room underground and closed his eyes. He could hear them much more clearly here, and louder, too — the whispers clear as day as they tumbled about in his head. He focused, trying to pinpoint from the echoes where their actual locations might be. Wherever it was, it was far.
In time, maybe Danny could find them. And that light — that vortex of blindingly white light swirling in a subbasement of a hospital decimated by history’s mightiest weapon — just might help him do that.
A few minutes later, Danny emerged into the clear, sunny day and took the Handie-Talkie out of his pack. “Patch me through to SCAP,” he said. “I need Captain Hillenkoetter ASAP.”
3
Dr. Jane Fitzgerald closed the manila folder in front of her in disgust and slid it across the table. “With all due respect, Bob, he’s a psychopath. You let him into the program, he’ll end up corrupting the whole bunch all over again.”
US Army Major Robert Staver gave a weary sigh — sending a former OSS analyst to Nuremberg just to second-guess his every move had to be the Army’s sick idea of a practical joke. He picked up the folder and opened it, glancing at the dossier and accompanying pictures of the bespectacled physicist inside. If they said no, it wasn’t even worth it to fight their recommendations.
“Kurt Wilhelm Schreiber, worked on the V-2 rocket, naturally,” he said as he flipped through the pages. “Well, we’ve got plenty of those guys already and I suppose we don’t need another one. He did have a hand on the Uranprojekt, the German A-bomb effort, under Walther Gerlach, but we know how to make those ourselves. So… uhh…” He stopped and leaned in to take a closer look. “Hm… what the hell is that?”