That was just the beginning of the twilight.
The bitter taste of surrender in what was left of the soul of Germany had given rise to the fanatical, collectivist cult of the hooked cross-the National Socialists. They seized power in 1922 in the Beer Hall Putsch and built a Third Reich on the ashes and bitterness of the Kaiser"s Germany.
The leaders of this New Order, Hitler and his right-hand man Himmler, reordered Germany and what little was left of Western Russia into a shadow land of Bavarian mysticism, perverted sciences, fanatical socialism, and deadly eugenics. It was all hidden from the world behind the Black Iron Curtain.
And here, fully two hundred miles from the Deadlands on the western border along the Rhine, the shadows and cold pervaded the most.
This was the center of the n.a.z.i Reich and the New Order-Wewelsburg Castle.
The original citadel was a treasure of German culture at the height of the Renaissance-refined, set against the welcoming countryside amid majestic mountains. But it was corrupted, like the whole country, when the National Socialists claimed it.
Where Berlin-renamed Germania-was the political capital of the Third Reich, Wewelsburg Castle was remade into the cultural, spiritual, and military headquarters of the New Order-the SS-that was the Reich"s master.
SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler had almost rebuilt the entire structure of Wewelsburg. Engineers had added an eighteen-meter-high wall in the shape of a three-quarter circle, with eighteen lesser towers surrounding the centerpiece called simply the North Tower. This was the centerpiece of the Reichsfuhrung-SS, the leadership corps of the Schutzstaffel. It was the seat of power for Greater Germany.
The eastern portion of the sprawling castle grounds included the hall of the High Court of the SS, the Reich archives, the SS General"s Hall, and the offices of the Ahnenerbe, the cultural and historic research society of the SS. Along the western edge were the legion of offices, communications, and operations facilities required of an organization as vast as the SS. To the south, Wewelsburg boasted a hydroelectric dam, airfields, an airship port, and facilities for a full panzer battalion.
The network of defenses, barriers, and weapons around Wewelsburg was unmatched outside the Fuhrer"s personal residences.
Within the walls, elite Waffen-SS soldiers in black leather, MP-32 submachine guns, coal scuttle helmets, and Senf masks-the SS storm troopers-patrolled every corner of the spear-shaped castle grounds as the black and red banner of the Reich fluttered overhead.
These storm troopers were the most fanatical of all the Waffen-SS, the SS military that was already eight times larger than the regular German army. The storm troopers were named for the deadly blitz units used in the Great War, and now served as the hammer of the new SS leadership. They were the shock troops of the New Order.
The black rubber, goggle-eyed Senf masks every storm trooper wore served multiple purposes. Storm troopers, of course, were not hesitant to use poison gas in their operations, and protected them as the gas masks they resembled. But the Senf masks also presented a frightening image to enemies and thus provided a psychological edge. The anonymity provided by the masks protected members of the SS from personal reprisals at the hands of terrorists. Finally-and most important in Himmler"s mind-the masks created an image of uniformity and invulnerability. When a storm trooper fell, another exactly like him-black leather uniform, black helmeted and fearsome mask, took his place.
Only the best of the best of these storm troopers were a.s.signed duty in the North Tower, for it was here where all the dark energies centered. It was the nexus of Teutonic esotericism, racial mysticism, and runic worship that gave the n.a.z.i brand of socialism its indelible stain. While most of the world was blinded to the mystical arts or rejected them outright, the n.a.z.is embraced them. But unlike the mystics and conjurers of the Far East who sought the power of natural magicks in ley lines and life energies, the n.a.z.is focused on the darkest magicks, the ones born of death, suffering, and the darkness that crept into the world when demons of the Otherness managed to pry open a portal to the world.
Wewelsburg Castle was the soul of Hitler"s promised Thousand Year Reich, but it was more than just a temple. Underneath the North Tower was the largest Difference Engine ever built, and networks of tunnels and laboratories where there were questions sane men were never meant to contemplate. a.n.a.log calculators of enormous complexity, used since the middle of the nineteenth century, the Difference Engines in Wewelsburg were put to uses far more sinister than Charles Babbage could have envisioned when he built the first one, which solely calculated numerically and through advanced algorithms.
On the upper floor of the North Tower stood twelve columns joined by a groined vault. Centered about this structure, focusing its energy, was the marbled white floor, the Black Sun rune, and a golden swastika at its zenith. In the center burned an eternal flame. Around it was a round table fashioned after the one of Camelot legend.
It was here that the man second only to the Fuhrer held court. Reichsmarshal Himmler, not even thirty yet, stared into the eternal flame. He ran his smooth fingers over the trim of his Hugo Bossdesigned pale gray and black-trimmed uniform, complete with its silver sigenrunes and oak leafs insignia.
Around this flame curved the table where sat the twelve most senior leaders of Himmler"s inner circle-the Black Sun-which governed the course of the Third Reich, directed by and answerable only to Herr Himmler, and ultimately the Fuhrer himself.
The Black Sun included Josef "Sepp" Deitrich, commandant of the Waffen SS, Hermann Goring, Reich Skymarshal of the Luft-SS, as well as commander general of the Gestapo, the director of the Internal Security Directorate, the two of them directors of the cultural, racial, industrial, scientific, and environmental branches of the civilian SS.
They were the New Order incarnate.
And they were bickering.
Again.
It happened every meeting, Himmler thought.
"This emphasis on the Americas-especially the Freehold-is unwarranted," argued Anton Drexler, Hitler"s mentor in the early days of the National Socialist party and founder of the occult and cultural Thule Society from which the party arose. "We need to focus on reclamation of the d.a.m.ned Lands to the East, and our plans for retaking the territories stolen by the Versailles Treaty. The powers and creatures growing in the d.a.m.ned Lands are ours for the taking, if we can bring them to heel."
Drexler was now the spiritual voice of the Black Sun, but that didn"t lessen his focus on strategic issues. "The d.a.m.ned Lands," he went on, "are a locus of dark ley lines and spiritual energies unlike anything in history. The ma.s.sive scale of death from the war amplify the powers of the Otherness."
Wilhelm Frick, the graying commandant general of the Gestapo and one of the older and senior members of the Black Sun, clapped his hand on the round table.
"I concur. I don"t see much future for the Freehold. It"s a decayed country. Granted, they don"t suffer the economic stagnancy of the Union States or the social stagnancy of the Confederate States, but they are wholly inactive in the apparatus of the modern scientific state. Their government is anemic. They cannot be considered a threat to the Reich"s future expansion in any way. Mein Gott, they have no standing army, no serious economic controls, and their government is rabidly noninterventionist. Everything about the behavior of their society reveals that it"s half Judaized and the other half Latinized. They represent no threat to the New Order. They will collapse in due course."
Colonel Uhrwerk, expressionless because of his black steel and bra.s.s mask, which looked like a cubist"s representation of a face, said in his metronomelike mechanical voice, "That is what we thought a decade ago. Before we were driven from France and Belgium by an army of Freehold militia and mercenaries. You forget, I was at the Battle of Devil"s Run at Cologne. I saw firsthand what a nonthreat they represent," he added, and gestured to his own body.
Those at the table took a moment to appreciate the implications of Uhrwerk"s statement-the "man" was now a clockwork cyborg, with what little remained of his original being encased in a complex life-support system powered by steam and almost infinitely intricate springs and gears. Then they erupted again into argument.
Himmler"s number two man, Reinhard Heydrich, interrupted the raucous debate with the position of the only voice on the subject that mattered-the Fuhrer. Everyone fell silent as the young a.s.sistant who looked like an SS recruiting poster-the handsome, idealized Aryan man-spoke.
"It has been the a.s.sumption of the Fuhrer since the 1920s-possibly since the war-that Germany will again fight the Freehold despite their distance and ostensible political neutrality," Heydrich said. "To those ends, in 1926 the Fuhrer directed that we strengthen and prepare Germany for war against the Freehold on the North American continent."
Despite all of the uniforms around the table, only a few were worn by experienced soldiers. One of those few-Waffen-SS commandant Josef "Sepp" Deitrich-scoffed.
"The problem of fighting the Freehold is that it is so far away," he said. "You all know I am the first to embrace new battlefield technologies-I was one of the first panzer commanders in the Great War and the very first commander of the steam-mech-walker squadron at Verdun-but even I cannot imagine what we could build to bridge the distance."
"The plans are being drawn up as we speak," said the only man at the table not in a pale gray or black uniform, but rather, one that was sky blue with black and silver trim.
Hermann Goring, Reich Skymarshal and master of the new Luft-SS, smiled. "Already our engineers are at work creating wonder weapons the world has never imagined, based on the very steam and diesel technologies that almost won us the war. My engineers are imagining bombers and rockets that can cross oceans, and airships that can carry entire panzer companies."
Heydrich nodded at the corpulent former ace who had brought the German air forces under the aegis of the SS.
"Further," Heydrich said, "we believe our pact with President Kennedy of the Union States will allow us to secret men and materiel onto the North American continent, where we will establish a base of operations."
Himmler"s thin lips gave a glimmer of a grin, but he was not pleased with Heydrich"s faith in the secret pact with the Union States.
The Union States was an unreliable ally. Certainly, many of the Reich"s racial and progressive policies had been adapted from the policies first established by Hamilton House in the Union States capital in New York City. But though the Union States had embraced the primacy of the state and Joseph P. Kennedy"s own opinion of the Jewish problem, which mirrored the Fuhrer"s, the Union States socialism was not the national socialism of Germany. Their state was held together by the charisma of their democratically elected president, not the strength and purity of a single volk embodied in an unquestioned and eternal leader. The Union States was an ally of convenience, not principle.
Further, the Union States economy was still struggling with the postwar economic crisis, despite the centralization of their economic system. The same centralization had led to prosperity in the Reich, but not in the Union. The Yanks survived on foreign aid from Germany, which, Himmler conceded, did give the New Order leverage.
The frustrating aspect was the inexplicable-and surely unsustainable-growth of the Freehold"s economy, now in its tenth year of expansion. That level of capital resources meant the Freehold could buy or build whatever was needed to defend their borders in short order. It could even pay for allies. Germany wasn"t ready to take on multiple fronts, no matter what the Fuhrer preached.
Himmler believed that time and Dr. ubel"s special project would be the key to the western campaign to come. President Kennedy and his Progressive Party were simply useful tools to employ in the meanwhile.
Deep in his ruminations, Himmler barely noticed that the subject at the table had changed again. Now they were arguing simultaneously over civilian disarmament for the security of police and government officials in Reich provinces, and whether film standards and policies should fall under the party"s ministry of propaganda or the SS bureau of mental hygiene.
Himmler glanced at Heydrich, a subtle instruction to call the table to order. For a full minute there was silence. The only sound was the Gestapo man"s open-mouthed breathing and the ticking sounds from Colonel Uhrwerk.
The long silence was a rhetorical trick he"d learned from his master and the grand orator himself, Adolf Hitler.
Finally, Himmler spoke.
"Our concerns about the Americas are not necessarily as far in the future as Herr Drexler may imagine. In August of 1926, I directed Herman Wirth, head of the Ahnenerbe, to send agents to study prehistoric runes found carved into Neolithic structures in the Lower Balkan Mountains. This was based on early reports that suggested the runes could be Nordic in origin, proving the theory that the ancient Greek philosophers were originally of Aryan descent.
"The Ahnenerbe was tasked with trying to find anthropological and cultural evidence that the Aryan race had ruled the world throughout history. Agents sought evidence for such theories as the Aryan rule of Egypt and Greece, the Aryan Jesus, an Aryan race that lived in the hollow earth, and even the genesis of the Aryan race from the ruins of Atlantis."
They found much more in their search of the ancient world. They found potential power and arcane forces that existed well outside mankind"s realm, predating mankind"s existence on the planet in a time when demons and G.o.ds saw earth not as a prize but a battleground. Consequently the Ahnenerbe"s mission expanded: it was to seek out and acquire mystical artifacts imbued with the remnant magicks of G.o.ds and demons, and historic antiquities that could be used to harness the eldritch forces discarded across the earth from before man"s rise, all for the benefit of the New Order.
"The Balkans expedition came after the research mission in Sardinia, and in a.s.sociation with concurrent missions in Nepal, Tibet, Tunisia, the Congo, and Port-au-Prince, and what we found there," Himmler said. "So you understand the implications of our search, gentlemen. There is a possibility to acquire a power that would make our armies unstoppable."
Himmler stood and walked about the table. Every member of the Black Sun-the rulers of the German world-sat even straighter. All except Uhrwerk, who never made any move not deliberate and purposeful. Himmler allowed for the colonel"s idiosyncrasies.
"A team of our scholar-soldiers-lead by Franz Altheim and his wife-were sent to the Balkans. Only Herr Altheim returned. He returned with, hmmm, something from a Gypsy camp in the Wallachia region. It was most peculiar and more than we could have hoped for, though it will take refinement to properly employ its power," Himmler said. "Regardless, it puts Dr. ubel"s Project Gefallener back into play."
A chorus of a half dozen gasps expectedly greeted the Reichsmarshal"s news. A few of the civilian SS directors looked paler than usual. Even the Gestapo director was sweating. Most notably, Uhrwerk inclined his head inquisitively, but of course with no trace of emotional concern.
Himmler"s patience for dissent had been well exhausted for the day, and the bombsh.e.l.l he dropped would keep the Black Sun busy for days to come.
Heydrich called the meeting to a close.
As the dozen of the inner circle and their aides rose to leave-there were no papers to gather, no notes or attache cases, per Himmler"s explicit demands-Himmler nodded to Heydrich.
"Achtung, gentlemen," Heydrich said. "Colonel Uhrwerk and Herr Drexler, you are requested to accompany Reichsfuhrer Himmler to Section 712 now for a briefing with Dr. ubel."
It was not a request.
Heydrich then spoke into a phone. "Hilda, have Der Top of Form Schadel and Lieutenant Skorzeny meet Herr Himmler"s party at security three for Section 712."
Uhrwerk, Drexler, Himmler, and Heydrich were all members of the Thule Society and involved in planning Project Gefallener from the beginning. They made their way by elevator to the subterranean levels of the North Tower. At Security Checkpoint Three-the last before access to Section 712, which served as Dr. ubel"s laboratory-there stood the two storm troopers and one nachtmann-a "night man," as the anthropogenic beast was called. Transgenic creatures, they combined elements of human along with genetic material from great apes, wolves, and Yetis. It was the latest success from Dr. ubel"s transgenic/alchemical experiments. Fully seven feet tall with thick, long arms and enormous plates of cartilage over its vulnerable points like a wild boar, the man-beast wore a specially designed black uniform not unlike the SS guards but accommodating its unnatural shape and size. The beast wore a Senf mask with an elongated snout and ridges along the brows.
Awaiting the four members of the Black Sun at the checkpoint stood two warriors of stark contrast.
Lieutenant Otto Skorzeny was a dashing, muscular young soldier who, despite the presence of senior officers and uniform directives to the contrary, had the sleeves of his black Waffen-SS tunic rolled up, his collar unb.u.t.toned, and a cigarette in his mouth. His hair was a bit longer than regulation, his thin moustache in the style of western movie stars, and the scar on his cheek just one more unaffected but effective accent. The decorations on his tunic, however, showed he was no photographic model or moving picture actor-he was a blooded warrior whose unorthodox commando tactics had made him the darling of the new German military leadership. His planning and execution of a glider raid on the High Command during the Beer Hall Putsch had cut the head off the old German Army in the first hours of the revolution. Skorzeny stood at ease even as the guards and the nachtmann clicked their heels in salute.
That nonchalance was the only thing the other man had in common with Skorzeny. Tall and rail thin, the second man wore a breathing mask of an older design that connected to a clockwork device on his back. His Gestapo uniform was white, with a red-lined white cape to hide the clockwork device. The bra.s.s-rimmed mask covered his face but left the bald, scarred, sickly alabaster skin of his head uncovered. He was the officer known only as Der Top of Form.
Schadel. The Skull. He was Himmler"s personal Hand, having spent the last five years in a b.l.o.o.d.y quest to find a Christian church relic, and leaving behind a trail of eviscerated victims from the Vatican to Vienna.
Everyone gave Der Schadel wide berth. Even Uhrwerk.
The guards opened the vault doors to the Deep Underground, the realm of Section 712. The smell was what hit first-bitter almond, antiseptic solution, copper, and what the human mind could only register as one thing: fear. The six plus the guard escorting them walked through twisting hallways with doors marked only by Roman numerals and internal bay windows opening onto the larger laboratory observation decks and operating theaters. The sound of machine works and steam releases crowded out the sound of gears grinding and the occasional m.u.f.fled scream.
"Gentlemen," Heydrich said, "our digs in Tanis appear to be quite promising, even if the artifacts are of Hebrew origins. But it was, as the Reichsfuhrer stated, our effort in the Balkans that has allowed us to reactivate Project Gefallener."
The initial directive of Franz Altheim"s team had nothing to do with Nordic runes," he explained. "It was to seek the factual sources behind the stories of Vlad Tepes, the immortal Romanian impaler, who was rumored to have possessed the relic. This led us to the discovery of a shard of the artifact, rumored to have been washed in the very blood of the man the Romans crucified.
"Though its origins are steeped in the Jewish-Christian desert/slave mythology, the properties of this artifact cannot be denied. We have seen its effect firsthand, and it is . . . more powerful and unpredictable than we could have imagined. Unfortunate, for the agent who was exposed to the shard."
"Jesus was not Hebrew, of course," Drexler stated. "He was from Galilee, where there had been a great deal of a.s.syrian influx. Jesus was descended of Aryan stock, and thus only Jewish in the religion he was raised in. Herr Grundman"s research into-"
Himmler cut him off with a shake of the head. Even Himmler didn"t subscribe to such clumsy revisionism, though he knew it necessary for the ma.s.ses.
"Where is the lance?" Der Schadel asked in a tone that was more demand than question.
"I . . . our agents were not successful in recovering the artifact itself, just the shard of it," Heydrich began. "Only one agent escaped from the team"s encounter. A follow-up team lead by Lieutenant Skorzeny found . . ." He trailed off.
Skorzeny picked up for him. "What we found were six experienced and trained men who looked like rag dolls tossed around by a giant. Some of their bodies were sundered and scorched, others smashed like eggs on a rock. I"ve never seen anything like it."
"Did the agent who escaped explain what happened?" Drexler asked.
Heydrich shook his head. "He was in no condition to tell anyone anything."
"So what became of the artifact?" Uhrwerk asked.
"We believe it remains in the hands of a local Gypsy tribe. Pa.s.sed between tribes," Heydrich said, thrown off stride. "Given time, our usual agents could recover it. But we do not have the luxury of conducting a conventional and methodical search. We believe word of our Romanian expedition may have made its way to France, England, or the Freehold. We believe others will be seeking it now."
"That is why you and Lieutenant Skorzeny are here, Schadel," Himmler said.
Der Schadel inclined his head slightly.
"As you wish," he said.
"You will each be a.s.signed leads to follow that are most suited to your unique gifts," Himmler said.
Heydrich continued: "While we do not have the artifact, we do have a sample of the, um, artifact"s properties that was brought back by our agent as a result of his exposure to the shard."
Himmler raised an eyebrow at Heydrich.
"Our late agent," he corrected.
"A sample of the properties?" Skorzeny asked.
"Yes, Herr Lieutenant."
The guard escort was under orders to take the Reichsmarshal"s party to the observation deck for the primary operating theater, where Dr. ubel was working on the latest stage of Project Gefallener.
"Gentlemen," Himmler said softly. "We stand on the brink of victory. We have created divisions of beasts borne of the h.e.l.l of the Dead Lands. Useful, yes, but not enough to avenge what the world took from us in the Great War. But now everything is changing. We have it within our grasp to create legions of indestructible, unwavering soldiers to march across Europe and the rest of the world. I am speaking of no less than an army that will grow with every enemy it kills, and which can"t be reasoned with, and which feels no weakness or pity. It is a black legion-a Death"s Head Legion-that will reshape the world and ensure the rule of the Fatherland and the Aryan masters for a thousand times as long as the Fuhrer"s promise of a Thousand Year Reich. It will be a Reich of the Black Sun. And these will be the soldiers who bring about that dawn."
The guard-a battle-hardened veteran and SS trooper-showed the group to the window, activated the drape mechanism, and left as quickly as possible.
When the drape opened, there were three gasps and the cigarette in Skorzeny"s mouth dropped to the floor.
Drexler seem enraptured.
Himmler smiled.
Uhrwerk made no sound within his metal mask.
Behind the operating theater"s gla.s.s part.i.tion the balding Dr. ubel looked up at the arrivals through thick, bra.s.s-rimmed goggles that made his eyes look like white ovals. His white lab coat and long rubber gloves were splattered with blood.
The thing on the table beside ubel-its brain exposed-looked like it had once been a man. But it was pale, st.i.tched, and covered in angry, bleeding sores. Its jaw was more p.r.o.nounced and its teeth looked like a canine"s. Its open eyes were milky and red-rimmed. It sat up and strained against the leather bindings, letting out a howl. Its jaws snapped wildly.
ubel smiled at his guests despite the thing raging mere inches from him.
"Ah, good, gentlemen. You"re here. This is the best part."