Henri looked around. But that’s not true anymore. If something were to happen to Herr Krause, Project Black Sunset could still occur. And I can be the one to lead us to victory.
“Commander,” Emil said, “we believe Kane and the others have escaped through a hatch in the northern end of the hangar.”
“Then open it.”
“We are trying, sir. We did not prepare for something such as this. I have two men attempting to cut through it now, but it will take time.”
Henri seethed, but he didn’t berate his number two. Henri was to blame as much as anyone else. He had wanted to bring along plastic explosives but hadn’t been confident enough in their potential applications. The last thing they needed to do was bring the facility down on top of them.
Back when it was the unstable wreck that it was supposed to be.
Henri stormed off, pounding toward the center of the room. He needed to get his mind on something else. He slowed and gazed over his shoulder. Luka and two other troopers were quietly conversing with one another. Henri didn’t like anything about it.
He turned. “Have something to share, Master Chief?”
Luka stood at attention. “No, sir. We were just taking it all in, sir.”
Henri understood. He was, too.
“Secure this room; I don’t want Kane’s team slipping by us unseen. No one steps foot on the elevator without my approval.”
“Yes, sir!”
Chapter 53
Zahra
The futuristic corridor narrowed as they neared the light at the end of it. What had, at first, resembled sunlight at the end of a dark tunnel had since transformed into a color that reminded Zahra of light reflecting off a heap of gold. But something else was laced within the light. Something moved, as if the light itself was being emitted from behind softly agitated water.
A golden fish tank?
Hammet held up a fist. Zahra and Yana respected the commando’s order to stop. He continued forward, slinking forward until the muzzle of his rifle was through the doorway. After ten seconds of nothing, he signaled for them to join him. The trio casually entered the room and were taken aback by its size.
“How big is this… wherever we are?” Yana asked. “And why is it so different than what’s above us?”
Directly in front of them was a workstation that looked incredibly out of place. It was clearly not from the same era as the furnishings and tech inside the Underworld.
The glow was originating from behind a semicircle of curtains. The curtains obscured whatever was behind them and encompassed a section of flooring fifty feet out and the same to the left and right. But even from behind the partition, Zahra could tell that the space beyond was much bigger.
Hammet had already moved to the workstation and was holding a stack of papers.
“Zahra, I have more of that language here for you.”
She hurried over to him and accepted them.
“Let’s see… Okay, so there’s mention of Project Fleshgod and — hang on, listen to this… The specimen’s blood is too complex for the human subjects’ bodies.”
“The specimens weren’t human?” Hammet asked. He looked up from the paper and stared into Zahra’s eyes. “What were they?”
“What does Mengele’s journal say?” Yana asked. “Go to the end.”
Zahra did. She unzipped her coat and removed the journal from her chest rig’s admin pouch. She flipped to the last entry.
Here we are. “‘While the Reliquary has yielded many amazing discoveries, I fear that none of it is viable due to the limits of our current understanding and technology. We may be at a standstill. I believe we are still years, perhaps decades, away from applying Project Fleshgod. The specimen’s blood is just too complex.’”
“It can’t be…” Hammet said softly.
His eyes opened wide, and he darted to the curtain. He quickly found an opening and threw it aside, and entered. Even from here, Zahra could hear the German stumble. Whatever he found had nearly taken him to the ground.
Zahra and Yana hurried after him.
When they entered, both women came to a staggering stop beside their male compatriot. The three of them stood atop an overlook, and there, in a room half the size of the hangar were row after row of glowing capsules.
Not capsules. Zahra decided. They’re stasis pods.
“It’s true,” Hammet said, holding his head with both hands. “They actually found it. The rumors are true.”
Zahra needed confirmation. “Are those—”
“Yes,” Hammet swiftly replied, “This isn’t some ultra-modern laboratory, Zahra.” He looked at her. “It’s a spacecraft.” He pointed at the mass of pods. “They’re aliens.”
Zahra didn’t know what to think. She could only say, “Aliens?”
Hammet nodded. “Ever since Alfred Ritscher was sent to Antarctica, there have been rumors that the Nazis had been in search of UFOs or other objects of extraterrestrial origin.”
“But as we now know,” Yana added, “the Nazis were here much earlier than that — that’s why the rumors started. When do you think they discovered all this?”
Hammet shrugged. “Impossible to know.”
“Huh, cheeky bastards,” Zahra said, lost in a thought. Yana and Hammet faced Zahra. She explained. “A reliquary is constructed to hold holy relics, right? Well, Hitler and Himmler were obsessed with religious artifacts, specifically those pertaining to Jesus Christ, God in the Flesh. It was right here the entire time.” She swept her hand out of the field of stasis pods. “Himmler and Dietrich Krause believed these beings were their gods. Hitler would have, too, but it’s pretty clear that he wasn’t involved.”
Yana closed her eyes and rubbed them. “Leave it to the Nazis to discover alien life and decide to build a murderous cult around them.”
Zahra grinned. “Yeah, real shocker, right?” She took a deep breath and shook out her shivering hands. “Project Fleshgod was a program that sought to adapt alien DNA to human beings. Or to… borrow that DNA in other ways.” She glanced at Hammet. “Would you like to tell the class why, Herr Braun?”
He sighed and looked down at his feet. “A supersoldier program,” he returned his gaze to the pods, “based on extraterrestrial genetic material found inside a spaceship. A spaceship that’s been stuck in the ice in Antarctica for God knows how long.”
Yana chuckled. “Never thought I’d hear that in my lifetime. Or see it!”
“Same,” Zahra said. “This is…”
“Ridiculous?” Yana finished.
Zahra smiled. “That’s the perfect word, actually.”
“The Nazis tried something similar before,” Hammet added, “minus the alien DNA, of course. They experimented on POWs with a performance-enhancing drug called D-IX. The idea was to, quote, ‘redefine the limits of human endurance’ by granting their soldiers the ability to last longer and fight harder.”
“Wow,” Yana said, “they really did try the whole Steve Rogers thing, didn’t they?”
“They tried…”
They stood in the eerie space in silence and took in the pods again. Zahra was surprised by how simple they looked, but she had to admit there was a certain elegance to that simplicity. From what she could see, they were just a base with a domed lid. Then again, she couldn’t see the inner workings of the base. She also didn’t know if the lid was more than just a lid or performed some other crucial duty as well.