Entwhistle. The new Number Two had come from the Britain’s MI5, and had been assigned to East Camden because of his expertise in data extraction and decryption. Unlike Sinclair, who also used the island base as the occasional staging platform, Entwhistle would be spending most of his professional time within the clandestine facility.
Another soft chime as Sinclair watched his Second clear the first security door, step into the bright-white tube where a series of secondary scans warped over him. If he carried any chemical or biological agents, any kind of conventional weapon, or even an unapproved scrap of paper, the scanners would activate an aerosol injection of Sarin-3 gas into the chamber. And he would no longer be a threat.
Not this time. A third chime signaled the second door opening, and Sinclair watched Entwhistle enter the com. He was a short, well-built, red-haired man in his mid thirties, who spoke with the remnants of a Welsh accent. His voice was deeper than his wan appearance might suggest, and he usually had an impish grin just waiting to happen behind the soft angles of his face. Sinclair liked him well enough, even though the guy liked to talk a lot.
“Reporting for duty, Captain,” said Entwhistle with a smile. “What’s on our plate for today?”
Sinclair glanced up at him then gestured toward the primary console and some papers he’d printed out. “Not sure yet. Waiting on a full briefing.”
Entwhistle looked at the message. “Hmmm. What’s the U-5001?”
Being as concise as possible, Sinclair gave him a history of the submarine compiled from intelligence files dating all the way back to the end of World War II. “Everything we have is from a variety of interrogations and separate individuals. No one, it appears, knew the whole picture. There were never any official documents on the boat or its mission. We don’t even know who crewed her. We believe it stopped at the secret Nazi base called Station One Eleven. We know it carried a crude atomic bomb. We know the mission aborted and that it went MIA. That’s pretty much all we know.”
“A bloody lot more than I ever did.” Entwhistle couldn’t hide his surprise. “So the stories about them not having a bomb were crap?”
“U.S. Intelligence never wanted the Germans to look as good as us. They buried that one with disinformation.”
“But the sub and the bomb…” His second sighed. “You say it’s been found. After all this time?”
“Not confirmed. What you see here is all we know for now.”
“And what was ‘Station One Eleven’?”
“From what we can tell, it was the northern equivalent of the Antarctic Nazi base they called ‘Station Two Eleven’.”
“Oh yes,” said Entwhistle. “I’ve heard some of the stories about that one. Almost mythic, wouldn’t you say?”
Sinclair looked at him. “What stories did you hear?”
“One called ‘Operation High Jump’ I remember best. Admiral Byrd and a US Navy task force. Supposed to have ‘invaded’ Antarctica in 1947. Scuttlebutt always claimed they were looking to wipe out a secret base under the ice.”
Sinclair grinned. “Is that all they told you in London?”
“Well, there’re rumors they ran into trouble, came limping back with their tails stuck in their arse cheeks…”
Sinclair nodded. “That’s pretty accurate.”
“They say the krauties had some of their scientists down there creating superweapons or some such tripe. I heard that one too.”
“Not sure what they were doing there,” said Sinclair. “But I know they were there. The Navy captured two U-boats in Buenos Aires in late 1946, and the crews admitted they’d been down there. The Germans had the engineering know-how to set up something under the ice. You ever see anything on their underground factories and the labs of the Nordhausen complex? In the Harz Mountains. Amazing. The Kahl installation at Thuumlringen is a big bastard too.”
“Right-O,” said Entwhistle. He raked his thin fingers through his red hair. “So what ever happened to them? At the south pole, I mean?”
Sinclair shrugged. “Not sure. I’ve seen the docs about Byrd being grilled by Forrestal. Not pretty.”
“Not long after that, they had Forrestal committed as a loony, right?”
Sinclair nodded. “Until he took a dive from the Bethesda Naval Hospital tower.”
“MI5 always believed he was thrown out that window.”
“They’re not alone. A week later, Truman authorized a secret atomic bomb test — at the south pole.”
Entwhistle smiled, revealing dental work that could only be called adequate. “Hmmm. I’d guess that was the spot-on end of Station Two Eleven.”
“So the story goes. But they never found the other one at the North Pole. That’s why everyone was interested in the U-5001. We know it was dispatched there on a rescue and recovery mission.”
“Okay,” said Entwhistle. “I can see why we’d want that bomb. No doubt it may come in useful at some point.”
Sinclair nodded. “Oh, I think we could find plenty of interest in weapons-grade fissionable material — either for us, or somebody we need to influence.”
“Right-o, but what about the base? We want to find that base exactly why?”
“Because of what we’ve been able to piece together about it. Fragments of memos from postwar interrogations, mostly. Suggesting the Nazi scientists were into all kinds of weird stuff. Anti-gravity, heat-rays, sonic canons, and, of course, advanced aeronautics and nuclear technology.” Sinclair gestured at the datafile he’d been reading before his Second had arrived.
“Fucking Teutonic bastards! Bloody slick, they were.”
“Did you ever hear of something called ‘the Bell’ or as the Nazis called it, ‘Die Glocke’?”
“Can’t say that I have, why?”
“They talk about it in these datafiles I’ve been reading. It was a top secret device they were working on, but no one has been able to figure out exactly what it was supposed to do. They called it a ‘torsion field generator’.”
“Really? What the bleeding hell is that?”
“Some people thought their scientists were playing around with time travel or spatial displacement.”
Entwhistle chuckled. “Bollocks is all that is!”
Sinclair picked up the file, flipped through to a page, and read aloud:
“According to some captured Czech documents, the Bell was reportedly a metallic object, approximately 9 feet in diameter and 12 to 15 feet tall, which vaguely resembled a bell, which gave rise to the codename die Glocke. It was comprised of two counter-rotating cylinders. Like centrifuges. Inside was a purplish, liquid-metallic-looking substance which was code-named ‘Xerum 525’ by the Germans. The machine rotated the Xerum 525 at extremely high speeds. The substance gave off an extremely high amount of radiation which the Germans called ‘Tau,’ and they kept the substance in lead-lined containers twelve inches thick.”
Entwhistle had leaned forward, clearly intrigued. “Is there more?”
Sinclair nodded, continued: “The Bell required outrageously high amounts of electrical power to operate, and could only be run for approximately one to two minutes at a time. It apparently gave off strong radiation and/or other electromagnetic or unknown field effects. Rumors insist many scientists and technicians were killed during the lifetime of the experiments with the device.”
“What the fuck were those jokers messing with?”
“No one knows for sure,” said Sinclair as he resumed. “Another captured document claims that tests involving various plants and animals caused them, in every case, to be transformed into a ‘blackish ooze’ without normal putrefaction, within a matter of a few minutes or hours after exposure to its field effects when in operation. In addition, technicians near the Bell during these experiments reported metallic tastes in their mouths after being exposed to it. The chamber where the Bell was tested was lined with ceramic bricks and rubber mats, all of which were replaced after each test. The removed linings needed to be burned in a high temperature furnace, and the unlined chamber walls were scrubbed with brine by concentration camp laborers.”