Part 15 (1/2)
Lysander took the slide projection control from Terah and inserted his own magazine of slides.
”So we don't know what it does or why it's important,” Rucker said.
Lysander shook his head.
”The n.a.z.is want it for Project Gefallener, which is reason enough for us to make sure they don't get it,” he said.
Around the room there understanding nods. Even from Rucker.
Lysander took Terah's place in front of the group.
”Now you need to know who we're up against. Working with our own sources inside the Third Reich and our allies in the Deuxieme Bureau and British MI6, we have determined the agents from the SS and Black Sun leading this quest for the spear.”
He clicked the first slide. It showed a brutally handsome, young blond SS officer with a cla.s.sically stern Germanic scowl: a service photo.
”Reinhard Heydrich. Himmler's number two. He's calling the shots here, but he operates from Castle Wewelsburg. Don't let the short leash fool you-that man will be a real danger if and when he climbs out from Himmler's shadow.”
Click. A grainy picture of a bald man in bra.s.s rim goggles and a white lab coat filled the screen.
”The scientific mastermind is Dr. Johannes ubel, a man as twisted as he is brilliant. If you look up 'sociopath,' you'll find his picture. Driven from the medical profession long before the Great War for his human-his inhuman-experiments, he found a ripe field of experimental subjects serving as a field surgeon for the German army in prisoner of war camps. He escaped prosecution after the war, returning to Germany only after Hitler came to power. Given his age and the fact that he performed his medical residency in London, I have always suspected he may be the White Chapel Ripper.”
”The who?” Deitel asked.
”Jack the Ripper,” Rucker said.
The next slide was a surveillance photo at a German training camp. It showed a tall, thin German officer in a white uniform and cape, wearing a black gas mask over a scarred and hairless pate.
”This is Der Schadel,” Lysander said. ”The Skull. Said to be Hitler's personal instrument of interrogation and punishment. He wears that breathing apparatus at all times. It's rumored he has the power to infect men's minds, but by what magic or scientific means, we don't know. Is he a mutant? A sorcerer? Even Heinrich Himmler himself is said to fear the man.”
Click. An older man with a poorly groomed beard and a look in his eyes that said he had only a nodding acquaintance with reality.
”Anton Drexler. The occult and spiritual heart of the n.a.z.i party. He was. .h.i.tler's mentor in the early days of the National Socialist party. He founded the Thule Society, a group of powerful German captains of industry obsessed with the mystical world, particularly the Aryan mythology and Atlantis.”
Another slide. Another mask.
”Colonel Uhrwerk. There's no history on this man. He's part of the Black Sun inner circle, but if has any records prior to 1926, they've been purged.”
”Uhrwerk must be his code name,” Deitel offered. ”It's not a German name I've ever heard, and it translates as 'timepiece work' or 'clock work.' ”
”More than you can imagine,” Lysander said. ”Who he was before 1926, we don't know. What we do know is he is more a machine than he is a man. It could be just his body. It could even be his mind. Like Der Schadel, he's rarely seen, and when he is, he's wearing that metal mask. If it is a mask. Our insider says that in the Black Sun, he's a voice of ruthless logic-maybe one of the best thinkers the Black Sun has.
”And, of course, they have the combined might of the Waffen-SS, the SD, the Gestapo, and the entire Third Reich at their disposal.”
”And the home field advantage,” Chuy added helpfully.
Lysander turned on the overhead light, then concluded the briefing that Terah had begun.
”We have two crates of equipment ready to load onto the Raposa. If things get too hot and you need heavy firepower, our friends in Paris have put the Eleventh Choc at your disposal. Here's the frequency and code. I believe your old friend Captain Blackadder heads up the battalion now.” he said to Rucker.
The Eleventh Choc was the French elite mercenary shock parachutist battalion, a special operations unit officially unaffiliated with the French military. Like the French Foreign Legion, it accepted volunteers regardless of nationality or past crimes.
”Whoa,” Rucker said. ”I don't think it will come to that.” He pocketed the napkin on which Lysander had written the cipher and frequency he'd need.
”Pray it doesn't. Captain, your team will consist of Terah, Dr. Deitel, and Chuy,” Lysander said.
”Make sure she,” he pointed with his chewed cigar at Terah, ”understands who's in charge.”
”Fox, your first task is to make contact with Dr. Renault and learn what you can as to where the spear is now,” Lysander said. ”He's in Rome, conducting research at the Vatican archives, working from offices at Sapienza-Universita di Roma. He's the key to finding the artifact. This cannot fall into the hands of the n.a.z.is. The fate of the entire world hangs in the balance.”
”Business as usual, then.”
”My boy, I'm not joking or exaggerating. If the n.a.z.is get their hands on the spear, they will bring death and darkness to the entire world.”
The look in Lysander's eyes took Rucker aback.
”I . . . I understand. Yes. Yes, sir,” he said quietly to his old friend.
In a louder voice, Rucker addressed his team: ”All right everyone-wheels up in twenty. We're in a race against the master race. Get your war paint on and don't get caught watching the gate swing.”
Chuy and Terah were out the door to supervise the Raposa's loading. Lysander and Biels were destroying all the notes taken in the room-except the ones that went into Lysander's pockets. Deitel quietly approached Rucker.
”I signed up for this fight, but I'm not sure what it is I will be able to contribute,” he said.
”I don't think I know of a time when a doctor isn't handy.”
”I also don't know what it is we're going to be doing.”
”Well, the n.a.z.is want to bring the creatures of nightmare into this world, right?”
”Yes.”
”Seems I recall when we first met, you said that's exactly what you Germans thought of my people during the war,” Rucker said.
He drew his pistol, spun it, and checked the load. In a flash he spun it again and slid it into the holster.
”The n.a.z.is want nightmares? Reckon we'll oblige them.”
Climbing back out onto the structure of Airstrip One through a ventilation shaft below had been easy. More challenging was the shear twenty-foot free climb up the side of the outer hull in the howling winds and bitter cold of the alt.i.tude. It was worth it when he pressed the diaphragm of a stolen medical stethoscope to the bottom corner of the conference room window. He mentally took notes of everything.
Skorzeny waited until the last of the group had left the conference room before opening the window and crawling in. The needles of pain in his slowly warming fingers rea.s.sured him he hadn't developed frostbite.
Now he needed a radio.
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
Wallachia Region of Romania Eastern Europe Encampment just outside Piteti Proof of the Creator's good taste, local folklore held, was his masterpiece along the southern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains. It was a splendor to even the most jaded eye, a piece of natural paradise easily the rival of the biblical Eden.