Zahra couldn’t give them an answer. Its location interested her just as much as what it was.
“Whatever it is,” she replied, “I think the ice is meant to cool it.”
“You think that’s why they dug so deep?” Hammet asked.
She shrugged. “Could be.”
The bridge was wide enough to accommodate the three of them walking side by side. Zahra started off first, keeping to the middle. She wasn’t going to test that theory; none of them were. Yana and Hammet were right behind her, also keeping to the middle.
As they neared, Zahra stopped, edged to the right, and looked down. There was no bottom. She returned to the center of the bridge and brought her eyes back up to the door. She noticed that the only section free of the ice was the door and a two-foot-wide border around it. This was where the cables were attached to the outer wall of the facility’s power supply.
When they were six feet from their destination, the three explorers stopped and stared.
“Project Fleshgod…” Zahra said to no one in particular.
“Yeah, and?” Yana asked.
“I think this might be Mengele’s lab, where the experiments listed in his journal were conducted.”
Yana scratched her head. “Makes sense, I guess.”
“How do we open it?” Hammet asked.
“How else?” Zahr replied. “‘Speak friend and enter.’” Hammet gave her a sideways look. “You know, Gandalf the Grey?”
“Is that from Harry Potter?” Hammet asked, showing no signs of humor.
Zahra dipped her head and shook it. She stepped closer to the door. “Yeah, sure.” Then she held up the Vulcan sign. “Live long and prosper.”
“Look at this,” Yana said. She pulled out a flashlight and clicked it on. When the artificial beam struck the anomaly’s dark surface, it vanished. “It’s the same technology that was used on the bombers.”
“Think this is the source of it?” Hammet asked.
“Has to be,” Zahra replied, though she didn’t know for sure. Then it hit her. “Is it a server room?”
Yana pointed at the door. “This is a server room?”
“Could be,” Zahra replied. “The temperature makes perfect sense when you think about it. Whatever experiments were being conducted down here probably used a lot of machinery. Machinery equals power. They would need to be cooled, like a room full of heat-emitting servers.”
“But that still doesn’t explain what this thing is,” Yana said. “I still don’t see a way in, either.”
“I do.”
Both women faced Hammet. He knelt, unsheathed his knife, and jabbed the tip of it into a chunk of ice growing along the bottom-right of the door. After three strikes, the ice cracked and fell free to reveal a panel similar to the one that allowed them access to the Underworld. He reached around to one side and popped open the lid.
Inside was another red button.
Zahra gave him a nod.
He pressed it.
The oversized door whooshed open, sliding straight up. A strong pull of air followed it. Hammet ducked his head while Zahra and Yana grabbed onto one another to keep their balance. Zahra got the sense that this place hadn’t been open for decades, at least as long as the doors out to Lake Untersee.
When it was over, everyone looked at one another. Hammet stood, shouldered his rifle, and took point. Zahra went next. Yana brought up the rear, keeping an ever-watchful eye on the elevator behind them.
The door slid back into place, moving without a sound.
“Um…”
It was all Zahra could say.
The inside of the anomaly was unlike anything she’d ever seen before. The Underworld had been remarkably constructed, but nothing that couldn’t be replicated today, given enough time and money.
But this was totally different.
“I feel like we just stepped into the future,” Yana said.
“Or Tron,” Zahra added.
“Same,” Hammet agreed. “This is troublesome. This makes it that much more imperative that we bury this place.”
Zahra couldn’t agree more. The corridor on the other side was wide, sleek, and the color of night. Everything was black. Every surface also held a touch of transparency. Circuits and wires could be seen just beneath the surface. And they were everywhere. It was as if the entire structure was one giant supercomputer.
Is that what this is?
Hammet started off. “Come. Follow the cables.”
While a couple of them had hooked up to the door, most of them continued through the wall and down the passage. They made it fifty feet when they came to an unremarkable intersection. The cables turned right, and so did Hammet and Zahra.
“Stop,” Yana said. “Turn off your lights.”
Zahra and Hammet did as they were told. When they did, Zahra was surprised to find that they weren’t cast into complete darkness. There was a pinprick of golden light at the end of the hallway behind Hammet and her. It’s what Yana had noticed.
“Okay,” Zahra said, “let’s see what the Sixth Seal has been hiding all these years.”
The trio hefted their rifles up and moved forward, unaware of what they might find down here.
Chapter 52
Henri
Henri’s boots touched down inside the largest aircraft hangar he’d ever seen. The planes were clearly B-29 Superfortress bombers, and they’d been modified with a camouflaging technology he’d only heard about in shadowed whispers.
“The Geisterbombers. They’re real…”
“You knew about this?” Luka asked.
Henri shook his head. “Just rumors.” He glanced at the young man. “Stick around long enough, and you’ll hear similar tales.”
The Ghost bombers had been nothing but fanciful stories to Henri until now. At best, he had thought of them as far-off ideas that had never been brought to life. He had first heard about them shortly after being recruited. A small group of similarly young soldiers had been talking about them one night. To Henri, it was only science fiction — stories that inspired Wonder Woman’s invisible plane. One of his fellow recruits had sworn that he’d heard a Sixth Seal elder mention it while on a phone call.
That intrigued recruit had disappeared a few days later.
That was when Henri learned to watch his back, even when only surrounded by his own people.
Secrets were what the Sixth Seal was built on. No one within the organization was above that. There had always been questions that Henri had wanted to ask, answers he desired. Ever the faithful soldier, he had kept his mouth shut over the years and did his job.
But the Underworld was the Sixth Seal. Henri felt cheated, and he knew he needed to be careful with how he expressed his displeasure — if he expressed any at all. Not everyone felt the same way as him. Even his trusted lieutenant might turn on him if Henri showed a hint of disapproval of Krause’s methods.
Rage built within Commander Vogel.
He’s gone too far, even if he didn’t know about the poisonous gas lie.
Krause knew a lot more than he’d led on, and he’d kept his most faithful men in the dark for his own personal gain. That was the real reason he kept his secrets. It wasn’t because of the fear of betrayal. It was selfishness.
It was about control!
Krause’s experience and knowledge kept him at the top of the hierarchy. The Sixth Seal couldn’t afford not to have him in place there. They needed his knowledge despite the organization not being given it freely. He personally controlled the flow of information to keep his people in check and dependent on him. Hitler had used Reichsleiter Martin Borrman in the same way. Borrman was the second highest-ranking official, behind the Führer, when it came to politics. He decided what information made it to Hitler’s desk. With Krause’s self-centered leadership, the world could never change, and the Sixth Seal would never meet their goals and rise to power.